The Lets Read Podcast - 315: THERE'S SOMETHING WEIRD ABOUT MY NEW ROOMMATE | 16 TERRIFYING True Scary Stories / Rain Ambience | EP 301

Episode Date: October 14, 2025

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about crazy roommates & terrifying tales off of reddit HAVE A STORY TO SUBMIT? [e-mail] FOLLOW ME ON - ►YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/letsreadofficial ► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsread.official/ ♫ Music & Cover art: INEKT https://www.youtube.com/@inekt

It was a lot of I don't know. We're going to be able to be. My name's Athena, and I started my home bakery business during the summer of 2020. I was furloughed from my job, and the boredom was killing me, so I took up baking as a way of keeping myself occupied. It was definitely a way of managing stress, too, because I always made way too much for one person. But then delivering baked goods to family and friends always made for a great excuse to get out and stretch my legs. Whenever they gave me compliments on the things I delivered, I figured they were just being kind and showing gratitude.

But when one friend told me that I could potentially earn money by turning my baking into a locked-down side hustle, I got to thinking. And at the time, the kitchen of my apartment was tiny, with a counter barely wide enough for a cutting board, but I made it work. I set up a few social media profiles, uploaded a dozen photos of my best brownies, blondies, and pies, and the ones. and asked the right people to share my page for the maximum audience. Part of me believed that there was no way that it would take off, not with all the super-fast delivery services that people could use with just a few taps on their phone. But I was wrong, majorly wrong,

and I discovered that in a world of faceless online middlemen offering discounted merchandise made half the world away, there was a huge demand for locally baked bread, cakes, pies, and pastries. The first week was slow but promising, and the easy scheduling helped me figure out the best methods of running my kitchen. But then over the week that followed, word of mouth and grassroots advertising resulted in my orders doubling, then tripling, then almost quadrupling over the course of eight very productive days. And by week three, I was having to place potential customers on a waiting list because my whole schedule was filled with either prep, proofing, or baking. and I'd gone from bored out of my mind to barely having a minute to myself. But busy hands meant happy hands, especially once all that extra cash landed in my pocket.

I like making the extra cash, and I liked having something to keep me from going crazy. But I quickly realized that I loved baking and running my own business more than anything I'd ever done before. Each and every day my apartment was filled with the warm, yeasty scent of rising dough, baking bread, or caramelized sugar. Then, unlike my job in corporate, I got to see the results of my hard work right there in front of me, while the enthusiasm my customers exhibited was satisfying in ways that I never thought possible. Two months in, I did a little calculating and realized, if I worked on a six-day schedule and raised my prices by just a small percentage, I could actually quit my job and bake full-time.

Well, long story short, that's what I did, and for just over a year following, I was happier and more fulfilled than I'd ever been in my entire life. But then, right when everything was going smoothly for the first time and a long time, the fire came. It was the middle of the night in October of 2021, and I was dreaming of sourdough starters I had bubbling on my counter when the fire alarm suddenly woke me up. I fumbled from my phone just as I smelled burning, and then seconds later I saw black smoke curling under my apartment.

apartment's front door. I grabbed my shoes out of instinct, but I was so scared that I didn't bother putting them on. I ran barefoot into the smoky hallway and then stumbled out onto the street, coughing as flames licked up the side of the building. And by morning, the section of the building containing my apartment was a charred ruin, with blackened beams jutting from scorched brickwork that still dripped with hose water. And everything I owned was gone. My mixer, my baking sheets, my clothes, my books, all burned or soaked beyond saving. And I stood there in the dark of the early morning, clutching my phone and shoes and wondered, what the hell was I going to do?

But as usual, Mom had a solution. She lived in the same split-level house up in Somerville that I'd grown up in, one with faded yellow siding in a well-tended front yard. And the guest room still had my old twin bed, and she told me that I could stay as long as I'd grown up in. I needed if it meant finding the right apartment. We'd already talked it over, and I'd mentioned how if I found somewhere with a large and well-equipped kitchen, then there was potential for a huge increase in turnover when it came to my baking

business. I was grateful for her patience while I rebuilt, so after picking up baking supplies and a few home essentials, I got back to work. Customers didn't care where I baked, so long as the bread was good. They'd pull up to the mom's driveway. I'd hand over their orders and life kind of limped along. But I couldn't stay forever. I needed a place of my own, somewhere central enough that clients from across the city could reach me with a kitchen big enough to handle my growing business. And I spent weeks hunting, sitting on my mom's couch, laptop balanced on my knees scrolling through listings until my eyes literally hurt. Some places were too small and others were just too far out. And a few were perfect but priced beyond my reach.

beach. Then one afternoon, as rain was tapping against the living room windows, I found it, a listing for a place on Mount Vernon Street just north of Boston Common. I knew that area for my teenage years when I had a job-slinging pizzas at a joint on Charles Street. Mount Vernon Street was elegant and historic, lined with brownstones that glowed red-brown in the sunlight, and some had balconies with curling ironwork and others had wide windows. that caught the last of the day's light. I loved it, and it was a major step up, a neighborhood that breathed old wealth and quiet pride,

while the listing offered two floors, full amenities, and rent that didn't make me flinch. There was, however, a catch. A single line tacked on at the end. Potential tenants must be prepared to follow a strict set of terms and conditions. And I assume it was just standard stuff. No parties, no smoking, maybe a ban on pets, and that was all fine by me. My life was flour, ovens, super early mornings, not late-night

chaos, so I called the number just minutes after spotting the listing. A woman answered. Her voice was very polished, and then after confirming I was calling about the apartment, she went into a big explanation. And after introducing herself as Evelyn, she explained that the house belonged to her family who were looking for a tenant to share with her elderly cousin, Ethel, who had some rare condition that kept her frail and confined. I'd have the first two floors to myself, including a kitchen, a living room, and a bedroom. But the third floor, where Ethel lived, apparently was a no-go zone, no knocking, no talking, no stepping foot up there, break the rules, and I guess I'd be out in the streets. Lease terminated instantly.

Evelyn stressed that it wasn't about pettiness or control. It was about preserving Ethel's health and dignity in what little time that she probably had left. I wouldn't have to look after her. Nurses and assistants came and did that. And outside of calling in the event of an emergency, there was a chance Ethel and I might never cross paths. The setup sounded odd, but I kept hearing run of the house in my head. Two floors and a prime spot for the price of one bedroom. It was just way too good to pass up.

I told Evelyn I wanted to see it, and then we set up a time for the next day. When I arrived, the house was even more than I'd pictured it. It loomed on Mount Vernon Street and its brick facade weathered, but very stately, and the kind of place that had seen centuries pass without even blinking. The front steps were worn smooth. The door was a heavy slab of oak complete with a brass knocker shaped like a lion's head. I loved it. And inside, the first floor opened into a wide living room, a fireplace dominating this one wall, its mantle carved with vines that looked older than the city itself,

and the rest of the house was just as opulent. But when I saw the kitchen, that's when I fell in love. It was a dream, spacious, with a gas range, a butcher block island, and cabinets that stretched to the ceiling. Upstairs, the second floor had a bedside. bedroom with a bay window overlooking the street, plus a small office that I could use for paperwork. Evelyn met me at the door. This very thin woman with a flash of white hair and a face etched with very stern lines, and she didn't smile. But she didn't glare either. She let me through the house, her steps, very slow, very measured, asking about my plans. When I mentioned the bakery, her eyes kind of softened, and she seemed relieved that I wasn't looking to turn the place

into some kind of party house. I signed the lease that afternoon. Evelyn handed me the keys, repeated the rules about Ethel, and then left me to settle in. The first few weeks were good, better than good even. I had the kitchen set up, my mixer was humming on the island with flour dusting the counters as I worked, and the house was quiet, but I relished that, and sometimes I'd even forget that Ethel was even there at all. I heard her once, maybe two weeks, in, a wet, rattling cough that drifted down from the third floor. And it kind of startled me, the sound cutting through all that stillness, but I just sort of brushed it off. She was sick, and that's why the rules were there. And after that, I barely thought about her. My business occupied

my mind almost constantly, and before long, the house felt like it was all mine, at least until Well, I started to feel sick too. It came on kind of slow, a tiredness that slowly settled into my bones. I'd wake up sluggish with my legs feeling heavy and no amount of coffee seemed to shake it. I blame the hours, kneading dough at dawn, baking through the afternoon, packing orders late into the night. But even after I scaled back my operation to give myself some rest, it seemed to get worse. I'd end up napping on the couch, the oven timer ticking in the background, but I'd wake up even more exhausted than before. My jeans were starting to loosen around my waist, and my face started looking sharper in the mirrors.

The weight melted off of me, and I told myself it was stress, the months of grind and stress just catching up with me. But then my hair started to fall out. I'd find clumps in the shower, dark strands clogging the drain. more tangled in my brush each morning. My period stopped coming too, which is kind of TMI, which at first I tried to pin on the same exhaustion excuse, maybe even just me not eating enough. But when a customer called, voice was very tight with anger, saying that they found one of my fingernails and their banana bread, I couldn't ignore that anymore.

I looked at my hands, saw brittle, yellowing nails, and how one was missing entirely, and then felt a cold knot tightened in my chest. And obviously, I went to the doctor the next day. He was some stocky guy with graying hair and a clipboard that he kept scribbling on, and he asked about my diet, my sleeping habits, and what I did for work. But I also made sure to tell him about the fire, the move, and my new home. He kind of was just tapping his pen and said, old buildings can sometimes hide things,

be it mold in the walls, lead in the pipes, or even arsenic in the green covers of antique books. And he ordered blood work and told me to stay someplace else for a few days if things got any worse. Stay with a relative, he said, or check into a hotel and see if the symptoms fade. I nodded, promised I would, and then left with a slip for the lab. I went back to my mobs that night. She opened the door, took one look at me, and just gasped. Oh my God, you look terrible, she said.

I must have looked skeletal compared to the last time I'd seen her. I was pale, I had huge bags under my eyes, and my hair looked pretty patchy and dull. I was a far cry from the girl that put on a little weight thanks to getting sugar high on her own supply, and I was scared that I'd get worse, but after three days of convalescing in her guest room, I felt so much better. The nausea lifted, and when my strength crept back, I called Evelyn and told her I thought something in that house was making me sick. And she expressed her sympathy, but there was this very strangeness to her voice.

