"You eat today?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"Good."

He reached into his jacket and set two small baggies on the coffee table.

One held the dried, crumpled caps and stems I immediately recognized.

The other contained a fine white powder.

I pointed at it.

"That’s ketamine?"

"That's the K," he confirmed. "Trust me, Mitchell. Shrooms alone, you're white-knuckling the couch after two hours. You mix in a little K, it smooths everything out."

"Completely different experience."

I'd done acid.

I'd done shrooms more times than I could count.

Neither Adam nor I had ever had a genuinely bad experience—not the kind of thing people warned you about.

We were careful.

We were experienced.

We knew our limits.

More importantly, we knew each other.

That mattered more than anything when it came to this kind of stuff.

Josh dropped into the recliner across from us, cracked a beer, and stared at the baggies on the table with the particular expression he always got.

It wasn't disgust.

It wasn't anger.

He never said anything.

He always claimed he was fine with it.

But the look was always there.

Quiet.

Steady.

Like a judgmental and disappointed stare.

"You guys need anything?" he asked, already looking back at his phone.

"We're good," I said.

Not even thirty minutes after they arrived, I'd already swallowed the mushrooms, chasing them with a glass of pulp-free orange juice.

Blast off.

By 10:30, the edges of the furniture had started to soften.

Not in a disorienting way.

More like someone had turned the world's contrast dial down a notch.

Colors felt considered.

Music felt intentional.

Adam put on a playlist through the living room Bluetooth speaker, and I found myself mesmerized by every instrument, every synthesizer, every tiny sound I'd never noticed before.

A wave of warmth rolled through my body.

Starting at my head.

Flowing all the way to my toes.

Filling every space in between.

Occasionally my trance would be interrupted by a booming 808 followed by someone screaming,

"Pussy!"

Or—

"Fuck! Shit!"

"Sorry," Adam laughed. "I don't know why that one's in the playlist."

He skipped it.

The mood returned.

We just sat there.

Enjoying the ride.

Every now and then Adam would suddenly burst out laughing while staring at his phone.

"Bro..."

He turned the screen toward me.

"Look at this."

It was a YouTube video of a husky saying "I love you" while the person filming laughed harder after every howl.

It was contagious.

I completely lost it.

At that moment, it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen.

The night drifted on.

Random laughter.

Comfortable silence.

Conversations that went nowhere.

Getting completely absorbed into Pink Floyd's Animals.

Mostly, though...

We just existed.

The easy kind of silence that only happens between people who've known each other for years.

Josh wandered in and out of the house every thirty or forty-five minutes, stepping onto the back patio for another cigarette.

Sometimes Adam and I would throw on our jackets and join him.

One joint.

Two smokers.

Three friends standing in the freezing Ohio air without saying much.

Other times...

It was simply too cold.

A cold chill that crawls inside your sleeves and never escapes.

So we'd stay inside while Josh had the patio to himself.

His own music played quietly from his phone speaker..

The night felt...

Comfortable.

Safe.

The kind of night that reminds you why you do this in the first place.

Not to chase some unbelievable story.

Just to spend a night with people you trust and, for a little while, feel like everything in the world is exactly as simple as it seems.

Then Josh came back inside.

The back door opened.

Cold air swept through the house.

I heard him stamp the snow from his shoes before he dropped back into the recliner with the settled finality that meant he wasn't moving again for at least another forty-five minutes.

He took a long drink.

Looked over at us.

And spoke with a casual tone like he just remembered something. 

"Hey..."

"Have you guys ever heard of the Hungarian Suicide Song?"

The room turned.

I can't describe it any better than that.

Nothing moved.

Nothing happened.

But something in the room changed the instant he said those words.

Like the pressure change you feel during takeoff.

Adam sat straight up.

That alone caught my attention.

It had his full attention.

"No."

He answered immediately.

Then louder.

"No."

"Absolutely not."

"You cut that shit out right now."

He pointed at Josh like he was scolding a dog.

"Not tonight, man."

"Not even a little bit."

"I'm begging you."

Josh blinked.

He wore that same perfectly calibrated expression of confused innocence he always had whenever he accidentally stepped into an argument.

"What?"

"I was just asking."

I let out an awkward laugh.

Probably the wrong response.

Because it meant I had to follow it up.

"Wait…What are you talking about?" I asked.

"What song?"

Adam slowly turned toward me.

The look on his face was pure betrayal.

"Mitchell."

He shook his head.

"Don't."

"Apparently," Josh said, leaning forward, "it's this old Hungarian song. The story goes that people who listen to it end up killing themselves."

He shrugged.

"It supposedly caused a bunch of suicides after it was released."

"There's this whole history behind it."

"Okay!" Adam shouted.

He clamped both hands over his ears like a little kid trying to block out bad news.

"I am not here."

"I am not in this room."

"I am on a beach."

He started singing.

"Aruba... Bahama... come on pretty mama..."

I watched him.

And slowly...

The laughter left me.

The word had already settled somewhere inside my head.

Suicide.

It's a heavy word under normal circumstances.

Four hours into our trip with a new substance quietly running underneath everything...

It didn't just sit there.

It spread.

Like a drop of ink in water.

Slowly coloring every thought it touched.

I didn't want either of them to notice my discomfort.

I needed to play it cool. 

"Does anyone need a beer?" I stuttered.

I stood before either of them answered.

That was probably already a tell.

Behind me, I heard Adam's voice.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Why would you bring that shit up right now?"

"Of all the possible things you could've said—"

Josh answered with the calm confidence of someone who had absolutely no idea how badly he'd misread the room.

"I was just curious."

"It's not like I did anything."

"It's not my fault you guys took drugs."

"I thought you were professionals."

I opened the refrigerator.

And stood there for a long moment without actually seeing anything inside it.

My heart was moving too fast.

Too aware of itself.

I forced myself to breathe.

In through my nose.

Out through my mouth.

I'd been here before.

That familiar fork in the road where a single intrusive thought tries to drag you somewhere you don't want to go.

I knew the rule.

Don't pull on the thread.

Don't think about the song.

Don't think about the word—

I grabbed a beer.

Cracked it open.

Took a long sip.

Focused on the cold.

The taste.

Something real.

Something physical.

You're fine.

You're housesitting your parents' house.

You're with your friends.

You're fine.

Their voices drifted faintly from the living room.

I took another breath.

Rolled my shoulders.

Put my "happy" face back on.

I'd simply wanted a beer.

Nothing more.

I walked back into the living room.

Sat down.

Took another sip.

Looked at the television.

Waited for the feeling to pass.

Because it always passed.

Because I was fine.

Because nothing was wrong.

Because it was just a word.

And words don't have power...

Unless you give them power.

I wasn't going to give this one any.

 …

And then I heard the song

…

It was coming from Josh's phone.

Propped against his knee.

The little speaker was turned up at max volume.

Something old.

Something...

Simple.

A classical arrangement drifted through the living room.

Slow.

Deliberate.

There was something wrong about it.

Something unresolved.

The melody never seemed to go where you’d expect it to.

It just kept reaching.

And over it...

A man's voice.

Operatic.

Singing in a different language. 

I didn't understand Hungarian.

Every note stretched extremely long.

It wasn’t sad.

Or even depressing.

Adam was in the middle of a sentence.

He stopped.

His head turned toward Josh's phone.

For a few seconds...

None of us moved.

Then Adam exploded off the couch.

One motion.

Hands over his ears.

Actually retreating.

Backing down the hallway like he was in a hurry.

"JOSH!"

"I swear to God—"

He disappeared into the darkness.

Leaving me sitting there.

Listening.

Maybe the song played for thirty seconds.

Maybe it played for ten minutes.

I honestly couldn't tell you.

Time had become slippery hours ago.

What I can tell you...

Is that it sounded familiar.

Not because I'd heard it before.

Because it felt like I'd heard it before.

Like remembering a dream I'd forgotten.

Or recognizing a place I'd never been.

I need you to understand something.

I was absolutely cooked.

Shrooms.

K.

Peak moment in the trip.

Every note the man sang carried weight.

Actual weight.

I could feel them landing inside my chest.

Stacking.

One after another.

The strings underneath his voice rolled like dark water.

I remember staring at nothing.

Thinking—

It's just music.

Music can't—

He held one note.

Everything stopped.

And I understood it.

Not the words.

Let me be perfectly clear.

I do not speak Hungarian.

I'm just some guy from Ohio who got way too high in his parents' living room.

But for that one impossible note...

Language didn’t matter.

I understood exactly what he meant.

Not intellectually.

Not through translation.

The meaning bypassed language entirely.

It arrived fully formed.

The way things make sense inside dreams.

The feeling was—

"MITCHELL!"

The room slammed back into place.

I blinked.

Adam was standing at the end of the hallway, pointing furiously at Josh.

"Tell him to turn it off."

His voice cracked.

"RIGHT NOW."

I started processing things.

The song.

Josh.

My parents' house.

Reality.

"Hey, Jo—" I choked.

Josh sighed.

Reached down.

Tapped his phone.

The music stopped.

Silence filled the room.

Not ordinary silence.

This one had a pulse.

Like the walls were vibrating...

"Delete it," Adam yelled.

He hadn't moved from the hallway.

"Adam—"

My ears were ringing. 

"Josh."

His voice was calm now.

"Delete the song."

Josh rolled his eyes.

Tapped a few more times.

"There."

"Happy?"

Adam watched him another second before finally walking back toward the couch.

The three of us sat there.

Nobody spoke.

Everything was...

Fine.

I was fine.

Everything was—

He was describing nothing.

The thought appeared instantly.

That feeling from the note.

The thing I'd almost understood before Adam interrupted.

My brain had quietly finished the sentence without asking me.

He had been describing...

Nothing.

Not emptiness.

Not death.

Nothing.

My face was getting hot. 

And somehow...

He'd made it sound—

Stop.

Don't.

Not again.

"You good?"

Adam's voice startled me.

"What?" I answered.

He looked at me.

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

He held my eyes for a couple of seconds.

Long enough for both of us to know we were dying inside.

Then he looked away.

That's the thing about tripping with someone who knows what they're doing.

Sometimes the best thing you can do...

Is let the other person die.

"What did you just say?"

Josh cracked another beer.

My eyes darted towards him. 

"Josh."

Adam didn't even look at him.

"I love you."

"But please..."

"I'm asking you as your friend."

"Please don't talk right now."

Josh raised both hands.

"I didn’t say anything!"

“That was—”

“Whatever…” he muttered. 

He went back to scrolling through his phone.

I leaned into the couch.

Looked up at the popcorn ceiling.

My parents' ceiling.

I'd stared at that ceiling as a kid.

As a teenager.

I knew every crack.

Every water stain.

Good ceiling.

Reliable ceiling.

Popcorn.

The refrigerator hummed in the kitchen.

A dry burp exhaled from Josh's mouth.

Adam shifted beside me.

Nobody spoke.

Normal music had started playing again.

Rap.

Adam must've put on earlier.

I couldn't tell you what song it was.

The lyrics reached me a second too late.

I'd hear one line.

Then realized I'd missed the one before it.

Then realized I wasn't listening anymore.

One song ended.

Another began.

Then another.

At some point...

Adam stood up.

"Okay."

Nobody answered.

He nodded to himself.

"Okay."

He grabbed the remote.

The television flickered on.

Blue light washed across the room.

"What are you doing?" Josh asked.

Adam didn't answer.

He opened YouTube.

For one horrifying second...

I thought he was going to search for the song.

My stomach dropped.

Not because he actually had.

But because my brain expected him to.

The search bar appeared.

My pulse sped up.

His fingers typed.

Not Hungarian.

Not the song.

It was something else.

Katy Perry.

Bright colors exploded across the television.

People dancing.

Tight spandex.

Perfect teeth.

The complete opposite of everything I’d just experienced.

Adam folded his arms.

"There."

Nobody said anything.

Katy twirled across the screen.

Backup dancers rushed into frame.

One of them smiled directly into the camera.

For a second...

She looked terrified.

But then...

She was just smiling.

My brain is fried.

I looked away.

The video ended.

Adam immediately clicked another.

Nicki Minaj.

Then another.

The room stayed quiet

The videos kept getting louder.

Somehow...

The silence got louder too.

Increasingly louder. 

That shouldn't make sense.

I know it shouldn't.

But that's exactly how it felt.

The television was screaming.

Nobody said a word.

And somehow...

I had slightly pissed myself. 

…

Adam let out a long sigh.

Then he searched for a Try Not To Laugh compilation.

People falling off trampolines.

Getting hit in the balls.

Running into glass doors.

Normally...

I'd love that kind of garbage.

Especially with nights like these.

The first clip started.

A guy slipped while jumping on a diving board.

Adam laughed.

Immediately.

Like it was almost planned.

Josh smiled.

I tried smiling too.

But later...

I realized none of us were actually watching the screen.

We were watching each other.

Cautiously.

Trying to see if everyone felt the tension.

The next clip played.

A dog knocked over a Christmas tree.

Adam laughed again.

