I’ll tell you right now that my story doesn’t have any dramatic climax or any cathartic resolution. Don’t bother reading it if that’s what you’re looking for. My story is of one very specific moment in my life. One which, try as I might, I cannot negate as a trick my exhausted brain played on me, or a momentary lapse of reason and subsequent plunge into childish fears.
I think a fear of mirrors must be fairly common, in this day and age. I remember when I was young I saw one of those compilation TV horror shows. The ones where there’d be a different short scary story between commercial breaks. In retrospect it wasn’t the scariest thing in the world, and if I saw it again today I would probably invite friends over and we could quash our collective fear by mocking the bad acting or ridiculous storyline.
All I remember of it is that in the story a man was being constantly tormented by a disfigured, murderous psychopath, but he only saw him when he looked in the mirror. The whole story was a typical song-and-dance of the man catching his stalker in the mirror behind him, turning to face him and finding nothing there.
Maybe the reason I remember it so well is because it was so shortly after I heard my mom die. I say heard because I never saw her body. I was watching TV (a different show) when I heard what sounded like porcelain breaking, followed by a loud thud, coming from the kitchen two rooms away. The sudden noise was oddly unsurprising, but I remember craning my head to see my mom’s legs sprawled on the tiled floor. I couldn’t see any more of her, the doorframe was in the way. Luckily (I suppose), my father ran in first, calling her name somewhat frantically. As I stood up, but did not advance out of what I imagine was fear, I remember him telling me to stay where I was.
The doctors told us a virus had gotten into her heart. I remember my father protesting that he hadn’t even heard of that before. Neither had I, but the concept of death itself was fairly new to me, and I remember being filled with an overwhelming sense of existential fear. As if I or anyone I knew could suddenly crumble into a pile of lifeless dust at any moment.
I don’t think I was a very fearful child, though. Not moreso than most. And even my uneasiness around mirrors didn’t exactly trump my other fears of spiders, or being in cramped spaces. I guess it makes sense that mirrors are a source of fear for people. One of the defining signs of self-awareness is whether or not an animal recognizes itself in the mirror. Maybe we still retain some primal belief that what we’re seeing really isn’t us, but some sinister shadow-self. Not to mention all the scenes in horror movies that use them. A character bends down to splash water in their face, and when they lift their head back up their face is distorted in some gruesome way.
I had just gotten home from a party at a nearby frat house. I lived in an old Victorian house that four of my friends from school and I rented. I was the only one home, having left the party early (if you can call 2:00 in the morning early) and my roommates were all still out. I ran upstairs to my room, exhausted and wanting nothing more than to lay in my bed and feel the rest of the world leave me behind. But I didn’t. In rare form I decided to take a few more steps down the hall to the old, poorly-design bathroom two of my roommates shared with me. It was lit by a single, fluorescent bulb, casting the black and white tile in a sickly, near-green color. I ran a thin strip of toothpaste on my brush and gave my teeth a once-over before spitting the slightly brown spit and foam down the sink. When I looked up I saw her.
Standing behind me in the bathtub with the curtain drawn wide open, my mother’s mouth hung down as if screaming, but without any sound. I could tell it was my mother, but she was a grotesque shadow of how I remember her. Her eyes were either completely gone, or simply black in color. The sockets were vacuums within which nothing reflected. Her skin was so pale it was almost blue, and her dark hair looked drenched in water, hugging her scalp tight and falling in front of her shoulders in thin strips. Her mouth wasn’t exactly screaming, so much as hanging open. Impossibly open, much further than a person’s jaw can extend. She seemed to be wearing a thin white nightgown, drenched, like her hair, and clinging to her emaciated body. Her stick-legs looked like they were going to buckle under her weight, while her arms reached back against the walls.
I must have only seen her for seconds before turning, screaming and falling backwards, slamming hard against the tiled floor. The tub was empty. There had been no sound, and now as the echoes of my cry dissipated I could only hear my heavy breathing. I don’t know how long I lay on the floor of the bathroom. The fluorescent bulb dully buzzing as I became too frightened to even move. Eventually I heard the downstairs door swing open, as a parade of drunk college boys and their floozies poured in for the night. They found me only the floor, and thought it was hilarious that I was so drunk I had almost passed out in the bathroom.
I never saw her again. I never want to see her again, and every day I wish I hadn’t. There are myths of people being scared to death, or being haunted by dreams of a single event for their whole lives. I’ve had dreams too, but they aren’t what haunts me to this very day.
When someone you love dies, you tend to forget everything bad about them, and eventually your fond memories of them just coalesce into a fondness you share with everyone else that knew them. But that’s not how I feel about my mother. I was too young to have endless loving stories about her. Instead all I can remember is her face that night in the mirror.
My story doesn’t end with me taking my own life, or anything dramatic like that. I have thought about it, though. I tried putting a length of rope across my neck one day and squeezing, just to see what it would feel like. But I would never go through with it. It isn’t so much that I want to live. What bothers me the most is that I don’t know for sure what happens when we die. Nobody knows. But what I saw that night in the mirror makes me think I do.
//
Credited to Matt Chatham.
The best creepypastas I have found thoughout many nights on many forums!
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
Evaporation
Water.
Water is the cornerstone of life. It nourishes us, irrigates our crops and waters our livestock. Water is vital for all known forms of life. We rely on it to wash our cars, clean our food and produce our power. It has an effect on almost every activity in everyday life. Without it, civilisation would cease to function. Governments would collapse, crippled by an undefeatable enemy – drought. It would be a matter of days – no longer than a week – before every living being on Earth perished. In short, we cannot live without water.
Two days ago, we were forced to begin doing just that.
I don’t know how it began. Nobody left alive does. During the initial hours of it, theories ranged from the barely plausible, like a new form of greenhouse gas, to the ridiculous, such as a new type of light, one that only evaporated water. I remember those hours fondly – the true enormity of what had happened had not yet sunk in and hysteria had not yet clutched the human race.
What happened?
I’ll put it simply.
The first was that every single drop of freshwater on the entire planet evaporated instantly.
I don’t think I can do this event justice, but I’ll try.
Can you imagine every single river, every single lake, every single natural source of water drying up instantly, without rational explanation? I doubt you can, but that’s exactly what happened. It wasn’t restricted to natural sources, either. As far as I can tell, all the bottled water in the world also evaporated, as did that in water tanks and other similar sources. It also disappeared from other substances, including soft drinks, creating foul sugar compounds that would make those that consumed it quite ill. There was not a single drop of freshwater left anywhere on Earth for anybody to drink.
But by far the worst result of the lack of water was the nuclear reactors.
Without pressurised water, most of the nuclear reactors in the entire world – those that utilise purified water as coolant – had no available sources of coolant, and just under half of these had poor or untested failsafe plans. The resulting effect of this led to catastrophic nuclear meltdown in roughly 46% of water-cooled reactors. The world, already reeling from the unprecedented situation, fell into total anarchy.
International communication ceased after almost exactly twenty-four hours after it began.
But there was a second effect.
The saltwater poisoning.
Many people flocked to desalination plants in the first few hours, hoping for salvation.
They found none.
At approximately the same time as the worldwide evaporation, saline increased by fivefold in every sea or ocean on Earth. Desalination plants were able to cope with this load for approximately twenty hours. Then, fuel began to run low – and with the imminent collapse of civilisation thanks to the multiple nuclear catastrophes, no more was delivered. Thus, the last ever drop of freshwater on Earth was pumped out no later than midnight yesterday.
After the drought came the collapse.
With no water available, civilisation soon descended into anarchy. Governments, typical of authority to the very end, tried maintaining order. It didn’t work. Soldiers rebelled, shooting rioters and runners alike. Those who didn’t die were brutally executed moments after. They turned on each other soon enough, with only a few militaries intact from the carnage. The deserters fled, unwilling to stay and watch the extinction of Earth.
But then came the worst, far worse than anything before it.
There was, in fact, one source of water that hadn’t been touched.
I’m so lucky I realised before anyone else in my town.
It was blood.
Blood, which is over 90% water, was the only remaining liquid fit to drink.
And so some did.
At first, I didn’t believe it. It was too horrific.
Animals went first. The desperate drank the blood of cats, dogs, pets and feral animals of all kinds. Many offered too little blood to be of any value. The situation was made worse by the fact that I live in a rather large metropolitan city and beyond domesticated pets and the odd feral animal, there was no animals to catch and drink from. Perhaps those in the country fared better – I have no way of finding out, and frankly I don’t really care.
I knew then that humans were the only other option.
I first saw it twelve hours ago.
An elderly man, dressed in nothing but a torn dressing gown, slowly made his way down the street that ran in front of my house. He called for help desperately, croaking out that his entire nursing home was dead or dying, that the nurses had fled and that he was looking for help. He was so pitiful that I almost opened my door, if only to offer him some respite from the midday sun, and some of my sparse rations.
If I had been a second faster, I would not be writing this.
Before I could open the door, three people – two men and a woman – pounced from the shadow of a nearby tree. The poor old bastard had no chance. They leapt upon him, frenzied in their dehydration, and set on him with makeshift tools. It was the most terrifying spectacle of my entire life. One of the men had a hammer – he set about bashing the man’s joints in, one by one. Crack. Crack. Crack. I retched bile each time the hammer slammed into bone, so sickening was the crunch. The other had a gardening hoe. He hovered above the elderly man, bringing the makeshift weapon down once, twice. The tool cut through the man’s ankles like a knife through a steak.
The metaphor made me vomit. After I did, I looked back, if only to satisfy my own growing horror.
Oh, how I wish I hadn’t.
The woman, who was weaponless save for her own two hands, had straddled the man’s chest. Her hands were spread on the screaming man’s face as her own companions butchered him. Then, even as I watched, she dug her thumbs into his eyes. He howled like nothing I had ever heard before. She dug harder, pushing inwards and outwards simultaneously. When they were pulled free, blood and some even less discernible liquid splattered all over her. She grabbed them and ate them like fruit. I could hear the chewing sounds from my door. They bent to consume the precious blood and I turned away.
I call them the Drinkers.
There’s one thing I want to make very clear about them. They aren’t zombies. Nor are they affected by some external force that forces them to drink the blood of humans, such as a virus or disease. They are entirely human. I suspect that dehydration affects them worse than it does others and this forces them to drink from humans in a form of pseudo-cannibalism or perish. They represent the dark side of humanity. The Drinkers also seem to recognise each other through some subtle signal. Not being a Drinker, I wouldn’t know it.
As fast as I possibly could, I took my meagre supplies, some small comforts, this journal and my .357 Desert Eagle up into my bedroom. I pushed the bed against the door with my rapidly fading strength and piled furniture on it. The Desert Eagle has a full clip of seven, and I have one spare. Enough for thirteen Drinkers and - well, I’m sure you can imagine.
—
Another six hours have passed. I can really feel the dehydration now. My tongue feels numb and my skin feels like sandpaper. I tried to eat some bread before and I almost choked, with no saliva to moisten my throat. Now I’m hungry as well as thirsty. I don’t even know why I’ve kept writing this. Maybe it’s something to occupy me during the final hours of mankind. Maybe I hold some hope that a solution will be found and somebody in the future will read this and remember what it was like. Maybe I’m just delusional.
—
It’s getting worse. I’m breathing heavily and becoming more and more lethargic. This room feels like a sauna. I can almost see the heatwaves bouncing across the room, becoming more and more intense until I am literally cooked alive. It’s not a pleasant vision. My pen keeps slipping from the page as I suffer random bursts of weakness. I’m scared I won’t even be able to pull the trigger if the time comes.
—
I’m so terribly thirsty. The last time I urinated it burned. I haven’t defecated for a long time now. My vision’s fading in and out and my head feels like it’s going to split open from the intense pressure inside. My skin is so dry and leathery. I know I’m dying, but I’ve still got the Desert Eagle. Maybe I should kill myself before I lose the strength to do so. God knows it’s better than dehydrating to death or letting the Drinkers get me.
—
so thirsty
its dark and i’ve lost the gun
vision almost gone
so THIRSTY
i’m going mad
i’m dying
wait
what’s that
so thirsty
somebody’s knocking at the door
they want to be let in
they say the drinkers are coming
should i
i don’t know
maybe i’ll go get a drink.
i’m so thirsty.
//
Credited to Archfeared.
Water is the cornerstone of life. It nourishes us, irrigates our crops and waters our livestock. Water is vital for all known forms of life. We rely on it to wash our cars, clean our food and produce our power. It has an effect on almost every activity in everyday life. Without it, civilisation would cease to function. Governments would collapse, crippled by an undefeatable enemy – drought. It would be a matter of days – no longer than a week – before every living being on Earth perished. In short, we cannot live without water.
Two days ago, we were forced to begin doing just that.
I don’t know how it began. Nobody left alive does. During the initial hours of it, theories ranged from the barely plausible, like a new form of greenhouse gas, to the ridiculous, such as a new type of light, one that only evaporated water. I remember those hours fondly – the true enormity of what had happened had not yet sunk in and hysteria had not yet clutched the human race.
What happened?
I’ll put it simply.
The first was that every single drop of freshwater on the entire planet evaporated instantly.
I don’t think I can do this event justice, but I’ll try.
Can you imagine every single river, every single lake, every single natural source of water drying up instantly, without rational explanation? I doubt you can, but that’s exactly what happened. It wasn’t restricted to natural sources, either. As far as I can tell, all the bottled water in the world also evaporated, as did that in water tanks and other similar sources. It also disappeared from other substances, including soft drinks, creating foul sugar compounds that would make those that consumed it quite ill. There was not a single drop of freshwater left anywhere on Earth for anybody to drink.
But by far the worst result of the lack of water was the nuclear reactors.
Without pressurised water, most of the nuclear reactors in the entire world – those that utilise purified water as coolant – had no available sources of coolant, and just under half of these had poor or untested failsafe plans. The resulting effect of this led to catastrophic nuclear meltdown in roughly 46% of water-cooled reactors. The world, already reeling from the unprecedented situation, fell into total anarchy.
International communication ceased after almost exactly twenty-four hours after it began.
But there was a second effect.
The saltwater poisoning.
Many people flocked to desalination plants in the first few hours, hoping for salvation.
They found none.
At approximately the same time as the worldwide evaporation, saline increased by fivefold in every sea or ocean on Earth. Desalination plants were able to cope with this load for approximately twenty hours. Then, fuel began to run low – and with the imminent collapse of civilisation thanks to the multiple nuclear catastrophes, no more was delivered. Thus, the last ever drop of freshwater on Earth was pumped out no later than midnight yesterday.
After the drought came the collapse.
With no water available, civilisation soon descended into anarchy. Governments, typical of authority to the very end, tried maintaining order. It didn’t work. Soldiers rebelled, shooting rioters and runners alike. Those who didn’t die were brutally executed moments after. They turned on each other soon enough, with only a few militaries intact from the carnage. The deserters fled, unwilling to stay and watch the extinction of Earth.
But then came the worst, far worse than anything before it.
There was, in fact, one source of water that hadn’t been touched.
I’m so lucky I realised before anyone else in my town.
It was blood.
Blood, which is over 90% water, was the only remaining liquid fit to drink.
And so some did.
At first, I didn’t believe it. It was too horrific.
Animals went first. The desperate drank the blood of cats, dogs, pets and feral animals of all kinds. Many offered too little blood to be of any value. The situation was made worse by the fact that I live in a rather large metropolitan city and beyond domesticated pets and the odd feral animal, there was no animals to catch and drink from. Perhaps those in the country fared better – I have no way of finding out, and frankly I don’t really care.
I knew then that humans were the only other option.
I first saw it twelve hours ago.
An elderly man, dressed in nothing but a torn dressing gown, slowly made his way down the street that ran in front of my house. He called for help desperately, croaking out that his entire nursing home was dead or dying, that the nurses had fled and that he was looking for help. He was so pitiful that I almost opened my door, if only to offer him some respite from the midday sun, and some of my sparse rations.
If I had been a second faster, I would not be writing this.
Before I could open the door, three people – two men and a woman – pounced from the shadow of a nearby tree. The poor old bastard had no chance. They leapt upon him, frenzied in their dehydration, and set on him with makeshift tools. It was the most terrifying spectacle of my entire life. One of the men had a hammer – he set about bashing the man’s joints in, one by one. Crack. Crack. Crack. I retched bile each time the hammer slammed into bone, so sickening was the crunch. The other had a gardening hoe. He hovered above the elderly man, bringing the makeshift weapon down once, twice. The tool cut through the man’s ankles like a knife through a steak.
The metaphor made me vomit. After I did, I looked back, if only to satisfy my own growing horror.
Oh, how I wish I hadn’t.
The woman, who was weaponless save for her own two hands, had straddled the man’s chest. Her hands were spread on the screaming man’s face as her own companions butchered him. Then, even as I watched, she dug her thumbs into his eyes. He howled like nothing I had ever heard before. She dug harder, pushing inwards and outwards simultaneously. When they were pulled free, blood and some even less discernible liquid splattered all over her. She grabbed them and ate them like fruit. I could hear the chewing sounds from my door. They bent to consume the precious blood and I turned away.
I call them the Drinkers.
