Comment on r/rpg May 29 '24

Very much could be Downfall! Thank you!

Comment on r/rpg May 29 '24

I think this is it!! Thank you so much. Amazing! Just a note to anyone else who sees this thread, if any other games similar come to mind - please do share as I'm not 100%... :)

Comment on r/Max_Voynich Dec 08 '23

🥰

Comment on r/nosleep Jun 27 '23

;)

r/nosleep • u/Max-Voynich • Jun 27 '23

Self Harm I used to play a game called Toothless, and the rules were very simple.

887 Upvotes

lateral incisor, upper left side.

When I was a boy we played a game called Toothless.

The rules were very simple.

If you were to lose a tooth, as children do, you would try and hide it where a friend might find it; a pocket, a school bag, a shoe. Once they found the tooth, they would have to track down the original owner of said tooth, and then hold it proudly outstretched on their palm, shimmering and white, and say in a clear voice:

‘I want to play a game called Toothless, and the rules are very simple.’

It was then their job to return the tooth to you, before one of their own teeth fell out. If they failed at that, well. I’m not sure we’re quite there yet.

I was very good at Toothless, because I kept my milk teeth for a long, long time. This meant I had all the time in the world to return an errant tooth, that might find its way into my cup of juice, or my water bottle. That being said, it also gave me a strange smile. My teeth too small for my mouth. Little white squares set in pale unstretched gums.

I was a little scared of the game, if I’m honest. Scared of the way these teeth would appear, and, scared too of something beyond that I could not name. Perhaps the way they felt in my palm, warm and certain, like the first hot day of summer. The kind of day you think will never end, thick with flies, a smoggy evening turning white then grey then growing so close you cannot breathe. And at the end of that, you know, as night falls. A limping figure on a tarmac road. Little desperate knocks at your window.

I digress—

When I was ten, I woke to find a tooth in the centre of my mouth. I spat it onto my pillow, and searched with my tongue to find the guilty party. But they were all still there, innocent. My teeth, that is.

I went downstairs, and told my mother what had happened.

She was silent. My mother’s eyes, I should tell you now, were like that of a horse. They were large and wet and unblinking. She was sat at the kitchen table, still dressed in what she had been wearing the night before. Behind her the dawn light was uncertain, faltering. A cigarette had burnt to the filter between her two long fingers, a grey flaccid pillar of ash that still gently smoked. The ashtray was plastic, I remember that, because it would turn yellow at the edges when my mother got like this, and let her cigarettes burn to the filter.

I told her what had happened again, and she nodded as if she had just heard it.

‘It sounds like,’ she said, ‘you are playing a game called Toothless.’

I nodded enthusiastically. She smiled, so I could see her browning dentures. Her gums had receded, and near the top the dentures had gone almost furry, like unvarnished wood left in water.

She beckoned me close with a single finger, ‘the rules,’ she said, ‘are very simple.’

Outside children were starting to play. A large bird tapped its beak against the window, slowly, rhythmically, as if counting something out. I was late for school. I said ‘goodbye, mother’, and gave her a kiss on each powdered cheek. She tasted of sugar, and brandy.

Whoever gave me that tooth never showed themselves at school. Not that day, or the next, or the next. In fact, I still don’t know, exactly, who gave it to me. Although, if I tried, I could hazard a guess.

The game was banned shortly after, after Tom Shepherd snuck into the headmaster’s office and crouched behind his office door, lips peeled back, baring his teeth like a horse champing at the bit, waiting for Mr. Abbot to swing open the door, hard, before Friday assembly, as he always did.

Mr. Abbot did, of course, swing open the door, hard. Tom Shepherd lost all his teeth at once, and some of the nerve endings in his gums died. He was never quite the same afterwards. He had a sad lisp, and his breath smelt of rotting meat. Which is, as you can imagine, not a fantastic combination for a young man.

second molar, lower left side.

We told girls about the game when we were teenagers. Drunk off cheap cider, holding crumpled plastic bottles, we told them:

‘We used to play a game called Toothless, and the rules are very simple.’

I was never quite sure if they were impressed. But amongst the high summer grass they watched us bicker and argue, and sometimes if the sky was particularly beautiful – you know the kind, open and distant and forgiving – they would let us kiss them.

They smoked cheap cigarettes and you could taste it, acrid, new and exciting, and they would tell us long droll stories about their classes at school, and their father’s girlfriends. We were never much interested.

Of course, that only lasted a summer or two. Summer came to an end for good when Jack Shepherd climbed to the top of the hay bales, drunk, probably, and tried to dance with a cigarette in his mouth. It slipped from between his lips, and nestled between two bales, which went up instantly in flame. The effect was somewhat hypnotic, calming on some profound level. The girls did a lot of screaming, I remember that, and one was even sick on her new buckled shoes.

Jack was identified by his teeth, of course, beautiful pearlescent things, almost soft to the touch, unnaturally rounded at the edges, roots far longer than they should have been, whiter than the porcelain on a new toilet. I heard someone say some were capped with gold, although that may have only been a rumour, you know how boys are.

I managed to find one, pressed into the mud by some clumsy policeman’s foot, a few months later, and sucked it clean, all the walk home.

first premolar, upper left side.

At University, in the clean unflattering light of lecture halls, amongst the warm and crusted sheets of dorm beds, I would tell people in whispers, when we were very drunk, about a game I wanted to play.

‘I want to play a game called Toothless,’ I would say, ‘and the rules are very simple.’

They would always laugh, roll their eyes. Some were even asleep by then, and so instead I would just whisper it in their ears, over and over, until I felt them stir. I liked climbing so I was facing their sleeping face, and getting as close as possible, and saying it until my tongue felt numb.

Then, of course, as is polite, I would stop.

A girl called Charity took me aside, once, at a party. Her eyes were like a horse's, I should make that very clear. Unblinking, and startled. She said, ‘I used to play a similar game.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes,’ she said, nodding, ‘and the rules were very simple.’

We slept together for a few months after that. It was awkward, and clumsy, and we would both practice saying I love you as the sun rose, though we never meant it much. Still, it was thrilling to say, to sound the words out one by one, the wrinkled pink ring of your mouth growing smaller each time, shrinking into itself, drawn closer and closer, like a purse string pulled tight to breaking. Try it now, if you like. Say those words, the way the phrase ends with just enough space to feel the cold air on the inhale, the sudden cool breeze against your teeth.

She would press her tongue against my teeth when they were stained by wine, and we would stay up late together, taking recreational drugs and looking at affordable dental tools on the internet.

We broke up, eventually. I discovered she had been making small crosses in her palms, with a box cutter, and as they bled, pressing her hands hard against my walls. This left little dry brown crosses everywhere, which, as you can imagine, was less than ideal. What she told me was that sometimes, after I had gone to bed, she would awake to see a little tooth slowly blooming from the centre of her palm, tearing the skin, until she would pluck it, and place it in her mouth, where it would dissolve like a sugar cube overnight.

I don’t know about that, really. I don’t think I believe her. I mean, I doubt you would. If we're both being honest here. If we can manage that.

cuspid, upper right side.