She reminded me of the lease how breaking it without proof would mean lawyers and fees. Subleting was an option, and she was more than happy to consider a doctor's opinion, but at the end of the day, we had an agreement. I should have stayed away. I know that now, but I love that place so much that I talk. myself into going back, just for one more night. I'd test it, prove it was the house, and if I felt worse, then I'd know for certain that I needed to leave. I drove back to Mount Vernon Street, and then the moment I stepped inside, the air had this very stale, heavy, with a sort of

faint metallic quality that I'd never detected before. I told myself it was some kind of cleaning product Ethel's nurses had used. And now, I think I know different. Stale air and chemicals are not, I resigned myself to stay at least one night. So I set my bag down and started a batch of dough to keep my hands busy. But by the evening, the nausea was back. I knew then that I'd be leaving in the morning for certain, but I was so exhausted that I thought driving might be dangerous until I'd slept and there was daylight. So I climbed the stairs to the second floor. feet dragging with each step when suddenly I heard the sound of singing. It came from the third floor, this clear voice that cut through the silence,

but it wasn't the voice of an old dying woman. It was young, alive, sounding out a melody that I didn't recognize. I stopped at the bottom of the stairs, my breath catching as I listened. the sound was soft but sharp and at first i figured it was a recording but then there was pauses breaths the faint waver of a living throat it wasn't a recording this was clearly a human ethel was supposed to be bedridden this husk of a person so who the hell was up there singing i remember my skin kind of prickling as i turned shuffling back down the stairs before i grab my keys my phone in my jacket, and then ran for the door. I didn't care about proof, about leases, about anything.

I wasn't staying. And that night, after driving back to my mom's place, I got sicker than I'd ever been. I vomited until my throat was raw, and a blood vessel burst in my eye, leaving a red smear across the white area. And in the morning, I looked into the mirror and saw a stranger. My cheeks looked completely sunken in. my eyes looked hollow, and my hair was thinning so badly that you could actually see my scalp. I broke down, sobbing into my mom's arms, and told her everything.

The house, the sickness, the singing, and she held me tight and told me everything would be okay and that we'd fight the least together. We'd get proof, hire experts, and force Evelyn to let me go. But it didn't work. Nothing did. My blood work came back normal, no toxins, no allergy. nothing to explain what was happening to me. And we paid a hazardous materials guy to check the house too. This gruff man with a toolbox and a clipboard who spent hours testing the air,

scraping paint and sniffing for mold, and he found nothing. The place is old, he said, but safe and up to code. And the lack of evidence meant Evelyn wouldn't budge. And we ended up paying out the full lease. Thousands that I didn't have borrowed from my mother and her boyfriend just to be done with it. I moved back in with her and within days I felt better again. The weight returned, my hair started to come back and my energy was surging. Whatever was in that house, whatever it was doing to me, I guess it stopped.

And I found a new place eventually, a much smaller apartment with a much smaller kitchen in the city's north end. And the bakery picked up, life steadied on, and I tried to move on. But that house on Mount Vernon Street wouldn't let me go though. I remember lying awake some nights just staring at the ceiling, replaying this whole thing in my head. What was up on that third floor? Was it Ethel? Somehow defying her sickness? Or was it something else?

I'd dig online sometimes, late when I couldn't sleep searching property records, old articles, anything about that house, and nothing turned up. No scandals, no death, just some blank slate. And the house just stood there, smug and silent, hoarded. its secrets from me. And a few months back, I drove by the house. I remember it was a cold January evening and I was in the area for a delivery. I don't know why I did. Curiosity maybe, or possibly out of some unconscious desire to face it. And the house looked the same. The brickwork, glinting faintly in the early dusk, with its windows dark and still. When I parked across the street, my engine was just idling and I sat there watching. The place stayed still for

for a while, just another quiet house on a quiet Boston Street. And then suddenly, I saw a shadow, quick and thin, passed by a third floor window. My hands tightened on that wheel, and I floored it and sped away. I don't know what happened in that house, and I don't think I ever will either, but it wasn't my imagination. Something was wrong there, something that latched on to me and only let go when I fled. I'm safe now, happy even, but I'm safe now, happy even, but I'm not. I'm safe. But memories of what happened in that house back there still linger with me, and as long as that mystery persists, I don't think I'll ever be able to fully let go. I'm a 32-year-old guy currently using my GI Bill to go to college in a city in one of the Mountain Time Zone states. I'm so busy with school and work, so I don't have time to go out and socialize often, so I have to rely on a lot of the apps to go on dates.

I match with this really cute girl around my age. We had a good conversation, and then we scheduled a date. It was a bar restaurant not far for either of us to drive, so it was easy. easy, and she was very pretty in person, and we got along great. During our conversation, I found out that she worked in a non-cop role at the police station, like a receptionist, essentially, and I also learned that she had a roommate, whom she said was out of town for the holidays. She added that she hated being alone because she had a crazy ex-boyfriend who stalked her.

I was a little uneasy at that and told her as much, and she said that he's harmless, so I kind of let it go. We had a few drinks and were there about another hour and at her suggestions she said that we go back to her place and I mean I wasn't going to argue she was hot. She then insisted on driving. I told her I was fine and she said no that I had been drinking and she saw too many DUIs at her job. I got what she was saying but I only had two gin and tonics and was fine and again she insisted and I thought it was weird but I didn't care. We went to to her house, and she walked up and just opened the door. She didn't unlock it. It was already open, which I found very odd because she said that she had a stalker and that her roommate was gone.

She started feeding her cat, and as she was doing that, I saw a bowl of cereal on the kitchen counter. I touched it, and it was still cold like it hadn't been there for a while. The cereal wasn't soggy either, and I asked her whose it was, and she hesitated, and said She ate it as a snack before heading to the bar. It just didn't make sense, and before you could say anything, she just kissed me and put her arms around me seductively and said for me to take her to her room. Again, she was very beautiful, and I just quit caring about that cereal. We started fooling around, and I went to close the curtains, and she told me to leave them

open. A few minutes later, maybe five we were in bed, and my back was to the window, and she let out a huge gasp, a scared gasp. Her eyes were at the window, and I turned around and saw someone in a hoodie, and they took off. I heard the steps running on her back deck. I immediately jumped up and ran to make sure that her doors were locked, and of course the front door wasn't. I ran to it and locked it, and right when I did, the door started banging. I went to open it because I was going to mess up the dude or at least try to, and she told me to to just go back to her bed with her. I screamed at her and asked her if she was insane and

she told me that he does this and just goes away. And I asked her, you know this is your ex? And she said, yeah, and to not worry about it. At this point he started banging on the side of the house on the other end and she didn't seem at all scared and kept trying to get me to go back to bed with her. I didn't want to call the cops because, for all I knew, this dude might be a cop, and she'd know the cops that show up and would take her side. I also couldn't just leave because my car was at the bar, and I was terrified. At this point, I started calling her out for the door not being locked, the serial, and I openly called her a liar. She couldn't come up with any logical answers, and I had no idea what I was

into. I should have done this, but my fight or flight was pretty much kicked in, and I told her, if this is a robbery or some kind of setup, I promise. I'll kill you both. I'm not some hard ass or anything, but my fear told me to let her know that no matter what it was, they'd have a fight on their hands. And my thoughts of what were going to happen to me were all over the place. I ordered an Uber off my phone and didn't say anything. I just kept arguing with her and asking what was going on, hoping to just keep her talking and in the room. I stayed right next to the door so I could leave ASAP. Luckily, I never got my pants off, and my jacket and shoes were right by the door, so I was able to get dressed. The Uber showed up, and without saying anything, I just opened her

door and ran out as fast as I could. I looked back at the door, and she was just kind of standing there. It's only been a little over a month at this point, but I honestly have no idea what in God's name I got myself into, and I don't believe the story of just a girl with a crazy ex based off of the factors I told you. I feel like either a robbery or some weird fetishized cuck type thing was happening. I don't know. Definitely something I'm very mad at myself for letting happen. I mean, I'm a nine-year Navy vet and allowed myself to get into a situation like that. I reported her account on the Uber ride back to the bar and I told the bartender as well if they ever saw her, Warren, the next guy.

My name's Stephanie. I'm in my 30s, and I'm from Pasadena, California. I only mention that because as a listener, I find it super annoying when people don't make it clear who they are. started their stories. In the spring of late 2017, I've been living with a girl named Lira for two years, and she was easily one of the most chill roommates I'd ever had. We'd met through a friend of a friend when I first moved to Pasadena, and I was desperate for a place to stay. Lira had a spare room, and a rent that she couldn't cover alone, so we made it work. At 26, she was only a year older than me, but she had this sort of worldliness and maturity that made our cramped two-bedroom apartment feel more like a home. She was an artist in her spare time, and she was a good one, too.

She was always drawing things in her little sketchbook, birds or vines, or pretty spiraling shapes, and she was just as creative when it came to home decor. She wasn't a huge party animal either, which was nice because my job at a coffee shop involved waking up at 5.30 in the morning. and I'd keep the coffee pot warm for her in the morning before I headed to work. It was simple, comfortable, like we'd figured out some unspoken rhythm. Then one day, in April of 2017, she sat me down in her kitchen table and told me that she was going to Bolivia for two weeks. Her eyes had the spark about them as she mentioned something called an ayahuasca retreat,

like she was already halfway there. I didn't know what ayahuasca was at the time. It sounded like some kind of young. Noga thing, so I just sort of smiled and said it sounded amazing. Then, around a week later, she packed her things and off she went. I wished her safe travels, waved from the window, and figured that she'd return with some epic stories and maybe a kooky souvenir or two. That night, I was alone in the apartment, and I googled ayahuasca and learned it was a

kind of hallucinogenic tea used in rituals down in places like Peru or Brazil. People drank it with shamans, puked their guts out. and then saw visions of gods or demons or whatever else lurked inside their minds. Users claimed it was supposed to crack you open or release your soul among dozens of other very grandiose statements. And that wasn't my kind of scene. I liked my reality unscrambled and my feet planted very solid on the ground. But for Lira, it must have sounded like the adventure of a lifetime.

