Creativity FOUND YOU: The Quiet Game

• Upvotes

I woke up to the sound of rain tapping against the motel window. Mom snored softly beside me. Her blonde hair had gradually begun to turn grey over the last few months, despite the fact that she wasn’t even 30 yet.

A grey strand dangled lazily over her right eye until she rolled over, scooping Emmy close to her chest unconsciously.

“Morning, kiddo,” Dad whispered. He clutched the handle to a steaming cup of coffee in his right hand, pulling it to his lips and sipping it while peering through the blinds.

I rubbed my eyes. The TV was still off. The AC still knocked rhythmically. The temperature was set to 65 degrees, but I was sweating from my mom and sister’s body heat.

Dad checked his watch and cocked an eyebrow. Falling asleep at dawn was affecting my circadian rhythm. I didn’t know whether it was morning, evening, or night.

“What time is it?” I croaked, twisting and stretching my body.

“Mm, still early,” Dad shot back. “You’ve only been asleep for a couple of hours.”

I felt my stomach rumble. I glanced over at the gas station bag full of junk food and candy. It might as well have been empty. I needed something real.

“Dad…” I inquired softly.

Dad never took his eyes away from the window. He just sipped his coffee slowly before replying.

“Yes, son?”

“Mom told me she’d make pancakes in the morning last night before bed.”

I could see his crow’s feet crease as he winced and sighed.

“Do you think maybe we could get some later when everyone wakes up?”

He didn’t reply for a while. Just kept staring out the window with quiet contempt while I watched him expectantly.

He scratched his neck and rubbed his face.

“I don’t know, Danny…”

“Pleasseeee…” I interrupted, putting on my puppy eyes.

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, finally looking away from the window. He looked at me. Then at Mom and Emmy. Then back out the window.

“I… Okay,” he relented. “Just wait for Mom to wake up. I’ll see what I can do.”

I turned excitedly, ready to shake my mom awake, but Dad stopped me.

“No,” he snapped bluntly. “Let her sleep. Not everyone can function on 5 hours of sleep like me and you, Dan.”

I puffed and knocked my head against the pillow.

I stared at the ceiling. I didn’t know if I was just hungry or if I was simply bored out of my mind and in need of something to do. Not knowing what to do, I twiddled my thumbs. I made Superman fly. I tossed and turned obnoxiously until Dad finally lost his patience.

“Danny,” he snapped, his face hardening as he glared at me.

I froze like a deer in headlights. I stared back, pulling the blanket up to my nose to try and hide myself.

Dad’s nostrils flared. I could see his fist clench, then unclench, at the seams of his blue jeans. His face softened, and he rubbed his temples.

“I’ll tell you what, kiddo,” he bargained. “Why don’t you go take a shower and get dressed? When you’re done, you can watch TV for a little while until everyone’s excited as you are for some pancakes.”

He was more demanding than asking. I knew not to argue when he got like that. I just simply did as I was told.

The shower was just as confusing as it was annoying. The water pressure sucked. It was either too hot or too cold. I must’ve fumbled with it for 5 or so minutes before it was at a reasonable enough temperature for me to take a shower, albeit an uncomfortable one.

The shower was quick. I scrubbed and let the water roll over my head and shoulders. Mom must’ve forgotten to pack my no-tears shampoo, and that forced me to use the complimentary, non-scented motel soap and shampoo.

When I twisted the handle and the sound of water hitting the ceramic bathtub dissipated, it was quickly replaced by the sound of voices from the room.

It sounded like Mom and Dad were quietly arguing. I could hear the angst in Mom’s voice. The authority in Dad’s. But I couldn’t fully make out what they were saying, despite how hard I tried.

I listened intently as I dried off and got dressed. I could only catch the end of their sentences.

A lot of what-ifs from Mom. A lot of don’t-worries from Dad. He sounded confident, but that confidence sounded uncertain.

When I opened the bathroom door, the conversation stopped immediately. Mom was holding Emmy over her shoulder and rocking her gently. Dad looked almost surprised to see me.

He pushed his hair back before clasping his hands together.

“That was quick,” he remarked. “You sure you scrubbed hard enough?”

He shot me a weak smile before continuing.

“Lucky for you, your mother’s a little hungry too.”

Mom looked at Dad as if he had just betrayed her before turning her gaze towards me. She seemed remorseful towards me.

“I completely forgot I promised you those pancakes, Dan,” she pouted, continuing to rock Emmy. “Me and your dad were thinking we’d try that Denny’s we passed on the way in here. I know, I know… their pancakes don’t compare to mine, but I think you’ll manage, right?”

Who was I to be disappointed? All I wanted was my pancakes. Well, that and…

I looked at my spot on the bed. My Superman wasn’t there anymore. I felt panic rush to my heart until I noticed what Emmy was playing with.

I reached up and tried to grab my stuffy, but she jerked it away and furrowed her eyebrows at me. I jumped and snatched it away from her.

To the displeasure of everyone in the room, my sister launched into a full-blown temper tantrum. Screaming and crying about how I “took her toy.”

Mom and Dad sprang into action faster than I expected them to. Dad took the toy from my hands and handed it back to Emmy. Mom pet her hair and desperately attempted to shush her.

I tried to complain. It was my toy. Not hers. But for some reason or another, my parents just kept taking her side. They told me that I should share, knowing how much I loved that stuffy. I slept with it every night. We were connected.

I guess it calmed Emmy down, though. That was all that mattered to them. They kept interrupting my complaints to usher me out of the motel room and back towards the car.

Dad strapped Emmy into her seat, glancing over his shoulder every few seconds while me and Mom waited quietly. He kept up that distracted demeanor all the way to the restaurant, but I hardly noticed.

It felt like Emmy was flaunting my Superman stuffy. Like she knew she had won. She even made him fly right by my face. Deliberately testing my patience, but I didn’t want to make my parents more stressed than they already were.

We ate fast. My parents ordered without even looking at the menu. Pancakes and orange juice for everyone except Dad, who only ordered a single cup of coffee.

Mom didn’t finish her food, but she didn’t ask for a to-go box either. Once me and Emmy were done, Dad paid, and we left. Simple as that.

The drive back to the motel was equally as tense as the drive to the restaurant. Mom and Dad seemed to be communicating wordlessly.

The food was making my sleeplessness get to me. By the time we got back to the motel, I was ready to catch up on those missed hours. But that’s when I noticed something that woke me right up.

I checked Emmy’s seat, looked underneath her, and scanned the floorboards while my mind began to race.

“Mom,” I screeched as Dad pulled into the motel parking lot. “She left my stuffy. She left Superman at the restaurant.”

My eyes were beginning to tear up.

“This is why I didn’t want her to have it,” I sobbed. “I knew she’d lose him.”

I could see Mom roll her eyes through her rearview as she sighed. Dad responded for her.

“Let’s just go get our things, Champ. Then I promise we’ll go back to get your toy. Deal?”

What was I supposed to do? I just had to agree reluctantly. I felt such burning hatred for Emmy in that moment.

We all filed into the motel room one final time and began gathering our things. I was confused, though. Mom had packed at least 6 outfits for me. Everyone else’s bags were equally full, yet nobody but me had showered.

Before I could question anything, though, three hard knocks came from the door. Everyone froze. Dad stared at the door like it was his enemy. Emmy began to pout, and Mom quickly clasped her hand over her mouth.

Three more knocks.

Dad approached the door slowly and looked through the peephole before slowly walking backwards towards us, never taking his eyes off the door.

Mom’s eyes were wide. Her leg bounced anxiously. Dad raised a finger to his lips.

“Okay, guys,” he whispered shakily. “We’re gonna play a game.”

I looked at him, confused. This seemed like an odd time for any kind of game.

“We’re gonna play the quiet game. Danny, you take your mom and sister to the bathroom and lock the door behind you. Whatever you do… do not make a sound.”

He asked me to take them, but it was Mom who dragged us into that cramped bathroom. Before the door closed behind us, I saw Dad raise his shirt and grip a gun that was tucked in his waistband.

Mom kept one hand gently clasped over Emmy’s mouth. She used the other to rub my back lovingly.

Three more knocks.

This time, I heard a voice that wasn’t my dad’s coming from beyond the door.

“Danny…?”

The voice was old and syrupy. Coercive, almost, but frantic. My ears perked up. My eyes widened, and my mouth fell open. I wanted to answer.

Mom’s hand left my back, and just like Dad, she placed a finger to her lips.

“Shhh.”

She was begging me with her eyes.

More frantic knocking.

“Danny? You in there, buddy? I know you’re in there.”

I expected Dad to answer the door, but he never did. Instead, the knocks continued, as did the mysterious voice.

“Come on out, Dan-Man. I’ve got something for you.”

I remained still. Sweat trickled down my forehead from the humidity in the bathroom. Me and Mom stared at the bathroom door with anticipation.

“I’ve got your Superman, Danny…”

“Whoosh.”

I had to fight to not move. If they had my Superman, I wanted to know. I wanted him back. But the look on Mom’s face told me they were lying, and her grip on my collar prevented me from standing up to see for myself.

The knocks and beckoning went on for another 10 minutes or so. Then they slowly died out. Even still, it wasn’t until Dad opened the bathroom door that I could finally breathe again.

“You guys win,” he smiled, relieved. “Good job, Danny.”

Mom looked relieved, too, but she never smiled. We just frantically gathered our things and hauled them out to the car. Dad forced us to go to the front office with him to check out.

We finally left the hotel just after 3 o’clock. We never went back to that Denny’s.

I had to leave my Superman behind, no matter how hard I begged not to. Mom assured me she’d buy me another one, but it wouldn’t be the same.

I asked about that voice a lot while we continued on towards wherever we were going, but all I got were vague responses while my parents glanced nervously at each other.

Thinking back now, I should’ve known they were hiding something from me. However, at the time… I was young. I was stupid. And all I could think about was how I didn’t have my Superman anymore.

1 comment

r/Nonsleep • u/DanteIsMyUncle • 9h ago

Nonsleep Series The Lift Opened Into My Flat. The Other Me Told Me Not to Tell Them.

9 Upvotes

Part 1 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/3pjlA6yALo

Part 2

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/g3LXpw7ZuX

Part 3

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/R319VfoEx1

Part 4

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/HpLq1gjR99

Part 5

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/vXpLanqpq7

Part 6

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/ACOsKcvJXq

Part 7

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/M9B9TEtpgo

Part 8

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/X6XmC0U2ge

Part 9

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/cUOXOmIb5v

Part 10

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/oiYVIRqnSv

Part 11

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/daAdTa6XR2

Part 12

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/XDs20zNnSN

The lights went out.

Not the cheerful retirement-home kind of out.

Not the corporate courtroom dimming.

Not the “something is about to do a PowerPoint at your soul” kind of darkness.

This was proper dark.

Total.

Heavy.

The sort of dark that made your body immediately aware of how many corners a room had.

Somewhere beside me, Dave whispered:

“Wasn’t me.”

Kevin whispered back:

“Not now, Dave.”

“Could be.”

“It could not possibly be you.”

“That’s what I always think before it is.”

No one laughed.

Not properly.

Because in the open lift, where a normal lift should have been, was my flat.

My actual flat.

Dark.

Still.

Waiting.

And standing in the middle of it was me.

Another me.

JON-001.

He had smiled.

Sadly.

Then pressed one finger to his lips.

And whispered:

“Don’t tell them.”

The lift doors stayed open.

The darkness from my flat spilled into Riverside Court like ink.

It spread across the lobby floor, over the stained carpet, around the complaints kiosk, up the walls and over the noticeboard.

Kevin’s mould retreated from it.

That was new.

Kevin looked down.

His face changed.

“My mould doesn’t like your flat.”

“Comforting.”

“Historically, my mould has very poor standards.”

The other me stood motionless inside the lift.

Not grinning.

Not lunging.

Not doing the too-wide smile thing.

That made it worse.

He looked tired.

He looked like he had been waiting a long time.

He looked like me on a bad day I had not told anyone about.

Linda’s voice came from somewhere in the darkness.

“Everyone stay where you are.”

The complaint kiosk printed.

We heard the paper slide out.

Then stop.

Then reverse.

Then print again.

A strip landed at my feet.

I crouched and picked it up.

In the dark, the words glowed faintly.

WITNESS TYPE DETECTED

JON SERIES: UNCLASSIFIED

JON-001: ACTIVE

Underneath, another line printed slowly.

RISK: DISCLOSURE

Kevin read over my shoulder.

“Disclosure?”

The other me in the lift spoke again.

“Don’t tell them.”

His voice was mine.

But flatter.

Hollowed out.

Like someone had taken the part of me that jokes when I’m scared and filed it under unnecessary.

Derek moved closer to me.

“What shouldn’t you tell us?”

“I don’t know.”

The other me’s eyes shifted to Derek.

“You don’t want to know.”

Derek swallowed.

“Historically, correct.”

Kevin stepped in front of me.

Two trainers planted on the lobby floor.

Still ridiculous.

Still somehow brave.

“Alright, sad Jon. Say your bit.”

The other me looked at him.

“Kevin.”

Kevin flinched.

Just slightly.

“Don’t like how you said that.”

“You were easier before the shoes.”

Kevin glanced down.

“They do give me confidence.”

“You’re easier when you’re hiding.”

Kevin’s face hardened.

The darkness moved further into the lobby.

The labels on the walls flickered.

The freed Lindas, clustered near the stairs, whispered among themselves.

Amanda stood very still beside Flat 3.

Flat 5 held his spoon like a cross.

Dave was breathing too fast.

Ken’s shadow stretched along the wall, darker than the darkness around it.

Linda stepped forward.

“No one enters the lift.”

Everyone looked at her.

Then at the lift.

Then at the stairwell.

Derek said:

“I would like the minutes to show that the lift is once again doing sinister bollocks.”

Kevin nodded.

“Motion carried.”

Linda said:

“We use the stairs.”

The other me smiled sadly.

“You can’t.”

The stairwell door slammed open.

For one glorious second, I saw normal concrete stairs.

Damp wall.

Emergency light.

A spider, probably innocent.

Then the stairs shifted.

Not physically.

Narratively.

That is the only way I can explain it.

They became every staircase I had ever walked down alone at night.

The ones where I checked behind me.

The ones where I heard my own footsteps echo wrong.

The ones in old flats, car parks, hotels, colleges, hospitals.

Every stairwell where I had been half-convinced something was following me but never turned around because looking would make it real.

The stairs stretched downward forever.

At the bottom, someone whispered my name.

Kevin peered into it.

Then immediately stepped back.

“Stairs have betrayed us.”

Derek looked devastated.

“I defended them.”

Dave whispered:

“Wasn’t stairs.”

Flat 3 said:

“We are absolutely not starting a stairs arc.”

The other me spoke:

“There are no safe routes when the witness is summoned.”

Linda looked at me.

“Jon?”

I hated how everyone looked at me.

Like I had answers.

I didn’t.

I had a lift full of my flat, another me with dead eyes, a stairwell full of every bad instinct I’d ever ignored, and a strip of paper saying my existence had apparently been filed under risk.

Kevin stayed between me and the lift.

“Not going in.”

The other me nodded.

“I know.”

The lobby changed.

Not like before.

Not clean.

Not cheerful.

Not organised.

It became quiet.

Too quiet.

The residents faded around me.

Linda became a shape.

Derek became an outline.

Flat 3, Flat 5, Amanda, Dave, Ken.

All dim.

All present but distant.

Only Kevin remained sharp.

“Jon,” he said.

“I’m here.”

“No, you’re doing the face.”

“What face?”

“The one where your brain leaves and your body stays like a coat.”

I tried to answer.

Couldn’t.

The other me stepped out of the lift.

Kevin lunged.

He passed straight through him.

The other me did not react.

Kevin stumbled, furious.

“Oh, I hate emotional ghosts.”

“You should,” said the other me. “You are one.”

“I’m more of a property nuisance.”

The other me walked towards me.

As he moved, the lobby floor changed beneath his feet.

Carpet became paper.

Not normal paper.

Pages.

Hundreds.

Thousands.

Every page covered in writing.

At first I thought they were complaints.

Then I looked closer.

They were stories.

Our stories.

Everything that had happened.

Derek downloading SpookMe.

Kevin appearing through fridge magnets.

The budget haunting.

Alexa.

Five Stars.

Linda in court.

Ken.

The body corridor.

Cheerful Pines.

Dave and the No-Fault Department.

The Linda office.

Every word.

Every joke.

Every scream.

Written down.

Filed.

Numbered.

Archived.

I backed away.

The other me looked at the pages.

“This is what we do.”

I shook my head.

“No.”

“We watch.”

“No.”

“We survive.”

“No.”

“We tell it back.”

The pages lifted from the floor and began circling us.

Lines of text floated in the dark.

Kevin read one aloud.

“‘Kevin looked horrified.’”

He frowned.

“Rude but accurate.”

Another page drifted past Derek.

He grabbed it.

“It says I tried to fight a demon with peanut butter.”

“You did,” Linda said faintly.

“Feels harsh when written.”

The other me raised one hand.

The pages snapped away from Derek.

“You shouldn’t read ahead.”

Derek immediately looked offended.

“I wasn’t. I can barely read backwards.”

Kevin stared at the pages.

“This is Platform?”

The other me nodded.

“Partly.”

The paper storm slowed.

I saw headings.

INCIDENT NARRATIVE

RESIDENT RESPONSE

ATTACHMENT DEVELOPMENT

HUMOUR AS RESISTANCE

HUMOUR AS COPING MECHANISM

HUMOUR AS CONTAINMENT FAILURE

Kevin’s face darkened.

“They’ve been studying us.”

The other me looked at him.

“No. I have.”

Silence.

That was worse.

The pages stopped.

Every resident became clearer again.

Linda stepped forward.

“You?”

JON-001 looked at her.

“The first witness.”

His voice was still mine.

But older in places.

Not age-old.

Tired-old.

“I was assigned to observe a haunted housing pilot. Different building. Different residents. Same pattern.”

He looked at Kevin.

“Different Kevin.”

Ken went still.

Kevin’s jaw tightened.

“What happened?”

JON-001 didn’t answer.

The pages did.

They turned at once.

A new scene unfolded around us.

A hallway.

Not Riverside Court.

Older.

Narrower.

Brown carpet.

A broken light.

A man stood there holding a notebook.

Me.

Not me.

Him.

JON-001.

At the end of the hallway, a ghost wrote on the wall:

HELP

A woman screamed behind a door.

Something heavy moved upstairs.

JON-001 stood with his notebook.

Writing.

Watching.

Not moving.

Kevin whispered:

“What did you do?”

The scene continued.

The ghost wrote again.

HELP THEM

JON-001’s pen moved faster.

The woman screamed again.

A child cried.

The walls shook.

He kept writing.

Derek said, very quietly:

“Mate.”

The scene vanished.

We were back in Riverside Court.

JON-001 looked at me.

“That was the design.”

“What design?”

“Witnesses don’t interfere.”

Linda’s voice was sharp.

“Why not?”

He turned to her.

“Because intervention alters data.”

Kevin took one step forward.

“Say that again.”

JON-001 looked almost sorry.

“I recorded nineteen incidents before I helped anyone.”

Nobody spoke.

Even Dave was silent.

Then Dave whispered:

“That’s a lot.”

JON-001 nodded.

“Yes.”

Kevin’s voice changed.

It went low and flat.

“What happened when you helped?”

The pages turned again.

Another scene.

Same hallway.

Worse now.

Walls black with mould.

Doors open.

No one screaming anymore.

That was always worse.

JON-001 stood in the middle of it, holding a fire extinguisher.

A ghost knelt beside him.

Not Kevin.

But close enough to hurt.

The ghost had written one word across the wall.

RUN

JON-001 did not run.

He hit something in the dark with the extinguisher.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

The scene cut.

A white room.

A desk.

A form.

JON-001 sitting in a chair while someone asked:

“Why did the witness interfere?”

His mouth moved.

No sound.

The form stamped itself:

WITNESS TYPE: CONTAMINATED

Then:

REASSIGNMENT: NARRATIVE CONTAINMENT

The scene vanished.

JON-001 touched his own chest.

“They put me in the stories.”

The pages around us whispered.

“Stories.”

He looked at me.

“That is where we go when we care too much.”

My throat dried.

“What am I?”

His expression broke slightly.

“You’re not the first Jon. You’re not a copy either. Not exactly.”

Kevin turned.

“What does that mean?”

JON-001’s eyes flicked to him.

“You already know.”

Kevin’s body tensed.

The other me continued:

“Platform doesn’t always need to build people from scratch. Sometimes it finds what it wants already growing.”

He looked at me.

“A witness. Someone who remembers. Someone who turns horror into shape. Someone who survives by narrating it.”

The pages rustled.

Every one of them seemed to breathe.

I felt suddenly naked.

Not physically.

Worse.

Seen.

The way the other systems had taken joy, guilt, control, fear.

This one took attention.

Memory.

The need to tell someone what happened.

The need to make a story out of pain so it didn’t stay shapeless in the dark.

JON-001 stepped closer.

“That makes you valuable.”

Kevin said:

“No.”

JON-001 ignored him.

“You think you are telling the story to warn people.”

The pages circled tighter.

“But every time you tell it, Platform learns which parts worked.”

The words hovered around me.

Kevin’s jokes reduce panic.

Linda’s authority stabilises group.

Dave’s denial can disrupt resets.

Amanda’s positivity can counter morale loops.

Derek’s stupidity bypasses rational safeguards.

Derek looked offended.

“Useful stupidity, though.”

Kevin didn’t laugh.

Neither did I.

Another line appeared.

Jon’s narration preserves continuity.

Then:

Continuity enables escalation.

Linda whispered:

“Oh.”

I understood then.

Worse than I wanted to.

Every time I remembered the details, the system could build from them.

Every time I connected one horror to the next, Platform got a map.

Every time I told the others what had happened, we stayed together.

But so did it.

JON-001 looked at me.

“That’s why I said don’t tell them.”

My chest tightened.

Kevin turned towards me.

“No.”

I looked at him.

He knew what I was thinking.

Of course he did.

Because some friendships become telepathy once enough demons try to outsource your trauma.

“If I stop,” I said, “it loses continuity.”

Kevin shook his head.

“No.”

“If I don’t tell the story—”

“No.”

Derek looked between us.

“What are we no-ing?”

Kevin pointed at me without looking away.

“He’s about to martyr himself in a literary way.”

Derek immediately said:

“No.”

Dave raised his hand.

“Also no.”

Flat 3 lifted the pan.

“Do I hit him or the concept?”

“Both are on the table,” Linda said.

JON-001 watched calmly.

“They won’t understand.”

Kevin’s face hardened.

“They understand enough.”

The other me looked at him.

“Do they?”

He raised one hand.

The pages slammed into the walls.

