The Lets Read Podcast - 201: I SHOULD GO TO THERAPY FOR THIS | 23 True Scary Stories | EP 189

Episode Date: August 22, 2023

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about Gyms, Babysitting, & 4Chan... 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

Home insurance with Bel Air Direct is simple. Much simpler than using a smart thermostat. Hey, smart thermostat. Turn the temperature down. It's too hot in here. No, you're too hot in here. What? What?

Get simple, smart home insurance. Bel Air Direct. Insurance simplified. 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. Being a personal trainer is relatively easy work. I'm only in my mid-twenties, so I haven't been doing it for too long,

but it's great being able to help people work towards achieving their goals in a healthy way in a safe, judgment-free environment. What I didn't expect was all the attention I would get from women and their husbands. See, most of my clients are women, married women, and their husbands don't really like another man watching their wives work out or helping them with their form, which, to be completely fair, I understand to a certain extent. I've never had an outright issue with any of them, but I can always feel the awkward tension when they're also there working out, keeping an eye on us. Nothing could have prepared me for this one instance, though. As a man, I had never really worried about being followed at night or having someone

become obsessed with me to the point where I felt like I was being stalked. But that's exactly what happened. I had a client that was moving out of town so a spot opened up on my client list. The gym I worked at had a board that I was able to put a little sign on that basically just said a spot was open and where to email me. I got around 20 emails from people looking for a personal trainer. But to be as fair as possible, I went with the first person who reached out. She was a woman in her early 30s named May. She told me she and her husband had just had a baby the year before and she was looking to lose her baby weight and be comfortable in her body again. Our first session was pretty normal.

I had a very low-key workout planned for her that she completed with ease in about an hour and a half. Now, just so you understand where my shock from this situation come from, let me tell you how normal Mae came off in the very beginning. During our first few sessions, all she would talk about was how much she loved her family and how amazing her husband, Jacob, was. She would tell me all about the romantic things her husband would do for her, and she'd spend at least 15 minutes every session showing me pictures of her baby. This didn't strike me as off, of course, since I'm pretty used to people telling me about their personal lives while they train, given there's not much else to talk about, and I'm sure it eases their anxiety to talk about the people they love. Now personally, I'm not one to talk about myself while working with clients and that's never been an issue before. I'd say around our fifth session, Mae began insisting that I tell her about myself.

She started saying things like, a man like you surely has a beautiful woman in your life, and I bet your girlfriend feels super lucky to have someone as sexy as you. I wasn't worried about the comments at the time though, as it's things like that I'd heard a lot from most of my clients. I usually just laughed it off and we moved on from there. Only this time when I tried to laugh it off she gave me this very serious look and with a stern voice said, well are you going to tell me about her or not? I was a little caught off guard by her very sudden change in emotions so it took me a second to answer her. I don't have a girlfriend. I'm a little too busy for relationships at the moment.

And, you know, besides, I think I have enough women in my life with all my clients. The last part was meant to be a joke, but I could tell she was obviously not taking it as one when she said, You only have a few female clients, huh? What are you, some kind of pervert that likes to prey on vulnerable women? This is when I started getting uncomfortable. I'm not one for confrontation, so I didn't say anything at first. But when she continued with the insults, I couldn't just stand there as she demeaned me in front of multiple people in the gym who were now staring. I looked at her and as calmly as I could said,

I don't appreciate the way you're speaking to me and I'm going to have to ask you to leave if you don't stop. I don't talk about my personal life and this is exactly why. I haven't done anything to you and I hope you can calm down and recognize how inappropriate this is and maybe I can give you a second chance if you still want to train with me. If not, that's okay, but we're done for today. I think that embarrassed her though. Her raising her voice at me got the attention of most of the people at the gym, so when I confronted her, everyone was looking. She picked up her bag and immediately left the gym. To be completely honest, I assumed that would be the last time I saw or heard from her.

The whole experience was completely awkward. I had multiple people come up to me afterwards and ask me what that was about. I did get an email from her a couple of days later that didn't quite sit right with me. And this is what it said. Hi, it's May. I'm really sorry for what happened a couple of days ago at the gym. I kinda lost it when you mentioned the other women you train. I hate the thought of you around another woman, touching her while she works out the way you touch me. I guess I got a little jealous. Being around you the past few weeks has made me realize how much I want you,

how much I need you. I thought you wanted me too. I could see the way you looked at me, scanning every inch of my body from the moment we first met. I know my feelings can't be one-sided. I promise not to yell at you again if you just give me another chance. Please. Yeah, this did freak me out a little. Especially because I really didn't know what she was talking about. Everything I did with her I did with all my clients. I never touched her unless it was to correct her form and even then it was on her back or lower legs or arms or something. I never touched any of my clients in a place that would be

considered inappropriate or possibly make them uncomfortable. And I always ask before placing my hands on anyone. It's something I'm very, very serious about and when I read that email, I started to really worry that I had done something wrong. I had no idea that she had gotten that impression from me. It always seemed so normal and professional between us. I emailed her back and in the nicest way possible apologized and told her I didn't have feelings for her and that everything I was doing was part of my job and that I was sorry that she felt like it was something more than what it was. I also mentioned to her that it would be a good idea for me not to be her trainer anymore since I wasn't comfortable with the way my actions were being misconstrued. I tried keeping it short so

nothing could be misunderstood, but the email I got back from her only minutes later made me realize that there was nothing I could say to change her mind about me. Oh, I see. This is your work email. You have to say this. That's okay. I'll still see you at the gym and we can discuss our relationship there. And she left it at that. I went into work the next morning and immediately went to see the manager. I told her everything that had happened and showed her the emails. I had to make sure that she knew everything and that I was the one telling her. She told me not to worry, but she was glad I brought it to her attention. It made me feel a little bit better about the situation, but something about May still irked me.

My next client came in and I went straight to training her. She was an older woman named Nita and oh my goodness I loved every minute of our sessions together. She reminded me of my grandma who had passed the year before. Nita and I had become great friends in the few months that I'd been training her so I had no issue telling her about May and what was going on. She seemed more shocked than anything. She warned me that it could turn into something very ugly if I wasn't careful. This was the moment that I started getting worried. Toward the end of my session with Nita, out of the corner of my eye I spotted May. She looked down when she noticed that I'd spotted her, almost like she was trying to hide the fact that it was her staring at me. After Nita left, I grabbed my bags and started to head out.

I decided to stop at the grocery store on the way home and imagine my shock when I ran into May there. She bumped into me and acted like she was surprised to see me, but I knew she'd been following me. Who was that woman today at the gym? Are you guys together? I asked her immediately to leave me alone and told her she was making me uncomfortable but that made no difference to her. She grabbed onto my arm and pulled me back towards her as she fired more and more questions at me. I managed to get out of her grasp and ended up just abandoning my groceries and heading to my car. She followed me as I walked and started apologizing

for her behavior while also rubbing herself up against me. She kept asking me why I didn't want her. I hated every second of what happened that night. Before I knew it, she had me pinned against my car while she attempted to feel me up. I was much, much stronger than her though so I did what I had to do and pushed her off me. She fell to the ground and before she could get up, I got into my car and locked the doors. I made sure she wasn't following me and I drove right to the police station. I was able to obtain a restraining order against her a few days later when I showed them the emails and they were able to obtain the security footage from the grocery store.

That still didn't stop her though. For months I saw her everywhere I went. Restaurants, bars, the beach, everywhere. She would not leave me alone. Thankfully the gym I worked at had security so every time she tried to show up, she was escorted out of the building. She never tried speaking to me again, but honestly seeing her where I went was scary enough. Whenever I called the police to tell them she was there, by the time they arrived she was always gone. For a year I was stalked by May. She sent letters to my home and left gifts on my doorstep, and not normal gifts either.

She'd sent her underwear and cuttings of her hair. It got to the point whenever I found anything on my doorstep that wasn't a package I ordered, I just immediately threw it in the dumpster outside. I informed the police every time I received something from her, but after the hundredth incident they practically told me that I didn't need to inform them about it anymore. They kept telling me to just let them know if she did something physical to me again and I hated that. I considered moving but I was stuck in a lease and breaking it was more than I could afford. Thankfully she never tried to break in otherwise, I'm sure that would have been my last

straw and I would have had to move at that point. Over the months I became increasingly paranoid. It started affecting my relationships and I had become this miserable person I didn't even recognize anymore. One day I stepped outside and noticed this was the first day in a year I hadn't found anything on my doorstep from her. Then the next day the same thing. That whole week I got nothing. I finally stopped seeing her around so much too. And I ended up getting an email from her that said that she basically blamed me for her husband divorcing her and getting custody of their children since quote unquote

I tempted her with my body during our sessions and she couldn't help but pursue me. She said she wanted nothing more to do with me and actually told me to leave her alone. It was super confusing but I was just glad it finally was over. I was happy to let her believe that I was the bad guy in the situation if it meant that she was finally going to leave me alone. I do see her around town every so often, but she acts like I don't exist, and I am very, very okay with that. I'm a 32 year old woman who was hired to be a manager at the gym I now work at. It's a pretty boring job, to be totally honest. I was hired more for my managerial and office skills than my gym knowledge, which is basically zero.

I'd never gone to the gym a day in my life. It's not really my thing, and I'm genetically as skinny as a twig, so I never even thought about it until I got my job. During the time that this happened, I had already started considering quitting. I had worked there for a few years and it made me feel like my life was draining away every second I was on the job. Plus, I didn't enjoy that every time a physical fight would happen, people would come to me, like my 5 foot 90 pound self, could do anything about two men pushing 300 pounds, fighting each other. What was I supposed to do? Get in between them and ask them politely to stop?

That probably would have ended in my death. Occasionally it would be teenage girls fighting and all I had to do was threaten to call the police and they'd get scared of getting in trouble with their parents so they'd stop the hair pulling and slapping almost immediately. This night, however, I was absolutely not prepared for what was about to happen. The day started boring as usual. I did my office work, and no one really bothered me. Every so often, I'd walk around the gym just to observe how my employees interact with everyone and make notes on things that could be improved.

The gym I worked at was open at weird hours. It was 24 hours Monday through Friday and on Saturday we were open from 5am to 10pm. It was a Saturday night at around 9.30pm when things started to get a little weird. I was sitting in my office doing some paperwork and watching the camera when I saw a woman walk in. I thought it was a little strange considering we were closing in about 30 minutes, but occasionally we'd have people wanting to get in a short workout after they got off of work late, so I figured I'd let her do her thing and if she wasn't out by about 10, I'd just politely ask her to leave for the night. We still had quite a few people in the gym who were

regulars that got every second of workout time in they could so the gym was about half full. I continued watching the woman on the security cameras cause I was a little suspicious of her at first. I noticed when she came in that she was wearing what looked like white scrubs, almost like she was a nurse or something. She had no bags with her to change clothes and she just went straight to working out. Only, she kind of did everything in a weird way. She was using the leg press with only one leg and no weights attached to it and every time she would do a rep, she would laugh. And not like a regular laugh or giggle, she would very loudly cackle and look around and begin talking like there was someone standing next to her.

Except there wasn't. She did the same kind of thing on multiple machines and I ended up having one of my employees come into my office and tell me it was a safety issue and that I needed to tell her to use the machines correctly. At first I told my employee to tell her herself, but she said that she already had and the woman just stared at her and then looked directly behind her and started speaking as though there was someone there. Except again, there was no one there. It freaked out my employee a bit and the woman continued using the equipment in an unsafe manner so she figured that she'd come to me to tell her. I really didn't want to, but it was part of my job that I had to continuously do every day so I was pretty used to it. I walked out of my office and toward the woman and immediately noticed that she had begun to sweat profusely. She was holding onto a dumbbell that could barely stay in her hand without

slipping out from the moisture pooling in her palm. I could see it even from 20 feet away. At this point I started to worry that she was going to hurt herself by dropping it on her foot and possibly breaking a bone. I go up to her and the smell emanating off of her was disgusting, I mean totally putrid. It smelled almost like she had soiled herself and didn't even notice. I had to do everything I could to keep myself from gagging, so I didn't possibly offend this poor woman. Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you politely to try to use the equipment properly. There are guides placed on the machines and walls around the gym displaying the correct way to use all the equipment. We just don't want

you to get hurt. The only response I got from her was a weird growl sound. It almost sounded like a dog, which I found super weird. She wouldn't look at me and instead of agreeing, she just continued using the dumbbell as she had been before. She was throwing it from one hand to the next while jumping around. It was a lightweight dumbbell so it wasn't too scary but at the same time, we still couldn't allow her to continue doing what she was doing. There was something strange going on here so this time I tried telling her to put the weight down and just leave. She ignored me, but this time raised her hand in the air as though she was going to throw

the dumbbell right at me. Now I panicked and did the only thing I thought of doing. I reached toward her and pulled the weight away from her and out of her hand. And that's when things got a little crazy. After I took it away from her, a sort of frenzy began. She started screaming like a monkey almost. Then she went and picked up the lighter dumbbells and started throwing them across the gym. Mirrors along the wall shattered as they were hit by the weights and unfortunately, she managed to hit a middle-aged woman in the leg

which made her fall to the ground. Weights were being thrown in all different directions and the only way I was going to be able to keep as many people as safe as I could was by forcing everyone out of the gym and calling the police. Once everyone was out of the gym, I went back in to try and de-escalate the situation. The older woman that had been struck with the weight was still down on the ground grabbing onto her leg in pain, unable to get outside since she wasn't able to walk. I had to make sure nothing was going to happen to her. Someone had to go in and protect her from this obviously mentally ill woman throwing things that could kill someone. And before I went back in, I instructed my employee to call the police. They arrived about 20 minutes later and entered the building cautiously while I was trying

to talk the woman down. She started talking again to people who weren't there. She kept looking around the gym as she said in an almost panicked voice, Please, I don't want to kill them. Don't make me. No, no, no, no, they won't hurt me. They're the good guys. You're lying. They won't take me back there. She looked at the officers and yelled, You can't take me back there. She looked at the officers and yelled, You can't take me back there. I won't let you. That's when she went back to throwing the dumbbells.