There’s one thing I want to make very clear about them. They aren’t zombies. Nor are they affected by some external force that forces them to drink the blood of humans, such as a virus or disease. They are entirely human. I suspect that dehydration affects them worse than it does others and this forces them to drink from humans in a form of pseudo-cannibalism or perish. They represent the dark side of humanity. The Drinkers also seem to recognise each other through some subtle signal. Not being a Drinker, I wouldn’t know it.
As fast as I possibly could, I took my meagre supplies, some small comforts, this journal and my .357 Desert Eagle up into my bedroom. I pushed the bed against the door with my rapidly fading strength and piled furniture on it. The Desert Eagle has a full clip of seven, and I have one spare. Enough for thirteen Drinkers and - well, I’m sure you can imagine.
—
Another six hours have passed. I can really feel the dehydration now. My tongue feels numb and my skin feels like sandpaper. I tried to eat some bread before and I almost choked, with no saliva to moisten my throat. Now I’m hungry as well as thirsty. I don’t even know why I’ve kept writing this. Maybe it’s something to occupy me during the final hours of mankind. Maybe I hold some hope that a solution will be found and somebody in the future will read this and remember what it was like. Maybe I’m just delusional.
—
It’s getting worse. I’m breathing heavily and becoming more and more lethargic. This room feels like a sauna. I can almost see the heatwaves bouncing across the room, becoming more and more intense until I am literally cooked alive. It’s not a pleasant vision. My pen keeps slipping from the page as I suffer random bursts of weakness. I’m scared I won’t even be able to pull the trigger if the time comes.
—
I’m so terribly thirsty. The last time I urinated it burned. I haven’t defecated for a long time now. My vision’s fading in and out and my head feels like it’s going to split open from the intense pressure inside. My skin is so dry and leathery. I know I’m dying, but I’ve still got the Desert Eagle. Maybe I should kill myself before I lose the strength to do so. God knows it’s better than dehydrating to death or letting the Drinkers get me.
—
so thirsty
its dark and i’ve lost the gun
vision almost gone
so THIRSTY
i’m going mad
i’m dying
wait
what’s that
so thirsty
somebody’s knocking at the door
they want to be let in
they say the drinkers are coming
should i
i don’t know
maybe i’ll go get a drink.
i’m so thirsty.
//
Credited to Archfeared.
-Read this one sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo long ago.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Psychosis
Sunday
I’m not sure why I’m writing this down on paper and not on my computer. I guess I’ve just noticed some odd things. It’s not that I don’t trust the computer… I just… need to organize my thoughts. I need to get down all the details somewhere objective, somewhere I know that what I write can’t be deleted or… changed… not that that’s happened. It’s just… everything blurs together here, and the fog of memory lends a strange cast to things…
I’m starting to feel cramped in this small apartment. Maybe that’s the problem. I just had to go and choose the cheapest apartment, the only one in the basement. The lack of windows down here makes day and night seem to slip by seamlessly. I haven’t been out in a few days because I’ve been working on this programming project so intensively. I suppose I just wanted to get it done. Hours of sitting and staring at a monitor can make anyone feel strange, I know, but I don’t think that’s it.
I’m not sure when I first started to feel like something was odd. I can’t even define what it is. Maybe I just haven’t talked to anyone in awhile. That’s the first thing that crept up on me. Everyone I normally talk to online while I program has been idle, or they’ve simply not logged on at all. My instant messages go unanswered. The last e-mail I got from anybody was a friend saying he’d talk to me when he got back from the store, and that was yesterday. I’d call with my cell phone, but reception’s terrible down here. Yeah, that’s it. I just need to call someone. I’m going to go outside.
—
Well, that didn’t work so well. As the tingle of fear fades, I’m feeling a little ridiculous for being scared at all. I looked in the mirror before I went out, but I didn’t shave the two-day stubble I’ve grown. I figured I was just going out for a quick cell phone call. I did change my shirt, though, because it was lunchtime, and I guessed that I’d run into at least one person I knew. That didn’t end up happening. I wish it did.
When I went out, I opened the door to my small apartment slowly. A small feeling of apprehension had somehow already lodged itself in me, for some indefinable reason. I chalked it up to having not spoken to anyone but myself for a day or two. I peered down the dingy grey hallway, made dingier by the fact that it was a basement hallway. On one end, a large metal door led to the building’s furnace room. It was locked, of course. Two dreary soda machines stood by it; I bought a soda from one the first day I moved in, but it had a two year old expiration date. I’m fairly sure nobody knows those machines are even down here, or my cheap landlady just doesn’t care to get them restocked.
I closed my door softly, and walked the other direction, taking care not to make a sound. I have no idea why I chose to do that, but it was fun giving in to the strange impulse not to break the droning hum of the soda machines, at least for the moment. I got to the stairwell, and took the stairs up to the building’s front door. I looked through the heavy door’s small square window, and received quite the shock: it was definitely not lunchtime. City-gloom hung over the dark street outside, and the traffic lights at the intersection in the distance blinked yellow. Dim clouds, purple and black from the glow of the city, hung overhead. Nothing moved, save the few sidewalk trees that shifted in the wind. I remember shivering, though I wasn’t cold. Maybe it was the wind outside. I could vaguely hear it through the heavy metal door, and I knew it was that unique kind of late-night wind, the kind that was constant, cold, and quiet, save for the rhythmic music it made as it passed through countless unseen tree leaves.
I decided not to go outside.
Instead, I lifted my cell phone to the door’s little window, and checked the signal meter. The bars filled up the meter, and I smiled. Time to hear someone else’s voice, I remember thinking, relieved. It was such a strange thing, to be afraid of nothing. I shook my head, laughing at myself silently. I hit speed-dial for my best friend Amy’s number, and held the phone up to my ear. It rang once… but then it stopped. Nothing happened. I listened to silence for a good twenty seconds, then hung up. I frowned, and looked at the signal meter again – still full. I went to dial her number again, but then my phone rang in my hand, startling me. I put it up to my ear.
“Hello?” I asked, immediately fighting down a small shock at hearing the first spoken voice in days, even if it was my own. I had gotten used to the droning hum of the building’s inner workings, my computer, and the soda machines in the hallway. There was no response to my greeting at first, but then, finally, a voice came.
“Hey,” said a clear male voice, obviously of college age, like me. “Who’s this?”
“John,” I replied, confused.
“Oh, sorry, wrong number,” he replied, then hung up.
I lowered the phone slowly and leaned against the thick brick wall of the stairwell. That was strange. I looked at my received calls list, but the number was unfamiliar. Before I could think on it further, the phone rang loudly, shocking me yet again. This time, I looked at the caller before I answered. It was another unfamiliar number. This time, I held the phone up to my ear, but said nothing. I heard nothing but the general background noise of a phone. Then, a familiar voice broke my tension.
“John?” was the single word, in Amy’s voice.
I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Hey, it’s you,” I replied.
“Who else would it be?” she responded. “Oh, the number. I’m at a party on Seventh Street, and my phone died just as you called me. This is someone else’s phone, obviously.”
“Oh, ok,” I said.
“Where are you?” she asked.
My eyes glanced over the drab white-washed cylinder block walls and the heavy metal door with its small window.
“At my building,” I sighed. “Just feeling cooped up. I didn’t realize it was so late.”
“You should come here,” she said, laughing.
“Nah, I don’t feel like looking for some strange place by myself in the middle of the night,” I said, looking out the window at the silent windy street that secretly scared me just a tiny bit. “I think I’m just going to keep working or go to bed.”
“Nonsense!” she replied. “I can come get you! Your building is close to Seventh Street, right?”
“How drunk are you?” I asked lightheartedly. “You know where I live.”
“Oh, of course,” she said abruptly. “I guess I can’t get there by walking, huh?”
“You could if you wanted to waste half an hour,” I told her.
“Right,” she said. “Ok, have to go, good luck with your work!”
I lowered the phone once more, looking at the numbers flash as the call ended. Then, the droning silence suddenly reasserted itself in my ears. The two strange calls and the eerie street outside just drove home my aloneness in this empty stairwell. Perhaps from having seen too many scary movies, I had the sudden inexplicable idea that something could look in the door’s window and see me, some sort of horrible entity that hovered at the edge of aloneness, just waiting to creep up on unsuspecting people that strayed too far from other human beings. I knew the fear was irrational, but nobody else was around, so… I jumped down the stairs, ran down the hallway into my room, and closed the door as swiftly as I could while still staying silent. Like I said, I feel a little ridiculous for being scared of nothing, and the fear has already faded. Writing this down helps a lot – it makes me realize that nothing is wrong. It filters out half-formed thoughts and fears and leaves only cold, hard facts. It’s late, I got a call from a wrong number, and Amy’s phone died, so she called me back from another number. Nothing strange is happening.
Still, there was something a little off about that conversation. I know it could have just been the alcohol she’d had… or was it even her that seemed off to me? Or was it… yes, that was it! I didn’t realize it until this moment, writing these things down. I knew writing things down would help. She said she was at a party, but I only heard silence in the background! Of course, that doesn’t mean anything in particular, as she could have just gone outside to make the call. No… that couldn’t be it either. I didn’t hear the wind! I need to see if the wind is still blowing!
Monday
I forgot to finish writing last night. I’m not sure what I expected to see when I ran up the stairwell and looked out the heavy metal door’s window. I’m feeling ridiculous. Last night’s fear seems hazy and unreasonable to me now. I can’t wait to go out into the sunlight. I’m going to check my email, shave, shower, and finally get out of here! Wait… I think I heard something.
—
It was thunder. That whole sunlight and fresh air thing didn’t happen. I went out into the stairwell and up the stairs, only to find disappointment. The heavy metal door’s little window showed only flowing water, as torrential rain slammed against it. Only a very dim, gloomy light filtered in through the rain, but at least I knew it was daytime, even if it was a grey, sickly, wet day. I tried looking out the window and waiting for lightning to illuminate the gloom, but the rain was too heavy and I couldn’t make out anything more than vague weird shapes moving at odd angles in the waves washing down the window. Disappointed, I turned around, but I didn’t want to go back to my room. Instead, I wandered further up the stairs, past the first floor, and the second. The stairs ended at the third floor, the highest floor in the building. I looked through the glass that ran up the outer wall of the stairwell, but it was that warped, thick kind that scatters the light, not that there was much to see through the rain to begin with.
I opened the stairwell door and wandered down the hallway. The ten or so thick wooden doors, painted blue a long time ago, were all closed. I listened as I walked, but it was the middle of the day, so I wasn’t surprised that I heard nothing but the rain outside. As I stood there in the dim hallway, listening to the rain, I had the strange fleeting impression that the doors were standing like silent granite monoliths erected by some ancient forgotten civilization for some unfathomable guardian purpose. Lightning flashed, and I could have sworn that, for just a moment, the old grainy blue wood looked just like rough stone. I laughed at myself for letting my imagination get the best of me, but then it occurred to me that the dim gloom and lightning must mean there was a window somewhere in the hallway. A vague memory surfaced, and I suddenly recalled that the third floor had an alcove and an inset window halfway down the floor’s hallway.
Excited to look out into the rain and possibly see another human being, I quickly walked over to the alcove, finding the large thin glass window. Rain washed down it, as with the front door’s window, but I could open this one. I reached a hand out to slide it open, but hesitated. I had the strangest feeling that if I opened that window, I would see something absolutely horrifying on the other side. Everything’s been so odd lately… so I came up with a plan, and I came back here to get what I needed. I don’t seriously think anything will come of it, but I’m bored, it’s raining, and I’m going stir crazy. I came back to get my webcam. The cord isn’t long enough to reach the third floor by any means, so instead I’m going to hide it between the two soda machines in the dark end of my basement hallway, run the wire along the wall and under my door, and put black duct tape over the wire to blend it in with the black plastic strip that runs along the base of the hallway’s walls. I know this is silly, but I don’t have anything better to do…
Well, nothing happened. I propped open the hallway-to-stairwell door, steeled myself, then flung the heavy front door wide open and ran like hell down the stairs to my room and slammed the door. I watched the webcam on my computer intently, seeing the hallway outside my door and most of the stairwell. I’m watching it right now, and I don’t see anything interesting. I just wish the camera’s position was different, so that I could see out the front door. Hey! Somebody’s online!
—
I got out an older, less functional webcam that I had in my closet to video chat with my friend online. I couldn’t really explain to him why I wanted to video chat, but it felt good to see another person’s face. He couldn’t talk very long, and we didn’t talk about anything meaningful, but I feel much better. My strange fear has almost passed. I would feel completely better, but there was something… odd… about our conversation. I know that I’ve said that everything has seemed odd, but… still, he was very vague in his responses. I can’t recall one specific thing that he said… no particular name, or place, or event… but he did ask for my email address to keep in touch. Wait, I just got an email.
I’m about to go out. I just got an email from Amy that asked me to meet her for dinner at ‘the place we usually go to.’ I do love pizza, and I’ve just been eating random food from my poorly stocked fridge for days, so I can’t wait. Again, I feel ridiculous about the odd couple of days I’ve been having. I should destroy this journal when I get back. Oh, another email.
—
Oh my god. I almost left the email and opened the door. I almost opened the door. I almost opened the door, but I read the email first! It was from a friend I hadn’t heard from in a long time, and it was sent to a huge number of emails that must have been every person he had saved in his address list. It had no subject, and it said, simply:
seen with your own eyes don’t trust them they
What the hell is that supposed to mean? The words shock me, and I keep going over and over them. Is it a desperate email sent just as… something happened? The words are obviously cut off without finishing! On any other day I would have dismissed this as spam from a computer virus or something, but the words… seen with your own eyes! I can’t help but read over this journal and think back on the last few days and realize that I have not seen another person with my own eyes or talked to another person face to face. The webcam conversation with my friend was so strange, so vague, so… eerie, now that I think about it. Was it eerie? Or is the fear clouding my memory? My mind toys with the progression of events I’ve written here, pointing out that I have not been presented with one single fact that I did not specifically give out unsuspectingly. The random ‘wrong number’ that got my name and the subsequent strange return call from Amy, the friend that asked for my email address… I messaged him first when I saw him online! And then I got my first email a few minutes after that conversation! Oh my god! That phone call with Amy! I said over the phone – I said that I was within half an hour’s walk of Seventh Street! They know I’m near there! What if they’re trying to find me?! Where is everyone else? Why haven’t I seen or heard anyone else in days?
No, no, this is crazy. This is absolutely crazy. I need to calm down. This madness needs to end.
—
I don’t know what to think. I ran about my apartment furiously, holding my cell phone up to every corner to see if it got a signal through the heavy walls. Finally, in the tiny bathroom, near one ceiling corner, I got a single bar. Holding my phone there, I sent a text message to every number in my list. Not wanting to betray anything about my unfounded fears, I simply sent:
You seen anyone face to face lately?
At that point, I just wanted any reply back. I didn’t care what the reply was, or if I embarrassed myself. I tried to call someone a few times, but I couldn’t get my head up high enough, and if I brought my cell phone down even an inch, it lost signal. Then I remembered the computer, and rushed over to it, instant messaging everyone online. Most were idle or away from their computer. Nobody responded. My messages grew more frantic, and I started telling people where I was and to stop by in person for a host of barely passable reasons. I didn’t care about anything by that point. I just needed to see another person!
I also tore apart my apartment looking for something that I might have missed; some way to contact another human being without opening the door. I know it’s crazy, I know it’s unfounded, but what if? WHAT IF? I just need to be sure! I taped the phone to the ceiling in case
Tuesday
THE PHONE RANG! Exhausted from last night’s rampage, I must have fallen asleep. I woke up to the phone ringing, and ran into the bathroom, stood on the toilet, and flipped open the phone taped to the ceiling. It was Amy, and I feel so much better. She was really worried about me, and apparently had been trying to contact me since the last time I talked to her. She’s coming over now, and, yes, she knows where I am without me telling her. I feel so embarrassed. I am definitely throwing this journal away before anyone sees it. I don’t even know why I’m writing in it now. Maybe it’s just because it’s the only communication I’ve had at all since… god knows when. I look like hell, too. I looked in the mirror before I came back in here. My eyes are sunken, my stubble is thicker, and I just look generally unhealthy.
My apartment is trashed, but I’m not going to clean it up. I think I need someone else to see what I’ve been through. These past few days have NOT been normal. I am not one to imagine things. I know I have been the victim of extreme probability. I probably missed seeing another person a dozen times. I just happened to go out when it was late at night, or the middle of the day when everyone was gone. Everything’s perfectly fine, I know this now. Plus, I found something in the closet last night that has helped me tremendously: a television! I set it up just before I wrote this, and it’s on in the background. Television has always been an escape for me, and it reminds me that there’s a world beyond these dingy brick walls.
I’m glad Amy’s the only one that responded to me after last night’s frantic pestering of everyone I could contact. She’s been my best friend for years. She doesn’t know it, but I count the day that I met her among one of the few moments of true happiness in my life. I remember that warm summer day fondly. It seems a different reality from this dark, rainy, lonely place. I feel like I spent days sitting in that playground, much too old to play, just talking with her and hanging around doing nothing at all. I still feel like I can go back to that moment sometimes, and it reminds me that this damn place is not all that there is… finally, a knock on the door!
