The Lets Read Podcast - 277: PEOPLE LOST THEIR MINDS IN THIS HOUSE | 16 True Scary Stories | EP 265

Episode Date: February 4, 2025

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about living off the grid, school bullies & scary school teachers HAVE A STORY TO SUBMIT? [e-mail] FOLLOW ME ON - ►YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/letsreadofficial ► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsread.official/ ► Twitter - https://twitter.com/LetsRead ♫ Music, Audio Mix & Cover art: INEKT https://www.youtube.com/@inekt Today's episode is sponsored by: - Betterhelp

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If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. I'll be the first to admit that I used to be a major asshole. I used to make a living as an armed robber. No joke. And I was mostly targeting big chains with cash that was on site.

This is sort of a confession. Their employees never gave a crap to really do anything, whereas you rob a mom and pop shop, and you tend to get less mom and more pop, pop, pop, if you know what I mean. I'm trying to make light of it, but either way, I robbed places because I was addicted to heroin. I did just about anything and everything I could get my hands on, but my main thing was H, and to get it, I had to roll with some pretty terrible people. It wasn't so bad if I was around my home turf. I knew the right places to go and the right people

to talk to. But whenever I was off on business, which tended to be frequent as you don't want to poop where you eat, as they say, I had to attach myself to certain other folks if I wanted to get what I needed. And I mean it, man. I rolled with some very scary dudes back in the day, but none as scary as Tyran and Lash DeFore. The one and only time I met one of them was when I was down in Georgia, running drugs for some biker gang down there. The DeFores used to make this really killer meth, military grade shit, but they only ever sold in bulk from this compound that they had out in the sticks, and they only ever met you in this one place, away from their cookhouse so no one could find it. It was hard to get a hold of them, even harder to put an order in for a shipment as they

usually sold everything to this group of guys down in Florida to put an order in for a shipment as they usually sold everything to this group of guys down in Florida to keep their profile low. This one time, I get told to drive out to that drop site and wait until either Tyran or Lash showed up with the shipment. And so, I drive out to the place, wait there a while, and then this big shirtless dude comes walking out of the woods carrying a backpack. The dude is covered in tattoos with what looked like a really bad hair dye job, but what I later learned was the fumes from him cooking so much bleaching his hair. Anyway, he walks up, looking like I'm something that he found on his shoe, and we make the exchange before he starts

asking about people that I'd never even heard of. And the dude was completely whacked out on something, because he kept like staring at me in confusion whenever I'd say, dude I don't know who you're talking about here, sorry. He seemed like mad at first, like I was lying to him or something, but then on his last name he just started laughing as if to be like, whatever dude. And after that he walked off back into the woods to wherever the hell his compound was and I drove back to the shop to drop the shipment and collect my payment. A couple of hours later I'm linking up with a buddy of mine to score some H when I start telling him about the creepy spacey dude that I met out in the woods. The second I get to telling him about this guy's tattoos he starts asking if I knew the guy's name. Then when I told him it was either Tyran or Lash he starts making faces as if to say,

Hot damn, you just walked into the lion's den and only got out again by the grace of God. And my buddy then goes about telling me about everything he knows about the Dufour brothers, and everything he'd heard anyway. So these Dufour brothers lived out there in the woods in some hidden compound that they'd built with their own hands, completely off the grid. It was just a lab, cookhouse at first, and all the necessary equipment, but I guess they got sick of driving to and from all the time, and decided to just live out there full time so they could work whatever they wanted to, day or not, without any interruptions whatsoever.

And according to the guy I hooked up afterwards to score some H with, the way the DeFore brothers guaranteed no interruptions was to booby trap the surrounding area with the kinds of stuff that you only see in Vietnam movies. Spike pits, swing and trigger traps, and they even had tripwire grenades strung up in the trees where only Lash or Tyran could see them. I was told that every so often a deer would trigger one of the traps, and that mostly that's how they got their food. But to keep the people at bay, the Dufours had to get a little more creative. The devil traps, I heard them called bird traps too, they look like those little stickman things from the Blair Witch movie. I don't know how creepy people would find them these days, that movie's

25 years old now, but they sure would have worked on anyone who'd seen that movie. I remember listening to all that and thinking, sure they sound dangerous, but at least they just want to be left alone. Well, the Dufour they just want to be left alone. Well the DeFore brothers did want to be left alone but only during working hours. The trouble was they weren't exactly the man about town types. Both had multiple warrants so they couldn't exactly stroll into town for a few cocktails without cops throwing their butts in jail. So instead of going to the party, the DeFores brought the party to them. And they were swimming in cash. Crystal, they sold LSD, so they used to get a whole bunch

of girls out there to spend a few days with them whenever they wanted to party. Professionals, you know what I'm saying. They were there to smoke bulls and get paid, but they always got way, way more than they bargained for. No girl ever went twice. They wouldn't. They had to get these new girls in, ignorant ones, or ones who knew that they could spend a few days getting high as a kite, if they could only put up with Tyran and Lash's proclivities, I'll just say. My buddy said that he didn't know exactly what they used to get up to,

but that he had heard from one girl that the DeFore brothers liked scaring girls that they had delivered to them. They used to dose them up with a bunch of drugs, and then do all kinds of things to them, try to make them lose their minds. I heard some really weren't ever the same again, and that some of them disappeared afterwards, wanting to get as far away from the Dufour brothers as possible. I heard they were into some weird religious stuff out there too, something like Santeria, but probably a lot more like devil worship by the sounds of it. Supposedly, Lash and Tyran used to get high as hell, light fires, cut the heads off of animals they trapped,

and then drink the blood in these messed up, meth-fueled, ritual-type binges. They had all kinds of old books lying around on witchcraft and Satanism and how you can, like, open up portals with your mind if you think on it real hard. All kinds of crazy crap like that. I think Lash had all sorts of devil tattoos too. Like it wasn't just a style thing for him. They really believed it. I mean they always said those boys were crazy and with all the drugs and crystal meth out there I can believe they smoked themselves onto another freaking planet. Another time someone had to go back to their compound for some reason, and after avoiding all the booby traps and all of that, they found Lash DeFore had a friend with him.

Whoever it was hadn't seen this new friend around before, which was weird because it was usually only people they really trusted that ever saw the compound, and he'd been working with them for a year by then, so that was to be expected. But then, to see this young looking kid, maybe 19 or 20, sitting there all whacked out looking like he was having a bad trip, that gave our visitor all kinds of bad vibes, especially when he saw how Lash was messing with him. The kid didn't seem like he was having fun at all, and he even got up and tried to get away. Lash just started laughing, tripped the kid up and then threw him back on their outdoor couch before telling him to stay put. Lash was always messing with people like that, I mean, he loved doing it with hookers and he'd do it with his friends too. And the only thing was, the kid's face was on the news for weeks afterwards.

It went missing, and never showed up again. Then there was this one time these two guys tried screwing the DeFore brothers over. Very sly too, slipping a few fake bills into a stack. Anyway, it didn't slip by them, but instead of going after them and taking what was theirs up front, the DeFore brothers pretended not to notice. They went along with it, really made the guys that they were selling to, making them think that they were idiots. And then one day, the boys invite their business partners over for a few drinks and no one ever sees them again. I heard Tyran still talks about their skulls, like he gets all messed up on whatever they got over there and

then just stares at them, laughing sometimes like they're telling him jokes that no one else can hear. After my buddy finishes telling me about the Dufour brothers, I think about every hair on my body was stood up on end, knowing I'd avoided a similar fate to some of the other poor folks that had made it out near their compound. Made me real glad that I only ever had to deal with them that one time, because get on those boys' bad side and I don't think I'd ever gone anywhere near the state of Georgia ever again. There's some real psychos out there in the world, and the less time you spend around them, the better. So this is going to be a really wild ride.

And there's some pretty personal family details in here too, so I'm not naming any names or places to try and keep my anonymity. So, basically a few years back, I found some old photographs of an uncle on my dad's side. They were photos that I was not supposed to find and the reason behind that was pretty obvious. The only photos I'd ever seen of this uncle, who had moved away when I was much younger, were from when he and my dad were kids or in their early teens. I'd never seen him as an older kid or a grown up because by that stage he was very distant with the family and then moved across the country before I was out of kindergarten.

Apparently he came to see me one time when I was a baby but aside from that I had no real memories of him, just the old photos my dad let me see. But by that day, I saw the photos that he didn't want me to see, and everything kind of just fell into place. I remember opening up the little envelope, taking out the pictures, and feeling this intense feeling of confusion for a few minutes as I flicked through those pictures. The photos seemed to be taken at a music show of some kind, as I remember thinking, did my dad used to be a punk? Because there was a lot of that kind of style among the people attending the show. But then the more I looked,

the more I noticed that two or three people appeared over and over again. They had closely shaven heads, worn big black boots and denim, and each had a swastika either on their jacket somewhere or tattooed somewhere prominent like their neck, shoulder, or arm. That grabbed my attention all on its own, but the thing that really had me pulling back was the fact that one of these skinheads with that tattoo looked a hell of a lot like my uncle Alan, the one I hadn't seen since I was a baby. There was actually a moment where I thought one of the other guys might have been my dad, so when I was half freaking out by the time I climbed down from the attic and took the pictures to show mom, who just kept saying I think you need to talk to your father about this, in a way that told me that she knew the whole story but didn't want to be the one to

have to tell me. Now anyway, about half an hour later, my father and I are having a massive yelling match, mostly surrounding the fact that he and mom had chosen to hide something huge from me. But the thing that really made me explode was how he started telling me, Alan's not a bad guy, you don't understand. Now imagine being me, in that moment and having your dad tell you that your Nazi uncle isn't a bad guy. I mean, that's the dictionary definition of a bad guy, right? I couldn't understand why dad would say something so insane when the evidence that his brother was some evil bastard was right there right in front of him. And the argument got really intense. Things got very emotional, but as much as I tried to get my dad to talk to me about it, to explain why he'd kept things hidden, he just didn't want to talk to me about it at all.

And then, after I don't know how long, he burst into tears. And it's the only time I'd ever seen my dad cry. My mom then basically chased me out of the room telling me, give your father and I a minute to talk. And much like my dad crying, I rarely saw my mom get that mad. Seeing dad cry had already shut me up but then seeing my mom so furious had me running upstairs when she started to snap at me. Like I know it was already a tense situation but seeing dad cry and seeing mom get so mad, that's what made me realize that there might have been more to the

story than just my uncle being a jerk. I was still angry, but I also felt kind of dumb for not realizing that there was a whole backstory behind my uncle and his especially bad life decisions, and it was one that was very painful for my father to have to remember. I knew it'd be a crazy story. There's no way that it couldn't have been. But when I sat down with dad and he told me the whole thing from start to finish, I had to pick my jaw up off the floor afterwards. Uncle Alan was just two years younger than my dad and they were best friends growing up. But around the age of 13, my uncle's behavior started to change and he became my dad's polar opposite in just about every way. He fell in with a bad crowd,

a really bad crowd, and the deeper he went down that skinhead rabbit hole, the more he became completely incompatible with any kind of civilized society. Those were basically my dad's words too. He didn't want my uncle around me when I was a kid. He still loved him, but he wasn't about to let some meth head around his daughter, and the same applied to almost everyone else too. He became a pariah, and soon living in the city got too much for him. You can't exactly walk around with those kinds of tattoos and not get yourself into trouble, I guess, so Uncle Alan started looking for some else place to live, and that's when he heard about some white supremacist militia turned doomsday cult living out in the middle of

nowhere. He and Dad were talking around the time he moved away, so Dad doesn't know exactly how it all came about, but Uncle Alan ended up living with these people and basically preparing for the end of the world. Not the end in any biblical sense, but like a helter-skelter style race war that'd end society as we know it. There were all kinds of people out there too, from all walks of life, whole families too, but they were all there because of that one ugly thing that united them. Hate. Yet having families meant that there were kids there, a bunch of them, but apparently not everyone had their best interests in mind. Somehow, Uncle Alan discovered

that a few of the guys that he'd stayed with were in the process of trying to groom one of the girls that was part of one of the families. I don't know how exactly, but there was some kind of confrontation, and Uncle Alan's worst fears were confirmed. He went straight to the group's leader, but instead of acting on the tip and investigating what was going on, the leader tried to downplay the whole thing and told my uncle that he was just being paranoid. Personally, I think the guy was in on it, but excuse me if I'm kind of biased towards literal Nazis. Anyway, Uncle Alan figures that he was faced with two choices at that point. Number one, do nothing and just allow these racist scumbags to groom a little girl.

Or number two, find a way to get those kids as far away as possible and do so by any means necessary. I guess he knew he couldn't prove that the guys were trying to groom the girls, so there was a chance that the cops wouldn't be able to do anything about it. But what they'd be very interested in was all the illegal weapons and bomb-making equipment that they had stashed up there. And so, my Uncle Alan became a snitch. Apparently, he helped the feds sneak up to the place the group was staying, too. If he hadn't, there probably had been another Waco out there in the woods, and all those kids might have been killed in the crossfire. Heck, they might even done like a Jim Jones and killed everyone so the feds couldn't get to them.