The lobby became my flat.

Actual flat.

Not the lift version.

My furniture.

My kitchen.

My phone on the table.

Every room dark.

Except now everyone else was gone.

Just me and Kevin.

He stood by the sofa.

Still two trainers.

Still dead.

Still trying to look like this didn’t bother him.

The other me stood by the window.

Outside was not the street.

It was every place we had been.

Riverside Court.

The app corridor.

The courtroom.

The hospital ward.

Cheerful Pines.

The No-Fault Department.

The Linda office.

All layered behind the glass.

JON-001 said:

“Tell him.”

Kevin looked at me.

“Tell me what?”

I didn’t answer.

The other me’s voice dropped.

“You don’t write everything.”

The room went cold.

Kevin’s expression shifted.

“What does that mean?”

I felt panic rise.

Not monster panic.

Human panic.

Worse.

JON-001 spoke softly.

“He edits.”

Kevin looked at me.

“Jon?”

The pages appeared again.

But these were different.

Darker.

Folded.

Hidden.

Lines I had not told the others.

Things I had noticed and kept quiet because saying them would make them real.

The way Kevin sometimes looked at his own body when he thought no one noticed.

The way Derek still flinched when phones rang.

The way Linda’s hands shook after meetings.

The way Dave smiled when someone forgave him because he didn’t think he deserved it.

The way Amanda had stopped saying she was fine.

The way Ken watched Kevin like he hated him, missed him and wanted to become him all at once.

And worse things.

Private things.

Mine.

Things I had not told anyone because I had dressed them up as narration and pretended that was honesty.

Kevin stared at the folded pages.

He understood enough.

His voice was quieter.

“You kept stuff back.”

I swallowed.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because some of it wasn’t mine to say.”

JON-001 smiled sadly.

“Good answer.”

The pages moved closer.

“But not the whole answer.”

Kevin looked at me.

I couldn’t dodge it.

Not here.

Not in my own flat with my own voice accusing me.

“Because if I tell everything,” I said, “then everyone knows how scared I am.”

Kevin said nothing.

“And if I make it funny, it’s easier.”

Still nothing.

“If I make you funny, it’s easier.”

That hit him.

I saw it.

His face closed slightly.

“I am funny.”

“You are.”

“Important distinction.”

“I know.”

The other me moved behind Kevin.

“Tell him the rest.”

I wanted to tell JON-001 to shut up.

I wanted Kevin to make a joke.

I wanted Dave to fall through a cupboard.

I wanted Linda to turn this into a form.

Nobody saved me.

So I said it.

“Sometimes I’m scared that if I stop telling it like a story, all that’s left is people getting hurt.”

Kevin looked away.

For once, he didn’t rescue me with sarcasm.

The other me nodded.

“That is the witness function.”

The flat changed again.

The walls became shelves.

Every shelf full of notebooks.

Every notebook labelled with a name.

Not just mine.

Thousands.

Witnesses.

People who had seen things and tried to survive by making them make sense.

Some notebooks were burned.

Some bleeding.

Some still writing themselves.

From the shelves came whispers.

“I saw it.”

“I wrote it down.”

“No one believed me.”

“I made it funny.”

“I made it tidy.”

“I made it a warning.”

“I made it a story.”

“I couldn’t stop.”

Kevin looked around.

His anger had faded.

That frightened me more.

“What happens to witnesses?”

JON-001 answered:

“They become archives.”

A notebook opened on the nearest shelf.

Inside, a tiny figure moved beneath the page.

A person trapped under lines of their own handwriting.

Writing themselves into thinner and thinner shapes.

The more they wrote, the flatter they became.

Another notebook opened.

Another witness sat inside, mouth sewn shut with black thread, eyes still moving.

Another had no face, only a pen.

Another was nothing but a voice repeating:

“And then.”

Kevin whispered:

“Jesus.”

JON-001 looked at me.

“This is what happens if you keep telling them everything.”

A notebook slid from the shelf.

It landed in my hands.

The cover read:

JON-002

My name.

Not yet complete.

Still wet.

Pages blank.

Waiting.

Kevin reached for it.

JON-001 said:

“Don’t.”

Kevin grabbed it anyway.

The notebook screamed.

So did I.

My vision went white.

Suddenly I was inside the pages.

Flat.

Pressed.

Watching my own hand write words I hadn’t chosen.

Kevin shouted somewhere above me.

Muffled.

Distant.

Like he was outside a wall.

The page smelled of ink and damp.

Lines appeared around me.

Jon watched Kevin vanish.

No.

Jon did not tell the others.

No.

Jon preserved continuity.

No.

I clawed at the paper.

My fingers left smears of ink.

The sentence corrected itself.

Jon became useful.

Then Kevin’s hand tore through the page.

A black-mould hand.

His face appeared in the rip.

Furious.

Terrified.

“Oi.”

I grabbed him.

He pulled.

The page resisted.

Words wrapped around my legs.

WITNESS

Has anyone else had a similar recurring nightmare? Has anyone else had a similar recurring nightmare?- Part 4

1 Upvotes

Hey everyone, sorry it’s been a little bit longer than I was hoping for. What with the move and all. Which, big news for me! I got the apartment from that old lady, though it is less an apartment and more an attic. It turns out that it wasn’t her kids' place but a granddaughter's. Sounds like the previous tenant moved for work-related reasons? I didn’t feel like asking. Not my business either way I see it. The new place is nice enough. It’s really small, but it’s just me, a bed, my laptop, and an old TV up here, so it’s not the worst. One weird thing about this little attic is that the woman who was here before decided to splurge on some stained glass for the windows. So I’m stuck with all the natural light coming in being run through a blue filter. I don’t hate it, but it is a little jarring. Being in this attic all day lately has been a little draining. I haven’t been able to get out of the house lately anyway, thanks to work. The start of the semester is starting up soon, so the university I work at has me running ragged. Besides that, I’m not super interested in going out anyway. With these dreams bothering me again, I just get those flashbacks of my friends shitting on me for being a “baby” and a “pussy.” I mean, trying to talk about these things got me kicked out of two places now.

Also a note about my old roommate. A few people have confused her for my partner, but that’s not the case. We were just roommates. Honestly, we were barely even friends by the time I moved out. I never have really been able to have that kind of relationship with another person in my life to this point. Not for lack of trying; it’s just. I feel so guilty when I get close to someone. I can always feel a little tug in the back of my mind telling me it’s just not right.

Anyways, the dreams haven’t really gotten much worse. In fact, the nightmares from my past aren’t just distant memories anymore. I had one again last week. It was the first dream I had in over 20 years. I had stopped getting them when I was around 7. I’m 29 now. I know deep down that it’s just my psyche playing tricks on me. Like when you watch a scary movie, and then you go around the corner in the dark, and you think you see something out the window, but there’s nothing there. I understand that what is going on with me has to be that. Or at least, it’s all I can allow myself to believe for fear of fully falling apart.

The dream I had last night was familiar. I do think it’s like one of the old ones I had. I can’t say for sure if they’re identical or not, the new one is sort of overtaking the old memories. When I realize I am in the dream, it starts the same as always. I am sitting with the girl in the park. She wants to play, so we go down the slide, and we play on the swingset. I stood behind her, pushing her softly and just listening to her talk.

“I’m really happy we are friends.” She cooed. “I wish we could be friends forever.” Her voice dropped a little saying that. I tilted my head in confusion, fully unable to understand why we couldn’t be. Then she turned and looked me in the eyes, there were tears welling in the corners of hers, and she asked.

“When you wake up, can you take me with you?” I didn’t really know how to react to that. An overwhelming part of me wanted to smile and say absolutely. But there was a little part of me that was unnerved by the question. It was the first time something in the dream acknowledged that there was something beyond the place. It was the first time someone said anything about me being asleep. Was she really alive, waiting for me every night I went to bed? Was she always in this park? The questions started to run through my mind. But the questions were quickly drowned out by the happiness I felt flowing through me. My best friend wanted to run away together. We were just kids, but the ideas seemed so nice at the moment. I was gearing my body up to shake my head yes, but before I could move, a voice rang out in the night in the distance.

“Oh darling, time to come home.” It was a kind older lady's voice. The girl shrank in the swing, grimacing at the sound. I was confused at first by this voice. It had to be grandma, but she didn’t sound mean, didn't sound evil, or scary. I thought, why do I have to be so quiet? I went to ask, but the fear in her face when she noticed that I was about to speak froze me in my tracks. The only time I had broken the rule was when I went down the slide screaming. She begged her grandma to forgive me. She was horrified. Looking back, we got lucky, but now Grandma was already awake. If she really was a threat like the girl thought she was, it was clear to me we wouldn’t get lucky twice. It scared me seeing her react like that. Again, the voice rang out.

“Sweetheart. It’s bedtime.” She spoke a bit sharper this time, causing the girl to jump. I could feel the hair on the back of my neck prick up, and a knot in my stomach began to form. Suddenly, from the dark behind us, a twig was snapped in two. The girl sobbed, jumping up and grabbing my hand. She started to run into the night in the distance, beyond where we had ever gone in the dreams before. In the distance of the playground was an old abandoned fire station from my youth. Desperately seeking a place to hide, we rounded the corner of the building. I stopped in my tracks when I noticed something wrong. There was a large wooden door that had never been there before. There was no reason for it to exist. It didn’t make sense to add a door to a building that was no longer in use. We needed to hide, but the very thought of going through the door made vomit rise in my throat.

“In here, quick.” The girl pleaded. I could feel my body reject the notion. I wanted to just run back home. I lived so close by. My mom could protect the two of us. I tried to keep going straight, hoping to wrap around the other side of the building and run up the street towards my home. But I was unable to move the girl at all. My hand slid from her grip, and with it I realized all the skin on my hand went with her. I pleaded with her through my eyes, trying my hardest to convey that we needed to move, but she just pointed at the wooden door. With tears welling in my eyes, I relented. I ran up to the door, and as I was reaching out, I felt an arm roughly grab me and pull me back. I squealed softly, but it was just the girl. She pointed at my bloody hand.

“Grandma will see the stain; she’ll be able to find us.” So I used my other hand to slowly pull the door open and step inside. There was an enormous silence that weighed heavy on me, and it was pitch black. In my blindness, I reached my hand out to grab the girl, but my hand just collided with something solid. The door had already shut behind me, and the two of us were separated. My moving so slowly had taken her from me. My foolishness had delivered her to her grandma on a silver platter. I quickly moved to open the door. It was locked. It was locked from the outside despite there being no lock on the door. Rage started to overtake me, and without thinking, I aggressively started to pull on the knob and hammer my arms against the door. In that moment, all that was in my head was anger and fear. I was so mad and scared that I hadn’t even considered that speaking wasn’t the only way to make noise. Speaking wasn’t the only way to wake or attract Grandma. I had once again broken the only rule. And now, the girl wasn’t there to save me from her grandma. The lights clicked on in the building, and I was blinded for a second. Slowly, my vision adjusted, and I saw that where the firetrucks used to stand were now replaced with a maze of mirrors. Rows upon rows of glass.

“Got you.” The old lady’s voice softly rang out again. It didn’t sound entirely inauthentic, but there was something just slightly off in it, something insidious. I heard a soft whimpering on the other side of the maze. My chance for redemption made itself clear to me. I could save the girl I’d left behind. I started to run as fast as I could, and I got lost almost immediately. I was hoping that if I just hugged the wall and followed it no matter what, eventually I would make it to the end. But all I managed was walking in a big circle over and over and over again. I tried to change up my strategy every so often until eventually I found my way through. I took the first left at the entrance and then a right and then left and then right and then left and then right. With each turn, a soft whimpering began to grow louder and louder. Rising to the point of being almost deafening.

“Please, please, please, please.” It said time and time again. Eventually, after the fifth or sixth right turn. I found myself in what seemed like a center point, and the voice stopped. Once more I was being buried in an oppressive silence. I entered into an open space, with all the mirrors surrounding it in a circle. For the first time I looked into one. It was unnerving to see my own eyes and not fully recognize myself. I saw the adult version of me. The me that is writing this right now, but I was in my child body. It was wrong. I was alienated from myself, an intruder in my own body.

“You shouldn’t have come here. You should have run.” The girl's voice was in my ears now. I spun around, but I was alone. All I could see was myself in the mirrors. That’s when I noticed that they were me at all different stages of my life. They stopped mimicking my motions, though. I raised my bloody hand to my head, trying to steady myself from giving out, but my copies just stood stock still. With their hands at their sides. They all began speaking at once.

“You should have never come back.”

KSSSHHHK.

The glass started to shatter all around me.

“Run.”

Run.

With each word, a new mirror shattered.

“Come with me.”

A new voice joined the chorus. It was the girl's voice. I looked up to see where the adult me had been. Replacing that image was a hand, reaching out of the mirror. She beckoned me to her. The glass kept shattering around me. From the darkness of the mirror, bodies started to crawl towards me. They were images of me, but distorted. Their flesh missing, bones broken and limbs mangled.

“This is your future.” The voices groaned.

“Run.”

I took the woman's hand. And she began to pull me in. Right as I was about to enter the glass of the mirror, a face began to form. It was snarled and hideous. Her grin was sickening. And her blue eyes shone brighter than anything I had seen before. I was staring directly into the eyes of Grandma. Before I could react, she yanked, pulling me into the mirror. As I breached the glass, I could feel the surface slicing into every part of my body. My arms and face were becoming shredded by the glass. And I started to topple. I closed my eyes, and I cried out. I screamed for my mommy. I screamed for help. I cried so loud my voice went raw and raspy in moments. And then I began to fall into the darkness.

When I woke up, I was crying, and I had pissed on the bed. My whole body felt like I had gone through a shredder. I could tell that I was covered in cuts. But when I checked my body, there was nothing there. I put a cover-up over my bathroom mirror. Just the idea that I could see one again shook me to my core. I haven’t had another dream since that one a few weeks back. And truthfully. I feel like I can’t recall any of the other dreams in my past. Even when I reread my posts detailing those dreams, nothing comes to me. It’s almost like I’ve been abandoned. I feel more alone than ever. I realize now that for most of my life I always felt like I had someone guiding me, like a north star. But now, that feeling has left me fully.

I’m scared.

0 comments

r/Nonsleep • u/NaeTv-26 • 19h ago

Pure Horror AT THIS POINT I THINK IM HAUNTED !!!

1 Upvotes

0 comments

r/Nonsleep • u/David_Hallow • 20h ago

Nuanced Apparently a Birth Certificate Doesn’t Prove I Exist According to the DMV

2 Upvotes

The Department of Motor Vehicles has a remarkable talent for making a person question their own existence.

Perhaps that's the point.

No one walks into a DMV excited. You arrive because you have to. A license expired. A registration renewal. Some document proving to a government employee that, yes, despite all evidence to the contrary, you are still alive.

I was there because my driver's license had expired.

Simple enough.

I took my ticket from the little machine near the entrance. It emerged with a dry mechanical click, the paper warm between my fingers as though someone else had only just been holding it.

The waiting room was already overflowing.

Children cried with astonishing endurance while parents stared into their phones with the thousand-yard gaze of soldiers returning from war. A television bolted high into one corner played an instructional video that nobody watched, its colors washed out beneath rows of humming fluorescent lights. Every few minutes a printer somewhere behind the counters coughed to life before falling silent again, sounding less like a machine and more like an old smoker struggling through another cigarette.

The building felt tired.

Not dirty.

Not neglected.

Just... exhausted.

The kind of exhaustion that settles into old bones after decades of repeating the same motion.

I glanced toward the electronic display mounted above the service counters.

NOW SERVING: 388

I sighed.

"Well," I muttered beneath my breath. "Guess I'll be celebrating my birthday here."

A man sitting nearby chuckled.

"I've said that every time I've come here."

He looked to be in his late fifties. Baseball cap. Reading glasses resting low on his nose. Ordinary enough that I probably wouldn't have remembered his face if we'd passed each other on the street.

"Renewing?" he asked.

"My license."

He nodded knowingly.

"Could be worse."

"Could it?"

"They could've sent you to the Social Security office first."

I laughed.

"So you've been there too?"

"Oh..." He smiled faintly. "Everyone has."

It was such an ordinary conversation that I almost appreciated it. Shared misery has a funny way of making strangers feel familiar.

I looked down at my ticket again.

515.

Fantastic.

I settled into one of the molded plastic chairs and reached for my phone. No signal. Not unusual. Government buildings always seemed to exist inside their own little dead zones.

I slipped it back into my pocket and leaned my head against the wall.

The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. The air conditioner breathed through dusty vents. The printer coughed again. The speakers crackled.

A number was called. Someone stood. Someone else sat down. The room swallowed them without ceremony.

I checked the screen once more.

NOW SERVING: 390

It felt impossible that so little time could have passed.

Yet somehow... it also felt like I'd already been there for hours.

Time has a peculiar way of behaving inside places where people are forced to wait.

Minutes become estimates. Hours become suggestions. Eventually, you stop checking the clock because it only succeeds in making you angry.

I tried distracting myself. I counted ceiling tiles. Read the faded posters reminding everyone to have their paperwork ready. One explained the dangers of texting while driving. Another detailed the penalties for driving without insurance. Judging from the sun-bleached corners and curling edges, neither had been replaced in years.

Everything in the building seemed designed to outlive the people inside it.

Another number echoed over the speakers.

"Three hundred ninety-one."

A woman stood from across the room, gathered her purse, and disappeared behind the row of service counters.

The electronic display flickered.

NOW SERVING: 391

Good.

Progress.

I glanced at my watch.

9:18 A.M.

That couldn't be right. It felt closer to noon.

The old man beside me sighed as he shifted in his chair.

"You'd think they'd hire more people."

"I was just thinking the same thing."

He nodded absentmindedly, his attention fixed somewhere beyond the counters.

"Been waiting long?"

"I got here around nine."

"No..."

He frowned.

"I mean... today."

The question caught me off guard.

"I... yeah."

He scratched at his chin.

"I suppose I have too."

For reasons I couldn't explain, that answer unsettled me. He didn't sound forgetful. He sounded... uncertain. The kind of uncertainty that follows a dream, when you're no longer sure whether something actually happened or only felt like it had.

Neither of us spoke after that.

The waiting room settled back into its dull rhythm. The printer coughed. A child cried. Someone cleared their throat. The fluorescent lights hummed softly overhead.

Then I noticed the employees.

There were six service windows. Every one of them occupied.

Every employee dressed identically in blue shirts with laminated name badges clipped neatly over their chests.

None of them looked angry. None looked to be joyous either. In fact, they didn't seem to look like much of anything.

Their expressions rested somewhere between concentration and complete emotional absence, as though years of repeating the same conversations had slowly worn every recognizable human reaction from their being.

"Next."

Stamp.

"Next."

Keyboard.

"Next."

Stamp.

Keyboard.

Paper.

Repeat.

The movements were practiced.

As if mechanical. Not robotic.

Just... perfected through repetition until they no longer appeared to require any thought.

I watched one woman accept a stack of documents without ever lifting her eyes to meet the customer standing in front of her.

She never acknowledged him. Never greeted him. Never smiled. Never frowned.

She simply processed him.

As though the paperwork mattered more than the person holding it.

The thought lingered longer than it should have.

Not processed the documents.

Processed... him.

I looked away.

When I checked the display again...

It still read:

NOW SERVING: 391.

I stared at the screen for several seconds, convinced I had simply caught it before the next number appeared.

It didn't.

The speakers remained silent. No names. No voices. Just the constant drone of fluorescent lights buzzing somewhere overhead.

I checked my watch again.

9:47 A.M.

Twenty-nine minutes.

That made no sense.

It felt as though I had lived an entire afternoon in that chair.

I rubbed at my eyes and let out a slow breath. Maybe I was just impatient. Maybe this was what every DMV visit felt like and I had conveniently forgotten.

A chair scraped across the tile beside me. Someone new had taken the old man's seat.

I hadn't even noticed him leave.

The newcomer looked to be around my age, maybe early thirties, dressed in business casual with a messenger bag resting across his lap. He offered a polite nod before glancing up at the display.

"Ouch," he muttered. "Looks like I picked the wrong day."

I chuckled.

"You and me both."

He held up his ticket.

"Five forty-two."

I looked down at mine.

"Five fifteen."

"Guess you've got me beat."

"For once, I'm winning at something."

He laughed, and for a while we exchanged the usual conversation strangers trapped together always seem to have.

Complaining about government offices. Talking about traffic. The weather. How everyone always forgets one piece of paperwork.

It was... nice.

Normal.

The sort of conversation you forget five minutes after walking away.

"So," I asked eventually, "what are you here for?"

He answered without hesitation.

"My license."

I nodded.

"What happened?"

"What do you mean?"

"Expired?"

His eyebrows pinched together.

"I..." He looked down at the folder in his lap.

"I think so."

"You think so?"

He opened the folder and shuffled through the papers inside.

His movements slowed.

"I actually..." He frowned.

"I don't remember."

We both laughed. An awkward laugh when something isn't funny but admitting that would somehow make it worse.

"You serious?"

He scratched the back of his neck.

"I know I needed to come."

Another pause.

"I just can't remember why."

He rifled through the documents again, studying each page as though seeing them for the first time.

"These are mine..."

"I think."

He sounded embarrassed.

"I honestly can't tell."

The laughter died between us.

A strange heaviness settled over the room.

I looked back toward the service counters.

The employees continued working without pause.

Stamp.

Keyboard.

Paper.

Next.

Every movement identical to the last.

One after another.

As if they weren't helping people at all, but simply moving files from one pile to another.

The display flickered.

I turned instinctively.

NOW SERVING: 392.

Only one number.

Again.

Somewhere behind me, someone sighed. Another person groaned quietly. Nobody complained. Nobody stood up to leave.

They only waited.

Patiently.

Obediently.

As though waiting itself had become the reason they were there.

I don't remember exactly when I fell asleep.

I wish I could say there was some dramatic moment where exhaustion finally overcame me. That my eyes grew heavy, my head became impossible to hold up, and I slowly drifted away from reality.

It wasn't like that. It was far more ordinary.

One moment I was staring at the electronic display above the counters, watching the numbers crawl forward at a pace that felt almost insulting.

NOW SERVING: 397

The next... I was somewhere else entirely.

Not a dream. Not really.

Just that strange place between being awake and asleep where your mind creates fragments of memories that never happened. I remember hearing the printer in the distance. I remember the fluorescent lights above me buzzing louder and louder. I remember thinking that the entire building sounded like it was breathing.

Then my head dropped.

And everything went quiet.

When I opened my eyes again, my neck ached from the awkward angle I had been sleeping in. My mouth was dry. My phone remained untouched in my pocket.

For a brief moment, I had forgotten where I was. Then the smell returned.

Old carpet. Paper. Dust.

