Подъезд

Я не знаю, кто это был. Я даже понятия не имею, был ли это человек. Я знаю только одно: он действительно есть, и встреча с ним — самое страшное, что может случиться с тобой.

В общем, однажды, я сломал ногу. Вот просто тупо так по синьке решил поспайдерменичать и упал примерно с уровня 3-4 этажа, при этом сломав себе пятку (наверно, самый е*учий перелом из несерьезных). Врачи определили мне сидеть в гипсе 3 месяца. Ну что ж, судьба. Сидя дома, ничем не занимаясь, быстро потерял режим и ложился спать, когда взбредет в голову. И как-то мартовской ночью (было полчетвертого, я это четко запомнил) решил я на костылях прогуляться в подъезд покурить. Надо сказать, что дом мой — обычная девятиэтажка в спальном районе, и уже давно нет дебилов, которые ставят в подъездах лампочки, ибо все равно соседи спи*дят. Из-за этого по ночам в подъезде нашем темно, причем так, что двери напротив не видно. В общем, вышел я, прошел общий коридор и оказался в подъезде. Поставил костыли к стенке, а сам оперся спиной на дверь. И когда прикуривал сигарету, краем глаза на лестнице, ведущей вверх, заметил силуэт. Силуэт явно принадлежал мужчине, и что-то в нем было не так. Я, в принципе, никогда трусом не был и во всякую чушь особо не верил. Поэтому решил, что просто какой-то пьяненький мужик возвращается домой. Ну, думаю, хрен с ним, пусть валит. Стою…10 секунд проходит, в темноте никаких шагов не слышно, а света от уголька сигареты недостаточно, чтобы его толком разглядеть. Ну, я решил зажечь зажигалку. Смотрю: до сих пор стоит, причем не лицом ко мне, а спиной, и нога одна на верхней ступени. В такой позе, как будто он поднимался и, услышав меня, замер в полушаге. Вот тогда-то и посыпались первые кирпичи, но виду я не подал, а решил наорать на него. Почему-то я до сих пор считал, что это просто алкаш, а на тот факт, что он не шевелится уже полминуты, хотя стоит в неудобной позе, я не обратил внимания. Крикнув ему что-то типа «х*ли ты тут встал?», я пригляделся к нему внимательней. И в этот, блин, момент это «существо» повернулось ко мне лицом. Я замер, я ничем не мог пошевелить, даже дышать перестал. И все из-за его лица — оно было страшным: чёрные глаза, бледная кожа, вместо носа и губ были только очертания, именно очертания, как будто их просто дорисовали, причем такой неумелой рукой. Зажигалка погасла, но легче мне от этого не стало. Его лицо в кромешной темноте я видел четко, как днем. Них*я толком не видно: ни его фигуры, ни лестницы, ни лифта, только каждая мелкая деталь его е*учего лица. Вывела меня из ступора обожженная сигаретой рука, но я все еще боялся пошевелиться, стоял и понимал, что если дернусь, то случится что-то очень плохое. Тут он повернулся ко мне всем телом, и, естественно, я не выдержал. Без костылей, с загипсованной ногой, я за секунду допрыгал на одной ноге до двери в свою квартиру, захлопнул ее и вжался в самый дальний уголок коридорчика. Так и сидел, если не спи*деть, минут двадцать. Потихоньку ужас откатил. Я отдышался, посмотрел на трясущиеся руки, вспомнил, что так и не покурил, и достал сигарету. Подымив и полностью успокоившись, подумал, как же я нелепо выгляжу — здоровый парень вжался в угол как котенок, да и вообще, пережитый момент я уже почти что полностью списал на расшатанное воображение из-за двухмесячного одиночества и в душе смеялся над собой. Тут вспомнились костыли, которые остались стоять в подъезде. Ну, думаю, надо сходить, а то спи*дят по-любому. Подскочил к двери, уже решил ее открыть, но тут что-то меня остановило. Думаю, чем черт не шутит, гляну-ка я в глазок. И посмотрел… Да да. Как в самом паршивом американском ужастике. Я посмотрел… и в 5 сантиметрах от меня, смотря мне прямо в глаза, было его лицо…