And through all the fear and confusion, I gotta say I was also a little impressed at her strength. She began running out of the lightweight dumbbells and she was throwing the heavier ones just as hard. The officers pulled out their tasers and warned her that if she didn't stop, they would have to tase her. I don't really think she knew what they were talking about though since she really wasn't in her right mind. She kept throwing them and before I knew it, she was on the ground convulsing from the shock. They put her in handcuffs and as they were talking her away she just kept saying she was sorry, over and over. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It was almost like she was scared too. By the time they were leading her out of the gym,

a large group of onlookers had formed outside and somehow the news got a hold of what was happening because they were there too. And for the next few days they ran the news got a hold of what was happening because they were there too. And for the next few days they ran the story as a crazy woman taking hostages at the local gym. But obviously that wasn't the case at all. Now this false narrative actually made me mad once I was given all the details about the woman and what actually happened. I gave the police the security footage of everything that happened that night and they took my statement. Thankfully no one was seriously injured. The woman who was hit in the leg just ended up with a pretty gnarly bruise and was released from the hospital that night. The gym was closed for a few days for repairs to fix the mirrors and replace whatever equipment was damaged. Eventually I found out the woman was suffering from severe schizophrenia and had actually

escaped from the local hospital and somehow made her way into the gym. That kind of explains why she was talking to people who weren't there because in her mind they were. Learning about what she was going through actually made me feel really bad for her. She didn't know what she was doing and she wasn't trying to hurt anyone. She was probably just scared and it made me sad to know what she was doing and she wasn't trying to hurt anyone. She was probably just scared and it made me sad to know that she was so afraid of going back to that hospital. After that whole incident, I worked at the gym for about another year before quitting.

And right now I'm actually going to school to be a nurse and maybe be able to help people like her in the future. I'm a 23-year-old guy, and I've been in a relationship with my 21-year-old girlfriend, Lisa, for a couple of years. Safe to say we both got pretty comfortable with each other, which meant we went out to eat a lot and skip the gym within the past year. We didn't gain much weight but we both lost a lot of muscle and at the time of this incident we both decided that we wanted to get back into the gym and have a healthier lifestyle. We figured that we could make it our new year's resolution. I never really did resolutions in the new year but my girlfriend was adamant and I'd do whatever to make her happy. She had started getting really serious about it, making meal plans and doing research for different workouts that we could do together and I thought it was really great that we were

actually going to do this. I was super optimistic about it and the last thing I would have thought would happen to us, well, it happened. When January 1st rolled around, we spent the day researching different gyms near us and the classes they offered to try to narrow down which one we wanted to go to. It was a little difficult because we both wanted very specific classes and not all were offered at the same gym. But me, being the kind of man that will always try to make his girl happy, I just told her that we could go to the gym that offered what she wanted and I'd be willing to try something new. It was a gym actually just around the corner from our house. We'd lived here for a few years and

within that time we'd had no issues and we actually liked it a lot. On January 2nd we went to the gym and signed up for their three month plan. We didn't want to risk signing up for a year if we didn't end up liking it. That day, we did a short workout together to kind of get us into the swing of things and get familiar with the equipment. It was great. The next few days, we both did some classes and got to know the different instructors and even started making a few friends. It was turning out at the time to be exactly what we needed. Fast forward to a couple of weeks, we had gone to the gym like we always did, only this time we decided to go on a Friday which was unusual for us. Lisa usually worked Fridays

and I didn't like to go without her so I stayed home. But this week she had Friday off so we decided to go. We didn't realize it at the time but Fridays were their weightlifting class days. When we walked in there, there were these huge bodybuilder type guys walking around the gym and Lisa and I both commented to each other that it made us a little uncomfortable. Nevertheless, we started our workout routine for the day and tried to ignore the huge roided out men around us. I'd say about 30 minutes into our workout, I started to notice one of the bigger guys staring at Lisa. I mean, just unashamedly staring right at her.

He even looked at me, noticing staring and smirked like he knew I could see what he was doing, but he just didn't seem to care. And that's when he started walking up to us. He walked right past me and stood in front of Lisa and said, hey honey, you want a real man to show you how to tighten up that little body of yours? Lisa looked at me and of course she was immediately uncomfortable by that comment. I was scared for both of us at that point, given he clearly didn't respect either of us or our personal space, and he was huge. If he tried to fight me, I would easily be killed by this man, I thought to myself. Dude, she's with me. Can you just leave us alone?

I tried to talk as calmly as I could, but I knew I came off as more nervous than anything. Hey, hey, would you let the lady speak? I think I know what she wants. He didn't even look at me when he said that. He just continued staring down at Lisa waiting for her reply. When I looked back towards her, she was now staring directly at me with water beginning to pool in her eyes. Lisa isn't one for confrontation. She really doesn't like attention at all. It was a miracle she gave me a chance given she couldn't even look me in the eyes the first few times we went out. I tried one more time to get this guy to leave us alone. I just grabbed Lisa by the arm and lifted her up off the yoga mat that she was sitting on. We took a few steps away from the man and in

the most serious voice I could muster I said, hey, leave us alone. She isn't interested and this is insanely rude and creepy. Go back to discussing doping with your buddies. Clearly that's what you're really interested in. No, I will say that probably wasn't the smartest thing to say to a man clearly using steroids. I should have known making him angry would cause a problem. His testosterone levels must be through the roof for him to do what he did. He started walking away and I thought that was the end of it. I turned towards Lisa and told her that we should get going and we could come back another day. Only she didn't answer me. Her eyes went wide and she told me to look out.

The next thing I knew a dumbbell came flying right next to my head and shattered the mirror in front of me. I turned around quickly and saw the same guy picking up another dumbbell, getting ready to throw it before his friends ended up grabbing him. Lisa and I quickly picked up our things and ran towards the office to tell the manager what had happened and have them phone the police. When the police got there, they did arrest the man who was subsequently banned from the gym. We did decide to press charges but were informed that we probably wouldn't hear anything about the case for a couple of weeks while it was being processed. And they were right. For the next couple of weeks,

we heard nothing about it. We did ask the police department to let us know if he was released. We really didn't think that he was going to do anything, but we still wanted to be as cautious as possible just in case. Now, lo and behold, three weeks after the incident, we got a call saying that he was out. And it freaked us out a little, but we figured that we probably wouldn't run into him. Where we live is a big city and we didn't go out much anyways. We continued going to the gym as usual and nothing like that happened again. We were beginning to feel comfortable again, or so I thought. A few days passed since the man had been let out and we had just gone to bed. We were meticulous about closing all our doors and windows and locking them for the night.

We were actually both pretty paranoid about someone breaking in since our neighbors were robbed a few months back. At around 2am I was woken up by Lisa shaking me, telling me that someone was in the house. There's not many things that can wake me up that fast, but that's definitely one of them. I pretty much jumped out of bed and grabbed the bat I keep under it. I walked toward the bedroom door and opened it just a crack to see out. Man, let me tell you, I was absolutely shocked to see, you guessed it, Roydhead standing right in my living room. I shut the door as fast as possible while making as little noise as I could and locked it. I whispered to Lisa to call the police and tell them that someone was in her home.

She started freaking out and I had to try to keep her calm so he couldn't hear us. I opened the window that led from our bedroom into the side yard and instructed Lisa to climb out. After she did, I climbed out next and made sure to close the window behind us just in case he managed to get into the bedroom. I didn't want him to know where we went. Lisa called the police and told them what was going on, and they told us to get to a neighbor's house and wait for the officers to arrive. Just as we opened the side gate to exit the backyard, I heard a loud crash coming in from inside the house. When I looked back into the bedroom, the man had barreled his way through the door and into the room and started looking for us. Lisa and I rushed out of the yard and

banged on our neighbor's door until they let us in. The police were there in 15 minutes and we watched through our neighbor's window as they escorted the man out of her house in handcuffs. They ended up telling us that they found rope, duct tape, and zip ties in the back of his car along with a gun and a couple of knives. He eventually confessed that he found her names from us pressing charges against him since I guess that's public record or something. Knowing our names made it easy for him to find our address online. The police obviously had enough evidence on him to charge him with home invasion and attempted abduction. His bail was set high enough to where he couldn't afford it, which we appreciated. He got five years in prison, which to us seemed pretty fair.

We moved out of that house and into a different one closer to Lisa's parents just to be sure that he wouldn't be able to find us whenever he did end up getting out of prison. He never said why he broke into our home or what he was going to do to us, but good god am I glad that we never had to find out. In high school I played three sports and then another two in college. Staying healthy and active has always played a huge part in my life. When I was around 25 I decided to move to Los Angeles to possibly have more job opportunities doing what I loved. At the time, I was trying to find work as an actress, but I wasn't having too much success with it. I joined a gym that was only

a few blocks from my apartment in Santa Monica with the intent to go as often as possible to keep my mind from my failing acting career. So I went a lot. Sometimes even twice a day on days that I was feeling especially motivated. The regulars at the gym started to recognize me and I made a few friends. I loved it there. It was the cleanest, most inviting gym I'd ever been to. And for months, I had zero issues at the place. But, unfortunately, what was once bliss at the

gym became a literal nightmare. It was 5am one day and I had just gotten to the gym, ready to begin my workout when I noticed a man I had never seen there before. It wasn't super common for this gym to get new members because it was pretty expensive and the parking wasn't great, but it did happen sometimes so I gave him a quick smile as a sort of a welcome to the club and continued on with my workout. I noticed that throughout the few hours I was there, anytime I would move throughout the gym, this mystery guy would move with me. He'd always stay within like a 20 foot zone of me, which I found a little strange, but I'd had guys have a little gym crush on me before, so I looked at it as sort of flattering

to be honest. This continued for about a week before I started receiving love letters in my locker. They usually said things like, you're the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen, but you'd never go for a guy like me, And I wish you noticed me. I would give you everything you ever wanted. Now, obviously I found it a little weird, especially considering this man somehow knew which locker was mine and he came into the woman's locker room to put these letters inside it. They were innocent enough though that I decided not to tell anyone. I just threw them away when I found them and went about my day as usual, sometimes not even reading them.

Until one day I got another letter, one I was absolutely shocked to read. Throwing out my letters, are we? Clearly you don't appreciate when a nice guy compliments you. You should be more grateful for the attention I'm giving you. I don't want to find another letter in the trash again. I was confused. Mostly at the fact that this guy had even thought to look through the garbage for the letters in the first place. He must have been one insecure dude to go through all that. At the same time though, I again wasn't too concerned. It was a little uncomfortable reading that letter but I decided to just take a picture

of it to show my friends and then throw it out in the bin outside so the guy who's writing them wouldn't find it. The next day I showed my friends the picture, who all told me to tell the owner of the gym. They said it was creepy and weird and felt a little stalkerish, but I was all for second chances. This was the first time the secret admirer, or whatever you want to call him, had been this weird, so I didn't want to get him in trouble for what I assumed was a one-off thing. In the coming weeks, the regular letters

resumed with compliments and praise for my workout routine. He said that he'd begun to copy everything I did so he could be in good shape for me, which, yes, I found incredibly strange. I figured it was the same man who followed me around the gym, but never got complete confirmation while I was there. Though that guy did talk to me a few times to ask what workout I was doing or where I got my gym clothes because he wanted to buy the same set for his girlfriend or something. Now this guy talked with a stutter and began to sweat like crazy whenever he came up to me. I tried to be nice, but not overly sweet so as not to give him the wrong idea, but I guess he got the wrong idea anyway. The innocent letters then evolved into something much scarier. They started containing not only words of this guy's love and admiration for me, but also pictures of me in the gym working out. He'd

include pictures of me in different positions like squatting, weightlifting, or doing lunges with little notes on exactly what I was doing in the picture that was turning him on. At that point, I knew something was horribly wrong, so I did end up telling the gym manager who expressed the same concern. He told me he'd look into it. But again, for the next few weeks, the letters continued. The man kept following me throughout the gym and nothing changed. I considered quitting the gym altogether, but I didn't want some guy to ruin the one place I had come to love during my time in this city that I had also come to hate. Instead, I asked one of my guy friends to start working out with me. He was a professional

bodybuilder and if anything I thought he'd intimidate this guy that was doing this to me, possibly get him to leave me alone, but no. Instead, the letters got angrier and angrier. He didn't like that I had another man around and said that he was the one who should be next to me. He should be taking me home every night and pleasing me, he said. And I was terrified at this point. I just cancelled my membership the day I got a letter saying that he was going to claim me as his own, quote unquote. I stayed at home the next couple of days, even scared to just leave my apartment. But by the fourth day of being paranoid and cooped up inside, I needed some

fresh air. I opened my door and stepped out onto my doormat, when I noticed a crunching beneath my feet. I saw the edge of a piece of paper sticking out from under my shoe and, of course, it was another letter with the same handwriting on the front of the others. I grabbed it quickly, stepped back inside and shut the door as fast as I could and locked it behind me. I opened the letter and started to tear up as I read the following. My dear, it's cute the little goose chase you led me on to find you. I like the little games you play. You know I like to chase, so you're giving it to me. I followed you home from the gym like I know you wanted me to.

I know you want me just as much as I want you. I know I'll do whatever it takes to be with you. I'll wait outside our door all day and all night if I have to. Or do you like surprises? Do you want me to just come in whenever I please and catch you off guard when you aren't expecting me? Yes. That is what you like, isn't it? That's why you don't keep your bedroom window locked during the day.

Expect me when you least expect me. I'll be there, sweetie. Safe to say I ran to my bedroom with the intent of locking my window and was terrified to see that it was wide open when it was closed only a moment ago. This is the first time I regretted living on the ground floor. I rushed into my bedroom and locked the door as I dialed 911. Looking back, I regret not just running out of the apartment altogether. The police arrived around 40 minutes later thanks to the horrible response times in these big cities. They got me out of the bathroom and into the lobby before finding the man from the gym hiding in my closet with a bouquet of roses and some chocolates in his hand. I was flabbergasted.

He went on to tell them that he was surprising me, his quote-unquote girlfriend, and they needed to leave otherwise they'd ruin the surprise. This guy was clearly delusional. They arrested him on the spot, and I got a restraining order soon after. During the trial, he spoke about everything he knew about me. He knew all my family members' names, pet names, the address I lived at growing up,

even my favorite movies and TV shows. I had no idea how he found out all this stuff, but knowing he knew that much about me made it that much scarier. He ended up getting six months in jail and I used that time to move back to my hometown in Florida, as far away from this man and that city as I could get. I was 18 and had just graduated high school when this happened. A little bit of backstory, I was bullied pretty heavily throughout my four years of high school for my weight. I wasn't huge by any standard, but even if I was, that shouldn't have made it okay to be tormented the way that I was.