So I understand why he'd cooperate to the point of actually guiding them in or telling them the secret password or whatever it was. But then after that, when everyone was up on charges, Uncle Alan had to go on the run. He could have turned state's witness, got a whole new identity, but he didn't want to work with the feds any more than he had to and he didn't want to go running to Uncle Sam to protect him from anyone or anything. And so instead, he pays my dad one last visit and then just disappears. I asked dad what was said during that last meeting and apparently it was mostly uncle Alan explaining what had happened out there in the woods and then apologizing for being away for so long without reaching out in any way. He then apologized again because he had to move far away and never come back because there were people who wanted him dead, you see.

I guess it was already a risk meeting my dad, and they met somewhere quiet after dark too, so I guess Uncle Alan was really serious about being in danger. After that, dad never saw or heard from him again, not even so much as a phone call. I don't even know if Uncle Alan came to regret his beliefs or his actions. I hope he did, and in my head I like to imagine that he found some dignity in helping those kids, or at least trying to help them, and that he was able to build himself up from that. But then again, maybe he's still the same guy, and I'd call him a piece of crap to his face if I ever met him and he still has those disgusting tattoos. But it's just kind of weird to think that a person like that could at least do some small amount of good in the world. Not enough to balance out the hate that he has, but still, better than nothing, I guess. I grew up in this one-horse town out in Kansas.

My parents owned a small general store but still struggled to make ends meet. Whenever I wasn't at school or playing over at a friend's house, I used to hang out at the store and do odd jobs for my parents. Nothing that'd break any child labor laws, just odds and ends to keep me occupied. One day I remembered this guy turning up to the store, kind of weird looking and the way he looked at me made me not want to be around him. He'd stop by every so often and whenever he did, I always tried to stay away from him. But this one time while he was browsing, my dad stepped into the

back and I was alone with the creepy customer for a minute or two. I remember walking to another aisle which towered over me at that age and trying to stay out of that guy's sight. But I remember standing there, then seeing him lean around the corner of the shelf, like one of those velociraptors in Jurassic Park with that big smile on his face. I think I was too nervous to just run off or maybe just not quite scared enough, but I remember standing there trying not to look at him and he came closer and kneeled down beside me. When he said hello, I had no choice but to look at him. I remember thinking that he was going to ask my name and really not wanting to tell him. But instead of asking me anything, he just told me how special I was. It was super weird because I remember going from thinking that he was a creep

to thinking maybe this guy isn't so bad after all. But then, what he said next I just found confusing. He told me, Little ladies like you are the most precious thing in the whole wide world, he said. And the key to everything is right inside here. And as he said that last part, he poked my tummy, soft, with one finger. I wasn't scared, I was just confused. He obviously didn't mean any harm, but at the same time, I knew he was still a stranger and not to be trusted.

The guy paid for his stuff and left, and I waited until he was out of earshot before telling my dad about what the man had said and done. I was also confused as to why my dad seemed so angry and it was mom who had to explain that it wasn't okay for any stranger to touch me anywhere for any reason at all. They told me that I did the right thing and apparently the guy came back a few days later only for my dad to chase him out of the store and tell him to never come back. A few years go by and I was still too young to really remember this, but mom and dad said that one day, the creepy guy's face was all over the papers, after state troopers had raided the house that he lived in out in the middle of nowhere. He was living out in some old

house with no electricity, no running water, basically living like some doomsday prepper completely detached from society. And with him were a bunch of female relatives, ones that he was inbreeding with. I think they must have rescued about half a dozen of those girls, most of them products of incest, and even though it was a huge, huge story, my parents managed to keep me pretty sheltered from it until I ended up finding out on my own. I was much older then, but it wasn't much easier to take, realizing what the guy meant when he said, the key to everything is right inside here. And it makes me sick to my stomach that people like that are just existing out there like they do.

And it makes me feel even sicker that I had one of them lay his dirty rotten finger right on me. I suppose he thought that he was letting me in on a little wisdom of his. When really, he was showing me what a sick, evil bastard he was deep down. over under money lines same game paul a's it's all fine you'll put a smile on your face bet on the sports you love with bet river sportsbook take a chance must be 19 plus available in ontario only please play responsibly if you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you please contact connects ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge When I was growing up, one of my best friends was a guy we called Gino. His real name was David, but after he first moved to Toronto in 10th grade, we nicknamed him Georgina after the little town he moved from. I guess it was just kids being cruel, a way of

reminding him that he was sort of an outsider. But as David stuck it out and proved that he could hang with us, Georgina got abbreviated to Gina, which ended up turning into the masculinized Gino. Gino won our respect pretty quickly too, and not just because he could handle a little playful abuse. He was obsessed with the counterculture of the 1960s. He loved the music, the rebellious attitudes, and he was fascinated by the whole concept of psychedelia. So it should be no surprise to no one that Gino was the first of us to seek out something a little stronger than the cans of Molson that we used to steal from our dads. We were big into partying, so we wanted to try stuff like weed or LSD.

But only Gino had enough balls, or street smarts really, to go off looking for it, and things stayed like that for years. We'd be happy to just sit in someone's bedroom, passing around a one-hitter and watching Koyaanisqatsi. But Gino wanted to keep raising the stakes and pushing the envelope. He wanted to learn how to brew up his own super powerful LSD and then go out into the woods and trip for days. And like most things with Gino, if he said he was going to do something, you could bet your butt that he was going to go ahead and do it. He was wild, he loved to party, but he never

let his lifestyle get the better of him. He did okay in high school, graduated from college, and then landed himself a well-paying job at some financial company near the waterfront, all while making home-brewed batches of high potency LSD in his apartment's spare bedroom. He was like Jim Patterson on Monday and then Jim Morrison on a Friday, which is an awesome joke if you're Canadian, I swear. Now anyways, so Gino carries on like that for years and years, slowly ramping up his psychedelic adventures until he was doing things like going to Mexico to do peyote with indigenous tribespeople, or Peru to take part in some ayahuasca ceremony hosted by his very own

personal shaman. And we never worried about him. Gino always seemed to be in control, and I guess that remained true right up until the day he seemed to just lose it. It started when his sisters started calling around his social circles, which obviously included me and a bunch of mutual friends, who all went to the same high school. Gino's sister said neither she nor their family had heard from him all week, and we tried calling Gino on his cell phone, and he wouldn't pick up any of our calls either. By the end of the next day, his family had called the cops to file a missing persons report, and as you can imagine, we were all pretty worried about him. But then a few weeks later, Gino reappeared,

only to not check in with his folks or let us know that he was okay. All he did was clear out his apartment and leave a letter in his parents' mailbox, one that basically said, sell or burn anything I left behind. I'm not coming back. Everyone was as freaked out as you can imagine. We went from mildly concerned to extremely worried about him and the not knowing was the worst part. Like I personally had this irrational fear that he'd been kidnapped or murdered or something, and that someone else had written the letter to confuse people or throw the cops off their trail. But when the cops spoke to Gino's landlady, she confirmed that he'd been in town that day, and that although he seemed rushed, she didn't think that he was in fear for his life or anything like that.

He hadn't given her any kind of forwarding address, he just packed up what he could and then left. On paper, that was contact right there, and knowing Gina was alive might have been enough for some other folks to call off the search. But then, because his folks still didn't know what was happening, they told the cops that they still wanted him found so they could confirm that he was safe. And by that time, we'd given up trying to call his cell phone, and it was a weight off our shoulders knowing that he was still alive and that he hadn't fallen victim to a murder or kidnapper or really anything. But we knew that there must have been something that made him run off like that, and I worried over that almost as much as I wondered where he'd gotten to. About two or three months went by, with me and Gino's other friends keeping

in constant touch with his family, and then one day, we heard that the cops had gotten a tip from someone up way over near Ottawa, and that's how they traced him to some cabin out in the Algonquin Provincial Park. A few cops went out to talk to him, and he only told them who he was after they promised to leave him alone. The cops left but immediately told Gino's family where he was. Gino's brother then went up to try and talk to him but he was gone, moved on again to who knows where. Gino's family tried to get the cops to carry on looking for him but that's not how those missing person things work. If the person doesn't want to be found, the cops can't very well go stalking them from place to place, even at the behest of

the person's family. If they wanted to track Gino down, they'd have to do it themselves. And looking back on it, it seems like the obvious thing to do would be for everyone to keep looking and not give up. We'd been handing out flyers, putting up posters, and this was in the early days of MySpace too, so I remember Gino's sister making a little page for him and adding a bunch of people to try to raise awareness. But that was before the cops went to talk to him out at that cabin, before word got around that he basically decided that he hated everyone and that he didn't want to see or talk to us anymore. People didn't take that well. They took it personally. They

didn't see it for what it was and I say all that from experience. We'd basically grown up together. We were best friends and I was ready to drive out there myself to go see him because just hearing that he didn't want to see us wasn't nearly enough to make us want to quit. It was the leaving the cabin that did it. Leaving the cabin said, This isn't some cry for help, stop looking for me. Leaving the cabin said, I don't owe you an explanation, which was honestly all we really needed.

We didn't want to control him, we just wanted closure, and I feel like we were entitled to it at the very minimum. That was in early 2004, and there was a time when I thought that we'd still be looking by the time it was 2005, but in reality, we'd all stopped looking by then, even his family. We figured that if he wanted to reach out, he'd do so, and it was all just a matter of time until that day came. Now cut to 2011, a full seven years later,

when I get a call from a mutual friend of ours named Abdi. He got in a missed call while he was at work, and when he listened to his voicemail, he heard a familiar voice on the other end telling him to call a number they left in the message at the exact time. The caller never said who it was, but when my buddy Abdi called me, he said that he was 99% certain that it was Gino, and then asked if I wanted to come over so I could be there when he called the number he'd given me. I drove over to his place almost immediately, and we talked about the call and how sudden it seemed,

right up until it came time to call the number, at which point we sat down at his table with a pen and paper in hand and then gave it a call. We didn't actually talk for all that long, but the long and short of it was this. It was Gino that had left the message on Abdi's voicemail, and although he didn't say where he was, he told us that he needed our help. He thought it was a big ask considering that we hadn't talked in seven years, but that he didn't know who else to call, even though he'd spent the last few days trying to

track down a working cell phone number for one of us. He'd understand if we told him to go F himself. Needless to say, we didn't tell him to do that, and although he had a ton of questions, Gino said that he'd answer them all if we agreed to meet him at this place called Whitney, which turned out to be a small town about halfway between Toronto and Ottawa. We were nervous on the drive up there and we mistimed our arrival by around 15 minutes, so we had to sit there, biting our nails and wondering if Gino was actually going to show up or not. But lo and behold, right on the stroke of six, we spotted someone walking into the parking lot of the little burger place that served as our

meeting spot, someone who looked a lot like Gino if he'd spent seven years living on the streets, or more accurately, living out in the middle of nowhere in the woods. It was an emotional reunion. No tears were shed. It felt very positive, but it was intense, really intense, and mainly because Gino started out by telling us how sorry he was. He said cutting off contact was a mistake and one he'd never forgive himself for, and that it hurt to think about all the time that we had lost. Hearing all that pretty much

knocked us off our feet. I mean, he covered a lot of stuff that we wanted to talk about in his opening little speech, and after that, there really wasn't much else to ask him. We wanted to know where and how he'd been living, but he wanted to know all that same stuff from us, too, and since we had him right where we wanted him, we figured that we could get him up to speed while we went inside and got a burger. We got to talking about all kinds of things, but eventually me and Abdi were able to ask Gino two things. Number one, where had he been living? And number two, what did he need our help with? Both questions could be answered by finishing our burgers, getting back into our car, Gino included, and letting him direct us towards the place that he was living, which was way out near this place called Little Hay Lake. As it turns out, Gino had been living almost

completely off the grid for almost six years in a trailer that he'd managed to haul down a dirt road and then far enough into the trees so that you couldn't see it anymore from the track. He walked into Whitney every so often to pick up whatever he couldn't shoot or forage for, and then hitched a ride further afield whenever he needed to make a few bucks, and the way he was earning those few buckaroos was by making LSD. Ultra-potent medical Strength LSD. And then because he was making it, he was having to test it out too, very frequently. But as far as we could tell, that suited him just fine.

I guess Gino just sort of found his calling. And the way he talked about it, he was happy. At least for a while he was anyways. he had everything he needed out in that trailer the place was relatively clean he had a little generator that he'd use to power a laptop and he had no internet but Gino didn't mind he had his dvds and that was all he needed but then came the problem that he needed our help with, and at first I was actually kind of scared that he'd killed somebody or something, and that he wanted our help disposing of a body. As it turned out, that wasn't the case, and there was nothing Gino needed help disposing of, but by the end of the next morning, there would be a body, and it wouldn't be one we needed any

help disposing of at all. We did a little more catching up back at the trailer, but then after a little looking around, I asked Gino, half-jokingly, if he was about to enlist our help in digging a shallow grave. Gino actually seemed kind of offended at first, but then Abdi started to laugh. It was a release of tension, I guess, pure relief that whatever Gino needed didn't involve covering up some horrible crime. I remember Abdi joking around saying, well whatever the hell it is, it can't be worse than that. As in, helping Gino hide the body, that is. Gino had been kind of laughing along with this, at least after shaking off the offense

that he took at the suggestion that he was a murderer. But when Abdi joked about how things could have been worse, Gino didn't laugh. He didn't even smile because, to him, things were about as bad as it was possible to get. I think maybe an hour passed between us arriving at the trailer and Gino actually sitting down and telling us what he needed help with, and when he did, that nervous tension returned again. I mean, if it was more serious than hiding a dead body, then it must have been really serious, right? Serious enough to be scared of the consequences. Serious enough to consider just getting the hell out of there if he dropped a bomb on us.