—
I thought it was odd that I couldn’t see her through the camera I hid between the two soda machines. I figured that it was bad positioning, like when I couldn’t see out the front door. I should have known. I should have known! After the knock, I yelled through the door jokingly that I had a camera between the soda machines, because I was embarrassed myself that I had taken this paranoia so far. After I did that, I saw her image walk over to the camera and look down at it. She smiled and waved.
“Hey!” she said to the camera brightly, giving it a wry look.
“It’s weird, I know,” I said into the mic attached to my computer. “I’ve had a weird few days.”
“Must have,” she replied. “Open the door, John.”
I hesitated. How could I be sure?
“Hey, humor me a second here,” I told her through the mic. “Tell me one thing about us. Just prove to me you’re you.”
She gave the camera a weird look.
“Um, alright,” she said slowly, thinking. “We met randomly at a playground when we were both way too old to be there?”
I sighed deeply as reality returned and fear faded. God, I’d been so ridiculous. Of course it was Amy! That day wasn’t anywhere in the world except in my memory. I’d never even mentioned it to anyone, not out of embarrassment, but out of a strange secret nostalgia and a longing for those days to return. If there was some unknown force at work trying to trick me, as I feared, there was no way they could know about that day.
“Haha, alright, I’ll explain everything,” I told her. “Be right there.”
I ran to my small bathroom and fixed my hair as best I could. I looked like hell, but she would understand. Snickering at my own unbelievable behavior and the mess I’d made of the place, I walked to the door. I put my hand on the doorknob and gave the mess one last look. So ridiculous, I thought. My eyes traced over the half-eaten food lying on the ground, the overflowing trash bin, and the bed I’d tipped to the side looking for… God knows what. I almost turned to the door and opened it, but my eyes fell on one last thing: the old webcam, the one I used for that eerily vacant chat with my friend.
Its silent black sphere lay haphazardly tossed to the side, its lens pointed at the table where this journal lay. An overwhelming terror took me as I realized that if something could see through that camera, it would have seen what I just wrote about that day. I asked her for any one thing about us, and she chose the only thing in the world that I thought they or it did not know… but IT DID! IT DID KNOW! IT COULD HAVE BEEN WATCHING ME THE WHOLE TIME!
I didn’t open the door. I screamed. I screamed in uncontrollable terror. I stomped on the old webcam on the floor. The door shook, and the doorknob tried to turn, but I didn’t hear Amy’s voice through the door. Was the basement door, made to keep out drafts, too thick? Or was Amy not outside? What could have been trying to get in, if not her? What the hell is out there?! I saw her on my computer through the camera outside, I heard her on the speakers through the camera outside, but was it real?! How can I know?! She’s gone now – I screamed, and shouted for help! I piled up everything in my apartment against the front door –
Friday
At least I think that it’s Friday. I broke everything electronic. I smashed my computer to pieces. Every single thing on there could have been accessed by network access, or worse, altered. I’m a programmer, I know. Every little piece of information I gave out since this started – my name, my email, my location – none of it came back from outside until I gave it out. I’ve been going over and over what I wrote. I’ve been pacing back and forth, alternating between stark terror and overpowering disbelief. Sometimes I’m absolutely certain some phantom entity is dead set on the simple goal of getting me to go outside. Back to the beginning, with the phone call from Amy, she was effectively asking me to open the door and go outside.
I keep running through it in my head. One point of view says I’ve acted like a madman, and all of this is the extreme convergence of probability – never going outside at the right times by pure luck, never seeing another person by pure chance, getting a random nonsense email from some computer virus at just the right time. The other point of view says that extreme convergence of probability is the reason that whatever’s out there hasn’t gotten me already. I keep thinking: I never opened the window on the third floor. I never opened the front door, until that incredibly stupid stunt with the hidden camera after which I ran straight to my room and slammed the door. I haven’t opened my own solid door since I flung open the front door of the building. Whatever’s out there – if anything’s out there – never made an ‘appearance’ in the building before I opened the front door. Maybe the reason it wasn’t in the building already was that it was elsewhere getting everyone else… and then it waited, until I betrayed my existence by trying to call Amy… a call which didn’t work, until it called me and asked me my name…
Terror literally overwhelms me every time I try to fit the pieces of this nightmare together. That email – short, cut off – was it from someone trying to get word out? Some friendly voice desperately trying to warn me before it came? Seen with my own eyes, don’t trust them – exactly what I’ve been so suspicious of. It could have masterful control of all things electronic, practicing its insidious deception to trick me into coming outside. Why can’t it get in? It knocked on the door – it must have some solid presence… the door… the image of those doors in the upper hallway as guardian monoliths flashes back in my mind every time I trace this path of thoughts. If there is some phantom entity trying to get me to go outside, maybe it can’t get through doors. I keep thinking back over all the books I’ve read or movies I’ve seen, trying to generate some explanation for this. Doors have always been such intense foci of human imagination, always seen as wards or portals of special importance. Or perhaps the door is just too thick? I know that I couldn’t bash through any of the doors in this building, let alone the heavy basement ones. Aside from that, the real question is, why does it even want me? If it just wanted to kill me, it could do it any number of ways, including just waiting until I starve to death. What if it doesn’t want to kill me? What if it has some far more horrific fate in store for me? God, what can I do to escape this nightmare?!
A knock on the door…
—
I told the people on the other side of the door I need a minute to think and I’ll come out. I’m really just writing this down so I can figure out what to do. At least this time I heard their voices. My paranoia – and yes, I recognize I’m being paranoid – has me thinking of all sorts of ways that their voices could be faked electronically. There could be nothing but speakers outside, simulating human voices. Did it really take them three days to come talk to me? Amy is supposedly out there, along with two policemen and a psychiatrist. Maybe it took them three days to think of what to say to me – the psychiatrist’s claim could be pretty convincing, if I decided to think this has all been a crazy misunderstanding, and not some entity trying to trick me into opening the door.
The psychiatrist had an older voice, authoritarian but still caring. I liked it. I’m desperate just to see someone with my own eyes! He said I have something called cyber-psychosis, and I’m just one of a nationwide epidemic of thousands of people having breakdowns triggered by a suggestive email that ‘got through somehow.’ I swear he said ‘got through somehow.’ I think he means spread throughout the country inexplicably, but I’m incredibly suspicious that the entity slipped up and revealed something. He said I am part of a wave of ‘emergent behavior’, that a lot of other people are having the same problem with the same fears, even though we’ve never communicated.
That neatly explains the strange email about eyes that I got. I didn’t get the original triggering email. I got a descendant of it - my friend could have broken down too, and tried to warn everyone he knew against his paranoid fears. That’s how the problem spreads, the psychiatrist claims. I could have spread it, too, with my texts and instant messages online to everybody I know. One of those people might be melting down right now, after being triggered by something I sent them, something they might interpret any way that they want, something like a text saying seen anyone face to face lately? The psychiatrist told me that he didn’t want to ‘lose another one’, that people like me are intelligent, and that’s our downfall. We draw connections so well that we draw them even when they shouldn’t be there. He said it’s easy to get caught up in paranoia in our fast paced world, a constantly changing place where more and more of our interaction is simulated…
I have to give him one thing. It’s a great explanation. It neatly explains everything. It perfectly explains everything, in fact. I have every reason to shake off this nightmarish fear that some thing or consciousness or being out there wants me to open the door so it can capture me for some horrible fate worse than death. It would be foolish, after hearing that explanation, to stay in here until I starve to death just to spite the entity that might have got everyone else. It would be foolish to think that, after hearing that explanation, I might be one of the last people left alive on an empty world, hiding in my secure basement room, spiting some unthinkable deceptive entity just by refusing to be captured. It’s a perfect explanation for every single strange thing I’ve seen or heard, and I have every reason in the world to let all of my fears go, and open the door.
That’s exactly why I’m not going to.
How can I be sure?! How can I know what’s real and what’s deception? All of these damn things with their wires and their signals that originate from some unseen origin! They’re not real, I can’t be sure! Signals through a camera, faked video, deceptive phone calls, emails! Even the television, lying broken on the floor – how can I possibly know it’s real? It’s just signals, waves, light… the door! It’s bashing on the door! It’s trying to get in! What insane mechanical contrivance could it be using to simulate the sound of men attacking the heavy wood so well?! At least I’ll finally see it with my own eyes… there’s nothing left in here for it to deceive me with, I’ve ripped apart everything else! It can’t deceive my eyes, can it? Seen with your own eyes don’t trust them they… wait… was that desperate message telling me to trust my eyes, or warning me about my eyes too?! Oh my god, what’s the difference between a camera and my eyes? They both turn light into electrical signals – they’re the same! I can’t be deceived! I have to be sure! I have to be sure!
Date Unknown
I calmly asked for paper and a pen, day in and day out, until it finally gave them to me. Not that it matters. What am I going to do? Poke my eyes out? The bandages feel like part of me now. The pain is gone. I figure this will be one of my last chances to write legibly, as, without my sight to correct mistakes, my hands will slowly forget the motions involved. This is a sort of self-indulgence, this writing… it’s a relic of another time, because I’m certain everyone left in the world is dead… or something far worse.
I sit against the padded wall day in and day out. The entity brings me food and water. It masks itself as a kind nurse, as an unsympathetic doctor. I think it knows that my hearing has sharpened considerably now that I live in darkness. It fakes conversations in the hallways, on the off chance that I might overhear. One of the nurses talks about having a baby soon. One of the doctors lost his wife in a car accident. None of it matters, none of it is real. None of it gets to me, not like she does.
That’s the worst part, the part I almost can’t handle. The thing comes to me, masquerading as Amy. Its recreation is perfect. It sounds exactly like Amy, feels exactly like her. It even produces a reasonable facsimile of tears that it makes me feel on its lifelike cheeks. When it first dragged me here, it told me all the things I wanted to hear. It told me that she loved me, that she had always loved me, that it didn’t understand why I did this, that we could still have a life together, if only I would stop insisting that I was being deceived. It wanted me to believe… no, it needed me to believe that she was real.
I almost fell for it. I really did. I doubted myself for the longest time. In the end, though, it was all too perfect, too flawless, and too real. The false Amy used to come every day, and then every week, and finally stopped coming altogether… but I don’t think the entity will give up. I think the waiting game is just another one of its gambits. I will resist it for the rest of my life, if I have to. I don’t know what happened to the rest of the world, but I do know that this thing needs me to fall for its deceptions. If it needs that, then maybe, just maybe, I am a thorn in its agenda. Maybe Amy is still alive out there somewhere, kept alive only by my will to resist the deceiver. I hold on to that hope, rocking back and forth in my cell to pass the time. I will never give in. I will never break. I am… a hero!
====
The doctor read the paper the patient had scribbled on. It was barely readable, written in the shaky script of one who could not see. He wanted to smile at the man’s steadfast resolve, a reminder of the human will to survive, but he knew that the patient was completely delusional.
After all, a sane man would have fallen for the deception long ago.
The doctor wanted to smile. He wanted to whisper words of encouragement to the delusional man. He wanted to scream, but the nerve filaments wrapped around his head and into his eyes made him do otherwise. His body walked into the cell like a puppet, and told the patient, once more, that he was wrong, and that there was nobody trying to deceive him.
I’m not sure why I’m writing this down on paper and not on my computer. I guess I’ve just noticed some odd things. It’s not that I don’t trust the computer… I just… need to organize my thoughts. I need to get down all the details somewhere objective, somewhere I know that what I write can’t be deleted or… changed… not that that’s happened. It’s just… everything blurs together here, and the fog of memory lends a strange cast to things…
I’m starting to feel cramped in this small apartment. Maybe that’s the problem. I just had to go and choose the cheapest apartment, the only one in the basement. The lack of windows down here makes day and night seem to slip by seamlessly. I haven’t been out in a few days because I’ve been working on this programming project so intensively. I suppose I just wanted to get it done. Hours of sitting and staring at a monitor can make anyone feel strange, I know, but I don’t think that’s it.
I’m not sure when I first started to feel like something was odd. I can’t even define what it is. Maybe I just haven’t talked to anyone in awhile. That’s the first thing that crept up on me. Everyone I normally talk to online while I program has been idle, or they’ve simply not logged on at all. My instant messages go unanswered. The last e-mail I got from anybody was a friend saying he’d talk to me when he got back from the store, and that was yesterday. I’d call with my cell phone, but reception’s terrible down here. Yeah, that’s it. I just need to call someone. I’m going to go outside.
—
Well, that didn’t work so well. As the tingle of fear fades, I’m feeling a little ridiculous for being scared at all. I looked in the mirror before I went out, but I didn’t shave the two-day stubble I’ve grown. I figured I was just going out for a quick cell phone call. I did change my shirt, though, because it was lunchtime, and I guessed that I’d run into at least one person I knew. That didn’t end up happening. I wish it did.
When I went out, I opened the door to my small apartment slowly. A small feeling of apprehension had somehow already lodged itself in me, for some indefinable reason. I chalked it up to having not spoken to anyone but myself for a day or two. I peered down the dingy grey hallway, made dingier by the fact that it was a basement hallway. On one end, a large metal door led to the building’s furnace room. It was locked, of course. Two dreary soda machines stood by it; I bought a soda from one the first day I moved in, but it had a two year old expiration date. I’m fairly sure nobody knows those machines are even down here, or my cheap landlady just doesn’t care to get them restocked.
I closed my door softly, and walked the other direction, taking care not to make a sound. I have no idea why I chose to do that, but it was fun giving in to the strange impulse not to break the droning hum of the soda machines, at least for the moment. I got to the stairwell, and took the stairs up to the building’s front door. I looked through the heavy door’s small square window, and received quite the shock: it was definitely not lunchtime. City-gloom hung over the dark street outside, and the traffic lights at the intersection in the distance blinked yellow. Dim clouds, purple and black from the glow of the city, hung overhead. Nothing moved, save the few sidewalk trees that shifted in the wind. I remember shivering, though I wasn’t cold. Maybe it was the wind outside. I could vaguely hear it through the heavy metal door, and I knew it was that unique kind of late-night wind, the kind that was constant, cold, and quiet, save for the rhythmic music it made as it passed through countless unseen tree leaves.
I decided not to go outside.
Instead, I lifted my cell phone to the door’s little window, and checked the signal meter. The bars filled up the meter, and I smiled. Time to hear someone else’s voice, I remember thinking, relieved. It was such a strange thing, to be afraid of nothing. I shook my head, laughing at myself silently. I hit speed-dial for my best friend Amy’s number, and held the phone up to my ear. It rang once… but then it stopped. Nothing happened. I listened to silence for a good twenty seconds, then hung up. I frowned, and looked at the signal meter again – still full. I went to dial her number again, but then my phone rang in my hand, startling me. I put it up to my ear.
“Hello?” I asked, immediately fighting down a small shock at hearing the first spoken voice in days, even if it was my own. I had gotten used to the droning hum of the building’s inner workings, my computer, and the soda machines in the hallway. There was no response to my greeting at first, but then, finally, a voice came.
“Hey,” said a clear male voice, obviously of college age, like me. “Who’s this?”
“John,” I replied, confused.
“Oh, sorry, wrong number,” he replied, then hung up.
I lowered the phone slowly and leaned against the thick brick wall of the stairwell. That was strange. I looked at my received calls list, but the number was unfamiliar. Before I could think on it further, the phone rang loudly, shocking me yet again. This time, I looked at the caller before I answered. It was another unfamiliar number. This time, I held the phone up to my ear, but said nothing. I heard nothing but the general background noise of a phone. Then, a familiar voice broke my tension.
“John?” was the single word, in Amy’s voice.
I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Hey, it’s you,” I replied.
“Who else would it be?” she responded. “Oh, the number. I’m at a party on Seventh Street, and my phone died just as you called me. This is someone else’s phone, obviously.”
“Oh, ok,” I said.
“Where are you?” she asked.
My eyes glanced over the drab white-washed cylinder block walls and the heavy metal door with its small window.
“At my building,” I sighed. “Just feeling cooped up. I didn’t realize it was so late.”
“You should come here,” she said, laughing.
“Nah, I don’t feel like looking for some strange place by myself in the middle of the night,” I said, looking out the window at the silent windy street that secretly scared me just a tiny bit. “I think I’m just going to keep working or go to bed.”
“Nonsense!” she replied. “I can come get you! Your building is close to Seventh Street, right?”
“How drunk are you?” I asked lightheartedly. “You know where I live.”
“Oh, of course,” she said abruptly. “I guess I can’t get there by walking, huh?”
“You could if you wanted to waste half an hour,” I told her.
“Right,” she said. “Ok, have to go, good luck with your work!”
I lowered the phone once more, looking at the numbers flash as the call ended. Then, the droning silence suddenly reasserted itself in my ears. The two strange calls and the eerie street outside just drove home my aloneness in this empty stairwell. Perhaps from having seen too many scary movies, I had the sudden inexplicable idea that something could look in the door’s window and see me, some sort of horrible entity that hovered at the edge of aloneness, just waiting to creep up on unsuspecting people that strayed too far from other human beings. I knew the fear was irrational, but nobody else was around, so… I jumped down the stairs, ran down the hallway into my room, and closed the door as swiftly as I could while still staying silent. Like I said, I feel a little ridiculous for being scared of nothing, and the fear has already faded. Writing this down helps a lot – it makes me realize that nothing is wrong. It filters out half-formed thoughts and fears and leaves only cold, hard facts. It’s late, I got a call from a wrong number, and Amy’s phone died, so she called me back from another number. Nothing strange is happening.