She was the spiritual one, always chasing something deeper with stuff like medication. apps, tarot cards, or the cluster of quartz crystals that she kept on the window seal. And I went to bed imagining her coming back with a tan and some crazy tale about talking to a jaguar spirit. I kept the apartment running for her two-week absence, and then when she came back, I was ready to hear everything. Leera texted me saying that she was about to catch a cab home from the airport. Then about an hour later, the door creaked open and she stepped inside, with her bag slung over one shoulder. I had expected her to return looking relaxed and refreshed with obviously a nice healthy tan,

and instead, her hair was a tangled, unwashed mess, and her skin looked chalky, like the sun hadn't touched her for the whole two weeks. When I asked her if she had fun, she didn't even smile. Lear dropped the bag by the door and then looked at me, except it didn't feel like she was looking at me, more like through me or past me. me. In this flat, distant voice, she simply said it was intense. And then she shuffled to her room and closed the door behind her. And that was the first sign that something was clearly off. Lear had always been very sociable, the kind of person who'd flopped down next to me and ramble on

about her shift at the bookstore or the new sketch that she was working on. But after her trip to Bolivia, she seemed distant. And I told myself it was a little bit of her. was exhaustion or jet lag or something like that. But after another Google search, I discovered that the retreat might have been rougher than expected. And I read about the purging, the vomiting, and the hours upon hours of feeling like your mind was unspooling, and then thought, geez, no wonder she's acting so shell-shocked. She probably just needed time to settle in, so I figured that I'd give her the space that

she needed, but time didn't seem to fix anything. A week passed, but Lyra didn't snap back. She got super quiet, like she didn't answer me if I asked something, but only in short, clipped words, and she never started conversations anymore. Her sketches stopped showing up on the fridge, and the plants that I'd watered while she was gone started to wilt, but it was like she didn't even notice. I started to worry that she might have gotten some bad news

or that a trip to Bolivia had gone wrong somehow, But when I asked, Lear said that she didn't want to talk about it. I figured my suspicions were correct and that whatever it was, she'd talk about it when and if she was ready to. I also figured it'd be a matter of days at most before Learer started to feel better. But I was wrong, and things only got weirder. For as long as I'd known her, Leera had always been a vegetarian. She was a great cook.

She'd make stir fries with peppers and toast. or big salads with nuts sprinkled on top. I'd regularly find bowls of fruit on the counter, mostly apples or mangoes, and I'd loved living with someone who shared my passion for healthy eating. But then, just less than two weeks after Lira got back from her ayahuasca retreat, the raw beef started appearing. And the first time I saw some, I had almost a gaslight moment where I thought, huh, I don't remember buying ground beef.

And then, when I realized that it was Lear's, I think I actually kind of gasped out loud. I asked her why the sudden change of hearts, and I never forgot how flat her tone of voice sounded as she shrugged her shoulders and said, time for a change, I guess. I cannot stress how unlike Leera that was, and by that time I was really starting to worry about her. But then I saw how she ate it. She didn't cook the ground beef she bought. She ate it raw, with her hands. She developed this habit of doing it late at night, too, like this one time when I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.

I was heading back to bed when I heard the creek of the fridge door coming from the apartment's kitchen and sitting area. It was almost 3 a.m., and when I peaked around the door, I saw the moon was kind of pouring through the blinds, turning the floor into this sort of grid of shadows. And there was Lira, too, standing at the window, just staring up at the moon. I stood there watching her silently until she swayed slightly and then I sort of bolted back to my room. And the next day, I once again asked if she was okay or if there was anything she wanted to talk about. But she told me what I'm now quite certain was a lie and she said she was fine. I told myself that she even got so much as a tiny bit worse, I was probably going to try and get her family involved and organize some kind of intervention. and then the next thing I knew, the insect started appearing.

It was a Saturday afternoon, and I was in the kitchen making toast when I heard a crunch behind me and turned. Lyra was sitting at the table, a mason jar in front of her, and inside of it were live crickets. I watched in horror as she reached inside. The crickets's legs were scrabbling against the glass, and she plucked out one with her fingers and threw it into her mouth. I froze. It was a butter knife tightened my grip, with a wet, brittle sound making my stomach drop.

I turned back to the counter and smeared the butter on my toast and then walked out like nothing had happened. But then, when it happened a second time, I couldn't ignore it. A few days later, it was beetles, these big, shiny black ones. I found her eating them, standing by the sink, and this time I gagged. the sound slipping out before I could stop it. She didn't react. She just kept eating.

But when I demanded to know what had gotten into her, she swallowed what was in her mouth and started speaking. She told me that she learned a thing or two about herself down in Bolivia, and that she decided to make some changes. And if I didn't want to try out her new diet, that was fine, but I wasn't about to dictate what she could and could not eat in her own apartment. She didn't sound threatening or anything, but again, seeing Lera act even remotely confrontation was so unlike her that it actually freaked me out.

And before long, the apartment didn't feel like ours anymore. It felt like hers, like she'd claimed it. And her room started to stink, a very thick, earthy smell, like wet dirt and rot. And she stopped showering. Her hair was clumping into these greasy knots, and her clothes kind of hung off of her as she started to lose weight, too. I wanted to ask what happened down there, what she'd seen in that jungle, but every time I tried, something stopped me. I started locking my bedroom door. It was a very flimsy door, the kind that you could probably pop open with a credit card, but it made me feel just

that little bit safer. I'd lie there, my phone under my pillow, listening to Lyra pacing around outside. Work became my lifeline, eight hours at the coffee shop, steaming milk, wiping counters, and chatting with regulars who didn't know that my roommate was unraveling back home. Then come the end of the day, I'd linger after my shift, nursing a cold latte and delaying the walk home, but I had to go back eventually. And when I did, there she'd be, sitting or standing by the window, and either waiting for or staring at the moon. The next thing I remember is how she started covering up all the mirrors one day. I came home to find every single one in the apartment, draped with towels or turned to face the wall.

And that was also the day that I found scratches on the bathroom door, these deep gouges like she'd been clawing at it with something. She vandalized her own sketchbooks, too, the ones that she used to fill with all of her pretty drawings. Pages had been torn out or crumpled up, and the ones that remained were covered in these strange charcoal, scribbles that creeped me out just to look at them. And that was the point that I realized that she needed help. Very urgent help, too, and the next day, once I got home from work, I was going to try and talk to her about getting some. If that didn't work, it was then time for Plan B, the intervention.

But the horrible irony of all of this is that by the time I actually decided to act, it was already too late. The next evening, it was dark when I arrived home from work. Then when I unlocked the door, I walked into the apartment, and the first thing that hit me was the smell. It was sort of this wet and coppery smell, heavier than the beef had ever been. The apartment was dark, so I figured no one was home, but when I flipped the light switch, there was Lira, sitting in the middle of the TV room, or at least what was left of her. She was sitting cross-legged, our big kitchen knife in one hand, a flap of her own skin in the other,

She'd peeled it back from her face, starting in her forehead, and it pulled it down, like a mask. She looked at me, the raw flesh of her forehead glistening as blood dripped onto her thighs, and then with lips that were streaked with red, she told me, I need to see who's underneath. I dropped my bag and ran, screaming as I went. I made it in my room, slammed the door, and then. and press my back against it after locking it. My hand shook as I fumbled from my phone.

Then I dialed 911 and told the dispatcher what was happening. And as I spoke, I could hear her out there in the hallway. That knife sounded like it was scraping against something. And she was muttering, louder and louder, and then it stopped, replaced by a low, keening sound, like she'd finally realized what she was doing, or had only now just the same. started to feel the pain of what she'd done to her face. I slid down on the floor. My knees pulled up with my finger in one ear and the dispatcher and the other and just waited.

I was shaking. But thankfully the cops got there fast. I heard the front door burst open as a boot hit the frame, and then after the distinct sound of the two cops shouting some commands, I heard this feral, inhuman snarl before the slap, slap of bare feet on hardwood floor. There was another shout, a command to stop, and then two shots, sharp and loud. The shots were terrifying, but the silence that hung in the air afterwards was somehow even worse.

By the time I unlocked the door, two EMTs were zipping Lira up into a bag. Her face, what was left of it, was turned toward me with one eye still open, cloudy, and still. One of the cops asked if I was okay. I nodded in the moment, but I wasn't. I was more shaken up than I'd ever been in my whole life. I didn't stay. I couldn't. I grabbed my keys in my phone and drove to my friend Mia's place across town.

She opened the door in pajamas and took one look at me and pulled me inside. I crashed on her couch and then told her everything in bits and pieces. My friend didn't say much. She just gave me a hug and handed me a blanket and let me sleep after. assuring me that everything would be fine. A few days later, once the cops finished with a scene, we went back to the apartment, me, Mia, and her boyfriend, and the latter's truck, and we packed all of my stuff up and under an hour, and the landlord didn't fight me when I broke the lease. He'd already seen the bloodstains on the hardwood. I live with Mia now. Her spare room is small,

just a twin bed and a dresser, but it's mine. And sleep was very tough for a while. I'd have nightmares about Lyra, crickets and beetles crawling out of her open mouth before her whole face split open, and I'd wake up sweating, and then lied there till the sun came up wondering what she saw in that jungle and what she brought back with her. The cops called it a psychotic break and blamed the ayahuasca. I read for myself that it happens sometimes, and I guess it does make sense. But there are times at night that I still keep the lights on, and I still lock my bedroom door, and I still check the mirror before I sleep just to make sure that it's still me looking back.

Religious delusion The term delusion refers to a strong, consuming belief in something that is untrue. Religious delusions involve beliefs concerning religious ideologies or figures. Psychosis refers to a collection of symptoms that affect the mind, where there has been some sort of loss of contact with reality. Now, forgive me if this post is a bit scrambled, I just wanted to give some context. I'm on my third glass of wine and contemplating life right now. My brother, Brian, and I grew up very close.

Movie nights with a family, family dinners, game nights, holidays, family road trips, all very normal stuff. And we eventually grew up and now both in our 20s moved away from home. I haven't seen him recently, but we text here and there to confirm aliveness. And Brian suddenly became extremely religious nearly overnight. I'm talking extremely religious. Now, I don't judge anyone, but no one in our family is particularly religious and he does not have religious friends. He found a church in his new city that he is giving his life to, and he is completely isolated and his only friend is the priest.