But when he actually told us, it was this weird mix of depressing and relief. Basically, Gina wanted us to call up just about everyone we knew, or everyone who we wanted to save, as he put it, and invite them out to the woods to set up an encampment. If we didn't, they were all going to suffer a fate worse than death. In so many words, Gino said that there was going to be a major change in Canadian society, that folks were going to be rounded up by mass soldiers and taken away to camps to be fitted with microchips and all sorts of crazy stuff. It was basically this giant conspiracy involving international governments looking to wield absolute power over the people, and the only way to really enforce that was to eliminate huge sections of the population,

basically anyone who might put up some sort of resistance. Gina was convinced the whole thing was going to start within a month, and although he wouldn't go into too much detail about how he knew all that stuff, he seemed to think giving away sources would put them on some kind of government hit list. He seemed completely and utterly convinced that his predictions were correct. What followed was around six hours of convincing Gino that he was wrong. It wasn't easy, which is why I mentioned the six hours thing, but by the time night had fallen, and Gino was riding a low dose of LSD, we'd gone from making a little headway to actually getting through to him that his theories might just be wildly wrong. We didn't fully

convince him, not all the way, but we did talk him down to the point where he agreed to come home, mainly by convincing him that he'd be in the best possible position to rescue people if the government did decide to start putting people into camps. He could be like an early warning system. He could recognize the signs, and that way, he could be the hero we needed when we needed him most. And it was a win-win. Either way, we proved things weren't as bad as he thought, and he could save our butts and we'd follow him to hell and back. And that seemed like the idea that really got its hooks in him. Gino agreed to come home with us but not before he sobered up a little. We could sleep in our car, he'd sleep in the trailer and then come sunrise we'd get ourselves some breakfast and then drive back down to Toronto and drop him

off at his parents place. After we agreed on that course of action, we finished off our beers, walked back to our car, and agreed to head back over to the trailer come sunup. It felt like a huge victory, and the second we got back to the car, we were texting people, mainly Gino's family, and telling them how he was finally ready to come home. We were so excited we could barely sleep. I kept thinking about how happy everyone was going to be,

how driving back into Toronto was going to feel like a victory parade. I think I only nodded off for maybe an hour or so before I could see the sky change in color. And after that, Abdi and I just talked and tried not to get too nervous as we waited for dawn to arrive. Finally, around 6.30, Abdi and I got out of his car and then started walking back through the trees in the direction of Gino's trailer. I remember feeling pretty exhausted but very excited to get back on the road. I wasn't even thinking about food by that point. I'd have happily rolled all the way back into Toronto and gotten a bite there when the nerves had died down. The only thing that mattered was getting Gino back home, where he belonged.

But then, after getting within maybe 20 feet of the trailer, we started to smell something on the breeze. Something strong. Something artificial. Something that smelled very, very much like gasoline. I remember Abdi saying something like, can you smell that? And I told him that I did. And then after a few more steps towards the trailer, the door opened up and Gino appeared in the doorway with this gas can in his hand. He told us not to come any closer, and by then, the stink of gas was so thick in the air that it kind of stung my nostrils. He didn't say it in a, I don't want you to get

hurt kind of way. He seemed mad at us, and as we kept asking him what he was doing, he kept telling us to leave while we still had the chance. And that's about the time we noticed that it wasn't just Gino's trailer that was soaked in gas. It was his clothes too. And it was complete chaos. Me and Abdi were shouting different things, but all along the lines of don't do it, you don't have to do this, think of your family, and all sorts of stuff like that. Whereas the previous night when Gino treated us like friends and we could actually get through to him, that morning was like a complete shift. Like it was the first time seeing him and that last night didn't count for anything. It was like he hated us. Like he might have actually shot at us if he had a gun,

which is why that leave while you still can line has just had such a chilling effect on me and almost worked in making us back off. Before he closed the door to his trailer, Gino told us one last time to stay back. I didn't have any trouble staying away from a trailer that I was pretty sure was about to explode into flames, but Abdi clearly wasn't in his right mind at the time because I had to actually drag him down to the ground to keep him from trying to rush up to the trailer and stop Gino in his tracks. What happened next seems kind of like a blur. I remember hearing the sound of the fire starting, and Gino wasn't kidding when he said to stay back because there was an actual

bang, and I felt the heat on my face. I didn't see much of the flames after that, though. I was facing back towards where Abdi's car was parked, basically trying to tackle him away from the burning trailer. When he finally gave up trying, I was focused on getting him back to his car, getting his keys for him. He was definitely in no condition to drive and then telling him to call 911 while I drove us to the nearest highway, figuring that

was the best place for the fire department to see us so we could guide them into the spot by the lake where Gino's trailer was. Abdi could barely speak while he was on the phone, and it got to the point where I thought that I'd need to take over and talk to the dispatcher myself while struggling to keep the car on the track. Like I said, the whole thing was total chaos. But in the moment, I didn't really have time to process any of it, not until the whole fire department was hosing down the trailer and we had a moment to ourselves before the cops showed up. And that's when all the emotion hit for me. Seeing them put the trailer out and thinking,

there's no way in hell Gino survived that. And then it was Obdi's turn to try and console me when it was my turn to break down, right up until the cops showed up and we had to talk to them about what had happened. We thought we'd be going back to Toronto as heroes, and I'm not trying to say that we would have been saving him as much, cause obviously Gino had agency and all of that, and it would have been him making the decision for himself. But getting to be the ones who actually brought him home, that would have been a hell of a thing, you know? And I was so excited for that. So to go from there, to having to drive back and tell Gino's parents that he was dead, all in the space of about an hour. It was my own personal hell. And I truly mean that. I lived hell on earth for a day

and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. There was a reunion in the end, it was just never one that I thought it would be. All the old crew showed up to pay their respects at Genos, some that I hadn't seen in years. I felt it devastating that it took his death to finally bring us together, but it was also very uplifting that people dropped what they were doing to come comfort Genos' family as well as each other. And I just wish that it could have happened when Gino was alive. I wish that there was enough of us up at that trailer to drag him into the car and drag him back to reality before he had a chance to do something so insane. And it was insane.

Gino didn't seem like he was in control of himself when he did that. And I refuse to believe that he was. I just hope that he can forgive us all for not acting sooner, for not trying to rationalize something that, now that I look back on it, just isn't healthy, no matter how happy someone claims it makes them. I get that some people call themselves introverts and prefer to be alone or away from large groups, and we're still social animals. We need that connection, even if it is one that we can keep at arm's length. So please, people, check in with your friends, check in with your family, and especially around the holidays. You can leave people be, just don't ever leave them alone. The scariest night of my life was November 22nd of 2008. It was a Sunday and my sister and I were getting ready for bed

when we heard someone shouting from outside in our driveway. They were shouting out our family name, something which I'm not going to share, and as much as it scared me, I didn't understand the significance of it at the time. I thought some very angry person was shouting at all of us, when really, he was shouting for my dad. It was my sister who first peeked through the blinds to see what all the commotion was, and it was her who first started panicking, saying, Mommy, Mommy, he's got a gun. Mom took us into her and our dad's room, which was at the back of the house,

and that's where we stayed until our dad returned and said that we were safe to come out. Our mom kept telling us, Daddy's going to keep us safe, don't worry, everything's going to be just fine. But my sister and I were a pair of emotional wrecks at that point. I was personally convinced that this crazy idiot in our driveway was going to shoot my dad, so I was inconsolable until he finally showed up again. I can't remember him telling us anything other than, it's okay, the angry man is gone. And as much as I was still shaky from the shock of the whole thing, I took their word that everything was going to be okay.

My sister and I took a while to calm down, but when we did, mom and dad put us to bed, tucked us in, and once again reassured us that everything was going to be just fine. But everything was not going to be fine. I remember how, in the weeks that followed, I noticed how mom and dad seemed to be fighting an awful lot. Then, as the months went by, I noticed that dad seemed to be sleeping on the couch in his office sometimes and was staying extra late at work instead of coming home for dinner around six every evening. This continued for a while until one day mom and dad sat me and my sister down and explained that dad wasn't going to be living with us anymore. He was moving out of state for his job and someplace we wouldn't be able to visit. They told us that they still loved each other very much and that it was only going to be a temporary thing, but we still didn't take it very well. We asked if we could go with him or if he could get a job someplace else so he wouldn't

have to move, but none of that was possible, they said. He was leaving, at least for a while, and we just had to get used to it. I can't remember how long it was after that, but then came the day that mom sat us down all over again, with no dad this time, and told us that they were getting a divorce. She gave us some excuse at the time, but we didn't find out the real reason until many, many years later. And although I don't know 100% exactly how this happened, I imagine it went something like this. So there once was a little girl in our town whose dad bought her a cell phone for her 13th birthday. The little girl was attached to the phone as you can imagine and was never shy about said attachment.

But then one day, her dad notices that she's being a little too secretive with the device and as time goes by, his suspicion grows and he asks her who she's texting all the time. She tells him something like, just friends daddy, and when he asks, can I see, she gets super defensive and starts talking about privacy and boundaries and all this other stuff a 13 year old shouldn't be talking about. The guy confiscates his daughter's phone, takes a look through the text messages, and then finds a chain of extremely inappropriate texts with someone she's listed in her contacts under the nickname Boyfriend. The father demands to know who his daughter is talking to, because obviously kids shouldn't be saying such explicit things to each other, but the daughter seems intent on keeping that person's name a secret.

The father threatens grounding, zero TV privileges, but still, his daughter won't say who her dirty pen pal is. And that's when the father decides to just call the number. But then when the person on the other end picks up the call, he doesn't hear the pubescent voice of some junior high schooler. No. Instead, the father hears the voice of a grown man saying something like, Oh hey baby, I thought you'd never call back. Now I don't imagine the father was pleased about learning that an adult was listed in his middle school daughter's phone as boyfriend. That's the understatement of the century. But I also don't imagine the guy was too forthcoming

with his name or home address once he realized who was actually calling him. Yet somehow, the dad still extracted the man's identity from his daughter, and in the end, her secret dirty pen pal turned out to be none other than my own father. He was her middle school teacher, and although I don't care to imagine how he went about it, he somehow got a hold of this girl's cell phone number and was in the process of grooming her when her father found out about it. My dad didn't go to work someplace. He went to jail. And to protect us from the truth, mom went along with this version of the truth until we were old enough to find out for ourselves. She didn't deny it when we confronted her with what we'd found, and honestly, that whole discovery process could make a pretty good story all on its own,

but we came to understand why she chose never to bring it up. We were always going to find out someday, but I guess it was just a matter of time. Better to let someone else break our hearts than do it herself. I used to go to Sunday school when I was a knee-high. I grew up in a very low-income area of coastal Louisiana, back when everything was still a mess from Katrina. So instead of classes being held in church or any other kind of building for that matter, they were held in a revival tent that had emptied out

following morning service. For the longest time, there were two teachers, one man and one woman, and I remember them being your typical church people. Nice, but just kind of boring, you know. Anyway, this one week, they introduced a third teacher. He didn't actively participate, though. He was more like a teacher's assistant or something. He was so quiet, he was almost mute, too. I think I heard him say three words in total and I was maybe there 10 or 11 times when he was there being that third teacher. I remember my buddy's mom saying how weird he was to his dad. They didn't think I was listening, but I was. His mom said the guy creeped her out and she didn't feel comfortable with him being around us kids.

I guess other parents were feeling the same way and I guess some of them did some digging on the guy too because one week the cops showed up after some kid's dad tried to knock his teeth out. I remember the guy walking through the tent, the angry dad I mean, before he threw himself at the quiet third teacher. The main male teacher was a big guy and it's a good thing too cause if he wasn't, old quiet teacher there would have been spread over that tent like peanut butter and jelly. And as soon as it happened, the lady teacher started hurting us away from the violence so I remember at first hearing nothing but screaming and crying from the other kids there who were obviously terrified by what was going on. But I do remember hearing the dad screaming this one exact thing as the teacher was dragging him off. He was screaming something like, We know what you are, boy. We know what you are.

Next Sunday, my mom and dad said that we weren't going to that Sunday school anymore, and my buddy's parents told him the same thing. They said it was gone, moved on or something and they'd have to find us someplace else to go for Sunday school. And to be honest, I didn't really dig going to Sunday school anyways and I only didn't complain so much because my dad used to go too and he lived way out on the other side of the county so there was no seeing him outside of school otherwise.