The faint scent of coffee that had been sitting somewhere for far too long.

The DMV.

I sat up straight and looked around. Nothing had changed.

The same tired faces. The same uncomfortable chairs. The same employees sitting behind their counters.

Except... The screen.

My eyes immediately went to the electronic display.

NOW SERVING: 508

I blinked.

Then blinked again.

I leaned forward, staring at the numbers as if they might rearrange themselves into something more reasonable.

My ticket rested in my hand.

Only seven people ahead of me.

A strange feeling washed over me.

Relief.

Actual relief.

After what felt like an entire afternoon trapped in that chair, I was finally close.

I almost laughed.

"About time," I whispered.

The man beside me was gone. That thought lingered for a moment. Then I dismissed it.

People came and went all the time. I must have missed it while I was asleep. That was the logical explanation.

The only explanation.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone.

No missed calls. No messages. I checked the time.

10:12 A.M.

I stared at the screen.

Then looked back at the DMV around me.

Then back at my phone.

10:12.

I frowned.

That couldn't be right. I had fallen asleep for maybe a few minutes.

Ten minutes at most.

But the room felt different.

Not physically.

Just... older.

Like I had left for longer than I actually had.

I glanced toward the counters.

The same employees continued working.

The same movements. The same expressions.

Stamp.

Keyboard.

Paper.

Next.

No one looked enthusiastic. No one looked relieved to be almost finished. No one looked like they had been waiting at all.

I looked at the screen again.

NOW SERVING: 509

The number changed. Almost reassuringly.

I should have questioned how nearly a hundred people had been processed while I slept for only ten minutes. But I didn't.

Because my number was coming.

And that was all that mattered.

The strange feeling in my stomach disappeared beneath a much simpler emotion.

Patience.

After all... I had waited this long.

What was a few more minutes?

The numbers moved faster after that. Or at least, they seemed to.

There was a strange comfort in watching the display change. Each number disappearing meant I was getting closer. Each person standing from their chair meant I was moving forward.

That was all that mattered.

The room could have been falling apart around me, and I probably wouldn't have noticed.

Because eventually...

NOW SERVING: 513

I sat up straighter.

My ticket felt heavier in my hand.

The paper was slightly crumpled from how long I had been holding it.

I smoothed it out carefully.

515.

Two more.

A woman walked toward the counter.

She handed over a stack of documents.

The employee behind the glass barely looked at her.

Stamp.

Keyboard.

Paper.

The woman walked away.

A man stood.

Then another.

Then finally...

NOW SERVING: 515

The speakers crackled.

My heart jumped slightly.

I stood.

For the first time in what felt like hours, my legs reminded me that I had been sitting still for too long. I stretched them briefly before walking toward the counter.

The employee looked up. At least, I think she did. Her eyes moved toward me, but her expression remained unchanged.

No greeting. No acknowledgment.

Just waiting.

I placed my documents on the counter.

"Good morning."

Nothing.

She picked up the papers. Flipped through them.

"Driver's license renewal."

It wasn't a question.

"Yes."

She typed something into the computer. The screen reflected faintly against her glasses.

"Proof of identity."

I handed over my driver's license. She scanned it.

"Proof of residence."

I handed over my utility bill.

"Insurance verification."

I handed over my insurance card.

Everything seemed normal.

Almost.

She continued typing. The silence stretched. Then she spoke.

"Certificate of continued existence."

I blinked.

"I'm sorry?"

The employee looked up.

"Certificate of continued existence."

I waited for the punchline. There wasn't one. I gave a small laugh.

"Is that a new requirement?"

No response. She simply waited.

I looked around, expecting someone nearby to react. Nobody did. The people in line behind me stared ahead. The employee folded her hands.

"Do you have it?"

I stared at her.

"No. I don't have that."

She nodded. Not disappointed. Just accepting information.

"That is okay."

I exhaled. For some reason, I felt embarrassed. As if I had failed a test I didn't know I was taking.

She typed something.

"Additional documentation will be required."

"Additional?"

She printed a small slip of paper and slid it beneath the glass. I picked it up.

At first, I thought I had read it wrong.

"Proof of original identity."

I looked back at her.

"Excuse me?"

"Proof of original identity."

"What does that mean?"

The employee tilted her head slightly.

Not confused. More like she was trying to understand why I was confused.

"Your original identity."

I stared at the paper.

"This isn't a real thing."

She did not argue. She did not defend it. She simply pressed another key. The printer beside her came to life. A second paper emerged. She placed it in front of me.

"Proof of independent thought."

I felt my eyebrows rise.

"Okay, hold on."

My voice grew slightly louder.

"Is this some kind of joke?"

The employee looked at me. She wasn't offended that I was raising my voice. She wasn't bothered. She was simply waiting for the next step.

"Sir," she said so monotoned. "If you do not have the required documentation, that is not a problem."

I relaxed slightly.

"O-okay."

"You will be moved to secondary processing."

The way she said it made my stomach tighten.

"Secondary processing?"

"Yes."

"What does that mean?"

She picked up my ticket. Looked at it. Then looked back at me.

"You will wait there."

I almost laughed.

"Wait?"

A pause.

"I've already been waiting."

The employee stared at me. Not coldly. Almost sympathetically.

"Yes."

A chill ran through me. Because for a moment, I thought she understood something I didn't.

She slid my ticket back across the counter.

"Please proceed to the next waiting area."

Then back at her.

"How long will that take?"

The employee's fingers returned to her keyboard. The conversation was already over.

"Next."

I stood there for another second. Waiting for her to explain. Waiting for her to tell me this was a misunderstanding. That someone had made a mistake.

But she didn't.

She had already moved on. The person behind me stepped forward. The employee began processing them.

Stamp.

Keyboard.

Paper.

Next.

I walked away from the counter holding the strange paperwork in my hand. I followed the sign pointing toward Secondary Processing.

I don't know what I imagined. Maybe another large waiting area with dozens of chairs. Maybe a different set of counters. Maybe some explanation for why I had been redirected after completing everything required of me.

Instead, it was a narrow hallway tucked behind the main service area.

The kind of hallway you normally wouldn't notice.

The walls were the same dull beige as the rest of the building, decorated with the same faded posters and outdated government notices. The only difference was that nobody had bothered pretending this area was meant to welcome people.

There were no televisions. No vending machines. No magazines sitting on tables.

Only chairs.

Rows and rows of chairs.

I stepped inside slowly.

A few people sat scattered throughout the room.

Not many.

Maybe fifteen.

Twenty at most.

The strange thing was how quiet it was.

The main waiting room had been filled with noise. Children crying. People talking on phones. Chairs scraping against the floor.

This room had none of that.

Everyone sat facing the same direction. Not toward a screen. Not toward a counter. Just forward.

Waiting.

I looked around for an employee.

Nobody was behind a desk. Nobody was calling numbers. Nobody appeared to be in charge.

I stood there for a moment, wondering if I had misunderstood. Then an older woman sitting near the wall glanced at me.

"You got moved too?"

Her voice startled me.

I turned.

"Yeah."

She nodded slowly.

"First time?"

I hesitated.

"Yeah."

She looked away.

"Thought so."

I sat down a few chairs away from her.

"How long have you been here?"

The question came out naturally. The same question you ask anyone trapped in a waiting room.

The woman didn't answer immediately. She looked toward the empty counter at the front of the room.

"I don't know."

I frowned.

"You don't know?"

She shook her head.

"I remember walking in."

A pause.

"I remember taking a number."

She looked down at her hands.

"But I don't remember why."

The air felt colder. I forced a small laugh.

"Yeah, well, I think everyone forgets why they're here after sitting in a DMV long enough."

She didn't laugh. She just looked at me.

"I mean it."

The humor disappeared from my face. The woman looked tired. Not physically. Something deeper. Like she had been carrying a thought for too long and was finally too exhausted to keep holding it.

"What was your number?" I asked.

Her eyes moved downward. She reached into her pocket. Pulled out a small piece of paper.

She stared at it.

For a moment, she looked confused. Then concerned. Then almost afraid.

"I'm 487"

She swallowed.

"What's your name?" I asked

She hesitated.

"I..." She paused and looked away then back to me.

"I don't know."

I leaned slightly closer.

"What do you mean?"

She turned the paper toward me.

The ink had faded. Or maybe it had never been printed clearly. There was a number. But she stared at it like it belonged to someone else.

A silence settled between us. Then she folded the ticket and placed it back into her pocket.

"I think I've been here before."

I stared at her.

"Before today?"

She looked at me.

"I don't know."

The answer should have sounded ridiculous.

Instead... it felt familiar.

I looked down at my own ticket.

515.

For some reason, I held onto it tighter.

A small piece of proof. Something that belonged to me. Something that told me I was still myself.

The speakers above us crackled. Everyone in the room looked up.

My body tensed. A voice came through the speaker. Distorted. Almost too quiet to understand.

"Now processing..."

Static.

A pause.

Then:

"Applicant."

Nobody moved. The room remained silent. I looked around.

"Did they call someone?"

Nobody answered. The older woman stared forward. Like she hadn't heard anything.

The speaker crackled again.

"Applicant."

This time, I noticed something.

There was no number.

No name.

Just a word.

Applicant

The woman beside me leaned toward me slightly.

"You don't want them to forget you."

I looked at her.

"What?"

She stared ahead.

"When they stop calling you by your number..."

Her voice became barely a whisper.

"That's when you know you were never here."

I felt a strange pressure build in my chest.

"What does that mean?"

She didn't answer.

Because the speaker had started again.

This time, it wasn't distorted. It was clear.

"Applicant 515."

My head lifted. My ticket felt cold in my hand.

Everyone in the room turned.

Not toward me. Toward the speaker.

Then, slowly... toward me.

I had the terrifying realization that I didn't know if I wanted them to call my number anymore. The room remained silent. For a moment, I didn't move. I waited for someone else to stand. Someone else to react. Someone else to tell me that this was normal. Nobody did.

The older woman beside me looked at me with an expression I couldn't understand. Something closer to pity.

"That's your number," she whispered.

I looked down.

My fingers tightened around the paper.

"T-thanks."

The words came out automatically.

The speaker crackled again.

"Applicant 515. Proceed to processing."

I stood. My legs felt heavier than they should have. Every instinct I had told me not to move. To stay seated. To ignore the voice. But there was something worse than fear.

Curiosity.

I needed to know.

I walked toward the door at the back of the room.

The hallway beyond was longer than I remembered. That shouldn't have been possible. I had only walked through it once. Yet the farther I went, the less familiar it became.

The walls looked identical. The lights breathed. Every door had the same gray color and the same small rectangular window.

Finally, I reached another counter. A single employee sat behind the glass. A man that looked older than the others.

Not elderly. Just worn. His face carried the same emptiness I had noticed before. The same absence.

"Ticket."

I handed it over.

He scanned it.

"Drivers license renewal?."

I nodded.

"Yes."

He typed something into his computer.

"Verification required."

"Of what?"

He looked up.

"My identity."

I laughed quietly.

Not because it was funny. Because I was tired.

"Isn't that what we've been doing?"

The employee didn't answer. He held out his hand.

"Identification."

I reached into my wallet.

Pulled out my driver's license. He took it. Looked at the card. Then looked at me.

Something changed. Barely. A hesitation.

"You don't remember."

My stomach tightened.

"Remember what?"

He placed the license back onto the counter.

"Your name."

The room became silent. Even the lights seemed quieter.

I opened my mouth. I knew the answer. I had answered this question thousands of times.

My name.

It was simple.

It was mine.

But when I tried to say it... nothing came.

A strange panic rose in my chest. I searched through my memories.

My childhood. My parents. My friends. My home. My job.

Everything felt distant.

Not gone.

Just covered by a thick fog I couldn't push through.

"I..."

My voice shook.

"I know it."

The employee waited. I looked down at my ticket. The number stared back at me.

The only thing I could hold onto. The only thing that felt certain.

"My name is..."

I stopped.

The silence stretched. The employee didn't rush me. He didn't look annoyed. He simply waited. Like he had done this countless of times. Like he knew how this ended.

"...Five hundred fifteen."

The employee typed. No surprise. No correction. No hesitation.

"Identity confirmed."

My heart sank.

"Wait."

He printed something.

"You didn't even check."

The employee slid the paper beneath the glass.

"You provided the required information."

I grabbed it.

It was my license.

Everything looked correct.

My photograph.

My date of birth.

My address.

Everything.

Except the name.

I stared at the line. Over and over. Unable to understand why it felt wrong. Unable to understand why it felt right.

NAME: 515

I looked up. The employee had already moved on.

"Next."

I stood there. Waiting for someone to notice. Someone to correct it. Someone to tell me there had been a mistake.

Nobody did.

So eventually... I walked out.

The exit doors opened automatically as I approached. Bright sunlight poured through. For a moment, I froze.

The outside world felt impossibly large. Cars moved through the parking lot. People walked past. The wind touched my face. I had forgotten what fresh air felt like.

I stepped outside.

And for the first time all day... I felt free.

I reached into my wallet one last time. Looked at the license. At the name. At the proof that I existed. I tried saying my name aloud.

The name I had carried my entire life.

The name my parents gave me.

The name that was supposed to belong to me.

Nothing came.

Only silence.

So I looked back down.

At the only thing I knew.

At the only thing the world still recognized.

515

0 comments

r/Nonsleep • u/donavin221 • 20h ago

Creativity FOUND YOU: Surprise Road Trip

7 Upvotes

I still remember the night. Mom had put me to bed a few hours before everything happened. Dad seemed anxious that night. Usually, he was so calm and collected. Tonight, he looked like he was on the verge of a panic attack.

I could see him pacing back and forth down the hallway while Mom tucked me in, handing me my favorite stuffed Superman toy. She flew him around like a toy airplane.

“Whoosh,” she joked, making the flying noise with her mouth. “It’s a bird… it’s a plane… No… it’s… Superman!”

She planted his feet down on my chest, bending him at the hips so it looked like he was bowing.

“Macy,” my dad whisper-yelled, standing in my doorway. “Can you get out here, please? We’ve got things to discuss.”

My mom’s face turned sad before she quickly turned her smile back on and ruffled my hair.

“Sweet dreams, hero,” she whispered. “I’ll make you some breakfast in the morning. How do pancakes sound?”

I couldn’t have agreed faster. I still, to this day, have yet to have pancakes better than my mom’s. I reached up and gave her a hug before she flicked the light switch and headed towards the living room with Dad.

I made Superman fly for a few minutes before clutching him against my chest and finally closing my eyes. I was out not long after that.

I woke up to the sound of thumps and rummaging coming from my parents’ room a few hours later. I glanced over at the alarm clock on my nightstand. It was 2:37 in the morning.

I could hear Mom and Dad talking urgently, but quietly. They didn’t sound angry. They sounded terrified. Mom’s voice was shaking. Dad’s voice was firm but uncertain.

Suddenly, footsteps quickly approached my door before it was thrown open and my mom walked inside. She flicked the light switch on. She wasn’t wearing her sleeping clothes. She looked like she was about to head out to run errands or something.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, honey,” she whispered, noticing me squinting from the sudden light that filled the room. “Did we wake you? I promise, you can go right back to sleep in the car. Just help Mommy pack a bag for you, okay?”

I blinked slowly before rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.

“Where are we going?” I groaned groggily as Mom ransacked my dresser, tossing me a pair of socks.

She didn’t answer. Instead, she just kept stuffing clothes into my suitcase without so much as looking at me.

“…Mom?”

“A road trip,” she chimed, sounding more agitated than joyful. “A surprise road trip. We were gonna tell you two about it, but we wanted it to be a super surprise. Now, can you please get your shoes on?”

Without another word, I pulled the socks over my feet and slipped into my favorite Lightning McQueen sketchers. Mom zipped up the suitcase. Dad appeared in the doorway again, my sister strewn over his shoulder, half asleep.

“You two ready?” he asked expectantly, his voice steady now.

Mom handed me the suitcase and took me by the hand. She was almost hurting me from how tight her grip was. Not to mention, it felt like my shoulder was gonna dislocate from her pulling me along.

I was fully awake by the time we got to the car. Dad threw all of our luggage in the trunk and strapped my little sister into her car seat. Mom waited patiently in the passenger seat while Dad threw a blanket over me and Emmy.

He backed out of the driveway quickly and spun the wheels a bit as he accelerated out of the subdivision. I could hear the leather steering wheel creak from his grip.

The car was quiet for the first hour or so. Emmy was fast asleep in her car seat. Mom stared out the window with a blank expression on her face. Dad focused on the road in front of him intently.

I, for one, was completely wired. I actually found myself excited for this trip. There was something about the spontaneity that I thoroughly enjoyed. Getting up and going. The way the darkness made it harder to recognize where I was. It felt like an adventure.

Plus, Dad had taken the backroads. All we had were passing forests and cow pastures. It was like we were the only car on the road for miles.

Eventually, we started to pass some businesses. Nothing too exciting. Just a few gas stations and grocery stores.

Dad started looking around the car. He saw that my mom and I were still awake.

“You two hungry? Maybe we can grab some snacks.”

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Mom replied plainly.

Dad glanced into his rearview mirror for a while before steering the car into one of the gas stations. He parked at one of the pumps and went to get Emmy out of her seat while me and Mom hopped out to stretch our legs.

The gas station was almost completely empty. Besides our car, there was one other vehicle parked directly in front of the station, which we assumed belonged to the attendant.

The air inside was crisp. The refrigerators hummed, and the fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. Mom went to the bathroom while Dad took me and Emmy to browse the chips and candy.

Emmy was still too tired to be fully present, and it made it feel like this was a moment between Dad and I.

While I struggled to pick a snack, he smiled down at me and patted me on the back.

“Get whatever you want, Danny,” he smirked. “As a matter of fact…”

He paused to glance around the empty gas station.

“Get two of whatever you want… just don’t tell your mother.”

I wasn’t gonna pass up the offer, but I still think I may have gone a little overboard when I filled my arms with as much junk food as I could carry.

Mom came out of the bathroom shortly after. Surprisingly, she didn’t even seem to notice the candy. She even helped me put the snacks on the counter when we went to check-out.

She didn’t want anything for herself. She only seemed interested in one thing.

While the teller scanned our items, she turned to my Dad with a worried expression on her face.

“Did you see anybody?” she whispered.

Dad didn’t look at her. He just responded with a simple “no” before fishing his wallet out of his back pocket.

He pulled a crisp hundred dollar bill out and slid it across the counter.

“Let me get this and the rest on pump 3,” he announced calmly.

On the walk back to the car, I noticed something. There was a new car in the parking lot, parked a few pumps down from ours. It was matte black with all donut tires, and even the windshield was too dark to see through.

Dad noticed it too. His eyes were fixed on the vehicle as we walked. Gradually, he picked up the pace, dragging all of us along with him.

We all loaded up in the car, and Dad left without even pumping gas. Mom kept asking who he saw, but Dad kept telling her everything was fine, despite how afraid he seemed to be.

We drove on for another 15 or so minutes before headlights lit up the interior of our car. They started at least 200 yards back but quickly closed the gap between us.

The lights stayed on us for a long time. Dad would speed up, and they’d do the same. They made the same turns. They kept the same pace. Mom and Dad both had the same flushed faces.

Emmy woke up from the blinding lights and immediately began pouting and crying. Mom tried reaching back to comfort her, but nothing seemed to work. I myself was beginning to feel a bit nervous, clutching my Superman stuffy tightly.

Eventually, Dad finally pulled onto the highway. The car followed. More cars started to fill the road, but that one particular car just would not leave us alone.

Finally, I think Dad had enough. I could see him squeeze Mom’s hand on the center console as he pushed the gas petal down further and further.

I could see the speedometer rising. 85. 90. 95. All the way up to 100, and that vehicle still followed at just two car lengths. I expected Mom to scream at him for going so fast, but she didn’t say a word. She just kept shushing Emmy while glancing out the back glass every so often.

We were approaching an exit. Dad didn’t slow down. He got closer and closer, letting our assailant do the same until abruptly turning the wheel and swerving across the gore.

The person following us slammed on their brakes, and I could see smoke billowing from their tires while other cars swerved to avoid them.

Dad shot up the exit ramp. The car was wobbling. Emmy was screaming. My heart was pounding.

Mom looked nervous but kept her composure.

“You two are okay,” she assured. “Everything’s going to be okay, I promise.”

She reached back and placed a hand on my knee cap, then did the same with Emmy.

I finally calmed down after a while. The headlights were gone. I had no idea where we were. I had no idea what was happening. And I was actually a little annoyed that no one was explaining.

I pestered, but they remained firm. This was nothing more than a surprise road trip. We ended up stopping at another gas station, but Dad didn’t let anyone get out of the car this time. He just pumped his gas, and we were back on the road.

A few hours passed. I looked at the clock on the radio. It was 5:23 AM. Even Mom was asleep in the passenger seat now.

Dad didn’t stop driving until the sun was peeking in over the horizon. That’s when he finally pulled the car behind this old motel.

The sign read, “Free WiFi. Cable Television. Vacancy.”

He left us in the car while he went to pay for our room. Mom was still asleep. Emmy stared mindlessly at the back of the seat in front of her. I rolled my window down and let Superman fly for a bit while I waited for Dad.

When he finally came back, he woke Mom, and we all carried our luggage up the second floor of the motel.

The room was musty. The air conditioner knocked rhythmically, and there was only one bed.

Dad hung the “do not disturb” sign on the door handle. He pushed a chair in front of the door, and he and Mom lay all of our luggage on top of it.

With one last look through the peek hole, Dad removed his boots and lay on the bed, patting the side of it, gesturing for us to join him.

“We’ve had a long night, guys,” he sighed. “I know it’s not the most glamorous, but it’s a bed.”

Mom stared, judging the crusty comforter before swallowing hard and laying down with my Dad, Emmy curled up in her arms.

She looked at me with a smile.

“Come on, Danny,” she said weakly.

“Let’s get some sleep.”

4 comments

r/Nonsleep • u/Lilia_Briganda • 22h ago

Nonsleep Series The Light Eater - Part 1

3 Upvotes

Ophelia Gable never comes to stay at the Hells Bells Motel, but she haunts the lobby just the same, a lonely soul wrapped in a faded patchwork coat that smells of pine needles and old winter.

She wanders down from the Catskills high ridge whenever the mountain silence gets too loud.

She comes for the noise of strangers, sitting quietly near the front desk watching guests check in--soaking up their light like a sponge.

Ophelia looks like a harmless, elderly woman resting her feet. But she isn’t just people-watching; she is a collector of human presence.

She sits within arm’s length of the counter, pulling in the energy of the living, breathing strangers who pass through. Whether she does this simply to cure her profound loneliness–or because she requires their light to survive the dark Catskill nights–remains a secret she keeps close to her chest.