Что было дальше, мне рассказали уже родители. Их разбудил звонок по телефону в половину пятого ночи, из трубки был слышен мой истерический голос, говорящий полную белиберду. Батек резко сорвался ко мне. По дороге зацепил наряд ментов, сказав, что на меня напали. Когда приехали, дверь была закрыта, отец открыл своим ключом. В коридоре валялись вещи, скинутые с вешалки, и мой гипс (!!!), каким-то образом снятый с моей ноги. Телефон был разбит вдребезги, причем сотовый тоже. Меня нашли полностью невменяемым в углу туалета. Отпоили водкой и отправили в больницу на наркологическую экспертизу. Естественно, ничего не нашли и уже решили ставить мне шизофрению, но тут вмешался отец. В общем, все закончилось вполне нормально.

С тех пор я боюсь и каждый раз, когда выхожу из светлого и шумного лифта в мертвую тишину темного подъезда, жду появление страшных, полностью черных глаз. Когда выношу мусор поздним вечером, жду, что за углом у мусоропровода стоит он. Как всегда повернутый спиной, чуть сгорбившись, в какой-то странной и нелепой позе. И его лицо. Спокойное, нечеловеческое, бледное…

Если учесть, что последний раз я смотрел на часы в 3:30, а чтобы дойти на костылях до подъезда, мне понадобилось как раз 2-3 минуты, то встретились мы с ним в 3:33. Не знаю, может быть, это чушь, но ты уж как-нибудь будь поаккуратнее, когда куришь по ночам в подъезде... И уж точно не совершай моей ошибки. Никогда в таких обстоятельствах не смотри в глазок!!!

Я не знаю, кто это был. Я даже понятия не имею, был ли это человек. Я знаю только одно: он действительно есть, и встреча с ним — самое страшное, что может случится с тобой.

Mereana Mordegard Glesgorv

В марте 2008 года в главный офис "YouTube" в Cан-Бруно пришло сообщение о человеке, совершившем самоубийство весьма жутким способом - кухонным ножом, вырезав себе предварительно оба глаза. В письме сообщалось, что перед этим он якобы смотрел выложенное на сайт видео со странным названием Mereana Mordegard Glesgorv. Сотрудники YouTube проигнорировали письмо, но через неделю Гугл и Ютюб получили ещё два уведомления о смерти людей при таких же обстоятельствах. 
Один из администраторов сайта попытался посмотреть это двухминутное видео, закрыв половину экрана ладонью, и уже на 40 секунде у него необъяснимо началась нервная истерика. Видео было удалено и отправлено на исследование федеральной службы безопасности. Уже после этого в офис пришло ещё несколько уведомлений о случившихся ранее смертях в разных частях света, и во всех случаях люди вначале выдирали себе глаза. Найти пользователя, загрузившего видео так и не удалось. 
Для успокоения ажиотажа вокруг видео, YouTube решило оставить короткую версию, состоящую из первых 20 секунд. Её просмотр, как показали эксперименты, не вызывал негативных реакций у людей. На экране в это время появляется лицо мужчины на странном фоне. Перед 22 секундой, он начинает улыбаться. Что идёт дальше - неизвестно. 
На волне популярности, разными пользователями была сделана масса пародий на видео, а также фальшивые "полные" версии, состоящие из той же картинки, что и в коротком видео, но растянутой на две минуты. 
Изначальная версия видео больше не появлялась нигде в интернете. 
Количество жертв первого видео по всему миру точно не известно. Назывались цифры в 16, 47 и даже 153 человека. 
Неизвестно также, что именно означают слова "Mereana Mordegard Glesgorv""