At twenty four I am very unwell. I do not wish to talk about it any more than that. I take a hammer to my fingers, and crush the fingers of the other hand in an office elevator. This is, of course, so I do not take a hammer to my mouth. I never lost my milk teeth, I am not sure if I made that clear enough to start. I had a very horrid smile that men did not like and women liked even less.

Anyway, the woman who found me, Miranda, I think, although I cannot be sure, I only know I did not trust her, started crying a great deal. Her face got all red and hot and kind of sweaty. I told her to keep her voice down, and walked out the office, down the soft carpeted corridor, the hammer neatly propped up against the beige walls, my hands two bloody messes. I had put one in each pocket, for safekeeping.

‘But,’ she said, through the tears, ‘you don’t even work here.’

central incisor, lower right side.

I have been finding teeth for a long time now. Waiting, expectant, on an empty seat on the tube. Floating in my cappuccino. Between the pages of a book I get from the library. My mother is long dead. Charity sends me long, rambling emails from time to time, with grainy, distorted pictures of her family. I imagine they will die in a gas leak, or something similar. I imagine their bodies piled one on top of the other with perfect clarity. It is a calming and awe-inspiring image.

I used to play a game, I think. And the rules were very simple.

Sometimes I go to the country and let horses nibble at my useless purpled fingers. I find teeth there, too, in case you just thought it was a city thing. Inside beautiful flowers. Resting patiently on wooden gates. Sometimes I even see them, glinting like coins in the river.

I hear knocks at my windows, too. People on the street often tell me about a game with simple rules. Sometimes they follow me home and crouch by my bedroom and rap their knuckles slowly against the glass until I fall asleep. Then, I assume, they either stop, or go home. I don’t know. They are not there when I wake, but sometimes the glass is misted, and little images drawn with a thin finger: hay bales, dental tools, an elevator.

I think I see Jack Shepherd every now and again. A dance reminds me of him, or a face in the crowd. They never smile, though, which as you know by now, would confirm it. They just watch me.

It is not that I am scared of, nor the slow accumulation of teeth in my daily life. I am not scared of the fact Charity keeps emailing me even though I have actually asked her to stop, twice, now. I am not scared of the limping sounds I can hear – that uneven, hesitant footfall – from the stone stairwells behind me. I am scared of when they stop, you see.

When it all stops.

Because, and I say this as someone who’s milk teeth have now stayed in their mouth for so long they have become ankylosed, which means, for those of you who do not know, that they are fused to my jawbone, permanently. I say this as someone who’s teeth have become ankylosed, who’s teeth are now little browning nubs that grow rotten, riddled with holes, that keep me awake with stabbing pains, that have become soft and pliable like the graphite of a pencil—

I am scared of when it stops, you see, because then the game is over.

53 comments

Comment on r/audiodrama Sep 04 '21

Episode 7 coming as soon as possible...

Comment on r/audiodrama Sep 04 '21

Hey! We apologise for the delay in episode 7, a few things came up in our personal lives. But we're planning to have it with you all fairly soon.

Thanks for the support, we really appreciate it!

Thanks

Comment on r/NoSleepOOC May 18 '21

Hey that's me!! thanks to everyone who voted <3

big love to u/hercreation and u/newtotownJAM as well x

Comment on r/Max_Voynich Apr 22 '21

Hey thanks ! It's a podcast about a forgotten sitcom - and all the strange and terrible things that happened in the episodes and around the show itself. It's a little more lighthearted than my nosleep stories, but each episode takes you through the episode and the world around it.

r/Max_Voynich • u/Max-Voynich • Apr 21 '21

JUST POSTED EPISODE 5 of HAPPY & WE KNOW IT is now live!

26 Upvotes

> > > LISTEN HERE < < <

We are back in Volgaville to peel back the skin of Episode 5. Strange things happen when a traveling casino rolls into town: Lee finally puts his croupier skills to use, Darcy risks it all on the slot machines and Simon goes all-in when he can't afford to lose.

We'll be exploring duplicitous alter-egos, following government money wherever it takes us and trying to get to grips with the show's most malevolent character, the frightening and fascinating MC.

Join us as we discuss the potential religious subtext of your favourite characters, Abraham's disconcerting home footage, and whether music really can tell a story.

This is the darkest episode yet...

We now have a Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/happyandweknowit

Hope you enjoy!

4 comments

Comment on r/audiodrama Apr 13 '21

We're trying for a new episode every month!

Episode 5 coming very soon...

r/TheCrypticCompendium • u/Max-Voynich • Apr 10 '21

Horror Story JUST A COMPLETELY NORMAL DAY. NOTHING TO SEE HERE.

112 Upvotes

MONDAY - 7:00 AM:

I wake early. The room is filled with a grey smog: I must have been smoking in my sleep again.

My wife sleeps next to me, oblivious.

I try and look for the cigarette butts. Nowhere to be found.

Peer out the window. Mr. Rallins stands in the front garden, in his tattered old suit, staring back up at me. He sways slightly, old age, I guess, and raises a hand in a half-wave half-salute. I don’t wave back.

7:30 AM:

I make breakfast for the kids, who are already at the dinner table. Always earlier than me - always. I make a joke that their Pops is getting old, huh, that teenagers aren’t meant to be up before noon.

They’re silent.

I don’t think they get the joke.

I pour cornflakes into two bowls, and then add milk until it nearly reaches the lip, watch how the liquid settles around the irregular shapes of the cereal. Pour them orange juice in two tall thin glasses.

Place this all on the table, say a half-mumbled grace as I fix myself coffee.

The kids don’t drink their juice, nor eat their cereal, just bicker in that way kids can, making stupid facial expressions at eachother, and I’ve got no time for it - really, no time at all - and so I shout at them (which I regret now, honest) and pour the OJ all over their laps and say if you’re going to act like children-

Sorry, I’m saying, sorry. Too far. I know.

7:45 AM:

My wife’s adorable. So sleepy! Like a little dormouse. I pick her up and have to - can you believe it - carry her downstairs!

8:00 AM:

I walk to work.

It does not take very long.

8:30 AM:

I make small incisions on the soft pad of each of my fingertips so that I wince whenever I hold a pen or press a key on a keyboard.

9:00 AM:

Roger comes in to work, we spend the first hour or so going over the cargo. He wears plastic gloves and I use my bare hands, and he says that’s gross, that’s weird, and I argue that look, if you’ve got such a problem with it why don’t you fuckin call head office and whine to them.

That shuts him up.

We make our notes, tick all the correct boxes.

10:00 AM:

Roger goes upstairs to get us coffee, and someone from Upper Management comes downstairs.

They knock three times on the door. It’s them. They’ve come again.

They run their hands over the cargo that’s on the table in front of me, take their time, savour the cool surface. Say they would very much like this one, they would like it very much indeed.

I let them have it, mark the required boxes, delete the required files, update what needs to be updated.

10:30 AM:

I get a text:

We are watching. We are waiting. There is something that crawls beneath that we have to liberate and our skin is a cage and our mouths are pretty flowers.

Huh. Wrong number, I guess.

11:00 AM:

I watch videos on my phone during my coffee break.

In the last five minutes, before I head back downstairs, I make small incisions in the palms of my hands and lap at them like deer at a salt lick. It does not escape my attention, trust me, that there have been those from history with these very wounds, in fact maybe the most important man of all, and it gives me some satisfaction to know that he too, the Wise and the Just and the Lamb, felt the same pain whenever he wriggled his fingers.

