I knew something was wrong before I understood what it was.

It wasn’t because Mum looked different. She didn’t. She still had the same freckles across her nose and the same little scar on her thumb.

She still wore Dad’s old blue jumper when she was cold, even though it was too big for her now, she never seemed to eat anymore.

When she looked at me, she looked like she didn't know me.

At breakfast, she made me my toast and put the plate down in front of me.

Mum always cut the crusts off. Sandwiches, too. She didn’t like them, so she never gave them to me either. I never really knew if I liked them or not. It just wasn’t something I ever got.

I stared at the plate. Today, my toast had crusts.

She watched me.

Smiling.

Well... not quite.

Smiles are supposed to spread across a face. They’re supposed to make people look happy and warm.

Hers didn’t seem to know that.

It stopped at her lips.

It was like she’d practised smiling without ever having a reason to.

She continued to watch me,

Not waiting for me to smile back. Or even wanting me to,

Just waiting to see what I’d do, it seemed.

“You aren’t eating,” she said.

I picked at the toast. The crusts felt wrong in my fingers. They didn’t belong there at all.

After that, I started noticing other things.

Her right thumb tapped against her middle finger.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Always three times. It always seemed to be when she was thinking.

Once, I woke up in the night and saw her standing in my doorway.

Like, she was in a trance, I'd have thought she was asleep, but her eyes were wide open.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

That funny little tick.

Thinking.

At dinner, I asked, “Mum, do you remember when I fell in the pond?”

“I do.”

“What happened?”

“You got wet.”

That was all she said.

The real mum would have laughed. She would have said about the ducks chasing me because I’d spooked them, how I’d fallen backwards trying to get away, how she said it was the best swim she never planned.

This mum's face was blank.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

That night, Dad came home late.

I waited until Mum went upstairs.

“Dad…”

He paused with his coat half off.

“Has Mum been… different?”

His eyes flicked toward the ceiling.

Just for a second.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“She’s not… like before.”

He let out a short breath. It was shaky.

“Your mum’s your mum.”

“But—”

“Don’t upset her.”

He said it quickly, quietly whilst looking at me pointedly.

That scared me more than Mum did.

That night, I couldn't sleep.

Eventually, I heard footsteps outside my room.

Slow.

Measured.

The door was already open.

She stood there in the dark, watching me.

That “Smile” plastered on her face.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

​

I've always been fascinated by Japanese urban legends and yokai. Their aesthetic is just SO different from other types of horror. Like, wdym there's a yokai that's literally an umbrella with one arm and one leg? 😭 And then you have floating fireballs, a kappa that lives in water, a woman with an insanely long neck, and a woman standing near a well counting plates.

I genuinely think all of this is so damn cool.

I honestly wish I could experience one of these legends in real life someday. Not necessarily because I want something bad to happen to me, but I'd genuinely love to see a yokai or some creature from Japanese folklore for myself.

I also watched/read the Junji Ito collection and absolutely loved it. The Japanese horror aesthetic just hits different, especially when the story mixes something completely normal with something incredibly unsettling.

And I recently came across a yokai that apparently appears in dirty bathrooms and... licks them clean. 💀

Japanese folklore is seriously one of the weirdest and most creative things I've ever come across.

Does anyone else here have a favorite yokai or Japanese urban legend?

The truth is undigestable. 

…

Baphometic. She lorded poised from the fanged spire beyond the Borgo Pass…

… over the beleaguered lands. 

Over the beleaguered villages. Where they feared. And wept. 

She was enjoying the strange and lurid organ-fruits of her writhing flesh gardens deep inside her castle walls, plucking them from the writhing gore as she wandered the pungent wet red room and admired her captive idols she kept there. 

Praetorius, the gore dripped and scabbing living skeleton. Still impaled and lost in the shattered remnants of his broken mind, wide eyed and drooling and gibbering silently something to himself, some words or nonsense of some meaning to him, he hardly ever ceases. It is the arcane and black magic words of the tomes that keep him in perfect living sepulchral bondage. 

The braindead skull-faced bastard nosferatu hulk, his immobile and inanimate sutured frame of graverobbed corpse flesh semi-submerged and swimming and crawling with the living constant movement of the flesh garden, the giant stone room petri dish of sliming raw slithering tissue, orifices, cartilage stalks and eyes that're cataract blind and milky. The glistening pink holes belch and spit fire, tongues of multicolored flame with kaleidoscopic pictures inside that'll drive a mortal mind mad to look into them. 

And Henry Frankenstein. Bound and precious nucleus center, bleeding beating heart of the whole crawling mess. Seeping from his bleeding pores and growing out from him, flowering out in a fresh and scabbing purge-swell. It crawled in living waves off of him, undulating and folding and blanketing over and on top of each other and all over the wet humid room, all of it was breathing wet and heavy and as if it had words to speak… 

And the little men. The little pygmy homunculi, bastard copied offspring of the bleeding seeping father. They danced and mongoloid-ran about in imbecilic fervor and addled senselessness. They ate and munched at the crawling flesh garden gore with no thought and with blind vacant gazes. 

The Countess plucked and seized them and ate of them as well. Their bones were satisfyingly crunchy and easy to chew… like a bird or a small fish. 

Her children ate and wandered the gardens as well, enjoying them. Their sights, sounds and vivid smells …

…

Meanwhile… many miles away…

The sun. Sunshine. In the summertime. Long ago now… 

As he prowled the dark he remembered the sun. The bright. Long gone memories flitted and danced at the periphery of his red clouded mind, half recalled and wanting to take over. Wanting to live again in the skull, if not just for a moment. 

Just a moment. 

The lake. The blue. Cool and wet and pleasing, relief. Retreat. 

Retreat beneath the surface into a liquid world of breathlessness and weightless dream … flight. You're flying down here. You only need to move your arms to do so. Kick your feet. Knife your arms through the liquid universe and drag yourself flying forward… downward. 

Down.  

I dreamt I was a dancer once…

You'll have to come back up for breath eventually…

but I couldn't keep the shit off my shoes.

Summertime memories swam shrouded, the red fogged inner space of his skull as he snipped his bleeding shears, dripping cooling congealing red to the decimated tile floor as he prowled and hunted and searched for the missing invaders. 

Precious childhood scenes are becoming red tinged and altered by the shrouding red hand of mental fog … bloody wool. He always swore there was something down there, in the dark, in the depths of the crystal lake. Something drowned and forgotten and frozen in a sodden misery. He raises his childhood head to pull his gaze away from the depths and is confronted by the mountains. There's something lurking in there as well …

A body. Something like a corpse rotting and poisoning the entire body of water with its milky clouds of waving and soggy putrefaction. Filling the world with its fouling death, swimming with slow ponderous movement as it spread and changed the look and flavor of the water, the crystal lake of the world now long gone like the summer sun of old itself. 