"Если вы будете искать это видео, вы почти ничего не найдете. Всё, что вы увидите, это 20-секундное видео, на котором мужчина пристально смотрит на вас и ухмыляется последние 2 секунды. Источник видео не определен. Это лишь часть основного видео. 
Полное видео длится 2 минуты, и было удалено администрацией YouTube после жалоб 153 человек, которые после просмотра повредили свои глаза и отправили e-mail с жалобой в главный офис YouTube в Сан-Бруно. Говорят, что эти люди позже покончили с собой. Совершенно не понятно, как они смогли отправить электронные письма, ослепнув. А загадочная надпись, которую несчастные вырезали на своем предплечье, до сих пор не расшифрована. 
YouTube не будет удалять 20-секундную версию видео, для удовлетворения любопытства пользователей. Полную версию видео решился посмотреть только один сотрудник Youtube, который начал кричать после 45 секунд. Сейчас этот человек находится под постоянным действием успокоительных препаратов и, видимо, не в состоянии вспомнить, что он увидел. Другие люди, которые находились в одной комнате с ним во время просмотра, быстро отключили видео и всё что можно было слышать, это высокий звук, похожий на бурение. Никто не смел смотреть на экран. 
Человек, который загружал видео, никогда не был найден, IP-адрес не сохранился. А мужчина на видео никогда не был идентифицирован.

Это добавляет загадочности, поскольку все, кто видел этот файл, получили ссылку на него в анонимных e-mail'ах. Возникает вопрос, каким образом кому-то удалось загрузить его в Сеть?

Daddy

How to actually contact Bloody Mary.

A little bit of backstory

All this saying her name 3 times in the dark is all bullshit. Me and my girlfriend love proving and debunking myths. Its sort of this thing we do every month or so. Especially the creepy ones. I don't, know why, i guess its because it gives us that adrenaline rush. We do everything from video games to strait up rituals and so far the only thing that we have found that is actually legitimate is a creepy glitch in sonic, oh, there's a pretty creepy one in Zelda I bet you guys haven't found, but that's for another time. Anyways last night we were looking up something to try out, when we come across this really odd post page on 4chan (Yes I know, but 4chan can be a good source of info.) This post is about how some chick claims that if you follow these 6 particular steps you can actually summon Bloody Mary. It also gave out all the different precautions you must take before hand. This shit really works.

How to do it

Supplies: A large dark towel (Preferably black), thick red dye , crowbar, at least 3 light sources (Flashlight, candle, match, anything that emits light (Bring as much as you can.)

At 12 am make your way to the desired room. Now, you don't need to be in a bathroom to do this but I highly suggest it. If you are in a room with multiple mirrors this could go bad, very bad. Just make sure there's only one mirror. And there can be absolutely no natural sunlight or it won't work. I'm going to use a bathroom in this example

The dye is a mixture of dirt, milk, blood, does not need to be human. Just get it from the meats department. We got ours from our deli.

Step 1

Have a mate assist you. Do NOT try this by yourself. When you have gathered all your supplies, one person will go inside the room with the supplies and shut themselves inside. The other person will wait right outside the door. Now lay out all your supplies and make one last check to make sure you have them all. Also write out these steps on a paper so you are confident you are doing everything correctly.

Step 2

Now turn on your source of light, whether it's a flashlight or a candle. Un screw the bathroom light bulbs. Now with the thick red dye, pour it on one of your hands. (This is the point of no return) With your dye covered hand make 4 dots on each corner of the mirror. At this time she is already present. She just is not revealing herself yet.

Step 3

After you have made you four dots, run your towel under water and wipe your hands. Keep your crowbar at close distance. Turn all light sources off at this point. Now with your wet towel you will say. "This is the cleanser of the dead." Put it over your head covering your eyes.

Step 4

You will now say. "I wish to speak with the fallen Queen." When you hear a soft voice say "Queen of fallen blood. Queen of hatred" Take the cloth off your head. Make sure you take it off your head.

Step 5

This is the most important step. When you unclothe your eyes DONT yell or panic. If you do, things will go wrong. KEEP CALM. Ask her questions if you wish just remember to be very polite. She mirrors your actions so don't be scared or angry.

Step 6

There are two paths that are taken on this step.

Path 1: If things are getting bad and she threatens you or becomes aggressive you are going to have to smash your mirror. Then yell you to your bud to open the door.