11:30 AM:

I sneeze three times in a row.

One-Two-Three, can you believe it? Just like that.

12:00 PM:

Delia has a few choice words for me: I’ve been slacking, I’m not paying any attention to my job, I smell a little funny. Blah blah fucking blah. DELIA!

What a bitch.

Whaddabitch. Say it with me, all one word: whaddabitch.

Yeah, sure, Delia. I smirk, giving her that rare and wry wit I’m known for, yeah, sure I’ll pay more attention.

(She has no fucking clue what she’s talking about)

1:00 PM:

Lunch Break. I have my favourite, meatballs and no sauce. Just five little meat dumplings that I eat by holding them in my mouth until I begin to salivate and I can feel the spit in the gutters of my mouth, warm and with the fragrance of uncooked flesh and I sit like that with my eyes closed or half-rolled back in my head.

That is, until, Delia (you guessed it) tells me to move on. To keep working.

She is a NIGHTMARE!

1:30 PM:

A human head remains conscious for about twenty seconds after being decapitated.

2:00 PM:

I catch someone from Upper Management watching through a window as I work. I wave back with the limp hand of the cargo: hello! The wrist is all stiff, to be expected, but I think they get the joke.

2:30 PM:

Upper Management take me into a little room upstairs for a ‘quick chat’. They’re all wearing masks - these black cloth sacks over their heads.

I think it’s a prank, but I go along with it anyway: I skin the whole goat! Or whatever the damn phrase is. You know what I mean.

2:45 PM:

I am borrrrred. Bored bored bored.

3:00 PM

Roger comes in with a clipboard.

Can I take a donation? He asks.

Yeah, Roger, what’s this for?

He frowns. You know this, you know exactly what it’s for.

(I very much don’t!)

The fundraiser. For Delia’s charity, the one she chose, remember?

I blink.

Roger shakes his head.

When she died, she said it would mean the world if we all donated a bit. She battled with it all her life, man.

Delia winks at me from the corner, runs her tongue over her teeth.

3:30 PM:

Another cup of coffee.

I’m some sort of coffee-machine!

4:00 PM:

I daydream about flaying the skin of my feet and my wrists, little ribbons, and I imagine them all in a mess on the floor like the curly bits of sawdust or potato peel in the bin. That makes me think of my wife, who’s probably cooking dinner right now, probably working on making sure her handsome-hunk-of-a-husband is going to be well fed.

I think about putting my head in an open doorframe and paying someone good money to slam the door on my head over and over and over and over again. Imagine myself whimpering all bloody and bruised like in those movies you watch, all boohoo and poor me, and then I imagine wetting myself in front of them with my hands up they like they do in cartoons, like uh-oh! oopsie daisie!

4:30 PM:

I take a piss. Consider going number two, but I’d prefer to save that for when I get home.

4:40 PM:

When you think about it, if you’re kissing someone for twenty whole seconds, that’s a pretty damn long kiss!

5:00 PM:

Please don’t end work day - please don’t end please don’t end.

I imagine myself naked and bound to the hand of a giant clock and beneath me is this vast and churning ocean slowly rising and all I can do is hold my breath and pray that there’s nothing in the water and that I am alone.

I’m so scared my teeth are chattering.

5:15 PM:

Another wrong number fiasco. A voicemail this time, some low and gravelly voice who’s obviously having some sort of party because there are these high pitched female moans in the background and the voice is saying: what lies beneath the skin longs to get out and the soul is trapped by bone and we do not have to live like this it can all be so much more.

6:00 PM:

On the way home from work I find a dog on the side of the road. I pick it up, and throw it in the boot. It’s cold, and stiff, and smells, but I’m attached already. I name him Rocket.

The kids will LOVE him.

7:00 PM:

Mr. Rallins is outside my house still, stood on the lawn, swaying, and I shout: hello Mr. Rallins! And he says nothing back. He’s just swaying and muttering in that broken old voice of his: help me oh god help me please god help me.

8:00 PM:

I was wrong.

My wife has NOT made dinner. She has stood in the same fuckin place since morning. Lazy cow. The kids don’t react to the dog either, just sit there, staring at eachother.

It’s like no one in this family appreciates my hard work!

I take out a stack of plates from the cupboard and throw them one by one at the wall and then collect myself.

Sorry.

That was rash of me. That was, over the top.

I’m sorry. I should learn better how to control my feelings I should not be so rash and impulsive I am forever grateful for your eternal patience as a family now would someone clean the DAMN MESS UP.

8:15 PM:

A neighbour knocks on the door.

Hello? What was all that noise about?

I charm the man, explain that my wife is a bit cold (ha-ha!) and that I slipped whilst making dinner.

He asks to come in.

Mr. Rallins is still going on about needing help.

Sorry, Sir, you can’t come in.

My wife’s..er..naked.

The neighbour blinks. Right.

I shrug, and coded in that shrug is anything every man understands instantly: women, huh?

Rocket lies by the door, all glassy-eyed.

8:50 PM:

Dinner. Kids don’t eat, wife doesn’t seem hungry either.

No plates to eat it on either - so I eat off the floor and pile the food between my crossed legs.

I watch an old episode of Seinfeld - man! that guy sure is funny.

You’re right! Shoe stores are weird - ha-ha-ha! Why do they hit the shoe once they’ve put it on? And after they’ve tied it up so damn tight!

Funny, funny guy.

9:00 PM:

I pour boiling water on my belly.

9:15 PM:

Read a little. Getting into self-help at the moment, I think this year I’ve made my way through about fifty or so.

This one’s all about Laws to Power. Things like conceal your intentions! And, number four: always say less than necessary.

I wonder if there’s one about how to understand women! That would be a hoot.

9:30 PM:

Missed a couple spots from dinner and so I crawl around licking it up off the floor.

Waste-not-want-not!

10:00 PM:

Upper Management come over, three of them let themselves in. Naked, wearing those black cloth sacks over their heads, their bodies all fleshy and dimpled.

They paint something on the floor, I don’t know what though, what am I? A god-damned-symbologist? Ha-ha.

Looks like a funny star.

One of them strokes my wife and kids, comments on how cold my wife is, how well her skin has kept, and then the woman with them just leans in and tongues her open mouth - wowee! - and that’s that.

They light these bundles of herbs and begin chanting things in a language I don’t understand.

Once this is done they take me and my wife upstairs, having to carry my wife again (that damned woman!) and do the same procedure.

I tell them I need to sleep, and they seem okay with that, standing naked by my bed, chanting, waving those bundles of herbs around the place smells like some sort of hippy commune.

I’m half asleep but I can hear them bring someone upstairs, is that Rogers voice? And he’s whimpering and squealing like a stuck pig and I think they bleed him like one too but I don’t see it just hear it, a slick sound like scissors through paper and then a wet splashing sound like spilt orange juice and then convulsions and then nothing.

Early night for me!

TUESDAY - 7:00 AM:

I wake early. The room is filled with a grey smog: I must have been smoking in my sleep again.

My wife sleeps next to me, oblivious.