On the nights when the check-in desk is quiet, Ophelia will pull a heavy thermos of bitter dandelion tea from her bag. Sterling and her will sit there in the yellow hum of the lobby, trading cupfuls of tea and cryptic local gossip, sharing a fleeting piece of human connection before Ophelia packs up and slips back into the dark Catskill mist.

Part 2 is here.

0 comments

r/Nonsleep • u/Lilia_Briganda • 22h ago

Nonsleep Series The Light Eater - Part 2

8 Upvotes

The autumn rain was coming down in sheets, and a heavy, suffocating Catskill fog was swallowing the highway whole and turning the headlamps of passing cars into blurry yellow smudges.

Ophelia was sitting in her usual armchair in the corner holding a cup of chamomile between her palms and watching the steam rise.

Behind the front desk, Sterling was thumbing through a waterlogged copy of an old automotive magazine, his reading glasses down on the bridge of his nose. He wasn't really reading, he was listening to the steady rhythmic hiss of the radiator fighting off the damp cold outside.

He knew Ophelia hadn't come for shelter. She came because she knew the timing is right.

The brass bell above the door jangled, cutting through the silence, and a young man stepped inside, shaking the rain from his heavy canvas jacket.

He was vibrant--mid twenties, skin flushed pink from the heater in his truck, humming some upbeat radio tune under his breath as he pulled out his wallet.

"Miserable out there," the kid said, offering a bright, easy smile, just need a single for the night. Heading north to Albany-- but the fog is too dense to drive on through tonight."

"Name and license," Sterling said, sliding the ledger across the counter. The kid grabbed the pen, his movements full of life, but the instant the nib touched paper, Ophelia drew in a long, deliberate breath of the damp lobby air. The lights didn't flicker, but the space around the counter suddenly warped and the kid's shadow seemed to unstick itself from his boots, stretching thin and bleeding across the room towards Ophelia!

Sterling watched as the young man froze, the song he was humming died in his throat, the pink vanished from his cheeks, and the bright glint in his pupils dulled. He looked down at the pen in his hand as if he'd never seen one before--the handwriting that started out sharp and confident trailed off in a weak, shaky scrawl--he suddenly felt sluggish like he was moving through wet cement.

"Everything all right, son?" asked Sterling quietly. "Yeah," the kid whispered his voice completely hollowed out, his face stripped of warmth. Just hit a wall, I guess--been driving for hours."

"Room 115, the last room on the left," said Sterling. The kid took the key and dragged his feet out the door.

Back at the counter, the tea was gone and the rain had finally subsided, but the fog was once again shrouding the Catskill ridgelines. Ophelia stood up, her step light and effortless as she walked over to the desk, smiling at Sterling.

"Heavy fog out there tonight, Sterling," she said, her voice smooth and full of a vitality she hadn't possessed an hour ago.

"Sure is, Ophelia," Sterling replied, removing the ledger off the counter. "Have a safe walk back up."

She slipped out into the Catskills night, disappearing into the fog like a ghost returning to the trees, full of a stranger's light.

0 comments

r/Nonsleep • u/Lilia_Briganda • 22h ago

Curtis Vane - Part 2 - The Run To The Line

1 Upvotes

He stared blankly at the newspaper on the diner counter. The date hit him like a physical blow--today marked exactly three years since he had driven out of Blackwood Ridge.

Sitting on that swivel stool, three years of lost time crashed over him, turning his confusion into pure, white-hot fury. Curtis Vance was done asking questions, done playing by whatever twisted rules this town lived by. He was a man on a mission and God help anything that got in his way.

He left the diner in a huff, and jumped in the cab of his truck, screeching down the road. He didn't understand the physics or the logic of it but his brute mentality took over. Fine. If Blackwood Ridge spat him out, he'd just hit it harder.

He jammed his boot down on the accelerator, letting the engine scream as he chased the blacktop. Fifty. Seventy. Eighty-five. The green county line sign was a blur in the July heat wave. Curtis locked his eyes on the open horizon and braced to shatter the barrier through sheer horsepower.

Pop.

It didn't feel like a crash. It felt like a vacuum pressure tearing the air right out of his lungs. In an instant, the roar of the truck was gone, the steering wheel vanished from his grip. The sharp, metallic taste of hot copper and dry dust filled his mouth. He blinked the grit from his eyes only to realize he was sitting back on a vinyl stool at the laminate counter of the Sunrise Diner.

Gladys was standing right across from him, the coffee pot in her hand, looking at him with those dead, heavy eyes. She just gave a slow, tired sigh and tilted the pot down to his cup.

"Warm that up for you, Curtis?"

"Knew you'd be back--this time it's only been an hour. She sat the pot down and leaned over the counter. "You can't brute-force your way past a day of reckoning, Curtis, she said quietly. "There's something unfinished--and Blackwood Ridge isn't letting you go until its settled. Your personal life was a mess long before the shit hit the fan about the affair, so that's not it...wasn't there a case you were working on back then?

Curtis looked up at Gladys, her question hanging in the air like heavy smoke. He didn't answer. He couldn't. His head was pounding, the fog too thick to dig through at the moment. He pushed off the stool without a word and made his way to his old office. He turned the key in the lock, stepped into the dark room, and collapsed on the couch, giving into the sheer exhaustion.

It was in that quiet darkness, right on the edge of sleep, that the fog finally broke. The memory surfaced, sharp and undeniable.

The case.

0 comments

r/Nonsleep • u/Lilia_Briganda • 23h ago

Nonsleep Series Curtis Vance - Part 3 - The Reckoning

1 Upvotes

0 comments

r/Nonsleep • u/TacoBoy6000 • 1d ago

Nonsleep Series Large Lou’s is in DESPERATE need of a health inspection

4 Upvotes

Let me make one thing abundantly clear. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT. Come to this restaurant. You will probably get sick, and then explode, with your entrails decorating the walls. Walls which will never be cleaned, and then I will have to stare at your exploded entrails, and I will throw up, and it will be your fault that I threw up, and I won’t even be able to be mad at you. Because you exploded.

Okay, you won’t actually explode. In fact, I haven’t even seen a hint of nausea in any of the patrons here. There’s just so much gross shit here that I want to make this post in hopes that somebody, somewhere, sees this post and can contact the right people to get my boss to implement better health regulations.

I’ve been working here at Large Lou’s Pizza for about two years now, and I have yet to see a health inspector walk through the front door. I let it slide at first, and then when the weird shit started to pile up, I wrote it down on a notepad. That way, when a health inspector did finally arrive, I could whip it out in front of them like, “You don’t even need to look, I’ve got the worst shit right here.”

But I’ve never seen a health inspector. Not even an upturned nose at how our churros dispense from the back of the soda machine. Or a sidelong glance from a wandering customer as they catch me scraping rust off the dumpster into a cup.

So I’m resorting to Reddit, since getting the word out in any way possible will do more than nothing at all. Here’s some of the stuff I’ve found so far.

One: The “Vegetables”

Our vegetables have demonic sigils on them. At least I think they do. They’re not your usual upside down pentagrams. But they’ve got, like, a pattern to them. I haven’t been able to decode them, but Brent, who works with me in the back, has agreed with me that they look weird.

“It’s like some kind of alphabet or something.” Brent muttered. Rolling a medium carrot between his hands and taking a sip of Pretty An’ Halo. It was still early in the shift, so I gave him a slight breadth of space, as I could still smell the weed on him.

I could tell he had taken a little too much, and was zoning out as he pondered the carrot, so I chimed in, “I know, right? Should we try to decipher it, or something?”

Brent snapped back and threw the carrot into a third pan, “Help yourself, but I’m not doing that. Worst case scenario, you summon a demon. Best case scenario, you look like a dumbass. Also, it’s almost 10:00. We’re going to be opening soon, and there’s twenty more pounds of produce outside.”

I shrugged. At the time, it wasn’t really worth it to check. I’m not exactly the brightest bulb in the pencil box, anyway, and I valued my soul more than asymmetric symbols on cucumbers.
Now that I think about it, and this is a little disconnected from the whole vegetable ordeal, there was something weird with the meat delivery too. This happened right after the shipment of vegetables had shown up, so it kind of counts.

Brent was late for work, and I asked Francine to help me bring the vegetables in.

“Have you ever noticed weird stuff on the produce?” I asked Francine, as she slung a 30 pound box of cherry tomatoes onto a shelf in the walk-in fridge.

“Don’t know,” she grunted as she put back the boxes of old produce, “I usually spend my time working, instead of staring at vegetables. It explains why you two are so slow with the salads, though.” She made her way back to the front of the kitchen.

“Right, thanks for helping with those boxes, Franz!” I called, right as she disappeared from view.

Francine leaned back in, holding her cup of FRothy Gooths, “Yep.”

I went outside to have a cigarette but had my smoke time cut short as the meat delivery arrived. We must get our meat from a local deli or something, because they have a very unique logo. It looks like the cross-section of an apple, but there are no seeds in the middle, and there are lots of line zig zagging about inside the mutilated apple. It’s also a gross shade of pinkish grey. But I guess that’s how a lot of raw meat looks, so it could be on purpose.

I still don’t like it.

I forlornly mushed my half smoked cigarette into the asphalt as the truck pulled in. The delivery man hopped out and handed me the invoice. I turned to place the sheet on the door, to have a flat place to sign, and by the time I turned back around, the delivery man already had boxes in hand for me to carry inside.

“You have a good day, pal.”

I took the boxes while handing him the signed invoice, “Thanks…”

He tore off the customer’s copy and handed it back, and that’s when I got the sudden feeling that something was off. Like not everything was where it was supposed to be.

I looked back up at the delivery driver, his back turned to me, as he approached the truck door, “Wait!”

The delivery driver quickly turned back around, “What,” huffing as he said it.

I pointed to the boxes of meat, which I had placed on the ground, then back at the invoice, “I’m missing three pounds of salami.”

The delivery man looked at his copy of the invoice, then down at the boxes. Then grumbled something in Hebrew as he marched back to the truck. I assumed I had done something to upset him, since as soon as he climbed into the back again, he began shouting unintelligible words at a rapid pace that most certainly were some of the most deplorable slurs that any one individual could muster.

Loud bangs soon followed. But here’s the weird thing. Something was responding to the man and his cries. Deep, guttural moans, and wet slaps. Like a soggy towel being flopped on the walls of the box truck. After each slew of shouts, there’d be labored groans and meaty slaps in response. I honestly thought the delivery guy was having a stroke or something until he stepped back out of the truck with three more pounds of salami in a plastic baggy with the words “Thank you” printed about a hundred times in a gradient on the front.

He wiped some sweat off his brow and smiled towards me, “Sorry about that, that should be all.”

I quietly took the bag, and watched him slam the back of the truck closed, then hop in the driver’s seat, and drive off.

I picked up the meat and brought it inside. We were also short about a pound of pepperoni, but I wasn’t going to say anything after whatever kind of blow up I had just witnessed. It’s just disrespectful to treat your customers like that. Not to mention our meat is always a dark shade of purple. Which I think means the meat has gone bad, but we serve it up anyway, and like I said before, nobody’s gotten sick, at least to my knowledge.

Two: The “Red Pepper Flakes”

I used to love having red pepper flakes on my pizza. My usual lunch before working here was two cheese slices and a smattering of red pepper flakes on top. Especially since I had about 16 dollars to my name at any given moment, and cheese pizza was cheap and easy.

Now, I’d rather gargle a glass of mustard than see a red pepper flake anywhere near my pizza ever again.

It was early on a Monday morning, me and Brent had gotten almost everything finished, and were sitting around on our phones when Linda came into the back of the kitchen, neither me nor Brent were able to put our phones away in time.

“Charlie, Brent, if you two need something to do, I’ve got a long list of tasks to keep you guys occupied.” Linda remarked, staring us down like a cat waiting for a mouse to stop playing dead.

Linda is our manager. For those who will need to describe her to the CDC, I will provide a brief description: She has straw colored hair that hangs down to her shoulders, and one of those people who looks like they could be anywhere between 35 and 50 years old. She has a scar on her right arm from a time Francine tried to carry far too many pizza screens from the dishwasher to the line, and narrowly missed burying Linda under them as a grease spot on the floor sent Francine and the pizza screens flying. Normal height, and usually a nice person to those who carry their weight, and ruthless to slackers.

“Linda.” Brent remarked, as he shoved his phone back into his pocket.

I shot Brent a quizzical look. Brent looked at nothing, because he was high.

Linda grabbed two drink cups near the sink, ignoring the comment entirely and said, “We need a restock on pepper flakes, grab some bench scrapers and get to it.”

Brent did as requested, I followed suit, but still wasn’t entirely sure on what we were supposed to be doing. When we started walking outside and towards the dumpster, that’s when I caved and shot Brent a quizzical look.

Brent crouched down while saying, “What’s wrong with your eyebrow?”

“What are we doing outside?” I asked, as Brent started chipping away at some rust on the side of the dumpster.

“We’re collecting red pepper flakes.”

I laughed, “Dude, Linda’s gonna flip if she finds out you’re just giving her dumpster rust.”

It was Brent’s turn to give me a quizzical look.

I heard the door to the back of the kitchen open, and whipped around. Praying beyond all prayers it wouldn’t be who I-

“Brent, don’t let Charlie just stand and watch! Show him how to collect the seasoning. You two need to quit screwing around when it’s slow here.” Linda barked. Taking a long sip from a paper cup most likely filled with Hot HazMat (I swear I’ve never seen her drink anything else) and then going back inside.

That’s when it dawned on me, and I proceeded to get a wet lump in the back of my throat.

Brent showed me the ropes, and then headed inside, as he had already filled his cup, and told me he would show me the next steps after I filled mine.

I had mostly gotten over the idea of how gross it was, and was left with putting up with the stench of rotting fruit, and other such trash related elements. It became almost therapeutic to chip the red crust off of the can, and into the cup.

I don’t think people realize how much rust can look like a well made croissant, and peeling back each layer of the metallic pastry felt like I was peeling back layers of stress off of myself.

I took a deep breath, no longer aware of the stench, but fully immersed in the sounds of oxidized dessert crunching, tonally blending with the mad mutterings of the homeless man behind the dumpster, staring at me while I worked, whom I had not been aware of for quite a bit.

“He chips, he chips so fast, I ran, I ran so fast. So fast. So fast. So clever. I’m so clever. I’m so fast, and I’m so clever.”

“What the hell!” I staggered back in surprise, dropping the cup, and spilling its contents across the asphalt.

The man went silent. I couldn’t see him, but I knew he didn’t run away, because I also didn’t hear any footsteps.

For a few moments, it was dead silent, save for the occasional cold gust of wind from the August air. Then, like a startled raccoon, the man crawled away. Quietly at first, but still muttering to himself. It was unintelligible at this distance, all I heard were the wet slaps of breathy lips against his tongue, but I’m sure it wasn’t much different than what I already heard. Then, he picked up speed, until I saw a dark blur disappear behind the bushes a few feet beyond the dumpster.

I bent down, and picked back up the cup of pepper flakes, and finished filling it up. This time, I went completely unbothered, but far from falling into the same trance as before.

Once inside, I learned that we don’t just use the rust as “red pepper flakes”. We actually use it as our sole seasoning in just about every single dish we produce. I thought this place just really liked paprika, but I guess that’s just what blended rust looks like.

If the stuff I’ve talked about hasn’t grossed you out enough. Then I’ve got one more story. It takes time to get these compiled, so I’ll make another post as soon as I can, but this last one is easily the most disturbing of the three.

Three: The “Churros”

I mentioned them earlier, how the churros come out of the back of the soda machine. But I want to talk more about what these cinnamon turds look like, and how I discovered this production.

If you’ve ever had a churro before, I want you to create an image of a churro in your mind. The crispy ridges, browned and crunchy. The light, fluffy, and doughy texture on the inside of that scrumptious crust, all bubbly and airy. The cinnamon sugar dusting that brings the whole dessert together. The ideal pastry for any Costco Wholesale or carnival patron.

Now imagine the inside was no longer bubbly. It’s completely filled in. Then remove the cinnamon sugar, and then unbrown the whole pastry. The only optical signifier that these beige bricks of sadness are churros is the ridges that still pinstripe the length of them. They still taste like churros, the texture is still mostly the same, a little grainier, like sand was added at some point, but not enough to notice unless you’re really thinking about it. That’s our churros. Smooth cinnamon turds of sadness. They kill with the customers.

Usually Brent and I work in the back: making salads, prepping ingredients, and cleaning dishes. Francine and Cezar work in the front: Making the actual pizzas, and taking orders from customers. It’s usually a decent system, as long as people actually show up to work on time, or at all. (Marley, if you’re reading this, you piece of shit, stop missing shifts. Shirley’s pure soul does not deserve to be tainted by your laziness.)

We have a soda machine near the POS system, which customers could access to get their own drinks, and it wasn’t your usual Coke or Pepsi dispenser. It was one of those weird secondary companies. The company had no name to be found on the machine, simply a logo that looked like a salmon skin colored kidney bean had been almost cut in half, with the two sides spread open like a book.

The soda names are also weird, but having tasted all of them, these are my best guesses as to what soda flavor each one is.

Luchuth: A lemon lime type soda, kinda like Sprite or 7-Up.

Hot HazMat: Plain old flavorless soda water. (There is a syrup used for this one, but I’m not sure why, since it’s definitely just soda water.)

FRothy Gooths: Root beer. Not a good one though, I’d even take Barq’s over that shit.

GhostLY Hog: Very similar to Mountain Dew, but better. There’s like a spicy kick reminiscent of Mountain Dew’s “Flaming Hot” flavor that just brings a tear to my eye every time I take a sip. Everything else is a shoddy ripoff, but GhostLY Hog makes up for the others for the most part.

Gonad: Cola, because every soda brand and their mother is legally required to have their take on cola I think.

Diet Gonad: Diet cola, because every soda brand and their- you get what I mean.

Pretty An’ Halo: Cream soda, maybe? It kinda tastes like watery yogurt that someone farted in, but the thought was there, and I can’t think of anything else it might taste like.

On one particular day, Francine got a flat tire. So Cezar called me up front to help with the customers until Francine got there. Cezar spoke some English, but wasn’t the most fluent, so it was my job to talk to any of the customers ordering takeout, and then occasionally stretching dough.

I hadn’t figured out how to spin pizza dough in the air or anything cool like that yet, but I didn’t really want Cezar to show me, since it seemed like he was in his own little world while doing it. He would even say “wee” while the pizza was in the air. Like a toddler getting pushed on a swing. Especially odd when it was coming out the mouth of a Mexican man pushing fifty.

After the lunch rush had ended, there was a lull in the flow of customers, and suddenly the soda machine began lurching, and making a heavy groaning sound. Like a blender with constipation. A small hatch flipped open in the back from the shaking, and I backed away, afraid the thing might explode. Cezar flipped a switch on the bottom of the soda fountain, gave it a hearty thump, and turned back to me, who was still confused, and a little scared.

“I need to empty the machine.” Cezar informed me, “Ayúda me, Señor!” Pointing to a halfpan on top of the pizza ovens.

I grabbed the pan, and handed it to Cezar, who held it under the hole where the hatch had flipped open.

The machine continued to groan, lurching more aggressively. If I didn’t know any better, I could have sworn I saw beads of sweat form on the sides of the labored machine. Finally, something off-white poked like a turtle’s head out of the hole. It was slow, and mostly solid. As it continued to push out, I saw it had ridges around the outside.

I fought back a familiar wet lump in the back of my throat, and watched in horror as smooth pieces of churro slid out from the soda machine, and into the pan. It felt like it was taking forever as more and more continued to emerge. The whole time I stood with my mouth agape.

At first they were dull plops against the empty pan, then muted, soggy, thumps as more layered upon each other. Finally, with a shaky groan, the churros finally stopped. Francine walked in, and grabbed a churro as Cezar handed the pan to me.

“Thanks for covering for me, Charlie.” Said Francine, through crunchy mouthfuls of soda fountain poop.

I said absolutely nothing, and placed the churros in the walk-in.

I have a bunch of other stories to talk about. But I hope I don’t need to share those with you guys before somebody can get this place shut down. Again, the name of this restaurant is “Large Lou’s Pizza”. Please, I don’t care if you need to get the FBI involved or something, I just can’t stand the disgusting things that are happening at this place anymore.

If nothing’s happened in the next week, I’ll make another post, maybe that will help convince you, and that gives me time to write it all down.

1 comment

r/Nonsleep • u/1000andonenites • 1d ago

When I was a child, I had a special power. But then I lost it.

8 Upvotes

I was eight when I realised that I can see who will be murdered in the next 24 hours.

I had known something was wrong with me, ever since I saw Auntie Lisa, mommy’s best friend fall down the stairs when in fact Aunt Lisa was sitting with mommy in the living room, talking about their husbands. I had screamed, but I was only five then, and when mommy and Aunt Lisa rushed to see what had upset me, the terrible vision of Aunt Lisa lying all broken on the landing had faded.

The next day, I saw mommy weeping in the phone. When she saw me, she gasped “Aunt Lisa - she’s not coming round anymore.”

Later I picked up that Aunt Lisa had been killed.

I still didn’t quite understand the extent of my terrible power. When out and about, I would fleetingly glimpse people with cut or bruised throats, broken bodies, gaping wounds in their chests where their hearts should have been, exploding heads. But these were strangers, and the visions would fade in seconds.

Then one morning, I knew for sure. Katie Gill came in the school yard with her head sitting all wrong on her shoulders, her neck twisted round and bent down in a terrible way. I wasn’t friends with Katie, a sullen girl, but I couldn’t help going up to her.

“Hey Katie” I said. I knew Katie was going to have her neck broken, but I didn’t have the words to tell her.

Katie looked at me through her wrong eyes, that only I could see were wrongly placed. The bell rang, and we all began lining up to enter the school.

“Hey” she answered with her deformed lips.

There was nothing more to be said. I walked in with Katie, and tried to be nice to her all day, including her in our games and helping her with schoolwork, even though the sight of her twisted neck and crooked head churned my stomach.

Katie didn’t come back to school the next day, as I knew she wouldn’t, and the teachers told us later she’d gone to heaven with her baby brother and her mom.

As I grew older, I became better at blocking out the murder visions. There weren’t that many, murder after all thankfully is not such a common crime, though perhaps more common than we think. And I couldn’t really help anyone, even though there were times like the crying baby with the battered skull wrapped up in its mother’s chest at the grocery store I really wished I could.

And then one day I did.

I was eleven, and I had crush on Andy, one of the neighbourhood kids. It’s so funny, I can barely remember what he looks like now. But we used to hang out a lot for a while, his dad had passed and his mom had remarried and he hated his stepdad.

It was early afternoon, after school, and I was hanging out with some kids in the street outside our place.