Path 2: Say, "I must depart, your highness." Then she will immediately vanish from the mirror. This doesn't mean she is gone though. She just isn't revealing herself. If you chose to leave after that, she will crawl out of any reflective surface in the house. And most likely kill you. Instead after you say "I must depart, your highness." Find your light emitting device and turn it on to find your light bulbs. Screw them back in. Now one by one, wipe away the red dots. When they are completely gone, you now say. "Flee" You are now safe. She will not come back unless you completely do the ritual over again.

If you do this correctly she will appear. Just remember the information I have given you. If you guys would like. Ill post mine and my girlfriends experience. Just message me or comment.

Stay safe guys. This isn't a joke. If you try this make sure you follow these rules.

Original post.

We're Sorry Kiddo

I was twelve years old when my parents went on the trip to Texas and left me with my aunt. They were expected to be gone for three weeks and I had to deal with the boring house my aunt lived in. She had no video games, no dvds, and no TV! What did they expect me to do for three weeks while they were out living it up in Texas.

I remember how long those weeks dragged out. Every day seemed to last years as I waited for the three weeks to pass. Then on the third week my aunt told me that my parents wouldn't be coming back for another three weeks. She seemed upset when she said this and I figured it was because she was stuck watching me for an extra three weeks.

The next three weeks weren't as bad. I had met a friend down the street from my aunt's house and he had a PS2 that we would play all day. I was starting to enjoy myself. At the end of the next three weeks I was more than ready to see my parents. A month and a half without them was terrible and I missed my home.

My aunt walked outside as I headed out with my bags packed. I remember how upset I was when she told me that my parents had decided to go to New Mexico for three weeks now as well. I thought they had abandoned me and I started to get depressed.

The next three weeks were just as uneventful as the first three weeks. I had forgotten how my house looked and I had nearly forgotten the faces of my parents. I was ready to go home.

The night before my parents were supposed to be back I was woken up to a tap on my shoulder. I looked up and saw my mom and dad standing over the bed smiling at me. I was so happy to see them and I hopped out of my bed to hug them both.

"We can't stay for long buddy. We have somewhere else we need to go." I remember my dad saying to me.

We walked out to their car and they drove me around for a while. We didn't talk much but I was so happy to be with them even for a little while. When we finally arrived back at my aunt's house I was reluctant to let them leave. I ran into my room and came back with the camera my dad had bought me before they left and i asked them to take a picture with me so i wouldn't forget their faces. I sat the camera on the hood of the car and set the timer on it before hugging my parents and waiting for the flash. After that my dad wrote something on the back of the picture and handed it to me before he and my mom got in the car and drove off.

In the morning I woke up my aunt and told her that my mom and dad visited last night. She looked at me with so much sadness in her face that it worried me.

"You must have been dreaming." She said to me fighting back tears.

"Why?" I asked her.

She hesitated a moment before she answered me. Tears were now rolling down her cheeks. "Your parents died in a car crash on the way to Texas."

I laughed as she said this. There's no way it was a dream. Then I remembered the picture I had taken with my parents and I ran into my room to get it. I grabbed it without looking at it and ran into my aunt's room to show it to her.

"Look, this is proof they were here." I handed her the picture.

When she looked at the picture she screamed and dropped it. Her face turned as white as snow and she covered her mouth. I was confused so I picked up the picture and looked at it.

The picture showed me standing out front of my aunt's house hugging the mutilated figures of my parents. I couldn't believe what I was looking at. I dropped the picture on the floor as my hands went numb. The picture landed upside down and I read the words written on the back.

"We're sorry kiddo."

Credits: Exxile4000

Time Jump

I’m a time jumper.

I know it’s a bit vague but there’s no other way to put it. Sometimes, when I close my eyes and concentrate, I find myself misplaced in time. It seems to be random. I remember the first time; I must have been about 10. I was sitting at home doing my homework, when I closed my eyes for a second. Suddenly, there was a bright flash behind my eyelids, like when you look at the sun with your eyes closed. I felt wind, and smelt grass, and as I opened my eyes, I realised I was standing in a garden, I think it was on a farm, and a boy about the same age as me, ran up to me. He was a little smaller, but had the same colour hair. There was also a camera round his neck.