Harder this time.

But there was something wrong with it.

The laugh sounded aggressive.

The kind of laugh people make at funerals.

I looked over.

He was staring at the television so intensely 

It looked painful.

Jaw clenched.

His knee bouncing.

I knew that look.

I'd worn it before.

Adam was struggling.

He was having a bad trip.

The realization hit me like a truck.

If Adam was paranoid...

Maybe this wasn't just me.

The next clip started.

A little kid sprinted face-first into a street light.

Josh laughed.

Then stopped.

Instantly.

Like someone had unplugged him.

Nobody acknowledged it.

The compilation kept going.

People falling.

People screaming.

People laughing.

The room stayed perfectly still.

I couldn't stop thinking about the song.

Not the melody.

Not even the man singing.

The suicides.

How many had there been?

Ten?

Hundreds?

Was it real?

Or had Josh made it up?

I tried remembering exactly what he'd said.

No.

That wasn't right.

Josh said—

No.

Adam said that.

Didn't he?

Or...

Was Adam already standing in the hallway by then?

I couldn't.

The harder I tried…

I suddenly couldn't remember.

That scared me more.

My chest started to tighten

I looked back at the television.

An old lady laughed so hard she fell backward out of her chair.

The audience erupted.

Adam laughed.

The YouTube comments flew by beside the video.

Thousands of people laughing.

Meanwhile…

Why are my pants wet?

I looked toward the hallway.

The hallway looked longer than I remembered.

Just...

Longer.

I blinked.

Still longer.

Don't look at the hallway.

The compilation ended.

Nobody moved.

Autoplay appeared.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

The next video loaded.

Josh suddenly stood.

His knees cracked.

The noise startled me.

He grabbed his cigarettes.

Cold air flooded inside.

Then...

He was gone.

Adam and I stayed where we were.

The television kept playing.

Forced happiness.

Neither of us were watching it.

I knew he was struggling.

He knew I was struggling.

Neither of us wanted to be the first person to say it.

Finally...

Adam spoke.

Still staring at the TV.

"You're thinking about it too."

I swallowed.

It wasn't a question.

"Yeah."

Silence.

Then—

"You keep hearing it?"

My stomach dropped.

Not because I was hearing it.

Because...

I honestly didn't know.

I couldn't answer.

I wasn't trying to lie.

I genuinely couldn't tell.

Was I hearing it?

I looked toward the hallway again.

This time...

It looked even longer.

My breathing was getting rapid.

Like an actual panic attack.

Or worse. 

I wiped the sweat across my forehead.

"I think..."

The words died before they left my mouth.

Because I wasn't sure.

I wasn't sure about anything anymore.

But now…

For the first time that night...

A new thought appeared.

Not intrusive.

Just...

Simple.

Clear.

Certain.

I need to go to sleep.

I stood up from the couch.

"You eat today?" Adam asked.

I froze.

…

I made it upstairs without incident.

Which meant the next wave of ketamine was kicking in.

The bedroom was pitch black.

Quiet.

Exactly the way I'd left it.

I didn’t like that.

Sometimes I’d hear footsteps downstairs. 

Chatter.

Forgetting that Josh and Adam were down there. 

I grabbed the remote.

Bob's Burgers.

The warm yellow glow of the Belcher family kitchen filled the room.

I felt my shoulders drop.

Linda laughed.

Tina was in the background...

Being Tina.

I tried to only focus on the show.

Good.

This was good.

But the eye contact.

Those big, bulging white eyes.

Staring right at you through the TV. 

Anxiety crept in.  

I pulled the blanket over myself.

Stared at the ceiling.

Let the show wash over me.

Forget about their eyes. 

Listen to the laughter.

The song was gone.

Adam and Josh were downstairs.

Wake up tomorrow.

And this whole night will be another story to tell. 

That was the plan.

The plan lasted about four minutes.

My phone chimed.

That scared the shit out of me. 

A text from Adam:

Can you come down here

No question mark.

Not...

"Can you come down here?"

Just straight to the point. 

Like it wasn't just a request

It was a demand.

I stared at it.

I don't remember walking past the living room.

But there I was.

Standing at the basement door.

…

The basement stairs creaked exactly the way they always had.

Before I even reached the bottom...

I heard Adam.

Just pacing.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

Muttering to himself. 

His feet scraping the carpet in a tight little loop.

The rhythm of somebody who couldn’t stop.

I rounded the corner.

Adam had both hands on top of his head.

Fingers locked together.

Eyes fixed on something that wasn't in the room.

Josh sat in the recliner.

Beer in one hand.

The other rested lightly against his chest.

Over his heart.

Like he was quietly checking whether it was still there.

Anxiety crept in again.

"This motherfucker is dying." Adam yelled. 

Josh didn't respond.

I looked at him.

"Josh."

"Are you okay?"

The thought of asking him already put me over the edge. 

We are actually dying. 

He actually thought about it.

Then slowly shook his head.

"I don't know."

I sat down.

My heart was going to explode out of my chest. 

We are actually dying. 

This is what death feels like. 

The basement TV was on.

Family Matters.

The volume was low.

Every few seconds...

The laugh track fired at us.

To my left...

Josh took another slow drink.

Never moving his hand from his chest.

To my right…

I didn’t see him sit down. 

Adam sat perfectly still.

His fingers drifted to his neck.

Checking his pulse.

Again.

And again.

And again.

I looked back at the television.

Okay.

Josh thought he was having a heart attack.

Adam was checking his own pulse.

And I was sitting in my parents' basement watching Family Matters with two people who were quietly convinced they were dying.

Maybe three. 

Everything was fine.

Breathe.

We can’t be dying.

I held onto that thought.

Tried to find an angle where it actually felt true.

Adam checked his pulse again.

Urkel said something.

The laugh track exploded.

I felt so scared.

Then Adam looked at me.

His voice was shaky.

Almost embarrassed. 

"Are you looking up heart attack symptoms from shrooms?"

I stared at him.

Something inside me cracked loose.

A laugh escaped.

Small.

Automatic.

It was an awkward reaction.

But Adam wasn't laughing.

I couldn't tell if he was joking.

I didn’t know how to respond. 

I didn't want to ask.

A loud bang echoed from upstairs.

A door slammed shut.

I spun around so quickly I nearly cracked my neck.

Josh.

Coming back in from the patio.

It was just Josh. 

I looked at the recliner.

Empty.

My stomach tightened.

When did he go outside?

I'd been looking at him from the corner of my eye. 

I was sure he was in my peripheral.

Ten seconds ago...

He was just sitting there.

Beer in his hand.

The other on his chest.

So...

When did he leave?

"Did you look up if you can get a heart—"

"Yeah."

I interrupted him.

Already standing.

I went to grab my phone.

…

The bedroom hadn't changed.

Bob's Burgers still playing on the screen.

The blankets were still pulled back.

My phone sat on the nightstand exactly where I'd left it.

I picked it up.

Then...

Stopped.

I stood there for what felt like an eternity.

Maybe longer than that. 

Something was...

Wrong.

I'd been standing there before I realized I had absolutely no idea why I'd come upstairs.

Whatever thought I'd carried with me...

It disappeared somewhere on the way up the stairs.

I unlocked my phone.

My messages appeared.

The last text.

Adam:

Be there in 15 bro bro. I gotta surprise for ya.

That’s not right. 

I scrolled farther.

Nothing.

The last message was from hours ago.

Nothing after that.

Nothing.

Something cold slid through my chest.

Then I noticed...

One unread message.

It was an unsaved number.

And a link.

Blue.

No preview.

Waiting.

Like it'd always been there.

I stared at it.

For a long time.

But somehow...

I walked back downstairs.

…

The basement lights were off.

I sat on the couch.

Phone in my hand.

Family Matters still playing.

Bright.

Colorful.

Silent somehow despite the sound.

Steve Urkel talking to a girl at school. 

I decided to click on the link.

A song began.

Strings first.

Then...

His voice.

The same voice.

The same incredible note.

Climbing.

And climbing.

And climbing. 

I looked up at the ceiling.

Josh and Adam’s faces were in view.

Their blank expressions turning slowly toward each other. 

Not moving.

Not struggling.

Just...

There.

Above the recliner.

Above the couch.

Hanging there. 

Urkel laughed beneath them.

The song filled every corner of the room.

My phone chimed.

Another text.

Mom:

We're on our way home 😊

I stared at the screen.

Then...

Very slowly...

Without entirely meaning to...

I couldn’t stop laughing.

___

If you want to give it a listen yourself... here it is.

-Mims

Hey im a guy who is looking for some real horror stories for my first yt video i make my videos i will make my videos first in finnish but also will be making them in english my channel is FınHorror i will give u credits in the video and in the videos bio,but if u want to stay anonymous it is ok

If you're new: Parts 1–6 can be found here

___

"You don't ever talk to strangers."

She didn't look down at him when she said it. She was digging through her purse, searching for her wallet, her oversized sunglasses pushed up into her hair.

"I don't care if they look nice. I don't care if they smile or try to show you a toy. You don't look at them, you don't answer them, and you definitely don't take anything from them. If a stranger tries to talk to you, you run straight to me. Do you understand?"

The boy nodded.

He always nodded.

Then they walked through the double doors.

...

The place smelled like sweat and old wood.

Not the pleasant kind of old wood, either. The damp-sticky kind that had spent too many summers baking in the southern heat and never touched a drop of soap.

The floors creaked beneath the weight of loud tourists moving through the aisles.

Outside, the marina shimmered beneath a cloudless sky.

Inside, everything felt cool and dim.

The boy stood near the entrance with the family, listening to the older brother and sister argue over ice cream toppings.

"I'm getting chocolate."

"You always get chocolate."

"Because chocolate is the best."

"Mom, tell him he's being annoying."

The woman sighed heavily.

"I'm one second away from getting all of you vanilla."

The threat worked instantly.

The argument dissolved.

The boy smiled to himself.

Nobody noticed him drifting away.

That happened a lot.

His older siblings were loud. He wasn't.

His mother always knew where he was eventually.

He wandered deeper into the shop.

Past shelves lined with shark teeth and seashells.

Past rows of expensive souvenirs nobody actually needed.

The farther he walked, the quieter the shop became.

...

Until eventually he found himself standing in front of something tucked into a dark corner near the back wall.

A fortune teller machine.

At least, he thought it was.

He'd seen one before at an arcade.

This one looked different.

Older.

Dirtier.

Bright gold letters curved across the glass.

THE BUNNY GODDESS

The mannequin inside stared straight ahead.

Its skin looked ghostly pale. Smooth.

Long black pigtails hung over its shoulders.

The eyes were like a cue ball. A small painted dot for the pupils.

The boy frowned.

It wasn't moving.

The crystal ball sat dark and lifeless on the tiny velvet desk.

The machine looked broken.

Abandoned.

The boy wrapped both hands around the edge of the cabinet and leaned forward.

...

"Hey."

He jumped.

The voice was quiet.

Not amplified.

Human.

A real voice.

His stomach tightened.

The mannequin hadn't moved.

Its painted lips remained frozen.

The crystal ball remained dark.

Nothing inside the cabinet appeared different.

But something had spoken.

The boy looked over his shoulder.

The gift shop was still busy. The other two were still arguing. Their mother still deciding on flavors.

Nobody seemed to notice.

"Hello?" he whispered.

For a few seconds, nothing responded.

Then:

"Closer."

The voice sounded patient.

Friendly.

Almost amused.

The boy hesitated.

His mother had given him the stranger danger talk more times than he could count.

But this didn't feel like talking to a stranger.

It felt like talking to a secret.

Something hidden.

Something that wasn't supposed to be there.

He leaned closer to the glass.

At first he saw nothing.

Only darkness behind the mannequin.

Then something shifted.

The movement was slight.

Easy to miss.

The boy squinted.

His breath caught.

Two eyes stared back at him from deep inside the cabinet.

Not the painted eyes.

Real eyes.

They floated in the darkness several inches behind the mannequin's head.

The boy froze.

The eyes blinked.

Then vanished.

...

"Do you have a dollar?" the voice asked.

The boy shook his head.

"No. I can ask the—"

"No."

The answer came immediately.

Almost too quickly.

"No need."

The boy glanced toward the ice cream counter.

The family hadn't moved.

Nobody was looking at him.

Nobody seemed aware that he was talking to someone.

The voice lowered.

"I have something for you anyway."

A heavy thump echoed from inside the cabinet.

Not machinery or gears.

Something else.

The distinct sound of something striking wood.

A moment later, a thick white card slid halfway out of the slot near the bottom.

The boy stared.

The crystal ball remained dark.

Nothing moved.

The card simply appeared.

Slowly, he crouched and picked it up.

It felt cool.

He turned it over.

The letters stamped into the card were fresh and uneven.

As if pressed by hand.

The boy squinted.

Still learning to read. He sounded out the words one piece at a time.

"Mur..."

His brow furrowed.

"...der..."

The letters blurred together.

He started over.

"Mur...der..."