Still, there was something a little off about that conversation. I know it could have just been the alcohol she’d had… or was it even her that seemed off to me? Or was it… yes, that was it! I didn’t realize it until this moment, writing these things down. I knew writing things down would help. She said she was at a party, but I only heard silence in the background! Of course, that doesn’t mean anything in particular, as she could have just gone outside to make the call. No… that couldn’t be it either. I didn’t hear the wind! I need to see if the wind is still blowing!
Monday
I forgot to finish writing last night. I’m not sure what I expected to see when I ran up the stairwell and looked out the heavy metal door’s window. I’m feeling ridiculous. Last night’s fear seems hazy and unreasonable to me now. I can’t wait to go out into the sunlight. I’m going to check my email, shave, shower, and finally get out of here! Wait… I think I heard something.
—
It was thunder. That whole sunlight and fresh air thing didn’t happen. I went out into the stairwell and up the stairs, only to find disappointment. The heavy metal door’s little window showed only flowing water, as torrential rain slammed against it. Only a very dim, gloomy light filtered in through the rain, but at least I knew it was daytime, even if it was a grey, sickly, wet day. I tried looking out the window and waiting for lightning to illuminate the gloom, but the rain was too heavy and I couldn’t make out anything more than vague weird shapes moving at odd angles in the waves washing down the window. Disappointed, I turned around, but I didn’t want to go back to my room. Instead, I wandered further up the stairs, past the first floor, and the second. The stairs ended at the third floor, the highest floor in the building. I looked through the glass that ran up the outer wall of the stairwell, but it was that warped, thick kind that scatters the light, not that there was much to see through the rain to begin with.
I opened the stairwell door and wandered down the hallway. The ten or so thick wooden doors, painted blue a long time ago, were all closed. I listened as I walked, but it was the middle of the day, so I wasn’t surprised that I heard nothing but the rain outside. As I stood there in the dim hallway, listening to the rain, I had the strange fleeting impression that the doors were standing like silent granite monoliths erected by some ancient forgotten civilization for some unfathomable guardian purpose. Lightning flashed, and I could have sworn that, for just a moment, the old grainy blue wood looked just like rough stone. I laughed at myself for letting my imagination get the best of me, but then it occurred to me that the dim gloom and lightning must mean there was a window somewhere in the hallway. A vague memory surfaced, and I suddenly recalled that the third floor had an alcove and an inset window halfway down the floor’s hallway.
Excited to look out into the rain and possibly see another human being, I quickly walked over to the alcove, finding the large thin glass window. Rain washed down it, as with the front door’s window, but I could open this one. I reached a hand out to slide it open, but hesitated. I had the strangest feeling that if I opened that window, I would see something absolutely horrifying on the other side. Everything’s been so odd lately… so I came up with a plan, and I came back here to get what I needed. I don’t seriously think anything will come of it, but I’m bored, it’s raining, and I’m going stir crazy. I came back to get my webcam. The cord isn’t long enough to reach the third floor by any means, so instead I’m going to hide it between the two soda machines in the dark end of my basement hallway, run the wire along the wall and under my door, and put black duct tape over the wire to blend it in with the black plastic strip that runs along the base of the hallway’s walls. I know this is silly, but I don’t have anything better to do…
Well, nothing happened. I propped open the hallway-to-stairwell door, steeled myself, then flung the heavy front door wide open and ran like hell down the stairs to my room and slammed the door. I watched the webcam on my computer intently, seeing the hallway outside my door and most of the stairwell. I’m watching it right now, and I don’t see anything interesting. I just wish the camera’s position was different, so that I could see out the front door. Hey! Somebody’s online!
—
I got out an older, less functional webcam that I had in my closet to video chat with my friend online. I couldn’t really explain to him why I wanted to video chat, but it felt good to see another person’s face. He couldn’t talk very long, and we didn’t talk about anything meaningful, but I feel much better. My strange fear has almost passed. I would feel completely better, but there was something… odd… about our conversation. I know that I’ve said that everything has seemed odd, but… still, he was very vague in his responses. I can’t recall one specific thing that he said… no particular name, or place, or event… but he did ask for my email address to keep in touch. Wait, I just got an email.
I’m about to go out. I just got an email from Amy that asked me to meet her for dinner at ‘the place we usually go to.’ I do love pizza, and I’ve just been eating random food from my poorly stocked fridge for days, so I can’t wait. Again, I feel ridiculous about the odd couple of days I’ve been having. I should destroy this journal when I get back. Oh, another email.
—
Oh my god. I almost left the email and opened the door. I almost opened the door. I almost opened the door, but I read the email first! It was from a friend I hadn’t heard from in a long time, and it was sent to a huge number of emails that must have been every person he had saved in his address list. It had no subject, and it said, simply:
seen with your own eyes don’t trust them they
What the hell is that supposed to mean? The words shock me, and I keep going over and over them. Is it a desperate email sent just as… something happened? The words are obviously cut off without finishing! On any other day I would have dismissed this as spam from a computer virus or something, but the words… seen with your own eyes! I can’t help but read over this journal and think back on the last few days and realize that I have not seen another person with my own eyes or talked to another person face to face. The webcam conversation with my friend was so strange, so vague, so… eerie, now that I think about it. Was it eerie? Or is the fear clouding my memory? My mind toys with the progression of events I’ve written here, pointing out that I have not been presented with one single fact that I did not specifically give out unsuspectingly. The random ‘wrong number’ that got my name and the subsequent strange return call from Amy, the friend that asked for my email address… I messaged him first when I saw him online! And then I got my first email a few minutes after that conversation! Oh my god! That phone call with Amy! I said over the phone – I said that I was within half an hour’s walk of Seventh Street! They know I’m near there! What if they’re trying to find me?! Where is everyone else? Why haven’t I seen or heard anyone else in days?
No, no, this is crazy. This is absolutely crazy. I need to calm down. This madness needs to end.
—
I don’t know what to think. I ran about my apartment furiously, holding my cell phone up to every corner to see if it got a signal through the heavy walls. Finally, in the tiny bathroom, near one ceiling corner, I got a single bar. Holding my phone there, I sent a text message to every number in my list. Not wanting to betray anything about my unfounded fears, I simply sent:
You seen anyone face to face lately?
At that point, I just wanted any reply back. I didn’t care what the reply was, or if I embarrassed myself. I tried to call someone a few times, but I couldn’t get my head up high enough, and if I brought my cell phone down even an inch, it lost signal. Then I remembered the computer, and rushed over to it, instant messaging everyone online. Most were idle or away from their computer. Nobody responded. My messages grew more frantic, and I started telling people where I was and to stop by in person for a host of barely passable reasons. I didn’t care about anything by that point. I just needed to see another person!
I also tore apart my apartment looking for something that I might have missed; some way to contact another human being without opening the door. I know it’s crazy, I know it’s unfounded, but what if? WHAT IF? I just need to be sure! I taped the phone to the ceiling in case
Tuesday
THE PHONE RANG! Exhausted from last night’s rampage, I must have fallen asleep. I woke up to the phone ringing, and ran into the bathroom, stood on the toilet, and flipped open the phone taped to the ceiling. It was Amy, and I feel so much better. She was really worried about me, and apparently had been trying to contact me since the last time I talked to her. She’s coming over now, and, yes, she knows where I am without me telling her. I feel so embarrassed. I am definitely throwing this journal away before anyone sees it. I don’t even know why I’m writing in it now. Maybe it’s just because it’s the only communication I’ve had at all since… god knows when. I look like hell, too. I looked in the mirror before I came back in here. My eyes are sunken, my stubble is thicker, and I just look generally unhealthy.
My apartment is trashed, but I’m not going to clean it up. I think I need someone else to see what I’ve been through. These past few days have NOT been normal. I am not one to imagine things. I know I have been the victim of extreme probability. I probably missed seeing another person a dozen times. I just happened to go out when it was late at night, or the middle of the day when everyone was gone. Everything’s perfectly fine, I know this now. Plus, I found something in the closet last night that has helped me tremendously: a television! I set it up just before I wrote this, and it’s on in the background. Television has always been an escape for me, and it reminds me that there’s a world beyond these dingy brick walls.
I’m glad Amy’s the only one that responded to me after last night’s frantic pestering of everyone I could contact. She’s been my best friend for years. She doesn’t know it, but I count the day that I met her among one of the few moments of true happiness in my life. I remember that warm summer day fondly. It seems a different reality from this dark, rainy, lonely place. I feel like I spent days sitting in that playground, much too old to play, just talking with her and hanging around doing nothing at all. I still feel like I can go back to that moment sometimes, and it reminds me that this damn place is not all that there is… finally, a knock on the door!
—
I thought it was odd that I couldn’t see her through the camera I hid between the two soda machines. I figured that it was bad positioning, like when I couldn’t see out the front door. I should have known. I should have known! After the knock, I yelled through the door jokingly that I had a camera between the soda machines, because I was embarrassed myself that I had taken this paranoia so far. After I did that, I saw her image walk over to the camera and look down at it. She smiled and waved.
“Hey!” she said to the camera brightly, giving it a wry look.
“It’s weird, I know,” I said into the mic attached to my computer. “I’ve had a weird few days.”
“Must have,” she replied. “Open the door, John.”
I hesitated. How could I be sure?
“Hey, humor me a second here,” I told her through the mic. “Tell me one thing about us. Just prove to me you’re you.”
She gave the camera a weird look.
“Um, alright,” she said slowly, thinking. “We met randomly at a playground when we were both way too old to be there?”
I sighed deeply as reality returned and fear faded. God, I’d been so ridiculous. Of course it was Amy! That day wasn’t anywhere in the world except in my memory. I’d never even mentioned it to anyone, not out of embarrassment, but out of a strange secret nostalgia and a longing for those days to return. If there was some unknown force at work trying to trick me, as I feared, there was no way they could know about that day.
“Haha, alright, I’ll explain everything,” I told her. “Be right there.”
I ran to my small bathroom and fixed my hair as best I could. I looked like hell, but she would understand. Snickering at my own unbelievable behavior and the mess I’d made of the place, I walked to the door. I put my hand on the doorknob and gave the mess one last look. So ridiculous, I thought. My eyes traced over the half-eaten food lying on the ground, the overflowing trash bin, and the bed I’d tipped to the side looking for… God knows what. I almost turned to the door and opened it, but my eyes fell on one last thing: the old webcam, the one I used for that eerily vacant chat with my friend.
Its silent black sphere lay haphazardly tossed to the side, its lens pointed at the table where this journal lay. An overwhelming terror took me as I realized that if something could see through that camera, it would have seen what I just wrote about that day. I asked her for any one thing about us, and she chose the only thing in the world that I thought they or it did not know… but IT DID! IT DID KNOW! IT COULD HAVE BEEN WATCHING ME THE WHOLE TIME!
I didn’t open the door. I screamed. I screamed in uncontrollable terror. I stomped on the old webcam on the floor. The door shook, and the doorknob tried to turn, but I didn’t hear Amy’s voice through the door. Was the basement door, made to keep out drafts, too thick? Or was Amy not outside? What could have been trying to get in, if not her? What the hell is out there?! I saw her on my computer through the camera outside, I heard her on the speakers through the camera outside, but was it real?! How can I know?! She’s gone now – I screamed, and shouted for help! I piled up everything in my apartment against the front door –
Friday
At least I think that it’s Friday. I broke everything electronic. I smashed my computer to pieces. Every single thing on there could have been accessed by network access, or worse, altered. I’m a programmer, I know. Every little piece of information I gave out since this started – my name, my email, my location – none of it came back from outside until I gave it out. I’ve been going over and over what I wrote. I’ve been pacing back and forth, alternating between stark terror and overpowering disbelief. Sometimes I’m absolutely certain some phantom entity is dead set on the simple goal of getting me to go outside. Back to the beginning, with the phone call from Amy, she was effectively asking me to open the door and go outside.
I keep running through it in my head. One point of view says I’ve acted like a madman, and all of this is the extreme convergence of probability – never going outside at the right times by pure luck, never seeing another person by pure chance, getting a random nonsense email from some computer virus at just the right time. The other point of view says that extreme convergence of probability is the reason that whatever’s out there hasn’t gotten me already. I keep thinking: I never opened the window on the third floor. I never opened the front door, until that incredibly stupid stunt with the hidden camera after which I ran straight to my room and slammed the door. I haven’t opened my own solid door since I flung open the front door of the building. Whatever’s out there – if anything’s out there – never made an ‘appearance’ in the building before I opened the front door. Maybe the reason it wasn’t in the building already was that it was elsewhere getting everyone else… and then it waited, until I betrayed my existence by trying to call Amy… a call which didn’t work, until it called me and asked me my name…
Terror literally overwhelms me every time I try to fit the pieces of this nightmare together. That email – short, cut off – was it from someone trying to get word out? Some friendly voice desperately trying to warn me before it came? Seen with my own eyes, don’t trust them – exactly what I’ve been so suspicious of. It could have masterful control of all things electronic, practicing its insidious deception to trick me into coming outside. Why can’t it get in? It knocked on the door – it must have some solid presence… the door… the image of those doors in the upper hallway as guardian monoliths flashes back in my mind every time I trace this path of thoughts. If there is some phantom entity trying to get me to go outside, maybe it can’t get through doors. I keep thinking back over all the books I’ve read or movies I’ve seen, trying to generate some explanation for this. Doors have always been such intense foci of human imagination, always seen as wards or portals of special importance. Or perhaps the door is just too thick? I know that I couldn’t bash through any of the doors in this building, let alone the heavy basement ones. Aside from that, the real question is, why does it even want me? If it just wanted to kill me, it could do it any number of ways, including just waiting until I starve to death. What if it doesn’t want to kill me? What if it has some far more horrific fate in store for me? God, what can I do to escape this nightmare?!
A knock on the door…
—
I told the people on the other side of the door I need a minute to think and I’ll come out. I’m really just writing this down so I can figure out what to do. At least this time I heard their voices. My paranoia – and yes, I recognize I’m being paranoid – has me thinking of all sorts of ways that their voices could be faked electronically. There could be nothing but speakers outside, simulating human voices. Did it really take them three days to come talk to me? Amy is supposedly out there, along with two policemen and a psychiatrist. Maybe it took them three days to think of what to say to me – the psychiatrist’s claim could be pretty convincing, if I decided to think this has all been a crazy misunderstanding, and not some entity trying to trick me into opening the door.
The psychiatrist had an older voice, authoritarian but still caring. I liked it. I’m desperate just to see someone with my own eyes! He said I have something called cyber-psychosis, and I’m just one of a nationwide epidemic of thousands of people having breakdowns triggered by a suggestive email that ‘got through somehow.’ I swear he said ‘got through somehow.’ I think he means spread throughout the country inexplicably, but I’m incredibly suspicious that the entity slipped up and revealed something. He said I am part of a wave of ‘emergent behavior’, that a lot of other people are having the same problem with the same fears, even though we’ve never communicated.
That neatly explains the strange email about eyes that I got. I didn’t get the original triggering email. I got a descendant of it - my friend could have broken down too, and tried to warn everyone he knew against his paranoid fears. That’s how the problem spreads, the psychiatrist claims. I could have spread it, too, with my texts and instant messages online to everybody I know. One of those people might be melting down right now, after being triggered by something I sent them, something they might interpret any way that they want, something like a text saying seen anyone face to face lately? The psychiatrist told me that he didn’t want to ‘lose another one’, that people like me are intelligent, and that’s our downfall. We draw connections so well that we draw them even when they shouldn’t be there. He said it’s easy to get caught up in paranoia in our fast paced world, a constantly changing place where more and more of our interaction is simulated…
I have to give him one thing. It’s a great explanation. It neatly explains everything. It perfectly explains everything, in fact. I have every reason to shake off this nightmarish fear that some thing or consciousness or being out there wants me to open the door so it can capture me for some horrible fate worse than death. It would be foolish, after hearing that explanation, to stay in here until I starve to death just to spite the entity that might have got everyone else. It would be foolish to think that, after hearing that explanation, I might be one of the last people left alive on an empty world, hiding in my secure basement room, spiting some unthinkable deceptive entity just by refusing to be captured. It’s a perfect explanation for every single strange thing I’ve seen or heard, and I have every reason in the world to let all of my fears go, and open the door.
That’s exactly why I’m not going to.
How can I be sure?! How can I know what’s real and what’s deception? All of these damn things with their wires and their signals that originate from some unseen origin! They’re not real, I can’t be sure! Signals through a camera, faked video, deceptive phone calls, emails! Even the television, lying broken on the floor – how can I possibly know it’s real? It’s just signals, waves, light… the door! It’s bashing on the door! It’s trying to get in! What insane mechanical contrivance could it be using to simulate the sound of men attacking the heavy wood so well?! At least I’ll finally see it with my own eyes… there’s nothing left in here for it to deceive me with, I’ve ripped apart everything else! It can’t deceive my eyes, can it? Seen with your own eyes don’t trust them they… wait… was that desperate message telling me to trust my eyes, or warning me about my eyes too?! Oh my god, what’s the difference between a camera and my eyes? They both turn light into electrical signals – they’re the same! I can’t be deceived! I have to be sure! I have to be sure!