He is secretive about what church it is and he spends all of his time there, I guess. Brian is there late night every day supposedly helping clean up, but it just doesn't sit right with me. They took a missions trip to Mexico recently, and I can only imagine what in the world went on there. The only media that he consumes is religious, and he has no friends outside of the church, and he only goes to church outside of work. Before ending each conversation, he will ask, Are you ready to give your life to God or suffer in hell? So, you can at least see what I'm experiencing on my end.

It's all very strange. He recently took a trip back home to visit our family. my mom says the whole thing just felt wrong. He sat silent much of the time, observing. Otherwise, he looked far removed even while looking right at her. His energy filled the room and made her uncomfortable, and he was no longer the bubbly and affectionate guy that he's always been. He kept his distance and had nothing to say, and when he left, she said that she doesn't expect that he'll actually come back. Once a month, we catch up by playing video games together. We'll played for hours, and this is sort of our bonding time, and I entertain his religious

conversations regardless of my opinion. Our last game night, he had so much fun that he wouldn't let me log off until about 2 a.m. And I recently found out that he gave his console away to a church member. I was upset. It felt like he didn't think about what that meant. We are not the phone call types, but we love video games and played growing up together, so game nights were perfect. He called me other night to address that issue. He gave it away because his future wife, a premonition, by the way, is coming, and she wouldn't like him playing with other girls and he doesn't have time for anything except the church. I know this sounds absolutely too insane to be real, but unfortunately it is. He assured me that he will be completely cutting me off because his

premonition wife is more important than his relationship with me, his family. He spoke with such clarity that it was terrifying to be so deluded yet so sure of yourself. What type of church influences you to cut off family and friends? Apparently he'll be moving overseas to find his so-called premonition wife soon, and I was shocked. Premonition? Really? Our dad called him and when he asked, for you to need to cut your sister off, you must feel for her in another way than as your sister. And Brian avoided the question and didn't answer. Yeah, I know. How could it get worse than a premonition wife? Well, I'm sick for many reasons. Losing sleep, and I fear that my brother is in some sort of cult while under some sort of religious psychosis, on top of ruining our relationship with possible feelings towards me, his sister, and I'm a mess of confusion.

What in the hillbilly F. is going on? And how could it get worse? My mother believes it's his attempt at removing the temptation, a.k.a. me from his life. And I'm stuck between wanting to understand what the hell type of church this is and also agreeing, let's not meet. No one knows what to say to me, and I can't blame them. I'm mourning what was once our relationship, but the situation gives me chills, and I don't know where to go from here. All I can think of is this one quote that I read before. The more devout they are, the uglier their faith will become since it's all based on a lie. I had a weird childhood, so I was kind of a messed up kid.

Not the kind that went out torturing cats or lasering ants to death with a magnifying glass. I wasn't that far gone. But me and my buddy, Cuxie, we like starting fires. I started small at first. We'd burn stuff in the alley behind his house, whether it was piles of dry leaves, old newspapers, or whatever else we could snag. And I remember the crackle of the flames. the way they danced over whatever we set on fire, and it really fascinated us. Then one day, we messed up big time.

When we were 14, we torched a shed in some guy's backyard just to see how big the fire could get. We didn't mean for it to spread. We didn't mean for the wind to kick up and send embers flying into the backyard of the house next door, but they did and they took off. By the time the fire trucks showed, half the block was swimming in a haze of blue. black smoke. We ran off, thinking that we got in away with it, but it was just days before the cops came knocking on mine and Cuxie's door. We got arrested, dragged down to booking the whole nine yards. Then, after admitting what we did, and on account of our other run-ins with the law,

we each got nine months at a youth detention center, a fancy name for Juvenile Hall. Juvenile Hall, or Juvie, as we called it, was rough as hell, believe it or not. The building was this concrete block in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by chain-link fences topped with razor wire that was so sharp that it was shiny at night. And inside, it smelled like sweat, bleach, and something sour that you couldn't quite pin down. The walls were gray, and the lights buzzed constantly with this low hum that you never seemed to get used to. You'd wake up at six, eat cold oatmeal for breakfast, and then it was either group exercise or group therapy sessions where they'd try to fix us. They'd feed us dinner, give us a little recreation time, and then it was lights out by 9 p.m.

The other kids were a mixed bag. Some were okay, I guess. Guys I'd chewed hoops or trade snacks with, and a couple of them even became close friends. But then there were the other kids, the ones everyone else was afraid of. To their credit, they made it easy to work out who not to mess with, and if a kid was too weird or scary, you knew to either avoid them or treat them with kid gloves. But then there were the kids you didn't know that you needed to be scared of, and to me, they were always way more dangerous. Those first kids were like machine guns. They made a lot of noise, and you knew to keep your head down whenever they did. But then those other kids, the quiet ones, they were almost like landmines. You didn't know that you stepped

on one until it was too late. And Adam, he was one of those. I got stuck with him as a roommate after about four months into my sentence. Our room was small, just two metal bunks bolted to the floor, a chipped sink in the corner and a toilet that smelled bad no matter how much they scrubbed it. The window was little more than a slit way up high, letting in just enough daylight to remind you that the world was still out there. Adam showed up one afternoon, escorted by a guard who dumped his stuff, a thin blanket and a plastic bag of clothes on the bottom bunk.

He was skinny and pale with greasy black hair that just kind of hung on his face and these dark circles under his eyes like he hadn't slept in literal years. He didn't look at me at first. He just sat there, hunched over, staring at the floor, and I figured he was either shy or scared like most newbies were. But I was wrong. I could tell that he was weird almost right away because he didn't seem to sleep much. The first night, I woke up to the bunk creaking as he shifted and caught him sitting upright,

staring at the wall all wide-eyed in the dark. And I thought that he just had the new fish blues, same as most kids got on their first night. But as it turned out, that was just Adam. I don't think he got more than a couple of hours of sleep a night and it got so bad that it started to mess with my own sleep schedule. I'd lie there with a pillow wrapped around my head, trying to tune out the sound of him, whispering things to himself in the dark. Hours later, I'd wake up exhausted with my eyes burning, and he'd be there. Eyes completely fixed on that same spot with the same bloodshot, baggy-eyed stare.

Adam wasn't the biggest fan of personal hygiene either, so much so that the room started to reek because of the stink that clung to his bedding. It smelled like sweat and unwashed skin mixing with the stale air, and I'd hold my breath whenever I walked past him, just so I wouldn't have to smell it. One day, I couldn't take it anymore, and I told him, dude, please, you gotta take a shower, I'm begging you. You stink, man. He didn't answer.

He just slowly tilted his head like he was thinking it over, and then a few hours later he shuffled off to the showers. When he came back dripping wet, I was so relieved that I thanked him, but I spoke too soon. It took me minutes before I realized that some, Somehow, he still smelled bad, like he just stood there under the hot water without using any soap. The smell was bad, really bad, but far worse was the whispering. Adam talked to himself all the time in these low, scratchy murmurs that really grated on me.

And by day it was annoying. He'd muttered under his breath while I'd tried to read the beat-up comics that were passed around, stuff that I couldn't make out but couldn't ignore. But then a night, it turned very creepy. I'd wake up to it, faint and steady, like a radio left on in another room. And in the dark, with the shadows stretching across the walls, it sounded like something out of a horror movie. I'd squinted him through the gloom of the night and see his lips moving, and that constant

hiss cutting through the silence made my goddamn skin crawl. I put up with it for weeks, until one night, when I snapped. I barely slept, my eyes were burning, and Adam was at it again, whispering in the dark. I just sat up, bunk squeaking, and said something like, Dude, why do you always keep talking to yourself? It's driving me nuts. He stopped, and then slowly turned his head toward me, like a puppet on strings. I'm not talking to myself, he said.

His voice was quiet but clear. I'm talking to my little sister. Then write her a letter or something, I replied. Or call her. I don't care. Just stop waking me up. Adam stared at me, unblinking and told me. She's dead. And his reply hit me like a ton of bricks. I felt bad, really bad.

This horrible guilt twisting through my guts like a corkscrew. I'd lost people too. Not anyone like a sibling or anything like that, but I knew that it hurt. And I remember rubbing my eyes inside. before I said something like, Sorry, man. I didn't mean to upset you. But then, to my surprise,

Adam led out this soft, high-pitched chuckle that somehow lacked any kind of joy to it. It's okay, he said, adopting a tone that made me more and more nervous. It's me. Who should be sorry? He didn't wait for me to ask. He just started talking with his voice low and steady

like he'd been waiting to tell someone for years and years and years. Adam said that one day when he was five and his sister was three, they'd been taking a bath together. They'd been splashing each other, arguing over some toy, the usual kid stuff, but Adam decided he'd had enough. He didn't want to have a little sister anymore. He didn't want her taking his toys, his space, his parents' attention.

So, he bashed her head on the side of the tub to stun her, and then pushed her head under the water and held it there. She kicked and fought, her little legs thrashing while her feet smacked the sides of the tub. He held her there as she fought for her life, bubbles breaking the surface as water sloshed over the edge of the tub and soaked the bathroom floor. Her hands clawed at his arms, he said. her tiny little fingernails digging into his flesh but adam didn't let go he watched her face under the water eyes wide panicking mouth open in a scream that made no sound after a while his little sister stopped moving she turned limp floating just under the surface with her hair fanning out like weeds adam said he sat there staring at her lifeless body until her mom walked in and started screaming He told his parents it was an accident, that his sister had slipped, hit her head, and

that he thought that she was just messing around until it was too late. He said his parents didn't want to believe he was capable of murder, so they swallowed his story, hook, line, and sinker, and clung to it even, and then buried the truth with his sister's little coffin. The cops didn't do too much digging, not with Adam's parents covering for him. Little kids don't kill, they said, not on purpose. Not like that. Besides, the poor girl's mom and dad had enough tragedy to deal with.

Taking their only living child away from them just seemed cruel. And so, Adam got away with it. He walked totally free after drowning his own sister. No punishment, no record, nothing. And looking back on it, I think I just wanted to make sure that he wasn't a total monster, but I asked if he regretted it. And to my relief, he said yes. but that relief was short-lived.