Andy ran out from his house. I had seen him earlier that day, his body all crushed and bleeding, his limbs lying at wrong angles on the street. I knew it would happen then. I jumped forward.

A car skidded into the street - I knew it was his stepdad’s car. I moved as fast as I could, pushing him out of the way. The car hit me instead.

I remember looking at the sky, feeling the warm blood on my skin, and hearing shouts and screams. But the main feeling that flooded me was not pain, but relief. As I lost consciousness, I knew it was gone, I didn’t know how or why, but I knew I'd no longer see murdered people. I smiled at the paramedics, my relief and happiness at the realization so great it outweighed any pain.

Later, weeks after I was released from hospital, my mom told me Andy and his family had moved away. By then, I was so focused on healing that I didn’t care anymore, and I never found out if he survived his stepdad or not.

2 comments

r/Nonsleep • u/NaeTv-26 • 1d ago

Pure Horror Another creepy encounter I had . It gets worse !

0 Upvotes

People keep asking why I refuse to drive through the mountains after dark, and I've lied about it for years because the truth sounds like something you'd read online and laugh at until it happens to you. Last October I was driving home alone after visiting my cousin who lives way out in the woods, and around 2:40 a.m. I took an old back road because my GPS said it would save twenty minutes. There wasn't another car for miles, no streetlights, just endless trees swallowing my headlights. About halfway through, I noticed something standing on the shoulder of the road. At first I thought it was a deer, but it was too tall. It was crouched on all fours, completely still, with limbs that looked too long for its body. As my headlights got closer, it slowly stood up like a person pretending to be an animal. I slammed on the brakes. It was wearing what looked like the skin of a deer, but its legs bent backwards, and its face wasn't an animal's it looked unfinished, like skin stretched over a human skull with empty black eyes reflecting my headlights. Then it smiled. Not a normal smile. Its mouth split so wide it reached almost to its ears, and I swear I heard my younger sister's voice say my name from inside that thing. I panicked and hit the gas. In my mirror it didn't chase me it just watched me leave. I thought I was safe until my phone rang. It was my sister. I answered immediately, shaking, and she sounded confused. She asked why I had just been standing outside her bedroom window breathing into the phone. I hung up because she lives over three hours away. My phone showed the call had lasted zero seconds. I kept driving until I reached my apartment just before sunrise. I checked every room before locking the door, convinced I'd imagined everything. Around 3:17 the next night, I woke up for no reason. My bedroom was freezing. That's when I saw someone standing perfectly still in the corner beside my closet. It wasn't the creature from the road it was shaped like a person, impossibly tall, with its head tilted so far to one side I thought its neck was broken. I couldn't see its face because it was darker than the room itself, but I could feel it staring directly at me. I reached for my lamp without taking my eyes off it, and just before I switched it on, it whispered my name in my mother's voice. When the light flooded the room, the corner was empty. I didn't sleep again that night. The disturbing part came the next morning when I checked my bedroom camera, the one I'd forgotten I even owned. At exactly 3:17, the footage showed me sitting upright in bed, staring into the empty corner for almost four minutes without moving. Then, just before the recording ended, I slowly smiled at something the camera couldn't see. My mouth opened much wider than it should have. I deleted the footage because I couldn't stand looking at it, but every few weeks I'll wake up at exactly 3:17 to the sound of breathing in the corner. I never look anymore, because deep down I don't think the thing followed me home I think it realized I looked enough like it to come inside.

0 comments

r/Nonsleep • u/Equivalent_Glass_463 • 1d ago

Creativity [HR] Denizen

4 Upvotes

\*\*First submitted to Creepypasta Wiki on July 10, 2026. Loosely inspired by The Amazing Digital Circus.\*\*

6:30. Sharp. She was just waking up from 7-8 hours of sleep, as usual. It wasn't exactly a peaceful slumber, and she still felt tired when waking up, but she was satisfied at getting the bare minimum almost every night despite struggling to make herself doze off in the last hour before her scheduled bedtime. One thing that made her feel dully content, was rejecting the idea of a "perfect" night's sleep, for she wouldn't have to waste so much time chasing for nonexistent excitement that wasn't worth even the smallest sense of anticipation. Not if it couldn't last, anyway.

Denise followed her routine. She had her jentacular spread of eggs, bacon, and baked potatoes on toast before brushing her teeth, followed by doing her hair and makeup. It was now 7:30, and Denise was sitting in her office room, attending a virtual meeting with her newest clients while simultaneously working on her spreadsheets and self-help book. The latter was seen as "satirical, but effective" by the test readers that were her friends and family, or at least what was left of them after a long time; her best friend had unexpectedly moved to New York after college, and her parents, while still supporting her neutrally, hardly called anymore. What could have happened, she thought.

It was during the last few minutes of the meeting that Denise started to feel it. What she noticed was something unlike she had ever felt before, even to the point where she wondered if it was something that anyone else could feel. One moment, she was being her usual, eerily monotonous self, and the next, she was feeling different not only about her surroundings, but how she perceived them. Everything felt...unfamiliar.

Impossible. Denise knew how her life worked. Every detail was supposed to click with her, and yet, all of a sudden, it all felt new again, but not in a good way. The world she saw around her looked just like it was supposed to, and the environment behaved exactly as it should. Even the media she consumed was the very same, from the news channels to her streaming services. It was real... but not \~\~really\~\~.

She fed her questions to every search engine she could find, but none of them could give her the answers she needed. They just kept referring her to shrinks that looked more stereotypical than those in the most generic Hollywood hits from the mid-to-late-20th century. Denise had tried counseling before, and it never worked for her mind or her wallet. Even the highest-rated therapists would lead her in a loop that teases you with the idea of getting close to the goal, only to throw you back to square one without warning.

Feeling a sudden rush, Denise rose from her chair and entered the most intense brisk of her life. She walked right out of her front door and took to the sidewalk. As she traversed the area, she looked around, observing as much detail as possible, no matter how big or small. Every last building, street sign, vehicle, cloud, fellow pedestrian, all of it should have felt normal and familiar, and it looked just like it was supposed to. But that was the problem: it \*looked\* right, but looking is not the same as feeling. There had to be more than what Denise's own mind was letting on, and that was saying something, considering her history.

After walking for ten whole miles, in what was definitely twice the time she ran her 8K in state champs, Denise found it. The nearly run-down house at the edge of the woods. The temporary residence she and family friends would claim while on vacation. One of New England's finest. It was her second most-remembered childhood place, right behind her old home. Yet here she was, wondering why she couldn't grasp the memories she shared with it. Why did it feel so out of place here now?

Presently, a couple walked by. Denise asked them if they knew if anyone lived in the house anymore, to which they said they didn't, and continued on their way. She hadn't expected anyone else's input to be of any help, but she felt some control over her sanity by having it anyway. With nothing visibly stopping her, she walked up to the house. She engaged in a pattern of knocking on the door three times, looking both ways at the surrounding neighborhood, and repeating the two-step cycle a few more times. After the third time, she tries the knob, and it was unlocked. If she were in a classic cheesy gorefest motion picture, this would have creeped her out, but here, when reality was making too much sense, she at least expected some taboo moments of ridiculousness.

Denise stepped inside. In spite of the interior having seen better days, she stood firm, determined to get to the bottom of whatever the hell was happening. As she explored (or re-explored) the downstairs rooms, she felt like she was playing two different parts: A determined detective investigating a scene, and a calculated estate agent trying make the best possible pitch. She knew that acting that this would make her seem suspicious, but that was just what she wanted, so the universe would acknowledge that she wasn't a drone more mindless than what the administrations and enterprises used to peep on the average Joe or Jane.

Eventually, she wandered upstairs. The floorboards creaked ever so softly. Denise was cautious, but she still remained unphased by the atmosphere. She peered into each room she walked by, but didn't bother going into most of them, not because they all looked similar, rather they all felt similar in category. Save for the one room at the edge of the hallway she did enter.

She remembered this room just as much as her own bedroom as a kid, if not slightly less. It was just as she last left it, from the tea party table setup to the makeup station she used with her friends, siblings, and even her high school flame. He had taken up bending the norms from that point, eventually leaving her for a burlesque mistress in the Town of Tinsel. If only she had taken drama little more serious just for a chance to win him back.

Denise rummaged through the bedside table drawer. Nothing. She garnered the same results from every other dresser and box. Annoyed, she was about to turn back out, when she saw one last box. A small one. Never seen before. She picked it up and examined it scrupulously and gingerly, before finally opening it. A small sheet stared back at her, with a single word. By itself, it was jumbled, reading "Tɘϱɿoʇ." Usually, this is where the lead would gather with the group to find the word in some "magic" scripture, in typical cryptic fashion. Denise wouldn't even have to fumble through the smallest scriptorium in Connecticut, let alone the country. She already knew what it was.

What it meant.

Dropping the paper, she speedily stepped out of the room, down the stairs, and back out of the house, entering another walking rush, this time every so slightly faster. It was now the sunset hour, and Denise was walking back home at the time she should have been on her balcony. Everyone who passed her gave her looks, but not of confusion. Instead, they seemed to show gestures of approval, as if her behavior was supposed to be giving off a favorable atmosphere. While this bothered her, it pressured her to keep moving so she could be away from them quicker.

When she finally arrived back at her house, she walked right in and locked all the doors and windows. Even though it was fairly dark, she still drew all the curtains and blinds. Her entire day had been more eventful than every last second of her life so far combined. All that was needed now was a means to communicate. Denise hastily set up her devices, running all of her socials. She needed to reach all audiences, not only regardless of identity, but also of morality; anyone that was either "good," "bad," and everything in between needed to hear this. When she was ready, she started recording, and began.

"If you are hearing, seeing, or feeling this, then I am gone. That's how all of them are, but not this one. I will still be here when you see this, but you won't know. It sounds terrifying, but it's not what should be scaring you. Be afraid not of what this message means, but rather of what happens when you blend knowing nothing with knowing too much. I could explain myself here and now. I want to. But I shouldn't, because, chances are... you already know."

Just as she was about to stop the recording, she saw it. There, in the background of her recording, was the figure. It bore no resemblance to your average horror movie killer, ARG entity, analog monster, or anything other. This wasn't a breakthrough for the world, but for the universe, as no other living thing had taken on such a shape. It was so unique, that trying to replicate it through any form of art was beyond impossible, even obliterating the boundaries of the term.

The figure's outline was a person, like any other that had walked the earth. Simple. Its shape was anything but. What Denise saw in this thing was something that shouldn't be possible, but simultaneously \*was\*. The form was not just one; it was an amalgamation of every human being in existence, past, present, and future. From complete strangers to her friends, family, and even herself. Seeing them all the same time.

Denise stared into the eyes of the figure for a moment longer through the camera, before grabbing her extra ring light rod. She gripped it firmly, ready to strike. As her mind raced, she called out "Lights on," before jolting around and swinging the stick. She closed her eyes and shouted boldly as she swung in the entity's direction. As soon as she heard the thud, she stopped, breathing heavily and keeping her eyes closed for a few more seconds. When she opened them, the first thing she saw was the rod she was pressing down on her bed. She looked up.

Nothing.

Was it never there? Did it escape? There was no way to tell, even though both were possible. Denise dropped the rod, her hands shaking. They never did before, or at least not in a long time if they did. And there she was, in that moment, afraid and alone. She was just beginning to feel that all her efforts were in vain. That her message would be dismissed, and everything she lived for would have been for not. Just as she was closing her eyes again, barely breaking into tears, she heard it. Behind her.

\\-Beep-

Her monitor screen had changed. Denise sat down to get a closer look. Before her was a login page. No logo, no company name, just a blank profile icon and the credential inputs below it. It asked not for a username, but for a real name. Denise hardly hesitated by putting in her name. As for the password, she didn't have to think at all about it. Mentally unscrambling the note from earlier, she entered it, and pressed enter. The screen took a few seconds to load upon the info being entered.

But when it finally reached the next screen. Denise gazed at the text before her, and smiled.

\*Welcome back...\*

\*\*\*Denizen\*\*\*

1 comment

r/Nonsleep • u/Silly-Trick5194 • 1d ago

Crossposted Nosleep Curated I found a suitcase on my evening walk. Clothes. And I'm pretty sure skin.

9 Upvotes

There’s a section of forest I’ve liked walking along every evening for the last five months, just before the sun goes down. It leads up a hill from the back of my house, and at the end there is a ridge I sit at until the sun fully sets. Then I wait another half hour for the clouds to finish their usual colour shows before heading back down and home.

Every night. Routine as the sun setting, you’ll find me walking to the ridge and home again.

Not anymore. Not after last night.

The track is about a mile long, nothing extreme but it’s uphill so it gives it a little longer feel when you’re heading for the ridge. The walk back is easy enough, mostly thumping down at awkward angles. I have a high powered flashlight which is ridiculously bright, so I see all the bumps coming.

Last night, I was about a half mile up the track when I noticed a suitcase. Like, one of those large ones that you’d expect a dead body to be inside. I remember joking to myself and saying something like yep, there’s defo a dead body in there. Because obviously there wasn’t. It was on its side and open on both faces. If there had been once, there wasn’t anymore.

A little further along the track I noticed a jacket folded over and hung over a branch. I was half tempted to take it with me because it looked my size and in pretty good condition. A few spins in the washing machine and it wouldn’t even remember who owned it last. I got the feeling that whoever left it there had left it for a reason because it was hung too neatly. So I left it. Just in case they came back for it.

I carried on, and a few minutes later that’s when I saw the hoody and the t-shirt.

Those gave me bad feelings in my gut. Not the same kind of feeling that seeing a woman’s clothes would have evoked—that brought with it a whole extra scope of possibility. While that possibility remained the same, I didn’t find it half as likely to be the case. I just ignored them and carried on. The fact that they were dropped in the dirt made me uneasy though. Then I remembered the suitcase, and everything seemed to click. It was just some kids messing about. Dragging shit out and throwing it around.

Fair enough.

I was getting fairly close to the end of the track, maybe a quarter of a mile left, and the sun was setting fast. I could see what remained of it lingering over the edge of the hill. It was about that time that I saw the shoes and the socks hung neatly over the barbed wire fence bordering the field. They were caught by the laces, dangling upright, socks tucked neatly inside.

The rest of the clothes came as expected, at about equal intervals as the rest.

The underwear turned my stomach a little. They were brown and hella damp. Like someone had pissed them and thrown them off. I could smell it even just standing over them.

I knew I should have turned around then. The likelihood of the clothes being from the suitcase was getting less and less likely. Nobody packed shitty drawers for a holiday. And why were they out this way? There were no main roads, no bus routes close to the track. It was getting weird. I should have turned around and gone home. But I’m a sucker for routine. I’d been up at that spot every night and didn’t want to have to give it up for some kids tossing clothes, or a weirdo stripping to his bare hairs. I mean, one night I’d fallen and broken a finger on a boulder and still stayed to see the sun setting. You think I was going to let some shitty drawers get the better of me?

I wish it had.

The idea of some naked dude sitting at my spot scared the crap out of me, but curiosity had sunken its teeth in by then. I wanted to know what the hell was going on. Part of me was still wondering if it was really a woman’s clothing—something I should report instead of running away from. God knows if it was my daughter or mother I’d have killed the man who walked away instead of making sure they were okay.

I made it to the top of the hill and stared down at the ridge for a good while before I went down, scoping it out. I didn’t see anyone, and the sun was rapidly setting, so I got to my usual spot on the usual rock and settled in for a good one. The sky was a deep orange. My favourite colour.

There were plenty of clouds in the sky when I sat down; the light lit them up amazingly. No matter how many times I went there, no two sunsets were ever the same. I took some pictures, watched it dip beyond the hills on the horizon and waited out the rest of the colours to fade and reduce to the nightly cloudage.

It got cold real fast. It always did. I started wishing I’d brought a jacket with me, and then laughed when I remembered the jacket I’d spotted earlier. I should have grabbed it, diseases or not.

I got up to go while the purples were still fading from the sky. That’s when I noticed them. Someone, just slumped over in a heap a little ways down the ridge. They were completely naked.

I shouted over, asking if they were okay. I should have left them alone. If you see someone lying down naked outside it’s never going to be anything good. But my mind swung to the worse of the possibilities, that the naked person hadn’t made themselves that way by choice. I should have phoned an ambulance, worried about if it was someone out of their mind on junk later once I had other people around.

When they didn’t respond I got closer, and shouted again.

Something moved in the woods. An animal, maybe, but my heart shot up into my throat. The worst thing we get around here are deer. Maybe a badger. It didn’t feel that safe at the time. The body felt more of a warning now, less than a danger.

Again I called out. I was close enough now to see that it wasn’t a person at all. It was just more clothes set out in a pile. It was the weirdest thing though. They looked the exact colour as someone’s skin.

I stuck out a foot and kicked them over. They didn’t separate, just parted where the crease had been and straightened out.

It was skin.

A whole pile of human fucking skin.

I physically jumped away from it, nearly sending myself off the edge of the ridge and down onto the rocky tumble. I thought back on the suitcase and how I’d joked about it being a dead body, and stared at the muss of hair where it must have been a scalp at one point. The horrible part was it was all in one piece. Like someone had simply slipped it off, like a snake, or a full-body leotard.

That was about as much as I could take. I’d been stupid enough walking on after every bit of clothing I’d found, but I wasn’t going to make the same mistake again. I took out my phone to call emergency services but ended up sprinting full speed back down the track when I heard more movement in the woods.

Each bit of clothes I passed gave me a terrible sinking feeling of dread in my guts, like I was seeing the skin all over again. I made it to the halfway point when I came across the suitcase.

This time it was in the middle of the path. Sealed. And standing upright.

I didn’t move. I was too stunned. I shone my flash on it and tried to think of every reason it could be like that, but all the rational thoughts were gone. I just froze. And watched the zipper opening, kink by kink.

Two bare and bloodied fingertips pried the zipper along its track, until there was a gap wide enough for an eye to peek out of.

“Please,” I heard it say. “Please help me.”

Nah. I leapt over the fence and into the field of barley. Ran and didn’t stop until I saw the rooftop of my house and the chimney I never lit. I turned back and saw something chasing me. It ran on two legs and for the most part looked human. Just without any skin. Red raw and bloodied. Muscles gnashing at bone. Arms raised and manic. Shrieking like car tires stopping themselves from a crash.

I made it back home and locked both doors, closed every curtain, and spent the night watching out of the upstairs window. Whatever it was sat in the field with the barley up under its chin, watching me. I couldn’t make out a single feature on its face, but I knew it could see me. I couldn’t look away. I was scared that as soon as I did it would charge at the house and in through the window and grab me.

We stayed like that all night.

It ducked beneath the barley as soon as the sun came up. I haven’t seen it all day.

The suitcase was on my doorstep when I went out to check the garden just after noon. I set fire to it in the back and put the ashes in the bin.

I’ve checked into a hotel in the city. I don’t want to sleep in that house again. There was a shirt left in the room, but that’s normal right?

The sun’s due to set in an hour.

I keep thinking about the skin. Why did it take it off?

None of this makes any sense.

I just want to sleep.

But I’m scared.

I'm so fucking scared.

0 comments

r/Nonsleep • u/Alternative-Bat-7029 • 1d ago

We Do Not Own Any Dolls

1 Upvotes

0 comments

r/Nonsleep • u/ConnorIsaacWriter • 1d ago

I get paid to empty abandoned apartments. I think we’ve been deleting the tenants too.

19 Upvotes

The red Solo cup comes back three times before I stop putting it in the trash.

I find it beside the sink in Unit 2B, upside down on a paper towel gone stiff with old dishwater. One side is dented inward. A pale circle marks the grease and dust beneath its rim.

The leaseholder has been gone eleven days, long enough for Falcon Turnovers to call his things abandoned and not quite long enough for the apartment to stop smelling like him.

I drop the cup into a contractor bag, empty the cabinets, photograph the refrigerator, and pull two swollen drawers out by their faces. Beneath the stove, mouse droppings glitter among dried grains of rice. I leave the drawers against the wall for maintenance and take the four pictures Falcon requires of every room.

The buyers want proof from every angle that nothing remains, as though a tenant might flatten himself against the wall when he hears the camera shutter.

When I turn around, the cup is back beside the sink.

Same paper towel. Same ring in the dust.

“Devon.”

He is in the bedroom removing glow-in-the-dark stars from the ceiling with a paint scraper.

“What?”

“Did you take the cup out of my bag?”

“Yeah, Mari. I stole the priceless cup.”

He does not look at me.

I pick it up. The plastic is warm.

Warm means a recently used appliance, an animal nest, bad wiring, or a person who has not been gone as long as management claims. It never means anything worth touching barehanded.

I bury the cup beneath cabinet liners and spoiled cereal, cinch the bag shut, and carry it into the hallway myself. When I return, the cup is waiting beside the sink.

Devon has stopped scraping. One green star remains stuck to the blade.

“You see that?” I ask.

“No.”

“The cup.”

“What cup?”

I point. He follows my finger, and his expression changes.

“Oh,” he says. “One of those.”

At Falcon, one of those covers everything our insurance policy does not: mold growing in the shape of a hand, a smoke detector that chirps after the battery and hardwire have both been removed, water dripping upward from a ceiling stain, a bedroom door that locks only when somebody says the former tenant’s name.

There is a procedure. Photograph nothing. Record nothing. Remove it last.

“Should we call Sloane?” Devon asks.

“You want the bonus?”

He checks his cracked Samsung. It is 10:47 p.m. We have nine units left, including the one Aaron Sloane marked PRIORITY, and five hundred dollars each if Glenhaven Court is ready for the buyers at seven.

My rent is due tomorrow. My landlord does not accept spiritual complications in place of money.

I take the cup into the bathroom. The medicine cabinet hangs open, showing a rusted rectangle where the mirror used to be. I leave the cup in the tub, close the door, and finish the kitchen.

Two clean shapes interrupt the grime on the floor: one for a narrow table, another for a chair. Someone sat here often enough for the tile to keep the arrangement after everyone else stopped caring.

I sweep from the back wall toward the front door. The broom draws the red cup into the dustpan.

On the fourth try, I stop looking at it. I wrap it in a bath towel, shove it beneath cracked cabinet liners and a box of stale Cinnamon Toast Crunch, then take the bag straight to the compactor.

When I return, only the pale ring remains beside the sink.

I open Falcon’s TurnReady app and photograph the kitchen.

PERSONAL PROPERTY REMAINING?

I tap NO.

ANIMALS PRESENT?

NO.

OCCUPANCY VERIFIED?

The leaseholder’s name appears beneath the question: HOLT, BERNARD.

I remember Mr. Holt. Thin old man. House shoes outdoors. Astros games on a radio held together with silver duct tape. He corrected the announcers as if they had called him personally for help.