“Where did you come from?” He said curiously.

“I’m…not sure…is this a dream?” I replied, convinced I must have fallen asleep. “I don’t think so,” he said. “This is my parents’ house, can I take your picture?” I was a little surprised at how comfortable this kid was talking to a complete stranger that had somehow appeared in his garden, maybe it was because we were about the same age.

“Sure,” I said, a little confused. Is this really a dream? He snapped my photo, and that’s when I noticed that the camera was old, it was one of those that printed out the photo after it took them. He pulled it out and gave it a wave in the air to dry it off. I started to get a headache and closed my eyes again, I heard the boy speak, but it seemed to have an echo to it.

“Are you ok?”

Another bright flash and I opened my eyes, a little bit of confused, plus my head was pounding now. I was in the exact same position I was in when I closed my eyes for the first time, and I looked at the clock, no time had passed. I started to panic a little now, and instinctively looked around my room for the slightest hint that I had fallen asleep. That’s when my eyes fell on a family photo on my windowsill. A thought came to me, a crazy thought, an impossible thought.

I ran into my parents room and looked for the box my parents kept photos in. I quickly located it and looked for the bit where my dad’s old photos were kept, and then I saw it. A photo taken about 20 years ago, of a boy who looked just like me, even wearing the same clothes, standing in a garden looking deep in thought. I never mentioned this to my dad, but I started to notice that, every so often, he would stare at me with a confused look on his face, the same one he wore 20 years earlier, and quickly look away when he realised I’d noticed.

This happened more and more as I got older, and I learnt to be able to turn the random jumps on and off at will. I also noticed a few more stranger things. Once, I was in ancient Egypt, and while investigating the tools they used for crops, I cut my finger. I wasn’t too worried about it, that is until I jumped back into the present. My finger was still cut.

This was when it fully hit me that these were definitely not just dreams, as a tiny part of me had hoped. It was wonderful for a while, going to all these different times. Sometimes I would go to the past, I’ve seen World Wars, World Wonders being built, Abraham Lincolns inauguration speech, Queen Victoria’s coronation, the invention of the lightbulb and so much more.

Sometimes however, I would jump into the future. Obviously I can’t put names to these, or put them in any sort of chronological order, as they’ve not happened yet. Stereotypical hover cars? Yep, we get those. Clean white pavements and buildings in our super-cities? Yep. Not everything is so great though, I’ve seen London reduced to ruins with not a person in sight. Las Vegas reclaimed by the desert. But that’s not the thing that’s bothering me, that’s not the reason I’m writing this entry.

Last time I hurt myself, it made me think, What if I was killed while “on a jump”? What would happen then? As I was thinking this, I blinked, and suddenly found myself in a graveyard, rain pouring on my face. The sky was slate grey and there was something moving ahead of me. I moved closer and saw four men lowering a coffin into an open grave. The sight made me uneasy.

“What’s going on?” I asked cautiously.

“Some guy died, no one turned up for the funeral, poor fella,” He replied. “He was run down by one of them new automobiles, was screamin’ all sorta nonsense before he died, apparently.”

I watched them lower the coffin into the hole, still feeling uneasy, the rain pounding on the scrubbed wood. When they finished lowering, and left to take a break, I walked over to the grave, and stepped over the hole to read the inscription on the little wooden cross that had been used instead of a gravestone.

I felt a cold chill run through my body. It was my name. Written on this stone, was my name. And what made my heart skip a beat was the date of death;

DIED 1911

Somehow, I accidentally jumped into my own future, in the past, in which I died. And since I may not see this happen, I come bearing a warning.

Keep your eye on the sky on the 7th July 2013. You won’t want to miss that.