He didn't regret it because he missed her, and he certainly didn't regret getting all that sympathy over the years for being the poor little boy who watched his sister drown. He regretted killing her because now she wouldn't leave him alone. Ever since the day he drowned her in that tub, Adam's little sister had been following him around. He said he tried ignoring her at first and would pretend that he couldn't see or hear her,

but that just made her mad. And when she got mad, she'd change. Adam said that whenever his little sister got angry, she'd stretch tall and thin, her limbs and face twisting into something sharp and hollow. She'd loom over him at night, silently screaming just like she had in the tub. So he started talking to her, whispering just to keep her happy. He didn't mind if it made him look crazy because the alternative was far worse. After he finished his little story, I remember sort of sitting there, feeling the air

get a little colder. Is she here? Right now? I had to force the words out, and then in response, Adam slowly nodded before flicking his eyes toward the corner near the sink, and my skin prickled, every hair standing up. I looked to the corner, but there was nothing but shadow. along with the faint drip of the faucet. And yet, like I said, the air felt heavier somehow.

I barely slept that night. I just lay there listening to him whisper again. Only this time it didn't annoy me at all. It terrified me. The next day, I went to talk with a counselor named Mr. Davies, this big guy with the Boshka, who didn't take any crap. And I found him in the rec room, asked to talk to him in private, and then told him everything.

from Adam's story about his sister to the way he whispered in the middle of the night. Mr. Davies listened with this real serious look on his face. Then when I was done, he nodded and said he'd handle it. They pulled Adam out of the rec room later that day. He and Mr. Davies talked for hours. I don't know what was said, but a few days later, Adam was gone. We later heard that he'd been transferred out, shipped to another center somewhere up north, but there was never any official explanation from the staff.

I never saw Adam again, but along with a set of bedding that had been washed several times over just to get rid of his smell, he left behind his story. I got out just a few months later, determined to get my life together so I wouldn't have to bump into another Adam. I still have no idea if he ever told the truth about what happened with his sister, or even if that was the truth to begin with. But if he didn't just make it up to scare me, if he really did drown her in the tub like that,

then I'd hate to think that he's out there, free to walk among us, still hearing the whispers of his long-departed sister. I'm driving home from work last night and was cut off by someone driving like a complete jerk. I live in the United States where driving on the right-hand side is the custom in the left-hand lane on a multiple-lane road is used for faster traffic. I was in the left-hand lane of the two-lane road when a sedan makes a right-hand turn at an intersection. but instead of turning into the right lane that is otherwise unoccupied, this person pulls out in front of me. I try to avoid them and maintain my speed by moving into the right lane to pass, but they again cut me off. At this point I'm quite annoyed and flash my high beams briefly at them.

I move back over into the left-hand lane and pass them. No sooner do I do this, but this person is now tailgating me. I make my way to the intersection that I need to turn at and start in the left-hand lane, eventually moving over to the right and making my right-hand turn. Suddenly, the car moves from the middle lane, where one would continue straight through the intersection, to follow me making a right turn. I'm on the left lane again after turning, and there's still right behind me. There's a red light ahead, and I stop, but not before moving to the right lane at the last minute

to try and lose the person who I realize is now following me. There's a bank and a bar on my right, and I suddenly changed course to go through the parking lot instead of back to my apartment about a block down the street. I'm weaving through the empty parking lot, and this person is still right behind me. At which point I realize, oh crap, I'm going to have to lose this guy before I go home. I reach for my knife in my pocket just in case as well, but I don't have it. I realize that it's in another pocket of some clothes in my laundry basket. This guy is right on my tail and I try to maneuver through the parking lot as quick as I can to lose them.

I'm about to turn left to head back toward my apartment or through downtown to lose this guy when I hear a loud pop and think they've just thrown something at my car. No sooner do I realize this when I see a large, nearly perfect circular hole in the front windshield of my car. This person is behind me, and immediately I pick up my phone, hold the button for the automated assistant, and yell call 911. The person behind me has put a bullet hole through my car. I speed past my apartment while on the phone with the dispatcher and into the parking lot of another bank where there are plenty of security cameras. I realize there's a hole in the passenger seat as well, and within minutes, two police cars arrive and I get out of the car with my hands up to show them I'm a lot. unarmed. When I'm able to look at my car again, I see a bullet hole in the trunk that goes through the back seat, grazes the top left shoulder of the passenger seat in the front, and comes out

my windshield. There's broken glass fragments everywhere on the dashboard. Six inches to the left and the bullet would have gone through my shoulder, six more, and any higher, and I wouldn't be typing the story out. I'll keep you guys updated if there are any developments, but the police say that they should be able to use the bank security footage to catch this monster. Update. The day after this event, a Thursday, I received a call from an investigator who was assigned to my case. He told me, I want to try to recover the bullet.

And I think I probably laughed out loud hearing this. I'm not sure how you want to do that. It went clear through the trunk and out the windshield. And after hearing this, he asked me to come in the following day for forensic ballistics anyways. I worked nights and came in the following evening, Friday at 5 p.m., waited an hour after the receptionist told me he wasn't in and left. When I arrived at work for my shift and sat down at my desk, I got a call from the investigator apologizing for not being at the police station. I don't know if you heard the news, but there was another shooting last night at 8 p.m. I was also working that case, and this actually has everything to do with you.

He explained to me that there had been a drug deal that went wrong the night before it and nearby gas station and the one person involved was in the hospital. The same vehicle that officers had identified in my case had been requisitioned as evidence in the second shooting only 22 hours later. I changed my license plate as soon as the tax commissioner's office open Monday morning. I don't want any of this to come back to me in any way, so I'll keep most of the details out, but here's what I do know. I won't be able to have a case since the bullet couldn't be recovered. more on that shortly. The people involved that shot my car and the other individual who ended up shooting them in the drug deal

would all be facing significant felony charges, likely life in prison, with or without the charges my case would have added. I don't know yet if the shooter in the hospital will survive, but it will determine a lot about the nature of the charges. I won't say anything else about that for a number of reasons, but let's just say that there have been a lot of bizarre coincidences that followed. The bullet was a relatively large, high-velocity rifle round, so the bullet trajectory showed no deviation in the path of the travel through the entire vehicle. It was a perfectly straight line in the ballistic rods from the trunk, through the seats, all the way to the exit point in the windshield.

If the bullet had hit me, well, I'd rather not think about that. Even if it only hit my shoulder in the spot where it passed through the passenger seat, it would have meant massive trauma. I definitely consider myself very lucky to have walked away from that, uninjured. From the very first moment I met him, I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong with my friend's new roommate, Tommy. It was late summer, and my friend Danny had just moved into a cramped, two-bedroom apartment off campus. The building looked like it hadn't seen a fresh look of paint since the 80s, and the stairwell smelled bad, and the hallway carpet was stained. But considering the rent and the proximity to campus, it was quite a fine considering he needed nothing more than a place to sleep and study. I went over to help him unpack hauling boxes up the creaky stairs with my shirt sticking to my back, and that's when Tommy appeared.

He was leaning against the kitchen counter. His arms were crossed, and he was just kind of watching us. He was a big guy, very wide, too, with dark hair that hung just past his ears. Danny introduced me. This is Tommy. He's cool. He's quiet. Tommy nodded, a quick jerk of his chin, but he didn't smile.

and he didn't say a word. I remember forcing a smile, mumbling hello, and went back to helping Danny move his stuff in. But I didn't like the look of him, and that never changed. Later, when we were alone grabbing pizza in the car, I brought it up. Your roommate's kind of off, man, I told him. But Danny just laughed in that loud, careless way of his. Tommy's just not a big talker as all, he replied.

I mean, I guess he's a little weird, but who isn't? He had a point, but I still wasn't sure. Something about Tommy just didn't sit right with me. But Danny was my best friend, and I didn't want to pester him over what amounted to just a gut feeling, so I let it go. And okay, time for a short history lesson before we keep going. Danny and I went way back, all the way to high school, and for as long as I'd known him, he was the kind of guy who could sleep through a tornado. Then, since this all happened before super loud cell phone speakers were a thing,

cell phone alarm clock functions were nothing more than tinny two-tone beeps looping over and over. Well, what about the vibration function? I hear you ask. Couldn't Danny just put his phone on a desk and any other hard surface and then hear the super loud buzzing when the alarm went off? Not if he wanted to charge his phone overnight, because back then, and I'm sure some engineer type will explain why in the comments, but some phones quit vibrating altogether whenever they were plugged into a charge. And it was super first world problems, I guess, but the solution was simple. He bought an iPod docking station, one which featured an alarm clock function, and then he could blast himself with some Pantera music whenever he needed to wake up. However, that iPod station ended up being the punchline to half our jokes for a while

because even if he blasted himself with ears splitting heavy metal music, he still didn't wake up half the time. It happened when he was sleeping over at my place one time and he'd set up the docking station the night before to play music. It started blaring at like 7 a.m., and for the record, it was Pantara's song The Great Southern Trendkill, so it opens up with a guy growl screaming, Blur, at the top of his lungs.

And it woke me up startled, and I looked across the room, expecting Danny to wake up in a similarly erupt fashion, but he was sprawled out in his inflatable mattress like some starfish, still snoring as the screaming stopped, and the guitar riffs kicked in. I threw a pillow at him, and he woke up annoyed, like there wasn't ear-melting loud music playing right next to his head. I thought it was funny at the time, but looking back on it, there was probably a medical explanation for it. Maybe he was hard of hearing and no one ever put it together. But either way, Tommy didn't find it funny and he didn't share our sympathy for Danny's condition either.

Danny mentioned it maybe a week after moving in. Tommy hates the alarm. He said, casual like it was nothing. It says it wakes him up and he can't fall back asleep when it does. It keeps giving me these looks about it. He chuckled. I told him I'd use something else. You know me? I did know him. He wouldn't find something else, or rather, it took Danny way longer than it should to get around to the little things like that. That iPad station had been screaming at him for years by this point, and he'd never once bothered to replace it or set it quieter. Be careful, dude, I said only half joking. Tommy's one odd duck. Danny laughed again, and I was told I worry too much. But things got bad, fast.