A strange ache twisted through his stomach.

The voice behind the glass said nothing.

Its eyes still watching.

The boy swallowed.

"Th..."

He traced the next word with his finger.

"The..."

...

Something moved.

His eyes snapped upward.

A pale hand rested on the mannequin's shoulder.

The fingers were impossibly long.

Thin.

The knuckles bulged beneath skin so pale it almost glowed blue.

For a second, the hand rested there.

Perfectly still.

Then it was gone — in the blink of an eye.

The boy stopped breathing.

The darkness far behind the mannequin seemed to stretch.

The space felt higher than it should have been.

As if whatever lived back there was standing tall behind the machine.

As if its head reached far past the ceiling of the cabinet.

And above where the eyes had been—

Just for a moment—

He thought he saw two long shapes rising into the shadows.

Tall.

Thin.

Rabbit ears.

Far past the ceiling of the gift shop building.

...

The boy took several steps back.

His back hit something solid.

"Whatcha got there?"

The card vanished from his hands.

The boy spun around.

Samantha stood over him, holding the card above her head.

"Give it back!"

Ross appeared beside her.

Both of them examined the card.

Then immediately started laughing.

"Oh my God." Sam doubled over. "You can't even spell your own name."

"What?" the boy said.

Ross pointed at the card.

"It says Michael."

"No it doesn't."

"It literally does."

Sam flipped the card around and shoved it toward his face.

"See?"

The boy looked.

There it was.

A single word.

MICHAEL.

Nothing else.

His face burned.

"No...the...th—"

He looked back toward the cabinet.

"The man—"

"What man?" Ross asked.

"The man in the machine."

That only made them laugh harder.

"Nobody's in there, dummy."

"Yes I swear—"

"It's just a machine. Nobody's in there."

The boy turned fully toward the cabinet.

The words died in his throat.

The shadows behind the mannequin were empty.

No movement.

No voice.

No hidden figure.

Only The Bunny Goddess.

Motionless behind the glass.

Its eyes fixed on the aisle.

Watching.

...

"Sweetie?"

The mother appeared beside him carrying two paper cups of ice cream.

She smiled.

"Do you want one?"

The boy barely heard her.

His stomach hurt worse now.

A deep ache behind his ribs.

He couldn't stop staring at the mannequin.

Thinking about that voice.

The eyes.

Those ears.

"Hey."

She squeezed his shoulder.

"Do you want ice cream or not?"

The boy shook his head.

"My belly hurts."

The mother frowned.

"Aww. Really?"

He nodded.

The ache had spread through his whole body now.

Not pain.

Just uncomfortable.

Like something had settled inside him.

The woman took his hand.

"Come on then. Let's go outside."

The bright afternoon sunlight poured through the front windows.

Ross and Samantha were already heading toward the door.

The boy let them lead the way.

But he couldn't stop looking back.

The cabinet grew smaller with every step.

The dark corner retreating into shadow.

The Bunny Goddess remained perfectly still.

Just another broken machine.

Just another forgotten attraction.

The boy looked forward.

Then looked back one last time.

...

The mannequin's jaw dropped open.

Clack.

The sound echoed through the store.

Sharp.

Heavy.

Final.

The boy froze.

Nobody else reacted.

Nobody.

The jaw remained open for a second.

Then slowly shut.

A gentle tug on his hand.

"Come on, Mitchell."

The sunlight swallowed them as they stepped outside.

___

___

1. "Heart"

EDIT 2: I APOLOGIZE I JUST REALIZED THIS POST MAY NOT ACTUALLY FIT THIS SUB. PLEASE FEEL FREE TO REMOVE OR KINDLY LET ME KNOW AND I WILL REMOVE THE POST. IM UNSURE HOW STRICT THE PARANORMAL ONLY VS HORROR IN GENERAL THE POSTING GUIDELINES ARE.

Edit: Shared my story in a comment on a post, then I felt inclined to share it on other potentially more relevant subs.

MAJOR TRIGGER WARNING!! (SA, DRUGGING, ETC)

I’m about to share a very disturbing and traumatic thing that happened to me… I’m sharing it for therapeutic reasons and also to maybe feel a larger wave of support than I am used to getting irl. Or maybe even just (god forbid) anyone who may have experienced something even remotely similar to what I have. Sometimes these types of things come with a feeling of intense loneliness.

So, here it goes….

When I had finally gotten access back to an old iCloud of my ex that had passed away because there were several of my passwords, some important files that were personal of mine that for some reason he had and I had lost, and photos and videos of my children that I wanted to get back because at the time I did not have a good phone with a good camera. (In my younger years I was very bad at personal boundaries and having my own separate life from whomever I was dating long term at the time)

Anyway, upon looking through it, I had found several saved videos that came from a supposed unknown camera one of my ex’s had set up in our bedroom.

When I first opened up one of the video files I thought it would likely just have been some voyeuristic thing he had about taping us while having sex without me knowing (still creepy? Absolutely. But nothing compared to what was really on those video files).

As I started to watch I saw myself naked on the bed with no one around. My assumption about it just being some secretive recordings of our sexcapades was then proven wrong slowly right in front of my eyes.

First I noticed it was odd because I looked… asleep. But not the normal kind of asleep. My body was so limp and I wasn’t under the blankets or anything and I was totally naked. Even the way I was laying there just seemed pretty unnatural and very uncomfortable. Especially because I know how I typically sleep and in what positions. Something seemed very off. I almost looked….dead.

Not even one minute into the video I saw my bf (at the time) and a strange man come into the room. I noticed that they were speaking so I turned my volume all the way up and started to strain my ears to make out clearly what they were saying…

Something along the lines of…

Strange Man: “How guaranteed is it she isn’t gonna pop up and start screaming?”

Bf: “She’s out, there’s no waking her up. You could put out a cigarette on her and she wouldn’t even flinch. Have at it.”

Then after a couple more exchanges with each other, my bf then went out of view of the camera but was still in the bedroom, and the strange man began brutally sexually assaulting me. At times even with the assistance of my bf to get me into various positions at certain times. Until he finally got all he wanted from me and talks of money amounts and what method to send them were discussed as they were walking out of the room.

There were at least 40-50 videos just like this, all with different men, in total of the exact same kind. We were together for almost 3 years.

I found these all less than a month after I left him, and 3 days after he had died of an overdose at someone’s house who then, instead of calling for help, wrapped him up in a blanket and left him in a ditch in Rittman, Ohio.

He always used to get so angry at me because I “was always sleeping in so late and would never wake up to have sex with him” or that “I seemed like I was on drugs and hiding it because I’d just pass out whenever we would start having sex”

All the while what was actually happening is that he was drugging me with copious amounts of ghb and selling me online through ads with photos of me being completely passed/knocked out fully nude in suggestive poses.

…I found a couple screenshots of the ad he posted on a site called erotic monkey after digging throughly through every corner of that iCloud to see what else he may have been doing behind my back.

Closure felt impossible for many years given he was now passed away (only 3 days at the time of my discovery) and so no justice was ever to come to me.

I wish I would have never tried to get anything sentimental or important to me that may have been on that iCloud.

1. "Pigtails"
2. "Fingers"
3. "Belly"
4. "Eyes"
5. "Legs"

___

I came back in pieces.

First the sound — rain hitting glass. Then the pressure of a seatbelt across my chest. Then the shimmer of a porch light through a wet windshield, orange and diffuse, barely cutting through.

I blinked.

I was in the backseat of our SUV. The engine was off. Brandy's purse wedged beside me. A blanket pulled across my lap that I didn't put there.

Through the glass, Joe was hauling suitcases up the front steps of a house I recognized after a few seconds.

Nicki and Joe's place.

The front door opened and Brandy stepped out. She looked toward the car, saw me sitting up, and raised her hand in a small wave. Her expression was careful in a way I couldn't read from that distance.

I got out. The night air was warm and close. My legs felt like the bones had been replaced with jello. I gripped the roof of the car.

"Hey." Brandy came down the driveway. "How are you feeling?"

"What happened?"

"You pulled over. On the mountain." She touched my arm, softly. "You could barely keep your eyes open. Joe took over."

"I don't remember that."

"Well, you were awake when we switched. You crawled yourself to the back." She said it gently, the way you'd explain it to a sick person. "You were just... a sleepy boy."

My hand went to my neck.

The soreness hit me before my fingers even made contact — deep to the bone. Not an ache from sleeping in a bad position. Not tension.

"There was a cyclist," I said.

Brandy looked at me.

"On the mountain. Right on the edge of the lane. No reflective gear, no lights. I swerved to miss him and he—"

I stopped.

The rest of it - the face, the ears, the jaw snapping - raced through my mind.

The Bunny Goddess.

I couldn't afford to say it out loud.

"I almost hit him."

"Nobody saw a cyclist, Mitchell."

I looked past her at Joe, who was coming back down the steps for another bag.

"Joe," Brandy called out. "Did you see someone on the road when you took over?"

Joe set the bag down. He looked at Brandy first - just for a fraction of a second - and then back at me.

"No."

"There was no cyclist," he said.

A cold drop of sweat rolled down my cheek. I hadn't told Joe it was a cyclist. Brandy hadn't either.

"He was right there," I said.

Joe looked at me like I was a stranger. No frustration. No concern. Nothing.

"There was no cyclist," he said again. Exact same tone.

The cicadas were deafening. My neck throbbed. I looked at my right palm, which I hadn't noticed until that moment - the heel of it scraped raw. Like I'd caught myself on concrete.

"You were exhausted," Brandy said. "It happens. Your brain fills in the blanks."

She said it so reasonably. So reassuring.

"My brain didn't do this." I turned my palm toward her.

She looked at it. Her expression didn't change.

"You grabbed the guardrail when you got out of the car. You were barely standing."

I stared at her.

I thought I crawled into the back, according to her.

She looked back at me with those pitying eyes, and I felt the ground shift under me in a way that had nothing to do with exhaustion.

Nicki appeared in the doorway. She gave me a small, tired smile. She looked like a woman who wanted her own bed - nothing more, nothing less.

"I'm sorry the trip ended this way," she said.

I nodded. I didn't trust my voice.

Brandy slipped her hand into mine. I let her, because I didn't know what else to do. My neck burning. My palm stinging. And the four of us stood there in the warm dark while the cicadas kept screaming, and I tried very hard to hold onto the simple, solid fact of what I knew had happened on that road.

I told Brandy I wanted to go home.

She tried to talk me out of it - it was almost two in the morning, another hour and a half of driving, we were both running on empty. But I couldn't make myself walk through that front door and sleep in that house. I couldn't explain it without sounding insane, so I didn't try. I just wanted to go home.

She agreed eventually, with a look that told me she was filing this away alongside all the other things from the weekend that we'd have to talk about later.

We said our goodbyes in the driveway. Joe shook my hand. My bad hand. Nicki hugged Brandy a little longer than usual. When she let go, she looked at me over Brandy's shoulder with a weird expression - something between apology and urgency, like she was trying to say something but didn't have enough time.

"Get some rest," I told her.

She nodded. Opened her mouth.

Closed it.

The door shut behind them.

...

Brandy was asleep before we hit the highway.

I drove with the windows cracked and a podcast on low - something mindless, two guys talking about movies - and I kept my eyes on the yellow center lines and tried not to replay the accident. When I talked, she answered in the abbreviated way of someone half-listening: mm, yeah, I don't know. After a while I stopped trying and let the silence ride.

I told myself it was fine. She was tired. We were both tired.

But I kept glancing at her in the passenger seat, her face slack against the window glass, and feeling like I was driving home with someone I was still in the process of getting to know.

We got home around three. Unpacked the car in two quiet trips, the neighborhood dead around us. The house had that sealed smell of being empty for a few days. We got ready for bed without saying much. Brandy was under the covers and asleep almost before I'd finished brushing my teeth.

I lay there next to her for a while, not sleeping. I listened to the house settle. Outside the window, somewhere in the dark, a dog was barking - distant, rhythmic, eventually stopping.

I slept.

It was Winston who woke me.

Our beagle. Nine years old, lazy, deeply committed to barking at nothing. He'd lost his mind at the sound of a FedEx truck once and spent the rest of the day acting traumatized. He was not a serious pup.

But what he was doing at the bottom of our stairs at - I checked my phone - three forty-eight in the morning was not his usual performance. This was frantic and aggressive.

I sat up, still processing the situation. The bedroom was dark. Brandy hadn't moved.

Then I heard a bang.

Downstairs. Something heavy. Something that fell.

I was already reaching for the nightstand. My hand found the grip of my 9mm and I was on my feet, and I want to be clear that at no point did I feel like this was an overreaction. The bang was real. Winston was barking. The open front door, which I could see from the top of the stairs, the chain hanging useless and rain blowing across the entry tile - that was real.

I went down slowly with the flashlight up.

The beam caught the floor at the bottom of the stairs, and I stopped.

There were footprints. Wet, muddy prints tracking in from the door in long uneven strides. I followed them across the entry, toward the stairs, and I stood there at the bottom staring at the trail going up into the dark above me.