Date Unknown
I calmly asked for paper and a pen, day in and day out, until it finally gave them to me. Not that it matters. What am I going to do? Poke my eyes out? The bandages feel like part of me now. The pain is gone. I figure this will be one of my last chances to write legibly, as, without my sight to correct mistakes, my hands will slowly forget the motions involved. This is a sort of self-indulgence, this writing… it’s a relic of another time, because I’m certain everyone left in the world is dead… or something far worse.
I sit against the padded wall day in and day out. The entity brings me food and water. It masks itself as a kind nurse, as an unsympathetic doctor. I think it knows that my hearing has sharpened considerably now that I live in darkness. It fakes conversations in the hallways, on the off chance that I might overhear. One of the nurses talks about having a baby soon. One of the doctors lost his wife in a car accident. None of it matters, none of it is real. None of it gets to me, not like she does.
That’s the worst part, the part I almost can’t handle. The thing comes to me, masquerading as Amy. Its recreation is perfect. It sounds exactly like Amy, feels exactly like her. It even produces a reasonable facsimile of tears that it makes me feel on its lifelike cheeks. When it first dragged me here, it told me all the things I wanted to hear. It told me that she loved me, that she had always loved me, that it didn’t understand why I did this, that we could still have a life together, if only I would stop insisting that I was being deceived. It wanted me to believe… no, it needed me to believe that she was real.
I almost fell for it. I really did. I doubted myself for the longest time. In the end, though, it was all too perfect, too flawless, and too real. The false Amy used to come every day, and then every week, and finally stopped coming altogether… but I don’t think the entity will give up. I think the waiting game is just another one of its gambits. I will resist it for the rest of my life, if I have to. I don’t know what happened to the rest of the world, but I do know that this thing needs me to fall for its deceptions. If it needs that, then maybe, just maybe, I am a thorn in its agenda. Maybe Amy is still alive out there somewhere, kept alive only by my will to resist the deceiver. I hold on to that hope, rocking back and forth in my cell to pass the time. I will never give in. I will never break. I am… a hero!
====
The doctor read the paper the patient had scribbled on. It was barely readable, written in the shaky script of one who could not see. He wanted to smile at the man’s steadfast resolve, a reminder of the human will to survive, but he knew that the patient was completely delusional.
After all, a sane man would have fallen for the deception long ago.
The doctor wanted to smile. He wanted to whisper words of encouragement to the delusional man. He wanted to scream, but the nerve filaments wrapped around his head and into his eyes made him do otherwise. His body walked into the cell like a puppet, and told the patient, once more, that he was wrong, and that there was nobody trying to deceive him.
Friday, November 5, 2010
DAY OF ALL THE BLOOD
THIS IS THE STORY OF A DAY WHERE THERE WAS ALL THIS BLOOD. A MAN WAS WALKING AROUND AND BLOOD STARTED COMING OUT OF HIM EVERYWHERE. THERE WAS SO MUCH BLOOD THAT IT FILLED UP AN ELEVATOR. HE WENT TO THE STORE AND THERE WAS JUST BLOOD ALL OVER THE PLACE! PEOPLE WERE SLIPPING IN IT AND THEY WERE ALL GROSSED OUT. HE TRIED TO GO SWIMMING AND ALL OF THE SHARKS WENT NUTS AND BITTENED EVERYBODY. HE GOT CHASED BY ALL THE VAMPIRES EVER. ONE TIME THE BLOOD GOT A KID AND A DOG. AT THE END OF THE DAY EVERYONE DECIDED THEY WOULD SEND HIM TO SPACE SO THAT HE WOULD STOP GETTING BLOOD EVERY WHERE. THE SCARIEST PART IS THAT THE MAN WAS YOU!!! (OR HE WAS A LADY IF YOU ARE A LADY) AND YOU FORGOT THAT THIS HAPPENED
-BEST CREEPYPASTAEVER
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Tribby Theory
-P.S. This dude makes some pretty awesome drawings
, i enjoy the style,
http://combinedrawings.blogspot.com/
Monday, October 25, 2010
Off Topic #2
Hey look i'm numbering them so i know how much...idk.
Well any who take a look at this.
http://www.gametrailers.com/game/pop-fiction/13123
Its a series done by gametrailers of course that covers various myths surrounding games, and not shitty ones like GTA:SA bigfoot or stuff like that. They recently covered how to find MEW in pokemon red\blue\yellow and they have done how to play as master hand in smash brothers melee.
-cya
Well any who take a look at this.
http://www.gametrailers.com/game/pop-fiction/13123
Its a series done by gametrailers of course that covers various myths surrounding games, and not shitty ones like GTA:SA bigfoot or stuff like that. They recently covered how to find MEW in pokemon red\blue\yellow and they have done how to play as master hand in smash brothers melee.
-cya
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Moonlight Films
In many stores and establishments that provide videos of a less than appropriate manner, there is a business card.
Some stores keep it well hidden, locked in a safe, and will deny it’s existence. Others will show you if you ask for it by name. None will have it displayed in the open.
On this card is a name; Moonlight Films, and a contact number. It’s always a local number.
Go to any payphone in any city and dial the number. The answer will be prompt but all you will hear is silence. Wait for thirty seconds. Then you will be served.
A dry, monotone male voice will ask you one question; “Is the road from life to death dark?”
If you answer with anything but the correct reply, he will hang up on you. If you fail the first time, I’d suggest not trying again.
The correct response is “It is moonlit.”
If his question is answered properly, the man will say one address in your city and then hang up.
Go to this address and you will find that it is a small, dingy apartment. The carpet will be dirty, the wallpaper flaking and wrinkled, the windows cracked. It will smell of tobacco smoke and decay. On the stained old coffee table there will be a paper bag. On this bag your full name will be printed in red sharpie.
Open the bag and you will find an unlabeled video tape. Take it and place exactly $10.99 in the bag then leave.
You can watch the tape if you like, but you don’t have to. I warn you, it’s not pleasant. You will see a room or chamber papered in dessicated skin, the furniture will be crafted from flesh and bone. But all of it will be alive. The tape will last approximately 32 minutes and will depict the murder of a person and the subsequent crafting of their body into another animated furnishing.
You have rented the tape for one week. You must return it to the apartment by sliding it through the mail slot when the time is up. After that, never return to the apartment, never return to the store you recieved the contact number from, and DEFINITELY don’t call the number ever again.
I’d also suggest you not keep the tape more than a week. The owners will not be satisfied with a mere late fee, and a good home can never have enough accessories.
Some stores keep it well hidden, locked in a safe, and will deny it’s existence. Others will show you if you ask for it by name. None will have it displayed in the open.
On this card is a name; Moonlight Films, and a contact number. It’s always a local number.
Go to any payphone in any city and dial the number. The answer will be prompt but all you will hear is silence. Wait for thirty seconds. Then you will be served.
A dry, monotone male voice will ask you one question; “Is the road from life to death dark?”
If you answer with anything but the correct reply, he will hang up on you. If you fail the first time, I’d suggest not trying again.
The correct response is “It is moonlit.”
If his question is answered properly, the man will say one address in your city and then hang up.
Go to this address and you will find that it is a small, dingy apartment. The carpet will be dirty, the wallpaper flaking and wrinkled, the windows cracked. It will smell of tobacco smoke and decay. On the stained old coffee table there will be a paper bag. On this bag your full name will be printed in red sharpie.
Open the bag and you will find an unlabeled video tape. Take it and place exactly $10.99 in the bag then leave.
You can watch the tape if you like, but you don’t have to. I warn you, it’s not pleasant. You will see a room or chamber papered in dessicated skin, the furniture will be crafted from flesh and bone. But all of it will be alive. The tape will last approximately 32 minutes and will depict the murder of a person and the subsequent crafting of their body into another animated furnishing.
You have rented the tape for one week. You must return it to the apartment by sliding it through the mail slot when the time is up. After that, never return to the apartment, never return to the store you recieved the contact number from, and DEFINITELY don’t call the number ever again.
I’d also suggest you not keep the tape more than a week. The owners will not be satisfied with a mere late fee, and a good home can never have enough accessories.
Monday, October 18, 2010
The Prince’s Fresh Start
Somewhere in West Philadelphia, you will find an old basketball court with a single ball lying in the middle. Pick it up and start shooting hoops. After a while, a small group of hooligans will approach you and challenge you to a fight, which you must accept.
After the fight, you must go home and relay the events to your mother. She will then inform you that you have an aunt and uncle living in one of the districts of Los Angeles, and out of fear, she will send you to live there for an indefinite period of time.
With your bags packed, go to the street corner, and whistle for a cab. The cab that will pull up will bear the word FRESH on the license plate, and upon closer inspection, novelty fuzzy dice will hang in the mirror. Although you will suddenly realize that cabs like these are extremely hard to find, do not bear any thought to it. At this point you MUST point out in front of the car and say ‘Yo homes to Bel Air’. You will stop in front of a mansion, and it will be sometime between 7 and 8 o’clock, even though it will feel like you’ve been traveling mere seconds. Get your luggage out and say ‘Yo homes, smell ya later!’, but do NOT turn back to face the cabby. Walk up to the door, look over your shoulder once, and then knock on the door three times.
If you follow these instructions, your life will get flip-turned upside-down.
–
Scariest pasta ever, y/y?
After the fight, you must go home and relay the events to your mother. She will then inform you that you have an aunt and uncle living in one of the districts of Los Angeles, and out of fear, she will send you to live there for an indefinite period of time.
With your bags packed, go to the street corner, and whistle for a cab. The cab that will pull up will bear the word FRESH on the license plate, and upon closer inspection, novelty fuzzy dice will hang in the mirror. Although you will suddenly realize that cabs like these are extremely hard to find, do not bear any thought to it. At this point you MUST point out in front of the car and say ‘Yo homes to Bel Air’. You will stop in front of a mansion, and it will be sometime between 7 and 8 o’clock, even though it will feel like you’ve been traveling mere seconds. Get your luggage out and say ‘Yo homes, smell ya later!’, but do NOT turn back to face the cabby. Walk up to the door, look over your shoulder once, and then knock on the door three times.
If you follow these instructions, your life will get flip-turned upside-down.
–
Scariest pasta ever, y/y?
P.s. Im back.
Friday, October 15, 2010
The Feeling
Go to any mirror and put your hand against the glass. Don’t worry, nothing will grab you. Wait. Sometimes it takes half a day, sometimes it takes a moment. But you’ll yank your hand away when you feel it.
Worms or centipedes, who knows? All pressed in tight like there’s no more room on that side, wriggling against your skin. When you pull back, the glass is the same and you’ll be unharmed.
But now you know it’s there.
Worms or centipedes, who knows? All pressed in tight like there’s no more room on that side, wriggling against your skin. When you pull back, the glass is the same and you’ll be unharmed.
But now you know it’s there.
-sorry been busy, haven't been posting.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
The Cigarette
Go to any high traffic bathroom. It must be a high traffic bathroom; otherwise the room won’t have enough latent residual energy to carry out the task. A hotel bathroom is perfect. Make sure it’s after 12pm, and make sure you have 2 clove cigarettes. The stronger the cigarette, the higher your success rate is. Sit in the dark and begin smoking one of the cigarettes. Make sure there is a mirror present, and that you look at your reflection at all times. The burning cherry should provide just enough light for this. When you’ve smoked the cigarette within a 1/4 in of the filter, the room should be full of smoke. Your eyes will no doubt be watering, but don’t blink. Don’t take your eyes off of the mirror or your reflection whatever you do. To blink will make all you’ve done at this point for naught.
You’ll begin to notice that your reflection will begin to fade into black. The reflection of the cherry from your cigarette will begin to separate into two red eyes. The smoke in the room will begin to condense, and before you even realize it’s happened, a shade will be sitting on the ledge of the sink. He’ll ask you for a cigarette, which is why you’re instructed to bring two. Give the shade a cigarette, which will light itself once he brings it to his withered lips. At this point, you can ask the shade any question you want, and he’ll answer true. You can ask who shot JFK, who was Jack the Ripper. Anything you could possibly think of. Be sure to keep an eye on how much of the cigarette he’s smoked. When it gets to the point where it will only take a few more hits to kill it, the smoke from the other cigarette will begin to define more of his features, making him more material than ethereal.
At this point, stand up and snatch out his eyes in one sweeping motion. He should still be mostly smoke, so your hands should pass easily through his head. If you let him finish the cigarette he WILL attack you, almost surely taking your life in the process. The shade will begin screaming and cursing you and the hand holding his eyes will be burning intensely. DO NOT OPEN YOUR HAND! Even though the eyes are disembodied, they can see if they are out in the open. Run to the light switch and flip it on. This will banish the shades physical form and send him back into the ether. Leave the room and wait until 3:00 am to open your hand. The burning will be unbearable until then, but to do so will blow all the lights out in your house, allowing the shade to return and seek vengeance. You will have 4 burn marks on your palm when you open it. All cauterized of course, and mostly healed.
From then on you can never be in a dark room with a mirror, because the shade will be able to track you through the burns in your hand. He’ll have black hell dogs now, given his loss of sight, and they are far more terrible than the shade could ever be. The number of hell dogs depends on the strength of the shade you made contact with. After this, you’ll always be cold, no matter how warm it is, and you’ll be given the ability to perform minor miracles. Your dreams will always be nightmares, but in them, you will be granted a kind of third sight. You’ll never be able to see anything good, only the most horrific future events. And these events will only be known to you at a point where you can’t do anything to stop them.
A small price to pay for absolute knowledge.
You’ll begin to notice that your reflection will begin to fade into black. The reflection of the cherry from your cigarette will begin to separate into two red eyes. The smoke in the room will begin to condense, and before you even realize it’s happened, a shade will be sitting on the ledge of the sink. He’ll ask you for a cigarette, which is why you’re instructed to bring two. Give the shade a cigarette, which will light itself once he brings it to his withered lips. At this point, you can ask the shade any question you want, and he’ll answer true. You can ask who shot JFK, who was Jack the Ripper. Anything you could possibly think of. Be sure to keep an eye on how much of the cigarette he’s smoked. When it gets to the point where it will only take a few more hits to kill it, the smoke from the other cigarette will begin to define more of his features, making him more material than ethereal.
At this point, stand up and snatch out his eyes in one sweeping motion. He should still be mostly smoke, so your hands should pass easily through his head. If you let him finish the cigarette he WILL attack you, almost surely taking your life in the process. The shade will begin screaming and cursing you and the hand holding his eyes will be burning intensely. DO NOT OPEN YOUR HAND! Even though the eyes are disembodied, they can see if they are out in the open. Run to the light switch and flip it on. This will banish the shades physical form and send him back into the ether. Leave the room and wait until 3:00 am to open your hand. The burning will be unbearable until then, but to do so will blow all the lights out in your house, allowing the shade to return and seek vengeance. You will have 4 burn marks on your palm when you open it. All cauterized of course, and mostly healed.
From then on you can never be in a dark room with a mirror, because the shade will be able to track you through the burns in your hand. He’ll have black hell dogs now, given his loss of sight, and they are far more terrible than the shade could ever be. The number of hell dogs depends on the strength of the shade you made contact with. After this, you’ll always be cold, no matter how warm it is, and you’ll be given the ability to perform minor miracles. Your dreams will always be nightmares, but in them, you will be granted a kind of third sight. You’ll never be able to see anything good, only the most horrific future events. And these events will only be known to you at a point where you can’t do anything to stop them.
A small price to pay for absolute knowledge.
-I love the ritual pastas.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Patient #0017983
FACILITY ARCHIVE RECORDS SEARCH - SEARCHING…
SEARCHING…
SEARCHING…
COMPLETE - FOUND 19 RESULTS FOR SEARCH TERMS “Patient #0017983″
CHRONOLOGICAL LISTINGS FOLLOW:
1.) ADMISSION FORM, PATIENT #0017983 - 11/18/05 15:12
Involuntary admittance requested by patient’s relatives in response to apparent self-destructive behavior cycle. Self-harm evident in physical exam: signs of past abrasions on head and neck, apparently due to self-inflicted scratching, and both fresh and partially-closed surface lacerations on arms and legs. Signs of extreme fatigue also evident - in examination patient admitted insomnia for, as quoted, “longer than you’d believe.” Patient unable to give exact time for length of insomnia, likely due to extended period of insomnia itself. Confusion and moderate delerium evident. PRELIMINARY MEDICATION ISSUED: Triazolam 0.25mg for insomnia, topical Bacitracin for wound care.