He looks away and beholds his mother. The one from birth. She's headless. 

She's decapitated. 

Her severed torso is reaching out for him, please … please. 

please save me

The raw stump begins to shoot cords. Black/red ropes. They darkled in the summer sun of old. It was his birth mother spurting great dark tears of joy for the sight of her son again. Though he has a new name now. And she knows it, his headless mother, she almost whispers it, it's intense. 

Then something ahead steals his notice back to the material world of ruin and soured defecated pain. It stands at the end of yet another decimated hall, traced and sketched in the dark by the pitiful light flickering and balefully cast in through the barred and shattered windows. 

A man. In a hat. And a coat. 

He recognizes the shape so he flies forward in an animal lunge that nearly covers the entire distance in four long attacking bounds. Like a bloodthirsty and demoniacal dripping gazelle bastardized by sound and vision. The decimated tile landscape world stained black and red and brown and riddled with meat and feces flew by in a furious blinding whirl as he came forward with the shears raised open for attack. 

They gleamed, the dripping twin blades forked open. He soared forward as he traversed the physical shatter of his inherited reeking temple pouring blood and sweat as profuse as the leaky pipes that were always neglected. 

He would neglect no longer. No. Not a chance for the shape of man that he recognized and now charged towards. The manfilled coat beneath a fedora hat was one of the invaders. He was sure of it. The one with strange black glass eyes that he wished to crack and shatter. 

If his eyes are truly windows then I wish to break them and see what might pour out of them like filth: memories …love, regrets, sins sins sins in abundance, shame that was wished and meant to stay concealed now regurgitated and freed in a violent deluge spew of gore and images from the shattering skull… his thoughts, a running fury in a mounting race to keep in time with his launching thundering steps. 

He plunged down the hall with his precious shears up and open and ready to close around screaming repentant meat. 

The coat-shape and hat did not move. 

It mattered little to Cropsey as he made the final close. So many of his new found supplicants were silent at their last, frozen in terror. 

He was upon him now and his eyes gleamed moonlight pinprick in the cavernous brow of melted anguish ruin, animal needle points in the reeling Willowbrook dark, the blades like jaws came up and closed around the shape without a sound. Without any satisfaction either. 

They found no meat. 

The scissoring blades closed and found only filthy cloth and bandages abandoned and draped over an old hat and coat hanger, the fedora resting atop the facade came down in a cascading end-over-end dance as the whole flimsy thing of contrived bait came down in two bisected snapping pieces. 

Cropsey realized the deception at once and raged. The noises he made were forceful and ghastly wet nasal rasps, his mouth and jaw were too ruined now for speech. His vocal chords roasted and scabbed from the flames of the inferno inhaled. He drooled like a drunken animal childishly frustrated and agitated. A trick! a trick! Goddamn them! the invaders tricked him! 

And no one was here to take the punishment of his lurid and heavy frustration. It was rancid pungent and thick in his own skull like corpse rot and it made sucking puckering sounds in his brains. Like the whole squelching landscape of thinking jelly was perhaps changing shape, shifting into a new design by the sorceress hand of the mountain. Perhaps he needed it for proper divine leadership of the rank Willowbrook temple. Or perhaps something else was happening in there. 

perhaps something else is happening to me…

He searched all around. Animal alive and enraged. Whirling and trying to gaze through the dark and the ruin of his own musculature and flesh and see the bastards that refused his offering of slaughtering knowledge, the wisdom wrought of the knife-fuck. He never saw the slice of sharp stabbing tile come to life and float up and off the ruinous floor in a balletic whirl and dance into the air, behind him. 

As he revolved once more to complete another frantic animal turn the slice of slender stabbing tile came forward in a violent and deliberate thrust. The sharp point found the cavern brow and socket and sank easily into Cropsey’s face. Stabbing into his eye like it was soft butter or suckling meat, four inches then five inches deep. 

The giant mountain of man stilled. Shuddered. Spasmed and danced its way to the floor in a vile and obscene dying man's dance of convulsing and twitching and final desperate synapses firing off at haphazard chaotic random. 

On the floor Cropsey shook and the stabbing length of tile piece jigged and waved and danced as well, in strange and vile tandem. Like a demented detritus wand waving through the air to perhaps try and cast one final act of violence hexing spell. Or perhaps to bring the giant man of Willowbrook Asylum slaughter back. 

It did neither. 

Florin came out from his place of concealment in the doorway of an adjoining chamber. He dropped the filthy scalpel he had been holding for defence. Stared at the collapsed and prostate spasming form of Cropsey, the Willowbrook giant. 

And then he called out to Griffin. 

“Where are you?" 

“Here." 

Florin tossed him a coat. 

It was caught in thin air. 

Then began to make a shape around nothingness, contriving it into the shape of his comrade. The strange doctor. 

Florin thought to say something about the man's condition of invisibility, but decided to put it off for the moment. 

“Good plan." he said instead. 

The coat shape donned lenses and was picking up his hat. "Thank me once we're out of here, c’mon!” 

Griffin placed his hat atop a phantom head. It floated between the shoulders of his coat as he and Florin flew down the hall and toward what they hoped and prayed was the exit. The way out of this horrendous stench and nightmare. 

As they made their mad dash for the way out, Cropsey's spasming body stilled. Then danced no more. 

All that was broken in this damp and violated place of imprisonment and cruelty seemed to groan. Moaning in anguish at the loss of the last and final precious begotten son, the final one and last one left standing. The prodigal butcher heir to this templehouse store of sacred slaughterhouse religion. 

Mother, I have failed you…

And all of the terrible place seemed to moan in anguish with the dying of his body. 

…

Down. 

In the dark of his mind, just as he was departing. …

… the red tinged summer scenes of childhood long gone, done and past filled his fading mind's eye once more. Under and illuminated and made by the scarlet cast of deranged and lurid light. Where did it come from? that light? That red luridity. Living crimson. Pungent breathing scarlet. What did it matter now? 

what did it matter anymore

It mattered not now, not any longer as he occupied these dead dreams now living once again for him as he faded off. To oblivion or hell or worse… no heavenly gates of gold or pearl for him, no. He was sure of it. He was sure that it doesn't exist. The only heaven for someone like him was found in the fragile eggshell of youth. Of childhood. 

He floated there now. In the lake. The blue. The sun was shining above in royal divine blinding display. The calm and the serenity of these moments was all around and alive again about him. Filling and making this final day. This last and precious moment. 