Not going to Sunday school meant not getting to hang out with him but it also meant getting to actually go home after church instead of having to hang out in some stinky canvas tent with a bunch of boring old church folk and a mute weirdo. And a long time after I'm hanging out with the buddy I used to go to Sunday school with. We were in high school by that time so twice the age we were when that Sunday school thing happened, and I barely remembered it until we randomly brought it up that day. I thought it was kind of funny at first, like I was laughing because it was such a random wild memory, a fistfight at a Sunday school in front of all of us kids.

And I'm like, oh, you remember that? Expecting him to laugh too, but he doesn't. He just looks at me awkwardly, cause it wasn't a setup, and there was no punch line. The weird quiet guy might have seemed harmless, but he wasn't. Or actually, he might have been, but not enough. I guess that doesn't make a lick of sense, let me explain. A few years before he got the job at the Sunday school, our quiet weirdo got caught waggling his wang in front of an elementary school. He ended up going to jail, but got out early after volunteering for, and brace yourselves before y'all hear this, chemical castration. Now, I'm not an attorney, so I'm not going to pretend to know how something like that happens, but apparently, the proof of

this chemical castration stuff, all of his paperwork I mean, was the only reason he got hired at the Sunday school. The male and female teaching duo thought that that was a sign of his true repentance, like the whole thing was his cross to bear or something and gave him a chance to do good around children and not hurt them. I guess I can kind of attest to the fact that he didn't make a move on any of us kids, at none that I saw. I don't think he ever got a moment alone with us. But that was probably down to the fact that the Sunday school knew about this guy's past, and even with all those pills he was taking to take his libido away, they didn't really trust him around kids. It doesn't excuse them hiring

the guy though. I respect all that forgive and forget Christian stuff, but I just don't feel like that extends to anyone caught trying to diddle children. I don't know if they approached him or if he approached them, and honestly, I don't know what's worse. But I feel like it was only a matter of time before the guy went back to his old habits, and it's kind of scary to think that it could have been me that he tried it on. During my junior year of high school, I thought it would be cool to take a psychology class because it sounded interesting to me. It's also because the psychology teacher had a reputation as being awesome, and as I'm sure you all agree, having a teacher that was chill and made stuff interesting made school go way faster. But then when all the classes and stuff were posted online, I found out I wasn't getting

taught by the cool psych teacher. I was in a class with a fresh hire. Basically, so many people applied to the psych class that the school denied to hire a second teacher. And so a whole bunch of the kids who partially or only chose psych because they thought that it was going to be an easy ride were super angry that they were with to be an easy ride, were super angry that they were with this new teacher whose reputation they were unfamiliar with. And I was a little disappointed, but I was actually in it for the subject too, not just an easy pass. But then once we actually met this dude, we realized that he was the total opposite of the cool psych teacher in almost every way.

At first, we just thought he was a little harsh, but anyone would have seemed like a buzzkill in comparison to the other psych teacher. But then as time went on, he started to get a little weird. I didn't hate the guy, not at first, but like I said, things got so bad that I even started to think that he was an a-hole. He'd snap on people for being late or talking in class, but then that's standard for some teachers. But then he started doing it to people over nothing at all. He once berated a kid for getting an answer wrong and acted like he was trying to be funny by giving him a joke answer. But I was there and the kid wasn't joking around. It was the wrong answer, but that's all it was. The kid was just trying to learn, and our psych teacher basically went in for

some verbal ground and pound, and it was brutal. Everyone thought that he was a jerk after that, and I heard one or two kids actually complained about him. But then, like, instead of the a-hole style of teaching becoming his standard things just got worse and worse until eventually he completely snapped on this one kid who had to switch classes because of scheduling issues the guy must have heard how much of a jerk our psych teacher was but he obviously didn't understand just how bad he'd actually gotten because the teacher was in the middle of talking when this kid turned to his neighbor and started trying to talk to them. I remember the kid's neighbor just completely ignoring him, knowing better than to become our teacher's target,

but that only made the original kid be like, why are you ignoring me, a little louder than he'd been talking before. Our teacher had been writing something on the whiteboard and talking while he was doing it, but when he heard the kids saying the thing about being ignored, he just stopped. He didn't turn around right away though. He just stopped, his hand came down from the whiteboard, and he just stood there, like seething for a second before he turned around and asked who talked. No one said a word, not just because they didn't want to snitch on the guy, but because they just didn't want to become this guy's target. Seems crazy to look back on now, how he was still even in a classroom I mean, but there he was, with all of us freaking terrified of him just hoping that he wouldn't target us

individually. So as I said, he turns around and asks who talked, and we stay totally silent. But this kid just raises his hand, albeit kind of nervously to say something like I was just asking him for. And he didn't get to finish his sentence. The teacher didn't say anything. He didn't scream or yell He just reeled back, then sent the whiteboard duster thing flying at this kid's head Ever seen that old school footage of George Bush dodging that Iraqi guy's shoe? It was almost exactly like that The kid saw the teacher winding up to make the pitch so he had enough time to react and dodge the throw But the duster smacks into the desk of another kid behind him so hard that girl screamed.

In that Bush video, it's kind of funny because after the shoe gets hurled at him, he actually smiles out of surprise, or maybe he was impressed because it was actually a pretty good throw. But either way, he gets rushed away by Secret Service and there's no follow-up, and aside from the Iraqi dude getting roughed up on the way out, no one got hurt. But in the case of the kid who got the duster hurled at him, he was tucked away into his desk and barely had time to edge out of it before our teacher basically threw himself at the kid and just started beating on him.

The kid was totally helpless. He was on the ground but throwing kicks and trying to get away as all the kids around them jumped from their desks. Some just kind of froze at the edges of the room. Others ran off to get someone, really anyone, to come break it up. Some of us in class, myself included, tried various methods of breaking up the violence. Some yelled, but others actually approached our teacher, telling him to stop. But whoever did got a fist thrown in their direction, or a desk shoved towards them in one case, and one by one, everyone who approached ended up just backing off. This one guy actually put hands on the teacher

who gave the kid who got attacked first a chance to get up, but by that time he was so mad and surging with adrenaline that he tried to knock the teacher on his butt. This was not a good idea because I don't know what the hell this guy did before he was a psych teacher, but he could legitimately handle himself in a street fight. I mean, I know he was fighting high schoolers, but get this. The kid he'd been wailing on first, jacked up with adrenaline, must have totally abandoned the whole flight thing in favor of fight. But then as he steps towards our teacher, he spins around, just kind of eats the kid's first punch, and then responds by lunging forward and grabbing him by the throat. Everything up to that point had been just startling and crazy,

but not terrifying or horrifying or anything really and truly deep like that. But then, as our teacher got a hold of this kid's neck and squeezed as hard as he could. There was just this immediate change of vibe in the room. It went from like, well, we're probably going to talk about this for a long time to, holy crap, someone's about to get murdered right here in front of the class. And I mean it too. If it wasn't for the school security guards showing up when they did, I actually think our teacher might have killed him.

Anyways, as you can probably guess, the aftermath of the whole thing was insane. A bunch of people got suspended, the teacher included, and after a lengthy court case, he ended up going to jail for quite some time. The kid, whose butt he beat, ended up testifying against him in court, and it was probably the most insane time I ever saw when I was in school, and come to think of it, I've never seen anything that crazy since, so I guess this tops the list for my whole life. I live and work in Texas, but I grew up in Taiwan, with the joke being that I'm less howdy y'all and more ni hao di y'all, which is a super funny Mandarin language joke that only the galaxy brings among your listeners will appreciate. That, or maybe I'm just terrible

at writing jokes in my second language, and I'm sure they'll let me know in the comments. Anyway, I grew up in Taiwan, and since my high school campus was pretty small, a few of the buildings were three or four stories to accommodate all the students. One day we're sitting in class in total silence, busy with some physics exercise books. Our teacher was sat at his desk in front of us and then suddenly he pushed back his chair in a way that made it squeak against the floor and it drew many of our attentions but what kept them is that our teacher started to suddenly take his shoes off. It had to be a rational explanation right? Itchy foot, stone in his shoe, there are a lot of reasons why he might suddenly

take his shoes off. But then right after putting his untied dress shoes right up there on the desk, he started taking his socks off too. By then, myself and my fellow students were all watching him and looking at each other as if to say, what in the world has gotten into him? Because having a teacher behave like this was nothing we'd ever seen before. Our teacher did the same thing with his socks as he did with his shoes, tucking them into the shoes on the desk in front of him. And then, with everyone watching, our teacher walked over to one of the windows, opened it up, and then threw himself out of it. If you've ever heard of that bystander effect,

this was a classic example of it. No one did a thing until our teacher was falling three stories down. It was like we were frozen until it was too late to do anything about it, but then the moment he started to fall, it was like we all came out from under the effects of a magic spell. There were shouts, screams, and we all ran over towards the windows to look. I remember him lying there, not moving and thinking, oh my god, he's dead.

Some of our class ran to get help, but most of us stayed where we were, looking down at our teacher's seemingly lifeless body in complete shock. Shortly afterward, the school's staff went in full crisis mode, calling in medics and ushering children away from the area where our teacher was lying. It was, and is, a very traumatic memory, but there is a kind of happy ending to all of this. Our teacher survived the fall. He was in a very bad condition, but he did survive. About a week later, we were told that our teacher had been sick, and that he needed some time off to recover. I now understand that

what he suffered from was essentially a complete nervous breakdown. And although none of us knew what caused this outside of rumors, some said his wife had left him, others said one of his sons had taken his own life and he blamed himself. But none of those were ever confirmed and to me, the reasons aren't really important. I heard he carried on teaching but didn't return to our school and although he terrified all of us that day, I'm very glad he survived and I hope he finally found some peace. To be continued... about it whenever I'm stressed or whenever a co-worker jokes or sometimes doesn't joke about being on the verge of going insane. Because no matter how bad things get for us, they could always be worse and I feel the coming story is the best possible illustration of that. So way back in March of 1900, a 40-year-old Indianapolis school teacher named Carrie Selvidge

had a complete mental breakdown and was admitted to the Indianapolis school teacher named Carrie Selvidge had a complete mental breakdown and was admitted to the Indianapolis Union State Hospital. There's no specific reason given as to why Carrie was admitted. All her records say things like stress or melancholy. But admitted she was, and she was given her very own room on the first floor of the building, which apparently had a pretty nice view of the grounds. Then one morning, not long after Carrie was admitted, one of the hospital's nurses entered her room to find her standing next to a window. She asked Carrie if everything was okay, only for Carrie to then ask for a glass of milk. The nurse goes to get her one,

making sure to lock the door behind her, but when she comes back, Carrie was gone. The walk down to the kitchens took less than five minutes, there and back, and Carrie was wearing a thin gown and slippers at the time, so it was only logical that she couldn't have gotten far. The hospital staff then went about looking for her, covering the entirety of the hospital's grounds in the process, but found no trace of her anywhere. This sparked off a big panic among the staff at the time, not just because Carrie was missing, but because her brother was due to pay her a visit that very same day. They looked all over the place again, but couldn't find Carrie, and when her brother showed up, they were forced to tell him the truth. And needless to say, he was pissed. Carrie's family were informed who in turn enlisted the help of law enforcement and dozens of volunteers to help find her. They spent days

searching for her, going over the hospital's grounds again, then expanding their search to nearby fields and forests. They walked rivers, dragged creeks and lakes, all on the off chance that she'd fallen in and drowned. But again, no trace of her was ever found. In the end, the cops were basically forced to abandon the search and left only one detective on the case. That meant if Carrie's friends and family wanted to carry on looking for her, they'd have to do it themselves. Years go by, and even with the offer of a sizable reward,

no one comes forward with any useful information. There were rumors that she'd been spotted boarding a train to Ohio, which I'm pretty sure was her home state. But none of those rumors could be substantiated, so the search continued. Cut to two years later, in 1902, and at some medical school a doctor is performing a corpse dissection in front of a group of medical students. He pulls out the human body, then pulls back the sheet revealing the subject's face, when one of the students remarks how she looked an awful lot

like a missing person from over in Indiana. A bunch of other students agree that yes, it does look like that missing school teacher who went missing from the Union State Hospital. The lecture was stopped, a dentist was summoned, and after checking out the corpse's teeth, they were shocked to discover that it was indeed the missing Carrie Selvidge. Obviously, the cops were very interested to learn how the medical school had gotten their hands on the corpse of a missing mental patient, and when asked, the school told them that they bought the body from a guy called Rufus Cantrell. This Rufus dude was then arrested, and once in custody, he confessed to being one of the most active professional grave robbers in American history.