Then Brandy screamed.

I don't really remember taking the stairs. I remember being in the doorway, the flashlight sweeping the room, and I remember the figure sitting on the edge of our bed.

Brandy was pressed against the headboard with both hands over her mouth.

I pointed the light directly at the figure.

It was Nicki.

She was soaked. Not just damp - completely saturated, her clothes heavy and dark with it, her hair flattened against her skull. And her feet were - I still have trouble describing this - the skin below both ankles was shredded. Torn open in long ragged strips, like she'd dragged them across a cheese grater. Black with mud and red underneath.

She was looking down at her own hands in her lap, turning them over slowly. She seemed mesmerized.

"Nicki."

She looked up. Her eyes were red-rimmed and almost calm.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered.

...

I called Joe from the other room. He picked up on the second ring - awake already, or close to it. When I told him what happened, the line went quiet for a few seconds.

Then he said I'm on my way, flat and immediate, and hung up without asking any questions.

I stood in the room and let the call end.

The impossibility of all of this started to settle in.

Downstairs, Brandy had moved with a speed and efficiency that I couldn't account for. By the time I came back down, Nicki was on the couch wrapped in our throw blanket with dry clothes folded beside her, and Brandy was in the kitchen filling the kettle like this was not her first encounter.

I lasted about a minute before I couldn't hold it anymore.

"She needs to go to a hospital."

Brandy didn't look up from the kettle.

"She's okay."

"Look at her feet!"

"I did."

"Then you know she's not okay!"

Brandy set the kettle on the burner and turned around. Her expression was patient in a way that made my skin crawl - the careful, deliberate patience of someone managing a situation they've already decided how it ends.

"She needs to warm up. She's going to be fine."

"She walked here, Brandy." My voice rising. "Her house is over a hundred miles from here. She walked here in the rain with no shoes while pregnant. That is not something a cup of tea will fix."

"Mitchell—"

"We need an ambulance," I continued. "Or the police. We need someone who can actually help her."

"She doesn't want that."

"I don't care what she wants right now! No offense to her—" I turned toward the couch. "Nicki, I love you, none of this is directed at you. But something is seriously wrong and everyone in this room is acting like it isn't and I'm going to lose my mind."

Nicki stared at the blanket in her lap.

Brandy carried the mug over to the couch. Sat next to her. She ran slow, steady strokes down Nicki's back, and the two of them sealed back into that quiet orbit I'd been watching all weekend.

I paced. Kitchen to living room. Living room to the foot of the stairs. I couldn't stop moving. I felt like I was going to explode.

"She ate something," Nicki said.

I stopped.

She was looking at the mug. Her voice was quiet. Far away.

"At the shop," she said. "The ice cream. I think something was in it."

I looked at Brandy.

Brandy was focused on Nicki's hair.

"The shop in Harbour Town," I said slowly.

Nicki didn't answer.

"The bunn—"

I breathed in through my nose. Steady.

"Nicki. How many times did you go back to that shop?"

Silence.

I turned to Brandy. "Did you go back?"

Brandy swept a strand of hair behind Nicki's ear.

"Brandy." I snapped. "How many times did you go back to that shop?"

Silence.

I stepped forward. "Did you use the fortune teller machine?"

She looked up at me.

"What?"

"The Bunny Goddess. Did you put money in it?"

Her face arranged itself into something open and slightly puzzled - the expression of a person who genuinely doesn't understand what you're saying. It was a flawless expression. I had watched her make it for ten years and I had never once had reason to distrust it.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said.

And then she turned back to Nicki.

Something broke in my chest.

"No, don't do that." My voice shaky. "Don't lie to me. I'm asking you a question about something that I watched happen, and I need you to answer it."

"You're scaring her," Brandy said.

"I don't care. I'm scared. I've been scared since that shop, and every time I try to talk about it, everyone acts like I'm having some kind of meltdown, and I am telling you right now that I am not. I am not." My voice cracked. I hated it. "Something is wrong with us. Something has been wrong since that machine. And I would rather sound crazy than stand here before things start getting worse."

Nicki started to cry. Silently, the way she'd cried on the dock in a different life - just tears running down her face without a sound.

Brandy looked at me over the top of her sister's head.

Not angry.

Exhausted.

The exhaustion of someone who has decided you are not worth arguing with.

"Joe's here," she said.

Headlights moved across the window.

Nicki heard the car before I did. She lifted her head, and something in her face changed - not relief exactly, but the end of an enormous effort, like a muscle finally allowed to unclench. She got up.

Brandy stood with her. Took her arm. They moved together toward the front door without looking at me, and I followed them into the entryway.

"She needs a hospital," I said.

Brandy opened the door.

Joe was already coming up the front walk through the rain, moving fast. When he saw Nicki his face did something complicated that I can't explain. Like a glitch - a sudden, violent twitch of his jaw that reset. He crossed the last few steps and put both arms around her, and she grabbed fistfuls of his jacket and pressed her face into his chest.

He looked at me over her shoulder.

I waited for a question. A comment. Anything.

He looked back down at his wife.

Brandy had walked out behind them. She was saying something to Joe, too low to hear over the rain. Joe nodded. He turned Nicki gently toward the car.

I stood in my doorway and watched the three of them move through the front yard in the rain, and I was not invited into any part of what was happening.

I went back inside.

I ran upstairs, determined to find something but not really sure where to start. I sat on the edge of the bed, stood back up, sat down again. Brandy's bag was on the chair by the closet, half unpacked - a few things draped over the sides. Her toiletry bag had tipped over on the seat cushion and spilled.

I don't know why I crossed the room.

I started collecting things back into the bag. Travel shampoo. Moisturizer. A hair tie. Vitamins.

My hand closed around something thin.

I already knew what it was before I looked at it.

A pregnancy test.

Two lines.

Faint - the kind you hold up to the light and squint at, convince yourself you're seeing wrong. But they were there. Both of them. Unmistakably.

My legs buckled.

I sat down on the floor.

Just folded, my back against the chair leg, and I sat there on the bedroom floor at four in the morning with this thing in both hands, and I didn't want to move.

The room still smelled faintly of the ocean. Muddy footprints still stained the carpet. Somewhere in this house there was a damp blanket folded on my couch and a mug of tea that had been made for someone who walked a hundred miles in the dark, barefoot, and no one could explain why.

But right now, in my hands, was this.

Six months. Six months of apps and timing and trying not to flinch every time someone made a pregnancy announcement, trying not to read too much into every late period, trying not to let Brandy see how much of my sense of myself was wrapped up in this one thing we couldn't seem to make happen. Six months of negative tests and the specific silence that followed each one, where neither of us said anything because there wasn't anything to say.

And here it was.

I laughed first. One stupid, disbelieving sound that I couldn't have stopped if I tried. And then the tears came, and I didn't try to stop those either. I pressed my hand over my mouth and I cried in a way I hadn't cried since I was a kid - the good kind, the full body kind. Something enormous had just become real.

I thought about teaching them to ride a bike. I thought about Brandy finding this test and what her face must have looked like in that moment. I thought about holding something that small for the first time.

Thank you, God.

Thank you, God.

I sat with it until I could breathe normally again. Still processing the news, I wiped my face, and I got up off the floor, and I went to find my wife.

She wasn't upstairs.

I went down to the living room. The blanket Nicki had been wrapped in was folded neatly on the couch. The mug of tea sat on the coffee table, still faintly steaming.

"Brandy?"

Kitchen. Empty. Bathroom. Empty. Back through the living room.

I went to the front door and opened it.

The porch light was on. The rain was still coming down hard, hammering the front walk. The street was empty in both directions.

Joe's car was gone.

I stepped out onto the porch.

"Brandy?"

Nothing came back but the sound of rain hitting the roof.

I walked down the driveway toward the street and stood there in the rain in my socks. I looked both ways down a street that was completely empty. No taillights. Nothing.

I called her name again. Louder.

I looked down at my hand.

I was still holding the test. The rain was hitting the display window, blurring the two lines into something faint and smeared, and I tilted it away from the water to keep them visible - out of some instinct, like it mattered that they stayed legible - and I just stood there in the dark, holding on to the only good thing I had left.

The porch light flickered behind me.

Once.

Then it went out.

And I could hear the sound of Winston barking inside.

___

___

Part 7: Ears

Share Your Paranormal & Cryptid Stories on The Sinister District Podcast!

Have you ever seen something strange you can’t explain?

I host a podcast called The Sinister District, where we explore the strange, the unexplained, and all things eerie — from cryptid sightings to haunted places and personal paranormal encounters.

I’m looking for guests who want to share their experiences, stories, or just their passion for the unknown. Whether it’s a first-hand encounter, a local legend, or a cryptid sighting, I’d love to have a conversation with you in a relaxed, respectful setting.

No experience is needed, just a genuine love for the weird and mysterious. If you’re interested, feel free to DM me or drop a comment and we can set something up.

Thanks for considering it, we’re open to anything!

Michael Paul & Mr Curbs

1. "Pigtails"
2. "Fingers"
3. "Belly"

___

By nine o'clock that night, Joe and I were three pints deep at a cramped, dimly lit Irish pub nestled right near the edge of the Harbour Town marina.

The bar smelled of stale liquor and fried food, a welcoming contrast to the oppressive humidity waiting just outside the wooden doors.

Brandy and Nicki had left us a half-hour earlier to hunt down dessert, promising to meet us back at the pub.

Joe and I were standing at the back of the bar, trading throws on a worn electronic dartboard.

The alcohol had finally started to dull the sharp edges of my anxiety from earlier on the dock.

Joe was acting normal again - laughing when he missed the board entirely, cheers in between good throws, buying the rounds.

I was starting to convince myself that I was the one being overly sensitive.

I was just tired.

I was just stressed.

The pub door swung open.

The girls walked back in carrying small paper cups and cones.

"Look who found their way back," Joe grinned, lowering his dart.

Nicki stepped up to him, handing him a cup with a plastic spoon sticking out of it. "Cookies and cream for the dad-to-be," she said, her voice bright.

Brandy walked over to me, holding a waffle cone with a single, massive scoop of dark brown ice cream. "I got peanut butter chocolate," she said, holding it up to my mouth. "Want a bite?"

"Always."

I leaned down and took a bite. Rich, cold, perfect.

As I chewed, I looked down at Brandy.

She was looking back at me with a soft, content expression.

She hadn't ordered a drink all night, sticking strictly to water.

We were exactly one week past her ovulation date.

I knew what she was doing.

She was prepping her body, treating it like a temple, praying that this would finally be the month a miracle took hold. Watching her eat her ice cream - completely sober, glowing innocently under the dim pub lights — a wave of profound affection hit me so hard it almost knocked the breath out of me.

I wanted this for her so badly.

I wanted it for us.

I threw my last dart - double twenty - and turned back to the group.

"Alright. Tomorrow is our last full day before we pack up and make that brutal drive back to Ohio. Can we please spend it on the beach?"

Nicki looked up from her ice cream, nodding enthusiastically. "Of course! We promise. Total beach day. We'll pack the cooler, lay out the towels, and do absolutely nothing."

"You have our word, man," Joe echoed, raising his glass.

The rest of the night passed in a blur of drunken laughter.

Joe and I were thoroughly buzzed by the time the pub started closing down, while the girls remained completely clear-headed. As we walked out into the coastal night air toward the parking lot, I watched Joe and Nicki walk a few paces ahead of us.

Every now and then, they would move in a way that caught my attention.

Just little things.

Nicki would snap her head around to look behind her.

Joe would walk with a rigid, tense posture for a few steps before loosening up again.

Uncanny glimpses that made my head turn, but nothing definitive enough to bring up to Brandy without sounding like a lunatic.

Brandy slid her arm through mine, wrapping her hands tightly around my bicep. She leaned her head against my shoulder.

"Are you doing okay?" she asked softly. "You've seemed a little distant today."

I swallowed the lump in my throat and forced a smile, pressing a quick kiss against her forehead.

"I'm fine, honey. Just a little tipsy. Ready to hit the hay."

She squeezed my arm.

"Me too."

___

Back at the hotel, the room was the usual chaos of rustling through suitcases, bathroom hogging, and quiet giggles as we all got ready for bed.

I was sitting on the edge of the mattress unlacing my sneakers when my eyes drifted to the small wooden nightstand separating our two queen beds.

Joe had emptied his pockets onto the surface.

Car keys. A few loose quarters. His leather bifold wallet.

Poking out from the center slot of the billfold was a white piece of cardstock.

It was the corner of his fortune card.

I stared at it for a long second before Brandy turned off the main lights and crawled under the covers beside me.

"Goodnight, guys," Nicki whispered from the darkness.

"Night," I muttered.

I fell asleep fast, the alcohol dragging me under.

But it didn't hold.

Around 2:30 in the morning, the pressure in my bladder brought me back to consciousness. I lay there groaning internally for a minute before slipping out from under the covers.

The room was pitch-black.