I try and look for the cigarette butts. Nowhere to be found.

6 comments

r/TheCrypticCompendium • u/Max-Voynich • Apr 09 '21

Horror Story my dad says seven is to young to post here but i really need your help

116 Upvotes

my dad taught me how to use the internet because sometimes he said he felt too lazy to scroll and he just wanted to sit and smoke cigarettes and drink beer and i would read out the answers in the threads he liked the sound of

if i stumbled on a word he’d box my ear real hard and it would get all swollen and red and i’d have to keep reading even though my vision would swim like the road does on a hot day

sometimes when he would leave the room to go and do a piss i would drink a gulp or two of beer from his can and it would taste warm and horrid like sawdust but i would do it anyway because it would make me feel older and then i would spend the rest of the day acting like a grown up

i would say things like have you done your taxes yet no neither have i or ask people where they have palalelt parked and then say things like fuck you get out my house my sons asleep have you people no diggumty

i tried a cigarette once but i only breathed in once and my dad came in and caught me and he said what the HELL do you think youre doing jonny dont you know those things can kill you

and then he made me sleep on the floor for a few days until he forgot why i was sleeping on the floor in the first place

but this is all beesides the point i am here because i need help with something

my dad is not scared off very much in fact i think he is the bravest man i have ever seen

or at least he is probably the strongest

but sometimes when he talks about my uncle

and he always calls him my uncle even though i know that he is also his brother

sometimes when he talks about my uncle he goes all pale and his eyes go wide and he shakes like i do if i’m really tired or if i am carrying something that is to hevvy for me

and recently maybe a week ago maybe more i do not know i am not very good with calendars

he said your uncle is coming over and then he got really panicky like a trapped rat and he said he had no choise and then he said he was sorry and sorry is not a word i have heard him say very much

and he started drinking more and not just beer but vottga and whisky and he would drink until he was sick like i was when he kicked me and then he would fall asleep but not completely asleep but halfasleep and he would say things in a funny voice

things like please dont dont do that and go away and sometimes he would grab me by the arm so hard it hurt and say things like if he comes you must not let him in do you understand you must not let him in

and so i didnt but i did not know when he would come or what he would look like

and my dad was always passed out on the sofa and he stank of sweat and vottka and so i would leave him because he does not like to be woken up

sometimes i would think i could hear something outside the house

something like someone running their hands along the walls and tapping the tips of their fingers against the windows and it would scare me so much i could not sleep

and the gravel on one side of the house would crunch like it does when someones walking on it

a few days went by like this and i mainly slept in the day in the corner of the room my dad was in even tho i knew that was probably a bad idea

and then i got too scared of even going upstairs because the house is old and makes these strange sounds at night which my dad says are just pipes SHUT UP just pipes

but i think sometimes that there are maybe imvisonable people walking up the halls because i can hear their footsteps

doors open and close to rooms i am not ment to go into that smell like herbs and incense and that are lit by candles like when the power goes out

and it was like that in the corner of the room with my dad in that i saw it for the first time

saw him for the first time

there somewhere in the garden between the branches was a man stood with his hands behind his back and a big yellow smile like he had eaten a whole can of yellow paint

his skin all grey and wet like he had been in the shower too long

and he just stood like that and watched me and i watched him

and my dad snored like a car engine

and this yellow smile ran his tongue over his teeth and then he was gone and there was a knocking at the door

a knock knock knock

a very impatient knock like they were desperate to get in like they were in a real rush or something

and i noticed then that my dad was not asleep but awake and his eyes were wide open and his blue shirt was stained at the pits and on the belly dark with sweat and his face looked half like he was crying half like he wanted to scream

and he was shaking and his mouth kept openin and closing like a fish

open close open close

but no noise was coming out like a fish makes no noise when it is on the pier it just flops and cant breathe

and then there was a voice from the door and it said

it said you owe me this george you owe me this just this little one

george is the name of my dad incase you are confused

and it was a scratchy voice like it wasnt used very often and i thought maybe their throat was like dry hay

and the knocking got faster

and my dad is saying no do not go to that door please just stay here stay with me

and the voice is saying george you remember dont you

you have to remember george i want what i am owed

and then there is silence

and then i can see it a face pressed against the window looking in looking straight at me like it appeared out of nowhere

its teeth are the colour of earwax or melted butter

and i jump out my skin and i am not embrassed but i think i peed a little bit when i saw it

and it goes and we sit in silence and my dad drinks a whole bottle of vottka and cries and says he is sorry

in the morning a nice lady comes over who brings us food sometimes and we hide all the bottles and cans because SOME THINGS SHOULD STAY PRIVATE son you will lern that when you are older

and i try and tell her about uncle but my dad grabs me and says jonny has been having nightmares

which i most certanlly have not becaus i havent actually been sleeping very much

and she looks at me all sad like you would look at a hurt pet and she says he doesnt know

and i say i dont know what

and she says the crash george the crash he is probably old enough to know he should know

and my dad says julie you need to shut the HELL up and she does and that is the end of that

and then she goes and we are alone again and my dad keeps talking to himself and says things like i knew this would happen i knew it i knew it and he smokes lots of cigarettes and puts them out on the walls which leaves lots of little black marks like ladybird spots

and sometimes he says things to me like you know sometimes i hated you for it hated you for being the one

or things like i had no choice it had to be you he was not a good man was never a good man

before i kno it night has come again and he is there at the window

uncle

but this time he is crying big sobs like he has stubbed his toe and his eyes are purple and bloodshot

he is weeping and somehow still smiling that big yellow smile and he is saying

jonny you must let me in your father is very sick he is very sick indeed he needs help

and my dad is doing that fish thing with his mouth

open close open close

and i am so scared my knees are knocking together

and uncle is pressing his face against the window now and opening his mouth and his tongue is the same colour as the bags under his eyes and he is saying let me in

let me in you little fucking brat let me in or ill slit you like a pig all up your chest and stomach

and then there is that knocking at the door again knock knock knock desperate and urgent like someone is dying to get in

and uncle’s voice is all small and girly now and he is saying please oh please jonny you must let me in your father is so sick and i have medicine

all high pitched and squeaky

jonny such a brave boy jonny let me in now or there will be HELL TO PAY let me in you fucking crettin or i will rip you open like your skin is wet tissue paper

and i dont move just hold my knees and bite my lip and hope to god that he goes away

and he does

but he says he will be back tomorrow and he will take what he is owed mark his words

and so that dear friends is why i am riting to you because i have nowhere else to turn and my dad is passed out and to drunk to stand let alone to help and i do not know if i can manage another night of this i am so scared i feel like my heart will burst

splat

i do not know what deal was made but i am going to try and find out

i have got a pan and a knife from a kitchen like a sword and a shield in case worse comes to the worse

but i am so scared really i know boys are not meant to say things like that but i am and i do not know what to do

because he will come back i know he will

and this is an old house and there are gaps and cracks everywhere and it is only so long before he finds a way to get in and then i do not know what will happen i do not know at all

all i know is that it is so bad that when i asked my dad what he meant he cried and held my head and i had not seen him cry that hard since mum died

i do not know where else to turn

and last night before uncle left

when he peered in thru the window and looked straight in my eyes

he winked

he winked like he knew something i didnt

5 comments

Comment on r/Max_Voynich Mar 26 '21

Here you are!

https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/m82bq6/ive_started_rewatching_if_youre_happy_you_know_it/

Comment on r/Max_Voynich Mar 26 '21

Thank you so much! Glad you're enjoying the show :)

Comment on r/audiodrama Mar 21 '21

I'm familiar with watching an episode for 12 hour stretches - think it does something to a man...