I will admit that I was slightly overweight. I live in a very small town in the Midwest. My graduating class had only maybe 60 people. I don't know why I seemed to be the only target when it came to relentless harassment about my weight, but either way it made me incredibly insecure. It had gotten to a point where I wasn't just bullied by the awful people at my school, but I also continued the cycle against myself when I got home and was disgusted by what I saw in the mirror. I would come home crying almost every day after school and the only thing I ever dreamt of was being fit. That's all I

wanted. I figured I could get skinny and rub it in the faces of everyone who ever said I couldn't do it. The month I graduated high school I decided it was time for the change. I was done feeling sorry for myself and frankly I just wanted to be healthier and happier. I felt like putting all my energy into becoming the better me I knew that I could be would make me feel worthy again. I talked to my mom about it and she suggested getting a gym membership and she even said that she would pay for it as a sort of graduation present from her and my dad. Of course, I wanted to take her up on the offer, but at the same time, I was always kind of creeped out by our local gym. It was in this very small building in a kind of sketchy part of town, but then again, pretty much every part of town was the sketchy

part of town, I guess you could say. I went against my better judgment though, and the next day I found myself in the gym, waiting at the front counter for someone to help me sign up. A short, heavy, older man came out of the back room and we sat down at the desk nearby. He didn't strike me as someone who would be running a gym but I had no right to be judgmental so I brushed it off and didn't think about it again. He told me the rates and said the gym was the best in town, which made me laugh a little because it was the only gym in town. He didn't like that though. His voice was raspy from the cigarettes I could smell in his breath and all over his

clothes as he said, What's so funny? You don't think my gym's very nice? You know you don't have to be here, little girl. I quickly stopped laughing, partially confused at his abrupt harshness, but I was quick to apologize and say, oh no, no, no, your gym, it's very nice. That's why I chose it. I meant no offense, sir. I'm really, really sorry. He chuckled a bit after my nerve-riddled apology, which only made me even more confused. I was just messing with

you princess, lighten up a little. And a wink came soon after and I remember feeling extremely creeped out. I didn't like the vibe that I had gotten in that place but at that point I had already signed up for the next month so I was going. I wasn't going to waste the money my parents gave me for this and also part of me felt like maybe I was reading into things so I wouldn't have to go through with actually spending time in the gym. He seemed like a nice enough guy at the time I guess, just a little off-putting with his sense of humor was all. I thanked him and walked quickly out of the gym, eager to put some space between us. I had made plans to work out that day but I was having a bit too much anxiety from that

encounter so I went home and made new plans to go the next day. The next morning I woke up and was actually excited for the day for once. I got my gym bag ready and headed out. I grabbed a smoothie on the way and by about 9am I was in the parking lot of the gym. Before I even walked in, I saw the same man working the front desk. There were a few other people in there working out this time, so I didn't feel as uncomfortable going in. I pulled open the door and scanned my card before I walked to the door of the woman's locker room. The man at the front desk made his way into the office only a few moments after me, which I found a little odd but it's his job so whatever you know. I think I should mention now that his office was directly next to the women's locker room.

I put my belongings in a locker after quickly getting changed in my gym clothes and locked it with the lock I had brought from home. For the next several hours I worked out and listened to music. I tried thinking about how life was going to be when I went off to college in a few months and by around 12pm I was done with my workout and ready to head home. I started making my way toward the locker room to again change my clothes and grab my things before heading out. I noticed though that the front desk man was entering his office again at the exact same time. I brushed it off as just a coincidence and did my thing and went home. For the next few weeks, every time I went into the locker room, the man at the front desk always went into his office.

It started feeling less like of a coincidence and more deliberate than anything. It wasn't just me this happened to. At any point when any woman was entering the locker room, he would go into his office. There were a few times I could hear the man coughing from inside his office and occasionally there would be a tapping sound coming from the wall the mirror was on. I just chalked it up to thin walls and moved on. After three weeks of going to the gym every day, one of my very close friends told me that he had seen a picture of me getting every day, one of my very close friends told me that he had seen a picture of me getting dressed circulating around one of the Facebook groups

he was in. It was a group with a bunch of other men from around town who posted jobs they were offering or work that they were looking for so when a picture of me showed up he knew something was off. He showed me the picture and I was completely shocked. It was me getting dressed at the gym. The worst part is, for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how the person even took the picture. Because of my insecurity, I never got dressed at the gym if someone was in the room with me. If there was another woman in the room, I would wait until she exited before I got dressed, which also meant that it was just me in the picture. My friend also showed me that my photo wasn't the only one uploaded.

There were almost 30 photos of women from our town getting dressed inside the same gym locker room. Some were more undressed than others. The comments were mostly of men telling him to take down the post, but there were gross comments too of men saying that it was sexy that women didn't know that they were getting pictures taken of them, and I was disgusted. Thankfully, the photo wasn't of me completely exposed, but for some women it was. I started to feel sick to my stomach at the thought of being violated in this way in a place where I assumed that I was safe. I knew I had to go to the police.

I wasn't just going to sit around and watch these women's pictures, including mine, be passed around for everyone to see. But by the time I had mustered up the courage to call the police, I was informed that they already knew about what was going on and that they would take my statement if I wanted to come down to the gym to answer some questions. You may find that weird, but like I said, it was a small town, so when something like this happens, of course every available cop is on scene. It's the most action they'll see all year, and I went down there and answered whatever questions they asked, and they took my statement.

I also learned that the reason that the front desk man was always going into his office when I or any other women would enter the locker room was because connecting his office and the women's locker room was a two-way mirror. I couldn't see him, but he could see every inch of me for weeks. Why he decided to post the pictures, I don't know. He had to have known that he would get caught. And during the trial, he said that he didn don't know. He had to have known that he would get caught. And during the trial, he said that he didn't regret it. He even said that he thought all the women wanted him and that's why they signed up for memberships at his gym. He was definitely some type of narcissist, mentally ill in some fashion.

And he ended up being sentenced to three years in state prison where he's currently residing. The experience was scary and made me feel gross for the longest time, but I didn't let it discourage me. I joined another gym a couple of towns away and ended up completely falling in love with weightlifting. But there is one warning I'd like to give to women and men alike. If you're ever getting undressed in a place you aren't familiar with, check the mirror. You never know if when I say I absolutely hate going to the gym. I hate the musty smell when you walk in, all the sweaty people leaving sweat stains on the equipment that refuse to wipe them down, and the crowds that bring the noise. It's not a peaceful environment like all gym rats like to say it is. It's stressful to me and gives me horrible anxiety

when I think about going. But I love food, and when I don't work out, I gain weight very fast and it doesn't look or feel very good. So yes, I only go to the gym so I can eat whatever I want without gaining weight. Some people may find that a strange reason to work out, but I could also say an addiction to pre-workout is pretty strange, yet people definitely have that. Now a little bit about me. I'm a 24-year-old guy, I'm named Tony, and I live about 20 minutes out of the town on a farm so I don't go to the gym every day. I do try to go at least four times a week, but obviously gas is getting expensive. This specific day started out like any other. I woke up, made myself a protein shake, grabbed my gym bag and started driving towards town. It's a nice drive, lots of mountain views and lakes along the way so I usually try to

take in the scenery which made the drive go by way faster. I pulled up to the gym and it was all business as usual. Went in, started my workout with weights and then moved on to the leg press. Now I hate the leg press, I mean I've seen those videos where people have their knees bent backwards so I'm always kind of nervous using that machine. That's really the only concern I had about it though. It went smoothly so I got up to wipe the bench and when I did, I noticed a sharp pain in my calf.

It felt almost like a pinch and when I looked down, I had a very small cut on my calf that wasn't even bleeding. I saw the leg press had a small piece of metal that had been barely poking out enough to scratch my leg. I figured it was just a small cut that I could wash off when I took a shower at home so I finished my workout for the day and headed out. On the drive back home I started to feel a little bit more pain in my leg where the cut was, almost like it was itchy but in more of like a hot to touch kind of way. I didn't want to scratch it in case it got worse so I put it to the back of my mind and continued on my way home.

I jumped right into the shower the second I got inside and began scrubbing my leg, mostly just to get the itch away. Cleaning the actual cut wasn't my main priority at this point because all I could think about was how bad it itched. I scrubbed it with soap and an exfoliator but nothing was helping the itch go away. I finished up in the shower and got dressed and decided it would be a good time to really inspect this cut on my leg. I turned the flashlight on my phone and turned my leg as best I could to get a look at the small cut. It looked a little inflamed but at the time I figured that it was because I'd spent the past 30 minutes rubbing at it with a pretty abrasive sponge. I just must have irritated it I thought. I ended up just putting a bandaid on it and forgetting about it

for the rest of the night. It itched here and there but I ended up getting used to it and before I knew it I was asleep. The next morning I woke up with my whole leg feeling very hot and almost bloated if that makes any sense. I took the bandaid off and the cut didn't look very good. It was swollen and puffy and had a bright red skin around the edges and it looked like it was oozing some sort of pus. It was very gross. I called my mom who told me it was probably infected and she said to go to the store and get some antibiotic ointment for it. So that's what I did. I wrapped it up again and headed to the store to get some ointment and possibly some more

bandages now that my small band-aids weren't able to keep it contained anymore. I picked up whatever looked like it would help and rushed home. The itchiness had come back and I really just couldn't take it anymore. By that night, my leg had become so inflamed and painful that I started having a hard time walking on it. The antibiotic ointment didn't seem to be working and the cut only got worse. It was leaking this yellowish goo that just didn't seem to stop. I had the worst time falling asleep and throughout the night would be woken up from the horrible pain in my calf, like someone was taking a hot iron to my leg.

The next morning my symptoms were the same only I couldn't put any pressure to my leg. The next morning, my symptoms were the same, only I couldn't put any pressure on my leg without unbearable pain. I kept applying the ointment and every second I was praying it would just get better. Throughout the day, I had random feelings of nausea and even slight headaches, but I'm not one to worry very much. I also hate going to the doctor, so I was trying to put that off as long as possible. I told myself that day that if it didn't get any better by the next morning then I'd take myself to the hospital. Well, I bet you can guess that it didn't get better. And you'd be right. It got worse. Much, much worse. The small cut had now opened into a pretty large lesion that was constantly oozing pus and blood.

I couldn't use my leg at all. I had woken up in a pool of sweat and had pretty intense dizziness, and I knew something was very, very wrong. At that point I knew I couldn't ignore this obviously very serious infection I had going on, but I also wasn't going to be able to drive myself to the hospital in the state that I was in. I called my mom and told her what was going on and you should have heard the worry in her voice. I could tell she was scared. She lives in town so it took her about 20 minutes to get to me. It also wasn't easy for her to help me get in the car. She's a small woman and I wasn't able to use my legs so I relied heavily on leaning on

her which must have been pretty hard. On the way to the hospital I started feeling really light headed, almost like I was going to pass out but my mom kept telling me to stay awake. I remember her rolling the window down so the cold air would keep me awake. It did make me feel a little less hot so I guess in her own way she was helping. She pulled into the emergency section and before I knew it, people were rushing over to me with a stretcher. I was lifted from the seat in the car onto the gurney and immediately wheeled away. I could hear my mom in the distance asking them if I was going to be okay, but I couldn't hear what they said to her since the doctors with me were asking me a bunch of questions but I only managed to answer one. They asked me how I got cut and all I could say was Jim before I completely blacked out. By the time I woke up it had been a few days since my

admittance into the hospital. It turned out that the small cut that I got at the gym had developed into a full-blown Merson infection in my leg. And because I left it untreated, it caused me to go into acute kidney failure. I guess this type of infection spreads very easily in the gym or athletic settings. They said my case was pretty bad to have progressed so quickly. And I was in the hospital for a couple of weeks while on IV antibiotics for my leg and treatment for my kidneys and it's been a year since and I'm mostly recovered. I have nearly normal kidney function which I'm extremely grateful for. I still go to the gym but I'm super super careful with cleaning the equipment and if I ever get any more cuts and scratches, the first thing I do is wash it off and

cover it up. And to anyone who spends a lot of their time in the gym and doesn't think twice when they get a small cut from the equipment, please use my story as a lesson so you don't make the same mistake I did. I was homeless at the time. It's not something I'm proud of, but it's something that happened. When I was 20 years old, I was in a pretty major car accident that resulted in a complete amputation of my left leg. This made it super hard to find work after the year-long recovery. My parents had already wanted nothing to do with me by then. I had dated a guy in high school that they didn't approve of so they both basically shunned me until I moved out when I was 18 and I haven't spoken to either of them since. There was a moment during my recovery when I considered reaching out to them for support

but I figured they would just refuse to talk to me like they'd done in the past. I'd look for a job in the four years that had been since I got in the accident but nobody wants to hire a woman with one leg and no home. It's not like they admit that's the reason but I know it is. So I decided to live out of my car and whatever money I got from donations around town that I used to pay for a gym membership. And from the very beginning of my ultimate fall into homelessness, I knew I needed to find a place that I could shower and use the bathroom throughout the day whenever I wanted or needed to. Hygiene was always very important to me and I wasn't going

to let homelessness take that away. I figured the gym was a perfect place. It was open 24 hours a day and nobody would question why I was going in and out throughout the day to use the restroom. The plan worked perfectly for a couple of years. Nobody asked any questions and if I ever got bored, I would just go in and work out for a few hours. It was a little hard with the one leg thing but I made it work. I did exercises that I could do with my arms and tried to ignore the stares that I got because of my prosthetic. After about a couple of years I decided to change gyms because the one I'd been going to ended up becoming too expensive. The new gym I signed up for was in a more harsh part of town. I didn't mind that it wasn't as nice since it served its purpose. I was able to take showers and use the restrooms the same as the other gym. The only thing I didn't like about the gym was its location because I usually had to use the bathroom late at night.