2.) ADMISSION EVALUATION, PATIENT #0017983 - 11/18/05 16:56
PERFORMED BY: Dr. Emil Lafayette. Self-harm confirmed. Patient removed dressings from arm lacerations, reopened wound while waiting for interviewer. Definite evidence of somniphobia in patient justifications for harm; patient refers to sleep with anxiety, and consistently acts against self to cause pain in response to lengthy periods of silence or other lack of stimuli. Issue of insomnia needs immediate attention, given evidence of exceedingly prolonged duration. Likewise possible agoraphobia. Patient requests an isolated bed, becomes withdrawn/agitated when request is denied, refuses to cooperate further with interview. Offers vague suggestion of hostile “other” in justification, but will not elaborate, as quoted, “because you’re not going to believe she exists until she hurts someone anyway.” Evidence for likely paranoid schizophrenia. Recommend further interview with full psychological spectrum testing for exact diagnosis. FINAL RECOMMENDATION: ADMIT PATIENT. PRELIMINARY MEDICATION ISSUED: Cancel Triazolam, instead 5mg Diazepam twice daily for insomnia, anxiety, and probable sleep disorders.
3.) FINAL ADMITTANCE REPORT, PATIENT #0017983 - 11/18/05 17:13
Patient issued bed in Room 409. Current occupant(s): Patient #0017802, Patient #0017983. Clothes from admission remanded to family of patient, three sets of common dress issued for immediate needs. Further psych eval scheduled for 10:00 11/19/05, determining future length of stay.
4.) WARD EVENT REPORT - 11/18/05 17:30
During routine new patient room check, Patient #0017802 places request with staff for transfer to, as quoted, “some other room.” Appears agitated, claims Patient #0017983 has been disturbing him. Patient #0017983 likewise requests transfer, to isolated bed. Both requests denied. ORDERLY NOTE: Followup room check suggested to avoid possible intrapatient conflict.
5.) WARD EVENT REPORT - 11/18/05 19:00
Followup room check. Patient #0017983 claims Dr. Lafayette has ordered him moved to Isolation. Patient #0017802 backs claim. Administration records demonstrate no such order. Upon informing room occupants, Patient #0017983 attempts to assault staff and Patient #0017802 becomes uncontrollably agitated. Additional personnel required to contain incident. Both patients restrained, sedated, forced into early lights out. ORDERLY NOTE: Exercise caution in all future room checks for 409.
6.) WARD EVENT REPORT - 11/18/05 23:57
Staff on Hall 1, Floor 4 report loud sounds from room 409 after facility lights out, disturbing other rooms and patients. Patient #0017983 found awake, extremely agitated and struggling against restraints. Demands lights be turned back on, as quoted, “before she comes.” Self-sustained injuries to wrists and ankles at points of restraint. Patient attempts to struggle against staff during trade to more comprehensive restraint, requiring additional personnel to contain incident. Additional sedation required for Patient #0017983. Patient #0017802 does not respond during course of event, likely due to sedation from earlier incident. ORDERLY NOTE: Maintain restraints on Patient #0017983 until further notice. Sedate patient before removing restraints for any reason. Recommend anti-psychotic be considered in future psych eval.
7.) WARD EVENT REPORT - 11/19/05 00:20
Staff on Hall 1, Floor 4 again report loud sounds from room 409. Patient #0017983 found catatonic on floor, with severe self-inflicted scratches on head and neck. Restraints are severed at connection points, with severe bruising on limbs possibly indicating more severe injury at restraint points with patient. Patient #0017802 is found deceased. Severe disfiguring wounds to face, complete with destruction (ORDERLY NOTE: Ingestion?) of patient’s eyes. Moved to room 101, locker 2, awaiting autopsy. Patient #0017983 transfered to Isolation, room 626, given injected dose of 100mg Zuclopenthixol on attending physician’s orders to control acute psychosis. ORDERLY NOTE: Recommend video observation to allow better control of future outbursts. Stay at least an arm’s length away from patient upper body restraints at all times. Just in case.
8.) AUTOPSY REPORT, PATIENT #0017802 - 11/19/05 09:44
PERFORMED BY: Dr. Julius Tweed. Ragged lacerations prominent around subject’s head and neck, increasing in severity and depth on the regions of the face itself - at several points, the flesh is cut to the bone. More disconcertingly, subject’s eyes appear to be violently removed from their sockets and are missing. CAUSE OF DEATH: Exsanguination from wounds. FINAL JUDGEMENT: Homicide. CORONER NOTE: Recommend consideration of Patient #0017983 as dangerous to staff and facility residents. Urge continued maintenance of restraints and isolation from contact with others in patient population. Also recommend digestive endoscopy to determine fate of missing tissues for staff cohesion purposes - orderlies from Floor 4 suspect cannibalism, promise to refuse Isolation shifts until such belief is disproven.
9.) MEDICAL REPORT, PATIENT #0017983 - 11/19/05 10:07
PERFORMED BY: Dr. Antoinus Cayle. Patient is cooperative, if withdrawn, during examination. No outbursts or threats. Current drug regimen appears effective. No unusual tissue or objects discovered in digestive endoscopy. Radiology tests discover hairline fractures in tibia, fibula of right leg. Severe abrasions evident on skin of restraint points, also head and neck, necessitating topical treatment. Troubling instability in vitals - BP is acutely elevated, pulse rapid and weak for patient’s size. Extended stress from anxiety, elevated mood, and insomnia likely cause. PHYSICIAN NOTE: Patient must sleep to begin recovery process. Recommend elevated dosage of Diazepam to encourage this result. Firm contact-point restraints not recommended for this patient due to risk of further injury. Full-body restraint must be considered as alternative.
10.) PSYCHIATRIC EVALUATION, PATIENT #0017983 - 11/19/05 10:39
PERFORMED BY: Dr. George Tulling. Definite evidence indicating disassociation of identity from actions. Patient expresses remorse for death of Patient #0017802, yet refuses to admit responsibility for actions in said event. Instead externalizes blame into antagonistic female “other.” Same figure, apparently referenced in prior evaluation, seems to be central actor in patient’s paranoid psychosis. Behavior and actions of said “other” justified through magical thinking, despite recognition of depicted individual’s illogically-defined capabilities to sustain reported antagonism. As quoted, “I don’t know, you don’t know, and she doesn’t care.” Patient requests observation of room be terminated, grows agitated when request is denied, makes threats, refuses to continue interview. DIAGNOSIS: Paranoid schizophrenia manifesting in somniphobia, violent psychosis, and disassociative episodes. MEDICATION ISSUED: Up dosage for Diazepam to 10mg twice daily, on 11/24/05 begin issuing 2.5mg doses of Haloperidol twice daily for psychosis. INTERVIEWER NOTE: Utilize patient observation protocols and ward rounds to check for possible drug interaction effects, followup immediately if found or on 11/30/05 otherwise.
11.) WARD EVENT REPORT - 11/19/05 14:32
During standard rounds Patient #0017983 requests that observation of room be terminated. Warns staff of perceived threat inherent in observation protocol. When request is denied, begins struggling against restraints and screaming warnings to staff, observation camera operator regarding disassociative, antagonistic “other.” ACTING PHYSICIAN NOTE: Reject recommendations from orderlies to sedate Patient #0017983 unless medically or procedurally sound. Sedatives are not a safety blanket. ORDERLY NOTE: They say this guy is at his sedative limit, and he was nearly pulling his bed off its bolts. Use double staff if at all possible when dealing with him. Whatever’s in his head… it’s strong.
12.) STAFF COMMUNICATIONS - 11/19/05 16:53
FROM: Charles McKinney - Head of Patient Care Division
TO: Patient Care Staff List
SUBJECT: RE:FWD:Patient #0017983
This has officially gone far enough. I did not intervene in this matter before, because I was under the impression that the men and women under my supervision were beyond such things as this, but circumstances have proven me to be mistaken and I will not allow these rumors to progress any further. The only thing “wrong” with Patient #0017983 is that he is seriously ill and dependent upon us for care and assistance in his recovery. He is not the first patient with explosive episodes we have treated, he is not even the only one currently in our facility, and he will not be the last. It thus pains me to discover that one singular breach of safety, which WAS properly addressed by facility protocol, has left my staff whispering superstitions to one another and accepting the delusions of our patient as truth. We are better than this. There are indeed risks inherent in this profession, risks we all knew about upon assuming it, but that is the burden we bear to render aid to those who find themselves in our beds.
Until otherwise noted I will not approve of any shift changes from scheduled Isolation hours. Our staff counselors are always available during standard hours for those who need to consult with someone in light of the recent event and associated workplace anxiety. It is a fringe benefit of working in mental health, and I suggest anyone having difficulties make use of it. This matter is closed, and I want to hear no further mention of it. As previously stated, I expected more from all of you.
- Charles
13.) WARD EVENT REPORT - 11/19/05 20:44
During standard rounds Patient #0017983 requests that lights be left on after scheduled lights out time. After consultation with attending physician and therapist, request granted. Room check proceeds uneventfully until staff move to depart, at which point request is made for observation to be terminated. Upon denial of request, patient instead requests for lights to be doused as usual. Request granted. Another request is made, now for red-bulb sleep lights to be doused during scheduled lights out time. Patient understands that low-level light is necessary for room observation - as quoted, “that’s why I want them off.” Warns observation camera operator against Her. Attending therapist denies request. Sorry Jacob…
14.) STAFF COMMUNICATIONS - 11/19/05 21:12
FROM: Dr. Emil Lafayette
TO: Patient Care Staff List
SUBJECT: Lights in 626
I happened to notice tonight while in final checks that the sleep lights in Isolation 626 were turned off after standard rounds - without my knowledge, or consent. As I am sure you are all aware, this is a SEVERE breach of facility protocol. When video observation of a patient is recommended and approved, there is a reason for such a decision to be made. Patient #0017983 has violent episodes and MUST be monitored to minimize the risk of him causing further harm to his already precarious physical state. You have ABSOLUTELY NO authority to override decisions made by the medical personnel of this, or any other, facility. NONE.
I have been hearing talk around the halls that some of you are AFRAID of this man. He is bound to a bed, under the highest sedation we can medically provide, and both physically and mentally suffering from acute fatigue. Do you also jump at shadows? Regardless of the reason, I will NOT permit untrained orderlies to begin interfering in the care provided to our patients. If such an event occurs again, I will inform Mr. McKinney and see the entire night’s orderly staff barred from the premises. Do I make myself clear?
- Dr. Emil Lafayette MD, FACEP, MHSC
15.) WARD EVENT REPORT - 11/19/05 23:27
[PATIENT #0017983, NAME REDACTED] won’t stop screaming. It just won’t stop. Hours of it. It echoes in my ears, in my skull. Whenever he’s coherent he begs us to turn the camera off, or the lights off, or just make everything go away. I’m sorely tempted, poor [SOFTWARE CENSORED], but Doc Lafayette pulled Jacob from observation and is watching everyone from the video room for the rest of his shift thanks to Michael’s business with the lights earlier. Last I saw of him, he was headed for the elevator with his jacket saying he “just can’t do this to my kids.” I don’t know why I’m here anymore. I just keep staring up at the cameras. Is that [SOFTWARE CENSORED] busier watching his patient, or us?
I’d only need one needle to stop the screaming…
16.) WARD EVENT REPORT - 11/20/05 00:01
It stopped. Just… stopped. No one’s willing to check why. I think [PATIENT #0017983, NAME REDACTED] is gone. I pray She is gone.
17.) STAFF COMMUNICATIONS - 11/20/05 00:04
FROM: Dr. Emil Lafayette
TO: All
SUBJECT: Patient #0017983 AGAIN
I SAID NO ONE IS TO ENTER ISOLATION 626 WITHOUT MY EXPRESS PERMISSION, GOD [SOFTWARE CENSORED] YOU ALL! I WILL HAVE ALL YOUR JOBS FORohgod
i will be good mommy
please not the belt please
heLPmehELpmehElpmehelpMeHelpmeHelpmEheLpmehElpmehelPmehelpmeHelpmeh
ElpmehelpMehElPmeHelpmeheLpmeSavemeHelpMehElpMehelpmeHelPmEhelpmeHel
pmehelPmeheLPmEhelpmehElpmehelPmehELpmehelpmEhelpmeHElpmehElpmehelpM
ehElpmehelpMehelpmehElpMekillmEhelpMEHelpmEhelpmehElPMehelpmehElpmeheL
pmeHelpmeheLpmeHelpMehelPmestopmeHeLpmEHelpmehElpmehelPMehelpMe
hE iS dEAD i aM dEAD sHE iS dEAD wE aRE dEAD aND
we. all. fall. down.
18.) ADMISSION EVALUATION, PATIENT #0017986 - 11/20/05 9:25
PERFORMED BY: Dr. George Tulling. Former staff. Patient discovered in locked observation room setting fire to equipment and recordings. Attempted suicide in flames before rescue by staff. Claims to be antagonized by same female “other” as former Patient #0017983. Possibly involved in death of said resident. If so, evidence obvious for disassociation of self from actions. Likely paranoid schizophrenia. Patient will not respond to further questions - as quoted, “Don’t go looking for her. She’ll find you.” FINAL RECOMMENDATION: ADMIT PATIENT. PRELIMINARY MEDICATION ISSUED: 2.5mg doses of Haloperidol twice daily for schizophrenic psychosis.
19.) STAFF COMMUNICATIONS - 11/20/05 9:36
FROM: Dr. George Tulling
TO: Charles McKinney - Head of Patient Care Division
SUBJECT: I’ve just heard.
Seal him in Isolation, wait Her out, cremate both bodies. As far as the relatives are concerned, Patient #0017983 died in the fire set by Lafayette in committing suicide. That’s all anyone needs to know.
Let’s just hope the rest of us don’t wind up needing time in these beds as well.
SEARCHING…
SEARCHING…
COMPLETE - FOUND 19 RESULTS FOR SEARCH TERMS “Patient #0017983″
CHRONOLOGICAL LISTINGS FOLLOW:
1.) ADMISSION FORM, PATIENT #0017983 - 11/18/05 15:12
Involuntary admittance requested by patient’s relatives in response to apparent self-destructive behavior cycle. Self-harm evident in physical exam: signs of past abrasions on head and neck, apparently due to self-inflicted scratching, and both fresh and partially-closed surface lacerations on arms and legs. Signs of extreme fatigue also evident - in examination patient admitted insomnia for, as quoted, “longer than you’d believe.” Patient unable to give exact time for length of insomnia, likely due to extended period of insomnia itself. Confusion and moderate delerium evident. PRELIMINARY MEDICATION ISSUED: Triazolam 0.25mg for insomnia, topical Bacitracin for wound care.
2.) ADMISSION EVALUATION, PATIENT #0017983 - 11/18/05 16:56
PERFORMED BY: Dr. Emil Lafayette. Self-harm confirmed. Patient removed dressings from arm lacerations, reopened wound while waiting for interviewer. Definite evidence of somniphobia in patient justifications for harm; patient refers to sleep with anxiety, and consistently acts against self to cause pain in response to lengthy periods of silence or other lack of stimuli. Issue of insomnia needs immediate attention, given evidence of exceedingly prolonged duration. Likewise possible agoraphobia. Patient requests an isolated bed, becomes withdrawn/agitated when request is denied, refuses to cooperate further with interview. Offers vague suggestion of hostile “other” in justification, but will not elaborate, as quoted, “because you’re not going to believe she exists until she hurts someone anyway.” Evidence for likely paranoid schizophrenia. Recommend further interview with full psychological spectrum testing for exact diagnosis. FINAL RECOMMENDATION: ADMIT PATIENT. PRELIMINARY MEDICATION ISSUED: Cancel Triazolam, instead 5mg Diazepam twice daily for insomnia, anxiety, and probable sleep disorders.
3.) FINAL ADMITTANCE REPORT, PATIENT #0017983 - 11/18/05 17:13
Patient issued bed in Room 409. Current occupant(s): Patient #0017802, Patient #0017983. Clothes from admission remanded to family of patient, three sets of common dress issued for immediate needs. Further psych eval scheduled for 10:00 11/19/05, determining future length of stay.
4.) WARD EVENT REPORT - 11/18/05 17:30
During routine new patient room check, Patient #0017802 places request with staff for transfer to, as quoted, “some other room.” Appears agitated, claims Patient #0017983 has been disturbing him. Patient #0017983 likewise requests transfer, to isolated bed. Both requests denied. ORDERLY NOTE: Followup room check suggested to avoid possible intrapatient conflict.
5.) WARD EVENT REPORT - 11/18/05 19:00
Followup room check. Patient #0017983 claims Dr. Lafayette has ordered him moved to Isolation. Patient #0017802 backs claim. Administration records demonstrate no such order. Upon informing room occupants, Patient #0017983 attempts to assault staff and Patient #0017802 becomes uncontrollably agitated. Additional personnel required to contain incident. Both patients restrained, sedated, forced into early lights out. ORDERLY NOTE: Exercise caution in all future room checks for 409.
6.) WARD EVENT REPORT - 11/18/05 23:57
Staff on Hall 1, Floor 4 report loud sounds from room 409 after facility lights out, disturbing other rooms and patients. Patient #0017983 found awake, extremely agitated and struggling against restraints. Demands lights be turned back on, as quoted, “before she comes.” Self-sustained injuries to wrists and ankles at points of restraint. Patient attempts to struggle against staff during trade to more comprehensive restraint, requiring additional personnel to contain incident. Additional sedation required for Patient #0017983. Patient #0017802 does not respond during course of event, likely due to sedation from earlier incident. ORDERLY NOTE: Maintain restraints on Patient #0017983 until further notice. Sedate patient before removing restraints for any reason. Recommend anti-psychotic be considered in future psych eval.