Credits: danny249

House

A couple of years ago I bought my first house. It’s a nice, little, colonial home that sits on the outskirts of the city as a reminder of the areas humble beginnings. For the most part I have lived alone and have enjoyed living in such a spacious place on my own. Over the past two years I have added in many installments to bring the house into the modern age on the inside, and out. I have a brand new kitchen with sleek, chrome appliances, a two car garage attached to the western wing of the house, and best of all; it talks. Now this isn’t science fiction by any means it’s actually very simple. Years ago I had a girlfriend who’s dad had made is so their house could talk through speakers. It all ran through a computer that he had setup in the basement that constantly ran a program that was set on timing, and trigger cues. For example: every day at seven in the morning, and six at night the house would automatically announce a weather update. It would also make a clunking sound like a door closing whenever someone entered or exited through the garage, or front door. There were a bunch of other things it could do but to me those were always the most interesting.

About a year ago I decided to install speakers throughout my house and I setup an old dell in my basement that would run the program. It took me a few weeks to get everything setup and once it was all finished I was very anxious to hear it work. I ran upstairs and opened and closed the garage door that led into the house over and over to hear the imitating “clunk” sound it would make every time. I also added a feature that could tell me just how long I was out of the house by sensors that picked up when I walked out of the door and back in. I setup an alarm to wake me up for work every day at six a.m. and it would announce the day’s weather as well. I’d wake up, eat my breakfast, dress appropriately for the weather, and leave around seven. I’d work from eight until four and usually get home around five. Each day I’d walk in greeted by the “clunk” and a chime followed by the house announcing that I had been away for roughly nine and a half hours.

I got use to the daily greetings of the house quickly and found it very welcoming. It was almost like the house and I were friends. I started installing more and more little quirks to the program just so I could hear the house talk more. I’d receive traffic updates along with my morning weather, I also made it so that it said goodnight to me each night around nine. I am not completely proud of that but it gets lonely around here. I also setup a system where it would bark if someone tried to come in while the front door was locked. Things were going great with the house for a while until about a week ago when it started to act up. It started last Wednesday I believe. I was awoke by my alarm followed by my updates and everything seemed fine. But suddenly I jolted when I heard the house make its intruder barking noise. I ran downstairs and looked out the front door but no one was there and the door was locked. I shook it off, ate my breakfast and left for work. When I returned home the house greeted me by telling me how long I was gone, “nine hours,” and told me goodnight when I went to bed. A few days past and everything remained normal. Suddenly I was awoke by the barking in the middle of the night.

I ran downstairs again and turned on the porch lights to see no one there. I was somewhat frustrated and decided to turn the damn barking sounds off because it obviously wasn’t working. I stayed up the rest of the night and spent that Saturday trying to figure out why the sensor was acting up. After a while of frustrated tinkering I dropped the project and just hoped it would stop acting up. The weekend went by without any problems. The house ran baseball stats by me as I sat and read on my sofa, happily enjoying the sun shining through the window behind me. Suddenly the barking went off again. This time I was right next to the door and heard the handle jiggling. I leapt from the sofa and over to the door to find that still, no one was there. I walked outside and did a lap around the house and found nobody. I started to feel shaky and somewhat paranoid. The sound kept freaking me out and I didn’t know how I was going to fix it without shutting the whole system down which I wasn’t about to do.

The rest of the weekend went by without hearing the sound again and I went through my normal work routine Monday. I arrived home at my normal time of five thirty, but something was wrong. As soon as I walked into the house I was met with the “clunk” and the time that had passed since I had left. “Welcome home. You have been away for: one hour.” One hour? I thought nervously. How could that be possible? I was gone all day. How could I have been here an hour earlier and then left right after? Maybe the sensor had failed to pick up that I had left but I know I heard the “clunk” when I had left that morning. I was shaken but not scared. I knew that the house wouldn’t announce how long I had been gone if someone was still here so I figured I was safe. I took a deep breath and moved on from the incident. I ate dinner, listened to the weather report, and went to the bed after my daily, “goodnight.”

After a couple hours of restless sleep I finally dozed off. It wasn’t long after that I was jolted awake by a sound that I know I shouldn’t have heard at that time of night. I sat up in my bed shaking as I heard the familiar noise resonate through the house: “clunk.”