I did have to park nearby. I tried to always switch up my parking space but this time I figured parking behind the building wouldn't be a big deal for just one night. I parked behind the building and settled in for the night. I usually put a sun shield on my windshield and covered my windows with towels or blankets so no one could see in. It felt more safe and secure that way. At around 3 am I started hearing knocking on my car windows. I'll admit that I was scared and I didn't know what to do so I laid in my back seat

with my eyes squeezed shut as tightly as possible, not knowing if I should say something or not. I didn't know if it was the police asking me to leave or if it was someone who would hurt me, but I really, really didn't want to find out. The knocking on the windows continued for what felt like forever. Eventually it stopped and I just sat there waiting for it to come back. It didn't, but instead of knocking, I started hearing soft whistling. It started out quiet, but as time went by it became a loud high-pitched whistle. Whoever was trying to get my attention had succeeded. At that point I was totally freaking out. I wanted to call the police but I couldn't because I was parked there illegally and I

knew that it would bring unnecessary attention towards me in the long run. After the whistling came some silence and I thought that it was finally over. And that's when I started to hear him talking. At first his voice was so soft I could barely hear him. I didn't even know what he was saying. Then it sounded like he was pressing his mouth up against the door in the small crack where the door shuts, almost like he wanted to be sure that I could hear him. He started to say hello, but not just a short hello.

It was more like a very long, Hello? I did this a few times before saying, I know you're in there. Just open the door. Come out and play. Please? I felt the tears beginning to roll down my face. I figured it was only a matter of time before he broke his way into my car and did whatever he wanted to do with me. This was the one thing I was always scared of when it became

apparent that I wouldn't have a place to live. The man kept talking to me through the window as he got more and more mad with each word he spoke. I know you live in there. I see you go back to your car every time you leave the gym. Just open the door and I promise I'll help you. Open it up before I get angry. I couldn't speak. Even if I wanted to, the words just wouldn't come out. I started debating on whether or not I should speak back to him and ask him what he wanted or to tell him to leave me alone, but I eventually decided against it. I knew this was a bad situation to be in, but I was still frozen in the same spot. I started trying to make plans in my head of what I could do to get myself out of this horrible thing that is happening to me. I finally mustered up the courage to climb into

my front seat. As I did, I heard the man say, I hear you moving in there. Are you finally going to let me in? I heard him beginning to try the handles, looking for a way in, but they were all locked, thankfully. I felt the car move from side to side as he leaned against it while pushing as hard as he could, trying desperately to break into my car. I fumbled around in my bag for my keys and when I finally found them, I started my car, put it into gear and ripped off the sunshield in one quick motion and began to speed away. I heard a loud thud and felt the car move slightly as I drove off, but there was no way I was stopping to see what it was.

I drove for hours. I needed to get away from that man, from that city. Granted, I might have become paranoid, but I didn't want to risk running into him again, especially since I didn't know what he looked like, but he knew what I looked like. When I finally stopped, I noticed a large dent in the rear of my car that I figured was the outcome of the thud I'd heard while driving away.

I didn't care though as long as I was okay and my car still drove. I cancelled that gym membership over the phone and joined another in the city that I had driven to a few hours away. I used that gym for a couple of years before meeting my now husband there, who I've been happily married to for eight years. We have two beautiful children and I'm glad I never have to think about that man or those awful sleepless nights in my car, all alone, ever again. To be continued... My name is Dot. I'm 22 years old, I'm from North Dakota, and I have a lot of tattoos. I got my first when I was 17. Shout out to the tattoo artist who knew the ID wasn't mine, but inked me up anyway. And after that, I was hooked. I got a sleeve over the course of about nine months during my late teens. I got my neck covered with a skull and flower motif. I got a wolf covering pretty much my entire right thigh. I even got a

small face tattoo. Provocative, I know, but in for a penny and in for a pound of flesh, as they say. I know some people look at me and think that I'm some kind of trashy meth-head loser or something, but once you get to know me, people realize I'm smart, loving, a thoughtful person whose ink has no bearing on their actual personality. I make a great babysitter. I know I'm great with kids, and all of the families whose kids I took care of learned that for themselves after taking a chance with me. Maybe that makes me sound kind of full of myself, and I hope it doesn't, and I'd like to think it's fully justified, given some of the cruel things that have been said to me over the years. And this brings me to my next point. I don't think

I'm the prettiest girl in the world, but the extent of my tattoos sometimes has a certain effect on men. I don't want to go into too much about what those entail. I'm sure you can all guess if you apply a little imagination, but I really, really hate some of the lewd and inappropriate comments I get when someone with no mouth filter sees my ink. At best, it's just annoying, and a guy quickly gets the message when I tell him to stick his non-compliments where the sun doesn't shine. But then at worst, men can get very, very frightening when they're not used to being told no. This story involves one of those. In May of 2019, I was on my way to one of my regular babysitting jobs on a humid Friday night and I needed to stop at a gas station to top up my tank. I live in quite a

rural area and despite this gas station being a pretty regular stop for me, it's the only one for miles and miles around. So while it gets its fair share of regulars, it gets plenty of visitors who aren't from the area. And sometimes they're not even from the Rough Rider country at all, they're just passing through. I'm guessing this guy was just passing through because I'd never seen him before and he was wearing a black Minnesota Vikings cap and I don't know if it was because I was hungry or just generally in a grouchy mood, but when he started slurring lewd comments my way, I gave him the business, particularly harshly. I told him I was probably his daughter's

age, assuming he had one, and asked how he'd like it if a guy started talking to his little girl the way he was talking to me. He then made some comments about how he'd never let his daughter, guessing he did have one, quote unquote ruin her body in the way that I had. And comments like that used to hurt me. But not anymore. They're like water off a duck's back these days. So I told him to go jump in a lake. A nicer version of what I actually said. I don't want to get your video taken down so I won't say it. And then just paid for my gas and drove off. I didn't think I was being followed. But then again, I don't think I looked at my rear view

the whole freaking drive home. Like I said, I live in a pretty rural area and unless you pass through a small town or whatever, there's not much need to actually check your rear view while you're out on the main highways. So when I got to the place I was babysitting, I had absolutely no idea of what was to befall me that night, not a single clue. So it was with blissful ignorance that I parked my car, knocked on the door, then went inside to chat with the mom and say hi to the little man. A few hours go by and I mostly occupy myself by playing Nintendo Switch games with the little guy and deliberately losing to make him feel good about himself. You know how it goes. Not that I'm any good at Mario Kart or whatever and sometimes I didn't even have to pretend to be slipping off the track to let him pass me but it brings me a lot of joy to see him happy. Anyway, at about 9pm, which is way later than his regular bedtime, partly the

reason he loves me and says nice things to his mom about me, I take the little guy to bed and read him a story until he's snoozing soundly. After that, I help myself to some of the leftovers that the mom had left for me. She's a great cook, so I take no offense at her leftovers. Then I settle into the couch to watch TV and text my friends. And right about then is when I hear a knock at the door. I get up to answer it, kind of nervous about who it might be, but still aren't wanting to refuse just in case it's important or something. But then when I open the door, there's no one there. Kids play pranks, right?

And even though it's a rural area where the houses are sometimes like half a mile apart, it could have just as easily been a bunch of kids who cycled over just to get up to no good, right? That's what I told myself anyway. I'm not the type to just freak out over a game of ding-dong-ditch, so I just closed the door, muttered something about dumb kids under my breath, and went back to watching TV. Not long after that, it happens again, only the knocking on the front door is even louder this time, and kind of interspersed too, almost like some kid was kicking the door

or something. I got really mad, thinking it might actually wake the little guy upstairs in which case it would be super difficult to get him back to sleep. So that time I opened the door, took a few steps outside and looked around to see if anyone was watching the door or hiding in the darkness. There was no one in sight but I definitely wanted to warn the kids off from doing it so in a voice that I tried to keep low enough not to wake the kid up upstairs but loud enough for anyone close to hear, I told whoever it was that if they bashed on the door like that again, I'd be calling the cops. In the moments after I spoke, nothing moved

and nothing stirred. There was just this dead silence hanging in the air which actually started to give me the creeps after a while. It was obvious that whoever had done the banging was still close. I didn't hear any bikes paddling or voices or anything like that. I knew someone was there, maybe even watching me too, so feeling pretty exposed I turned around to walk back inside the house. I can't even really describe the kind of terror I felt when I turned and saw that black viking's cap staring me in the face. Even with the lessons

in writing I got, I'm still struggling to find the words to describe that sensation. All that cliched stuff like my blood ran cold or a shiver went up my spine, they sound like they sound like stuff out of a campfire story compared to what actual heart-pounding terror felt like. I think that was the first thing I felt, my heart just thumping at a mile a minute as I got this oh no alarm bell feeling in my head. I was outside, alone, with this guy who had been making lewd comments to me at the gas station, and who'd obviously followed me to the family's house, maybe even thinking that it's where I lived. The next thing I know, his big, calloused hand just flies up towards my throat, and I feel

almost all my air cut off. I have to make these scary sounding wheezing noises just to get the air into my lungs. I remember how my hand shot up to his wrist, trying to pull his hand away from my throat, but he was just way too strong for me to even budge it. I kicked out at him, tried to land it where it would hurt him the most, but my first and only effort landed on his thigh. After that, he held me out at arm's length so I couldn't reach him, and every time I tried to kick him again, I not only missed completely, but he squeezed just a little harder for a second so I couldn't breathe at all. In the end, I was basically just hanging there, feet only touching the ground because I was on my tiptoes as he started smiling at me. I don't want to repeat exactly what he said.

Like I mentioned earlier, I don't want to get your channel in any trouble with YouTube for obscenity or anything, but I remember every freaking word. To paraphrase, he basically said that a girl like me should know better than to talk to a man like I had. And that he'd take a great deal of pleasure in teaching me a lesson that I should have learned years ago. He made some comment about how he'd had to wait quite a while to make sure I was home alone, but he was glad that he did, because now no one would be able to stop him from doing what he said that he was going to do. Like I said, I don't want to quote the guy, mainly for the sake of my own mental health at this point, but trust me when I say

that his description of the act he wanted to perform on me was graphic to the point of nauseating. Again, I can barely describe the feelings that boiled up inside me, knowing that he was about to do those things to me right there in the driveway and honestly the only consolation was that I might not have to be awake for it as breathing was so hard by that point that I felt like I was about to pass out. The guy then basically threw me onto the front lawn which was slightly out of sight of the road outside thanks to this big hedge the family had been cultivating over the years. The entire North Dakota Highway Patrol force could have driven by and never seen a freaking thing. I was basically screwed in more ways than

one. Then right as the guy was standing over me, I heard this little voice bark, leave her alone, from the doorway to the house. It was the kid I was babysitting, the little man, who had somehow woken up during everything that was going on, heard the guy talking, and headed downstairs to see what was going on. I don't know exactly what went through the guy's head after seeing a little kid watching what he was about to do. Like I said earlier, I'm almost certain that he had kids of his own, but it was enough to make him think twice. He backed off a little, and told me that I was the luckiest little girl on the face of the earth, then started telling the little man that I was babysitting that he was helping me up because I'd fallen down. The kid didn't buy it for a second though, and I've always been amazed at how brave he was in that moment

as he once again let out this impossibly loud bark for how small he was saying, leave my Dottie alone. I was already scrambling back towards the house by the time the guy started walking out of the driveway and all I had going through my head was to get a 911 dispatcher to listen as I read out the guy's license plate. I didn't know where he was parked, but it had to be close, and all I needed to do was get to my phone fast enough and I'd be able to get this guy arrested. Sadly, I wasn't fast enough, and by the time I rushed back out into the road outside, all I would see was a flash of the guy's rear lights in the distance before they faded into nothingness.

I managed to tell the dispatcher as much as I could, including what he looked like and the stretch of highway I figured that he might have been driving down. But since I had no idea what car he was driving, I guess it wasn't enough for the cops to get him on a traffic stop or anything. After the call ended, I tried my best to protect the little guy from the horrifying truth of what had happened but he was smart enough to know that a bad man had come to the house and that for a few moments the both of us had been in a terrifying amount of danger. He was still awake when his mom and dad got home but they could just instantly tell that something bad had happened. Their only issue was that I hadn't called to tell them what had happened, but I just didn't want to ruin one of their rare date nights given that no one actually got hurt. I mean,

I had one heck of a bruise around my throat the next day, but aside from that, I got away pretty much unscathed. Now that I look back on it, I don't think the guy ever really had the intention of truly hurting me, I guess. If he was psycho enough to do something like that, I don't think that he'd have really cared if the kid was watching. I just think having a teen girl give him such disrespect made him really, really angry. And maybe he was having just bad enough a day that he felt like taking some spite out on me or something. I have no idea. But then again, I've always been inclined to see the best in people. And I'm still something of a perennial optimist. So maybe I'm wrong in that instinct. Maybe it really was the little man who saved me from her horrific fate that night.

And that a six-year-old had way more strength, power, and bravery than anyone might assume. To be continued... In October of 2012, six-year-old Lucia Krim and two-year-old Leo Krim were living with their parents, Marina and Kevin, at the La Rochelle apartment building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The Krims had moved to New York from San Francisco in 2010 after Kevin found work as a digital content executive at the television network CNBC. On the other hand, Marina Krim was a former kindergarten teacher turned stay-at-home mother who occupied herself by teaching art and chronicling her children's lives through a series of video blogs. There's no doubt that Marina was a dedicated mother, but she couldn't be there for all her children and all the time. And this is where Yoselin Ortega enters the picture. Originally from Santiago de los Caballeros in the Dominican Republic, Ortega was a 50-year-old, naturalized U.S. citizen during October of 2012.