One night, Danny texted me about Tommy acting strange. It was a picture of a note on the fridge. Silence is golden, scrawled, and block letters with a black marker. Dude's got a flare for drama, Danny wrote, adding a laughing emoji. Then another time, he said Tommy had stood in the hallway outside of his room at night, not moving, just staring at the door. Caught him when I went for water, Danny texted. It freaked me out, but he just said that he thought he heard something. I told him to get out, find a new place at that point, to crash on my couch if he needed to.

When he told me that things weren't that bad, especially not since the rent was so cheap. And I should have pushed harder. I should have shown up with a truck and dragged him out of there myself, but hindsight is always 20-20, I guess. It was a Tuesday when it happened. I hadn't heard from Danny all day, which wasn't like him at a time. all because he usually sent me dumb texts that we'd crack up over later. But that day, my phone stayed silent. And by afternoon, I was preoccupied with worry, checking it every few minutes for text messages or missed calls, but nothing came through. By the evening, the worry was eating

at me, so I drove over to Danny's apartment and found the door was unlocked when I got there. By his own mission, Danny was a slob. He'd leave clothes everywhere, leave dishes piled up, but he wasn't careless, and he wouldn't leave his door unlocked. I stepped inside and found the living room was dark except for the flicker of the TV. I called out Danny's name, but got no answer as I moved past the cluttered coffee table with its empty beer cans and crumpled up chip bags and then into his bedroom. And I found him on the bed. Danny was sprawled out, one arm flung over the edge like he'd fallen asleep mid-snews the way he always did.

but the sheets were soaked red, a dark stain spreading out from under him and pulling on the mattress. Blood trailed down the side, dripping slow and steady onto the floor, where that damn docking station sat, smashed to pieces, plastic cracked, wires spilling out. Danny's throat was cut, a jagged, ugly gash that looked like it had been hacked open with something dull, not clean, but completely ragged, like the skin had torn under the force. When I saw his eyes, staring at the ceiling, completely empty, I stumbled back with this tight feeling in my chest.

And then I heard it, the creak of a floorboard coming from the hallway behind me. Tommy was there, standing just outside the door. His face was blank, no anger, no panic, just nothing. like it was waiting for a friggin' bus or something. He couldn't stop, he said. That noise. Every morning. I asked him.

I warned him. I froze. My brain screaming at me to run, to yell at him, to do anything. But my legs were rooted to that spot. He took a step closer. His shoe's silent there on the carpet. I saw his eyes flick to the broken. broken clock and then back to me.

You heard it too, didn't you? He asked before saying, you know how it was. He took one more step towards me and I bolted. I don't remember deciding to. I just remember my body lunging forward and my shoulders slamming into the door frame before I slipped through.

I hit the front door hard, fumbling the knob for a split second before it flew open and banged against the wall. Behind me, I could hear Tommy, not running, but taking these slow, steady steps that echoed in the narrow stairwell. I made it to my car, and my hands were shaking so bad I dropped my keys twice before I jammed them into the lock. I didn't look back until I was peeling out, and there he was, standing in the street, watching me drive off with that same empty look in his eyes.

The cops picked him up later that night. I'd called them from a gas station a mile away, my brain so frightened. they had to keep asking me to repeat myself. They found Tommy in the apartment sitting on the couch with the knife that he'd used to kill Danny sitting in the kitchen sink. He hadn't bothered to wash it. He didn't resist either, didn't fight. He just let the cops cuff him and take him away.

They told me he kept muttering about the alarm how it had to stop. Danny had been dead since morning, they said, probably killed right after that clock went off at 6 a.m. Tommy had sat there all day with him, waiting, just him and the body, the TV flickering in the background. I still think about Danny a lot, how he laughed off the notes, how he was too stubborn or stupid to see that danger. I still think about Tommy, too, and how close I came to being next. That docking station was gone, smashed to pieces on the bloodied floor, but I still hear the sound that it made sometimes. whenever I think about everything that happened. and looking back, the signs were all there. It started with small things, us just roughhousing like

buddies. We were both guys, but it would escalate to them, taking me back behind the shed where my friends couldn't see, and holding me against the wall and fake hitting me, sort of pretending to hurt me while laughing the whole time. But he did actually hurt me. I would have bruises for weeks. One time he literally shoved my face into stinging nettles, but my naive 15-year-old self thought was all good and fun. If only I knew then what I would know now. So we started dating at the end of my sophomore year and over the summer things progressed. He used to beg me to give him massages and whenever I would refuse, he would pin me down and tickle me until I relented and said yes. And when I stopped before he was ready, he'd go back to tickling me. Sometimes he would just

randomly pin me down and tickle me and I would beg him to stop, but the only way to get him to stop was to literally fight him off of me. And this happened almost every single time we hung out, and I grew to dread it, and I don't know why I kept going back. Honestly, I was just so in love with him. I'm 5'3 and wait even less than I do now, about 100 pounds, and he's 5'7 and lifts weights for context. And I learned a lot about how to fight someone bigger off of me in those days.

And it wasn't just tickling, though. As I said before, they used to jokingly beat me up, but the force of his punches was not a joke. I would have bruises all over my arms and thighs from them punching me. And one time, I got in the front seat of our friend's car when he wanted shotguns, so he proceeded to punch my arm the entire 15-minute drive until I was almost crying because I kept trying to move away and tell them to stop. My friend who was driving did nothing.

I don't know why he was even older than both of us, and I don't know why he thought that was normal. It wasn't just punching me either. I had recently gotten my ear pierced and he thought it was so funny to smack me upside the head and once he made me bleed and when I told him he just said he hadn't and I tried to talk to him about this so many times asking please just don't touch my ears and every time I asked all he would do was correct my grammar and this was over text I was honestly scared to say anything in person and here's an example of me trying to talk to him from August 2021

Now, we ended up breaking up and just staying friends, and I spent all of my free time at his house like an idiot. Another thing he started doing was always wanting to smoke me up, but never smoking himself. Huge red flag, I know, but at the time, all I was thinking was more weed for me. And I say all of this to explain what our relationship was like and how utterly confusing this all was for me, and to this day I am still confused why they acted this way. and now for the part where I think he actually tried to kill me. I was 16 now, he was 19, and the day started off normal.

We were just hanging out, and from what I remember, this time period is kind of spotty as a memory for me, and the next thing I remember is him sitting on top of my chest and arms, pinning me down like he would normally do to tickle me. But this time, he had both hands around my neck, choking me. Not in a sensual way, like both hands. hands on my windpipe, and I couldn't breathe and could barely talk. And I kept hitting his hands and arms, trying to pull him off my neck. It wasn't working. I was trying to say that I can't

breathe, let go of me, but as I said, I could barely talk. And I remember thinking, am I going to die? Is he really trying to kill me? And the whole time, he was laughing and smiling, and I honestly don't remember how I got him off of me, but I think that I must have used my legs and somehow rolled over. the next day I almost forgot it even happened until I realized my neck was sore and bruised when I was at school and I texted him he left bruises on my neck and all I got in response was oh sorry and I wish I could say this was the last time I hung out with him but it wasn't I actually forgot that it happened until weeks later when I was talking to a friend and she was horrified so I decided that I never wanted to see him again and texted him that

and he said, that's understandable. And that's all I got. I had no idea what he would have done if we kept hanging out or if I was just a little weaker. Honestly, I don't want to think about it. And I'm posting this here because it's not something I can never really talk about. Being a guy, the response that I've gotten is you must have given him the wrong idea.

He probably thought that you were just down to wrestle. But now that I'm older, I know what wrestling with your friends is and it is always a mutually agreed-upon thing. Not like that. And I'm still so confused. I'm 19 now and can't imagine treating someone like that. And yeah, our whole friend group at the time called me crazy and said I was overreacting for not wanting to hang out with them anymore.

And they essentially cut me out. My encounters with this individual, who I'll call Ben, began in November, 2024, in school. He was a friend of one of my friends, Tom, and eventually we became part of the same friend group. I've always found Ben a bit creepy, which seemed to be the school. school population's general view towards him. However, once we began regularly socializing, I began to feel bad for my presumptions. That was until we were added to a WhatsApp group chat, and that was when things started to turn. First, it was the constant mindless images of gore that he would send, pictures involving torture victims and murdered children. I don't know if the

images were real, but they made me very uncomfortable. And I asked him to stop, and he responded by telling me to take a joke and to stop being a baby. And after that, he began sending messages claiming that he had killed a cat, along with disturbing fantasies involving people I knew. I wasn't sure if Ben was just your typical edge lord, which is what my other friends thought, but something about it didn't feel right. Then one Saturday, I was alone, Christmas shopping in town when I noticed Ben standing down the road, just sort of staring directly at me. I waved at him awkwardly, but He just kept staring before casually walking into a side street. For the rest of the trip, every time I turned around, Ben seemed to be there,

always at a distance and always staring. And eventually I gave up shopping and went home, kind of angry, and I texted him about it, and he just said that he didn't know what I was talking about. Later, during lunch at school, Ben and another friend Jack convinced me in a third friend, Zach, to come with them into the forest behind her school. It was stupid, I know, but I was bored and decided to go. And as we ventured deeper into the woods, Ben started acting strange, laughing and repeating, closer, closer. Eventually both Zach and I agreed that it was creepy and decided to head back.