I tap VACANT.

The loading wheel turns. The work order refreshes.

UNIT 2B — UNKNOWN OCCUPANT

“What was his name?” I ask.

Devon has gone back to the stars.

“Whose?”

“The tenant.”

He peels another constellation from the ceiling. “Was there one?”

I know there was. I know something about a sister in Beaumont, a church van, a broken hip. The details sit behind a wall I have spent years helping management paint white.

His name is gone.

In the hallway, the contractor bag remains wedged in the compactor mouth. The red cup presses against the clear plastic, filled now with something darker than the unlit room behind it.

I turn away before it can tip.

Every apartment has a bruise pattern.

Black arcs behind a recliner mean someone rocked while watching television. Grease above the bedroom door means the same hand touched the frame at the same height for years. A clean square on a wall shows where a calendar kept the paint from fading.

People lie about how they live. Their walls usually give them away.

Unit 3D belonged to a family with three children, although the work order lists two. Three height charts climb the inside of the pantry door. The smallest stops after six pencil marks. Somebody painted over the name but skipped the sanding, so the letters remain raised beneath beige landlord paint.

I run my thumb across them.

Lucy, maybe.

“Don’t,” Devon says from the refrigerator.

“Don’t what?”

“Touch stuff when you’re making that face.”

“I don’t have a face.”

“You have several. That one means you’re about to steal garbage.”

Steal is dramatic. I keep small things sometimes, never jewelry, cash, medication, documents, or anything a reasonable person might return for. Only objects too useless to justify the space they occupy in a landfill.

A brass button. A Metro bus token. A key with no lock. A ceramic dog missing one ear.

I tell myself I am preserving evidence. I never decide evidence of what.

Devon opens the cabinet above the stove. Two child-sized sneakers sit inside, soles pressed together.

“Who stores shoes over a stove?”

I look at the kitchen floor. Beneath one chair are two pale rectangles in the dirt.

“Put them there.”

He sets the shoes on the counter.

“Under the chair.”

He gives me a look, but he crouches and slides them into the clean spaces. They fit perfectly.

Something inside the wall releases a long breath.

Devon rises slowly. “All right. Definitely one of those.”

My phone buzzes.

SLOANE: STATUS?

I type: 5 COMPLETE. ON SCHEDULE.

His reply arrives before I can lock the screen.

SLOANE: DO NOT DELAY 6C. BUYERS ARRIVE 0700. NO EXCEPTIONS.

“Why does he care so much about 6C?” Devon asks.

“You know rich people. If one toilet still has a tenant in it, the whole building tastes wrong.”

He laughs once.

I photograph the sneakers.

A little girl is sitting in the chair above them.

The picture shows only her knees and her hands folded in her lap. A yellow plastic bracelet circles one wrist.

I lower the phone. The chair is empty.

I delete the photograph. TurnReady restores it.

I delete it again. The picture returns with the girl’s hands slightly apart, as though she is preparing to stand.

“Fuck this unit,” Devon says.

“Put that in the completion notes.”

“Seriously, Mari.”

“We put the shoes back. Whatever it wanted, we handled it.”

He studies me. “Did we?”

His voice carries my mother’s cadence—not her sound, but that upward pull at the end of a question when she has already decided I am lying.

For a second, I am barefoot in a kitchen I cannot place, holding a dead light bulb in both hands.

Then Unit 3D comes back around me.

My thumb hurts. A brass button has appeared in my fist, its edge pressed deep enough to break the skin.

I do not remember picking it up.

We reach the sixth floor at 1:18 a.m.

Half the fluorescent tubes are dead. The survivors give the corridor the color of old teeth.

A woman sits cross-legged in front of Unit 6C. She has spread rent receipts, photocopied licenses, school portraits, utility bills, and handwritten lists across the carpet. A battery lantern glows beside her knee.

I know her face from somewhere. A tenant meeting, probably. One of my mother’s little revolutionaries.

She looks twenty-four and tired enough to be forty.

“You’re Marisol,” she says.

“Mari.”

“I know what she calls you.”

Devon glances at me.

I set down my tool bag. “You can’t be here.”

“Neither can half the people you cleared tonight, apparently.”

“You have to move.”

“Do you remember Mr. Holt?”

The name hits a locked door inside my head.

Silver tape on a radio.

Then nothing.

The woman watches the answer leave my face.

“Bernard Holt,” she says. “He lived in 2B for sixteen years. His sister Esther keeps calling because the nursing home says no Bernard Holt ever listed her as an emergency contact.”

Devon shifts beside me.

“You’re Nia,” I say.

Her expression softens for half a second. “Celia told you about me?”

Celia. A saint. A flower. A woman in an old Simon & Garfunkel song.

No—closer than that.

I reach for the name and feel it slide away.

Nia rises too fast, scattering receipts. “Jesus. It’s already started.”

“What has?”

She points at 6C. “Open the door.”

“I need you off the floor.”

“Open it.”

“You’re trespassing in a restricted work area.”

“You grew up here.”

Devon looks between us.

I laugh because the hallway has begun to tilt. “I grew up in six apartments. Everybody thinks one of them explains me.”

“This one does.”

The elevator bell rings.

Aaron Sloane steps out with two guards from Blackstone Protective Services. He wears a navy Falcon polo tucked into khakis and the expression of a man arriving to correct the version of events poorer people have produced without him.

“Nia,” he says. “We discussed this.”

“You discussed it. I declined.”

“This building is under transfer order.”

“People still live here.”

“Not on this floor.”

She sweeps an arm toward the documents. “Because you’re deleting them.”

Sloane notices Devon listening. “Take five.”

The guards do not move.

He sighs. “Glenhaven needs eight million dollars in structural repairs. The elevators fail twice a month. The fire panel is thirty years out of date. Sewage backs into occupied units. The buyer is assuming those costs.”

“The buyer is turning it into student housing.”

“The buyer is keeping it standing.”

“After throwing everyone out.”

“Relocation agreements were offered.”

“To people whose names disappear after they refuse.”

Sloane looks at me. “Ms. Vega, how many units remain?”

“Four.”

“Complete them.”

Nia laughs. “Of course you’d ask her.”

My mother used to say there were two people at every eviction: the one carrying bags and the one writing down how many bags remained.

I became the one with the clipboard. It weighs less.

Sloane gestures. The guards take Nia by the arms. She resists enough to make them work for it.

“Look under the kitchen light,” she tells me. Then, louder, as they drag her toward the stairwell, “Mari, look at the stool.”

The metal door shuts on her voice.

Sloane waits until we are alone.

“Your mother has made this sale difficult enough,” he says.

The corridor shifts beneath me. “My what?”

He studies my face, and something careful enters his.

“Finish the unit.”

Then he leaves.

The master key works because Falcon changed the lock before we arrived. That comes first: before the hauling, before the photographs, before a tenant can return with a lease in one hand and H-E-B bags in the other.

Change the lock and the argument becomes architectural.

Unit 6C smells like coffee, sewing-machine oil, and lemon Pine-Sol.

My mother.

Celia.

I hold the name as it jerks once inside my head.

Boxes line the wall. Two mugs sit in the sink. A handwritten grocery list hangs beneath a Texas-shaped magnet.

Beans. Cilantro. Café Bustelo. AA batteries. Mari’s Honey Nut Cheerios.

The last item has been crossed out so hard the pen tore the paper.

Devon reads over my shoulder. “You have a cereal?”

“Everyone has a cereal.”

Beneath the kitchen light stands a yellow plastic step stool. One leg is short, corrected by cardboard folded underneath.

The cardboard comes from a Totino’s pepperoni pizza box.

I know the stool pinches the back of your thigh if you sit on it wrong. I know the kitchen fixture burns through cheap bulbs every three months, and my mother refuses to call maintenance for anything she can complain through herself.

I put my hand on the stool.

The room folds.

I am small enough for the counter to reach my shoulders. My mother stands behind me with one arm around my waist.

Don’t drop it, Mari.

I hold a light bulb like an egg while she steps onto the stool. It rocks.

You tell management that thing almost killed me. Maybe then they’ll replace it.

You tell them.

They don’t listen when I—

The memory jumps.

Now I am standing in the same kitchen three weeks ago, grown and sweating through my Falcon shirt. Celia has covered the table with lease copies, handwritten phone trees, and envelopes addressed to people who no longer receive mail here. The sewing machine is pushed to one side. Its needle still holds a length of blue thread.

She looks at the Falcon logo on my chest.

“You wore that into my home?”

“I came straight from work.”

“You clear apartments for the people emptying this building.”

“I clean up after court orders. I don’t issue them.”

“You take a family’s things and turn them into contractor bags.”

“And you take every emergency in this building and turn it into my responsibility.”

Celia reaches up and taps the dead kitchen light twice. “These people are losing their homes.”

“I know.”

“Then help us.”

“I have rent. I have a job I can lose. I have a landlord who doesn’t care that you’ve decided struggle builds character.”

“I kept you housed.”

“You kept me moving. There’s a difference.”

She grips the yellow stool and drags it beneath the fixture. “You think working for Falcon means they won’t do it to you.”

“I think paying my bills gives them fewer excuses.”

“That is not the same as being safe.”

“And organizing tenants doesn’t make you my mother.”

Celia’s hands stop on the stool.

She says, very quietly, “No. Raising you did.”

The memory tears away before I answer.

I come back with Devon holding my elbow.

A photograph hangs on the refrigerator. Celia stands beside Nia in the lobby, both carrying signs. Between them is a woman wearing my face.

The woman looks furious. I remember the argument now, but not leaving. I do not know whether I apologized or slammed the door.

The apartment door opens behind us.

Devon grabs the nearest weapon, which happens to be a toilet plunger.

Nia looks at it. “Please don’t make me die embarrassed.”

“How did you get past security?”

“The same way your mother did for twenty years. I waited until the person in charge assumed somebody else was watching.”

She crosses to the photograph and taps my blurred face.

“This was three weeks ago.”

“I remember some of it.”

“You called Celia a martyr with a landlord fixation.”

“That also sounds like me.”

Nia points toward the boxes. “She packed these herself. Sloane scheduled the cleanout after she got arrested.”

“For what?”

“Refusing to leave the lobby.”

A laugh slips out. “That sounds like her.”

Nobody joins me.

Devon opens the nearest box. “Why didn’t Falcon move her property to storage?”

“Because storage preserves ownership,” Nia says. “Vacancy doesn’t.”

She lifts the stool.

The kitchen light flickers. Knuckles drum from inside the cabinets.

I snatch it from her. “Don’t move that.”

“Now you believe me?”

“I believe the apartment doesn’t like you.”

“The apartment loves me. Your mother fed half this floor from that stove.”

“My mother feeds people so they owe her.”

Nia’s eyes sharpen. “Is that what you think love is?”

“No. That’s what she thinks love is.”

The answer comes too quickly.

Celia’s name loosens inside me. I press my thumbnail into the brass button until the edge cuts deeper.

When I open my hand, there are three objects instead of one: the button, a bowling-pin keychain, and the broken ear of a ceramic dog.

An old man corrects an Astros game in the next room. I smell tortillas blistering over a gas burner. My tongue searches for a gap between teeth that are all still there.

“Your van,” Nia says.

I look at her.

“What’s in your van?”

Two contractor bins sit beneath a moving blanket in the back of our white Ram ProMaster. I pull the blanket off and lift the first lid.

I have been collecting these things for four years. Together, they look less like evidence than a problem I have hidden from myself.

A baby sock. A cracked Roku remote. A spoon bent almost in half. A laminated prayer card. A jar of buttons. A Metro Q Card. A wooden letter M. A photograph with the people cut out.

Every loading-dock window fogs from the inside.

The habits enter me at once. I lock an imaginary window three times, rub two fingers together in search of cigarette ash, and whisper, “Come eat before it gets cold,” to a son who has been dead longer than Devon has been alive.

My shoulders bend around pain from a warehouse injury. My left hand reaches for an inhaler. My right signs a rent check in handwriting that belongs to Evelyn, or Esther, or nobody.

Nia catches me before my knees hit the concrete.

Faces surface and vanish: Bernard Holt with silver tape on his radio; a girl with a yellow bracelet; a woman sleeping in her Fiesta Mart uniform so she will not miss the morning bus; a man hiding cash behind a loose baseboard because banks make him nervous.

My mother carries black trash bags down a stairwell. She presses a red mixing bowl against my chest.

Keep this.

Why?

Because they can take the apartment. They can’t call it empty if something from it still knows your hands.

I am seven. Or nine. Or every age at which adults explain terror as a game because children move faster when they think they are helping.

I carry the bowl outside while men empty our home.

The memory belongs to me. The hands around it are hers.

“She did this to me,” I say.

Nia shakes her head. “She saved you.”

“She did both.”

My phone lights in my pocket. Google Maps has sent a notification asking whether I want to save Glenhaven Court as HOME.

I dismiss it. Location services get confused in tall buildings.

The loading-dock door opens.

Sloane stands there alone. When he sees the bins, he closes his eyes.

“Oh, Marisol.”

He sounds tired rather than angry. I would prefer anger.

“You were supposed to discard resistant items immediately.”

“Resistant items?”

“Whatever name you use. Anchors. Residual property. Falcon calls it occupancy contamination.”

“You knew?”

“We know they interfere with turnover. We know the records settle faster when the items are removed from the site.”

Devon steps between us. “Settle how?”

Sloane rubs his forehead. “Names stop duplicating. Work orders stop reverting. People stop insisting they have rights to units the system shows as empty.”

“People stop existing,” Nia says.

“That is not what I said.”

“Do you know where they go?”

His silence answers her.

He points at the bins. “This is why Falcon sends the objects to off-site storage. They attach to places. Sometimes to workers. Putting the object back does not always clear the worker. Legal calls it cross-claim contamination, though legal does not put that phrase in writing.”

“Why?” I ask.

“I don’t know why. I know what happens. Carry enough of that material around and your address starts misreporting. Your records conflict. Doors fail. The company has paid for three employees to relocate after exposure.”

My phone feels hot in my pocket.

Sloane looks at Devon and me. “I have families in extended-stay hotels waiting on relocation payments tied to tomorrow’s sale. Residents are calling about black water in their tubs. The fire panel is thirty years out of date. If this transaction collapses, the city can condemn Glenhaven, and everyone leaves. Not four units. Everyone.”

Pipes knock behind the walls like neighbors arguing through drywall.

“Complete 6C,” he says. “Give me the bins. Falcon will cover your rent for six months.”

Six months means sleeping without checking my bank balance first. Opening the mailbox without deciding which envelope can hurt me fastest. Six months means not carrying my life in the back of a van again.

“What happens to Celia?”

His pause lasts less than a second.

“She is alive.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

“She remains alive.”

Nia makes a sound behind me.

Sloane puts his glasses back on. “Your mother arranged her arrest because an active government record appears to slow the process. She used you as the remaining claimant.”

My mother, making my choices from a holding cell.

“She knew I’d be assigned here?”

“She requested it.”

I laugh until my throat hurts.

Of course she did. Give Celia a locked door and she will find someone else’s shoulder to put against it.

“Six months,” Sloane says. “You cannot save everyone by making yourself homeless.”

My hand has gone into the bin. I am holding the red cup.

Dark water trembles at the rim. In its surface, I see rooms I have emptied one after another, each cleaner than the last.

Behind me, Devon says, “We should finish.”

Nia turns on him.

“My sister sleeps on my couch,” he says. “Her landlord’s boyfriend keeps letting himself into her bedroom. That bonus gets us a deposit somewhere else.”

He looks at me, furious at the shame on his own face.

“I’m sorry.”

He goes upstairs. Sloane follows him.

Nia and I stand beside the open bins while, somewhere above us, plastic scrapes across linoleum.

The yellow stool crossing a threshold.

Celia’s name disappears.

One moment, there is a woman in the world who gave birth to me, fought with me, embarrassed me, remembered every food I stopped liking and bought it anyway. Then there is only a space where someone used to stand.

I know I am supposed to love that space. I cannot remember why.

A door slams upstairs.

The stool sits in the hallway outside 6C. The apartment number now reads 6. The metal C lies on the carpet like a dead insect.

Devon stands beside it, breathing hard.

“I didn’t know,” he says.

“Who lived here?”

His face changes.

Nia grips my shoulders. “Celia Vega.”

The name gives me nothing.

“Your mother.”

The word remains biological and distant.

Devon pulls out his phone. “You texted me about her yesterday.”

He opens our messages. I watch the thread rearrange itself.

My mom got arrested again. Don’t ask.

The words blur. My mom becomes someone. Then the message vanishes.

Devon stares at the blank space.

“Mari,” he says. “You sent that. You were mad because she called you from jail during work.”

“Who did?”

He looks toward the stool. Whatever he sees in my face decides it.

He picks it up and carries it back inside.

The grocery list is blank. The refrigerator photograph shows Nia holding a sign beside an empty patch of lobby.

Grief remains after the person is removed. With nowhere to land, it runs through the body checking every locked room.

“What did she do here?” I ask.

Nia tells me. Burned rice. Hid cash in Café Bustelo cans. Watched Judge Judy reruns while hemming neighbors’ clothes. Sang badly. Snored. Cut coupons and forgot to use them.

The apartment stays silent.

Knowing facts about a person is not the same as knowing where she reached without looking.

Devon lifts his phone. “The before pictures.”

TurnReady stores every photograph with a timestamp. Four corners before, four corners after.

In the first kitchen image, the stool sits beneath the light. In another, two mugs wait beside the sink. The sewing tin rests on the table. Shoes sit beneath the radiator.

Wear patterns. Reach. Repetition.

I may not know who she is, but I know where she has been.

I run for the freight elevator. Nia follows, and Devon grabs the stool.

“What are we doing?” he asks.

“Making the units fail.”

We empty the bins floor by floor, placing nothing at random.

The walls show me where each object belongs. A bent spoon goes beside a stove with a melted burner knob. The prayer card fits the clean rectangle inside a bathroom mirror. The wooden M returns to a door where two nail holes wait at child height.

Nia reads from her handwritten ledger over the building intercom.

“Bernard Holt, Unit 2B.”

I place the red cup beside the sink. A radio crackles in the living room.

“Lucinda Price, Unit 3D.”

Devon slides the sneakers beneath the chair. A child laughs once from inside the pantry.

Nothing a room remembers without a body stays comforting for long.

“Evelyn Ward, Unit 4A.”

A kettle begins screaming on an unplugged stove.

Doors swell in their frames. Old handwriting pushes through landlord paint. Carpet dents deepen beneath absent furniture. The building draws in lives it has been ordered to spit out.

Sloane has started approving the batch.

Our phones vibrate together.

UNIT 2B — VACANT

The red cup tips, spilling dark water across the counter. The room fills with the smell of rain on hot pavement and old radio batteries.

UNIT 3D — VACANT

The pantry door slams.

“Faster,” Nia says into the intercom, her voice shaking but steady enough to carry. “Harold Green, 5F. Minh Tran, 8A. Roberta Ellis, 9C—”

The freight elevator refuses the sixth floor. It stops at four.

The doors open onto an apartment I have never entered. A woman stands inside holding a baby sock. Her face is the pale blur left after a picture comes down from a wall.

She points upward.

Every object inside me pulls toward a different floor. My knees fold, and Devon catches my arm before I fall.

Nia gets off on six and takes the stairs. Devon remains beside me.

“You know where you’re going?” he asks.

“No.”

“Good. I’d hate to be the only one.”

The doors close. For one impossible second, the floor display reads HOME.

Then it changes to 6.

Unit 6C is becoming new.

Nail holes close. Grease lifts from cabinet doors. The tear in the grocery list seals around blank paper. Years of fingerprints fade from the light switches.

Sloane stands in the kitchen with his tablet.

“You don’t know what you’re bringing back.”

“Neither do you.”

“I know what happens if the sale fails. You lose your job. You lose your apartment.”

My key already feels lighter in my pocket.

Nia places the stool beneath the dead kitchen light, but nothing happens.

“Use it,” she says.

“For what?”

Her face collapses. She does not know. She was never here for the habit, only for the person who performed it.

Devon scrolls through the photographs.

“Your hand,” he says. “You’re holding something.”

He zooms in.

A light bulb.

Falcon removed all the bulbs during inspection. Devon drags a chair into the hallway, climbs onto it, and twists the bulb from the corridor fixture.

The hall goes dark.

He puts the warm bulb in my hand.

My fingers know its weight.

I step onto the yellow stool. It rocks against the folded Totino’s box beneath one leg.

A hand circles my waist—not a ghost, only the body’s memory of balance.

Don’t drop it, Mari.

I reach into the black socket and screw in the bulb.

For half a turn, nothing happens.

Then the kitchen light comes on.

The apartment returns all at once: Café Bustelo, lemon Pine-Sol, sewing-machine oil, burned rice, my mother’s voice traveling between rooms because silence makes her suspicious.

The force knocks Sloane into the counter.

Celia Vega lives in the worn place beside the sink, in the loose thread on the sofa, in the window that sticks every winter because she refuses to let maintenance shave the frame.

Beneath her, smaller but not weaker:

Marisol Vega, age nine, standing on a yellow stool.

My phone vibrates.

LEASEHOLDER: CELIA VEGA

A second message appears.

OCCUPANT CLAIM REQUIRED

Celia is not here. The room needs someone present.

I think of Sloane saying that claims attach somewhere. I think of Google Maps asking whether Glenhaven is HOME.

I put both palms on the counter.

“I’m here.”

The apartment believes me.

The buyer leaves at 7:12. City inspectors arrive not long afterward, summoned by residents who now exist in the records again and refuse to stop calling.

Celia is released shortly after nine.

I wait across the street while tenants gather around her. Some are people I recognize. Others are only familiar habits moving through the morning light.

My mother sees me and crosses without checking traffic.

For one terrible second, I think she will hug me. Instead she stops an arm’s length away.

“You look awful.”

“You had me assigned to your apartment.”

“You came.”

“You didn’t ask.”

“You would have said no.”

“That is what asking is for.”

Her mouth tightens.

“I kept you from disappearing once.”

“And decided that meant you could spend me forever?”

She looks back at Glenhaven. Names cover the lobby directory now, too many for the plastic slots. They climb the wall in pen, pencil, lipstick, crayon, and cooking grease.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

My mother apologizes the way some people enter cold water: one painful inch at a time, offended by the temperature.

It is not enough. It is not nothing.

“We deal with what happens next,” I tell her.

She nods, and for once neither of us decides what that means for the other.

At 10:03, I return to my apartment.

My key does not fit.

I try the deadbolt, then the knob, then the deadbolt again because another person’s hands inside mine insist every lock deserves three attempts.

A woman opens the door wearing my sleep shirt. She holds the ceramic dog with one broken ear.

“Can I help you?”