She resided on Riverside Drive in Manhattan's Hamilton Heights, along with her 17-year-old son Jesus, her sister, and her niece, and to support them, she gained employment as the Crim's family babysitter for $18 an hour. By October of 2012, Ortega had been the Crim's family babysitter for almost two years and had earned the trust of both Marina and her husband. So much so that Marina trusted her to take her six-year-old Lulu to her ballet lessons. One of their usual routines was that while Ortega took Lulu to her ballet lessons, Marina would accompany three-year-old Nessie to the girls' swimming lessons at the nearby YMCA. After Lulu's ballet lesson was over, Marina was to bring Nessa to the ballet venue, meet Ortega, and they would all make their way back to the Crim's apartment together to have dinner. Yet on October 25th of 2012, when Marina arrived at the ballet venue to meet Ortega,

she discovered that neither Lulu or her babysitter had arrived for the ballet venue to meet Ortega, she discovered that neither Lulu or her babysitter had arrived for the ballet lesson. Confused, Marina headed back to the La Rochelle apartment, assuming that Lulu was feeling unwell and that there was some other legitimate reason for her failing to attend the lesson. Yet when she arrived home, she walked into every parent's worst nightmare. She expected the apartment to be occupied and for a concerned Ortega to rush to her with an explanation why Lulu failed to attend her ballet lesson. Yet as Marina walked inside, the lights were off, almost as if there was no one home. Marina called out for her children and then called out for Ortega, but there was no reply, so instead of actually investigating the remainder of the apartment,

she went back downstairs to the building's doorman to inquire about her children. Upon being questioned, it was the doorman's turn to express confusion. He had seen Yaslin Ortega as she and the children had stepped into the building's elevator just a few hours before. To his knowledge, they hadn't left the building either, not by the front entrance anyway, so there was no reason why they shouldn't still be inside the Crim's apartment. Marina began to realize that something was wrong, but the extent of the horror that awaited her was something she could have never expected. Marina returned to the apartment to search high and low for any sign of her children and their babysitter.

Then when she arrived in one of the family's bathrooms, she let out a blood-curdling scream that was thick with grief. Lying in the bathtub, in a pool of their own blood, were the lifeless corpse of two-year-old Leo and six-year-old Lulu. It was a sight that just about anyone would have found sickeningly horrifying. But for a mother to witness her own children in such a state, it was enough to drive Marina to madness. Yet the horror wasn't over, not by a long shot. Kneeling next to the bathtub, the bloody knife still in her grip, was Jocelyn Ortega. She had been in what amounted to a catatonic state until Marina had walked into the bathroom, but the grief-stricken mother's scream dragged Jocelyn out of her trance, with the reality of her actions hitting her with all the force of a runaway freight train.

Jocelyn looked up at Marina, then down at the children. Then after unleashing a banshee's scream of her own, she jammed the knife into one of her wrists and began sawing up her own forearm. Before Marina could even react to what Jocelyn was doing, the once loyal babysitter brought the knife up to her throat and opened it up with a deep slash that left blood streaming down her chest. Thankfully, Marina was being accompanied by the apartment building superintendent, who promptly contacted emergency services when he realized what was happening. It was far too late to save the children, but the EMTs were able to stabilize the gruesome injuries that Yoselin Ortega had inflicted on herself, saving her life

to ensure that she would stand trial for the demonic crimes she had committed. Kevin Krim, the children's father, didn't learn of their deaths until that evening, when he returned from a business trip that had taken him back to San Francisco, and to say he was devastated would amount to the understatement of the century. Once she was physically well enough to be questioned, Ortega was alarmingly forthcoming with her motive for murdering the children. She claimed that she was deeply upset that the Crimms had rejected her request for more working hours, and that she desperately needed the money, and that the refusal was tantamount to a death sentence for her. However, the Crimms claimed that they had not actually refused to pay her more

money, and had instead offered Ortega a pay raise if she started doing housework for them during her nannying hours. Indeed, Ortega's own family seemed to dismiss the idea that denying her a raise was the motive for the murders, as she was treated very well by the Krim family. On one occasion, the Krims paid for Ortega's plane tickets to see her family in the Dominican Republic, and in another instance, had joined her on vacation there. She was also said to be extremely close to Lulu and Leo, and that the trio had a deeply loving and affectionate relationship as a result of almost two years of near-constant companionship. This led to investigators theorizing that Ortega may have suffered some kind of manic episode

as surely no sane person in her position would have been able to inflict such hideous violence on two innocent children It was argued that evidence of such a manic or disassociative episode was how Ortega seemed to snap back to reality upon hearing Marina Crim's screams Investigators argued that once she realized what she'd done, attempting to take her own life was the only viable solution to her. After heavy psychoanalysis at a New York City psychiatric hospital, Yoselin was later found mentally competent to stand trial for the murders of two-year-old Leo and six-year-old Lulu. Yet it would take five long years to take her to trial. During that time, Ortega would make

over 90 separate court appearances. She opted for a psychiatric defense, claiming she had no memory of the murders and could not explain what happened that afternoon which led to the deaths of the children. Therefore, it seemed perfectly reasonable to her to plead not guilty to the counts of first-degree murder and reject a number of plea deals that would have resulted in lesser sentences than life in prison. Finally, on May 14th of 2018, Yacelyn Ortega was sentenced to life in prison without parole. In his final ruling, the presiding judge labeled her as pure evil and dismissed her claims that she wasn't responsible for her behavior. In the aftermath of the children's murder, the New York State Assembly and State Senate passed the Lucia and Leos Law. The first of its kind in the entire US, the Lulu and Leo's Law made it a criminal

offense to deliberately misrepresent the mental health of a person applying to work as a child caregiver. No such legislation will bring Leo or Lulu back from the dead, but we can always hope that it might deter such things from happening in the future. Yet following their murders, the big question that seems to linger is, what exactly drove Yoselin Ortega to kill two children she had come to love so deeply? While it may seem like a compelling argument that her mental health was to blame, Ortega had absolutely no history of anxiety or depression aside from a few familial anecdotes. It seems clear to most that the psychiatric defense was simply her attorney's last, best hope to land her a reduced sentence. After all, she had been their babysitter for two years with zero complaints

regarding her behavior, and she had become a trusted member of the Crim's family circle by the time of the murders. Yoselin herself claims she has no memory of the murders, and while this might seem like an awfully convenient aspect of her psychological defense, we can't rule out that she experienced some kind of blackout and committed the murders while in some disassociative state. But then, what else would cause such a blackout? Medical professionals ruled that Jocelyn had no kind of ongoing psychological condition at the time of her arrest. But what if she's telling the truth about not remembering the murders? What if something that medical science isn't quite ready to explain yet, took Jocelyn over? Of course, such a theory might sound like the stuff of fiction, but there was a time in

recent history when the idea that tiny microscopic lifeforms were responsible for causing disease was dismissed by those who saw themselves as the educated elite. Perhaps in time, Yoselin's behavior will be explained by something deemed chilling but feasible, when at the present time, such a concept is too terrifying to even contemplate. Back in 1951, 15-year-old Diane Hank of Portland, Oregon, needed to make a little extra money. And like many young women of her age during that period, babysitting was the surest method of earning a few extra bucks. We often think of babysitting as a safe, family-oriented job, something that verges on wholesome. So when Diane first met husband and wife couple Sherry and Wei Him Fong, and they turned out to be friendly, affable folks, she was thrilled at the prospect of regularly working for them. But what Diane never could have expected was for her to become embroiled in a world of secrets, deceit, drug use, and bloodthirsty criminality. By January 6th of 1954, Diane had been babysitting for the Fongs for three years and had essentially become part of their extended family. Diane had purchased a

shirt as a Christmas gift for Way Him Fong, who sometimes went by the anglicized name of Wayne, but almost a week into the new year, she still hadn't presented him with it. When she called up Sherry Fong on the phone and asked she still hadn't presented him with it. When she called up Sherry Fong on the phone and asked if she could swing by to drop it off at their home, Sherry invited her over to dinner. After getting her mother's permission to head over to their house, Diane joined the Fongs and another couple named the Smalley's while the Fong's children slept in the next room over.

The Smalley's stayed only for drinks while Sherry Fong prepared dinner, and when the time came for them to depart, they commented on what a delightful young woman the Fongs had found to babysit their children. Little did they know, their first meeting with Diane was also to be their last, as they would never see her alive again. Before she disappeared, two people spoke to Diane on the phone that night. The first was a friend of hers named Anne Incontro, who apparently heard that Diane was having a party and that she was high on something. Not long after, Diane called

her mother telling her that she would be home as soon as Wayne Fong returned from an errand, as he had promised to give her a ride home. Around an hour later, she once again called her mother, stating that she would be home later than expected, as Mr. Fong had yet to return. Her father then suggested that she spend the night there, a suggestion that Diane agreed with. It was a brief and seemingly inconsequential conversation, but it was the last one Diane and her father would ever have. The following day when Diane failed to return home,

her parents contacted the local police department to report her missing. Almost immediately the police appealed to the public pleading for information while releasing a steady stream of details to aid in the search. However, a great deal of gossip began to circulate regarding Diane's lifestyle, gossip which painted her in a very negative light, tainting public opinion of her. For example, some claimed it was common knowledge in certain circles that Diane had recently had a baby out of wedlock. Rumors also abounded that she regularly smoked marijuana while listening to subversive jazz music. The revelation caused a deep outrage among the more pious sections of the local community who quickly withdrew their support for Diane's search. Yet a great number remained terrified and heartbroken of the striking

six-foot-tall teenager's disappearance and pledged themselves to find her, whatever she may be. Given how Diane was last seen in the company of the Fongs, some began to speculate that they were to blame for the girl's disappearance. After all, the Fongs were a mixed-race couple, and as much as we can be thankful that the tolerance of such things has greatly accelerated, interracial marriages were subject to suspicion and ire during the 1950s. It was also rumored that the Fongs joined Diane in smoking marijuana that night, and that they had morally corrupted the young girl.

And once these accusations reached investigators, the police opted to pursue Sherry Fong with a fierce intensity. In response, Sherry insisted on her innocence, and even went so far as to place a personal ad in the Portland Oregonian which read, Diane, please contact me. Regardless of your present circumstances or anything you may have done, I'll help you all I can. Sherry While some suggested this was merely a ruse on Sherry's part to appear innocent, there's no doubt that their relationship was a close one. Some said that Sherry and Diane were attached at the hip,

and that their similar size and stature meant that they frequently borrowed each other's clothes. Sherry had been there for Diane throughout her unplanned pregnancy, and this leaves us in very little doubt that their friendship was a genuine and loving one. It was later discovered that an undercover officer remarked that the Fongs were getting a dirty deal, and that the cops were just trying to pin the case on somebody so they could be done with it. One of Diane's Lincoln High classmates claimed to have seen her downtown the day after her disappearance, while another classmate said she ran into Diane at Meyer and Frank Department Store a couple of weeks later. The police were accused of dismissing these reports because they didn't fit the hypothesis that the Fongs were to

blame, and their efforts to pin the crime on them did nothing but muddy the waters. Law enforcement seemed to completely ignore that Kenneth Martin, Diane's boyfriend at the time of her disappearance, and the father of her child were reported to have told her that he would kill her if he ever saw her with another boy. Sherry Fong said this left Diane distraught to the point of potentially taking her own life, over her relationship problems and that she'd once commented, if he stands up again, I'll take my own life. Tragically, Diane's body was found on February 27th at the top of a steep hill near Evergreen Highway in Clark County, Washington.

She had been wrapped in two blankets, tied up with rope, and was wearing the same clothing she wore the night of January 6th when she had gone to the Fong's for dinner. In order to put pressure on her, investigators questioned Sherry Fong for 16 hours without a break, but still she refused to make any kind of confession. The police then set up a kind of sting operation in a local hotel, where they tried to eavesdrop on a conversation she was having with a friend in the next room. This friend was nothing of the sort, and was actually one of those who suspected Sherry of Diane's murder. Then over the course of an hour or two, she attempted to coax a confession

out of Sherry. Once again, Sherry protested her innocence, but it seemed to do nothing to dissuade law enforcement of her guilt. A short while later, a grand jury indicted both her and Wayne, based almost entirely on circumstantial evidence, along with a third person named Kuang Ting Yi. Kwong was described by local newspapers as a frequent house guest of the Fongs, with some asserting that he was Wayne Fong's partner in marijuana trafficking. Sherry and Wayne were eventually tried together, and after being found guilty, the jury voted 10-2 to send them to the gas chamber. However, in a move that stunned the general public, the trial judge

overturned the verdict on the grounds that the prosecution had failed to provide anything more than circumstantial evidence. Yet it didn't mean the Fongs were in the clear, and a retrial was quickly scheduled. It was during this retrial that a mountain of new information came to light. Information that could have saved Diane's life had she known about it before she started working for the Fongs. It was proven beyond all doubt that the Fongs were heavily involved in the Portland drug scene, with Wayne Fong being a major ring leader. Now in light of this, the prosecution began to claim that Diane was killed because she knew too much about the Fong's black market operation,

and they needed her permanently silenced if they wished to continue making money. One of the state's key witnesses, Mrs. Smalley, testified that by the time she left, Diane had already consumed a number of alcoholic drinks and was acting silly. The prosecution then used this to illustrate how irresponsibly the Fongs had behaved around a 15-year-old girl, and even alleged that they had plied her with marijuana to the point that she was an emotional and physical wreck. These days it's quite clear that cannabis is fairly harmless on its own, but mix it with alcohol and that's a completely different story. Yet the reality is that the Fongs appear to have given Diane way more than just pot and booze.

Tests showed that Diane had a large amount of barbiturates in her system at the time of her death, which the official cause was said to be a mix of barbitol and alcohol poisoning. While it's entirely possible that the overdose was accidental, and that Diane had somehow taken the barbitol without the Fong's knowledge, it stands to reason that they would want to cover up her death, regardless of exactly how it happened, as a second attempt to convict the Fongs resulted in another mistrial. It would take a third round of court proceedings to get a conviction on Sherry, and that time, some seriously disturbing details emerged during the process. During the course of the two failed trials, the police kept up their efforts to place informants close to Sherry and Wayne.