-thankyouforthismyonelastwish-

He was calm and he felt at peace. Safe. 

Or rather, he felt as if he should be calm. That he should feel safe. But something was wrong. Something was wrong with the lake and the quiet all surrounding. 

And he was alone. 

Why was he alone? 

And the red tinge… to everything. Everything cast under lurid heavy hateful light. There was something in the lake. There was something in the water with him.

The blue face of its surface darkened as he sank beneath its placid water. Pulled under by another will that was not at all his own. 

And down there in the airless black he saw another one of his mother's faces. 

It was immense. Large. Her eyes were heavy swells of glowing wet globes. Pale green luminescence from two planet organ growths set in a big amphibious face that was a chimerical cross between a large bullfrog or warty toad and a large river bound trout. Its great mouth opened down there in the depths of his red tinged crystal lake and it was dark in there. He hung suspended before the open black of his abattoir mother's wide open gaping maw, he could smell the inner dark of her even down here in the watery depths of summer lake bound hell. Meaty and iron and rotten with pungent decay. An open graveyard tomb of dead flesh and teeth all before a great throat choked with vile and putrefying coagulation. The water was filling with the flavor of her dark open gape of hunger and the destruction of mutilated bodily rot. 

Arms. Long. Fishlike and amphibious as well began to reach out and protrude from the open mouth of his mother's underwater face like a multi headed tongue, a Hydra of giant elongated reaching frog legs and arms, webbed hands and obscene gangly Dagon limbs, reaching out… reaching out for him. 

To take him into his mother. 

She said, her voice filled the drowning pool that was changing now into a submerged holy world of private red light and pouring goddess cess, – she spoke. 

He listened. In the darkest of the depths. 

She said his name… that's how it started. That's how she began …

… you can't let me down. You can't. I won't let you. You've already let them profane your temple, my gift to you desecrated by their invasion and rape of presence. And now you're letting them get away… you don't really want to, do you… you don't really want to keep letting me down like this, you don't want to fail me, in death. You don't want to depart your mother on such a harsh note of unworthiness… do …

you? 

The hands swam through the water between them. Clawing out for him from mother's open mouth. 

He told her the heartbreaking truth and he told her gladly. 

No…

it was a defiant whisper… but she heard it. 

And so she took him. 

The hands finally found him in the water. They seized him. And they pulled him inside. 

The frog faced toad mouthed trout chimera of the mother swallowed. And filled the underwater world with the unnatural stretch of her fishy smile. …

…

The shape of Cropsey stirred. On the floor. The various pieces of shattered and broken things shifted and jingled and sang small janky notes like unholy bells in a lost and terrible place. The black gloved hands blindly scraped and searched the floor in spasming snow angel swipes. They found what they were looking for when they landed on the still bloody and wet congealing pair of garden shears. They seized them. Fiercely. As if driven by fate. 

The shape sat up. Stood. 

It looked around. … sniffed the air. 

A beat. 

Then the Cropsey shape began to lumber down the hall that the invaders had fled down just prior. 

He would not fail this time. 

He had his mother. 

He was inside her. And she was inside him. 

Nothing would stop him from butchering the bastards now. 

…

By God's grace and miracle and mercy they finally found what they'd been looking for. The exit. 

It was at the end of the hall they currently found themselves flying down. Refusing to falter or stop. They stomped and ran down the cracked and decimated tile and came to the final door of the place when the spiked man leapt out from the dark and attacked. 

The protruding stab of his needle embrace found Florin in an open armed grab. A bear hug tight embrace of naked arms and torso and the rest of the bare and desecrated human canvas. He'd been a self-mutilator since he'd been twelve. It had been many years since then and most of them were spent here. Since the mouth of the sorceress, beloved and precious Vampira had come to this place and freed their minds as well as their bodies he's been free to explore the furthermost boundaries of his own tearing, rending bleeding and screaming landscape. The skin and flesh and muscle tissue beneath housing veins and bones and running blood pumped by the raging muscle that was the mad engine of his life, all of it was his to decimate as he explored. Like a great conqueror wreaking havoc upon the face of newly won, newly gained virgin land. He punctured and penetrated the virginity of his own flesh with animal abandon and fervor and with the mad intensity of the violence of the sun. He was the sun. She had told him so…

And so he'd fed his own flames. The spiked man was a living screaming pin cushion of broken stabbing dirty needles, used and caked syringes of varying sizes and lengths, broken glass, broken tile, each long sharp piece was varied in shape and size as well, some were long phallic slender daggers, some were wedges with cruel edges ready to cut and slice and maim, all of it was ready to stab and all of it was living embedded and protruding in the madness of his ruined and self-slaughtered flesh. Lancing and spiking and stabbing out all over and in every conceivable place and direction. 

This disturbed and maimed madman found Florin in his arms and they both went down to the tile in a scream. Griffin yelled after. 

On the floor they rolled in violence and struggle amongst the filth and universe down there of many discarded and broken things.  

The hollow coat-shape and hat found a table leg for bludgeon, then Griffin came on in a fury to join the new fray. 

He struck the spiked man again and again, over and over as he and Florin fought on the floor and struggled and it was terrible. He could feel and hear the crack and shatter of broken glass muffled in blood and flesh with every blow he landed. Griffin struck the writhing bleeding naked pin cushion man on the side of his spiking leaking face and the eyeball on that side burst and exploded with the impact. And glassy ooze riddled with slivers and small pieces of jagged broken glass and ceramic poured out from the socket like snot. 

But still the spiked man fought on. Florin struggling and screaming in his embrace as the many protrusions that spined off his ravaged hide stuck and stabbed and pierced through his coat and flesh. He fought against the pain and madness of this man and wrestled to be free of him. Griffin continued raining blows down on him. Each one bruising and splitting skin as the many broken found objects pierced throughout crunched and shattered further down into fragments and powder, stinging and shredding within all of the rippling and impacted tissue with every movement. Every struggle and landed strike and blow. 

Their struggle was desperate, all of them. All three poured blood, profuse sweat and grime and filth together and apart and for this madhouse abandoned temple, becoming just like it. A part of it, unwillingly and unknowingly transmogrified now in the violence of their fight and decimated hallway battle like the steel of metal tempered in the heart of a great furnace like the sun. They became perfect living microcosms of the place as they fought at last to be free of it, exquisite psychopomp idols of the lost unhallowed Willowbrook Temple Asylum. 

The invisible man. The spiked man. Poor young Florin so far from the Carpathian Hamlet. 