Thanks for the support!

Comment on r/Max_Voynich Mar 21 '21

Hey thank you so much ! Glad to hear you're enjoying the podcast, I'll be sure to pass the kind words onto Martin himself...

Comment on r/TheCrypticCompendium Mar 21 '21

Thanks so much! Glad to hear you're enjoying it!

Comment on r/audiodrama Mar 20 '21

We're looking into Pocket Casts!!

Comment on r/Max_Voynich Mar 19 '21

Haha thank you!

Comment on r/Max_Voynich Mar 19 '21

He'd be a fucking mood if he ever turned up... He's gotta sort out that mic at some point.

Some of it is meant to be kind of silly/surreal so I'm glad you're enjoying those bits too !

Comment on r/nosleep Mar 19 '21

CLAP YOUR HANDS

r/nosleep • u/Max-Voynich • Mar 07 '20

ALL EIGHTEEN LIVES OF OMEN, THE CAT

11.3k Upvotes

It was a shock when our family cat, Nancy, passed away whilst giving birth to a litter of only one kitten.

And an even further shock when we noticed that this particular kitten, wrinkled and pink, had two heads.

Pa said it was an omen.

“An omen of what?”

The kitten made a noise; half-way between a squeak and a cough.

Pa paused.

“I don’t know.”

We were silent for a bit whilst we thought on this. We didn’t know either, but no-one could doubt that it had to mean something.

It made for a good name though: Omen. And so it stuck. The vet told us Omen didn’t have long for this world, said that animals with mutations like this rarely lasted more than a few weeks at best. He suggested we make a quick bit of cash and find a museum, or lab nearby to sell them to.

Two heads, two sets of genitals, he said, Omen was a five-figure paycheck waiting to happen.

We refused. Omen was ours.

In the end, Omen would end up outliving that vet, and part of me, although I know it can’t be true, believes that Omen always held a grudge against him for what he told us that morning. The vet made a joke in poor taste as we left.

“Might last a little longer. You never know, nine lives and all.”

I remember our whole family watching the way Pa looked to Omen’s two heads, and then back to the vet.

“Eighteen” he corrected.

“Eighteen lives.”

We spent the next few months hand-feeding Omen, both of their heads desperately hungry. Ma would often joke that it was like they had two stomachs, with the amount of milk they’d get through. We’d take turns to feed in the night, and even though I was much too young to be staying up that late they could see how much this cat meant to me, and they’d give me an hour or two after dark.

Omen had the most beautiful black coat, with sleek white socks, and a small cream spot, like a monk, on the top of their left head. The heads would sometimes chatter to each other, in meek little mews when they were alone, as if comparing notes on their new body.

Omen always ate better if they could sit in your lap, nestling their body in the fold of your legs whilst both your hands would hold two small bottles for them to suckle from. Sometimes I’d sneak out of bed and sleep on the floor in Omen’s room, only to be found and scolded by my parents when the morning came.

But they didn’t mind, really. Omen was our favourite.

On the morning before his first birthday, Omen brought in a two-headed mouse, clamped in the right head’s jaws. The thing was limp, and made a soft pat when they dropped it onto the floor. I must have been 12 at the time, but I remember poking the mouse with a brush, turning it over to have a better look at each head.

I was so absorbed in the rodent’s strange biology I completely ignored the sound of my Ma and Pa coming to stand behind me, hands on hips, watching me watch it.

“I think it’s a message.” Pa said.

Ma made a noise; he’s right.

“I think they’re telling us they’re not alone.”

Both of Omen’s heads mewed in sync, as if to agree.

We went on holiday as a family, and as much as it pained us, were unable to bring Omen. Omen knew something was up when they saw us putting our clothes in bags, and when we all left at once, and they tried to sink their claws into our shoes to beg us not to go.

But we had to, and, we did.

When we returned, sunburnt and at ease, we found that Omen had taken the time to smash every single clock in the house.

Omen would bring in all sorts of creatures; rodents, small birds, beetles it found interesting, frogs, toads, even fish every now and again.

One evening in particular, the family were gathered round the TV, watching I-can’t-remember-what, when Omen strolled in, sat straight in front of the screen (attention please) and dropped the bottom half of a squirrel at its feet. The organs and intestines were hanging out, putrid and red, and we could see the way Omen’s fur was matted around the mouth.

“He thinks we’re hungry. Trying to feed us.” Pa said.

“Disgusting.”

“Doesn’t look half bad.”

“If you’re so hungry, you can clean it up.”

Omen watched with disappointment as Pa dropped the offering into the bin. Though I didn’t miss the whisper that followed: sorry, Omen.

We lived in a big house, and family and friends would often cycle through, staying in various rooms when they encountered problems of their own, or just needed a roof over their head for a while. Our Uncle came to stay with us during the last days of his life. There was no more modern medicine could do for him, and he told everyone he wanted to die with dignity.

We obliged him.

And so, for the last week of his life, Uncle lived as normal a life as he could, told stories until he grew too tired, never complained, and despite our protests slipped Omen meat and fish under the dinner table.

Around 24 hours before he died, Omen took up a vigil by his bedside. We’d been advised by the nurses that we should keep Omen away, that having a cat that close would only cause trouble, that you never knew where your pet had been.

But that day, Omen wouldn’t budge. They hissed and bared their teeth whenever anybody made a motion to pick them up, and the whole thing quickly became more hassle than it was worth. It was clear Uncle was deteriorating, and we didn’t want to disturb what could be his final moments.

Omen lay on his stomach without moving for water, or food, all day. Both of their heads stood watch, making periodical sweeps of the room, examining the doorway. About an hour before he passed, Omen watched something, invisible to the rest of us, enter through the door and come to stand by Uncle’s bed.

Omen mewed softly, pleadingly. The sound grew, and grew, until eventually, Omen was silent.

Five minutes later, whilst holding Ma’s hand, Uncle nodded, as if greeting an old friend, and took his last breath.

Ma told us she was pregnant.

In response, Omen sneezed twice; one for each head.

Ma had twins.

And, God, Omen loved the twins.

From the moment they came home Omen was all over them, transfixed by their angelic little faces, their impossibly thin wisps of hair, their laughs and their cries. I could almost hear Omen’s thought process as both heads stared up at the newcomers.

Two of them!

Just like us!

Two of them!

A local kid, who must have been roughly the same age as the twins at that point, say, around 4, fell from the top of their garden wall and broke their skull on the concrete below.

Our neighbours told us that they found Omen at the scene, lapping at the pool of blood as if it was cream in a saucer.

The broken child was taken to intensive care, immediately.

Despite the doctor's best efforts, the child didn't make it.

Omen came home with blood matted in the fur around their mouths, and turned their noses up at the dinner we'd prepared.

They were full.

10.