And Ben seemed pissed when he and Jack returned. And when we asked why they wanted us to keep going, Ben said he wanted to set a fire and show us. and after that I distanced myself and left that group chat though I was eventually re-added while I was on break from the group Ben attacked Tom at school with a homemade blade and I believe it was a razor from a pencil sharpener Tom ended up with a wound near his wrist and Ben was expelled from school though no legal action was taken and it's been about a month since then when I was re-added to the group I found that Ben had been sending graphic photos of himself doing things to himself and ranting about how he hates his family,

blaming them for his misfortunes. I'm genuinely worried. He gives off killer vibes, but maybe I'm just being paranoid. And I often think about that time in the forest and in the town plaza. Anyways, should I be concerned or am I just overreacting? Sometimes I worry that Ben knows where I live and that he's not far away. Throughout the story, I would like for all of you to keep in mind that it was 20 years old and very naive. You're going to think that I'm stupid and I know I was. Probably lucky to be alive and God do I know that.

and I kicked myself whenever I think about this to this day. I just wanted to get some other opinions. Maybe I'm wrong about him. So about 20 years ago, I was walking down the road in a not-so-great area. It was summertime, and I was dressed appropriately for the heat, shorts and a tank top. I'm very thin and was downright skinny, and I've gotten mistaken for our lady of the night more times than I care to admit, and this may or may not be important to the story. So anyways, I was walking to pick up my son from daycare, and as I'm going about my way,

a truck full of men started to cat call and follow me. They turned around several times to yell at me out of the window and I was getting nervous about it. I was passing a gas station parking lot, and a man, not much older than myself, stopped in a nice car and asked if I would like a ride. He didn't seem scary, and he was attractive, so I said okay and got in his car. jeesh, I wish I could smack myself now. So I get into the car with him and he asks where I'm going. I tell him, it's about a mile straight down the road that I'm on, and he starts going the wrong way and just tells me he needs to turn around,

and I pay very little mind to it. He starts to ask me about myself, so I tell him. I was escaping a DV situation and was staying in a woman's shelter nearby. I was telling him how closely my activities were monitored and that I was. I was due to pick up my son any minute. I think this may actually be what saved me. And at some point I noticed that he takes another wrong turn. But I don't know the area at all, so when I pointed out, he says that he's taking a shortcut or something and I just go back to talking like an idiot. Then I get a whiff of something. I know now that the smell was death. Decompositional death.

And I know this for sure now. I didn't then, though. I turn around and look in the back seat, looking for spoiled food or something like that, and the car is absolutely spotless. I bring up the smell and he brushes it off and changes the subject, but for some reason the smell just started getting stronger. My stupid self brings it up again. What is that smell? And he says he doesn't know, probably something he forgot to take out and has gone bad.

When I tell you guys that there was not a crumb in that vehicle, I'm baffled. but eventually he drops me off safe to my destination and he doesn't tell me his name ask for my number or give me his and i don't think much of it until much later when i smell that smell again but this time i know what it is and it triggers the memory of that guy in the car this was probably 2005 in cummington kentucky and i'm pretty sure that him being aware that not only would i be missed i would be missed quickly and my movements would be tracked very specifically was the reason that I made it back out of that car that day. weeks ago I booked an Airbnb in another country. I was going there for a concert. The room was

cheap so I knew that I wasn't going to stay in a five-star hotel, but it was only for one night, so I didn't mind as long as I had a bed. And to start off, it already wasn't a great trip because my data roaming apparently didn't work in that country at all. I logged into a cafe Wi-Fi and planned my route in advance as best I could, and I managed to be at the house in time and rang the only bell and waited. Nobody came out. I repeatedly rang and waited five minutes, and I noticed the door had a slot for mail and looked through it.

And I was shocked to see an entrance that looked like an abandoned barn. A super dusty couch right in front of the door, pieces of furniture covered in cloth, very dirty and extremely old. And I usually love old houses, but that just did not look like a house that was in use or prepared for guests at all. I wondered if I was at the wrong house and what to do now.

As a super old, unwashed-looking guy walked towards the door from the street, I asked him if he knew where the Airbnb was. And he mumbled something which I interpreted as positive, so I asked him if he was Tim, my host. And he said yes and opened the door for me. While I already described the entrance, the centerpiece was definitely the super old creaky staircase that led to the upper part of the house, and I followed him upstairs.

He was heaving and coughing and stinking of cigarettes, which wasn't exactly pleasant, but fine, I guess. And the second floor was also abandoned looking, super dark, with clustered furniture hung with cloth, and randomly thrown together in a super creepy curtain that I couldn't catch a glimpse behind. Another stare up, and we were in my hallway, which is honestly the worst one. Cracks in the wall, old rural paintings and crosses hung up next to them. It seriously looked like the set of a horror movie. I usually don't have a problem with decor like that. I'm a goth, so anything darkly inclined is my jam.

But everything looks so badly taken care of, so I got major creepo vibes from this house. He showed me to the bathroom, which had a huge hole missing in the bathtub tiling in the wall, and everything looked super dirty. He showed me to the bedroom, which was honestly okay, and there was just a lot of creepy dolls. on the shelves that just completely threw me off, but the bed seemed fine.

I asked him if they had Wi-Fi, and he said, no, which sucks. And I really hoped that they would have that because that meant that I would have no way to communicate in there. And I also asked him when the checkout was the next day, and he said, it doesn't matter. Whatever that meant. He then dragged himself up to the fourth story, which was in complete pitch-black darkness, by the way, so that obviously gave me weird vibes, too. I definitely didn't want to get in the shower, so I just quickly changed and charged my phone.

When I went to the bathroom, I realized that I didn't even notice the creepiest part. There were no locks at all, not for the bathroom, not for the toilet, and not for my room, which freaked me out, and I also noticed that there were so many half-used items that someone, looked like guests before me, had left there like shower gels and toothbrushes and toothpaste. A random lash curler just lay abandoned on the shelf. not sort of like a here you go for your use in case you forget yours way but it just looked like someone left it and nobody bothered to clean it away i already made of my mind that i would definitely not be staying the night in this house my mind was just kind of spinning with different scenarios

what if all of these products were left by people before me and why did nobody leave horrendous reviews because they all got murdered i was super spooked and seriously debated if i should take all my stuff to the concert because it did not feel safe in the slightest. But my back was really hurting from my heavy backpack, so I just took my essentials and left the room as soon as I could. Not without sliding a folded paper under the doors, so I'd see if someone tried to open it in my absence. When I was coming down the stairs, I heard someone turning a key in the front door. I was a bit confused, but in the advertisement it said that a couple lived there, so I expected to see a sort of wife or girlfriend of the guy I'd already met.

Instead, a middle-aged man enters and says, Hi, I'm Tim. All I could think of is, then who is that other guy? And I was pooping myself inside, but I had brief small talk with him and finally left the house. And I was quite shook. Luckily, I made it in time to the venue and the concert was worth it. And afterwards, I was so tired that I knew that. that I couldn't stay awake for the whole night, so I checked into a hostel that was also not

perfectly clean, but at least they had Wi-Fi and a proper shower and a door that had a lock. And the next day I got thrown out at 10 a.m., so I made my way to the rest of my stuff. I don't know why, but I checked the mail slot again and jump back. The old guy was just snoring on the couch, directly in front of the entrance door. The strangest part about him was that he was now wearing, and I'm not joking when I say this, a snorlax onesie, you know, like the Pokemon? An even stranger I saw that he was hooked up to oxygen, some tank which was slightly sprawled out across the floor,

the line leading up to his nose. And I had to sneak past him to get my stuff. I went upstairs and my door was left slightly open, which I thought was very strange. As I gathered my things, I noticed the hair curlers now smelled like they'd recently been used. almost like that burnt hair smell that you get from too much heat on hair. And at that moment, I didn't wait around to find out or ask if someone had been in my room. I quickly grabbed my stuff and try to silently bolt back down the stairs to the door.

I wasn't really paying attention as I made a direct line for the exit, and I accidentally tripped over the old guy's oxygen tubes, ripping them out of the tank. It immediately let out a loud hissing sound, and the old man was, woke up almost instantly gasping for air. In that moment I panicked, I didn't know what to do. I was so freaked out that I just said, I'm sorry a million times, and ran to the door, threw it open, and bolted out. I don't know if I overreacted, but honestly, from the beginning with those two guys to the missing locks and a checkout like that, if I'd assumed the worse, this could have been the perfect setup to assault or murder someone. And best case scenario,

nothing would have happened, but I probably would have had panic attacks all night. Usually I love solo traveling, but this all was just way too much. So last summer, I was almost kidnapped. I usually walk around my neighborhood, sometimes biking, but mostly on foot. And as I was walking, listening to music, a car pulled up beside me. Since I was near someone's house, I didn't think much of it and assumed it was their house that they were pulling up to. But I was wrong. And just to give you an idea of the difference in the size between me and this guy,

I stand at 5 feet 115 pounds, while he looked to be around 6 foot 3 inches tall, 180 pounds. As he came out of this car, he started a conversation with me saying something like, Hey, where are you headed? And I responded with a very short and curt, just walking around. He then said, it's pretty late. You want me to give you a ride home? I declined, saying, no thanks. I don't live in this area. and after I made this statement, he looked at me and asked why I was walking alone.

I simply ignored him and quickened my pace, causing him to speed up as well. Eventually I came across a house with its garage open, and without thinking, I ran in seeing an older man sitting in there. I told him that someone was following me and to please help me, and he got up and started yelling at the man following me, telling him to F off and saying that he had a gun. that guy retreated back to his car and just sped off i thanked the garage man he told me to stay safe and that night i ran as fast as i could back to my home I am aware this happened ages ago, but I am now re-collecting my bits and pieces from the event,

and I'm thankful to be sane and safe. I'm honestly just airing it out so I can get input and opinions, because I don't know what to make of it. And I'll preface this by saying that this happened a while ago, 2019 when I was 16 years old. Hence, I was very naive and gallible. I am aware that it might not be a human trafficking case, but it does seem suspicious regardless. And for context, this happened in a relatively large North American city. It was late December, and a few days before Christmas, I had just finished hanging out with my friends and was using public transit for the subway to get back home.

My friends lived in a different area, so I had to travel back alone in that direction. The subway wagons were mostly empty. It was already dark out, and I recall it being around 8 to 9 p.m. maybe. And I was sitting on an individual seat where the setup was structured in a way that had an other seat perpendicular to my current one, which was empty currently. This one guy, who looked to be relatively young, plopped down on that adjacent seat and greeted me with a smile instantly. I didn't think too much of it at the time, since in all honesty, I thought he was cute. Physically, he had a middle part, chestnut hair, and was relatively tall and very slim.