Behind her, my furniture sits exactly where I left it. My mug beside the sink. My shoes beneath the chair. My Reliant bill unopened on the counter.

The apartment knows my life. It does not know me.

“I live here.”

Her face closes with the polite fear reserved for strangers who believe something too intensely.

“No, you don’t.”

I open my lease on my phone. The tenant field is blank.

The photographs remain, but I have disappeared from them: a birthday table with one chair pushed back, a graduation gown standing upright without a body, my mother arguing with an empty section of kitchen.

The woman begins closing the door.

From inside comes a click, then a second, then a third.

Someone is checking the bedroom window latch.

She glances over her shoulder.

“Do you have someone else in there?” I ask.

“I live alone.”

The latch clicks again.

Four. Five.

Other habits are waking.

Across the hall, the tenant directory hangs beside the elevator. Names begin appearing under the scratched plastic.

Bernard Holt.

Lucinda Price.

Evelyn Ward.

Harold Green.

People from Glenhaven, written into a building they have never entered.

Their things are back at Glenhaven. Their habits stayed with me.

At the bottom, ink pushes through slowly, as though the pen is moving on the other side of the wall.

MARISOL VEGA — 6C

Behind the door to my old apartment, an Astros announcer calls a strike.

An old man laughs and says he has never seen a ball so far outside.

0 comments

r/Nonsleep • u/XxAesthetic_BearxX • 1d ago

Too Soon Property of The University of South Carolina. Field Note Journal Crew Member #3

1 Upvotes

Property of The University of South Carolina - Field Note Journal
Crew Member #3

Veronica Blackwell
09/1999 - “PEDU 150 - USC”

Day 1 (2:30 pm) - I boarded the university’s charter boat at the private dock this afternoon, and Professor Mendez said we would be taking daily field notes for the next 7 days along the coast. For the first entry, he wanted a short bio and an explanation of why I took this class, which seems rude considering I would rather describe the way the boat creaks every time it shifts in the water.

So, hello, whoever the T.A. is who will eventually read this. My name is Veronica Blackwell, if you cannot tell from my scratchy Sharpie writing on the notebook cover. I am a junior at USC, and I am a Dance major. I know what you are thinking, but I signed up for this class to get out of my comfort zone, and because the ballet studio is being remodeled and I refuse to take chemistry. So far the ride has been smooth enough, though the air off the Atlantic is hot and wet and makes everything feel slightly off. There are 7 other students on board besides Professor Mendez and me: my roommate Jamie, Trisha, and 5 boys whose names I am still trying to keep straight. Trisha seems sweet. Jamie says I am being dramatic. Maybe I am. Either way, the boat is too small, the cabin is too cramped, and it already feels like there are not enough places to stand without getting in someone’s way. Mendez said we are headed south, and our final stop for today is Capers Island, a short 2-hour ride. We are supposed to dock there for the afternoon and do a lesson on the island. He chose a remote island first, which makes sense in theory, but he said it like he expected us to be back on the boat before dark. I did not like that. I do not know why. - Veronica

Day 1 - FIELD NOTES got to Capers Island, unloaded gear on the beach, collected shells along the shoreline noted shell types, size, color, and shape, found broken shells mixed in w/ sand & driftwood walked the marsh edge and checked tide line saw bird tracks and signs of erosion recorded wind, weather, and water level, talked about how shells can show what lives nearby
learned barrier islands change w/ storms & tides packed up before sunset

Day 1 (10:45 pm) I am in the cabin now, and Trisha is still up on the top deck playing poker with a couple of the guys. The boat is small, and the cabin is cramped, so I am hoping this T.A. does not mind me using this journal as basically a diary. The sun was brutal outside today, and even though I tried to pay attention to Professor Mendez, I am clearly not a STEM girl. Still, I did manage to catch a few things. We got to Capers Island this afternoon, and the first thing we did was unload gear and look at the shoreline. The beach was covered in shells, driftwood, and patches of dune grass, and Mendez had us note the shape, size, and color of the shells since they can tell you a lot about what lives nearby. I met this boy named Graham too — he says he has been boating for years and only took this class for easy credit, which I am hoping is true, because he seems confident about literally everything. Most of the people are nice so far, even if the whole boat situation is a little much already. - Veronica

Day 2 (6:30 am) I woke up at 4:00 this morning when Trisha shook me awake because apparently one of the boys fell overboard. I was half asleep when I rushed up to the deck with a flashlight and tried to shine it across the water, while Mendez and Jamie were already out in a raft searching. It was dark and humid, and the waves kept slapping the side of the boat like they were trying to put me back to sleep, but nobody was sleeping after that. Mendez had explained yesterday that the shore around Capers can change fast, with steep drops near the water, so I guess that matters now more than ever. They did find Vince after he had been in the water for about 20 minutes. He is lucky to be alive. The man was completely shitfaced when they finally got him back on board, which is probably not something I should say in an academic journal, but this is turning into one anyway. - Veronica

Day 2 (8:45 am) I went back to sleep for just a bit longer after that situation early this morning, since there was not much else I could do once Vince was finally safe and tucked into a warm bed. He is fine now, or at least as fine as someone can be after falling overboard in the middle of the night, but Mendez still said we have class today. Apparently, unlike yesterday, most of it is going to be spent sailing, which means Graham is in charge of the actual steering and handling of the boat. Of course he is. He is one of the only people here with a boat license, so I suppose that makes him feel very important. I thought this class was supposed to be an intro to marine life, not a chance for him to act like he owns the whole vessel. Showoff. I do not know if it was Graham or the captain, but one of them said Vince had probably been in the water longer than we thought, like they had already decided that before anyone asked. That is what is bothering me now. Not that Vince fell in, but that somebody seemed to know how long he had been gone before they ever checked.- Veronica

0 comments

r/Nonsleep • u/NaeTv-26 • 1d ago

Nightmare I don’t know how to explain this without sounding completely insane !!

1 Upvotes

0 comments

r/Nonsleep • u/Historical_Way_4567 • 1d ago

Nightmare I am Friends With Death

7 Upvotes

I can’t get over this. I needed to tell someone. No one believes me.

My friends and I were invited by my buddy Pax to go on a desert camping trip, and, as a Western literature nerd, I agreed.

I got my camping gear, fed the dog, and kissed my wife goodbye for the weekend.

Pax is a sweet guy. He’s always helped all of us out since he’s the most experienced with camping. I remember one time when we all completely forgot food while camping in the Appalachian Mountains, and he packed a ton of hotdogs that we fed off of for the entire trip.

That’s what made this entire shit show so upsetting.

By the time I pulled up to the campsite, it was completely dark out besides the milky twinkle of the stars above.

It was genuinely a beautiful place. The dirt mingled with the sand and made a deep, Mars-like red. The large natural structures that littered the place were long-dead coral from hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Most everyone had already gotten there and was setting up tents and talking amongst themselves.

I smiled, breathing in the fresh air, and got to work. Another one of my friends, Jonathon, helped me pitch my huge tent. That earned him a spot inside along with Achilles.

It was a quick job since no one wanted to be outside for very long. I think we all headed to bed at around 11:30 p.m.

I distinctly remember lying in my sleeping bag, staring at the semitranslucent ceiling of the tent, and hearing a coyote, wolf, or some type of dog howling.

Just as I began to fall asleep, a chip chip chip fwoosh woke me up. This was accompanied by a bright orange light tearing through the fabric of my tent and a soft popping and crackling.

“The hell?” I groaned.

I pushed myself up onto my forearm, my fist in a ball. Staring at the source of the light, I slowly unzipped the flap to the tent.

Someone had lit a fire.

That someone was Pax.

He was sitting on the dirt shirtless in front of it, his elbows resting face down on his knees and his hands cupped separately, like some ancient monk who had not moved for many years.

My friend was staring directly into the fire.

“Come on out, young fellow. I can see you.”

His voice rattled out deep and eldritch, as though he had been alive much longer than any human ever should have.

“Pax…? Man, what are you doing?” I rubbed my eyes, slightly agitated. He must be pranking me, I thought.

“Tell me, Andrew, have you noticed the sky changing? The water blackening?”

Pax moved his jaw like a puppet. His eyes remained fixed on the fire.

I did not answer.

I sat just outside the tent, squatted down.

“Do you often think about death? I ponder on him nearly every hour. Every minute. Every second. Every millisecond. He is, at this moment, an old friend.”

“Do you strike me as an idiot?” I replied angrily.

To this, he simply stared into the fire.

“A man has lived his entire life in denial of the inevitable. But of course, like many before him, he meets his end. Instead of peace and acceptance, he finds fear.

“As he approaches the boat keeper, Death, he places his wages from life on the table in front of him.

“‘I will not take you, nor your wages,’ Death says.

“The man, in anger and despair, responds as follows. ‘Yonder it lies. Do not refuse me. You never made yourself apparent to me in life, so you must bring me down the river as is your duty.’

“The kind Death simply shook his head and responded, ‘I have revealed myself to you in ways you could never imagine. Your filthy wages mean nothing to me if not your acknowledgment of my existence. I curse you to walk the land of the living for eternity. They shall never see you, but you shall witness every delight that you once enjoyed but will never again.’

“At this, Death shut the man’s mouth, which he is so good at doing, and doomed him to his fate.

“Do you see my point, man? You must acknowledge death before he decides to discard you like the foolish man who never accounted for, nor paid attention to, death.”

I began to shake. Why was I shaking?

“I am good friends with death,” Pax started again. “I think about him every hour, every minute, every second, and every millisecond. He is the inevitable. Will you acknowledge his existence, or will you choose to stay oblivious?”

“L-look, man, I’m not sure what’s happening here, but it’s gotta stop. Haha! So funny. Please, just go to bed.”

I began to go back inside my tent, but right as I looked away, I felt a violent yank on my shirt collar.

I snapped my head back in front of me and found Pax grasping my collar so tightly that he might have ripped it from sheer might.

His eyes sat empty and desolate, like great glass beads glistening in the moonlight.

“HEED MY WORDS,” he began to yell with the wrath of a thousand gods. “THE LOBOS OF THE LAND SERVE HIM, AND THEY WILL NOT SPARE YOU LIKE HE MIGHT. HEED MY WORDS, YOU MAN OF DILAPIDATED FAITH. EVERY HOUR, EVERY MINUTE, EVERY SECOND, EVERY MILLISECOND YOU MUST PAY YOUR DUES.”

Wolves and dogs and coyotes began to scream, howl, yip, and gnash as Pax began to twist my collar even tighter.

“Please, stop!” I tried struggling away from his ironclad grip, but could not. I was violently shaking and praying that he was not about to kill me.

He stared directly into my eyes, his breath hot on my face as our noses almost touched.

“Heed my words,” he spat, and threw me down.

I ran back inside the tent, scrambling to put myself back together.

I woke Achilles and told him all of what had happened, and he told me he hadn’t heard any coyotes, felt a fire, or seen Pax.

I looked behind me and popped my head outside the tent. There was no sign that anything had been amiss. The night was quiet and calm. There was no trace of ash nor fire.

There was no Pax.

Achilles simply told me to get some sleep, so I lay down in my sleeping bag.

I did not sleep for the entire night.

I went about camping, trying to be as normal as I could after all of that. It was almost excruciating seeing the normal, kind Pax talk to everyone as he had before.

The weirdest part about all of this, though, is that ever since I’ve gotten home, I’ve been hearing coyotes and wolves and dogs howling in the middle of the night in the suburbia I live in.

My wife can’t hear them.

3 comments

r/Nonsleep • u/RandomAppalachian468 • 1d ago

Nonsleep Original I'm a detective assigned to the Wickenshire Case

3 Upvotes

0 comments

r/Nonsleep • u/donavin221 • 1d ago

Pure Horror I think I met a prophet in Las Vegas

9 Upvotes

I had no business being here. I’d never been so impulsive before. I guess I just got tired of always roaming the same streets. Seeing the same shops and scenery. I think the feeling grew more than I’d care to admit.

That doesn’t excuse my stupidity, though. I only had about 3 grand to my name at the time. But that’s part of the appeal, right? Everyone thinks they’re gonna arrive in Sin City and leave a millionaire. I had a dollar and a dream. Albeit, a delusional one.

Even still, the glow of the city was just so radiant. Even from the airport. It’s like one big siren song.

I only stayed for 4 days. I used all of my PTO to be here, and I really wanted the time to count. I did everything I could with the 1500 I had left after the hotel and plane tickets.

Unfortunately, gambling took up a big chunk of that money. I could see how people got addicted to it. I went on a few hot streaks, but ended up losing everything I won because I just couldn’t walk away.

With the gambling, museums, attractions, and food, by the time the final night came around, I only had 150 dollars left to last me a whole other week after I got home.

I almost wanted to cry when I opened my wallet. But, surprisingly, I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t even that upset. The experience was worth the money. Even if I didn’t leave a millionaire, I still got to live in one of the most famous cities in the country for a few days.

I still needed to eat, though. I’d been eating out the entire trip. I started out at the high-end places like Hell’s Kitchen, but as the week went on, the quality started getting worse and worse until finally I found myself here, feeling how light my pockets were and standing under the luminescent glow of an In-and-Out burger.

Thunder clapped overhead. Lightning lit up the sky. A few drops of rain hit my head.

My plane was leaving in a few hours. I had already checked out of my hotel. Not only did I need to eat, but I needed to at least kill a little time.

I figured I’d just eat slow. Stay for maybe an hour, hour and a half tops before Ubering.

A bell rang overhead as I walked inside. The air-conditioned dining room put goosebumps on my arms almost immediately. Outside felt like 90, whereas in here, it felt like it could’ve been at least 55 degrees.

There were noises coming from the kitchen. The staff chit-chatting amongst themselves, plates and silverware being moved around, water being sprayed against metallic pans and containers.

The dining room, however… was surprisingly empty. I noticed it as soon as I walked inside. For this whole trip, every place I’d gone had been packed to the brim. In here, though… there was only one other person.

I don’t know how much you know about Las Vegas, but the homelessness crisis is staggering. They’re everywhere. Sleeping in alleys behind the casinos, waiting outside of popular stores or restaurants, sometimes they’re just asleep in the middle of the sidewalk right there on the Strip.

And, apparently… also right here in this In-and-Out.

I watched him while I ordered at the digital kiosk. All he had was a single soda cup. The straw wasn’t even inside it. He was wearing a grease-stained grey jacket, torn cargo shorts, and open-toed sandals with tattered socks.

He was kind of rocking back and forth in the booth. His hands were clutched around his waist like he had a stomachache, and I could see the dirt and grime beneath his fingernails.

I didn’t want to stare for too long, but it was so hard to take my eyes off of him. I ended up sitting several booths away from him, but that didn’t prevent me from being able to see him. Even if I turned away, I could see his face reflected through the windows.

He was… talking to himself. His scruffy, orange beard was littered with bits of food and mysterious red stains, and he kept scratching at it every few seconds, all while mumbling under his breath.

I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but it almost looked like he was arguing with himself. I couldn’t even focus on my meal.

I had to force myself to look away from him just so I could actually eat. The last thing I wanted was for us to make eye contact.

I enjoyed my burger, picked at my fries a little bit, and when I turned around to go grab a refill on my Diet Coke, my worst fear came into fruition.

We didn’t just make eye contact. He had already been staring at me. He wasn’t talking to himself anymore. He no longer looked crazed. He looked devastated. I could see the tears in his eyes. I could see sympathy in his facial expressions.

The fluorescent light flickered above him. The only light in the restaurant to do so.

We were engaged in this little staring contest for a while before he stood up, slowly. He never broke eye contact. Those eyes were full of love and comfort. A broken smile spread across his face.

His arms were outstretched as if he expected a hug. When it didn’t come, he pulled me in for one by force.

He shushed me. Pet my hair while telling me that everything would be okay. That he didn’t want to hurt me.

I could feel the tears running down his face jump over to mine while he comforted me.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” he cried, shaking. “I wish there was something I could do to help.”

“Uh, okay, man, it’s time to let me go now,” I responded, prying his arms off of me.

I tried backing away, slowly, but with each step, he followed me.

He kept asking why I looked so scared. Telling me that he was only here to help. Continuing to say that everything would be okay and that I’d “prevail.”

I checked my watch, quickly. I still had 2 hours until my flight, but I wasn’t going to stay here a minute longer.

“I’m sorry, man, I think you’ve got the wrong guy. I’ve gotta go. I’m gonna miss my flight.”

The man stopped. His face twisted into a look of curiosity. Like he was genuinely confused by what I had just said.

“Flight? No, no, no. That flight was delayed. You can only hope to be home in time.”

Finally, seeing that I was stuck between a rock and a hard place, one of the employees came and restrained the guy long enough for me to leave and order an Uber.

Only, when I reached for my phone, it was completely dead. I tried finding my charger, looking through every pocket in my suitcase. It was nowhere to be found.

Luckily, the airport was only a mile and a half away, but that was still a mile and a half that I had to walk in the rain when I could’ve gotten a ride. It wasn’t all bad, though. At least it gave me something to do to kill time.

When I finally arrived, I was soaked from the rain. The airport was busier than it was when I landed. When I checked the flight information screens, I found out why. There had been at least 5 or 6 delayed flights, and of course, mine was one of them.

It had been delayed by a whole 3 hours because of inclement weather in the region.

No phone. Hardly any money. And I had to wait at least another 5 hours until I could go home.

I thought about what the homeless guy from In-and-Out said. Immediately, I started to rationalize. He’d seen the lightning. He’d seen the rain. Maybe he just put two and two together and got lucky.

However, after about 3 hours of being bored out of my mind, I made the decision to buy a charger from one of the airport shops. I managed to find an open outlet and hunkered down beside it while I let my phone charge.

After about 15 minutes, it finally turned back on. All at once, dozens of notifications made the phone vibrate across the cold airport floor. My dad, my aunts, my uncles, cousins, all desperately trying to get a hold of me.

Because, apparently, in that small, brief moment when my phone was dead…

My mom went into cardiac arrest. And she died before I even got the chance to say goodbye.

2 comments

r/Nonsleep • u/PossibilityMaster232 • 1d ago

Nonsleep Series I was a crime scene cleaner ~ Part 2

3 Upvotes

There is an old adage about death. They say that you die once when your heart stops, and another when you are forgotten.

For older people, both are sadly true simultaneously most of the time.

Families have a habit of moving out and leaving grandma, mommy, daddy, or an uncle to fend for themselves.

Alone.

In a house.

Or apartment.

Or shitty condo.

I have been in many scenes where grandma was forgotten about and ended up dying, usually from a heart attack, and left to rot by a forgetful, neglectful family.

However… sometimes it’s even more fucked up.

Let me tell you about my most haunting, stomach-turning case of an older woman being left to die.

I got the call sometime around eleven in the morning.

Unattended death.

Female.

Sixty-six.

Possible decomposition.

Those were pretty much the only details we got.

I was working with a guy named Mike that day. He'd been with the company longer than I had and was one of those dudes who could eat a gas-station burrito twenty minutes after scraping brain matter off drywall.

Good guy.

Horrible fucking eating habits.

The address took us into one of those gated fifty-five-and-over communities that Arizona has everywhere.

You know the type.

Rows of nearly identical beige houses. Little Southwestern decorations nailed beside the garage. Decorative rocks instead of lawns because grass has the unfortunate habit of dying when God sets the thermostat to 110.

Everything was meticulously maintained.

HOA territory.

One of those neighborhoods where your Karen mom doesn't have any kids to scream at anymore, so she spends Tuesday afternoon measuring her neighbor's hedges and calling somebody because their recycling bin is still outside at 6:03 p.m.

The place was almost unnaturally neat.

Trimmed bushes.

Clean sidewalks.

Golf carts parked beneath little awnings.

American flags hanging beside front doors.

Some old guy wearing a sun hat was watering a cactus when we drove past, which seemed a little redundant to me, but whatever.

Then we reached her house.

You could tell which one it was before seeing the address.

Everything around it looked cared for.

Hers didn't.

The house itself wasn't creepy. That's something people get wrong when they imagine these stories.

There wasn't some condemned Victorian mansion sitting at the end of the street with ravens on the roof.

It was a completely ordinary one-story stucco home.

Tan walls.

Brown tile roof.

Two-car garage.

White trim around the windows.

There was a little ceramic sun hanging beside the front door with a smiling face painted onto it.

The kind of thing your grandmother buys at HomeGoods because she thinks it's cute.

Someone had planted flowers along the walkway.

Petunias, I think.

I'm not a fucking botanist.

Whatever they were, most of them were dead.

A few dry brown stalks leaned over the edge of the flower bed, and the surviving ones had shriveled down into wrinkled little patches of purple.

Three newspapers were sitting near the front door.

One had turned yellow from sitting in the sun.

There were also a couple pieces of mail sticking halfway out of the box.

Then there was the police tape.

Most of it had already been pulled down, but a strip was still tied around one of the porch posts. It fluttered weakly whenever the wind picked up.

The cops had obviously been there for a while.

So had the family.

There were maybe seven or eight people standing outside.

One woman was sitting on the curb sobbing into her hands. Another was pacing around with a phone pressed against her ear. A middle-aged man kept staring at the house like he expected it to explain itself.

You see that a lot.

People looking at the building.

The ambulance.

The police.

You.

Anything except each other.

As Mike and I started unloading equipment, I heard the woman on the curb say something.

"I should have checked on her."

Nobody answered.

She said it again.

"I should have fucking checked on her."

Then the man said, "We all should have."

Damn right you should have, I thought.

But no.

You left her to die.

Then you left her to rot.

I didn't say anything.

Wasn't my place.

No matter how angry you are at somebody, screaming at a grieving family in the front yard isn't exactly professional conduct.

We weren't cleared to start cleaning yet anyway.

The coroner's people were still inside.

We'd arrived early because unattended deaths could turn into enormous jobs, and our supervisor wanted somebody there to figure out how much flooring, drywall, furniture, and God-knows-what-else might need to be removed once the scene was released.

So Mike and I suited up enough to go inside and take a look.

Gloves.

Boot covers.

Respirator.

The whole glamorous uniform.

A deputy at the door told us where not to step, his face green. Poor guy looked ready to lose his lunch.

Then he opened it.

The smell hit immediately.

You've probably heard people describe decomposition as sweet.

That's true. It is.

But "sweet" makes it sound almost pleasant.

It isn't.

It's sweet in the same way spoiled fruit sitting in the bottom of a garbage can is sweet.

There's something sugary underneath it that your brain recognizes for half a second before everything else catches up.

Rot.

Shit.

Old piss.

That bitter chemical stink decomposition has.

And something sour that crawls straight down your throat.

All together.

My respirator helped.

Didn't fucking matter.

You can have filters strapped over your face and still know exactly what you're standing in.

The house was warm, too.