And it was during a conversation with one of them that Sherry mentioned that a Chinese crime syndicate had wanted Diane killed because they felt she was talking too much. Sherry claimed that she had offered to pay as much as $125,000 to get them to leave the girl alone. But in the grand scheme of things, this could neither be confirmed nor refuted. Evidence also emerged that Wayne had tried to kill two witnesses that may have testified against him. A Filipino immigrant named Pio Rigo testified about the culture of fear and how important it was to stay quiet while working for the Fongs. He also testified in broken English

that he had helped Wayne move a body, though he couldn't specify if it was Diane's or not, and he had no idea where Wayne had actually disposed of it. The third trial concluded with Sherry being convicted of second-degree murder, but just like the first two, the conviction didn't stick. The case went all the way to the Oregon Supreme Court and after her fourth and final trial in a federal court, Sherry Fong was completely acquitted of having any hand in Diane's death. The fact that judgment came in a federal court meant there would be no more arrests, no more questions, no more trials. For Sherry at least, the ordeal was over. Wayne's trials went much in the same way that his wife's did,

and he was eventually cleared of all charges just a few months after her final trial came to a conclusion. His luck wouldn't last, though, and in 1958 he was arrested and charged with possession of heroin, a crime he would serve 12 years in prison for. By the time the judicial ordeal was over, the Fongs were considerably more infamous than Diane had ever been, and a case that should have been marked by tragedy was overtaken by gossip and scandal. Diane was an intelligent, hardworking, and upwardly mobile young woman whose life was snuffed out before it truly had a chance to begin. She left behind a daughter who would never know her mother's love, and an extended family who would grieve her absence until their dying days. Yet pain and grief weren't the only things that remained when all was said and done,

as boundless unanswered questions plagued all those involved in the case for decades. Perhaps one of the most pertinent is the question of if Diane was self-medicating on the night of her death. She certainly had a lot to drink, and we can assume she dabbled in marijuana. But was the cocktail of narcotics enough to really dull the pain of stress of her failing relationship? Maybe she decided it wasn't enough and knew of Barbatol's potential to dull the senses. Then, with or without the Fong's permission or guidance, she took enough of the drug to cause her young organs to fail, one by one, until she was dead. But then again, perhaps that night provided the perfect opportunity for the Fongs to carry out the orders of the Chinese narcotic syndicate. Perhaps they actually offered her the barbatol at a time

they knew it would have a fatal effect on her, making a near-perfect murder look like nothing more than a tragic accident. But then again, maybe the Fongs were finally acquitted, not as a miscarriage of justice, but out of divine providence. Maybe they really were telling the truth, and that their shady occupation had no bearing on their capacity to murder Diane Hank. It shouldn't be lost on anyone that Diane's boyfriend, a person who had threatened to kill her if he ever saw her in the company of another man, was questioned on only a handful of occasions before the focus of the investigation moved to the Fongs. It's very, very possible that Diane simply decided to walk home from the Fongs that night. That the combination of cocktails and

cannabis left her feeling so emotionally raw that she couldn't bear to burden such close friends with her deep depression. Then what if, in the course of walking back home, she'd encountered Kenneth Martin, who had flown into a rage at the idea of her drinking and smoking with Wayne Fong? Maybe Kenneth made good on his promise to end his baby mother's life, if she ever even considered betraying him. From what I can tell, Kenneth had relatives who lived up in Washington state, maybe even relatives who would have been willing to help him dump a body somewhere they'd hoped it might never be found.

All that is little but speculation though, as the police refused to pursue the possibility that Kenneth was ever to blame for Diane's death. We sometimes think of the 1950s as a more innocent, optimistic time in America. A period that followed one of the darkest times in world history, when people were hopeful and happy. Maybe the Portland police simply couldn't face the possibility that a teenage boy had watched his child's mother die from an overdose, knowing he could see her dead for her supposed betrayal while keeping his hands clean of any concrete involvement. Such a tale would make for one of the deepest, darkest things a person could ever hear. So maybe it was just easier on their collective sanity to twist the story until it made sense, for lack of a better term. We can only hope that whoever was responsible for Diane's

death suffered from the guilt of knowing that they had snuffed out boundless potential. A woman whose life could have been a bright light in a world so full of darkness. Back in November of 2015, a woman by the name of Nicole Fitz realized that her living situation was simply untenable. She no longer felt safe around the roommate she was living with in Daly City, California, and given that she had two young daughters to support and protect, she quickly began looking for alternate forms of accommodation. Nicole began taking on a great deal of overtime in order to save up for a deposit on a place in the San Francisco Bay Area. But it's also worth noting that the reason she began working so extensively is because she knew that once she moved out, her tyrannical roommate would make it extremely difficult to retrieve her belongings. In Nicole's eyes, it was better to

avoid any kind of confrontation that might result in harm to herself or her belongings. In Nicole's eyes, it was better to avoid any kind of confrontation that might result in harm to herself or her children. And with that in mind, the solution was simple. Work her butt off to secure a strong financial situation, then hire a babysitter to take care of her daughters while she was away from home. This is how husband and wife babysitter Helena and David Martin became young Ariana's full-time caregivers. The two families quickly developed a deep rapport, and Nicole would later describe the Martins as being supportive, friendly, and especially helpful at a time when she needed it most. The arrangement was a purely informal one. No papers or contracts were ever signed or agreed upon, but that suited the tremendously busy Nicole who was sometimes sleeping less than four or five hours a night just to keep

up with work while she looked for a new place to live. In order to provide her with a more stable kind of home life, two-year-old Ariana would often stay overnight at the Martins Place in Oakland, California. And between commuting to her work in San Francisco, working overtime, finding a place to stay in the Bay Area, and balancing everyday life, Nicole would visit Ariana as much as she could. Finally, in February of 2016, Nicole got the good news that she had been waiting for. One of Nicole's co-workers invited her and Ariana to move into her apartment in San Francisco, a place just minutes away from Nicole's place of work. It was as close to an ideal result as she could have ever wished for. But when she contacted the

Martins with the good news, they seemed less than pleased for her. Nicole must have been painfully confused at their reaction. They were so close by that point that she had expected them to be elated for her. But Helen greeted the news with an almost muted, indifferent tone. It wasn't anything like the reaction Nicole had been expecting, but her confusion soon grew into a deep anxiety of what followed. When Nicole tried to arrange a time and date to collect Ariana, Helen Martin simply hung up the phone and then refused to pick it up again. Nicole tried everything she could to get in touch with the Martins, and it took two whole weeks before she was able to get them on the phone again.

Towards the end of February, the Martins told Nicole that the reason she couldn't collect her daughter was because they'd taken her to Disneyland, and that they'd contact her as soon as they were home so they could arrange a collection. Nicole remained extremely suspicious of this, but she apparently trusted the Martins so much that they swallowed the excuse whole. It kept her from contacting the police regarding any kind of potential kidnap, and stalled her long enough for them to keep hold of Ariana for six weeks without letting Nicole see her. According to Nicole's new roommate, Goyette Williams, it was only a matter of time before

an increasingly desperate Nicole lost her patience and gave the Martins a deadline. According to Williams, Nicole snapped when she finally got them on the phone, saying something along the lines of, Okay, April 3rd. I want my daughter. I'm coming to get her. She's coming to live with me. End of story. Nicole didn't have to wait that long, as on the night of April 1st, she told Goyette Williams that the Martins had been in touch with her. Williams later said that Nicole had told her, I have to meet my babysitter. She's over at some restaurant on 3rd Street. She's upset.

I need to go see if she's okay. Nicole said she'd only be gone for five minutes, but hours came and went, and the young mother completely failed to return. In the wee small hours of the following morning, Goyette received a text from Nicole's phone at around 12.45am, stating that she was on her way to Fresno with somebody named Sam. Goyette had never heard Nicole mention a guy named Sam before and demanded to know exactly who he was, but no reply came from her roommate's phone. Days passed, with Nicole failing to reappear at Goyette's apartment, and so on April 5th of 2016, she and two-year-old Ariana were officially reported missing to the San Francisco Police Department. Just less than a week later, the Fitz family received

the heartbreaking news that they prayed they'd never have to hear. Nicole's body was found curled up in a fetal position in a shallow grave located a few feet away from a children's play area. Her grave was covered with a plywood board, one with a symbol painted on one side that did not appear to come from a location within the park. The cops believed that the symbol might amount to a valuable clue in the search for her killers, and begged anyone who recognized it to come forward. But to this day, not a single person has approached them with any pertinent information on the meaning of the symbol, or who might have drawn it.

The fact that Nicole had been found was of almost no comfort to her family, as not only was she deceased, but little Ariana was still missing, presumably having been kidnapped by the Martin family. To this day, Ariana is still missing, and her location remains a complete mystery. Even more frustrating is the fact that the police have been completely unable to link the Martins with Nicole's murder, meaning the people most likely to be responsible for her death are still walking the streets as free individuals. When questioned by law enforcement, the Martins, as well as their immediate family members, have either given inconsistent statements regarding Ariana's potential whereabouts

or have refused to cooperate with the investigation entirely. Law enforcement conducted three full searches of houses belonging to friends of relatives of the Martins in Emeryville, Oakland and Daly City, but were saddened to report that there was no sign of Ariana anywhere. However, they did seize over 30,000 pieces of evidence which they claim might aid in the search for her, or God forbid, her corpse. There is something extremely noteworthy regarding Helen Martin's past though, something we should all find extremely disturbing. Helen had once served a six-year prison term for killing the father of her own child,

a crime which had seen her child taken away from her and placed in the California foster system. Many have theorized that since she couldn't have her own child back, she simply murdered Nicole Fitz, then stole her daughter away and is keeping her somewhere secret to raise her as her own. It's a very compelling idea after all. A woman willing to murder her own husband would have few qualms about killing someone she barely knew,

especially if the goal was to realize her dreams of motherhood. As it stands, it's been over six long years since Ariana was last seen alive, and police have started to release computer-generated images of how she might look at around seven or eight years old. We can only pray that these images help someone to identify her. That is, if she's even still alive, to be recognized. Back when I was a kid, I had this regular babysitter who was the daughter of one of my dad's co-workers. I kind of hated her at the time. She was terrible at her job. I had other babysitters who I actually

liked so I knew she was terrible. She seemed like she just didn't want to be there at all. She was always super strict with me, just overzealously carrying my parents' rules to the letter as a way of taking out her spite on me. So I got used to doing things like calling downstairs first if I wanted to get a glass of water after bedtime, or not even daring to turn my nightlight on because she made me sleep with my door open so she could check on me easily. It sounds harsh, I know, but my parents were always pretty strict too, and I guess my dad's co-worker figured their influence, as well as the responsibility, would do her some good. Anyways, this one night when the babysitter arrived, she seemed different. I remember mom and dad, the poor naive souls that they were, telling her that it was okay if she didn't feel

well and wanted to be driven back home. She refused, just telling them that she felt a little tired and would take a nap once I'd been put down to bed. And boy, did she seem tired. She was nodding out as I was eating dinner, was way way laxer than she usually was, and I remember thinking that if she was like that every time she babysat me in the future, I wouldn't have to dread her arrival anymore. She actually forgets to put me to bed on time too

so I got like 45 minutes of extra TV while she napped on the couch and for a while she was actually sleeping with her phone held up near her face. I thought it was the funniest thing at the time but if I had known what was actually going on I wouldn't have thought it was so amusing. A few hours later I woke up incredibly thirsty, so I stick my head out into the hallway and start calling out to her, asking permission to come downstairs to get a glass of water, as we agreed. Then for the first time since she started babysitting me, there's no reply when I call her name. There's no, oh my god, what do you want now, no go back to sleep kid jeez, nothing like that.

There's complete silence aside from the low hum on the TV from downstairs and I know something is off. I just don't know what exactly so I head downstairs to try to find her. I grew up in quite a big home, one with an upstairs and a downstairs bathroom. The downstairs bathroom door was only ever closed when it was being used, so that clued me into the fact that she was in there. I just stood there at the door for a few seconds, actually kind of worried about how much trouble I'd get in for being downstairs after bedtime. But then it hit me that something had seemed off that night, that my babysitter wasn't feeling well, and that she might be in some kind of trouble herself. I knocked on the door, called

out her name again, only to find that the door actually opened a little under the force of my knock. People always lock the door when they use the bathroom down there. I mean, people were always walking around outside, so they always locked it. I knew something was wrong, so I pushed it open and my babysitter is just sitting there, toilet lid down, slumped back with something sticking out of her arm. I didn't even really recognize it for what it was in the moment. I didn't know anything about drugs and the only needles I'd ever gotten were with me facing away from it and wincing, so it's not like I just recognized the thing off the bat. I thought she was asleep. I mean, I honestly just thought she was napping. I know she was

leaning back against the toilet, head slumped over and that any grown up in their right mind would have known something was wrong, but she also just looked really peaceful. So peaceful that I didn't want to wake her. I just got my glass of water then went back to bed to drift back off to sleep. The next thing I know, I woke up to the sound of my mom screaming, and then the rest of the night is kind of a blur for me. A flash of blue and red lights outside and phone calls and weeping and wailing. But then almost equally worse was how my mom and dad just seemed to try to forget the whole thing. I think they did it for my sake so I wouldn't realize how my inaction had been the nail in this girl's coffin. That if I'd only have called someone, raised the alarm in any way, there might have been a guy that I knew. He was your typical ex-military grunt.

Thick-headed, always trying to talk like John Wayne. I had brought along some black powder muzzleloaders and revolvers and he brought his Lebel Model 1886 and about a dozen cases of Diet Coke. While he's pretty dim-witted, we share quite a strong interest in history. However, I learned pretty quick that he wasn't keen on sharing his Diet Coke. In fact, he laid the ground rules about it on day one. He was silly most times, quite entertaining for the most part, but you'll never meet someone so protective of their corn syrup. Whatever was my thought.

Night came around and I had stashed my food off about a half a mile away in a tree. He said that his was stashed too, so with the ideas of wildlife not coming around, I went to sleep pretty easily. But all of a sudden, I wake up to hear him sprinting through the woods, hollering, so I get up and sprint after him with a flashlight and musket in hand. He's cursing up a storm into the woods, and he's a pretty poor runner so I catch up to him almost immediately. When I shine my light on him, he's got no shirt or socks on, holding his labelle and a flashlight and looks completely winded. What are you doing? I shouted at him. I got up to pee

and when I came back, this bear was in my tent and running off with my freaking sleeping bag. I sighed and turned head back. On the way back to camp, I kept finding these cans of Diet Coke on the ground. And that's when it dawned on me that the bear wasn't after his sleeping bag, but it was after the sodas that he had stashed with him. The guy was probably sleeping in a pile of empty cans or something, and I threw a spare mylar bag at him later to use to sleep, but he decided that he'd rather stay up the whole night rooting around the woods for old slew foot. I never saw a man so mad and driven to murder a bear. I mean,

it was like the bear had slept with his wife. He still had a box left in his cooler, but he never got over that the beast would steal his sleeping bag. And to this day, he tells me the bear wanted his bag and that he definitely wasn't snuggling his Diet Coke. My friends, who will remain nameless, and I decided to go hunting a few years back. We headed out to Harrisburg and found a location near a large game land area north of the city. I mean, the hunting itself was fairly uneventful. However, we saw a lot of buck, so that was cool, I guess. We were trekking through this valley up a stream that seemed a little flooded out, though, as a few months prior,

Tropical Storm Lee had just hit the state. At one point, someone points out through the trees, and we find this old, rustic, if not beat up, cabin. I chalked it up to being a cool site for pictures, but someone else mentioned urban exploring. Of course, this idea won over the majority of the group, so exploring we went. I wasn't against the idea, but also, you hear so many cabin in the woods stories that you just think it'd be best not to experience it yourself. Well, that idea was heavily ignored, so in we went. It was actually kind of boring, I won't lie. Maybe urban exploring just isn't for me, I don't know. All I kept thinking about were loose nails, splintered wood, bacteria, and stuff like that. I had not given any thought to anything more than that.