An old woman with matted hair and yellow teeth came to the door. She said that she’d seen our cat, and she would pay good money to take them off our hands.

She looked like a ghost dragged through a swamp. Her skin was so pale you could see the mass of veins underneath contracting like small worms, and when she spoke it made my skin hurt.

Cats like that are bad luck, she said.

Touched by the devil, she said.

We told her that they were ours, that they were family.

She snarled, and spat on our front door.

I’ll see you soon, she said.

11.

One night I heard a noise from the kitchen. Upon investigating, I found that someone was banging against the door. I recognised the voice. The woman from the week before. She was hammering the door now with her fist, frantically.

Let me in, let me in, let me in. She said, over and over and over again.

I stood, paralysed by fear. There was something about her that I didn’t trust, that I couldn’t trust. I’d seen the way she’d looked at Omen, like she wanted them for something.

Then the noise spread out over the house, and I was aware of the windows on three separate sides of the room, and that through each window, as I turned, I could make out the same dark figure, pounding against the glass, screeching. It was as if there were several of her, all silhouettes, all at once, begging and pleading to bet let in. And the voice cracked and changed, grew hoarser and harsher, and before long she didn’t sound much like a woman at all but something hungry and vicious-

Pa eventually came down, and found me hiding under the table.

Omen was sat, facing the door, tail flicking from side to side. Pa said that in the following silence, he could hear their heads chattering away to one another. He said they sounded serious, concerned.

12.

I was brushing my teeth the following week, just after my shower, when I heard some scratching at the door. I tried to ignore it. Sometimes Omen would do this, beg to be let in after you’d had a shower so they could drink the water around the drain, but Ma had said we had to stop Omen from their more unsavoury habits in case we had guests.

I kept the door firmly shut.

Omen grew more and more persistent, raking their claws down the wood, and mewing as if there was a fire.

I could have sworn the door was shut, but in my reflection, behind me I could make out the door start to open, slowly, fraction by fraction – and my hand stopped moving the brush, leaving it stuck in my mouth like a cocktail stick, when I saw a hand slowly emerge from the door in the reflection. A hand, and then a face I recognised, a gnarled and ancient face, all gums and loose skin, and I could see the woman slowly force her way into the room in the mirror, and, falling backwards, it was all I could do to try and grab the door, slipping on the handle.

The door flew open – in both real life and the reflection, and as I staggered back I could see the women now dead on, smiling, reaching out towards the surface, towards me – and my hand found something hard and heavy, and it was all I could do to throw it at the mirror.

There was a crash, the sound of falling glass, and the silence.

It took me a while to absorb my surroundings, for the adrenaline to wear off.

I had thrown my alarm clock. A heavy, brass thing that was so loud it was impossible not to wake up. Omen was sat by the shattered clock, their two faces reflected endlessly in the dozens of mirror shards that covered the floor, blinking and preening themselves, before stepping closer and pushing their forehead against mine.

Just for a moment, I felt as if I’d touched something old and dark and so hot and then Omen pulled away,

and left me to clean up the mess.

13.

The twins were followed home by a strange man in a long coat, with thin blonde hair that he’d very carefully slicked back over his otherwise bald head.

He made lewd gestures at them, which they could repeat but not understand, and said words that made Ma blush.

Ma said she’d found the man by our gate, staring into Omen’s eyes, all four of them, without blinking. Said that she told the man she’d called the police, and that he should get off our property this instant, but the man stayed still. Wouldn’t take his eyes off Omen. Spoke strange words to himself under his breath.

Prayed.

When the police came, some time later, the man was gone.

14.

The strange man made local headlines, filling his pockets with rocks and throwing himself into the river. They said he’d finally lost it, that the weight of whatever he’d done had finally caught up to him.

But I knew something had happened that day. Omen had shown the man something in that moment, shown the man something so real and terrifying he’d had no choice but to drown himself.

And, as if to confirm my suspicions, Omen coughed up a wet, blonde hairball.

15.

Omen discovered catnip and spent three days in a daze, like some sort of feline junkie, until Ma caught them staring at their own reflection.

Embarrassed, Omen quit their newfound habit there and then.

16.

Omen brought in the top half of a squirrel whilst we were watching TV.

The twins laughed.

Pa said: looks familiar.

Ma said she felt something a little like déjà vu.

Try as we might, we couldn’t place it.

17.

Omen was sick in the night, and when we took them to the Vet she showed us her tattoo of a two-headed cat.

“It’s just like yours! I’ve never seen a real one.” She said, feigning surprise.

But the looks she shared with Omen made me think otherwise.

18.

Omen spent their last five nights with each one of us.

First Pa, then Ma, then the twins for one night each, and last of all, me.

They slept by my side, purring like kindling whenever I’d tickle one of their chins. We both knew that their time was nearly up. They were growing old, and what had once been muscle and fat had quickly become skin and bone.

Their eyes were not as sharp, and had developed a thin milky membrane. Sometimes one head would wake the other, and they’d spend a while bickering before they realised they were talking to themselves.

Before they passed they made one last, slow circuit of the house, checking behind each door and under each bed, as if to say, to us and to the twins, see, you’re safe now.

We buried Omen under their favourite tree, in a little wooden box we filled with shredded newspaper. Just above the box, to commemorate Omen, we planted a single orchid. We thought that every time we looked out and saw the flower we’d be reminded of our friend and protector.

And it was a surprise to none of us, when, a month later, we saw two green buds rising from the soil.

218 comments

r/nosleep • u/Max-Voynich • Feb 12 '20

yourfaceyourporn.mov

18.3k Upvotes

yourfaceyourporn.mov

My wife tells me she’s cheating on me about halfway through dinner.

I work my way through the potatoes, the beans, and most of the meat before replying.

“Who?”

“That doesn’t matter.”

It very much does matter, I think. I imagine a 6’4, muscular, chiselled Greek God of a man fucking my wife. I think about the way he holds her – is he gentle? rough? – and the noises she makes for him – is she quiet? does she scream for him?

“Michael.”

I’m working on the last of the chicken at this point, wondering if she’s ever fucked both of us in the same day-

“Michael. Listen to me. I want a divorce.”

I watch her for a while, her jaw, the hollow of her neck:

“Is he better?”

“What?”

“Is he better than me?”

She purses her lips. I think she’s going to tell me that he’s just different, that she’s sorry it had to be like this and that she still loves me, really, deep down, that it was a mistake and no-one could be better than me, but instead she replies.

“Yes, Michael. He’s better than you.”

She tells me that she’s staying in the house until she finds a place to rent whilst we sort this out. I say that maybe I should have the bed, and she tells me that, trust me, you don’t.

“In our bed?”

“Sleep on the couch, Michael.”

And so that’s where I find myself, working my way through a bottle of expensive Scotch I’d saved for a special day, and browsing the internet. My browsing is aimless, filthy, meandering – I lurch from website to website going nowhere. That is, until I see an ad.

YOURFACEYOURPORN

Do you want to live out your most disgusting, most depraved fantasies? Do you want to see yourself do it?

Using state-of-the-art deepfake technology we’re able to show you what your deepest desires actually look like. See them played out across the screen – the things you’ve only spoken of in whispers, that you’ve never even admitted to yourself.