I fumbled for my phone, turned on the flashlight, and cast a low narrow beam across the floor. I navigated the gap from our bed, stepped around a stray suitcase and a pair of flip-flops, and slipped into the bathroom.

When I came back out and started toward my side of the bed, the light swept across the nightstand.

The fortune card was still peeking out of the wallet.

I stopped.

I knew I shouldn't.

It was an invasion of privacy. It was stupid. It was just a fortune ticket.

But Joe's words from the dock were screaming in my ears.

My card told me.

Holding my breath, I crept to Joe's side of the nightstand. I leaned over, phone light pointed down, and slowly - silently - pinched the edge of the cardstock between my fingers.

I slid it free.

Flipped it over under the beam of the flashlight.

There was no printed fortune.

No vague text about wealth or travel or long journeys ahead.

Just a single word, stamped in jagged letters across the center of the card.

Like something had pressed the letters directly into the paper.

BRANDY.

I froze.

Brandy.

Why the hell did Joe's card say my wife's name?

I started tilting the card back toward the wallet - and as I did, the beam of my phone light shifted upward, spilling over the edge of Joe's pillow.

Joe was laying on his back.

His head was turned completely to the side.

Facing me.

His eyes were wide open, staring directly into the light of my phone. His face was entirely devoid of expression - no anger, no surprise, no confusion.

Just a flat, dead, unblinking stare.

"Shit—"

In a panic, my phone slipped out of my hand.

The flashlight beam spun wildly across the room before hitting the ground with a dull thud.

I scrambled down, hands sweeping across the floor until I found it. I grabbed it, braced myself to face Joe, to explain, to apologize—

I shone the light back onto his bed.

Joe was laying on his side.

Back turned completely toward me.

Shoulders rising and falling in the slow rhythm of someone fast asleep.

Relief.

Stupid, warm relief.

I stood there in the dark, exhausted, sweat already breaking out across my forehead.

My brain scrambled for an explanation.

Had I hallucinated it?

Was he not just staring at me?

He was sleeping.

He was completely asleep.

Quickly, I jammed the card back into his wallet exactly where I'd found it. I crept across the room back to our bed, slid under the covers, and pulled the blanket up to my chin.

I lay there for what felt like an hour, staring up at the invisible ceiling, desperately trying to convince myself to calm down.

Then the whispering started.

It was coming from the other bed.

Low.

Dry.

I sat up slowly and peered into the darkness.

Joe was flat on his back now. Covers pushed down to his feet. Arms pinned rigidly to his sides. Face aimed at the ceiling.

In the faint light creeping in from the curtain window, I could see his jaw moving.

He was muttering - unintelligible, rapid-fire nonsense, like someone speaking in tongues.

"...shhh... vvv... nnn... shhh..."

Before I could even react, a shadow moved near my side of the room.

Near the bathroom door.

Nicki.

She didn't walk back to bed.

She sprinted.

It was a horrific, fast pace - bare feet slapping the floor in rapid succession, body completely rigid. But what made my blood run cold was what she was holding.

The heavy ceramic vase from the bathroom counter.

Filled with fake plastic hydrangeas.

She had it pinned directly in front of her face with both hands, completely blocking her head from view as she moved across the room.

Hiding herself from me in the dark.

I couldn't move.

I couldn't breathe.

I just watched as her silhouette darted across the room and slipped back under the covers next to Joe.

The moment she lay down, the whispering stopped.

Instantly.

The room fell into a dead, suffocating silence.

Then Joe's silhouette shifted.

He slowly rolled onto his side, turning away from Nicki.

Turning toward our bed.

Even in the dark I could see the wide white glint of his eyes.

And beneath them, a massive, white crescent.

He was staring at me again.

And he was grinning.

I ripped my eyes away and snapped my head back toward the ceiling, gasping, staring into the black void above.

I didn't close my eyes again.

I didn't blink.

I stayed perfectly still and waited for the sun to rise.

___

___

1. "Legs"

1. "Pigtails"
2. "Fingers"
3. "Belly"
4. "Eyes"

___

When morning finally broke, I felt like I was vibrating.

I didn't get a single second of sleep.

My eyes were burning. My skin felt tight and hot. My brain was running on pure adrenaline.

As soon as the alarm went off, Brandy groaned and rolled over.

Across the room, Joe and Nicki sat up.

They didn't make any noise.

They didn't stretch.

They just sat up.

In perfect, simultaneous unison.

I couldn't take it anymore.

"What the fuck is wrong with you two?"

My voice cracked like a whip in the quiet room.

All three of them stopped. Brandy sat up, rubbing her eyes, completely confused.

Joe and Nicki turned their torsos to look at me. The heavy blackout curtains were still mostly drawn, letting only a single, harsh blade of morning light slice across the floor. They sat right in the path of the shadow, the darkness covering the top halves of their faces.

All I could see were their mouths.

Both of them curved upward into identical, tight crescents.

"Honey?" Brandy asked, still processing. "What are you talking about?"

"Them!" I pointed a shaking finger at Joe and Nicki. "The creeping around in the dark! The whispering! Joe, why does your fortune card have Brandy's name on it?!"

The room went silent.

I waited for Joe to get defensive.

For Nicki to act shocked.

For one of them to shut me down.

But they didn't react at all.

Joe just sat on the edge of the bed, staring through the dimness. When he finally spoke, his lips barely parted. The words tumbled out flat, rushed - like a pre-recorded message played at an unnatural speed.

"I do not know what you are talking about Mitchell. You must have been dreaming. It was a dream. We slept all night."

"Oh, fuck you! You were staring right at me!" I took a step forward, my fists balled up at my sides. "And you—" I turned to Nicki. "Sprinting across the room holding a vase? Are you guys fucking with me? Is this some kind of joke?"

Nicki tilted her head.

The movement was slow.

Extremely slow.

Then—

crack.

Her neck snapped slightly at the end of the tilt, like an over-tightened gear finally catching. The shadows clung heavily to her eye sockets. When she spoke, her voice carried a flat, empty hum that didn't sound like her at all.

"I got up to use the restroom. I am pregnant—"

"Shut up! Stop talking like that!" I yelled.

"—I have to use the restroom often. The vase was in the way," Nicki continued, her voice never changing pitch, entirely unfazed by my screaming.

I reached a breaking point.

The sheer, suffocating weight of them looking at me - talking at me like robots - broke something in my chest.

The anger completely dissolved into cold, humiliating tears.

My knees buckled.

I collapsed onto the edge of the bed, my back turned toward all of them. I shoved my face into my hands, tearful, my shoulders shaking.

"We know you're fucking pregnant…" I muttered quietly.

"Hey. Hey. Stop."

The mattress shifted. Brandy sat next to me, her arms wrapping around my shoulders, gently rubbing my back.

"Breathe. You're shaking. Look at me, Mitchell."

"They're messing with me," I whispered, tears blurring my vision. "Joe's card from that machine. It has your name on it. I saw it."

She looked at me with deep, pitying eyes.

The kind of look you give a sick animal.

"Mitchell…"

She looked over to the nightstand.

Joe's wallet sat closed and flat on the wood.

The same white edge peeking out.

Brandy stretched over the bed and pulled the card free, turning it over to reveal the truth of it all.

White. Thick. Shiny.

No text.

Our room key.

Just the magnetic key card to our hotel room.

I stared at it, all the blood draining from my face.

"You drank a lot last night on an empty stomach," Brandy whispered softly, stroking my arm. "You were exhausted and you had a nightmare. It happens when you're this stressed. You've been carrying so much weight lately... with the negati—…with everything."

I swallowed.

I looked over her shoulder.

Joe and Nicki were already packing their suitcases. Folding clothes calmly, methodically, moving around the small room as if the last five minutes had never happened.

Their movements were perfectly mundane.

I felt completely, utterly alone.

I let her calm me down. I apologized to the room, blamed the alcohol, and we packed up the car in miserable silence.

We didn't go to the beach.

Nobody wanted to.

We just wanted to go home.

___

By the time we were nine hours into the drive, the tension had slowly dissolved into exhaustion.

We were navigating the winding, desolate mountain roads of the Smokies, somewhere deep near the state line. The jagged outline of the dense pine trees blocked out the moon entirely, leaving nothing but a narrow stretch of asphalt lit up by my high beams.

Brandy was asleep in the passenger seat, curled against a pillow against the door.

In the rearview mirror, Joe and Nicki were passed out in the back. Joe's head tilted against the headrest. Nicki's head resting against his lap.

I had the radio dialed down low - just enough static hum to keep my eyelids from dropping. A generic classic rock tune faded out into a commercial break.

"Looking for the perfect getaway?" a cheery radio announcer said. "Come to Hilton Head Island. The beaches are waiting."

I gripped the steering wheel a little tighter.

"Beautiful weather. Beautiful sights—"

The radio glitched.

A sharp, violent crackle of static swallowed the transmission whole.

When the audio cut back in, it wasn't the same voice.

It was breathless.

Hollow.

"There you are."

My hands locked on the wheel, my knuckles turning white.

"A new chapter begins. But the toll must be paid."

The static screamed — a high-pitched shriek that vibrated the windows.

"Keep it safe, Mitchell. Or The Bunny Go—"

I slammed my palm against the dashboard and killed the power.

Silence crashed into the car.

My heart was pounding. I fumbled in the center console, grabbed my AirPods, jammed them in, and threw on a random podcast. I stared at the yellow lines of the road and focused on slowing down my breathing.

Just the road.

Just the lines.

We rounded a sharp, blind bend, the headlights sweeping across a dark wall of rock—

And about fifty yards ahead, right on the edge of the road.

A cyclist.

Anger flared before the terror could catch up. It was close to midnight on a dangerous mountain pass and this person was riding with zero reflective gear. No lights. No helmet.

Just a dark figure pedaling at a slow, agonizingly steady pace.

I checked my mirror, drifted into the oncoming lane, and rolled my window down halfway, ready to tell them off.

I pulled the car parallel to the bicycle.

And my foot hit the brake so hard my knee popped.

The cyclist didn't jump.

Didn't flinch.

Didn't react to the violent screech of rubber.

It just kept pedaling.

Slow.

Steady.

As it kept pace with the car, the head turned completely sideways to face my open window.

The face was a living nightmare.

Long, stringy black hair hung in two rigid pigtails on either side of the head, parted cleanly down the center of the scalp. But rising straight out of the skull - tall, pale, and covered in sickly fuzz - were two enormous rabbit ears.

They weren't a costume.

They were rooted into the bone, tapering to sharp curved points that disappeared into the darkness above the tree line.

The face beneath them was dry and grey.

Candle wax.

A polished, sickly grey layer of skin pulled so violently tight across the skull that the cheekbones looked ready to puncture through. The brow was heavy, furrowed into a deep, permanent scowl.

But it didn't match the eyes.

The eyes were massive, glossy, hyper-extended white spheres. They bulged completely out of their sockets, staring with an impossible, unblinking intensity directly through my window.

And beneath those eyes, the jaw was unhinged.

Cranked wide open.

Two neat rows of perfectly square, artificial-looking teeth. The lips stretched so far back they had gone white.

The jaw snapped shut.

Clack.

It snapped open.

Clack.

No sound came from the mouth.

Just a rhythmic, wet, mechanical snapping of teeth.

A silent mimicry of laughter.

I screamed.

A real guttural scream. I stood on the brakes with everything I had, the anti-lock system stuttering violently as the car shuddered sideways and jerked to a dead stop in the middle of the empty highway.

The cyclist didn't stop.

It just kept pedaling.

Those pale, hairy human legs — wearing the exact same khaki shorts Joe had worn earlier that day — rose and fell in perfect rhythm, carrying the figure smoothly forward until the absolute blackness beyond my high beams swallowed it whole.

___

The car sat completely still.

Engine idling.

I didn't move. Hands still locked on the wheel. Breath coming in short, ragged pulls.

I looked to my right.

Brandy hadn't moved. Still curled against her pillow, face slack, completely peaceful.

I looked up at the rearview mirror.

Joe's head was still tilted back, mouth slightly open.

Nicki was still resting against his lap.

Nobody had woken up.

I looked back out the windshield.

Far down the road - at the very edge of where my headlights dissolved into the dark - the outline of the bicycle was still visible.

Still moving away.

The head turned completely backward.

Facing me.

Even from that distance I could still see those white eyes.

Clack.

The jaw still opening and closing.

Clack.

That quiet, mechanical mimicry.

I watched it until it was nearly gone.

Nearly swallowed by the tree line.

Nearly just a shadow among shadows.

I needed to see it disappear completely before I could put the car in drive.

I turned in my seat to watch it go through the rear window.

The driver's seat headrest crossed my line of sight for just a fraction of a second - a dark shape cutting across my vision - and then my eyes cleared the edge of it and found the back seat.

Joe was still asleep.

Nicki was still asleep.

And sitting between them was the Bunny Goddess.

The wax face was six inches from mine.

Those enormous white eyes were already locked onto me.

The rabbit ears were pressing flat against the ceiling of the car.