7.) WARD EVENT REPORT - 11/19/05 00:20
Staff on Hall 1, Floor 4 again report loud sounds from room 409. Patient #0017983 found catatonic on floor, with severe self-inflicted scratches on head and neck. Restraints are severed at connection points, with severe bruising on limbs possibly indicating more severe injury at restraint points with patient. Patient #0017802 is found deceased. Severe disfiguring wounds to face, complete with destruction (ORDERLY NOTE: Ingestion?) of patient’s eyes. Moved to room 101, locker 2, awaiting autopsy. Patient #0017983 transfered to Isolation, room 626, given injected dose of 100mg Zuclopenthixol on attending physician’s orders to control acute psychosis. ORDERLY NOTE: Recommend video observation to allow better control of future outbursts. Stay at least an arm’s length away from patient upper body restraints at all times. Just in case.
8.) AUTOPSY REPORT, PATIENT #0017802 - 11/19/05 09:44
PERFORMED BY: Dr. Julius Tweed. Ragged lacerations prominent around subject’s head and neck, increasing in severity and depth on the regions of the face itself - at several points, the flesh is cut to the bone. More disconcertingly, subject’s eyes appear to be violently removed from their sockets and are missing. CAUSE OF DEATH: Exsanguination from wounds. FINAL JUDGEMENT: Homicide. CORONER NOTE: Recommend consideration of Patient #0017983 as dangerous to staff and facility residents. Urge continued maintenance of restraints and isolation from contact with others in patient population. Also recommend digestive endoscopy to determine fate of missing tissues for staff cohesion purposes - orderlies from Floor 4 suspect cannibalism, promise to refuse Isolation shifts until such belief is disproven.
9.) MEDICAL REPORT, PATIENT #0017983 - 11/19/05 10:07
PERFORMED BY: Dr. Antoinus Cayle. Patient is cooperative, if withdrawn, during examination. No outbursts or threats. Current drug regimen appears effective. No unusual tissue or objects discovered in digestive endoscopy. Radiology tests discover hairline fractures in tibia, fibula of right leg. Severe abrasions evident on skin of restraint points, also head and neck, necessitating topical treatment. Troubling instability in vitals - BP is acutely elevated, pulse rapid and weak for patient’s size. Extended stress from anxiety, elevated mood, and insomnia likely cause. PHYSICIAN NOTE: Patient must sleep to begin recovery process. Recommend elevated dosage of Diazepam to encourage this result. Firm contact-point restraints not recommended for this patient due to risk of further injury. Full-body restraint must be considered as alternative.
10.) PSYCHIATRIC EVALUATION, PATIENT #0017983 - 11/19/05 10:39
PERFORMED BY: Dr. George Tulling. Definite evidence indicating disassociation of identity from actions. Patient expresses remorse for death of Patient #0017802, yet refuses to admit responsibility for actions in said event. Instead externalizes blame into antagonistic female “other.” Same figure, apparently referenced in prior evaluation, seems to be central actor in patient’s paranoid psychosis. Behavior and actions of said “other” justified through magical thinking, despite recognition of depicted individual’s illogically-defined capabilities to sustain reported antagonism. As quoted, “I don’t know, you don’t know, and she doesn’t care.” Patient requests observation of room be terminated, grows agitated when request is denied, makes threats, refuses to continue interview. DIAGNOSIS: Paranoid schizophrenia manifesting in somniphobia, violent psychosis, and disassociative episodes. MEDICATION ISSUED: Up dosage for Diazepam to 10mg twice daily, on 11/24/05 begin issuing 2.5mg doses of Haloperidol twice daily for psychosis. INTERVIEWER NOTE: Utilize patient observation protocols and ward rounds to check for possible drug interaction effects, followup immediately if found or on 11/30/05 otherwise.
11.) WARD EVENT REPORT - 11/19/05 14:32
During standard rounds Patient #0017983 requests that observation of room be terminated. Warns staff of perceived threat inherent in observation protocol. When request is denied, begins struggling against restraints and screaming warnings to staff, observation camera operator regarding disassociative, antagonistic “other.” ACTING PHYSICIAN NOTE: Reject recommendations from orderlies to sedate Patient #0017983 unless medically or procedurally sound. Sedatives are not a safety blanket. ORDERLY NOTE: They say this guy is at his sedative limit, and he was nearly pulling his bed off its bolts. Use double staff if at all possible when dealing with him. Whatever’s in his head… it’s strong.
12.) STAFF COMMUNICATIONS - 11/19/05 16:53
FROM: Charles McKinney - Head of Patient Care Division
TO: Patient Care Staff List
SUBJECT: RE:FWD:Patient #0017983
This has officially gone far enough. I did not intervene in this matter before, because I was under the impression that the men and women under my supervision were beyond such things as this, but circumstances have proven me to be mistaken and I will not allow these rumors to progress any further. The only thing “wrong” with Patient #0017983 is that he is seriously ill and dependent upon us for care and assistance in his recovery. He is not the first patient with explosive episodes we have treated, he is not even the only one currently in our facility, and he will not be the last. It thus pains me to discover that one singular breach of safety, which WAS properly addressed by facility protocol, has left my staff whispering superstitions to one another and accepting the delusions of our patient as truth. We are better than this. There are indeed risks inherent in this profession, risks we all knew about upon assuming it, but that is the burden we bear to render aid to those who find themselves in our beds.
Until otherwise noted I will not approve of any shift changes from scheduled Isolation hours. Our staff counselors are always available during standard hours for those who need to consult with someone in light of the recent event and associated workplace anxiety. It is a fringe benefit of working in mental health, and I suggest anyone having difficulties make use of it. This matter is closed, and I want to hear no further mention of it. As previously stated, I expected more from all of you.
- Charles
13.) WARD EVENT REPORT - 11/19/05 20:44
During standard rounds Patient #0017983 requests that lights be left on after scheduled lights out time. After consultation with attending physician and therapist, request granted. Room check proceeds uneventfully until staff move to depart, at which point request is made for observation to be terminated. Upon denial of request, patient instead requests for lights to be doused as usual. Request granted. Another request is made, now for red-bulb sleep lights to be doused during scheduled lights out time. Patient understands that low-level light is necessary for room observation - as quoted, “that’s why I want them off.” Warns observation camera operator against Her. Attending therapist denies request. Sorry Jacob…
14.) STAFF COMMUNICATIONS - 11/19/05 21:12
FROM: Dr. Emil Lafayette
TO: Patient Care Staff List
SUBJECT: Lights in 626
I happened to notice tonight while in final checks that the sleep lights in Isolation 626 were turned off after standard rounds - without my knowledge, or consent. As I am sure you are all aware, this is a SEVERE breach of facility protocol. When video observation of a patient is recommended and approved, there is a reason for such a decision to be made. Patient #0017983 has violent episodes and MUST be monitored to minimize the risk of him causing further harm to his already precarious physical state. You have ABSOLUTELY NO authority to override decisions made by the medical personnel of this, or any other, facility. NONE.
I have been hearing talk around the halls that some of you are AFRAID of this man. He is bound to a bed, under the highest sedation we can medically provide, and both physically and mentally suffering from acute fatigue. Do you also jump at shadows? Regardless of the reason, I will NOT permit untrained orderlies to begin interfering in the care provided to our patients. If such an event occurs again, I will inform Mr. McKinney and see the entire night’s orderly staff barred from the premises. Do I make myself clear?
- Dr. Emil Lafayette MD, FACEP, MHSC
15.) WARD EVENT REPORT - 11/19/05 23:27
[PATIENT #0017983, NAME REDACTED] won’t stop screaming. It just won’t stop. Hours of it. It echoes in my ears, in my skull. Whenever he’s coherent he begs us to turn the camera off, or the lights off, or just make everything go away. I’m sorely tempted, poor [SOFTWARE CENSORED], but Doc Lafayette pulled Jacob from observation and is watching everyone from the video room for the rest of his shift thanks to Michael’s business with the lights earlier. Last I saw of him, he was headed for the elevator with his jacket saying he “just can’t do this to my kids.” I don’t know why I’m here anymore. I just keep staring up at the cameras. Is that [SOFTWARE CENSORED] busier watching his patient, or us?
I’d only need one needle to stop the screaming…
16.) WARD EVENT REPORT - 11/20/05 00:01
It stopped. Just… stopped. No one’s willing to check why. I think [PATIENT #0017983, NAME REDACTED] is gone. I pray She is gone.
17.) STAFF COMMUNICATIONS - 11/20/05 00:04
FROM: Dr. Emil Lafayette
TO: All
SUBJECT: Patient #0017983 AGAIN
I SAID NO ONE IS TO ENTER ISOLATION 626 WITHOUT MY EXPRESS PERMISSION, GOD [SOFTWARE CENSORED] YOU ALL! I WILL HAVE ALL YOUR JOBS FORohgod
i will be good mommy
please not the belt please
heLPmehELpmehElpmehelpMeHelpmeHelpmEheLpmehElpmehelPmehelpmeHelpmeh
ElpmehelpMehElPmeHelpmeheLpmeSavemeHelpMehElpMehelpmeHelPmEhelpmeHel
pmehelPmeheLPmEhelpmehElpmehelPmehELpmehelpmEhelpmeHElpmehElpmehelpM
ehElpmehelpMehelpmehElpMekillmEhelpMEHelpmEhelpmehElPMehelpmehElpmeheL
pmeHelpmeheLpmeHelpMehelPmestopmeHeLpmEHelpmehElpmehelPMehelpMe
hE iS dEAD i aM dEAD sHE iS dEAD wE aRE dEAD aND
we. all. fall. down.
18.) ADMISSION EVALUATION, PATIENT #0017986 - 11/20/05 9:25
PERFORMED BY: Dr. George Tulling. Former staff. Patient discovered in locked observation room setting fire to equipment and recordings. Attempted suicide in flames before rescue by staff. Claims to be antagonized by same female “other” as former Patient #0017983. Possibly involved in death of said resident. If so, evidence obvious for disassociation of self from actions. Likely paranoid schizophrenia. Patient will not respond to further questions - as quoted, “Don’t go looking for her. She’ll find you.” FINAL RECOMMENDATION: ADMIT PATIENT. PRELIMINARY MEDICATION ISSUED: 2.5mg doses of Haloperidol twice daily for schizophrenic psychosis.
19.) STAFF COMMUNICATIONS - 11/20/05 9:36
FROM: Dr. George Tulling
TO: Charles McKinney - Head of Patient Care Division
SUBJECT: I’ve just heard.
Seal him in Isolation, wait Her out, cremate both bodies. As far as the relatives are concerned, Patient #0017983 died in the fire set by Lafayette in committing suicide. That’s all anyone needs to know.
Let’s just hope the rest of us don’t wind up needing time in these beds as well.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
The Bloop
The Bloop is the name given to an ultra-low frequency and extremely powerful underwater sound detected by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) several times during 1997. The source of the sound remains unknown.
The sound, traced to somewhere around 50° S 100° W (a remote point in the south Pacific Ocean west of the southern tip of South America), was detected repeatedly by the Equatorial Pacific Ocean autonomous hydrophone array, which uses U.S. Navy equipment originally designed to detect Soviet submarines. According to the NOAA description, it "rises rapidly in frequency over about one minute and was of sufficient amplitude to be heard on multiple sensors, at a range of over 5,000 km." NOAA's system ruled out its origin as any known man-made sound, such as a submarine or bomb, or familiar geological sounds such as volcanoes or earthquakes. While the audio profile of the bloop does resemble that of a living creature, the system identified it as unknown because it was far too loud for that to have been the case: it was several times louder than the loudest known biological sound. Five other significant unexplained sounds have been named by NOAA: Julia, Train, Slowdown, Whistle, and Upsweep.
It is worth noting that the location of the Bloop is close to the coordinates of the great sunken city of R'lyeh, resting place of Cthulhu, as given by Lovecraft himself, at 47°9′S 126°43′W.
-makes you wonder, doesn't it?
Friday, October 8, 2010
Off Topic
Sorry for a random post over a nice juciy story, butttt check this out if you are into this kind of stuff
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/part-i-the-castlevania/705561
The Castlevania Restropective.
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/part-i-the-castlevania/705561
The Castlevania Restropective.
The Portraits
Face down in an unfamiliar bed, he turned blinking in unexpected sunlight. Looking up, he discovered that the cabin had no portraits, only windows.
-a pretty old one.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
The Dyatlov Pass Incident
The Dyatlov Pass Accident refers to an incident that resulted in the death of nine ski hikers in the northern Ural mountains. The incident happened on the night of February 2, 1959 on the east shoulder of the mountain Kholat Syakhl(a Mansi name, meaning Mountain of the Dead). The mountain pass where the accident occurred has been named Dyatlov Pass after the group’s leader, Igor Dyatlov.
The mysterious circumstances of the hikers’ deaths have inspired much speculation. Investigations of the deaths suggest that the hikers tore open their tent from within, departing barefoot in heavy snow; while the corpses show no signs of struggle, one victim had a fractured skull, two had broken ribs, and one was missing her tongue. The victims’ clothing contained high levels of radiation. Soviet investigators determined only that “a compelling unknown force” had caused the deaths, barring entry to the area for years thereafter. The causes of the accident remain unclear.
It had been agreed beforehand that Dyatlov would send a telegraph to their sports club as soon as the group returned to Vizhai. It was expected that this would happen no later than February 12, but when this date had passed and no messages had been received, there was no reaction, delays of a few days were common in such expeditions. Only after the relatives of the travelers demanded a rescue operation did the head of the institute send the first rescue groups, consisting of volunteer students and teachers, on February 20. Later, the army and police forces became involved, with planes and helicopters being ordered to join the rescue operation.
On February 26, the searchers found the abandoned camp on Kholat Syakhl. The tent was badly damaged. A chain of footsteps could be followed, leading down towards the edge of nearby woods (on the opposite side of the pass, 1.5km north-east), but after 500 meters they were covered with snow. At the forest edge, under a large old pine, the searchers found the remains of a fire, along with the first two dead bodies, those of Krivonischenko and Doroshenko, shoeless and dressed only in their underwear. Between the pine and the camp the searchers found three more corpses - Dyatlov, Kolmogorova and Slobodin - who seemed to have died in poses suggesting that they were attempting to return to the camp. They were found separately at distances of 300, 480 and 630 meters from the pine tree.
Searching for the remaining four travelers took more than two months. They were finally found on May 4, under four meters of snow, in a stream valley further into the wood from the pine tree.
An examination of the four bodies which were found in May changed the picture. Three of them had fatal injuries; the body of Thibeaux-Brignollel had major skull damage, and both Dubunina and Zolotarev had major chest fractures. The force required to cause such damage would have been extremely high, with one expert comparing it to the force of a car crash. Notably, the bodies had no external wounds, as if they were crippled by a high level of pressure. One woman was found to be missing her tongue. There had initially been some speculation that the indigenous Mansi people may have attacked and murdered the group, for encroaching upon their lands, but investigation indicated that the nature of their deaths did not support this thesis; the hikers’ footprints alone were visible, and they showed no sign of hand-to-hand struggle.
There was evidence that the team was forced to leave the camp during the night, as they were sleeping. Though the temperature was very low (around -25° to -30°C) with a storm blowing, the dead were dressed only partially, and certainly inadequately for the conditions. Some of them had only one shoe, while others had no shoes or wore only socks. Some were found wrapped in snips of ripped clothes which seemed to be cut from those who were already dead.
Journalists reporting on the available parts of the inquest files claim that it states:
Six of the group members died of hypothermia and three of fatal injuries.
There were no indications of other people nearby apart from the nine travellers on Kholat Syakhl, nor anyone in the surrounding areas.
The tent had been ripped open from within.
The victims had died 6 to 8 hours after their last meal.
Traces from the camp showed that all group members (including those who were found injured) left the camp of their own accord, by foot.
One doctor investigating the case suggested that the fatal injuries of the three bodies could not have been caused by another human being, owing to the extreme force to which they had been subjected.
Forensic radiation tests had shown high doses of radioactive contamination on the clothes of a few victims.
The final verdict was that the group members all died because of an “unknown compelling force”. The inquest ceased officially in May 1959 due to the “absence of a guilty party”. The files were sent to a secret archive, and the photocopies of the case became available only in the 1990s, with some parts missing
Some researchers point out the following facts which were missed, perhaps ignored, by officials:
After the funerals, relatives of the deceased claimed that the skin of the victims had a strange orange tan.
A former investigating officer said, in a private interview, that his dosimeter had shown a high radiation level on Kholat Syakhl, and that this was the reason for the radiation found on the bodies. However, the source of the contamination was not found.
Another group of hikers (about 50 kilometers south of the accident) reported that they saw strange orange spheres in the night sky to the north (likely the direction of in Kholat Syakhl) at the same date as the accident happened. Similar “spheres” were observed in Ivdel and adjacent areas continually during the period of February to March 1959, by various independent witnesses (including the meteorology service and the military).
Some reconstructions of the victims’ behavior suggest that they were blinded. The rescue team had seen that the victims broke damp and thick pine branches for the fire, even though there was good dry brushwood around.
Some reports suggested that much scrap metal was located in the area, leading to speculation that the military had utilized the area secretly and might be engaged in a cover-up.