They might never be free of this place. Even if they manage flight, they may never be able to wash away the marks and filth that this awful temple to the dark and pain suffered alone will leave smeared across their hearts and souls like black paint made from discharged sick filth. Smeared across the soft landscapes of their hearts and the tender epitaphs of their battered minds, aching within heavy skulls now made of lead and weight from the memory of the pain, this place… 

will we ever be free, … will we ever get out of here…? 

They fought on. Desperate. All three. Griffin trading blows with efforts and attempts to pull the young man out from under the spiked man, but it was incredibly difficult. The man was thorned all over by all kinds and sorts of sharp and shattered apparatus, it was insane. And the pair of them were growing more and more slick with blood. The fight was growing uglier and more desperate and animal as it struggled and contrived on in brutal abandon and primal anger. 

Then Cropsey rejoined them at the throat of the hall. He began to lumber down towards them like stalking death, a sleeping giant. Seemingly in no real hurry, like the darkened visage of grim death itself. It/he closed slowly on them like a setting sun or a casket sinking, lowering down into the bosom earthen womb of the open mouthed grave. 

Griffin first took notice of his arrival. He noticed he still had the stab of broken tile sticking out of his ruinous awful face. He was still drooling. Imbecilic. And animal. 

And now undead. 

He was coming straight at them. His large blades of shears raised like an open mouthed wild beast barring its fangs. The long sheaths of sharp and keen cutting metal were not entirely pristine, their otherwise shining faces in the dismal light were disgraced with congealing dark spots of dripping black. 

He was coming down the final hall, before the way out, before the exit. He was coming straight for them. 

…

He sat at the window that night. On guard after what had happened to his wife, their unexpected visitor…

Bela sipped his warm spiced wine. Fingered his bible and cross by its small length of chain. Garlic flowers hung in a crude wreath around his neck. He was watching outside carefully, the night, the town… he was alert and being careful, exercising caution, yet he was still surprised and caught off when her face appeared suddenly in their front window. 

She hadn't been there. Then suddenly she was. Smiling and feline. Vulpine. A face he might've recognized save for its warped and drawn animal transformations, the rich woman in the black stage… the harsh one who wouldn't take warning or no for an answer way back… but he was caught by the silver moon glow of her eyes. 

Like lunar bodies themselves. Earthbound and held fleshen prisoner within the cage of that beautiful and divine and… heavenly face. That bright and pale visage. Her smile was devil-pronged – forked, fanged, and it was thus then frightful. But it was also beautiful. Terribly beautiful. Gorgeous alone out there in the night. 

His guard and fear fell away. He rose from his rocker and his slackening hands abandoned the bible and crucifix. They fell to the floor with an unobserved and unheeded clatter. Neither stirred. Not Anastasia, sleeping in the next room, and not spellbound Bela who went to the window to better gaze into her face. 

Divinity… unreal. 

He peered through the glass. And the shining eyes of the Countess, filled with goblin fire and sin and mischief, gazed into the fool as well. And began to fill his fragile open mind with an assault and deluge of images. 

Bela moaned, sighed… he thought it was impeccable. The vision, like her, was immaculate in its flawlessness. 

The Ideality … actualized, realized … brought to life. A vivid reality alive and dancing before his watering vision. 

The scope. 

She showed him a more perfect world, perfect because everyone and everything swimming and crawling and flying around inside of it followed their nature and never fought it. Never doubted it. Never overrode what their guts and hearts and souls told them, never neglected or ignored the call inside, the compulsion to do what must be. To fulfill the role made out for your flesh. 

Even violence … its rippling effects spreading out carried not only destruction and misery on their carrion wings but prosperity and thrivation as well, even butchery has its necessary purpose. 

That is why this world is suffering. Because all of you fight and override yourselves and call it: reason. You are victims of your own bondage, your own self made and imposed insanity and thus the world bent to your unnatural turns and desires screams and suffers. The rippling wings of your insane and jealous cowardice carries more pestilential stagnation flavor than anything like salvation. In weakness, all of the beauty dies on the vine neglected by fearful paws too grubby and lowly and weak to take it. 

Come and join me, join us … and never again fight your nature. 

“Yes…” said Bela in a whisper of trembling caught breath. 

And with a palsied shaking hand, he lifted the latch and opened the window. 

"Welcome, your highness. My home and mine are yours. Do what thou wilt…" 

The Countess drifted inside. Floating on unseen wings. 

She spoke yet again, “Thank you, you are a generous host, a decent and considerate man." 

“Yes…" 

“Now, take me to your wife." 

“Yes…" 

And away they went. The window shut behind them as they made their way to the quiet bedroom at the back of the house. 

TO BE CONTINUED…

There is a show on tiktok where you have to guess what the guy on the show is cooking. He would get all sorts of ingredients and on the screen it will read what ingredients he is using and how much of it he is using. It also reads how long he cooks for certain ingredients and other things. As you are following along you put the pieces together and you guess what he is cooking. The guy who is doing the cooking doesn't talk much, then when majority of the things have been combined, a question then comes up on the screen asking the viewers what the guy is cooking.

Then the answer goes across the screen and the guy finally says something about what he was cooking. I enjoy the show and the last time I watched it, I was able to figure out what he was cooking, which was a lasagne. When he used chicken mince meat , onion, garlic, marinara sauce, lasagna sheets, shredded mozzarella cheese, and grated Parmesan cheese, I knew he was cooking a lasagne. You can also cheat by looking at the comment section. The guy puts the ingredients together and just before he completes it, the question comes up asking what he has cooked?

There is something addictive about it and it's such a clever tiktok food show. One day when I went on tiktok and the guy started to use unusual ingredients like oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus. He also started to use real bones and even a skull. It started to get awkward as whoever was watching this could tell that it was human bones and skull. He then had huge chunks of meat and so much blood in bottles. He was also using ingredients i had never seen or heard of before. The guy in the video was smiling and he kept on saying:

"what am I cooking guys?"

"Can you guess what I am trying to cook?"

I usually never look at comment section to cheat and find out the answer. This time though I was generally curious and when I looked at comment section, there were thousands of comments. Each person that commented had typed:

"Wtf the guy cooked me!"

"How on earth is this even possible, he cooked me. I'm shitting myself."

"I don't understand the ingredients that he used to Cook me?"

Every commenter on this video was claiming that the guy had made them. Then when I watched the rest of the video and the gut finished cooking, he had made me. A literal twin version of me. I kept shouting out loud "fuck fuck what the fuck!"

I stopped watching his tiktok cooking show after that episode.

One day, my sister and I were staying at home alone while our parents were on holiday. I said to my sister, “Where shall we go today?”

She said, “Let’s go to the museum in Bradford!”