I figured it was probably an exchange or immunity or like a lesser sentence or something, but the story goes that Rufus told them everything. He gave up people he worked with, snitched on the surgeons who bought the bodies, and even told the cops exactly how he went about making money from selling bodies, either whole or in bits and pieces. I'm sure the cops wrote down everything he said, but when push came to shove, they were only interested in one thing. Just how in the hell did he get his hands on the corpse of Carrie Selvidge? Supposedly, on the same night Carrie went missing, March 11th of 1900, Rufus and his grave robber buddies were hanging out in the cemetery near the Union Hospital when they

spotted a woman wearing a gown and slippers. They tried to hide, but the woman saw them. Then, fearing that she'd go straight to the cops, they kidnapped her, then took her to the basement of a nearby farmhouse. I think they figured that it would be a pretty simple process of convincing her that she hadn't seen anything and then letting her go, because Rufus said that they didn't try to hurt or kill her, and even tried to feed her when she was getting hungry. But as you remember, Carrie was not a well woman. She refused all offers of food and water, maybe figuring it was poisoned or something,

then after two to three days of slowly starving, she passed. And that's how Rufus and his buddies ended up with a fresh corpse on their hands for a change instead of one that's already decomposing. Rufus claimed he was innocent, and that his buddies were to blame for Carrie's death, but he still got ten years in prison for his part in it. And this was a time when print media had really taken off too, so within just a few days of Rufus' trial, the whole of the Midwest was up in arms about it, saying he hadn't gotten long enough in prison, that he should hang for what he did, stuff like that. Officials responded by establishing the state anatomical board, which put some of the first laws into effect requiring medical schools to obtain a cadaver legally, as well as more severe punishments for grave robbers.

Carrie was eventually laid to rest in a graveyard of her family's choosing, and the hospital she vanished from was closed down. For a short time, it was turned into a boarding house, but that too soon closed its doors and the place remained vacant for many years. The end. Or not the end, as I came to learn while going down the research rabbit hole. What I just told you is almost like the official version. The authorities were content to make out like Carrie had been the victim of some evil grave-robbing ghoul who they so valiantly apprehended before throwing him in prison. But then, Rufus had never really claimed he was entirely innocent. He basically admitted to starving a woman to death,

but he made repeated claims that it couldn't have been Carrie because it looked nothing like her at the time that she was alive. It seems the jury didn't believe him, which is why they gave him that guilty verdict, and I don't think the judge did either. But you know who did believe Rufus Cantrell? When he said that he knew for a fact the woman wasn't Carrie. Carrie's own brother, Joseph. Joseph was close with Carrie. If you remember, he was the one scheduled to visit her the same day that she went missing, and it was him that was summoned to ID her body once she was supposedly found on that medical table. There are records of him agreeing that the corpse's teeth had dental work that was similar

to Carrie's, but there are also records of him saying that he wasn't entirely sure that the body was really her. I don't know how he didn't make more of an issue about this at the time because the body getting dissected couldn't have been all that badly decomposed. Maybe he did, and the authorities just ignored him. But either way, I know for a fact that he was never 100% sure that it was Carrie, and that leads me into my next point. 20 years after the Union State Hospital shuts down, some big engineering company comes along, which decides that they're going to turn the place into a machine shop. A construction crew shows up, then starts removing whole sections of the building's inner structure, which included a section of this big old compartmented attic.

From what I read, some iron worker was told to remove a small cubbyhole above the attic, something they called a cupola, which from the outside of the building appeared to be nothing more than an ornamental piece in the shape of a dome or box on a building. The space was too small for the iron worker to fit through, so he decided to enlarge the entrance, but after doing so, he peered inside to find himself face to face with a human skeleton, wearing a blue nightgown and slippers. Police were immediately informed of the morbid finding and then I guess after putting two and two together, the cops contacted Carrie's family with some very shocking news. When the skeleton was taken off to be examined, the coroner said that he couldn't

determine the cause of death, but said it was very possible that it belonged to the missing Carrie and that she'd fallen victim to cold or thirst after getting lost and trapped in the attic. I don't think Joseph quite believed this either, because he didn't seem to change his tune regarding the possibility of his sister being murdered. I think he was well and truly convinced that someone at the hospital killed her, stashed her body in the attic. He said Carrie was suffering from arthritis at the time she disappeared, meaning there's no way she could have climbed all the way up into the attic on her own. I don't know how true the arthritis thing is, but I do know that, murder or not, the body's

discovery makes for one hell of a creepy twist in the tale. The second body, which I think was more assumed to be Carrie's than the first, was laid to rest in the grave dug for the first. The first body found was then taken off and declared a Jane Doe, as they called them. And the whole body switching thing is just awful too. Like imagine never knowing which corpse was your dead sister. The one in the grave that's been dug for her, or the one that's off on some cooling board somewhere, with no name or identity at all. In September of 1958, 70-year-old Leona Dieseldorf was living at 1000 South Brady Street in Attica, Indiana. The former teacher, who'd retired almost 25 years earlier, was mostly reliant on her social security checks to put food on the table, and would often wait on her porch to meet the mailman who'd deliver them.

But one day, the mailman arrived to discover that Leona wasn't waiting for him, and he immediately became concerned. When the man inspected Leona's mailbox and discovered that the previous day's letters hadn't been opened either, he knocked on her door and called out her name. When he got no response, he informed her neighbors of the situation and asked them to call the police. Then when the police arrived, they forced their way into the property and began searching for Leona. Upon gaining entry to the property, the officers observed a mess of upturned furniture and animal feces. Leona's collection of cats had made quite a mess of her kitchen in an attempt to find food,

a detail which the officers misread with grim foreboding. They assumed that, since her beloved kitties were being neglected, that Leona's corpse would be awaiting them in an upstairs bedroom. But when they climbed the stairs and inspected the second floor of the home, they discovered no sign of Leona anywhere. There was no sign of any struggle, and the only things that were missing were Leona's purse and a small lapel watch that she was known to wear. This led police to believe that she departed the home voluntarily, but her continued absence was the true cause for concern.

Despite her advanced age, Leona was a very fit and active lady and was known to head off on long walks that covered up to eight miles at a time. However, on occasion, Leona was also known to hitchhike, accepting rides from locals and strangers alike. Police conceived of two possibilities, that Leona had gotten hurt on one of her fitness walks, or had gotten into the car of someone with concealed but sinister intentions. Along with local volunteers, law enforcement search and rescue teams scoured her regular routes including a rural farming property that Leona owned near Stone Bluff. Leona's sister, who had passed away a few years prior, had left Leona the 80-acre piece of farming property, and Leona would sometimes visit the

property whenever she wanted to feel closer to the departed. But despite an extensive search of the property, police found no sign of the missing Leona. Just less than two months following Leona's initial disappearance, two rabbit hunters from Covington, Indiana, stopped to take a break atop an old well covered in wooden planks when they noticed a foul smell coming from within. Despite its lack of use, the well still stands today and lies 11 miles southwest of Attica, Indiana, on the property of a woman named Mary Hickman. But back in 58, the property was farmed and cared by by her brother-in-law, Guy Grady. Moments after the two rabbit hunters arrived at the well, Guy and his son Gene, who had been farming the property all day,

arrived at the well to get water for the radiator in his tractor. When they too noticed the pungent odor, Guy helped Bill and Don remove the wooden planks covering the well, and after peering 40 feet down into the dark below, the men noticed the water appear to be oily and a strange bluish color floating on the water's surface. They assumed that an animal must have gotten in somehow and was decomposing in the water below. In an attempt to retrieve the dead animal, the men lowered a length of barbed wire down into the dark well. However, when they pulled the wire up, it was covered in hair that was eerily human in appearance.

Then, following a second glance down the well, the men saw what appeared to be a human corpse in the ten feet of water, and immediately summoned the sheriff. In the hours that followed, the badly decomposed body of Leona Dieseldorf would be dragged from the well's cold, murky waters and driven down to the county coroner's office. She was first identified by her cousin, who recognized a pair of shoes that had been pulled from the well. This cousin claimed that she was 99% sure that the shoes belonged to Leona, but it was her dental records that confirmed the tragic find. During his examination, the coroner observed that Leona's feet and wrists were bound with white plastic clothesline and that her arms were tied around her neck. Leona was found fully

clothed, except for a red sweater that she was said to wear on an almost daily basis. Her purse and watch were also missing, and could well have been taken as trophies by her mysterious killer. Electrical wiring was found wrapped around her waist, with someone having carefully attached bricks from the local Attica brickyard to it to weigh her body down. A white towel was found tied around Leona's throat in two square knots, while a cloth rag was found jammed into her mouth. Due to the advanced state of decomposition, the coroner could not determine an accurate cause of death.

However, it's believed that Leona was still alive when she was tossed down that well. When the police first attempted to retrieve her body, they discovered her hand was still clenched around a small pipe inside, meaning that in all likelihood she was conscious or had regained consciousness by the time she hit the water. Leona was reportedly last seen on the day before her disappearance by a former student who saw Leona getting into the back seat of a car near Highway 41. The student's recollection of the vehicle was unclear, but they appeared quite certain Leona had been wearing her signature red sweater, as it was the detail which drew their attention in the first place. Police believe that robbery may have been the motive for Leona's murder since her purse and watch were never found. During the investigation,

they heard rumors that Leona may have hidden a large sum of money at the small farm property her sister had left her and theorized that the money was her killer's intended target. However, after an extensive search of the farm, no such stash of money was ever found. Another theory involves Leona's ex-husband, a man named Edgar Emmons. During their marriage, Edgar had had Leona involuntarily admitted to a state mental hospital under claims she was incapable of managing her financial affairs. Leona countered by claiming Edgar was abusive and the two divorced in 1931. Almost a decade later, in 1943, Edgar helped a woman kidnap her own daughter, whom she had lost custody of during the divorce proceedings similar to his own.

He shot a policeman in the process and was jailed for attempted murder and died a few years later while still incarcerated. This obviously meant that Edgar could not have been his ex-wife's killer. But is it possible that his former companion was involved? After all, Edgar had shown such devotion to her that he'd almost killed a police officer and he no doubt talked of his divorce from Leona during his time with his new female companion. Perhaps as a way of granting her lover a sick form of retribution from beyond the grave, Edgar's Belle tracked down his ex-wife and murdered her. The fact remains that the truth behind Leona Dieseldorf's murder remains a terrifying mystery,

but behind it lurks some deeply sinister implications. And in all probability, the monster that took a Gulf War vet for a science teacher, who for the sake of anonymity I'll just call Mr. Marine. Mr. Marine was the kind of dude who obviously had his crap together in times of panic. In the three years we were there, I almost never saw him do more than crack a calm smile. Then in ninth grade, junior high was seventh, eighth, 9th where I went. This girl, Chloe, who showed up late to our first period class every day and was kind of quiet, she failed to show up at all. For some reason, instead of marking her absent, he called the office and had a very quiet conversation.

He looked visibly disturbed and shaken. The next day, the girl showed up to class just a bit late, but with a broken nose, a black eye, and her jaw wired shut. Even though this was 25 or so years ago, I can still see the look on Mr. Marine's face when he saw her. It was pure, murderous fury, and even more terrifying, he pulled her into his office, had a calm conversation with her, and sent her to the nurse. He then told the rest of us that nobody was to say anything to her about it as she'd had an accident and was embarrassed, and most people didn't even really care. Quickly the rumors spread though. Did you see Chloe? Jesus, somebody kicked the hell out of her. I happened to be passing the office on my way home that night and I saw the principal and two police officers, Mr. Marine and Chloe in there with the door shut and she was crying. One of the police officers noticed me looking and pulled the blinds.

I normally walked home so I waited. I think school got out at around 2.30 or so and I usually hung around with some friends to listen to music or play basketball for 30 minutes or whatever before I started walking. I waited outside the front of the school until almost 4pm. Finally a car pulled up and this dude gets out looking just angry. He's swearing to himself and as I'm the only one out there he says, you, where's the office? And I just pointed, but he didn't make it to the door. The two cops came out quick, one in front and one behind, and the one who approached the guy started telling him to calm down. This angry dude just loses his

mind, screaming, my daughter should have been home an hour ago and I had to leave work, I'm going to sue. The cops are trying to calm him down. Then out of nowhere, Mr. Marine comes out of the side door of the office, his face lit like the fires of hell, and he just straight up goes full horizontal, four feet in the air, and just body tackles this guy. In seconds, he's on top of him and he's probably hit the guy ten times, close fists and all. And worse yet, he's not saying a single thing. He's not making any noise, just deep rhythmic breathing like you do when weightlifting. Short breath in, long breath out, smack, smack, smack.

The cops actually kind of take their time getting him off the guy. One casually handcuffs the guy and the other handcuffs Mr. Marine who is standing untouched except for some bloody knuckles and breathing steadily. Face red from exertion, eyes wide in anger and satisfaction, he's just not saying a word. I decide to walk home at that point. And as I'm heading up the road, an ambulance, sirens and all, flies past me towards the school. And the next day, Mr. Marine wasn't in school, and we had a substitute instead. By the end of the day, people were telling me the story, and it was completely wrong, of course. I heard things like Mr. Marine pulled out a gun and shot him in the gut, or Mr. Marine stabbed him with that flip knife he has, or even Mr. Marine choked him out and almost killed him and now he's in prison. None of those were true, obviously.