Perhaps I should have, as in one of the rooms, and I swear to god, was a pentagram. The floor was stained with what I could only assume was old blood. My heart sank as someone said, it's time to go. We began the trek back to our truck as night began to fall and we tried to spot for deer as a way to pass time before we drove home. As for the room, the blood was probably not of a human, I mean it may have been, but logically thinking it could have been a rabbit or even deer, since we did see quite a lot of them. About a year or two later, I went back with a handful of friends of that group, only to find that the cabin simply

had collapsed in on itself. I'm sorry that this isn't some too spooky 4U skinwalker in a wood story where OP shoots the evil woodland witch and escapes, but also, you hear about pentagrams in stories and see it in movies all the time, so you'd think that you'd be desensitized to it. But seeing one in person, along with a pool of old, dried blood, that's some seriously disturbing stuff, for real. For two years, I worked for a commercial cleaning company. My regular job was cleaning a professional building downtown. You know, one of those office buildings that's all oral surgeons and gynecologists and that kind of thing. There were two security guards on shift every night. One sat in the lobby, kept an eye on it, and the other one watched the monitors in a room

in the basement. I knew one of the regular guys, Doug, pretty well. When he was watching the monitors, he used to watch me on screen. If I was cleaning one of the offices, he'd look it up in the building directory and call. Sometimes to chat, but more often he'd do it to mess around. Pretend to be a serial killer or something. It was dumb, but it was a pretty boring job, so I'm not complaining. So one night, I'm cleaning this really tacky oral surgeon's room. It had reflective black flooring, fake gold laid in the walls, and that really lame fake marble paint effect. I'm wiping down the chairs in the waiting area when all of a sudden one of

the phones start to ring. I pick it up and there's a lot of heavy breathing, panting almost, and a sort of slurping, hissing sound, like someone sucking through their teeth. So I assume it's Doug thinking that he's being funny and I just hang up. But when I go down to the lobby on my way out, he's on his way in. He wasn't working that shift. I guess it could have been one of the guys who was on, but I've always assumed that it was someone calling from outside. Probably just a prank call though. That's not really the end of it. You see, a few months later I'm down in the basement with Doug watching the monitors and smoking. They cycle through

different cameras on different floors only holding for a few seconds on each. So one of the monitors switches to a camera in that same office and I swear to god, a cabinet opens and someone small, maybe a kid or a little person climbs out and walks in the direction of the door. Doug freezes, tells me to wait down there and he goes up to look. So he heads out and I immediately lock the door. He doesn't come back down until nearing the end of his shift and refuses to tell me what happened other than to say that whatever the issue was, was dealt with. In 1996, I started law school at a big state school in the southern US. Other than studying, I spent most of my time playing MUDs over the internet until my school's IT cut me off, saying I was wasting resources.

For those that didn't know, MUDs, or multi-user dungeons, are multiplayer games crafted out of text-based actions and storylines. Remember, this was the 90s. PC games weren't wildly graphic back then. Anyway, the IT cutting me off was fine with me. For like $20 a month, I could buy unlimited dial-up from some independent ISP and play all I wanted. Thus, that's what I did, and things were going well. Until I started getting a lot of dropped connections. Like every 20 minutes my landline would disconnect. I lived in an apartment complex off-campus which made up of a ratio of 50-50, one half for grad students and the other half for the local rednecks. I called South Central Bell and they sent a guy out to check my line.

He fixed the problem and I discovered that my phone line had been tapped. Someone in this town where I had never lived and knew no one had tapped my phone to listen to my conversations. Whenever they tried while I was on the internet it caused enough interference to drop the connection. It wigged me out intensely but what could I really do about it and I just had to put it behind me. Then I left town for the summer and had my mail held at the post office until I came back for year two. I got back in August, picked up my mail, and had them resume normal mail service to my address. Two months later, I stopped receiving mail completely. It didn't register with me until they cut off my electricity for failure to pay a bill that I never received.

The lady at the post office said someone had forwarded my mail but wouldn't tell me who or to where my mail was going. It still puzzles me to this day on what was going on there. It almost felt like there was some sort of underground ring involving the school and that they were holding out on information. I've come here to you guys today because I've been trying to find a particular video. Some years ago in the early 2000s, a video was going around on internet forums similar to GIF and BEE. Forums where people shared interest in the macabre and disturbing sides of reality. The video still haunts me to this day. Don't get me wrong, I've seen a lot of gore videos. Not like I enjoy them or anything, but my curiosity gets the better

of me sometimes, I suppose. But there was just something completely unsettling about this one. There was a shot of a crowd of people in a dark room, talking and socializing. I'm not sure what kind of place it was, but I do remember large picture frames of some sort, so either it was some mansion or a motel. A muffled voice was sort of narrating things, but it was too distorted, or perhaps in a completely different language, so I couldn't make out anything that was being said. The camera focused on a single woman, dressed in white. She looked a bit complaining about something, looking kind of nervous.

Suddenly, her head just completely split open, like it was shot by a gun. Some people tend to the corpse while the head is falling apart, and I remember someone's comment mocking the people helping her, similar to how JFK's wife tried to pick up his remains. I can never forget the screaming and gore, not because it was the worst I've heard, but because it sounded distorted and artificial. Just as she was confirmed dead by one of the crowd members, something started coming out of her head. The best way I can describe it was a black object that had seemingly burst out from what was left of the head.

The video was too grainy and the area was too dark to make out specifically what it was, but it was on the floor, moving in a frightening manner, like a newborn animal. The video shook violently for a moment before ending. I didn't think that I'd ever actually want to see it again, but it's been haunting me so much lately, so any help would mean a lot. This event actually happened to me about a month ago. I get up every day at around 5.45am and leave for work at around 6. Usually I don't see anyone out at this time around my neighborhood. Like usual I pull up to the stop sign and ahead of me is a small red car. Out of

the blue, this massive man gets out and starts walking towards my car. I live in a less than safe area, so I'm already prepped with my 45. I take a deep breath and stare him down. But the closer he gets to me, the less crazy and angry he looks. I expected him to be some sort of lunatic or fiend, but he actually approached me rather calmly and motions me to roll down my window. I give him a close-up glance and decide, screw it, he looks just like me. Just a guy on his way to work, exhausted and regretting the old 9-to-5 life. I oblige and roll down the window. He proceeds to tell me to turn slowly and look behind about three houses down.

I do, and I notice some figure in all black is just staring at us. Dude at my window says he's seen him wandering in front of his house and others randomly for the last few weeks, but the dude always vanishes. I present my 45 and put my vehicle in park. Me and my new friend go and see who this creep is and why he's lingering outside houses and whatnot. And well, as we get closer, I can tell that this guy is enjoying himself, right there in public. I raise my 45 and tell him that I'll shoot it right off if he moves. In the meanwhile, my new friend calls the cops.

Long story short, the creep happens to be a registered offender, home invader, and attempted murderer. And how the guy isn't permanently in jail somewhere will always bother me. In the end, my new friend and I hang out now and cook out with our families, and it's good to know my neighbors are watching out for one another. To be continued... Let me preface the story by telling you that it's been a long time since this happened. While it is a true story, I've had to add some details to make the story flow in a somewhat coherent fashion because I don't remember absolutely everything that happened. Also, my sequence of events may be a little messed up, but that doesn't change the fact that some of these moments are still absolutely frozen in my mind. When I was somewhere around 8-10 years old, I went camping with my girl scout troop. There were about 12-15 of us girls and two female leaders. The camp had six of those permanent tents made of wooden platforms, canvas covering, and bunk beds. Three to four were

facing the main part of the camp, two were set back a bit in the woods behind the picnic shelter, and behind those two tents was the path that led to the latrines. On the first day, we all picked out our sleeping spots and our tent was one girl short. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening doing typical Girl Scout stuff, and we spent the evening around the fire singing and eating marshmallows. The counselors finally made us go to bed at around 10pm. When we got to our tent, we used our flashlights to find our bunks and get settled in. It was around this time that we noticed that someone was sleeping in what would have been the empty bunk. We didn't think much of this as it wasn't really unusual for someone to arrive at camp later than the main group

and some of the girls had gone back to their tents before the fire time was over. I am a total insomniac and it's even worse if I'm not in my own bed. I tossed and turned trying to force myself to fall asleep that night, but it wasn't happening. After doing this for about an hour, I heard the springs of one of the other beds squeak like someone was getting up. I turned my head to see someone standing up from the previously empty cot. In the very low light, I could just make out the figure of someone standing,

pausing for a moment, then moving toward the front entrance of the tent. The person opened the flap, left the tent, and I figured that whoever it was just needed to go use the bathroom. I still couldn't sleep, so I figured that I'd wait and see if I could tell who the girl was when she got back. I waited and waited, but I finally drifted off to sleep before the girl came back. When we woke the next morning, we discovered that the bed was empty, and there were no blankets or suitcases near the bed.

We talked to the other girls to try to figure out who had been in our tent, but we found out that nobody had come in late, and nobody was missing from their tents. Still, there's always a chance that one of the girls got frustrated at the other girls in their tent and decided to switch out for the night. That kind of thing always happens with girls, I guess. And that night, we spent a long time around the campfire again. At some point during the evening, one of the girls stands up and starts walking towards the woods, in the opposite direction of where the tents and shelter were. As she got close to the tree line, one of the counselors called out to her to see what she was doing, but she just kept walking straight into the woods.

The counselor called to her another time and then went after her. The other counselor did a head count to try to figure out who was missing. When she got to the end, she stared at us and started counting again. The other counselor came back saying that she couldn't see where the girl had gone When she got to the end, she stared at us and started counting again. The other counselor came back saying that she couldn't see where the girl had gone and she needed the bigger flashlight. When she asked who was missing, the counselor who had been trying to count us said, Nobody. The counselors even pulled out the roster to check us off and we were all right there.

We were all a little shaken up so the counselors decided it was time for us to get to the bathrooms and get ready for bed. Everybody was a little creeped out so we all went as a group to the bathroom. I washed up and brushed my teeth first so I was one of the last to actually go to the toilets. As I was in there I heard someone moving around in the stall next to me. I said something to her, probably asking if she needed toilet paper, but she didn't answer me. When I finished, I knocked on the other stall door, but nobody answered even though I could still hear noises inside and the door was locked. I went out and told one of the counselors who went back in with me to check it out. But when we went in, the door was unlocked and there was nobody there.

There was no other way out of the bathroom besides the front entrance that I was standing two feet from when I was talking to the counselor. The girls that were in the tents that were separated from the others were a little freaked out, and they didn't want to sleep out there, but since they were right next to the counselor's tent and they were reassured and sent to bed. When we reached our tent we saw that again there was someone in the spare bunk. This time we figured one of the girls from the far tent had snuck over in spite of what the counselors had said. And really do you think any of us had the courage to lift the blanket off of that bed? We settled in for that night and I was wishing that I could fall asleep so that I didn't have to be awake alone. Soon enough I could hear the snores of the other girls and I was still staring at the ceiling of the tent and that's when I heard the springs of one of the beds squeak

again. I opened my eyes and stared at what was supposed to be our vacant cot. There was someone standing up again. I could just make out the figure standing there in the dark. It stood there for about thirty seconds this time before it moved across the tent and out the flaps. Needless to say, I was too scared to scream for a counselor because I was afraid that whatever it was would come back. I laid awake for what seemed like hours staring at the tent flap, hoping that it wouldn't happen again. I must have fallen asleep at some point because the next thing I remember it was morning.

Again, the cot was empty. This time I told the counselor what I had seen and they asked the girls at breakfast who had been in our tent, but none of the girls admitted to being there. All of the girls in my tent had seen the figure of the cot both nights, but I was the only one who had seen it leave. That day was pretty sedated because everyone was a bit on edge, so in order to keep our minds off of it that evening, the counselors planned for us to have a bunch of snacks and games around the campfire that night. We had stuff to make little hand pies, banana boats, s'mores, and cinnamon apples.

We were all planning to make absolute pigs out of ourselves. The counselors set up all the goodies in the picnic shelter, which was about 30 to 40 feet away from the campfire ring. The girls would go over and set up their snack and bring it back to the fire to cook out. When I went over, there were a few girls finishing up and they left before I had finished making my banana boat. As I was adding my chocolate chips, there was a huge bang, like a gunshot in the woods, and it was followed by yells that seemed to be coming from different directions. I dropped my snack and went running

over to the fire. Everyone had heard it, and some of the girls were near tears. As we sat there, we heard more noises and yells from the woods. The fire was in the middle of a clearing, surrounded by woods, and it was an awful feeling to realize how exposed we were and that anybody could be out in the woods watching us. Instead of going to the latrines that night, most of us just went behind the tents and the girls that were in the far tent were moved into ours. In fact, we consolidated into two or three tents by adding cots and the counselors slept in the fourth tent.

We were packed in like sardines but everyone would sleep easier with more people nearby. We also propped up one of the flashlights on the floor to illuminate the tent as we slept. I actually fell asleep pretty quickly that night because I had had two sleepless nights before but I ended up waking up at some point in the night because of some noises. I opened my eyes, but I found that the tent was now dark. It seemed that the flashlight had died at some point, and as I managed to get my bearings, I realized that the noise that I was hearing was the sound of someone getting up out of one of the cots.