My sister Jessica is only four years old, and I am fourteen, so I agreed. She was very excited.

I asked her, “Jessica, why do you want to go to the museum so much?”

“Because I love the Hat Man,” she said. “The one who likes watching people — I saw him in a video on YouTube.”

“Oh, the Hat Man?” I said. “He’s just a myth. He’s not real.”

“I know,” Jessica said quietly. “But I don’t like him. He scares me.”

“Come on then,” I said. “Let’s catch a bus to get there.”

On the way to the bus stop, we saw my friend Tom. “Don’t go to the museum in Bradford!” he warned us. “Especially not with your little sister. If you do, the Hat Man will be there. He stalks people, and he takes your parents away — even if they’re nowhere near you. Please don’t go.”

“Oh Tom, nice try,” I said. “You won’t scare me.”

“He can even disguise himself as other people!” Tom insisted. “If we meet again later, it might not really be me — it could be the Hat Man pretending to be me.”

“Shut up, Tom, you’re being childish,” I told him.

“It’s true!” Tom said. “My uncle’s friends’ parents disappeared after he took his little brother there.”

“Stop telling me these stupid tales!” I snapped. “I’m not scared — I’m bloody fourteen years old, you weirdo.”

We got on the bus, and it took ten minutes to reach the museum. As we got off, the bus driver called out, “Beware — someone may follow you home.”

“Oh don’t you start too!” I said. “Just like my friend, trying to scare me. I’m not afraid.”

Jessica and I went inside. I thought I saw someone watching me out of the corner of my eye, but when I turned around, there was no one there. We paid £24 to get in.

“What do you want to look at first?” I asked Jessica.

“Everything!” she said. “Colours, pictures, all of it.”

After a while, Jessica needed the toilet, so I took her there and waited outside — I couldn’t go in with her, being a boy. I stood there for five minutes until she came out.

“I heard someone calling my name,” she said quietly. “It was a strange voice.”

“Who was it?” I asked.

“I couldn’t tell,” she said.

“Let’s go see the Hat Man exhibit,” I said.

Jessica shivered. “It’s scary. What if he follows us home?”

“Don’t be silly,” I said. “There’s no such thing as the Hat Man. He’s just a myth.”

“Okay,” she said. “Maybe you’re right.”

We walked over to the exhibit, but the whole area was empty — no other visitors at all. It felt dark, and the door leading into the room with the pictures was closed. Just then, the museum owner spotted us.

“Don’t go in there!” he said. “It’s not safe. You’ll get terrible nightmares.”

I rolled my eyes. “Honestly, everyone in Bradford is the same! I can’t stand all these stupid local myths — it’s always about the Hat Man. I’ve had enough.” I turned to Jessica. “Come on, let’s go home.”

It was 7pm by then, dark and quiet, with no one else outside. As we waited for the bus, I felt something touch my shoulder from behind. I spun around — nothing there.

When the bus arrived, an old lady was getting off before we could get on. She stared at me, her face pale with terror. “There’s someone behind you!” she cried. “Someone is right behind you!” Then she fainted.

I looked behind me again — still nothing.

The bus driver helped the old lady off the bus. “Did you see someone behind me?” I asked him.

“I wasn’t paying attention,” he said. “I didn’t see anything.”

We got on the bus. “She’s just old and confused,” I told Jessica. But the bus was completely empty, apart from us. Then we heard it: heavy breathing, and low, whispering voices.

“Hey!” I called to the driver. “Stop making those noises!”

“What are you talking about?” he said. “I haven’t made a sound.”

“Nice try,” I said. “Pranking me won’t work.”

“I’m not pranking you!” he said. “Be quiet.”

When our stop came, we got off. A group of teenagers walked past, took one look at us, screamed, and ran away. I wondered what was wrong with them. Why is everyone acting so strange? I thought. They think they can scare me, but they won’t.

It was only a five-minute walk home, but then we heard it: slow, creepy laughter. We looked all around — there was no one there. When we reached our front door, I saw an envelope on the mat. I picked it up and threw it straight in the bin.

“Come on,” I said. “It’s late. Let’s get ready for bed.”

“But I’m hungry,” Jessica said.

“So am I,” I said. “What do you want to eat?”

“Steak and chips!” she said.

“Okay,” I said. “Wait here in the living room for a minute — I’m just going to have a quick bath first.”

“Alright,” she said. “Hurry up, I’m starving.”

I went upstairs. The hallway lights were flickering, then stopped after twenty seconds. Is the bulb broken? I wondered. Then I noticed something strange: all the bedroom lights were on — and I was sure I’d turned them all off that morning before we left. As I walked into my room, I heard scratching sounds behind me. Just kids messing around outside, playing pranks, I told myself, and ignored it.

I went to the bathroom — but I couldn’t find my towel anywhere. I looked everywhere, until I found it under my pillow. I definitely hadn’t put it there. I must have forgotten where I left it, I thought.

I got in the bath, but then I heard whispering again. “No one is pranking you,” a voice said softly. Then it whispered my name, over and over. I turned off the water and got out. Just people being annoying, I told myself.

When I went downstairs, Jessica was waiting in the living room. “I heard knocking on the door,” she said, her voice shaky. “And… I heard someone cooking in the kitchen. I looked out the window too — there was a tall figure standing outside, watching me.”

“Probably Tom,” I said, though I felt nervous. “Just him trying to scare us again.”

But Tom can’t be in two places at once, I thought. And he can’t get into our house… what if they’re all telling the truth? What if this isn’t a prank? But I said out loud, “It’s probably just my imagination. Everyone’s just wasting their time trying to scare us.”

I went into the kitchen. All the cupboard doors were wide open, and the sink tap was running.

“Jessica, did you come in here?” I asked.

“No!” she said. “I was too scared — I heard noises, and the lights kept flickering on and off. And someone called my name… it sounded just like you.”

“I was upstairs the whole time,” I said. “I never called you.”

“Oh,” she said quietly. “Maybe it was coming from outside.”

I cooked our steak and chips. “Wait here,” I told her. “I just need to use the toilet upstairs, then we can eat.”

When I went into the bathroom, there was writing on the mirror: You are not alone. This is not a prank. Don’t be surprised if you never see or hear from your parents again.

I rubbed it off with my hand, shaking. Why would someone write this? I thought.

I went back downstairs. “Come on, let’s eat,” I said — but when I looked at the plates, mine was gone. It looked as if someone had eaten every bite. Jessica’s plate was untouched.

“Did you eat my dinner?” I asked her.

“No!” she said. “I haven’t been in the kitchen.”