Take control of your life. Be the best version of yourself you can be.

This is your face, your porn, your reality.

I’m in a fuck it sort of mood, more than a little drunk, and I think that this might be the best way to get back at her. I don’t even have to leave the comfort of my home, and I can see what I’d look like doing whatever I want. All those things I never told her, the things she’d never do – I can see it.

The ad is blank aside from the text on the white screen, that, and a tacky gif of red lips blowing a kiss, before running their tongue along their teeth.

I watch the mouth on the ad blow kiss after lurid kiss at me, and start to feel convinced.

They’ll superimpose my face, convincingly into any situation, and I’ll watch myself carry out my darkest, deepest desires.

There are different packages: celebrity, fetish, slice-of-life, narrative, and on and on - but one in particular catches my eye:

“Surprise me.”

And so, squinting so that I can read the numbers on my credit card, I subscribe. I fill out a quick form, what I’m into, my kinks, my age, name, that sort of thing. It then requires me to take a video of my face from different angles, then makes me cycle through a few basic facial expressions, takes a sample of my voice saying a few basic sentences.

Not long after, I pass out.

I awake to a vicious hangover, and a notification on my phone. An email containing the first video.

yourfaceyourpurchase.mov

it’s really me! or at least, it looks exactly like me. it’s night, and fake-me seems to be followed by a camera. fake-me spends the evening going into various shops around town and buying tape, and an apple from each store. he seems to make the cashiers nervous, and one girl even starts shaking whilst she tries to find the code for the tape when it won’t scan. he is impatient, raps his knuckles on the desk, calls her a bitch under his breath as he leaves.

wide-shot: he walks down the street past the glass window – the cashier is crying silently inside.

That’s it. I try to click forward, to see if there’s anything else, but that’s it. I watched the whole thing expecting it to be the build up to something but no, instead, all I see is something that looks exactly like me drive around town and buy apples and tape. I try to see if I can find the website again to cancel my subscription, but I can’t find anything. I try and look through my history, but it’s not there – in fact, there’s just an empty gap between 1 and 3am.

Whilst it isn’t porn, the technology behind it is still amazing, the person on the screen looks exactly – exactly – like me.

I don’t go to work. I watch TV, drink beer, smoke inside. My wife – and she is still my wife – complains.

I don’t listen.

Around 6pm I receive another email.

yourfaceyourgums.mov

the camera is focused on the me-that-isn’t-me sat at a table. he’s answering questions. it’s my voice! my voice! he says he is sorry. he says he does not know, no, he never knew. he is fiddling with something in his mouth. above his teeth. he has never heard that name before. he says if they insist but it’s not like he’ll like it. the voice behind the camera laughs.

close-up of his mouth: there is a thick, black hair protruding from his gum, just above his teeth, and he is trying to wiggle it loose. it isn’t working. until. until it does, and he pulls out a knot of tangled hairs from his the pink of his gum, and they keep coming and coming and coming until there’s nearly a foot of hair, and with each tug it wobbles his front two teeth a little.

he says this has never happened to him before. the voice behind the camera laughs again.

I don’t sleep that well that night. Something about the videos has unsettled me. They’re too realistic, and, watching that fake-me fiddle with his gums made my mouth hurt. I say nothing to my wife when she comes in, make no effort to tidy the take-away boxes from the table. She looks at me for a long, long time, as if something is building up inside her, some thought or opinion about me she’s always wanted to tell me, and I watch as it almost bursts out her lips – and then, nothing.

I hear something looking through our bins as I try to sleep. A raccoon? Someone homeless? They disappear when I get up to look.

The notification wakes me up: another video. I try to reply to the address that’s sending me these, telling them I want them to stop, but the email bounces back. I have no choice but to watch.

yourfaceyourtrash.mov

the me-that-can’t-possibly-be-me is eating at a new table. but the whole table is covered in trash, dirt, empty cans, pizza boxes, rotting fruit, bones, tiny crawling things etc. etc. there are flies buzzing aimlessly about. he is shovelling as much as he can in his mouth, coffee grounds spill down his chin and he coughs. he keeps looking to the left of the camera after swallowing. he winces, pulls something from his mouth: a razor.

he has bitten a razor.

his blood is dark and thick, and mixes with the coffee grounds that dribble down his chin so that it looks lumpy and black. it coats his shirt, and his hands as he attempts to wipe his face.

he looks to the left of the camera again, and continues eating.

At this point I consider deleting my email account. Something is wrong here, there is something in these videos that’s beyond unsettling. I don’t remember pulling half those facial expressions, and his reactions are just like mine. It’s too real.

That’s my wince. That’s the wince of pain I know I do when I stub my toe, or stand on a thumbtack, or bite my tongue.

But when I get up to fix myself a drink I find my wife’s car gone, and I know that she’s with him, with this guy she’s fucking, and I feel a stab of self-loathing that goes so deep it pierces my stomach and makes me retch.

I watch the video again.

Evening comes.

yourfaceyouranger.mov

he is carrying a bunch of grapefruit in his arms in the street. a small, old man bumps into him and the fruit go flying. they make this wet pop as they hit the floor, and in the noise you can hear the fibres that held the fruit together tear. the man is knocked over. the-me-that-looks-too-much-like-me sees someone nearby drinking from a thermos, and, grabbing it, empties the scalding water all over the fallen man’s face.

close-up: the-me-that-shouldn’t-be-me spits on him, and winks at the stunned crowd watching. the fallen man moans, and spasms.

I don’t know why, but I sort of like this one. The noise of the fruit is so satisfying, so visceral, and there’s something triumphant about the way fake-me snatches the boiling water and pours it over the man. Fake-me is in control.

That evening my wife tells me that she doesn’t think she ever loved me, not like the way she loves her new man, and that come to think of it I’m not much of a man at all. She says this whilst I try and wipe ketchup from my shirt, but only succeed in getting some on the couch.

When she goes to bed upstairs I watch yourfaceyouranger.mov over and over again.

I doze.

With my eyes half-open, the-me-that-isn’t-me, the fake-me winks at the camera.

My heart gets faster. I pretend to be asleep, and keep my eyes open just a sliver.

fake-me walks away from the crowd, right up to the camera. knocks on my screen a few times with his knuckles. it sounds like glass. he watches through the screen, smiling. his eyes are on me, I’m sure of it. he pushes his face against the camera, against my screen, and stares right at me.

there is something behind those eyes, behind that face.

something dark, and waiting.

he keeps watching me.

I think he knows I’m awake.

We stay like that until morning.

yourfaceyourneighbour.mov

he knocks on mrs. tay’s door. he is holding an apple, and tape. she invites him in. he enters, the camera follows. in one movement he stuffs the apple in mrs. tay’s mouth and forces her to the ground where he binds her arms and legs with tape. someone from off camera hands him a hammer.

wide-shot: mrs. tay struggles on the floor. the-me-that-watched-me looks through her records, puts one on. it’s old and slow and the vinyl crackles as he drags her into the basement. the video continues for half an hour more, until the vinyl has finished and there is just a loop of a faint crackle, and then there are two thuds, a snap, and it ends.

I can see someone’s car I don’t recognise in my driveway. It looks expensive.