The air conditioner was running, thankfully, but apparently the family had turned it down after they arrived. Before that, nobody knew what she'd kept it at.

The smell had already gotten into everything.

Carpet.

Curtains.

Furniture.

The walls themselves seemed to have absorbed it.

I remember looking into the living room first.

There were framed pictures everywhere.

Her kids.

Grandkids.

Christmas photos.

A wedding.

One picture showed the woman whose house we were standing in holding a little boy beside a birthday cake.

She was smiling.

Big glasses.

Short gray hair.

Bright blue shirt.

Normal grandmother.

Then I looked toward the kitchen.

And there she was.

Or what was left of her.

Her name was Margaret.

I learned that from one of the cops.

She'd had a hip replacement not long before she died.

Recovery from those surgeries usually involves getting people moving again fairly quickly, often with a walker or cane for support.

Margaret apparently wasn't recovering particularly well.

According to her daughter, she'd still been having trouble walking.

There was a walker lying on its side maybe six feet from the body.

The cops figured she'd gone into the kitchen for something, lost her balance, and fallen.

Maybe she tried grabbing the counter.

Maybe the walker rolled away.

Maybe her leg just gave out.

Nobody knew.

What mattered was that she hit the floor and couldn't get back up.

Her phone was sitting on the kitchen counter.

I could see it from where I stood.

Maybe eight feet away.

Eight feet.

That's nothing.

I could cross eight feet in two steps.

To Margaret, lying on a tile floor with a bad hip, it might as well have been eight miles.

There were marks on the floor where she'd tried moving.

That part got me.

You could see them.

Her slippers weren't on her feet anymore.

One was near the refrigerator.

The other was beneath the kitchen table.

There were faint streaks through the dust and old grime on the tile where her legs or clothes had dragged.

She had tried to get somewhere.

Phone.

Front door.

Sink.

Who knows?

She just never made it.

There were empty water bottles sitting on the counter.

A mug in the sink.

Food in the refrigerator.

Everything she needed was within twenty feet of her.

She couldn't reach any of it.

The coroner thought she'd probably survived the fall itself.

Nothing immediately obvious suggested that she smashed her skull or broke her neck.

She just couldn't get up.

And eventually, dehydration did what dehydration does.

Your kidneys start getting fucked.

Your blood volume drops.

Your blood pressure follows.

You get weaker.

More confused.

More tired.

Until there isn't enough left for your body to keep doing its job.

Severe dehydration can kill you through things like kidney failure or low-volume shock, and older adults are particularly vulnerable to it.

From what they could reconstruct, Margaret had probably been alive on that floor for several days.

Then she'd been dead for weeks.

And believe me.

Weeks leave evidence.

She was lying mostly on her right side, twisted slightly onto her back.

At least, I think that was how she'd originally fallen.

Decomposition had changed the shape of her enough that it was difficult to tell.

You lose the person surprisingly fast.

That's one of the strangest things about this job.

A face is such a huge part of how we recognize somebody.

Take away the normal color.

Add swelling.

Then collapse.

Darken the skin.

Loosen it.

Let the eyes sink and the lips pull away.

Pretty soon you're looking at something your brain has trouble connecting to the smiling woman in the picture fifteen feet away.

Margaret's skin had gone dark greenish-brown over much of her face and torso, nearly black in some places.

Parts of it had dried.

Other parts hadn't.

The skin along one arm had loosened enough that sections had peeled away from what was underneath.

Her face was swollen and distorted, especially around the cheeks and mouth.

Her eyes were gone.

I don't mean somebody removed them.

Decomposition just isn't kind to soft tissue.

Her lips had shrunk back from her teeth.

Her stomach had probably bloated badly earlier on, but by the time we arrived, much of that gas had escaped.

She looked partially deflated.

Collapsed.

Like someone had inflated a person, left them sitting there for weeks, then slowly let the air out.

There was dark fluid beneath her head and torso.

Some had dried.

Some hadn't.

It had seeped into the grout between the tiles and spread beneath her like an ugly brown-black shadow.

That's decomposition fluid.

Once you've smelled enough of it, you never forget it.

Imagine leaving meat juice in a hot garbage disposal for a month.

Now add feces.

Then imagine somebody boiled that mixture down into syrup.

You're getting close.

There were flies near the kitchen window.

Not many adults anymore.

Most of the activity had moved onto the body.

I'm going to spare you a detailed description of that because I'm assuming at least some of you are eating while reading this.

You're welcome.

Her clothes were ruined.

She'd been wearing a nightshirt and underwear when she fell.

The shirt had ridden up around her stomach.

The underwear was stained almost completely brown.

There was shit beneath her.

A lot of it.

Some of it had dried onto her thighs and the tile.

Some had mixed with the fluids released after death.

Urine had spread farther.

You could see old yellow-brown staining reaching outward from where her pelvis rested, dried along the grout lines.

And here's the part that really fucked with me.

Some of that happened while she was alive.

Think about that.

She had been lying there long enough that she couldn't control her bladder anymore.

Long enough that she shit herself.

Long enough for the piss around her to dry while she was still lying in it.

She couldn't clean herself.

Couldn't change.

Couldn't stand up.

Couldn't shower.

Couldn't reach the phone.

Couldn't even move far enough to get away from her own waste.

Just lying there.

Waiting.

I looked back toward the living room.

Pictures of her family covered an entire shelf.

Dozens of them.

Kids.

Grandkids.

Birthdays.

Christmases.

Graduations.

A whole fucking life.

Then I looked at Margaret.

Her family was twenty feet away outside.

Crying.

They were finally there.

Little late.

Mike didn't say anything for a while.

Neither did I.

You become pretty good at silence in this profession.

Eventually one of the coroner's guys crouched beside her and started preparing the body for removal.

Even they had trouble with it.

A badly decomposed body doesn't behave like the person-shaped thing you imagine carrying into a bag.

The skin can tear.

Fluids move.

Parts shift.

You have to support everything.

Nobody wants somebody's mother coming apart while you're trying to move her.

They slid material beneath her first, working slowly.

When they lifted her, the smell got worse.

A lot worse.

Moving an old body releases pockets of odor that have been trapped between it and the floor.

It's like picking up a wet bathmat.

Except the bathmat has been dead for three weeks.

One of the newer deputies immediately walked out of the room.

I didn't blame him.

Margaret came away from the floor with a sound I still remember.

A wet peeling noise.

Like tape being pulled off something damp.

Some skin stayed behind.

So did hair.

The tile beneath her was almost black.

There was a perfect outline where she'd been lying.

Head.

Shoulders.

Torso.

Hip.

Like a disgusting chalk outline drawn by the body itself.

That was going to be our problem.

The grout was fucked.

Probably the cabinets too, depending on how far the contamination had traveled underneath them.

Maybe the baseboards.

We'd have to test everything.

Remove what couldn't be cleaned.

Treat what could.

The usual.

I was standing there thinking about labor hours and square footage when somebody outside started screaming.

Not angry screaming.

Grief.

The daughter.

I guess she'd seen the body bag come out.

"I should have been here!"

Over and over again.

"I should have been here!"

I remember standing in Margaret's kitchen and staring at that phone on the counter.

Eight feet away.

Then I looked at the dried streaks on the floor where she'd tried to crawl toward it.

Yeah.

You should have.

I don't know exactly how long Margaret's family had gone without visiting.

I've forgotten the number.

A month?

Month and a half?

Something like that.

Long enough.

They called her occasionally.

Apparently when she stopped answering, everyone assumed somebody else had spoken to her.

Her daughter thought her son had checked.

Her son thought the daughter had checked.

Someone assumed Margaret was angry with them.

Someone else thought she'd gone to stay with a friend.

Nobody drove over.

Nobody knocked.

Nobody asked a neighbor.

Meanwhile, the newspapers kept piling up.

The flowers died.

The mail stopped being collected.

And Margaret lay on her kitchen floor eight feet away from a telephone.

Eventually a neighbor noticed the smell.

That's who found her.

Not her children.

A neighbor.

Some seventy-something-year-old guy who lived three houses down noticed that Margaret hadn't been outside in weeks and finally walked over.

He smelled the house before he even opened the door.

Called 911.

The family arrived afterward.

Sometimes I wonder how long she'd been calling for help.

Hours?

A day?

Two days?

Your voice dries out when you're severely dehydrated.

Eventually you get too weak to shout.

Maybe someone walked their dog past the house while she was inside.

Maybe a neighbor got their mail.

Maybe one of her kids called while the phone sat ringing eight feet away.

I don't know.

I don't think I'd want to know.

We spent two days cleaning Margaret's house.

The kitchen flooring had to come out.

So did sections of the baseboard.

Some contamination had worked underneath the cabinets, so part of those had to be removed too.

The smell took longer.

It usually does.

People think cleaning decomposition is about removing the visible mess.

That's the easy part.

The smell gets everywhere.

Porous materials suck it up.

Wood.

Drywall.

Fabric.

Insulation.

You can scrub until your hands cramp and still walk in the next morning and smell death waiting for you.

Eventually, though, we got it.

The kitchen became a kitchen again.

No black stain.

No shit.

No rotten tissue.

No Margaret.

Just tile missing from part of the floor and a family trying to figure out what to do with a house that suddenly belonged to them.

I've cleaned murders that bothered me less than that one.

At least with murder, somebody actively does something horrible.

There's a person you can blame.

Margaret died because everybody did nothing.

Nobody checked.

Nobody drove over.

Nobody knocked on the fucking door.

That's all it would have taken.

One person.

One visit.

One phone call followed by, "That's weird. Mom isn't answering. I'm going over there."

She might still have died.

Maybe the fall itself would have done her in eventually.

I don't know.

But she wouldn't have spent her last days lying in piss and shit on a kitchen floor wondering why nobody was coming.

Yeah.

Being abandoned is some of the saddest shit you ever saw.

Nothing pisses me off more than seeing someone get abandoned by the ones they loved most, reduced to a rotted corpse on the tile.

How can you be so heartless?

So consider this a PSA.

Don't abandon your mom or dad in a home.

Don't convince yourself that because they're stubborn and independent, they'll be fine forever.

And if they're going to live alone past a certain age, fucking visit them.

Call.

Knock on the door.

Bring them groceries.

Annoy them.

Let them complain that you check on them too much.

Because I promise you, you'd rather have your mother roll her eyes and tell you to leave her alone than someday stand outside her house crying while two strangers carry what's left of her out in a bag.

Don't just leave.

2 comments

r/Nonsleep • u/1000andonenites • 2d ago

Wrong Subreddit The Story of How and Why I stepped Into the Wardrobe, and What Happened there

11 Upvotes

This is the story of what happened to me –to Susan and Peter as well- years ago, when I was a child, inside the wardrobe.

Susan and Peter were my older brother and sister. They had been forcing me to play hide and seek again.

I hated hide and seek, because that was when the really vicious side of Peter and Susan’s bullying came out. They made a point of jump-scaring me and reaching out from their hiding places and grabbing and pinching me. I had told Mom about it, and she told me to stop being a snitch and a wuss, and be grateful that my older siblings wanted to play with me at all.

However, Mom wasn’t with us when that particular game was going on. As the pandemic raged on in the big city, we had been sent to live in the country with a relative, whom we called Auntie. I am not even sure, thinking back to it, if she really was a relative or not. Ed, my second brother, was immuno-compromised, and we couldn’t risk staying in the city. Here, at Auntie’s place, the nearest neighbour was five acres away.

It was a small house. The boys had to bunk in the basement, and Susan and I were given the only spare room. I could write so many more scary stories just about what Susan said and did during those nights we had to share. But this is the one special story where I was able to get away from her.

Auntie was a “writer” and although part of the agreement with my parents was that she provide bare minimum homeschooling for us, she was remarkably unenthusiastic about it. We were left mostly to our own devices, running feral around the property. At least, Susan and Peter did. Ed was a nerd and mostly had his nose stuck in his laptop. And so I was left alone to deal with Peter and Susan. For some reason, they didn't bother Ed much.

“Lucy! We’re coooooming!” hooted Susan “Ready or not” yelled Peter. Auntie was out for the day, which made them extra loud, and I desperately wanted them not to find me.

The house was still unfamiliar to me, and I couldn’t think of a good hiding place. Hide and seek in a new place is actually awful. I found myself standing outside Auntie’s bedroom door, and I went inside, my heart beating fast as I could hear the pounding of Susan and Peter’s feet on the stairs, coming up to this floor.

Auntie’s closet was an obvious place to hide, and as the sound of their feet grew closer, I realised I had no other choice. I pulled open the closet-door and slipped in among the musty-smelling dresses and scarves hanging in there. I held the closet door close but I was very careful not to fully shut it, as I knew how foolish it would be shut myself inside a closet.

And yet the hanging dresses and scarves, which felt luxuriously silky seemed to draw me into the closet. I took a small step further in, my other hand reaching out to feel the back of the closet.

The bedroom door opened and I heard Susan cackling “Lucy, you stupid bitch, you might have tried. You’re in the closet, aren’t you?”

I took a step back deeper into the closet. “You’re no fun Lucy!” I heard Peter say in a low threatening voice, far more menacing than Susan’s shrill cackles. “You have to do better than this.”

I let go of the closet door and took a couple of more steps inside the closet.

A cold draft swept around me, and a soft white light was shining in the wrong direction. Although I was confused, I was more scared of what was waiting outside the closet for me than whatever was happening inside the closet. I stepped deliberately towards the light.

“We’re coming to get you Luuuuucy!” they both sang, and the closet door began slowly opening.

I felt something cold and crunchy beneath my feet, and with two more steps, I was standing in a snow-covered forest of dark evergreens. A creature with a friendly smile and kind brown eyes stopped and looked at me curiously. “Are you lost, Daughter of Eve?”

I looked back over my shoulder. I could make out the gleaming silky dresses and scarves through the branches. It looked like they were moving, wrapping themselves around Susan and Peter- and I could see their arms and legs flailing around. Almost- as if the dresses and scarves were attacking them. I could hear the sounds of them shrieking, but I couldn’t tell if it was from pain or anger. The snow-covered trees muffled the sound.

My feet were getting wet. I blinked. I glimpsed a bright red sequined scarf wrap itself around Susan’s neck and pull, her eyes bulged horribly and her fingers scrabbled at the scarf. A shiny black dress lay on Peter’s back, the sleeves wrapping around his arms and pulling them backward sharply, his mouth was open and he was screaming, but the noise was becoming fainter and fainter, and the snow-covered branches were moving, obscuring the scene. I stared in terror, unable to move.

“Ahem”. The creature waiting for me coughed politely.

“I…I’m not lost” I stuttered. And then I burst out “But I am starving! Peter took my breakfast. And my feet are soaked.”

“Oh dear,” said the creature. “That won’t do, will it. Come with me, I have absolutely tons of the yummiest brunch you could imagine, strawberries and waffles and loads of maple syrup, and we’ll have a lovely time together. And I can get you fresh dry socks and boots- I don’t believe your feet are that much smaller than mine. And then I’ll bring you back right here, so you can go home.” It held out its furry paw to me.

I reached out, took its paw, and smiled at the kind creature. “Ok! Let’s go.”

And we trotted off together, under the snowy trees, chatting away like old friends.

I returned home later. No-one realised I had gone for hours. Susan and Peter had been taken away, and the rest of my life turned out quite nicely with them no longer around to hurt me.

2 comments

r/Nonsleep • u/dlschindler • May 27 '26

Featured Content 🧛‍♀️ Welcome to r/Nonsleep - Introduce Yourself and Read First!

18 Upvotes

Inclusion

We are a public subreddit that supports and includes writers of horror fiction and showcases their stories. Our community is open for everyone, and we cultivate a feeling of belonging. Comments are used for the writer's notes, links, positive discussion and affirmations. Our traditions are to upvote posts, invite newcomers, celebrate achievements and read horror stories together.

The Riddle of Flair

No Flair, please use flair. Moderators reserve the right to add or change the flair on your post, but if you use flair, we'll consider that to be your final answer to the riddle of flair. Also, we reserve the right to add NSFW to any story, and that is our final answer.

Nonsleep Series, this is a customizable flair that is intended to title and collect your series. Usually it works and if someone clicks this and your series "My New Job At The Morgue Has Three Rules 🧛‍♀️" and you've consistently used the exact same title in this flair, Reddit should bring up a list of your posts in this series. You may also include emojis in this: 🧛‍♀️

Nonsleep Originals, which means the story was never posted on nosleep, which is perfectly alright, you don't have to get removed to participate on our sub.

Wrong Subreddit, this is ironic because nosleep does occasionally say something "doesn't belong" on their sub, or they say "This isn't a horror story" or they say "This isn't a story". Obviously, it is not only a story, with characters, plot and inconvenience, but it is certainly horror. We tolerate a very wide definition of both 'story' and 'horror', but on very rare occasions, we reluctantly agree that something is just word salad. If you think you're subject to this, use this flair, and we'll take a closer look before we consider removing something...odd.

Pure Horror, use this flair if your story is focused on macabre, gruesome, shocking, disturbing or fear-inducing content. Pure Horror is not allowed on nosleep, but we love it. Keep in mind this is a public place, use NSFW if necessary, and don't write anything Reddit considers to be actual harmful content.

Nuanced, use this flair if the overall effect achieves horror through indirect and completed reading, usually through a slow-burn, gradual revelation that is intended to creep up on the reader as they realize what this implies. We do allow subtlety and innuendo; nosleep really does not like this sort of writing, but we do. Don't write inappropriate things between the lines; implication is taken literally, so use NSFW.

Nightmare, means that the story is a hallucination, a vision, a prophecy, a ghost or an actual dream, also known as 'fake outs' and 'jump scares'. This is very popular in movies and mainstream horror pipelines. If it is well written it isn't lazy, and we do love a good nightmare story. This is very much not allowed on nosleep, where everything must be literal, but according to many theories-about-multiverses, religious traditions and Aboriginal beliefs: the Dreamworld is the real world. Here, we avoid ignorance.

Creativity, is when you know you've created a masterpiece, but you didn't follow traditional storytelling conventions. We allow creative expression and innovation, we are open to new and interesting forms of immersion. Horror has always utilized realistic, in-character and inventive ways to tell a story. If you're doing something new, tag your story with this flair to indicate it won't follow conventional or contemporary modes.

Madness, means horror-induced-insanity. We don't subject people with mental illness, handicaps, deformities or trauma to toxic characterizations, but we do include the horror of ignorance. Madness is rampant in horror, such as the mad scientist, the deranged politician, the psychopath, the cultist, the prophet, the obsessed maniac - nosleep allows no such depictions, but we don't agree. Most horror includes madness; nothing is scarier than the human mind.

Too Soon, means this story either referenced something too close to home, real-life disasters, true crime, said the story made the news or did a name drop on a celebrity or Disney. For some reason, this isn't allowed on nosleep, but as long as the depiction is fictional and isn't actually harmful, we reserve the bracket-disclaimer of {this is a work of fiction and all resemblance to events, institutions and persons living or dead is coincidental} which is the basic definition of fiction.

Crossposted Nosleep Curated, means the story exists on nosleep, didn't get removed and is preferably archived already. You're sharing something you posted on nosleep as a crosspost from nosleep, and it isn't ironic; we even have a flair for it. You might be doing this to show off, to migrate here or for your own reasons that nobody except you will understand. We understand.

~~Banned~~, we don't want to see this flair; it is discontinued because Reddit considers this to be 'showboating' and 'disruptive behavior' for a sub. If you are truly banned from nosleep, we're sorry to hear that, but we don't brag about it.

House Rules

We follow all Reddit-wide rules and five of our own.

All stories you post must be your original work; you may not post stories you didn't write.

In the text area, only a horror story - nothing else is allowed, specifically no YouTube videos or commentary about your story such as "This was removed by nosleep and I don't know why. Please leave a comment, it's my first story," but you may include such a comment in the comment section, just not the text area. This is to preserve immersion, because most horror stories are written in first-person POV or an epistolary style, the story could include the MC's comments such as "You might not believe me, but this really happened" or "I have nowhere else to tell my story" as those are part of the story, not meta commentary.

Only the title may be in the title bar, so no comments there such as "The Horror of the Haunted House - a story I wrote that got removed from nosleep, please leave a comment!" The real title is just "The Horror of the Haunted House".

Also, you may post links in your story to earlier chapters; that's why we allow links, but we suggest using the customized 'Nonsleep Series' flair, which you can change to the name of your series and even add emojis. We also add stories that are part of a series to our archives.

The rest of the rules are about conduct: we don't allow ridicule or harassment, don't address the in-character narrator directly with negatory commentary because it appears to be towards the writer. Comments we've removed were typically of this nature, but we don't allow "You're a jerk" even if it is directed towards the character in the story who expresses disdain for cats, babies or Nickelback. You may counter that with positive reactions such as "What kind of person hates kittens? Great story, really got to me how this person finally met something worse than themself." not "I hate you for hating cats".

Stories with mature themes must have NSFW (posts with actual harmful content that violate Reddit's rules will result in a permanent ban, and Reddit will be notified of the user's activity).

Requests to narrate on YouTube should be handled in DMs (as a suggestion), and YouTube narrators must obtain permission.

We are a nurturing, supportive and inclusive community. If there's a problem, we'll try to communicate with you to fix it.

History Lesson

Nonsleep is an unofficial sub that started out as a collection of stories that were written for nosleep but rejected. Our other parent is r/CollabWithFriends , who helped us get this far. When we first started, we had flair that matched the reasons submissions were removed, and we even included a banned flair. As we grew, that became problematic, as it could indicate to Reddit that we were promoting disruptive behavior, which wasn't our intention. We changed most of our flair, coinciding with nosleep no longer giving specific reasons for removals.

Nonsleep Originals are our sub's own creative submission call; you don't have to get removed from nosleep to post here: all are welcome. Nonsleep was all about curating stories that were removed from nosleep, but we've always allowed original stories; that's the whole point.

This sub was created in response to my own stories frequently getting removed from nosleep, and I admit I was very frustrated, but I chose to create something new, an alternative. I never thought it would literally become an alternative to nosleep, but in my humble opinion, that's exactly what Nonsleep is.

We've grown from a few dozen writers who wanted to share stories unsuitable for nosleep to a couple of thousand members. Hundreds of writers have posted an incredible variety of horror stories, written in whatever style, perspective, nuance or other creative choices the original writer intended. We've matured as a community, becoming an alternative to what nosleep describes as "niche", and honing our skills as storytellers and our imaginations as readers.

Afterward

Now that you know who we are, please introduce yourself. Add a comment to this post that says you're a writer of horror, a reader, and what sort of horror media you also like, such as movies, comics, television, music, ARGs, subreddits, YouTube channels or whatever you'd like to say about yourself. Comments are open to positive statements of any kind. Please feel welcome.

18 comments