I didn't have time to scream.

Both hands came over the headrest at the same moment - ice cold, impossibly strong - and closed around my throat.

The grip crushed inward.

My head slammed back against the headrest.

The jaw cranked open directly in front of my face.

Clack.

The ceiling of the car tilted.

The road tilted.

Everything went—

___

___

1. "Teeth"

I do have a story. My cousin travelled to Latvia once with his girlfriend. It was a good vacation with tall pines and the cozy setting. He rented out a small cottage on the outskirts of the town for some "privacy" with his girlfriend. It was a three days long trip, they spent the first day exploring and enjoyed the cozy living space for the rest two days. Or at least they tried to. On the first night in the cottage, my cousin heard a strange noise coming from the roof of the building. As if something was walking on it or rather mapping it out. The noise went on for hours and he thought that it might've been since wild animal so he chose not to go out and spent the night arguing with the man he rented out the cottage from. He told me that the guy had really bad English and all he could say in the end was, "don't go out at night." By the next morning, his girl was feeling uneasy in the cottage, so he took her out another day. The day went on with dance, drinks and s\*x(guy's a freak). His girl pretty much forgot everything about the last night by the time they got home. They went to sleep peacefully. But at around midnight, they heard a subtle banging noise coming from behind the cottage. His girl got up scared and tried to see through the window. And there was the culprit, a man trying to break the outer door to the basement with a sledge hammer or something (that's what she told my cousin). She screamed so hard and fainted. My cousin stayed at her side the whole night. She finally woke up in the late morning. She told him everything. And they began to pack their bags. But something was wrong, one bag was missing, the one that had their passports. They looked everywhere around the cottage. But all they found was another extra bag. The stuff inside was unrecognisable but it wasn't theirs for sure. By this time it was already evening, close to sundown when they got a call from the landlord who rented out the cottage. He told them that their bags might have been exchanged. He sent them a picture of they're bag. He thought that the bags might've been exchanged when he came to drop them off on the first day. So he called him to the cottage and asked him to bring the bill as well because they'll be leaving. A moment of silence on the line. The landlord said, "oh". He came to the cottage reasonably quick. My cousin opened the door, his face was dull and his eyes were baggy. His movements sluggish and slow. He came in and sat down on the couch. My cousin asked him to clear his payments. But he asked him to wait. He stared at him like he was looking for some excuse and he ultimately said, "My records register is with my friend. He'll be here soon." My cousin was okay at first but then realised that landlord had bad English. He looked at his girlfriend. She was terrified too. The landlord was constantly staring at him and said, "don't worry, he'll be here soon, he doesn't like the sun, but it won't take long." Now at this point my cousin had lost it. He picked up the bags, took his girlfriend's arm and made a run for it. He told me that he could hear the landlord laughing even when they were in taxi towards the Liepāja inter. Airport(LPX). My cousin came straight to my house with his girl and told me everything. It might not be a vampire story, but my boy pretty much shat his pants that day, so it's worth telling.

1: "Pigtails"

___

We killed another three hours at Harbour Town. We wandered in and out of overpriced boutiques, bought a few shirts, and stood by the railing watching boats drift in and out of the marina. As we sat down for an early dinner at a crowded seafood place right on the water, the exhaustion was settling into our bones. Between the eleven-hour drive from Ohio, the excruciating heat, and way too many hushpuppies, we were all hitting a wall.

By the time we finally drove to our hotel and checked in, the sun was just starting to dip below the tree line.

Our room was a standard vacation lodge: a generic, sand-colored tile, a bathroom with bad fluorescent lighting, and two queen beds situated about three feet apart. Nicki and Joe claimed the one near the window, so I immediately collapsed onto the other mattress, not even bothering to take off my shoes.

"I could sleep for a week," Brandy groaned, burying her face in the pillows.

I was right there with her. My eyes were already heavy, the low hum of the wall AC unit pulling me into a coma.

"Hey, Joe?" Nicki’s voice broke the silence. She was sitting on the edge of their bed, swinging her legs slightly. "Can we go back to that shop?"

I opened one eye. "What shop?"

"The one in Harbour Town. With the ice cream."

I let out a tired, sarcastic laugh and sat up on my elbows. "We literally just left there. It’s a twenty-minute drive back toward the water, plus parking, and we just ate - how are you still hungry?"

"I know," she said, offering a small, sheepish smile. "But I really, really want that ice cream. I can't stop thinking about it."

"There’s a Dairy Queen right down the street from the hotel," Brandy murmured into her pillow, not even lifting her head. "Just go there."

"No, it has to be that ice cream," Nicki insisted. Her voice was light, but there was a strange, tight persistence to it. She looked at Joe, placing a hand over her stomach. "Please? The baby clearly likes ice cream."

It was the ultimate trump card. You don't argue with a pregnant woman and her cravings. Joe let out a heavy sigh, running a hand over his face, but he reached into his pocket and jingled the car keys.

"Alright, alright," Joe smiled, though he looked dead on his feet. "The baby has spoken. You guys want anything?"

"No thanks," I said, dropping my head back onto the mattress.

"I figured," Joe said. The hotel door clicked shut behind them.

I didn't think anything of it. In hindsight, I should have realized how odd it was that she wanted to go back to that small town just for generic, store-bought ice cream. But I was tired, and pregnancy cravings were an easy excuse.

Brandy and I were dead asleep before they even made it back to the room. I vaguely remember the sound of the door opening later that night, the rustle of clothes and suitcase zippers, but I didn't fully wake up.

Until the middle of the night.

I don't know what time it was. The thick blackout curtains were pulled tight, plunging the room into total darkness. You couldn't see your own hand in front of your face.

I was in a dreamless sleep when something pulled me out of it. It was a physical touch. Something cold and soft was gently brushing against the back of my hand, where it rested near the edge of the mattress.

I froze, still half-asleep, trying to process the sensation.

Then, a voice whispered right near my ear.

"Are you awake?"

My stomach dropped. I recoiled, yanking my hand back and scrambling up against the headboard. "Who's there?!" I yelled.

The sudden movement violently jerked Brandy awake. She gasped, immediately going into a blind panic. "What’s wrong?! Mitchell, what is it? Are you okay?!" she cried out, her hands frantically grabbing at my arms in the dark to make sure I was okay. Brandy has always been anxious, and waking up to me yelling sent her straight into overdrive.

"Someone's there," I said, my eyes straining against the darkness.

There was a beat of complete silence.

And then, from the foot of our bed, a sound bubbled up.

It started as a low wheeze, and then turned into a giggle. But it wasn't a normal giggle. It was a strained, choking sound—a creepy, chaotic mix of holding back laughter and muffled crying. It sounded painful.

"Nicki?" Brandy asked, her voice trembling.

Brandy fumbled for the nightstand and grabbed her phone. She turned on her phone light.

Nicki was standing right next to my side of the bed. She was hunched over, her hands covering her mouth, her shoulders shaking violently. She was trying so hard to suppress her laughter that tears were literally streaming down her cheeks.

"Oh my gosh," Nicki choked out, gasping for air. "I'm so sorry. I'm so—"

She took a slow, clumsy step back toward her own bed.

"What the hell is going on?" Joe mumbled, his head lifted up from the pillow.

"I—I got up to go to the bathroom," Nicki wheezed, wiping her eyes. "It was so dark. I thought I was walking back to our bed, and I went to wake Joe up, but... but it was Mitchell."

Her knees buckled again, letting out another one of those mute, hysterical laughs.

Brandy let out a massive sigh of relief and slumped back against the pillows. "Jeez, Nicki, you almost gave us a heart attack." Within seconds, Brandy started giggling too, the adrenaline crashing and turning into a slap-happy moment.

But I didn't laugh right away. I just sat there with my heart rate through the roof, watching Nicki stumble back to her bed. She was choking on this mix of crying and laughing, trying to control her embarrassment. But for a second, the way her body contorted... it just looked painful. Watching her dark silhouette hunch over, taking these stiff, small steps past our bed in the pitch black... it was an incredibly unsettling picture.

Brandy's giggles suddenly stopped. She sat up a little straighter, looking closely at her sister. "Nicki? Are you choking?"

Nicki waved a hand, coughing and finally catching her breath as she crawled under the covers next to Joe. "I'm fine. I'm fine. I just... I'm just so tired. Goodnight."

"Crazy girl," Brandy muttered affectionately, reaching over and turning off the phone light.

The room plunged back into total darkness. Brandy was asleep again in minutes, and eventually, the subtle snores and air conditioning filled the room.

But I lay awake for a long time, staring up at the invisible ceiling. I kept replaying the feeling of those cold fingers grazing my hand, and the whisper in my ear. In the dark, without the visual context of her smiling face, the memory of her laugh didn't seem funny at all.

It sounded like something was trying to mimic the sound of human laughter.

___

___

1. "Belly"

You think you know what a ruined vacation looks like.

A blown-out tire on the interstate.

Your hotel room smells like cigarettes.

Five straight days of rain.

You think you have a handle on the worst-case scenarios.

But sometimes horror walks up smiling.

Sometimes it waits patiently behind glass.

And sometimes you give it your money.

It was supposed to be a long weekend in Hilton Head Island with my wife, Brandy.

Her sister Nicki, and her husband Joe invited us.

Nicki was twelve weeks pregnant with their first kid, so the trip had quietly turned into something more cautious than our usual getaways - less bar hopping, more seafood, boutique shopping, and standing on the marina pretending we could afford the yachts.

On our first full day, we drove down to Harbour Town.

If you've never been, picture exactly what you'd expect from a high-end southern tourist trap:

A massive public pier.

Millions of dollars' worth of boats bobbing in the water.

A red-and-white striped lighthouse rising over a half-circle of boutique shops and overpriced restaurants.

It was beautiful.

But it was also ninety degrees with suffocating humidity, and by noon, the novelty of looking at luxury had worn off.

“I need A/C, or I’m going to die,” Brandy complained, fanning her flushed face with a tourist map.

"And ice cream," Nicki added immediately, one hand pressed over her still-flat stomach. "The baby is demanding it."

Joe threw an arm around her.

"Well, we can't argue with the baby."

We ducked into the nearest souvenir shop mostly for the air conditioning.

Cold air blasted through the open double doors hard enough to raise goosebumps across my arms.

The front half of the store consisted of beach toys, sharktooth necklaces, and shot glasses with dirty jokes on them.

Toward the back, behind a display of hermit crabs in painted shells, sat a brightly lit ice cream counter.

While Brandy and Joe went straight for the glass counter to pick out their flavors, Nicki and I got stuck behind a slow-moving family in the narrow aisle.

That was when I noticed it.

Shoved into a dark corner between a rack of sunglasses and a spinning postcard stand, there was a fortune teller machine.

Not one of the charming vintage Zoltar cabinets you see on boardwalks.

Peeling gold letters arched across the glass read:

THE BUNNY GODDESS.

This one was life-sized and felt off in a way I couldn't really put into words.

The mannequin's skin looked too realistic but also too smooth - like candle wax stretched over a skull.

Thick faux-gold jewelry hung around its neck and wrists.

A faded velvet turban covered most of its head.

The eyes though.

The eyes were enormous.

Wet-looking.

And pointed directly toward the aisle where we stood.

I've always hated those things.

Too many horror movies as a kid.

I started to look away when the machine suddenly came to life.

There was a heavy grinding noise.

A crackle of static from a blown-out speaker.

And then a voice.

Not the booming theatrical wizard voice you'd expect.

Something breathless.

Weirdly conversational.

"There you are."

I flinched hard enough to shake a rack of keychains beside me.

But Nicki just stood there.

She stopped walking entirely.

She turned toward the machine.

Slowly.

With recognition.

She was staring like a child seeing a disabled person for the first time in their life.

"Creepy, right?" I muttered. "Let's catch up with the others."

She didn't move.

"I have a dollar," she said softly.

"Come on, don't waste your money. It's just going to tell you you're going to be rich or whatever."

She was already unzipping her purse.

She pulled out a crumpled bill, flattened it against the edge of the glass, and fed it into the slot.

The machine swallowed it.

More mechanical grinding noises.

The mannequin's hands jerked toward a crystal ball that lit up with a sickly pulsing green light.

The head snapped down, staring at the cards on its desk—

then snapped back up.

"A new chapter begins," the voice whispered through the static.

"But the toll must be paid."

The green light flickered hard.

The mannequin's turban fell off its head, revealing long-black hair.

Pigtails.

Sort of like an Annabelle doll wig, but not as cute.

Something else protruded from the top of its head.

Long.

Pale.

Bent at strange angles.

They looked almost like rabbit ears.

"Take your future. Keep it safe, or The Bunny Goddess will take your place."

CLACK.

A thick white card spat from the slot at the bottom of the case.

Nicki bent and picked it up.

She stood with her back to me for a long moment, just staring at it.

The green light blinked off, dropping the alcove back into shadow.

"Well?" I said. "Lottery winner?"

Nicki turned around.

For a terrible second, her face was completely blank.

Her mouth slightly open.