The mysterious circumstances of the hikers’ deaths have inspired much speculation. Investigations of the deaths suggest that the hikers tore open their tent from within, departing barefoot in heavy snow; while the corpses show no signs of struggle, one victim had a fractured skull, two had broken ribs, and one was missing her tongue. The victims’ clothing contained high levels of radiation. Soviet investigators determined only that “a compelling unknown force” had caused the deaths, barring entry to the area for years thereafter. The causes of the accident remain unclear.
It had been agreed beforehand that Dyatlov would send a telegraph to their sports club as soon as the group returned to Vizhai. It was expected that this would happen no later than February 12, but when this date had passed and no messages had been received, there was no reaction, delays of a few days were common in such expeditions. Only after the relatives of the travelers demanded a rescue operation did the head of the institute send the first rescue groups, consisting of volunteer students and teachers, on February 20. Later, the army and police forces became involved, with planes and helicopters being ordered to join the rescue operation.
On February 26, the searchers found the abandoned camp on Kholat Syakhl. The tent was badly damaged. A chain of footsteps could be followed, leading down towards the edge of nearby woods (on the opposite side of the pass, 1.5km north-east), but after 500 meters they were covered with snow. At the forest edge, under a large old pine, the searchers found the remains of a fire, along with the first two dead bodies, those of Krivonischenko and Doroshenko, shoeless and dressed only in their underwear. Between the pine and the camp the searchers found three more corpses - Dyatlov, Kolmogorova and Slobodin - who seemed to have died in poses suggesting that they were attempting to return to the camp. They were found separately at distances of 300, 480 and 630 meters from the pine tree.
Searching for the remaining four travelers took more than two months. They were finally found on May 4, under four meters of snow, in a stream valley further into the wood from the pine tree.
An examination of the four bodies which were found in May changed the picture. Three of them had fatal injuries; the body of Thibeaux-Brignollel had major skull damage, and both Dubunina and Zolotarev had major chest fractures. The force required to cause such damage would have been extremely high, with one expert comparing it to the force of a car crash. Notably, the bodies had no external wounds, as if they were crippled by a high level of pressure. One woman was found to be missing her tongue. There had initially been some speculation that the indigenous Mansi people may have attacked and murdered the group, for encroaching upon their lands, but investigation indicated that the nature of their deaths did not support this thesis; the hikers’ footprints alone were visible, and they showed no sign of hand-to-hand struggle.
There was evidence that the team was forced to leave the camp during the night, as they were sleeping. Though the temperature was very low (around -25° to -30°C) with a storm blowing, the dead were dressed only partially, and certainly inadequately for the conditions. Some of them had only one shoe, while others had no shoes or wore only socks. Some were found wrapped in snips of ripped clothes which seemed to be cut from those who were already dead.
Journalists reporting on the available parts of the inquest files claim that it states:
Six of the group members died of hypothermia and three of fatal injuries.
There were no indications of other people nearby apart from the nine travellers on Kholat Syakhl, nor anyone in the surrounding areas.
The tent had been ripped open from within.
The victims had died 6 to 8 hours after their last meal.
Traces from the camp showed that all group members (including those who were found injured) left the camp of their own accord, by foot.
One doctor investigating the case suggested that the fatal injuries of the three bodies could not have been caused by another human being, owing to the extreme force to which they had been subjected.
Forensic radiation tests had shown high doses of radioactive contamination on the clothes of a few victims.
The final verdict was that the group members all died because of an “unknown compelling force”. The inquest ceased officially in May 1959 due to the “absence of a guilty party”. The files were sent to a secret archive, and the photocopies of the case became available only in the 1990s, with some parts missing
Some researchers point out the following facts which were missed, perhaps ignored, by officials:
After the funerals, relatives of the deceased claimed that the skin of the victims had a strange orange tan.
A former investigating officer said, in a private interview, that his dosimeter had shown a high radiation level on Kholat Syakhl, and that this was the reason for the radiation found on the bodies. However, the source of the contamination was not found.
Another group of hikers (about 50 kilometers south of the accident) reported that they saw strange orange spheres in the night sky to the north (likely the direction of in Kholat Syakhl) at the same date as the accident happened. Similar “spheres” were observed in Ivdel and adjacent areas continually during the period of February to March 1959, by various independent witnesses (including the meteorology service and the military).
Some reconstructions of the victims’ behavior suggest that they were blinded. The rescue team had seen that the victims broke damp and thick pine branches for the fire, even though there was good dry brushwood around.
Some reports suggested that much scrap metal was located in the area, leading to speculation that the military had utilized the area secretly and might be engaged in a cover-up.
jvk1166z
Some people might recall some momentary buzz caused a couple of years ago by a particularly odd Morrowind mod. The file name was jvk1166z.esp. It was never posted on any of the larger Elder Scrolls communities, usually just smaller boards and role-playing groups. I know in a few cases rather than being posted it was sent via PM or email to a 'chosen few.' It was only up for a few days, to the best of my knowledge.
It caused a buzz because it was a virus, or seemed to be. If you tried to load the game with the mod active, it would hang at the initial load screen for a full hour and then crash to the desktop. If you let it get that far, your install of Morrowind, along with any save files you had, would become completely corrupted. Nobody could figure out what the mod was trying to do, since it couldn't be opened in the Construction Set. Eventually, warning were distributed not to use it if you found it, and things died down.
About a year later, in a mod board I used to frequent, someone popped up with the mod again. He said he was PMed by a lurker who deleted his account immediately after sending. He also said that the person advised him to try playing the mod through DOSbox. For some reason, this worked...sort of. The game was a bit laggy, and you couldn't get into Options, Load Game, the console, or really anything else, other than the game itself. The QuickSave and QuickLoad hotbuttons worked, but that was it. And the QuickSave file seemed to be just part of the game file, so you couldn't get at it anymore. Some speculated that the changed game used an older graphics renderer, making DOSbox necessary, but it didn't LOOK any different.
This part I can speak about from personal experience. When you start a new game in JVK (as the board came to call it), once you left the starting bit in the Census Office and came into the game proper, the first thing you notice is that the 'prophecy has been severed' box pops up. This is because every single NPC having to do with the main quest is dead, with the sole exception of Yagrum Bagarn, the last of the Dwemer. Their corpses never despawn, so you can go check on all of them. In effect, you begin in a world that is domed to start with.
The second thing you notice is that you're losing health. It's only a bit, but it keeps happening, a little bit at a time. The longer you stay in one place, the quicker it seems to occur. If you let this loss kill you, you'll find the cause: a figure we came to call the Assassin, because he seems to wear a retextured version of the Dark Brotherhood armor from Tribunal, even though the expansions don't work in JVK. It's all black, completely untextured, like he's just a hole in space. The way he moves...he gave me quite a start, the first time I saw him scuttling around my dead body. He crawls inhumanly on his hands and feet, his arms and legs splayed out like a spider. You'd usually only see him after death, crawling around and over your body just before the reload box popped up. Occasionally, you could catch a glimpse of him darting around a corner or crawling on a wall or ceiling. It made the game very difficult to play at night!
Other than that, the only noticeable difference is that at night, at random intervals, every NPC in the game will go outside for a few minutes. During this time, the only thing they will say when hailed is, "Watch the sky." Once they return to their normal behavior they act as normal, though.
After a while, a player on the board discovered a new NPC named Tieras, a male Dunmer in the temple at Ghostgate. Two things are notable about this NPC: first is his robe, a unique article of clothing that was lovingly rendered with twinkling stars all across it, looking like a torn-off chunk of the night sky. The second is that all of his dialogue, in addition to showing up in the dialogue box, is voiced. You can skip it if you wish, but it all sounds like it's in the default male Dunmer voice. Some people said that they thought the voice was "slightly" different, but it was a very, very good imitation.
I won't go into the details, but the questline he sends you on has to do with a dungeon referred to simply as 'The Citadel.' At least, to the point I reached, the quests were all of a fairly generic 'discover the secrets of the ancients' bent. the entrance to this dungeon is on a small island far to the west of Morrowind proper. I eventually discovered that if you used a Scroll of Icarian Flight at the westernmost point on the main landmass and jump directly west, you'd end up almost exactly at the island.
Even though the dungeon is called The Citadel, it goes straight down. It dwarfs any other dungeon, both in size and difficulty. From a natural cave area you'll proceed down into an ancestral tomb looking area, then Daedric ruin area, and then a Dwemer ruin area. I made it down to the Dwemer Ruins before I quit. The creatures here were strong enough that a level 20 character would have to take care, and since you can't use the console in JVK, level 20 take a while to get. Since QuickSave and QuickLoad are your only options, it's all too easy to get yourself into an impossible situation, too. I did, and I just didn't have the energy to start over.
Now what I'm telling you is based on what those few who went further reported. Past the Dwemer Ruins you find yourself in a level like the Dwemer Ruins, but darker. Rather than the usual bronze, all the surfaces, including those of the creatures, are black. The sounds of machinery are loud here, and grow louder still randomly. There's also steam or fog everywhree, limiting your vision to about ten in-game feet or so. If you can make it through all this, you will reach a hall that those who found it called it the Portrait Room.
Like the fire in torches or other effects from early 3D games, this room has picture frames that always face directly at you, no matter how you look at them. The images in the frames were always randomly chosen images from your My Pictures folder. On the board, the ones who got there had some fun posting screenshots of the Portrait Room with various pictures in the frames (Usually porn, of course).
At the end of the hall was a locked door. After admitting defeat and returning to Tieras, everyone just found him saying, "Watch the sky," in his gravelly voice. What's more, nobody else in the game would say ANYTHING. There was just a completely blank dialogue box with no options at all. They wouldn't even rattle off the usual canned audible greetings. The only exception was at night; whenever they'd go out for a few minutes, they'd still repeat it. "Watch the sky." At this point, one of the players - a friend of mine from the board - noticed (and the few others who got this far agreed) that the night sky was no longer the usual night sky of Tamriel; it had changed to a depiction of a real night sky. And it moved.
From this point on, everything is based on what this one person reported. Eventually, he got himself kicked from the board, but I kept in contact with him for as long as he responded. According to him, based on the constellations and planets, the sky started around February 2005. if you died, loaded, or went back into the Citadel, it would start over. When the usual day sky graphics took over, the movement would be suspended until the stars appeared again. In the space of a single night, everything would move about two months worth. Since the timescale of JVK was more or less that of the standard game, that meant that a bit less than an hour was a 24-hour period.
He became convinced that the door would open based on some kind of celestial event. Of course, waiting for that meant leaving the game running. Of course, THAT meant that the game couldn't be left unattended, thanks to our old friend, the Assassin. My friend decided he's hang out for a whole day, just to see if anything happened. That would be about a year's worth of movement. Here's the post he made at the end of this experiment:
"I loaded in Seyda neen, where it all starts. It wasn't too bad, just had to check in now and then to move around and heal to make sure I wasn't dying. But check it out! 24 hours exactly in, and the Assassin learned a new trick! HE SCREAMS!!!! I was reading and all of a sudden, this crazy loud shriek just about makes me crap myself. It's like something out of a horror movie! I look up, and there he is, just crouched down right in front of me. Of course, the second I moved my character, he ran off. When I went back down to the Portrait Room, the door was still locked. Damn it, damn it, damn it!"
A bit later, he came to the decision that he needed to wait three days - three years. The PM advising us to try DOSbox showed up in February of 2008 was his reasoning, anyway.
"After the first shriek, the Assassin stops hitting you out of nowhere. Now he'll shriek, and if you don't move for a few seconds after that he hits you. I think whoever made the mod was trying to help. At night, I've got my headphones on and I was just kind of dozing off...when he wakes me up with a shriek; I jiggle the mouse, and I'm good!"
That post was two days in, from his laptop. Once it was over...
"FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK! FUUUUUUUUUCK! So FUCKING done. So, I wait, the three days, right, and right after the FUCKING Assassin made me jiggle the mouse, he shrieks again. So, I look, and everyone in town is outside. They're all saying, "Watch the sky." I don't see anything, though. But then the game starts getting dark...like REALLY dark. I turn up the brightness all the way on my monitor, and I can still barely see. I can see other people in the game, little figures running around in the distance, just running back and forth. If I try to get close, they run off. Now, I was trying to sleep, so the lights are off, and this is kind of creepy. I don't want to get up to turn on my light because I don't want to miss anything, but NOTHING fucking happens. Eventually I go back to The Citadel...it's still dark, and I gotta swim, and the whole time I can see all these guys swimming all around me, just barely there. I make it to the Citadel, and it's normal light inside, and I get worried. Sure enough, the Portrait Door is STILL FUCKING CLOSED. I go outside and it's ALL STARTING OVER. So that's it. I'm fucking going to bed, and I'm fucking done. The end."
After that, two things happen. first, another of the people who got to the Portrait Room claimed that the Assassin was showing up in his regular Morrowind game. (Quick explanation. If you reinstalled Morrowind to a different fold, you could have a normal Morrowind install along with JVK.) He himself chalked it up to an overactive imagination at first, but he reported a couple of really big scares with the black figure crawling right at him, or seeing it waiting for him just around a corner before scuttling off. Another of those who reached the Portrait Room started a regular Morrowind game, but never for sure saw him; it was just a couple of maybes, late at night, and always at a distance.
The second is that my friend started getting really abusive and short-tempered on the board, though he stopped talking about JVK entirely. It got so back that he was soon kicked off. I didn't hear anything from him for a couple of weeks after that, so I sent him an email. This was part of his reply:
I know I shouldn't, but with classes out I've got some time, so I started JVK up again. It's almost 2011...and I think I've got the sleep madness! But stuff is happening! It's still dark...once it gets dark, it never gets any lighter. It stays like that. The people moved a few months ago...everyone in Seyda neen just went to that little bandit cave and moved in. They killed the bandits inside, and now they're just standing around inside. They don't say anything anymore; they don't do anything when you click on them. I quicksaved and killed one, and he just stood there until he died without fighting back!
And it's like that everywhere. You have to walk, since the quick travel people are all in caves now, too, but all the cities and towns re just deserted; all the people are in caves and tombs. Everyone in Vivec is down in the sewers. I'm going to Ghostgate next...I want to see if Tieras is still there. I'll tell you what he says when I get there!"
i replied and said i wanted to see what he said, too, and waited a day. When I didn't get a reply, I mailed him again, and a couple of hours later he sent back:
"Sorry, I totally forgot. So it's 2014 now...since it's always night, the stars are always moving. The whole screen is dark, but you can still see the brightest stars moving around. Tieras was gone...everyone in Ghostgate was gone. i don't know where they went. They're not in any of the nearby caves. But there's new stuff...people still don't say anything, but their eyes are bleeding. it's so dark that even with a light spell you have to get right up against them to see, but there they are, little dark streaks coming down from their eyes. I think I gotta be getting close. I know this is stupid, and there's no way the pay off is going to be worth it, but I just want to be able to say I stuck it out!"
I got that one during the day. Later that night, I got a follow up email:
"Some of the planets aren't moving right. It's pissing me off...if this keeps up, I won't be able to keep track anymore. It's almost 2015 now, I think. Fuck. You know, I just now noticed that there aren't any monsters anymore, either. I'm completely alone outside now. The main quest peoples' bodies are still laying around, though. i went to check on them.
I don't need headphones anymore, so I just leave them off. When he shrieks, it's like he's screaming right into my ear. I think I even kind of anticipate it. He's around a lot more now, a lot closer. He's different from the other people who started showing up, remember? They keep running around, just where i can barely see them. I have to admit, it's kind of creepy at night. Sometimes, when I go to the bathroom or whatever, I swear I can see something out of the corner of mye ye. I'm keeping all the lights on now."
I sent him a letter, jokingly telling him to get some real sleep, and left it at that. Two mornings later, I found this in my email. It was the last thing I got from him. After this, he stopped responding completely:
"I just got up from a fucked up dream, I think. The Assassin shrieked at me, and when I opened my eyes, he was right there, crouching over me. His arms and legs were longer, more like a spider's. I tried to push him away, but when I touched him my hands just went inside and I couldn't get them loose again, like he was made of tar or something.
Then I woke up, I thought. he was gone, but when I looked at the monitor I wasn't where I was. I was in the Corprusarium, with Yagrum. For once, the light was okay, and I could see him all bloated on those mechanical spider legs. I sat down at the computer and he started talking to me. Not in a box, but really talking to me,in Tieras' voice. He knew things about me. He told me things that I never told anyone, some things I totally forgot about. He told me that almost nobody had made it this far, and that the door would open up soon. I just had to hang on a little while longer. He said I'd know when it was time. He said I might be the first one to see what was inside.
And then I woke up for real, but I was at the computer. I still wasn't where i was. I'm swimming out to The Citadel Island. And I can hear this tapping. It's at my window. It's over on the left, so I'm sending you this, because I left my laptop by my bed, to the right. Just a little taptaptaptap...like he's knocking his finger against the glass. I might still be dreaming now."
So, I guess that's the end of the story. I know there's a few other stories floating around about the mod, but this is the only I know as true, as far as it goes. I deleted my JVK copy of the game pretty much right after I gave up, but I'd like to get the mod again, if anyone still has a copy of the file. I'd like to see some of this for myself.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)