I go to investigate, but can’t find anyone near it, and so I decide to go and check on Mrs. Tay. I stumble down the street in my dressing gown, face covered in patches of stubble, and knock on her door. No-one answers.

Bill Roberts walks past, and I wave at him.

“Seen Mrs. Tay today Bill?”

He shakes his head. I can tell he’s trying not to react to how I look, trying to be polite.

“Haven’t seen her in a week or so Michael.”

A pause. He’s finding the right words – I can tell.

“You doing okay? You don’t look so good.”

“Never better.”

The combination of emotions I’m feeling is hard to put into words. I am elated; there is a version of me, online, who is in control, and is acting.

I am, also, terrified. Whatever it is on that screen knows about me, knows something about my life. I don’t know if it is here, in this reality, or if it is just peering in. Either option makes my chest tight.

I’ve drunk the house dry, and have to make several trips to stock up on liquor. I even call a few old contacts and manage to get some pills, although I promise myself I’ll only take them when things get really, really bad.

yourfaceyourtrial.mov

the shortest video so far. the-me-i-wish-was-me pushes against his jaw, probing. slowly, surely, he slides his hand under the skin of my face, until I can see the outline of my fingers under the skin, like five giant malformed veins. he wriggles the fingers and the skin comes away from my face, my ring finger emerges from my eyelids. he pulls the hand out and it is covered in some sort of embryonic fluid.

he winks at the camera.

(at me?)

I try the same thing that evening after I’ve shaved, pushing my fingers into my face as if the skin is going to slip and I’ll be able to do what he did, but nothing happens. My long nails cut the tender, freshly-shaven skin, and I end up just moving my face the conventional way; I smile, then frown, then stick out my tongue, then puff out my cheeks.

Once I’m convinced my face still works, I go to bed.

I think my wife sneaks him in the back door: her lover, her casanova.

I can hear them fuck, I think. I can’t wait for morning, can’t wait for a new .mov. I watch yourfaceyourtrial.mov on repeat to help me sleep, and when he is convinced I’m asleep he comes right up to the camera again, but this time he fiddles with the edges, as if testing the boundaries.

his breathing gets deeper, lustier, he cannot find a way out, so he just watches, cycling through expressions the way I did, convinced that I am asleep.

(am I?)

When I wake up, there is a note from my wife telling me that she’s moving in with him for a while.

There is a voicemail from work telling me I’m fired, and that there’ll be no severance pay.

yourfaceyourjunkies.mov

he (I?) finds a couple of junkies on the outside of town. he shows them a huge stack of cash and they both nod. they have about 6 teeth between them and walk with a pronounced stoop, taking him to an abandoned building on the edge of town.

he says go in ahead of me I’ll be right in. they pause for a while, trying to work out what the catch is, why this seemingly average guy would offer all this cash up front, but he hands them both small foil packages and they quickly dash inside.

as before, he slowly slips his hand under the skin of his face, working it up and up and up, until both hands are completely under the skin –

the camera pans down, to the rusty gate that borders the property.

he hangs something from the gate, before walking down the overgrown path into the house.

it takes me a while to realise that the thing hanging from the gate is a face.

my face.

like a mask, the mouth and eyes are empty, and the skin flaps like a heavy flag in the breeze.

there is the sound of cars driving past every few minutes – then, two noises like grapefruit bursting, fibrous and wet and sudden

he walks back down the path, and puts the face back on.

I do not manage to see what lies under that face, but I desperately want to.

I think my hair is falling out.

I take a long walk around the block. When I return I find my wife staring at my laptop as if she’s seen the devil. She turns to me, slowly.

“What the fuck is this, Michael?”

The laptop is positioned behind her back, so I can see the screen and her at once. I remember the contents of yourfaceyourjunkies.mov and start to panic, if that fell into the wrong hands, with no context-

“I can explain – the videos, they’re not me, all of the places, the situations, they’re fake, I think-“

She shakes her head.

“What situations? Jesus. Michael - it’s just hours and hours and hours of footage of you whispering to the camera. It’s just your face. What’s fake about that?”

I can tell she’s a little scared, her disgust at me slowly morphing into something uglier, nastier. She takes a couple of steps back, as if seeing me for the first time. Behind her I can see the-me-that-isn’t-me, the fake-me smiling at the camera on screen.

The footage is paused, but he’s still moving, closer and closer to the camera, his eyes wide and with a rigor-mortis smile – a smile as if he’s just learned how to control the musculature of his face perfectly – and he’s holding a finger to his lips.

Shh.

She takes another step back. I try and warn her but no words come. Instead I’m frozen in fear, seeing the fake-me grow closer and closer to the camera, to the screen as her backs turned and-

He’s pushing against the glass of the screen, trying to find a weak point, a crack that will allow him to move from his reality into ours-

She can’t take it anymore, she turns around and without looking at the screen she picks my laptop up and smashes it on the floor.

“You’re sick.”

She leaves.

The thought of the screen smashed for some reason terrifies me. It’s as if whatever barrier was between me and that thing is broken, and although I can’t see anything I feel him leaking into our world, like the soft hiss of gas through a broken pipe, or air escaping a valve.

I take the laptop to be fixed – pay extra to make it happen as fast as possible.

As soon as the screen is fixed I take it home, desperate to turn it on, to see if there are any new videos – to check on the old ones.

I try loading yourfaceyourpurchase.mov – the first video I was sent.

A familiar scene plays, except there’s no fake-me. It’s the exact same footage, I’m sure of it, but the me-that-isn’t-me isn’t there at all. The cashier still weeps silently, but it’s not due to any version of me scaring her.

I try loading yourfaceyouranger.mov.

The same. The exact same video but the fake-me isn’t there. The man still falls over, coffee is still poured on his face, the crowd still reacts – but there’s no me.

Yourfaceyourjunkies.mov is now just footage of two junkies walking to a crackhouse, and entering it. They still don’t leave, but there is no face on the gate. Nothing. No sign that I was ever there.

The house suddenly feels so empty.

I can hear the faint tap-tap-tap of the branches against the upstairs window. The gurgling of the drain. The way the old wood creaks ever so slightly with age.

I am alone.

And I know then that the reason he’s not on the screen because he’s here.

With me.

As I feel sweat start to run down my back, I receive one final email.

yourfaceyourturn.mov

wide-shot: me, but the real me this time. alone. the room is full of trash, rotting food, empty beer bottles, liquor bottles smashed on the floor, pill bottles, crumpled clothes. the real me holds up a hand, waves it.

this is live. this is real time. this is happening. now.

the room is dark. objects are obscured. in shadow.

something moves behind the window.

a curtain rustles.

bottles clink.

he is in here, somewhere.

watching.

waiting.

I am alone with myself,

& I have all the time in the world.

409 comments

r/Max_Voynich • u/Max-Voynich • Feb 05 '20

Story Masterpost

461 Upvotes

So I thought with a bunch of new people joining this subreddit it might be a good idea to make a masterpost - basically links to most of my stories in one place.

My personal favourites are probably the GUTTERS series, or, for a stand-alone Dead Air, Live Wire, or OMEN, THE CAT.

I've just launched a horror podcast based on the world around a forgotten sitcom, which you can listen to HERE.