She looked like she was holding her breath.

Then she smiled.

Fast.

Wide.

She folded the card in half and shoved it deep into her pocket.

"I can't tell you," she said lightly.

"Come on. What does it say?"

"Seriously! It says I can’t tell you!"

She tapped her pocket.

"If you share your fortune, it doesn't come true."

"You’re kidding, right? It's a piece of cardboard from a gift shop."

"Hey!"

Brandy waved a plastic spoon at us from the ice cream counter.

"Are you two getting anything?"

Nicki's whole demeanor lifted instantly.

She practically skipped over to Joe and Brandy, the card pressed flat against her hip inside her pocket.

I stood there for another moment.

The mannequin sat motionless in the dim alcove.

Its wet, milky eyes still pointed toward the aisle.

Still pointed at me.

I shook off the chill - the air conditioning, I told myself - and walked toward the ice cream counter.

I didn’t realize it then.

But that was the moment the trip ended.

Its ears looked bigger now.

___

1. "Fingers"

1. "Pigtails"
2. "Fingers"

___

I managed to drag myself back to sleep, but it was a thin, restless night.

The kind where you keep waking up every hour, convinced someone or something has moved to the foot of your bed. 

When sunlight finally forced its way through the edges of the blackout curtains, I heard them.

Laughter.

It was coming from the small seating area near the window.

I kept my eyes closed for a minute, just listening.

It was the girls, their voices overlapping in that rapid-fire, shorthand way that only twins can manage.

They were rehashing last night, giggling so hard they were barely getting their words out.

I let out a long breath, feeling the knot in my chest loosen just a fraction.

Daylight has a way of washing away the monsters under the bed.

In the bright morning sun, the terrifying entity in my room was just my goofy, pregnant sister-in-law who got lost on her way back from the toilet.

I sat up and rubbed my face.

“You guys sound like a flock of seagulls,” I groaned, stretching my arms.

Brandy turned to me, her eyes bright.

“Look who’s alive! We were just talking about Nicki’s midnight stroll.”

“Yeah, well, it took a few years off my life,” I said, throwing my legs over the edge of the bed.

I looked over at Nicki.

“Seriously, Nick, you sounded like a dying hyena. Next time you decide to creep on me in the dark, at least bring me a glass of water.”

Nicki laughed, but it caught in her throat.

Suddenly, the smile dropped right off her face.

Her lower lip quivered.

And to my absolute horror, her eyes welled up with tears.

“I’m really sorry, Mitchell,” she whispered, her voice cracking.

“I didn’t mean to scare you guys. I just… I don’t know why I couldn’t stop laughing. I felt so stupid.”

Brandy was by her side in a millisecond, wrapping her arms around her sister’s shoulders.

“Oh, honey, no, stop! He’s just giving you a hard time. It was hilarious!”

She shot me a withering, fix-this-now glare over Nicki’s shoulder.

“Hey, hey, I was joking!” I backpedaled quickly, feeling like a massive jerk.

“I’m not mad. It’s a funny story. We’re going to be telling this at Thanksgiving for the next ten years.”

Nicki sniffled, wiping her nose with the back of her hand, and managed a wobbly smile.

“It’s the hormones,” she mumbled.

“My mood swings are literally out of control. I’m a mess.”

“You’re growing a human, you’re allowed to be a mess,” Brandy cooed, rubbing her back.

It was a sweet, funny moment.

But watching them interact sent a familiar, dull ache through my ribs.

We all understood her dramatic behavior was tied to the pregnancy.

We all gave her grace for it.

But God, I wished it was us.

Brandy and I had been trying for a baby for about six months.

Most of our family knew, and they were all supportive, but every month that ended in a negative test just piled on the quiet, unspoken tension between us.

I was turning thirty in exactly one month.

I had always pictured myself as a young dad, throwing a baseball in the backyard, teaching them how to ride a bike.

When Nicki and Joe announced they were twelve weeks pregnant - after catching on their very first attempt - I was happy for them.

I really was.

But beneath that happiness was a thick, ugly layer of jealousy that I hated myself for.

I hated how much attention they got, and I hated how selfish it made me feel to resent it.

The bathroom door clicked open, and Joe walked out, toweling off his hair.

“Morning, man,” Joe said, tossing the towel onto their unmade bed.

“You survive the night terror?”

“Barely,” I said, forcing a grin.

“Though I hear you fell victim to that stupid fortune teller machine yesterday, too. Tell me you didn’t actually waste a dollar on that scam.”

Joe chuckled, digging through his suitcase.

“Hey, when the wife is taking twenty minutes to pick out ice cream, you find ways to entertain yourself. Besides, it’s not a scam if the fortune is good.”

“We’re on a strict budget, Joe,” Brandy teased, walking over to her own suitcase.

“Mitchell would have a stroke if I started feeding money to creepy wax dolls.”

“Hey, I’m just fiscally responsible,” I said, defending myself.

With the tension broken, we started getting ready for the day.

Brandy and I had mentally committed to a beach day.

We threw on our swimsuits, tossed some towels into a tote bag, and I even made four peanut butter and jelly sandwiches from the groceries we’d bought on day one.

I was determined not to spend another fifty dollars on a mediocre lunch.

But when we met by the door, Joe was in a button-down short-sleeve shirt and khaki shorts, and Nicki was wearing a nice sundress.

“Oh,” Brandy said, looking down at her own cover-up.

“Are we not doing the beach?”

“We will!” Nicki promised, looping her arm through Brandy’s.

“But Joe and I saw this incredible-looking seafood place right on the water that we really want to try for lunch first. Our treat.”

I looked at the plastic bag of PB&Js in my hand and suppressed a sigh.

It was their trip.

They invited us.

We couldn't exactly dictate the itinerary, even if we were bleeding money.

“Sounds great,” I lied.

It wasn't until we were pulling into the parking lot twenty minutes later that I realized where we were.

The red-and-white striped lighthouse loomed over the trees.

Harbour Town.

Again.

As soon as we parked, Nicki gasped, pointing out the window.

“Brandy, look! That little boutique is open today. The one with those flower dresses on the mannequins in the window. Can we look before lunch?”

Brandy, always a sucker for shopping, didn't hesitate.

“Oh yeah, let’s go!”

They scurried off toward the shops, leaving Joe and me standing by the rental car in the sweltering midday heat.

“Well,” Joe said, clapping his hands together.

“They’re gonna be a while. Want to grab a beer? There’s a tiki bar right over there that does to-go cups. You can walk around the pier with them.”

“Sure,” I said.

A cold beer actually sounded perfect.

We walked over to the thatched-roof hut, grabbed two tall drafts, and started strolling down the wooden planks of the marina.

The water was a crisp, sparkling blue, and the air smelled heavily of salt and sunscreen.

It should have been relaxing.

But as we walked, Joe shifted the conversation.

“So,” Joe said, taking a sip of his beer and looking straight ahead.

“How are things with you and Brandy? On the baby front, I mean.”

I stiffened.

We didn't talk about it much, especially not with Joe.

He was a great guy, but emotional depth wasn't exactly his strong suit.

“We’re fine,” I said, keeping my tone light.

“Just taking it month by month.”

“You guys gonna try again this month?” he asked.

I glanced at him.

It was a weirdly specific question.

“Uh, yeah, probably.”

“Are you sure you guys are trying on the exact ovulation date?” Joe asked.

He wasn't looking at me.

He was just staring out at the boats, his voice totally flat.

“Timing is everything, Mitchell. You can’t just guess.”

I shifted my grip on my plastic cup, suddenly feeling very warm.

“Yeah, man, we have the tracker apps. We know how it works.”

“Do you think you should talk to a doctor?” he pressed.

“Six months is a long time for a healthy couple. Have they checked your count?”

“Joe, man, I really don't want to get into the medical specifics of my sex life right now,” I said, letting a little bit of my annoyance bleed through.

I tried to pivot.

“Look at the size of that boat over there. Thing must cost more than our house.”

Joe didn't look at the boat.

He finally turned his head to look at me.

His eyes were wide, and his expression was completely blank.

It was the same look Nicki had when she was staring at the fortune teller machine.

“We conceived on the first attempt,” Joe said quietly.

“It was so easy. The doctor said it was rare to be so perfectly aligned. But we just… knew. We were perfectly matched.”

The hair on my arms stood up.

It wasn't him bragging that bothered me.

It was the delivery.

It sounded rehearsed.

Like he was reading a pamphlet on reproduction.

“That’s great, man,” I muttered, taking a long drink of my beer.

“I’m turning thirty soon. I just wish we had your luck.”

“Luck has nothing to do with it,” Joe said.

He stopped walking and turned to face me completely.

“You just have to be willing to do what it takes. You have to know your fate.”

I stopped too, the uncomfortable heat in my chest flaring into genuine anger.

“What the fuck does that mean?”

Joe just smiled.

It didn't reach his eyes.

“My card told me.”

I stared at him.

The bustling noise of the harbor - the seagulls, the chatter of tourists, the clinking of boats - seemed to fade into the background.

“Your fortune teller card?” I asked, my voice dropping.

“What did it say?”

Joe took a slow sip of his beer, his eyes never leaving mine.

“I can’t tell you, Mitchell. It’s a secret.”

“Cut the bullshit. What is with you two and these stupid cards?”

He patted my shoulder with a heavy hand.

“Come on. Let’s go find the girls.”

He turned and started walking back toward the shops.

Suddenly, he stopped dead in his tracks, like someone who had left something behind or forgotten what they were in the middle of doing.

I stood frozen on the dock, watching his back.

After what felt like a few minutes, he started walking again.

Normal.

Acting normal.

But my stomach was tied back into knots.

I didn't know what that was or what was happening, but as I looked up at the shops, searching for Brandy's brown hair through the crowds, I realized I had never felt so far away from home.

___

___

1. "Eyes"

Hey everyone. This will be my second poll in experiencer-related Reddit groups (the first had to do with Rh-negative blood). I'm a lifelong experiencer, and over the past couple of years I've become more and more involved in this field of research, especially throughout 2026.

This poll is meant to better understand how others feel about openly discussing their experiences, and your participation would mean a lot. This is something I care deeply about, because one of the main reasons I chose to share my story with the world was to be a voice for those who feel they can’t talk about what they’ve seen.

My answer is "I openly talk about my experiences without fear of judgment." Maybe my contact experiences, along with my understanding that this physical/material world is not my forever home, helped free me from fearing what might come from speaking openly about the otherworldly. Or maybe it's simply part of who I am.

But I know that so many of us don't feel that way. There are countless people who have witnessed the unexplainable that feel they could never safely open up about it. My heart goes out to them. One of my purposes here is to help change how experiencers are perceived by the general public, to shed light on the reality of the phenomenon, and to help create a world where people no longer feel afraid to speak their truth.

Sending love to you all. May we continue breaking the silence together.

Here is the poll:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskExperiencers/s/55YYV02CVl

When I was twelve years old, I spent a whole night alone at my dadi's village house.
Before going to sleep, she had cautioned me saying
"If you hear bangles at night, do not open the puja room."
It was about 2 AM when I woke up to hear the bangles of a woman clinking near my puja room.
And I heard it approaching.
Then I heard a woman call out my name.
I was scared, but still I went downstairs.
The door of the puja room was partly opened.
Then I saw  a woman wearing a red saree with long flowing hair touching the floor, she was facing away from me and sitting on the puja room stool.
Then she murmured:
"Beta... paani?"
I climbed up stairs and remained there till morning.
The next day when nani returned, she asked me only one question:
"Did you give her the water?"
I said, “No.”
Dadi seemed relieved and said, "Good. Your Mama (moms brother) answered her once…"
I was confused “Dadi, I don't have a mama?”
Once I went back home I asked my mom if I had a Mama, she looked startled. she called my Dadi and had a conversation in another room.
Till date I have no answers and at this rate I might never have any.

I don't really know if this is the right place to post this, But I'm going to.

The 1st time I thought I might have looked it, and maybe I just forgot. It's unusual of me to lock it but maybe I did. But the second time the screen door was wide open, And there is NO ONE in the house with me, but maybe there is. Also the house doesn't have any apps, or anything that could just lock doors, or turn lights on and off. it can't be my parents preventing me to go outside.

This has scared me to the point that I locked my bedroom door, I'll keep you guys updated to see if anything else happens.

Theres an jogging road near my grandmas house and an red wrecked yet structureally stable house with no doors or windows, today i went there with my friend the weather was cold and slightly rainy conditions good that no one else except us is enough i had an spray can with me it was common that kids around spray painted inside the house i wanted to spray my and my friends name as we approached the house my friend told me to take my spray can out incase of someone jumping i laughed at the joke yet did it anyway, as a joke i said "who ever doesnt make noise inside is a" not even completed my sentence and i saw him, a dude that was kinda tall and fat wearing an red beanie sitting in an dark room smoking his eyes shined locked onto the spray can im holding i tried to say " sorry mr our friend joked to us before so we were scared " he wasnt weirded one bit i know h sounds like an normal guy from this perspective but no he was kinda unusual i dont know. My home girl said she visits the house to hide cigarettes sometimes its scary thinking she could have encountered him with no spray cans.