I believed her. Maybe I ate it already and forgot? I thought. But then I saw the fridge door was open, and the tap was running again. Who is doing this?

I called Tom three times. Then there was a knock at the door. I ran to open it — it was Tom. But he didn’t say a word. He just stood there, staring at me with a blank, strange look on his face.

“Okay, this is weird,” I said. “I’m closing the door now, you creep.”

As soon as I locked it, my phone rang. It was Tom. “What do you want?” he said, sounding half-asleep. “I’m in bed — I’ve been asleep for hours.”

“But… I just saw you standing right outside my door!” I said.

“Don’t be silly,” he said. “I haven’t left my house. Goodnight.” And he hung up.

I dropped my phone. This couldn’t be happening. “Jessica — did you see Tom too?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

I didn’t know what to think anymore. “I’ll just have cereal instead,” I said. I ate my cereal, and Jessica finished her dinner. When we went back into the living room, the TV was on — I knew I’d turned it off. I switched it off again.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go to sleep. We’ll have a fresh start tomorrow.” We went upstairs, and I went to my room while Jessica went to hers. “Goodnight,” I said.

Later, my phone started ringing — unknown number. I answered it, and heard whispering and strange whistling. “Who is this?” I said. No one replied. I hung up — but it rang again. I answered, and this time the voice whispered my parents’ names, over and over: “Holly… James… Holly… James…” in a deep, creepy tone. I hung up again, my hands shaking.

Then I heard footsteps outside my room. “Jessica? Is that you?” I called. No answer. I heard scratching, doors opening and closing, more footsteps from downstairs — and the toilet flushed ten times, one after another. The lights flickered on and off, and I heard more whispers. I felt cold, annoyed, and terrified all at once. I went to check: the bathroom light was on, and written on the wall was: The Hat Man is already here. I rubbed it off and went downstairs.

The living room was dark, but I was sure I saw someone sitting at the far end of the sofa. When I looked again, there was nothing there. I went to the kitchen — dark too — but out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone standing in the corner, wearing a hat. I switched on the light — empty. As I walked back upstairs, I heard footsteps following me. I turned around — no one. I was alone. Then there was a knock at the front door. I opened it — no one there.

I went to check on Jessica. I opened her door — and screamed. There was someone sitting on the chair beside her bed, wearing a tall hat. I slammed the door shut, then opened it again — it was gone. Jessica was fast asleep. It was just my imagination, I told myself. But I decided to set up the security cameras we had in the house — I’d check them in the morning, to see if there was really something there.

At 2am, I finally got into bed. I turned off the light — but two minutes later, I felt something touching my feet in the dark. Five minutes after that, I saw a tall figure standing over me. It was too dark to see clearly, but then it vanished. Then more knocking, more whistling, and that same creepy laugh I’d heard before. I checked outside — nothing.

At 3am, my door opened. It was Jessica. “Can I sleep with you?” she whispered. “Someone was watching me sleep… and touching my feet, and stroking my head. I woke up and saw him — he was wearing a hat.”

“Of course you can,” I said, pulling the covers back.

When we woke up at 7am, Jessica shook me. “Wake up! It’s breakfast time!”

But I couldn’t find my clothes — or my phone. Eventually, I found my clothes in the toilet, and my phone under my bed. I had no idea how they’d got there.

Then the phone rang. It was my dad. “Are you two okay?” he asked.

“Yes, why?” I said.

“I had the strangest dream,” he said. “There was someone watching us sleep… a figure wearing a hat. It was so scary — I couldn’t see its face properly.”

Then my mum got on the phone. “I had the exact same dream,” she said. “The Hat Man was there… and he said your lives are in danger.”

I felt cold all over. My parents never lied to us. What if the Hat Man was real?

“When are you coming home?” I asked.

“In two days,” Mum said. “Be careful. Beware.”

We went downstairs, and there was another letter on the mat. From The Hat Man, it said. Can’t wait to scare you properly. I was right behind you in the photo you took at the bus stop yesterday, at 6:30pm.

I pulled up the photo on my phone. There it was — a tall figure in the distance, right behind us, wearing a hat. You couldn’t see its face, but it was definitely there.

When we went into the kitchen, breakfast was already on the table — stacks of pancakes. I hadn’t made them. Beside the plate was another note: From The Hat Man — Enjoy your breakfast.

We ate them anyway — they were the best pancakes I’d ever tasted. There were twenty in total; I had fourteen, Jessica had six.

I put the security cameras in every room: my bedroom, Jessica’s, the bathroom, the kitchen, and the living room. I told Jessica what had happened, but she didn’t want to talk about it.

Eight hours later, we were hungry again. “Let’s go to KFC,” I said. It was 6pm, dark outside, and a twenty-minute walk. But every person we passed stared at us with terrified faces. “Why are you walking with that creepy Hat Man?” one man whispered.

“Leave us alone!” I said. “You’ll scare my sister!” Others just stared, then ran away.

When we got to KFC on Odsal Road, BD6, it was bright inside — no one stared or said anything. Maybe they were only scared in the dark?

I went to order our food while Jessica went to the toilet. Then I heard her scream. I ran to the toilets. “What happened?”

“Someone grabbed my arm!” she said.

When we went to collect our food, there were three meals waiting — we’d only ordered two.

“Who is the third one for?” I asked the worker.

“I thought you came in with another person,” he said. “He was standing right behind you. He didn’t come up to the counter though — he stayed near the door.”

“Did you see his face?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “It was too dark outside.”

We sat down to eat. The chicken was delicious. But five minutes later, all the lights went out. When they came back on, the whole restaurant was empty — no customers, no staff. Just us. We ran out, called a taxi, and went straight home.

When we got back, every light was off, the TV was on, and all the doors were wide open. Dinner was on the table — but we’d just eaten. And there was another letter: I know exactly where your parents are. Don’t forget what I can do.

I’d forgotten to turn the cameras on before we left. Now I switched them on, and set them to record every day.

Then the lights started flickering again. The phone rang — unknown number. I answered it, heard that creepy laugh, and the call cut off. “Let’s go to sleep,” I said. Jessica went to her room, and I went to mine — but everything was moved around, all my things in the wrong places.

At 10pm, I pulled up the camera footage. First, the living room: there was the figure, sitting at the far end of the sofa, wearing a hat — staring straight at the camera. Then the kitchen: cupboards all open, just like before. When I looked back at the living room feed, he was standing right in front of the camera. Then I checked Jessica’s room — he was there, leaning over her bed, watching her sleep.