Then the next week, without any explanation at all, Mr. Marine was back. First thing I noticed was written on the chalkboard, If you ask, you go to detention. His face made it clear that he wasn't to be tested and did not have any sense of humor about it. Nobody saw Chloe again after that. I don't know what happened. And about five or six years ago, I was telling this story to a friend and he said, Well, why don't you just look her up on Facebook? I felt stupid that I hadn't even thought of that. I went to my mom's, broke out my junior high yearbook and found her last name that I'd

completely forgotten, and I typed it into Facebook, and I found a couple dozen options, and her name is pretty common, and eventually I found her on LinkedIn, of all places. She ended up going to the University of Colorado, a master's program and now works in finance or something. Her photo looked happy, which made me happy too. I googled her a bit out of curiosity and found some articles that she'd written for various anti-bullying and abuse awareness and management things. One of them was told like a fictional story almost. A girl came to school late every day, lacking in energy, and she had no personality of note, and was quiet and meek. She wore loose-fitting clothing,

and she had a few friends. It was evident to me pretty quickly what she was talking about, which was herself. And in the story she writes, the girl had been physically abused for years by her stepdad, an abusive alcoholic, and it took a teacher with no training at all to determine what had happened and start the chain of events that ended the abuse. The point of the story was to teach other teachers what signs to watch out for, what personality traits to look for, and after that I looked up Mr. Marine as well to see how he was doing. I was worried he was dead. After all, he was in his 50s and 60s back then. I found a few articles about his coaching, he had also been the baseball coach at the high school,

and a note saying that he'd retired in 2001. Nothing after that, and no obituary or anything. I like to think that he's probably just sitting around watching reruns of some show that he likes, drinking beer and playing with his grandkids, who are probably about the age Chloe and I were at the time. And that's just what I like to imagine. Anyways. I'm sorry. Doing nothing against bullying is almost worse than the act itself. I thought I hadn't done anything to this boy, and I even forgot about him for years. I rationalized it for sure, but it's been killing me, and I want to know how much I should blame myself now.

So, bullying is normalized in our society, and when the victim fights back, he's the one who gets in trouble. But this kid, Andy, didn't fight back at all. Imagine the typical scenario from a movie, a scrawny freshman boy gets tormented by the senior jocks. I was a senior then. It's a cliche for a reason because it has happened often and will continue to happen no matter how many generations pass. In the locker rooms, in the hallways, and in class, Andy was teased relentlessly. He was beaten whenever he couldn't get out of school quicker than the seniors. And no one batted an eye, even when he literally came to school the next day with bruises and black eyes. Actually, we laughed.

I think there was only one teacher who tried to do something, but I can't be sure. I think I saw her being lectured by one of the coaches one day, but they could have been talking about something else. The fact is, nothing ever came of it and everyone continued to let it happen. I think even Andy's parents didn't care because my mom would have raised hell if the same thing happened to me. And looking back, I wouldn't have blamed him for literally snapping and doing something terrible to everyone. He didn't, and the worst of the bullying happened after the final pep rally for the football team in our senior year.

I don't know why Andy attended that rally. I mean, it literally was an event to celebrate his biggest tormentors, who I'm ashamed to say that I considered my friends then. I guess that's another clue that Andy's life at home wasn't that great. Maybe he didn't have anything else to do, so he just stayed as long as possible that day. But he shouldn't have. The pep rally came and went. When everyone left, most of the senior class returned to the school for this big secret party. We were in exactly a small town, but partying anywhere else with booze and other substances wouldn't have been easy. School was their only option at the time. We drank way too much, but I stopped before I could get too drunk. I was also more preoccupied with a girl,

but during a break from our kissing and makeout sessions, one of the guys, Carlson, pulled me toward the rest of the team and we started talking about the senior prank. And it had to be epic. The upperclassmen in our school were famous for pulling fun but smart stuff that never got them in trouble. These guys were suggesting things that could get us arrested, and I told them not to be idiots. We couldn't jeopardize the final game of the season or our graduation, so no, stealing all the final tests for the entire high school wasn't an option, and neither was destroying the principal's car or driving it into some body of water. I had to remind them several times that the idea was

for it to be fun, smart, and not get us expelled. They laughed but saw the wisdom of my words so I suggested other ideas but we weren't planning anything serious then. Our friend Walter arrived just as we were talking about streaking with masks through the school parking lot on a random Monday. I would say that he was the biggest bully in the team and the entire senior class. He was huge and had rich parents and influence, so basically untouchable in my mind. We had all assumed that Walter had sneaked off with a girl to hook up, but he came back dragging Andy with him. He starts saying things like look what I found and everyone was jeering, even me. I knew something bad was going to happen but I still just laughed

like some hyena when I saw that little kid. Walter said that he had an idea for the senior prank and it was all going to be focused on Andy. I kind of stopped laughing then. I tried to tell them that doing anything to Andy couldn't really be the senior prank but with Walter being there all the others just stopped listening to me. Now Richie, he was the mascot on our team and he was a lion, pretty athletic kid and he grabbed it from wherever it was stored. And he said, let's dress him up, and Walter loved this idea. Everyone cheered again, and as we forced that little kid into a big lion costume, Walter made him crawl on all fours and roar for some time while the rest of us just watched. Then we started throwing beer at this kid.

Well, the costume, I guess. But either way, it was pretty degrading. Walter kept yelling for him to growl and growl and growl, and we all shouted it too. And after a while of this, I noticed that the girls had gotten bored and most of them left without us. Maybe it was because we had stopped paying attention to them. Parties without girls really don't make any sense in my mind, so I told the guys it was probably time to leave too. And that's when they noticed the girl's absence. Carlson told Walter everyone was leaving, but Walter stopped us, said something like, no, we have to finish our senior prank. And I asked him what more he would want.

He played with the kid all year and pretty much all night, basically. He told us to follow and dragged Andy, who was still in that lion costume, to the shower locker room. I followed along with Carlson, Richie, and the two other guys, so not everyone witnessed what had happened. Walter grabbed some rope from I don't even know where and tied Andy to one of the showers. We had this system where the and tied Andy to one of the showers. We had this system where the pipes were in the middle of the shower area like columns so it was easy to tie him up. And then Walter turned on the water and Richie complained because he would get the blame if the costume was completely ruined. I was pretty uncomfortable in that moment too but Walter didn't listen to Richie or I.

He soaked the kid, who remained motionless in his spot. And I shiver right now thinking about it back then because it felt like he was more than just tied to the shower. Andy was defeated or resigned to Walter's bullying. This kid was just completely gone. I remember Richie finally said something like, That's it. I'm done. If anyone asks about this, I'm putting the blame on you, Walter. And Walter hurled some insult at him and just kept going. Carlson was also worried, telling him to stop and just untie him. And he told Walter, but Walter was just in some frenzy by this point, and honestly I don't think there was any stopping him.

He shut the water off, and I thought, finally. But then he unzips his pants, and that was it for me. I asked him what the hell he thought he was doing, but it was too late. He started peeing on this kid, and he was laughing, telling us to join in on it. I looked at Carlson, and we just shook our heads at how sick all of this was getting. I left then, not caring what else happened. All I knew was that I didn't want to see it. I got home, pretty tired that night, and I just sat in bed, thinking how relieved I was that graduation was finally coming, and I could just get far away from all of this.

So, the pep rally actually took place on a Friday and when I arrived at school that Monday, there was some commotion and I just knew that it probably had to do with Andy. I even expected the police to be there and actually question all of us. But the commotion was just a bunch of students outside the shower locker room and then I saw a few male teachers carrying Andy out. It was Monday. That kid had been tied to the shower since Friday and no one noticed. They apparently took him to the hospital and I swear I was trembling, waiting for something big to happen at that point. I saw my whole future just burning to ashes right in front of my face. But nothing happened. The rest of the day just went on normal.

Too normal, I thought, and I didn't see that kid again. The guys and I kind of came to an understanding. We would never talk about it, sure, and that made sense. But we also pulled a bit away from Walter. That wasn't an understanding, it was just common sense, I believe. Something that hadn't escaped us before. And Walter knew about it. And after our last gym class, he laughed and patted our backs, saying everything was fine.

And saying that his dad would make sure that this didn't go any further. Richie asked him what he meant by that, and apparently, Walter's dad had called the school at Walter's request, telling them that they needed to resolve this issue internally without the police. If they didn't, they made some abstract threat that the teachers would get blamed and not us. At that time, I didn't like this mention of us. The rest of us hadn't really done anything, but I realize now that we were to blame too. Still, I was relieved and I'm not sorry about that. I got dressed quickly and I didn't go out to any more parties, not even after graduation. I left that town for college and put the idea of Andy and Walter just off my mind.

But I graduated and moved back to start a business later. And that's when I heard more about what happened to poor Andy. You see, he spent the entire weekend tied to that shower because his parents were away on some business, but also, as I suspected, they didn't really care about him at all. Andy couldn't change schools, so he continued going after recovering silently from that torment. And the next few years without Walter were apparently okay for him, but I wouldn't have been fine after that night. He apparently saw a therapist and was now on some depression meds. And I was thinking about seeing the kid.

Apologizing obviously wasn't enough, but maybe it would help. Except then I saw Richie the other day and he told me that Andy had taken his life a year after he graduated. Richie wasn't sure what happened but we all knew one thing. Walter never moved away. He worked for his father even without a college degree and Richie thinks that Walter never actually stopped tormenting the kid but he just wasn't sure. Now I know none of the guys from back then maintained a friendship with Walter, and does that mean we grew up? Does that mean we all knew that it was wrong? The thing is, I don't think any of them, not even Richie, are living with the guilt. And I don't mean to make this all about me, but there have been times where I just can't sleep.

Could I have stopped this prank from going any further? And how much of it truly does fall directly on my shoulders? I don't remember a time during my school years when I wasn't bullied by someone. And that streak ended in college, but by then, all the damage was done. Was I stronger? Perhaps. But I would trade all my strength for a chance at just a normal school experience. I'd lived in a regular place with enough people that not everyone knew each other, but I was unlucky because my main bullies that I thought of were three of the meanest girls in the world, and they followed me all throughout my formative years. They didn't officially start bullying me until about third grade. I already knew what being picked on was like, but mostly from boys who were just afraid

of girl cooties and all of that. But in third grade, my biggest nightmare started. These three girls, who I'll call Janice, Emma, and Gaia, noticed that I liked to draw during recess instead of talking to others or running around the courtyard. That first day, they took one of my drawings and threw it in the trash and then threw juice on it. I can't remember well, but I remember crying like a baby. It wasn't hard to get me to bawl my eyes out back then, and that's the main thing with these bullies. The more you reacted to them, the more they push.

They were scolded at the time and separated from me, but little mean girls are tough to deter. And for years, I wished at that point that I was a boy, because I saw how boys bullied others, and it was mostly just physical, and I wish I could have fought them, but girl bullying is much sneakier and more horrible than that. Now okay, this may be a little reductive to people who have been bullied with physical violence, but that's just how I felt. Like boys could resolve things quickly, whereas I had to

play a political game against eight and nine year olds. And I would only learn later that physical bullying wasn't better or easier to take, obviously. Once they noticed that they could get me crying over almost everything, I was their easiest target. I remember everything they did to me, from poking me in class with whatever sharp thing that they could find, to sending me notes with awful insults that picked at my young self-esteem. And I'm sorry, but when you're nine, reading the words, you're so ugly all the boys will forever hate you, it truly affects you.

I broke down each time, and I couldn't control it, no matter how much I tried. As soon as I started bawling, they started laughing and would only make me louder. Even my teachers got pretty annoyed with it. They stopped them at first, but eventually they started rolling their eyes and just continued class, sometimes ignoring me. And I guess that was easier than having to send kids to the principal and disrupt their lesson plans every single day. It took around two years to build up enough pain and psychological tolerance to not start crying like a baby every time they did something, but I was still tearing up and that got them going. It spurred them on and I still have no idea why it was so delightful for them, but it didn't matter that my tolerance for their bullying got better

because we started growing up and, to be honest, things only got worse. Everything seemingly wrong that you can have as a teenager, it happened to me. I'm talking braces, bad posture, acne, frizzy and abundant hair, all that. And God, I even had a little mustache going. And although my parents cared enough to get me braces, they didn't think anything else like hair removal was really necessary. Acne and hair are parts of puberty, and my mother would say that. Now PSA, please don't believe that. If your kids tell you that they want to get their mustache or hairy legs waxed, just let them do it. And maybe my life in general would have been better if my mom actually listened to me and allowed it, but I could have felt better about myself, I guess.

Anyway, I had to get used to Janice, Emma, and Gaia's taunts through my most vulnerable times. Now this might sound silly, but someone gave me chocolates one time and I ate them at recess and I was still figuring out stuff with braces and I thought that I had eaten everything without getting food stuck in my braces. But I did get chocolate stuck and I quickly noticed that that was the plan all along. I went back to class and somehow the girls had gotten one boy, this boy named Julian, to ask me if I liked the chocolates. I remember he was pretty popular so I was shocked and immediately smiled, my chocolate-covered bracy smile at him. And everyone started laughing, him included. This happened around the time phones started coming with cameras, and I remember they took pictures and I was just mortified.