Credits: writersblok

██████ ██████ ██████████ ██ ████ █ ████ ██████████ ██

Symmetry

I love symmetry. I’m not sure exactly why but I’ve loved it since I was a kid. Most children are messy and forgetful of their things. Not me. I knew everything has a place and in my room, everything was right where it belongs. My parents didn’t have It. My grandparents didn’t have It either. Not a single person in my family had “It”. I’ve started referring to it as “It” because I truly believe it’s a thing inside me. A stowaway that shouldn't be there but lives inside me. It’s a need. A desire. A longing to be perfect. Perfect on both sides. As an adult, I’m at the point where I can’t live my life normally. I can’t keep a job. Women don’t stay with me because they can’t handle It. Honestly, I don’t care when they leave. They’re messy and make things difficult. They roll over to my side of the bed instead of staying on their own. They leave dishes in one side of the sink but not the other. I can’t work anymore so when they leave for the day, I have to stay home and fix everything. It’s a relief when they leave for good. That feeling never lasts though, eventually It comes back and finds something else that needs fixing. You may be asking, why would I seek out relationships to begin with if I can’t stand them? Well, it’s hard for me to sleep in the middle of the bed all night without moving.

Other than the relationship problem, my life is pretty much in order. I say “pretty much” because there is one last issue that must be dealt with. You see I have what’s called “Heterochromia Iridum” or two different colored irises. My right eye was cornflower blue, my left pale green. Both my parents have cornflower blue eyes, my siblings and cousins as well. My green eye is the broken one. It makes me...unbalanced. Every time I look at myself in the mirror, It stares right back at me. It’s all I think about now. Everything is in its right place except my green little mistake. It didn’t hurt at first when I dug the spoon under my eye. It didn’t even hurt when it popped out and was hanging by my cheek. Was it shock that was keeping the pain away or was it It? I snipped the optic nerve and blotted the warm fluids that were streaming down my face. My vision being cut in half was a strange sensation. What was left of the dangling flesh, I placed back in the now empty hole. I bandaged the wound, rinsed the spoon, and went to sleep.

I woke up...happy. I slept better than I had in years. It was finally done. I was fixed. I got out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom. My body ached and my head was on fire. I flipped the switch in the bathroom and the light was blinding. I slowly removed the bandage that was soaked with blood and was sticking to my face like tape. When I looked up to the mirror, my stomach turned. Only then had I realized what I’d done to myself and I couldn't believe it. There was a hole in the left side of my face...but not the right. I was unbalanced. Again. It was much harder digging out the second eye. My hands were shaky and when I dug the spoon in, I missed several times, puncturing my pupil three times before I got the it in the right place. Once the eye popped out, I reached for my scissors to finish the job. The blood from the previous night had dried on the blades, so the scissors didn’t cut very well. You know when you were a kid in elementary school and your teacher made you cut construction paper for art projects? Did you ever try to cut too many pieces at once but the scissors couldn't take it? The blades would kind of fold over each other and the paper would get pinned between them? That’s what happened with my eye. The optic nerve was pinned between the two blades. It was stuck and as I tried desperately and frantically to make it unstuck, I slipped on the blood and started falling to the floor. Reflexes kicked in and I let go of my eye to try to break my fall with my hand. The weight of the stuck scissors on my hanging eye was unbearable. I knew I couldn’t stand it long enough to make it to the kitchen to get a knife. So I pulled. I pulled it straight out of my head. I felt the flesh tear from inside my skull. I felt it rip and spew liquids everywhere. I knew I was crying but there was no telling the tears from the blood from the ocular fluid. When I heard the wet slap of bloody flesh against the tile floor, I knew I was done. I knew It was done. I could live my life now without having to see peoples awful, messy, uneven lives. The relief washed over me and I knew it would last this time. I had never felt this way before, never had this much hope. As I laid in my bathroom on that cold, wet, sticky tile, I smiled for the first time in years.

-Dictated but not read

630-296-7536

 Help me, help me, blah-blah-blah. I won’t bore you with another. Even if I wanted your help, you couldn’t give it to me, because your help is useless.

Why?