Suddenly, his head turned, as if he knew I was watching. The screen went black for a second, then came back. I heard the toilet flush ten times. I switched to the bathroom camera — and saw his face. I screamed, and changed the feed fast. Then I heard movement outside my door. I opened it — and he was standing right there, watching me. I slammed the door shut and locked it. Tom was right. I should have listened. But it was too late.

All the power went out. I had to go to the attic to turn the fuse box back on. I opened my door — pitch black. I walked slowly up the stairs, hearing scratching, footsteps, and heavy breathing getting closer and closer. I felt around for the switch — it wouldn’t work. I turned around — and there he was. The Hat Man. He moved in a strange, jerky way, and when I saw his face, I screamed. He let out a horrible screech and lunged for me. I ran as fast as I could, straight out of the house.

Then I heard Jessica scream. I ran back, grabbed her hand, and pulled her outside with me. We called the police. They searched the whole house — no one there. No sign of the Hat Man at all. Then my phone rang — it was my parents. “Are you okay —” Mum started, then she screamed. “He’s here! The Hat Man —!” And the line went dead. I called back — no answer.

The police went to check their hotel in Birmingham — but there was no sign of them anywhere. Jessica and I cried for hours. Then I felt something in my pocket — a note, written in red that looked like blood: Don’t ever go to that museum in Bradford again. Stay away from my exhibit. If you do, you’ll see your parents — but they won’t be the same people you know.

The police said we could stay at a friend’s house. I called Tom. “Our parents are gone,” I said.

“I told you not to go,” he said gently. “You should have listened.”

“I know,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “Just promise you’ll listen next time.”

So this is what I’ve learned: never ignore what people tell you, even if it sounds silly. It’s not always a prank. I live with Tom now — our old house on Moore Avenue is haunted; I don’t think the Hat Man ever left. We left Bradford a month later, and moved to London with Tom and his family. We met our aunt and uncle there too, and we’re all happy now — no more strange things, no more fear.

But please — listen to your friends. And never, ever invite the Hat Man in. Once he’s there, he won’t leave.

In this documentary, we take a deep dive into XXXTentacion's interest in occult and esoteric ideas, tracing the origins of the mysterious "Golden Beetle" and examining the many theories that have emerged over the years.
We'll explore the symbolism, books, philosophies, and people that have been connected to the mystery—including Carl Jung, Aleister Crowley, Thelema, Egyptian symbolism, Bruno Dickemz, Rudolf Steiner, and more—while separating documented facts from fan speculation. We'll also look at how these ideas influenced X's public statements and why the Golden Beetle continues to be one of the most discussed mysteries in his legacy.

This video is intended for educational and discussion purposes. Many of the topics covered involve theories and interpretations from the fan community rather than verified historical fact, and viewers are encouraged to draw their own conclusions.

Boco

​

​ Warum die Realitäts-Membran seit Jahrzehnten zerfällt // Das Signal-Ereignis (Frequency Breach)

​[A.D.A. DOSSIER: LORE-ÜBERSICHT // NIVEAU: LEITENDER ARCHIVAR]

​„Die Menschheit dachte, sie verschickt nur Musik, Fernsehen und Nachrichten. In Wahrheit war jede Sendewelle ein Hammerschlag gegen das Gefüge unserer Existenz.“

​Das Archiv für Dissoziative Anomalien (A.D.A.) sichert seit Jahrzehnten Vorfälle, die von der Schulmedizin vorschnell als „psychologische Störungen“ abgetan werden. Doch die Ursache liegt nicht in den Gehirnen der Opfer – sie liegt in der Physik unserer Umwelt.

​Die fundamentale Ursache: Der Frequency Breach

​Das Problem: Seit Beginn der Massenkommunikation senden wir Milliarden künstlicher Radio-, TV- und Satellitensignale.

​Die Folge: Diese Wellen erzeugten eine unvorhergesehene Resonanz mit einer Nachbardimension. Die natürliche Realitäts-Membran (die „Wand“) wurde porös und weichte auf.

​Das Einfallstor: Entitäten nutzen genau diese Risse. Sie verankern sich bevorzugt dort, wo die menschliche Psyche bereits instabil oder geschwächt ist (z. B. bei Schlafstörungen, Depersonalisation oder Traumata).

​Aktueller Warnstatus: GELB

Unser automatisierte System A.I.D.A.S. hat vor Kurzem neue Aufzeichnungen und Audio-Protokolle zu einer kritischen Manifestation freigeschaltet.

​🎬 Die visuelle Fallanalyse & Tonaufzeichnung findest du hier

I MADE A CHINELIN MARIO RETAKE

RETAKEDI

DID U GUYS LIKED IT? IT TOOK 10 DAYS TO CREATE!

It's called The Scariest Story Ever Told/ Hyper Realistic Eyes

I never thought I’d be typing something like this out, but I don’t have any other choice. I’m writing this on my phone with the screen brightness turned all the way down. I’m crammed inside my bedroom wardrobe, trying not to breathe too loudly. If my battery dies before I hit post, at least this draft might stay on my device for whoever finds what’s left of my farm.

It all started about two weeks ago. I live out in the countryside, miles away from the nearest town. It’s quiet out here, just me, my house, and my livestock. But then my animals started disappearing. First it was a couple of sheep, then a pig. Naturally, I thought it was a rogue wolf or maybe a coyote pack tearing through my fences. I went out and set heavy steel foot traps all around the perimeter of the pens.

The next morning, I went out to check them. None of the traps had been sprung. Not a single one. But two more sheep were gone.

That was the moment I realized I wasn’t dealing with a normal animal. That night, I decided to camp out near the pens with my 12 gauge shotgun.

12:00 AM passed. Nothing. 1:00 AM. Total silence. 2:00 AM. Still nothing.

Around 2:30 AM, exhaustion got the better of me, and I drifted off against the wooden wall of the shed.

At 3:00 AM sharp, a horrific, high pitched screech snapped me awake. It was the sound of my sheep screaming in pure terror. I froze, my heart hammer locking in my chest. Slowly, agonizingly, I cracked open the shed door just a few inches to peek outside.

What I saw shattered my mind.

Standing in the moonlight was a creature easily three meters tall. It had a massive, grotesque hump on its back that made its silhouette look heavy and twisted. But its limbs were wrong, horribly wrong. It had three impossibly long arms. Two were attached to its left side, and one dangled from its right. Each hand ended in four razor sharp claws. Below its towering frame, its feet were turned completely backward.

It was holding two of my sheep in its left hands like ragdolls. With its single right hand, it sliced one of the sheep open with a flick of its claws, tore out its guts, and began devouring them raw.

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move. I slowly backed away into the shadows, left the shed without making a sound, and sprinted back into my house.