I can't even imagine how I would have felt if those pictures ended up online, but if they were only passed around between our peers, and they were luckily very low resolution. I cried silently, as I had learned to do, and cleaned my mouth when that period ended. Tons of things like that happened over the years. It was only when we made it to high school that their attitude changed a little. I had learned not to cry at all.

It hurt. The ridicule was still terrible. The absolute negligence or just lack of caring of the school staff really tore me up too. But I had finally learned to control my tears, and I learned that bullies can sense, smell, detect fear and pain and low self-esteem. They had messed with me so much over the years that I think that it was just habit for them, but when I stopped crying, they stopped caring. Finally, I would spend days without a single taunt from these girls, or anyone really. I was already known as the loner, a weirdo girl who was always drawing, but no one was messing with me. High school also presented other things for

everyone. Janice, Emma, and Gaia developed their own interests like cheerleading, school government, and model UN. And yeah, it sucks, but the truth is that not every bully is just a complete idiot. I had art club, and a lot of us were introverts, so I can't say I made a bunch of friends, but I fit in there somehow. And that made me bolder. Whenever they remembered me, like in the halls or in class, I just simply ignored them. It sounds stupid and simple because that's what adults tell you to do about bullies, but ignoring them wasn't easy and I was glad I managed it. That is until I got a group project with this guy Gaia was interested in. I didn't pick him, I didn't even like him, I remember his name was Tony. The teacher assigned us together and we

only worked at school after hours. And that's how Gaia saw us. We were at the library using the computers there. And the next day, those girls were on me like they hadn't been in years. They came into the girls' bathroom after me. I hadn't seen them walking behind me until it was too late, closed the door and pushed me into a stall. Now I had learned to grey rock them in the past, which is pretty much just ignoring them, but I couldn't with this level of aggression. I fell back onto the toilet and hit my back on the pipe pretty badly. I was trying to recover from the pain when Gaia hit me square in the face with a big algebra book. I yelled at them at last while

I was trying to feel if she had actually broken my nose. Gaia got closer and grabbed my hair. She asked what I was doing with Tony, and I told her through harsh breaths that we had been assigned a project. After hearing that, Gaia finally let go of me and right on cue came the worst sound in the world. Their laughter. And I hadn't heard that cackle in a while. Almost mechanically I started crying, not just from the pain of the physical blows, but it was also just automatic. I was a little girl again, and they kept laughing and saying things like, Of course, Tony could never like a girl like her.

Gaia, you should have known that it was something stupid for school. I remember Gaia's smirk and how she said that it didn't matter because I needed to be taught a lesson, and how fun it would be to see me cry again. Janice got real close to my face and added, You thought we forgot about you, huh? We didn't. We just have better things to do. Next time you get close to one of our guys, this will be much worse. I remember those words. An hour guys. I didn't even know Gaia liked him. I was just sobbing. And finally someone opened the door. It was a teacher that

I hadn't met before and she asked what was going on and Emma said that they didn't know. They found me crying in the bathroom and wanted to help but I wouldn't tell them what was wrong. And the girls left and the teacher tried to ask what was wrong but I just kept crying and crying. My mother picked me up and gave me a lecture about getting a call from the school. I wailed that I was bullied and no one cared or believed me. And I got grounded for doing that. I mean, my mom wasn't mean or anything, but she just couldn't understand. And according to her stories, she was popular.

I went to school the next day with actual bruises that no one has to worry about. Really nice, huh? And I asked that teacher to let me do the project alone, and I even begged her. Tony could easily be placed with another group, and she ended up doing it. I avoided all the boys from then on, insisting on working alone or with girls if that was possible, and the teacher thought that I feared boys, but they didn't ask why. And the rest started a rumor about me being a lesbian, and you can probably guess how I was bullied about that. But ignoring everyone became my thing. I even ignored anyone

who tried to be nice to me. They had broken me after all those years with that stupid bathroom encounter. And perhaps it wasn't them, but others who didn't care about me. Or it could have been my mother's attitude. Either way, I just felt shattered inside. You're probably waiting for some revenge that I got, but I didn't get one. There's a silver lining though. At 18, I left my house and went to college. I found friends, still introverted, and finally shaved wherever I wanted. I dare say that I became pretty to myself, which was a big accomplishment considering how I felt before. And as for Janice, Gaia, and Emma, I think they're living good lives, for the most part. And that's not what most people like to hear, but that's real life.

Maybe karma will get them one day, but maybe not. When I was a little kid, I had a best friend. His name was Paul, and for a while, it was awesome. I didn't have the best time at home. My parents were very strict. I understand that they were trying to raise me well, but my father's military career made it hard for me to be who I was. My mom just followed his lead, so I often felt like I was alone in the world until I found

Paul. With a military dad, we moved around a lot, and I didn't have the chance to make a lot of friends. Paul was my neighbor. It was like he took me under his wing and we became best friends almost immediately. And I thought he was pretty cool too. He had a lot of freedom at home. His parents let him go out wherever, whenever, even though we were like 14 and freshmen. And he introduced me to a lot of stuff that I probably shouldn't have been watching. But I was growing up and interested. My parents would have killed me if they knew. I felt freer thanks to him, which is why I didn't notice for some time that things weren't so normal with Paul. At school, we sat at the same spot every day and hung out with the same people, Paul's friends. He was sort of a

leader to them too. The first time I noticed something off was the day after we had a little project in class where I met this cool guy from the chess club who liked a bunch of music and movies and books that I had no idea about. And I was a very curious kid so I just kept talking to him. We went together to the cafeteria during our free period and kept talking about his taste in music and more and I was pretty riveted. Paul must have entered the cafeteria without me noticing. And out of nowhere, I felt this pull on my shirt and turned to see his very angry face. He asked what the hell I was doing sitting there with that loser.

And I didn't know what to say. My new friend was shocked and a little scared and I had no idea what to do. So I let Paul drag me back to our regular table and nothing else was mentioned for the entire free period. But I wasn't an idiot either. When we were alone at school, I asked him why he did that. And Paul managed to convince me that I had to watch out with whom I spent some time with. I couldn't be seen with some loser kids from the chess club. Paul said that if I wanted to be a loser too, then he wouldn't be my friend anymore, and that was very terrifying at that age.

I couldn't conceive of not having Paul and his friends as my friends after years of not having anyone to rely on, and so I agreed and stopped talking to that guy. The next incident happened a few weeks later when Paul invited me over for some TV and games and there were two girls there. I knew them from school but this was the first time I hung out with girls in such a private setting. I asked what we were watching and Paul made us look at this x-rated stuff on his TV. I don't know if the girls were comfortable with that but they didn't seem to say a word. And at one point Paul called me to the kitchen and said that he was going to his room to make

out with one of the girls. I told him fine but I was tired and wanted to leave. He got this angry look again and told me that I wasn't leaving. I was staying and making out with that other girl. I said I didn't want to. Yes, I was 14 with raging hormones, but I didn't want a make-out session with some random girl that night. Paul said that I had to go and kiss her right then with him watching. Otherwise, I could go home and just never talk to him again. All of this just felt so unfair.

But that threat again was enough to just get me moving. The girl seemed to be into it or maybe she was just trying to fit in like I was but we did kiss. And it was my first kiss. But nothing like I imagined or wanted. I definitely wouldn't have picked for Paul to be there commanding this entire thing. I kept kissing her until Paul left for the other room with the other girl and I pulled away and told the girl that I was leaving and she said that she wanted to leave too and she and I actually never talked again but Paul told all the guys in our friend group about it and made me out to be some sort of hero for kissing this chick and I actually never talked again, but Paul told all the guys in our friend group about it and made me out to be some sort of hero for kissing this chick, and I didn't like that, but at least

he was happy and I guess we were still friends. Little things like that continued to happen, but at some point, Paul stopped threatening me with his friendship, and he actually started hitting me instead. It was small in the beginning, like a nudge on the shoulder that hurt a little too much for comfort, wasn't very friendly. He hit me in the back of the head when I wouldn't move fast enough for his liking, and my shins also took some kicks from him. And the things that he was asking for, like sneaking a bottle of vodka out of a store, got worse and worse. I don't want to paint my teen self as the most innocent person in the world. I knew I was doing something wrong and I still did it.

It's hard to even remember what it was like or why I felt compelled to do what he wanted. Yes, he hit me, but it was like a trance that you can't get out of. I once pulled a girl's skirt right off of her in the middle of the quad because Paul asked me to. Actually, I did that completely hoping that I would get in trouble, that the school would call my parents. If my dad had found out about it, he would have forbidden me from ever going out until I turned 18 and left his house. I wanted to get in trouble. I didn't think that there was another way to get away from Paul, but I didn't actually get in trouble. No teacher had seen it, and when I asked about it, Paul told me that he talked to the girl. He said, you know I got your back right.

As long as you and I are a team, nothing will ever stop us. I smiled, but I just wasn't happy about it. Paul's demands and his requests increased, and I swear that I tried to refuse, but he was full on hitting me by that point, and those were times when no one else was around. One night, Paul told me that we were going to steal a car, and we could go joyriding. I said no, full stop. We were 15 then and I knew that he would want me to drive and if caught, I would be the one to get in trouble. I was tired of his tyrannical ways. Paul started hitting me as always, goading me, hurting my shins and I still wouldn't do it. He got angrier and angrier until all of that rage just exploded in some serious meltdown but also a beatdown from him to me. In the moment I tried to protect

myself from the blows but it wasn't easy. Something had been unleashed and it wasn't until some guys in some truck parked nearby yelled at us that he stopped and fled. I was fine mostly, just kind of bruised up. I managed to go home and to school the next morning without being seen by my parents, but the teachers and others noticed it in my face. The staff thought that I was being heard at home, and my homeroom teacher took me to the principal. I just followed along because I didn't want to see Paul and I only saw him from my side eye with his arms crossed as I walked into the

principal's office, but I just kept walking. The school called my parents and I still smile remembering how that principal, Mr. Perez, and the school counselor faced my intimidating father. They said that they would call CPS and the police to have him arrested, and my mother started crying and that was when I told them the truth. And I just broke down, telling them how I had felt about being Paul's friend and the subject of his bullying. The meeting wrapped up and I was sent home for the day. I anticipated getting scolded by my father but seeing me crying like that affected my dad. He talked to me alone in my room and listened without his usual attitude and I had never felt a real connection to him until that point. He comforted me in his detached

way and told me that I didn't have to worry about Paul again. We were moving again for his new posting, and I swear, I had never felt so good about that news. I didn't say goodbye to a single person at school, and I guess I'll just do it here now, even if years have passed by. Goodbye, Paul. I hope to never see you again. My family moved to the smallest town I'd ever seen during the middle of my sophomore year. There was only one high school, and it became apparent real quick that most people there had known each other forever.

I stood out like a sore thumb from the very beginning. I was deep into my punk phase and only wore black and leather, whereas the others were only in jeans and usually a t-shirt. Think city boy versus country folk. I didn't think that would make them hate me. In previous schools, I wasn't popular by any means, but blatant bullying was not the norm either. You'd get insults from others who thought they were better than you, and I saw the girls being

mean to each other and the popular group ruled, but it was like they didn't care about others enough to even really escalate to actual bullying. In this new school, anyone who stood out was a big no-no. But what made things more difficult for me was that I didn't have a single person to blame for the torment that I was receiving. But let me get to explaining how the bullying actually began. If I had left a class for the bathroom or whatever, I would return to my book bag turned inside out and all my belongings scattered all over the floor. I rolled my eyes at that and asked who did it and people would just laugh and I even asked our teacher. That was Spanish class so I remember it was Miss Paloma and she said that she didn't

see anything but it was the middle of the lesson. They couldn't have done it without her seeing it and that day I arranged my things and acted like nothing was wrong. Several days later someone broke into my locker, added a little stink bomb in there and destroyed some of the pictures that I had added to the door. I didn't get how no one saw anything but I guess they could have done it when the hall was empty. I tried to tell our main teacher, Mrs. Frankson, but she told me to ignore it and that nothing else should happen. I told my mom about it and she thought the two teachers that I had talked to and the fact that they weren't more worried about it seemed very strange but I wasn't ready for her to come to

school and make some scene. Sometime later, someone stole my leather jacket. I shouldn't have left it lying around after what they'd done before but the weather was weird that day. I got hot and distracted and suddenly it wasn't on the back of my chair where I left it. Unlike the other stuff, this was a $300 jacket, a Christmas gift from my grandma. I made a big scene and I stopped Miss Paloma's class, demanding to know where it was. The teacher saw how the others were snickering and yet she didn't do anything. She said she was sorry but unless I knew who, when and how it was taken, it was my fault for misplacing my stuff.