Nice facial features, too. I don't remember his face in a very detailed manner, but I remember thinking that he was really cute. He was dressed in a sweater and jeans and didn't look dismantled or overly casual either. And upon sitting down, he greeted me smiling, presented himself, and shared his name. We then started making small talk,

and he brought up the fact that he had finished university, which made me ask for his age, and he claimed to be 24, which seemed to match with his own. appearance. What really creeps me out is that in response, I told him that I was 16 years old and he didn't even seem slightly phased by that. Matter of fact, he was smirking and had formed a visible grin, talking about how he missed being young and advising me to stay in school. He proceeded with asking me about what I was doing in the metro, my plans before that, and if I had any plans coming

up in the next few hours to which I stupidly answered no. He then started expressing how his friends had come up with a supposed dare, where he had to bring a random girl over, a complete stranger to their party or hangout, by accosting them randomly, such as this very occasion, I guess. I remember finding it hard to believe, so I insisted on going home about a handful of times, to which he started pleading with me, claiming it would be fun and if I were to be uncomfortable, he would bring me right back to the subway station. I kept insisting that my mom would get mad and asked if there was another day where we could do that, but he answered that it was a one-time thing, that it's a very uncommon gathering,

that he hasn't seen these friends in a long time and wouldn't see them after the event, most probably, because of a full schedule. And he also kept pushing the fact that he wouldn't be keeping me up for too long, and I eventually gave in. I know, super stupid, and I still can't believe it to this day. And we had to go through a few subway stations and got off in a pretty desolate area, which was well known for its drug use and prostitution and poverty. But to be frank, I didn't know that at the time, although it was pretty obvious.

The specific neighborhood still has a pretty tarnished reputation to this day. And the guy, Ben, was his name, then revealed his real name to be different than the one he initially had given me and was seemingly Slavic. The name he revealed is most likely also fake, too, I imagine. And he then started asking me pretty intrusive questions such as, what are your darkest secrets? What's your home life like? What's stressing you out right now?

Why did you decide to come along? And he claimed to like getting to know people beyond the surface level, hence why he was being so intrusive all of a sudden. I, in all honesty, was a straight-a student, so I simply told him that studies were my main concern, as of now, to which he answered that there had to be more than that. And we had to be about 15 minutes in at this point when a car slowed down next to us and rolled down its windows. A man let out a hay, but was immediately shoot away by Ben. Ben then told me that

the man was a supposed John, which I didn't know meant that the driver was essentially a client in that sense. And I started to get wary but still made it to the hangout a few minutes later, which was located in a regular townhouse. It wasn't worn down or anything. I was greeted by maybe five to six dudes who were seemingly over 25. Two of them looked above 30 as well. When they all stared me down and immediately asked how old I was, and I told them I was 16.

One of the guys seemed sort of phased and led out a, come on, man, that's my sister's age. That might even be in the same school. And they all kind of laughed it off and moved on. and then never spoke about it again and barely asked me any questions except how'd you guys meet also it was obvious that someone's dad had owned the place as an old man was dozing off from the couch and we all gathered around a dinner table the host served me some food along with the other guests but i refused to eat as i was honestly starting to feel a bit queasy about this situation

and after everyone except me finished eating we all went upstairs Ben started playing the guitar, and another man joined in by playing some keys on a piano. They then asked me to film them using Ben's phone, so I did. When that was going on, I honestly started getting terrible vibes and felt the need to leave, so I put the phone down and slowly made my way through the frame of the door. One of the older guys was standing near it and asked me what was up, and if I was enjoying their company. We started talking for a minute, and he claimed to be an accountant. He then was starting to lean in and tried to slightly hover over me against the door frame.

However, I stepped back into the staircase and made it to the front door, opened it, and went out to the driveway. Luckily, the door wasn't locked. Ben followed and asked me if I wanted to leave, and I immediately said, yeah. And this time, he didn't insist on bringing me back in. I should also add that right before leaving, I had told Ben that my mom was relentlessly calling me and was worried, to which he obliged. On our way back, he proceeded to ask me if I was genuinely 16 and not below that. He told me that if he were my dad, he would never let me out of sight again,

because what I just did, which was going to the party in the first place, was the dumbest thing he'd seen any girl do, especially since I had no reason to do that, according to him. Once he accompanied me back to the subway station, I asked him for his Snapchat. I was a complete moron, or any other type of social media. he had and he told me he doesn't use his phone like that and was fully off the grid. I went back home and I've never heard of him again. Although I didn't get conventionally harassed, like violence or anything else, and it's

a pretty outdated happening, I'm honestly scared that I could have been a potential human trafficking victim, and it might be a stretch, but you never know. I want to know if there's any way that I could leave an anonymous tip to the city or something. I was searching through public records, but I couldn't find anything. But what do you guys make of the story? I've been a listener for years now and enjoy binging episodes while I draw. My girlfriend and I were watching videos earlier and one talking about how you're likely to walk by 36 serial killers and murderers in your lifetime without ever knowing, and it reminded me of an interaction I had last year with someone who ended up being an attempted murderer.

I was attending a small family gathering at my aunt's house for her birthday last summer with my mom and my brother. My aunt is a nurse and works rotation at a hospital in the small community about two hours away. And during her few days off back at home, she invited family over for dinner and cake to celebrate and spend time together. She told us that she'd also invited a co-worker and her son over as well because they had become good friends while working so they decided to make the drive. Now, for the sake of the story, I'll just name that friend Kate and the son Chad. We were introduced to Kate and Chad when they arrived, and I know this will sound cliche and that everyone whose stories start similar to this will say next, I immediately got a bad feeling, but for me, it was just a heavy discomfort.

I'm very in tune with my surroundings, whether it's a neurodivergent trait of mine or not. It's not important, but I always get a strong read on people from the way their energy shifts when they walk in room for the first time. They were nice while being introduced, and Kate mainly stuck close to the kitchen to help with food, but Chad Beard often chose to sit on the back deck with my mom, brother, uncle, and my uncle's sister and I. My uncle's sister, who will call Tammy, is a talker, and she'll tell you any and every detail about her life, and that mostly includes her tumultuous romantic life. My mom enjoys Tammy's company and having friendly chit-chat about common interests that they share,

so that was the dominant conversation for a while. Chad would interject and fit himself in, finding any area to talk about himself. He wanted us to ask more about him, and I got the sense that he was a little self-obsessed and enjoyed being the center speaker. I was actively engaging in the conversation, but I sat there, quietly observing. Soon the conversation veered and Tammy went off about her most recent love affair, and the man was married and telling her he was. was going to leave his wife for her. And she went on about how she wants to show up at his house

when his wife's home and give him a piece of her mind. And at this point, I noticed how intently Chad was listening to her and how he lit up when he found that this man actually lives in his community. What's his address? I can show up for you, he asked, while anyone would think this is kind of a harmless joke, something in the way he looked genuine unsettled me. And this was brushed off as a joke and the rest of the evening went on fine. All around, Chad seemed like a weird guy, but nothing else caused me to think that he was anything other than that. My mom and I talked about him following the party and how she felt the same way that I did.

It wasn't until a few months ago, though, almost a year after meeting him, that I learned something extremely disturbing about Chad that made my blood run cold. Told to me by my aunt as well as a news article, I found that. found that Chad was currently serving a prison sentence for attempted murder of a 17-year-old girl. He was found guilty by a jury in charge with attempted murder, aggravated assault, for offenses that had occurred in the weeks prior. And at the time of the attack, Chad was walking this teen girl home when he became violent and attacked her. He slashed her throat, stabbed her in her side, which caused her to have a six-centimeter laceration to her liver,

and a four-centimeter wound to her diaphragm. He then left her for dead. She survived the attack and later testified against him, and after pleading not guilty on all accounts, he was ultimately sentenced to three years in prison. The judge noted that he didn't take any responsibility for his actions and showed any level of remorse when he spoke in court. It was premeditated.

An evidence showed text that he made to a friend of his plans weeks prior. He claimed in those texts, that she was corrupt and needed to be put down, among other vile comments. My aunt cut contact with her friend Kate, who ended up denying her son was guilty of any of what he was charged with, and she left that job soon after for unrelated reasons. What makes this all the more disturbing is that this attack happened two years prior to my aunt's party, meaning I sat across from someone who actively tried to take the life of a teenage girl in such a vicious and brutal way.

He wasn't going to do it, he had already done it, and it just hadn't gone to trial yet. we live in a three-family home. My husband and I live on the second floor apartment and you would not know where the door is unless you know where the door is. And our stairs are inside a covered porch area and they're kind of hidden. So an older man with white hair showed up at our door yesterday and knocked in the door. My husband answered and he started telling us that he was moving into the vacant department in the back of the house and that our landlord said that he could wait and move into it in May. Now, mind you, we know our landlord well in no way that she would let the apartment stay vacant until May. And he said he put down a deposit and she was holding it for him.

He started asking us all about our utility bills, the landlord's last name and demeanor, to which my husband answered because he thought initially that he was our new neighbor. And he then noted my husband's accent and asked, Are you a citizen in this country? And my husband responded yes, and then he started sharing how, Hmm, it's a good thing illegals are getting deported. And asking my husband political affiliations. The conversation turned kind of weird after that, and we're independents,

but vote democratically and believe in respecting all people. The man left and proclaimed, I hope you voted for Trump as he walked down the stairs. Now, long story short, we texted our landlord and asked if she knew this man and who was renting the back apartment, and she said, I don't know him. A young mom is renting that apartment. It's safe to say that we are super creeped out, and fast forward, he showed up again today. We bought a door camera and now have him on video.

We don't understand who this man is or what his intentions are. Is he some confused old man or someone with bad intentions towards interracial couples? I don't know. I'm not sure if this is going to be interesting of the story since it happened in such a young age that the story had to be relayed on to me through family. But when I was around one to two years old, me and my sister were at her aunt's house. My mom and myself and my sister were outside in the front yard, and she said that she needed to go inside for something and left my sister outside with me. My sister was around five to six at the time and should have never been put in charge of a baby. Anyway, during this time she had left and was just the two of us outside.

Apparently, someone had grabbed me, and no one noticed and didn't. until my mom came back outside and I was nowhere to be seen. They immediately freaked out and my uncle of the time had drove around the area searching for me. He had a feeling about who he knew it was and was on the verge of breaking into the guy's house because he banged on his door multiple times and was ignored. My aunt must have talked him out of it because they ended up just going back home and called the police. When the cops got there, they drove around and ended up finding me multiple blocks away just

standing outside of the very house my uncle said was the guy. They never made any arrests on the guy and I don't even think they questioned him. My family says that they think once he heard the sirens coming, he panicked and just left me outside to be found because there was no way a baby that just recently started walking could have wandered that far off on my own. Hey, friends, thanks for listening. Don't forget to hit that follow button to be alerted of our weekly episodes every Tuesday at 1 p.m. EST.

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