I nearly stopped breathing as I watched the figure stand. I had to shift my head this time to get a better look. It stood in one place even longer this time and I couldn't stop watching. It seemed to be leaning over and looking at some of the other girls and it started making its way between the cots towards the front flaps. As I neared my cot I snapped my eyes shut and tried to slow my breathing, pretending I was asleep. I could hear it come to my bed, and it stood there for a long time. I presumed that it was staring at me, but I wasn't about to open my eyes and find out. Eventually it moved past me and I heard the sound of the tent flap being opened.

I still kept my eyes shut tight because I was so afraid that it was trying to trick me. And that's when I heard the most god-awful noise I'd ever heard. Have you ever watched one of those viral videos of cats trying to talk? That's honestly the most accurate way to describe it, but it was much louder. It didn't sound like a human or an animal. The sound seemed to be coming from outside of our tent and nearby, but all of a sudden, the girls in the next tent over started screaming like they were being murdered. All of our flashlights were switched on in rapid succession. We could hear the other girls still screaming and running out of their tent.

We all stumbled out of our tent to see what the hell was going on, and by the time we made it out, most of the girls were near the fire pit and the counselors were headed for them. From what the girls were able to recall, they heard the horrible noise outside, and that's when they saw someone or something enter their tent. In all of the confusion, nobody saw exactly what had entered, but they had seen the figure open the tent flap. The counselors tried to console the girls, and the one that was particularly brave took a flashlight and headed toward the tent. She searched the tent, but she couldn't find anyone or anything. We spent the rest of the night all

jammed in a group near the fire and not a single one of us got any sleep. The next morning we decided to pack up and leave early after one of the counselors discovered that the door to the dining hall had been opened and things had been moved around. Nobody but the counselors had access to the dining hall and the doors had been padlocked the night before. Alright X, I'm not a very supernaturally inclined person and have always shied away from anything to do with spirits. But to this day I can't really provide any rational explanation for the story. I was camping on the eastern coast of Australia around Christmas a couple of years ago. At the time, we were using an old four-wheel drive, we being my parents and sister. It was getting towards evening and we'd been driving for a couple of hours with a particular

destination in mind to camp for the night. We get to the turnoff for the national park where we were going to camp, and we get to the camping ground, and it's absolutely packed, like sardine level. I guess that's because we were in that Christmas, New Year period and a lot of people were out and about. Needless to say, we were going to need to find another place to sleep. We started to drive back along the dirt road towards the highway, a little disheartened as we didn't know any alternative spots to sleep nearby. And that's when we suddenly noticed another road leading off of one that we were on. We still had probably an hour of light so we decided to drive down it for a while and see if it led anywhere

that we could pitch a tent. It was pretty badly maintained, full of divots and potholes, but the car handled it well. We followed this road for a fair while before we ended up in a little clearing beside the bank of this broad tidal river. It was extremely beautiful, but no grass, so we decided to keep looking. We noticed that there were several roads departing from the clearing besides the one that we entered it by. We picked one and started to drive down it as night time was approaching quite rapidly. I'd say that by this point we had maybe 45 minutes of light left to find somewhere. We drive through what seems like a maze of dirt roads before we ended up at this weird little car park. We seem to be at the top of some hill

with a small walking track that began at the car park leading down into the forest. We decided to scout it out and after about a minute or two on this track, suddenly we emerged from the trees and are looking down into this absolutely gorgeous camping spot. The ground where we were standing sloped gently down to form this beautiful little gully, covered with short grass. It was really small, basically the perfect size for a couple of tents. To the left, a path between some rocky ridges led directly to the beach, which couldn't have been more than 25 meters away. To the right, the crease of the valley continued with the grass giving way to some low-lying trees and longer grasses.

We were absolutely gobsmacked. Not five minutes ago, we were somewhat frantically trying to find somewhere to sleep and suddenly, we found ourselves in what I would confidently call the most beautiful camping spot I'd ever seen. However, something wasn't right. From the moment we came out of the tree line and first caught a sight of the spot, something just felt wrong. Like really, really wrong. This inexplicable simmering dread had come over us all and we all felt it. I'm not talking about feeling a bit scared. Our bodies, on a base instinctual level, were telling us to get out of this place instantly.

As we descended to the base of the valley, we noticed a black crow sitting on a lower branch of one of the trees to the right side. It was just sitting there, motionless, staring at us. That may sound creepy or cheesy, but honestly, we weren't that shook by it because Aussie crows do tend to stare. We walked out to the beach and then back, across the grass and into the trees. We were having a bit of a look around and we ended up finding this little pool of tepid water, which we'll call a billabong. It had this massive shell midden beside it. And for those that don't know, shell middens are piles of shells and other things created by aboriginal people living in an area pre-colonization. Evidently, the aboriginal people thought this spot was just as nice as we did.

We continued through the trees and before long the valley ended at the bank of the same tidal river we saw earlier. It's quite something to behold. We've managed to somewhat shake off our earlier fears and are feeling a little more light hearted. We start back towards the grass so we can head back to the car to get to our tents and begin to settle in. And again, the crow is still sitting on the branch. We're watching it for a few seconds and then... It just drops dead. It falls backwards off the branch and into the long grass. We all just look at each other, obviously horrified and just like that, all of our earlier fears have returned. Despite these obvious warning signs, we were still set on camping here so we got up to the car and get our stuff.

We're pitching the tent when mom decides to go collect some wood for the fire. After a while we notice that she hadn't came back to the camp yet. Obviously we're already on edge so we drop what we're doing and go look for her. We begin to walk back through the trees since she wasn't on the beach. We finally find her but her eyes are transfixed on the surface of the pool of the water. We call out to her and it's like she snaps out of some weird hypnotic trance. Confused, she comes back to the camp and we get everything all set up. At this point, we're probably 20 minutes from nightfall. Dad and I go out to the beach, just chatting or whatever, and we look along the top of the ridge, which looks down on the beach.

And that's when we see a tall, white figure standing along the top of the cliff looking down on us. We both just stare at it, terrified, trying to convince ourselves that it's just a rock or a tree trunk or something rational to explain what we're seeing. It's definitely not human, whatever it is. We go back to the camp having decided not to share what we've seen with the others since everyone is really shook by this point. The simmering dread is becoming more and more pronounced. Him and I sit down and decide to try and unwind for a bit to get our mind off the situation. We were both into Magic the Gathering at the time, and we purchased a couple of booster packs earlier that day.

So we decide to open them and have a bit of fun, opening probably six or seven packs. Realize that, without fail, the rare card in each pack had been a black rare, some sort of demon or something else relating to death. This doesn't mean anything, but it was still such an eerie coincidence combined with the atmosphere of things. Once it gets dark, we decide that it'd be best to just try and sleep. So we all get into bed, but we're all too terrified to sleep. After a while, we start to drift off despite our fear,

except dad, who decides there's no way he's going to sleep, and that he may as well stay up and keep an eye on things in case he needs to protect us. He's sitting on a rock outside of the tent when he sees something out of the corner of his eye. He turns quickly and finds himself face to face with a completely white kangaroo. on a rock outside of the tent when he sees something out of the corner of his eye. He turns quickly and finds himself face to face with a completely white kangaroo, just staring at him. Albino kangaroos are real but extremely rare. He tells me it was at least five feet tall as he recalled the tall white figure we saw earlier.

Suddenly, another immense feeling of dread overcomes him, and he decides it's time for us to leave right now. We all wake up, pack up frantically, and literally run out as quickly as we can. Get back to the car, the time being just nearly 11pm and dad claims that he hadn't slept at all, that he'd been sitting outside for no more than an hour after we all went to bed. In reality, it had been four hours. We somehow managed to navigate our way out of the maze of dirt roads and get back onto the highway, and words cannot describe the weight that lifted when we drove out of that place, like it honestly felt like I had just avoided death. We ended up finding an overnight spot nearby and crashed there. When we got up in the morning and after what happened that night prior, we did a little

bit of research and asked a couple of questions. Apparently, there were some gruesome aboriginal genocides which happened within that very national park. Could it be that that valley was the location of one of them, that the spirits of the dead still lingered? On top of that, my father spoke to a friend of his who had worked closely with aboriginal people. The albino kangaroo is a powerful symbol in aboriginal folklore, meaning the guardian of the dead. I probably should have gone to therapy for this, but money's always been too tight. Or I guess that's just what I tell myself to avoid guilt. I've moved away from my home state and I've cut everyone out of my life.

Everyone. I don't have friends where I do live nor have I kept in contact with my family. Everyone probably thinks I'm dead and I guess I hope to keep it that way. The following events happened right after graduating high school. It was me, my girlfriend at the time, and a mutual friend between us. All three of us had class together and that's how we ended up becoming good friends. It was never a third wheel situation, we all put the friendship before the relationship. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't neglecting her, who I'll just refer to as Sarah.

I was in love with her, she was the one. I actually thought about us prioritizing the friendship over the relationship was super healthy for us. Granted, we had only dated for about four months up until about then, but I really was willing to go to college with her. Besides, time is a man-made construct or whatever people say. And anyway, as for the mutual friend, I'll just call him Tony. That summer, we began planning the massive celebration. We were adults now. We were free. The irony of it all, originally it was going to be a party, but Sarah was against that idea.

That's when Tony sparked up with a big hiking event. One week out into the woods. Photography, camping, hiking, etc. The typical novice idea of camping, really. Sarah was hooked from the get-go and I even voiced my concerns about going for a whole week, but I eventually caved. A week with friends and nature did sound like a great way to disconnect from the world. We pack the necessities and I bring my bow because my parents are extremely liberal so no guns. Tony apparently brought bear mace and Sarah wanted to bring her dad's knives but never actually did. We throw all of our belongings into my SUV and head out. Again, no details but I will say that I remember the first day. It was kind of boring outside. The heat wasn't bad, but the sun wasn't out so my pictures I took turned out pretty dreary. We must have hiked for close to three hours before finding a spot to settle down. We set up tents and sleeping bags,

with Sarah and I sharing a tent and Tony setting up this dinky little tent for himself. Time passed differently when I was out there. Sometimes one hour felt like six and other times one hour was gone in the blink of an eye. Now it was the fourth day out. We all were having an incredible time. We actually hadn't done too much intense hiking aside from Tony attempting to climb trees. Instead, the three of us spent our time just sitting in hammocks or chairs, talking away and talking about life. We would crack jokes and then instantly get super serious and philosophical. What's past the stars? Are we the universe experiencing ourselves?

And whatever else Tony's weed had us discussing. Anyway, that morning I noticed our canteens were nearing empty. I woke Sarah up to tell her that I was refilling the water and that I'd be right back, and she gave me a quick kiss before snuggling back up to my pillow. There was a clear stream about 20 something minutes from our spot, which, thinking about it now, it was stupid to camp so far away from. I guess it's easier to critique memories instead of the present time though. I walk over to Tony's tent and ask if his canteen needs a refill. He asks if I'm heading out there alone and then hands me his bottle. I think the reason we didn't hike too often was because Tony was terrified of bears, and I mean petrified. Hell, it'd explain why he was so obsessed with

trying to climb the trees. I began my hike and at first I'm happy that I'm alone. I get time to my thoughts and get to truly disconnect and even go on a slight detour. See, normally we all would go together to refill but as time went on I couldn't help but begin to feel wrong. Not like being watched or anything cliche, I just felt wrong that I shouldn't be doing this right now. I should be back at camp, cuddling up beside Sarah or making breakfast with Tony. I get to the stream and the urge just suddenly intensifies, like an impact to my gut. I fill up Sarah's canteen and begin to race back. I knew it'd be stupid to explain to them why I only had one filled and I figured that I could just be like,

I dropped the other bottles, let's all go back together or something. My brain kept replaying that anxiety that I just needed to get back to the campsite. I was maybe five to ten minutes away from the campsite and that's when I heard it. It sounded like moaning. I paused for a second, asking myself what the hell was happening. My next initial thought was that Tony and Sarah were hooking up or something, and that thought alone filled me with disgusting rage. It still disgusts me to this day.

Another moan. I noticed the moans were very off and I actually began to question where they were hooking up because I don't know how to describe it. It wasn't happening in rhythm or consistently if you catch my drift. There'd be a moan, quite a lengthy pause and then like a breathy gasp. I finally get to the hill by our campsite and it's just blood. Everywhere. Clothes, pieces of tent, food, and Sarah. It's hazy, and I guess for good reason, but I remember only seeing the top half of Sarah. From her stomach down was just red. Nothing but red. For a second my brain tried to tell me it was all a trick. That this was just some crude prank that Tony would pop out and be all like, haha, should have seen your face man. That Sarah, the girl who

I claimed to be my soulmate and that I had planned college for, would open her eyes and be like, it's just fake blood, me and Tony planned this elaborate joke on you and then give me a kiss. Something. Anything. But Tony never popped out. Because Tony's body got dragged away. And Sarah never opened her eyes. Sarah never got to give me a kiss. I never got to hear her tell me that she loved me one last time. I never got to tell her that I wanted to go to her college. And I think that's the thing about grief. Everyone experiences it differently, but you suddenly realize all the things you're not going to be able to experience again. Once reality set in, my brain went into autopilot survival mode.

I thought, grab a weapon and run. You're three hours away from civilization, and whatever is out here that did this will not care that you called 911. So I did just that. I grabbed my 45-pound recurve bow and ran. Should I have ran? Probably not. But again, we're quick to criticize memories. I'll be honest, I don't know what killed Sarah and Tony at the time. I don't know what dragged Tony's body away. I called the police once I got back to my car and after questioning, they eventually let me off. My parents tried their best and even Sarah's parents tried to console me. I'll always respect them for that, because I expected them to be explosive and angry towards

me. That it's my fault that their daughter died, and it's what I tell myself still to this day. Survivors, guilt or what not. Apparently a few days later they found Tony's remains. I was told over a phone call that it was a black bear attack and that there was nothing I could have done. That it seemed to be a family of black bears that attacked or something like that. That I was lucky to be alive. I remember someone telling me that it was fate. I didn't tell anyone. I figured they'd all discover it in the news. Bear attacks grad students.

I just sold everything I had, and I mean everything, and I ditched town. I left everything behind me, and to this day, I never look back. 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.