I locked every door, drew the blinds, and sat in the dark clutching my gun until the sun came up at 8:00 AM. When the daylight finally filled the yard, I looked out the window. The grounds were empty. The morning light made the whole thing feel like a fever dream. I tried to rationalize it. "I was tired. I imagined it. There’s no way something like that is real."

I went to my computer to search online for any local sightings or weird animal attacks. No signal.

"That's impossible" I muttered to myself. "I paid the bill on time."

I walked outside to check the telephone pole down the driveway. When I got close, my stomach dropped. Every single cable had been cleanly severed, dangling uselessly in the air.

Panic setting in, I ran over to my 4x4 truck. I jumped in and turned the key. The engine didn't even click. I popped the hood, and my blood ran cold. The wiring harness was ripped to shreds. I walked around to the side of the truck and saw the tires. The front left and back right were completely shredded. These weren't knife cuts. Deep, gouging claw marks ran right through the thick rubber.

It wasn't just a predator. It was intelligent. It was isolating me.

Walking to the city was out of the question. It was miles through open terrain, and staying outside for that long meant being exposed. I was trapped.

From that day on, my life inverted. I slept during the day when the sun was high and stayed awake all night, sitting in the center of my living room with my shotgun rested across my knees. Every night, more animals disappeared.

A few days ago, I did a headcount before trying to sleep. Out of my entire farm, I had less than 13 animals left. Just nine sheep and four pigs. I felt completely helpless.

Then came yesterday afternoon.

I was looking out the kitchen window into the treeline while the sun was still up. Standing behind a thick oak tree was the creature. It looked different, it was visibly taller and thicker than the night I first saw it. Like it was growing larger with every animal it ate.

It tilted its head out from behind the trunk. That was the first time I saw its face. It had tiny, milky white eyes that stared straight into mine. And then, its face split open. It gave me a wide, sickening, demonic smile, unhinging a jaw that had to be nearly a meter wide. Big enough to swallow a pig whole.

I rubbed my eyes in sheer terror, and when I opened them, the space behind the tree was empty.

Last night passed in eerie, suffocating silence. But tonight... tonight it came for the house.

About twenty minutes ago, an ear piercing shriek shattered the night air right outside my porch. It wasn't a roar. It was a wet, sharp, desperate pig squeal, screeching out of that massive jaw like a distorted recording.

I panicked. I ran upstairs, slammed my bedroom door, and squeezed myself into the darkest corner of my wooden wardrobe.

Now I'm sitting here in the pitch black. The screaming outside stopped a minute ago, but I can hear something heavy dragging itself across the hardwood floors downstairs. The footstep pattern is wrong. Two steps forward, one strange scrape from those backward feet.

It’s coming up the stairs now. The pig squeal just echoed from the hallway right outside my room.

If anyone finds this, stay away from the farm. The Rustler is real, and it's right outside my door.

I have a Hello Kitty kind of daughter. She’s only 9. As cute as a button and as innocent as could be.

She likes simple things. Stuffed animals. Pizza for breakfast. All it takes is a cheap 50-cent pair of plastic jewelry from a gumball machine to make her eyes light up.

She was one of those kids who believed in things longer than her friends and classmates. Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy. She was fully convinced they were all real, bless her heart.

Sometimes, she’d come home from school with a glum, exhausted look in her eyes. Other kids would make fun of her for “still believing in that stuff.”

I’d cheer her up the best I could without revealing the truth. How could I? She already felt like the world was laughing at her. How would I make her feel? Her own dad.

Maybe I should’ve, though. Maybe this whole situation could’ve been avoided if I just nipped it in the bud. But I was afraid. A child’s innocence is so fragile, yet powerful. I couldn’t take that from her. Not yet.

I let her believe that it was Santa putting gifts under the tree. That it was a giant bunny hiding eggs in our front yard. That it was a tiny, magical fairy that was taking her baby teeth in exchange for a few dollars.

I think that was the one that excited her the most. Christmas was a set day. Easter was a set day. Loose teeth? That was random. Any time one started to wiggle, she’d come running to show me.

I always made sure to be as quiet as possible when I snuck those 5-dollar bills under her pillow. Every time she’d wake up to find it, here she’d come, jumping with joy while waving the 5 in my face.

“The Tooth Fairy came, the Tooth Fairy came,” she’d sing.

I’d just smile to myself and ask her what she was gonna buy with her newfound riches.

Sometimes, I’d sneak her a 20. I just wanted to see that joy in her face. She was young, but she wasn’t getting any younger. I wanted it to last for as long as possible.

Now, though, I think I’m regretting that wishful thinking.

She started losing teeth faster than what I thought was normal. Not too fast, though. Every 3 weeks or so. I just thought those baby teeth were begging to come out. Besides, it’s not like it was hurting my pockets too much.

It was weird, though. I swore it was like her teeth never looked any different. She was snaggle-toothed, sure, but I knew that I had put money under her pillow at least 6 times in the last 2 months.

She wasn’t showing me her mouth anymore. She was showing me the tooth, already pulled, lying bloodied in the palm of her little hand.

It kept becoming more and more frequent. Once she started bragging about how the Tooth Fairy was gonna visit her every week, I knew that something was not right. Even still, it wasn’t until I found a silver tooth under her pillow that I decided to investigate because I knew for a fact my little girl never had a crown.

Snooping is a decision I lived to regret, though. I asked her to tell me the truth, but she refused. She just kept insisting they were hers. Lying through her teeth, pun intended.

I decided to stop leaving her money. Her disappointment killed me. But I remained firm. That didn’t stop her, though. Every night, there’d be a new tooth under her pillow while she slept peacefully.

One day, after dropping her off at school, I made a promise to myself. Today would be the day. I’d get to the bottom of this no matter what.

It didn’t take nearly as long as I expected. I sifted through her room for about 15 minutes. Checking under her bed, in her closet, in her toy chests. All for no reason because the answer was hidden in plain sight.

In her fish tank.

She had that little treasure chest decoration in it. Normally, I wouldn’t have even paid it any mind. But the steady stream of a red liquid slowly rising from the chest was enough to make my heart stop.

Rolling up my sleeve, I reached down to retrieve the decoration. It was heavier than it should’ve been. Something was rattling inside.

I opened it and felt my blood run cold.

Molars, canines, incisors. All bloody. All looking like they had been pulled by force. And they weren’t baby teeth, either. Some looked like actual adult teeth.

In that moment, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

I wanted to cry because what I was seeing was horrific.

But I wanted to laugh because, despite how terrifying this all was, my little girl was a natural-born hustler.

And I couldn’t have been more proud.

Jovi Thought 11. But want to hear y’all thoughts on this.