And I couldn't believe it and I wasn't going to let it go. I went out and straight to the assistant principal. They told me the principal was busy with something, and I explained everything that happened and how my very expensive jacket had been taken. Once again, I had this weird reaction. Another adult who didn't care, or had been trained not to care, and it just all felt seriously wrong. The lady asked me who took it. I said I didn't care or had been trained not to care, and it just all felt seriously wrong. The lady asked me who took it. I said I didn't know. Then she said that I probably lost it myself, and I was speechless. No, I didn't lose it, I told her. I placed it on the back of my desk chair and went up to talk to Miss Paloma about sentence structure. When I returned to my desk, the jacket was gone. The assistant principal

repeated the same thing as Miss Paloma. She couldn't do anything if I couldn't tell her who had taken it. And that was it. I was ready to call my mother and get her to come here. You may call me a mama's boy or whatever, but that jacket meant the world to me. And when I went back to class, the jacket was back on my desk chair, and I heard the laughing and saw their smirks, and I was not only being bullied, I felt like I was being gaslit. Miss Paloma was oblivious as I went to my desk, put on my jacket, and sat quietly, fuming. I felt their stares and tried not to react but I couldn't contain my rage fully. But what could I do? I had no one on my side. The teachers were either apathetic or in on it and I had no clue and no other options. Something similar happened a few days later. I was showering after PE and when I finished, my clothes were gone.

I tried not to panic, wrapped my towel around me and walked the entire bathroom trying to find them. Others were there, waiting for what I would do, and waiting to laugh as well. But I tried not to act mad or desperate. I tried not to fall into this obvious bait. One of the football guys, this guy named Jackson, talked to me directly and he asked, what was wrong? You looking for something? I ignored him and kept looking. Jackson kept going and asked if I needed to borrow some clothes and I straightened my back and just said yes, that would help. He sighed dramatically and said that he would but all his extra clothes were in his other locker.

When I knew his game, I asked if he could go get them for me and Jackson laughed. He said, no, you can look for them yourself. He gave me his locker number and even the combination and then he said good luck and the rest of the guys left the bathroom looking at me like they had a secret up their sleeve. They left me alone as a test of what I would do. Would I stay here and keep looking, knowing full well that they had hidden my clothes somewhere that I wouldn't find them? Or would I go in my towel and barefoot to be ridiculed by the school? While I contemplated those options, I also considered what their game was. How should I face them? Did they want fear, compliance, defiance? Would they respond to show of strength? I didn't know, but I decided on that. With my head held high, I stepped out of the bathroom and barely anything,

and I was expecting a few people, but it seemed like the entire student body had gathered for this. Granted, it was a small school, but they all witnessed this walk of shame. I didn't look at Jackson as I walked to his locker and tried to open it. It was only then that I grasped that he didn't really give me his combination, and I felt like an idiot. I should have known that he wouldn't have helped me, but I tried the lock again and failed. Suddenly, our principal called my name and asked why I was naked in the middle of the hallway, and I tried to tell him what was going on, but he wouldn't listen. He said that he had no idea how I behaved in the big city, but this was a good school,

and I needed to start behaving, and I just lost my temper. I yelled that his great students had stolen my clothes, and I invited him to the bathroom with me to find them. You can probably guess what happened next. My clothes were sat right on the bench where I'd left them before, and I remember I even started crying openly then. It was just pure frustration. I had been humiliated so massively, and the principal gave me detention instead of trying to see my side of things. I had been humiliated so massively and the principal gave me detention instead of trying to see my side of things. I couldn't report any bullying, not just because of the awful teachers, but also because I had not seen anyone doing it, again. This cooperative bullying effort made it impossible for me to accuse anyone,

so I couldn't tell my parents what would I say. I used to think that people who didn't snitch on their bullies were idiots. Snitching was better than taking the abuse, but in this case, I literally couldn't snitch. The only thing I could do was just take it and wait. I became a lot more vigilant after. I locked everything and kept an eye on all of my things in school. For days, nothing happened and I got this idea. If I could catch someone in the act, I could report them. So I pretended to get sloppy again. One time I left my locker slightly open and went into the boys' bathroom, right across from it. I acted completely normal, but hid behind the door and waited. No one came and class was starting so I went out, still completely normal, but hid behind the door and waited. No one came and class was starting, so I went out.

Still acting normal, locked everything, continued my day. I thought that maybe they didn't want to repeat their taunts on me. They could have wanted something new to up their game, so at the risk of my own health, I tried something else. I got the same food I always did for lunch and sat at one of the tables outside where everyone ate their lunch. This school didn't have a cafeteria per se. You could get food, but it wasn't a whole building like you see on TV. Now anyways, I pretended to get a call and stood and walked away from my table for a second and I talked on my phone for a while. My back was to the food, but I was fully aware of

any movements nearby. I even saw my chance and stood closer to the building's windows to give me a better view. It wasn't perfect because of the several plants that surrounded it, but I could see much better than just my periphery. And at last, I saw Jackson and four others, people I'll call Marcus, Jerry, Zeke, and Max, get close to my table, and I waited for a second. I didn't believe my plan to catch them would work, but finally I had faces and names that I could report for bullying. I was still pretending to talk on the phone while considering my options. And that's when I saw them trying to put something in my food. And for once, luck was on my side because Miss Paloma was walking by. I rushed back, stopped her in her tracks and pointed at the guys.

They're putting something in my food, Miss Paloma, I remember screaming. The guys seemed too stunned to react and the teacher saw the bottle in their hands. She went to them and told them to hand whatever they had over. Jackson pretended it was nothing and the others backed him up, but I insisted. I even spoke like a total goody two shoes, detailing exactly what happened, and they were forced to give Miss Paloma the bottle and I saw what it was. It was this very strong laxative. Not very original, but it was what I was hoping for. Concrete proof. You boys follow me to the principal's office, she said, and that included me. And I finally felt vindicated, almost elated, like I had won some lottery. I sat down with the principal and

this time I had a chance to air out all my grievances, everything that had been happening to me once I started school. I didn't blame the staff for their indifference because I was trying to win them over to my cause. The principal asked the guys if they had done all of those things to me, and they muttered some no's, and yeah, I couldn't prove their involvement before, but the laxative was as clear as day. The principal said that they didn't tolerate bullying at the school, and that's funny because no one seemed to care before, but they called everyone's parents and it was this very big thing. I fessed up to my parents about my school life. I added all

the details I couldn't say anything about before and how I finally caught the guys, although I left out the part about that being my plan. My mother made a big fuss about it. The other parents weren't happy, but I was delighted that adults finally saw things and wanted to solve it. The principal even lifted my detention from that towel incident, and I spent that weekend happier than ever. My other problem came later though. I had already been designated as an outcast, so it's not like I lost anything, but at least people talked to me. I had interaction. When I returned to school the next day, no one would even look at me. The teachers were fine. They were always somewhat detached anyway. But everyone else didn't deal with me.

I didn't exist to them. At P.E., people avoided me. They didn't throw balls or laugh or accuse me of being a snitch, and I just became invisible to them. And after school, I stayed a little back to talk to another teacher about some homework, and when I walked through the hallway, I saw the five guys. I almost tripped, not knowing if they were going to do something, but I kept walking, and they just let me. I sneaked a look back, and they went into the classroom, used for detention, without a word or a glance in my direction. I was confused. I spent an entire month waiting for something to happen but nothing ever did. I waited some more and tried to speak to others but I was met with silence.

The rest of my sophomore year was a silent nightmare. It was almost worse than being taunted or teased. I didn't exist to these people and I couldn't understand that attitude. And faced with the idea of having to live like that for two more years, I talked to my parents. And they found a private school an hour away from our town and told me that they would pay for it if I could handle the commute. And I did so gladly. It was the best choice for me. I did make friends there, and it was an entirely different atmosphere. I wasn't popular, but I wasn't a pariah either. But to this day, I still get a little scared of the silent treatment, even from people I don't particularly

care about. I didn't realize how hard it would be to move to an entire different country. My family came to the United States in the 1990s. I was 10 and I barely spoke English. My parents made me believe that there were many other Latin American kids in Florida, but we ended up in an area with mostly white people and I started only knowing simple things like my name is, I'm 10 years old, and I come from X country. I knew I could learn quickly though because I had always been a good student back home, but at my age it was very likely that I would always have an accent. I was also browner than my peers and I got strange looks. Despite what you may see in

many movies, most countries in Latin America are pretty diverse. We have everything from blue-eyed blondes to the darkest skin color, and some places have different or more varied ethnicities, but the point is that I had been exposed to all kinds of different people already. I never gave that difference a second thought, and that wasn't the American experience. My new schoolmates had obviously grown up without any exposure to other people or foreign cultures, and I slowly had to learn the rules of this country when it came to race and other issues, and this was a big culture shock altogether. During my first days, all I got

were strange looks and a few interested, friendly gazes. Most of the teachers were nice and tried to help me, although I couldn't understand them much in the beginning. Some girls tried to talk to me, and we laughed while making hand gestures. They taught me a lot, and those girls became my best friends for the rest of my school life. But as I spoke more English with my accent, I realized that not everyone wanted to be my friend. As I grew up and noticed more about the world, I theorized that those kids were most likely influenced at home about me. I know now that I was thoroughly correct. Every kid seemed merely curious on my first days. Looking back and remembering how that curiosity changed to hatred is pretty difficult.

Children aren't born with that prejudice. It's imparted and some adults have no idea how horribly they're damaging their kids' minds. As I got braver with my language skills, I spoke more in class. But one time I had heard mocking for the first time ever. Someone repeated exactly what I had said to the teacher, but with a bit of a lilt and fake accent, and others laughed. The teacher reprimanded them, but they did it sporadically and I started hearing it at recess. My mom told me that I shouldn't listen to them, that they were just jealous because I could already speak two languages and they only knew one. And her words made me feel better and the next time it happened I used that logic as

a sort of retort. I told the girl who did it that she was envious, but she had something to say too. Who wants to speak Spanish? Ew, that's for poor people. And her friends laughed and I started to tear up. The teacher sent her to the principal's office, but that didn't deter her. She mocked me whenever she could and kept getting in trouble. Her mother came to school once and I was told that she ranted about the foreign kid who was getting her daughter in trouble. She was even changed to another class to be far away from me and her friends still tried to mock me whenever they could, but they couldn't do it inside our classroom after a while. The rest of my classmates had gotten bored. You can only make the same mocking joke a couple of times before people just

don't find it funny anymore. The girls weren't happy that I was making more friends and even the boys liked talking to me and asking me questions. I'll call my main bully here Sarah and her friends really don't even deserve a name. They were just sort of her minions. The worst of her bullying started at one recess. I was playing on the playground with my other friends, and there was this tunnel. It wasn't a slide because it was straight, but I loved it. I went through it, following my buddy Anna, who had just gotten out. I was about to go out when Sarah blocked the opening. She asked me where I was going, and included a word

that I hadn't heard before, and I learned later it was actually a slur. While I didn't know the word, I knew that it wasn't well intended. I went back and saw her minions at the other end, and out of nowhere, they were starting to throw rocks at me inside that tunnel. I covered myself as best I could as I cried out for help while I heard them shout, go back to your country, repeatedly. It felt like I was trapped, getting that hate for hours, but it was less than a minute before several teachers pulled them off and got me out of that tunnel. I had a few scratches, but I was mostly rattled emotionally.

They called my mom, who couldn't fight for me much with her broken English, but she made a lot of noise. Sarah's mother came and acted up again, but the teachers told her off, and Anna and some others told everyone what Sarah and her minions were saying about me. No one was happy happy and it was a huge mess. And it may sound trivial, but that incident coupled with all the mocking before shook me to my core. I was old enough to know that things weren't like that in other places. I cried to my mother that night that I wanted to go home, to our country. And I had good friends, but I was honestly scared of having to live like that for the rest of my life.

We couldn't go back home. My parents had sacrificed so much to move here and to give us a better life. My mom explained that to me when I stopped crying. I understood and decided to be stronger. And still, some of my sparkle had left at that point. I went to school and stayed as far away some of my sparkle had left at that point. I went to school and stayed as far away from Sarah and her friends as I could. I never used that tunnel again, and I practiced like hell to make my accent completely disappear.

You can still tell that English isn't my native language, but it's not that obvious. When I didn't stand out as much as before, Sarah left me alone for the most part. She grew up to be one of the most awful people you could really meet. High school had more diverse students and she hated them all. She looked down on anyone who was a little bit different, not just race-wise but another aspect, and she used some really terrible names to describe them. She hated me still, but that's because I grew up to be conventionally pretty good looking and decently popular with boys and girls and teachers alike. I had a big group of good friends though and a solid backbone. I thought I was over that tunnel by high school. However, I later realized that she had done something to me that really stayed with me for

a long time. For many years, I separated myself from my culture. I ate only what other kids ate, and I tried to avoid speaking Spanish outside my family. I told any new person I met that I was born here, and I did a lot to hide who I truly was, and I believe that that was Sarah's doing. She introduced me to hatred and made me fear my background, the core of my being and my connection to my family. But when I noticed what she'd done, I changed. And as soon as I could save up enough money, I took my parents to visit our home country, reuniting with other family members and learning what I had missed about myself. I brought clothes, souvenirs, pictures, and more into my house. I celebrate who I am, just as I celebrate being an American citizen.

Neither Sarah, nor anyone like her, will ever take that away from me again. 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.