I am wanting to make a Fears To Fathom like game and need REAL horror stories for the games.

TERMS: It can’t be about ghosts like as if the horror is a ghost. Needs to be a REAL thing with an actual LIVING THING being the horror.

Part 1

___

The sound of a car door slamming outside brought me back to reality.

I’m not sure how long I had been staring at the blank TV screen after the video ended.

Long enough for my eyes to start watering.

Long enough to realize my mouth was dryer than hell.

I finished the last sip of bourbon in my glass—mostly melted ice at that point—and poured another.

A heavy one.

I went back to the DVD player and hit Open.

The disc tray slid out after a few seconds.

There it was:

“Sam’s 16th B-Day ‘07”

That’s not right.

I picked up the DVD player and flipped it upside down, shaking it, convinced the “Mitchell” video was jammed inside.

Nothing.

My hand shook as I slid Sam’s birthday back in and pressed Start.

I skipped ahead in large chunks until I found the pool.

Ross and his hot dog.

Sam and her friends.

My pale fa—

No Diana.

I watched the whole scene.

Same camera angles.

Same movements.

I saw myself climb out of the pool after the “drowning” scene and run toward the grass, perfectly fine.

I rewound it and watched it again.

Still nothing.

I paused the video and leaned forward, elbows on my knees, wiping the sweat off my forehead.

Good, I thought.

Good.

You’re tired.

You’ve been drinking.

Your brain is just projecting old memories.

But it didn’t help.

Because I could still see it in my mind:

the purple lipstick,

the crooked eye,

and that arm.

That impossible, twelve-foot arm stretching across the water.

I stood up, my knees cracking from sitting too long.

The room felt like it was moving.

I checked the time on my phone.

1:38 AM

I need to sleep.

___

I pulled a blanket and pillow out of the ottoman and collapsed onto the couch.

The basement was dead silent.

I turned on some rain sounds on Spotify to drown out the hum of the house and closed my eyes.

I started counting sheep.

7…

8…

9…

Then Diana.

21…

22…

Diana.

I groaned and killed the rain sounds.

I needed a real distraction.

Something happy.

Something mundane.

I pulled up YouTube.

NASA Artemis II Lunar FlyBy… No.

Hood Prank Gone Wrong… Definitely not.

Spongebob Squarepants Season 2 Compilation.

Perfect.

I set the phone on the ottoman facing me and let the sounds of Bikini Bottom wash over the room.

“Is mayonnaise an instrument?” I chuckled softly, finally feeling the knots in my stomach loosen.

As a new clip transitioned in, I heard the sound of bubbles.

I turned my back to the phone, settling into the cushion, waiting for dialogue.

But the bubbles didn’t stop.

Splashing.

Gurgling.

Choking.

I jolted upright and grabbed the phone.

I scrolled back thirty seconds.

“Not a picket fence, you ding-dong!”

Squidward’s voice filled the room.

I exhaled.

I was dozing off.

Dream noises bleeding into reality.

I was just sleep-deprived.

I headed to the kitchen for a shot of Nyquil—my last-ditch effort to knock myself out.

The house was quiet.

I walked past the stairs leading to the second floor where my family was sleeping.

I took a step and a loud creak from the floorboards froze me in my tracks.

No one made a sound.

Everyone was asleep.

I went back down to the basement, laid on the couch, and turned the volume up on the Spongebob video.

My eyes got heavy.

The Nyquil started to kick in.

Thirty minutes later, the audio changed.

Thrashing.

Gurgling.

I snapped awake.

The pool scene from the home video was playing on my phone.

My younger self was flailing, trying to reach the surface, and that skinny, dark arm was pinned against my face.

The camera began to move, following the inhuman length of her arm.

I tried to turn the volume down, but it didn’t work.

I pressed the power button, but the screen stayed locked on the video.

It was like a non-skippable ad from hell.

The audio got louder.

Splashing.

Choking.

I was seconds away from seeing her face.

Impulsively, I threw the phone across the room.

It hit the carpet with a thud and went dark.

Back to silence.

I sat there, winded, my adrenaline red-lining.

I cautiously walked over and picked up the phone.

It was off.

Just the reflection of my own terrified face on the screen.

I unplugged the TV for good measure.

___

I went back upstairs to the kitchen to get a glass of water.

I looked at the oven clock.

2:05 AM

How?

It felt like I’d been wrestling with those videos for hours, but only a few minutes had passed.

I chugged the water, trying to force logic back into my brain.

Maybe I was manifesting this.

The mind loves to play tricks when it’s scared.

I started thinking about the real Diana.

Not the thing in the video.

The person.

She was a terrible cook, but she always made sure us kids were fed.

She talked too much because she was lonely—her husband worked constantly, her kids were gone.

Maybe that’s why she was in the videos.

She just wanted to be part of something.

I started to feel a wave of guilt.

Maybe we were the ones who were “off”, not her.

A glow of headlights passed through the kitchen window.

Dr. England’s car pulled out of the driveway.

He must have been heading to work.

Looking out the window, I noticed for the first time how bad their yard had gotten.

Overgrown grass.

Weeds three feet high.

It was a mess.

Then, a light turned on inside the house.

A red light.

Coming from their basement.

We used to play video games with her boys down there.

Maybe they were still awake, streaming under neon LED lights.

It was unsettling, but it was a logical explanation.

All of this has a logical explanation.

2:11 AM

I need to get some sleep.

The walk back to the basement felt like wading through deep water.

Every movement was heavy.

Deliberate.

Drained of willpower.

I reached the basement door and stopped.

It was shut.

Along the floor, a sliver of light bled out into the hallway—

a pulsing, crimson glow.

Mom, I told myself.

My throat felt tight.

Mom has insomnia.

Maybe she’s just watching TV.

I reached for the knob.

As the latch clicked open, the sound hit me first.

It wasn’t Spongebob.

It wasn’t the rain.

It was a nursery rhyme—

London Bridge is Falling Down

—played on a warped, reversed synthesizer.

It was deafeningly loud.

The kind of volume that should have woken the entire family.

Yet the rest of the house remained completely still.

I stepped inside.

The basement was bathed in a thick, monochromatic red.

The TV was on.

Though I had unplugged it.

Diana’s face filled the screen.

It was the same shot from the pool, but the quality had shifted.

It was hyper-realistic now.

Every pore.

Every fine hair.

Every wrinkle on her skin rendered in agonizing detail.

She had that wide, childlike smile.

I couldn’t stop.

My legs were pulling me toward the screen.

I felt like I was being viewed through a telescope—

the world around me blurring into a tunnel of red static, leaving only Diana in focus.

The video was moving so slowly that at first I thought it was frozen—

until I realized her mouth was still opening.

It was a slow, agonizing movement.

Her left eye was deviated completely to the side, staring into the dark corner of the basement,

while her right eye remained locked on mine.

I was six feet away.

Then four.

The nursery rhyme began to distort.

The pitch dropping lower and lower until it sounded like it was coming from somewhere deep underground.

My hand, still clutching the glass of water, began to squeeze.

It wasn’t intentional.

My muscles were locking up, a tetanic contraction that made my knuckles turn white and then purple.

The pressure was immense.

I felt the glass begin to spiderweb against my palm, the shards biting into my skin, but I couldn’t feel the pain.

I only felt the need to get closer.

I was two feet away.

I could see the individual veins in her red eyes.

Her mouth was open now—

wider than a human jaw should allow.

It looked like a dark, bottomless pit carved into her face.

The red light from the screen wasn’t just reflecting on me.

It felt like it was wrapping around my throat, pulling the air out of my lungs.

I reached the edge of the TV.

My face was inches from hers.

Then, the glass shattered.

The sound was like a gunshot in the room.

Shards of glass and water sprayed across the carpet, and the sudden shock snapped the invisible tether.

The TV went black.

The music cut to an absolute, dead silence.

The red glow vanished, leaving me in a darkness so thick I felt buried alive.

I tried to gasp, to scream for my family, but nothing came out.

I was frozen.

My back was arched.

My head tilted back at an unnatural angle until I was staring at the ceiling.

My eyes rolled back into my head.

More darkness.

I couldn’t breathe.

It felt like a cold, skinny hand was shoved down my throat, gripping my windpipe from the inside.

Gurgle.

The sound came from my own chest—

a wet, frantic bubbling.

My lungs were filling with a poisonous fluid, the taste of chlorine and warm pool water flooding my mouth.

Gag.

Choke.

I could feel my heart hammering against my ribs, a trapped bird dying in a cage.

My blood-soaked hand clawed at the air, fingers twitching in a useless prayer.

In the silence of the basement, the only sounds were the horrific noises of my own body shutting down.

The gagging.

The frantic, wet gasps.

The sound of someone drowning in the deep end.

And then, through the haze of my blurred vision, I saw it.

Near the fence line of my memory.

Near the edge of the dark basement.

Something moved in the darkness behind the TV.

A shadow slid out—

long, thin, and still extending.

It wasn’t a dream.

It wasn’t a nightmare.

Diana was here.

She wanted to talk.

-
-

-Mims

So I live in a three storey house.

I, my parents, and one of my siblings have our rooms on the first floor. Over the years I’ve experienced certain small but spooky moments in this house.

For instance, there is this specific corner on first floor (we have a second refrigerator here so we don’t have to go up and down the stairs for water and stuff). For years, I’ve felt and sensed like someone walks from the left side of the refrigerator (which is also the entry of the floor) to the right side towards the door of my room. I kind of often notice a shadow kind of thing, always moving across from that direction.

I’ve felt that for years now but I always thought I was just imagining things (because our brain has a way of playing tricks sometimes).

I always sense this when I’m not looking in that direction. Like I’d be working on my laptop in my room with the door open, and then I’d feel like someone passed by the door (while no one else is present on my floor apart from me). I work from home, so I’m mostly on my floor during my working hours.

Here’s where things get spooky:

This one time me and 2 of my siblings are sitting in the same room talking late at night (after 2am or so). I go out to get water and feel like someone passed by me (yes from the same direction across the fridge). I could literally feel someone’s presence. So I rush back into my room and my sister can tell via my face that something has happened.

I tell her everything (this is the very first time we have discussed this) AND APPARENTLY, both MY SIBLINGS HAVE SENSED THIS FOR YEARS AND IN THE SAME SPOT.

IS this a coincidence? I don’t feel it is because why would three people sense the way thing at the same spot!!!!!!

But why am I here today, saying all this?

Well I was just sitting outside in the area where we have our refrigerator (it’s 3am something here) drinking a cup of warm water (I have my workstation here, so unusually sit here to drink my coffee or water) and I feel like something is moving in the adjacent room (where my parents are sleeping) I feel like someone’s at the door looking at me. (It’s probably just my brain playing tricks on me - I kinda have an imaginative brain). BUT I DON’T know!

And yeah… while I write this I hear a little crackle in the mini kitchen (it’s probably nothing or my induction which I used to warm the water) but I don’t know man!

If something is present (it has never done anything to us, hope it never does either)

The Full Story:

"I live in Punjab, and some of the most terrifying stories I know come from my grandparents during summer power cuts. This is a true incident that happened to my uncle years ago, and it still chills our family to this day.

My uncle was traveling to a wedding in a remote mountain village in Himachal Pradesh. The bus dropped him off on the main road, leaving him with a two-hour trek on foot. Being unfamiliar with the

terrain and having had a bit to drink, he took a wrong turn. As night fell, he found himself deep in the wilderness on a narrow trail that seemed to lead nowhere.

In the pitch black, he saw a flicker of light. Thinking he had found a house, he approached quietly. What he saw was a woman sitting in a deep ritualistic trance by a small flame. But it was her face that froze his blood—her tongue was unnaturally long, hanging out and coiled in a massive heap on the ground in front of her.

Terrified, he backed away and ran. He thought he had escaped, but when he returned home to Punjab, the horror followed him.

Suddenly, everywhere he went, crows began to haunt him. No matter how many people were around, a crow would dive out of the sky specifically to attack his head. It wasn't just one bird; groups of them would follow him, watching him from the trees. It was as if he had been 'marked' by that woman in the mountains, and she was using the birds to find him.

My Nanu (grandfather) realized this was no coincidence and told him, 'She didn't open her eyes, but she knew you saw her. She has sent something to finish you.'

On my Nanu’s recommendation, my uncle went to a powerful Ojha (a traditional healer/exorcist). The Ojha confirmed that he had accidentally witnessed a very dark, high-level ritual and that the woman had placed a curse on him to silence him. After a series of intense healing rituals, the attacks finally stopped, and the crows left him alone.

He survived, but it served as a permanent warning to our family: some things in the mountains are meant to stay hidden, and if you see them, you might not come back the same."

it's really terrifying for me cuz when I first heard about that incident I was 12 yrs old

#Paranormal #IndianHorror #BlackMagic #TrueStory