Because you’re not a member.

I just wish that I wasn’t either.

It all started innocently enough. With a phone call.

I’d been up for a few hours, unpacking and cleaning, waiting for the plumber to call. I just moved into a cabin and the contractors fucked everything up. Because of that, I now have the wonderful task of making calls to competent people that can fix what the original contractors did wrong.

The phone rang at 12:06.

Not bad, I thought. Usually plumbers don’t bother to call or show up until 5.

When I picked up the phone I didn’t even get a chance to say hello before a woman on the line told me to “Please hold for the next available operator.”

I hopped up and sat on the cabinet in the kitchen. It was one of the few places in the cabin not occupied with boxes. Elevator music leaked into my ear. I’d started to drowse off when the music stopped and a piano chord that sounded like it was three notes that didn’t quite go together played through the receiver twice.

A voice came on the line.

“Welcome to Boothworld Industries. My name is Samantha and I will be your operator today. Name?”

I didn’t know what to say so I told the operator my name.

“Sir, we know who you are. I’m your operator. Please give me a name to access.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“It can be anyone, sir. We just need a name.”

“Uh, okay,” I said. I made up a name. “Harold Withers.”

“Sir, as your operator, I must point out that fictitious names, or the names of people that you don’t know, cannot be used.”

“Used for what?” I asked. How had she known that I’d made up that name? The whole thing felt like it was some sort of prank, but hardly anyone knew my new phone number.

“Remodeling.”

“Remodeling? Is this the plumber?” I asked.

“Welcome to Boothworld Industries. My name is Samantha and I will be your operator today. Name?”

I took that as a yes and gave them the name of an old ex-girlfriend. “Jessica Goodwin.”

I could hear the clicking of a keyboard on the other end of the phone. It sounded like the woman was pounding the thing with her fists. After a few moments of this, she returned.

“Jessica Goodwin,” she said. “Remodeling is scheduled for August 21, 2015. Would you like to reschedule?”

I was silent on my side of the phone. I couldn’t believe this. Someone had to be playing a prank on me.

“Who is this? Is this you, Jessica? Are you playing a prank on me?” I asked.

The woman didn’t respond for a long time. I thought that whoever was on the other end of the phone was holding in a laugh.

“Hello?” I asked.

“Yes or no, Sir?” The woman asked back.

“Yes?” I said, not understanding what the woman was asking.

“I have a Tuesday appointment available. Will that work?”

At this point I thought I was going insane and that it actually was the plumbing company.

“What about today?” I asked. “Do you have anything available for today?”

“Normally we can’t arrange for a reschedule on such short notice, but today we had a cancellation. How does three o’clock work for you?”

“Three o’clock is fine,” I said.

“Three o’clock it is then. Would you like a courtesy call?”

“Sure.”

“Wonderful. We at Boothworld Industries say thanks and welcome to the club. You have a marvelous day.”

That strange chord played twice again and the line went dead. I rolled my eyes and went back to unpacking.

My phone rang at three o’clock on the dot that afternoon.

“Hello?” I said.

“Sir. This is Samantha with Boothworld Industries again. Your courtesy call begins now.”

“What do you-” I began to say, but was cut off by those diminished chords blaring into my ear, then I heard Jessica’s voice.

“Why are you doing this?” Jessica asked. I could hear the tears in her voice.

“Jessica?” I asked.

“Sir,” the operator said. “She cannot hear you. This is a courtesy call. The appointment has already concluded.”

“Please,” Jessica begged. “Please don’t do this. I’ll do anything you want. I’ll-”

Jessica’s voice choked off into a wheeze and all I could hear on the other end of the phone was the rustling of clothing and more wheezing. Eventually it stopped and someone picked up on the other end.

“The scheduled work has been completed,” a man’s voice said. “We at Boothworld Industries say thanks and welcome to the club. You have a marvelous day.”

“Sir?” The operator came back on the line. “Was that to your satisfaction?”

I sat there for a long time, cold sweat dripping down my ribcage. Jessica was my ex, because I walked in on her and my best friend fucking at a party in high school.

I smiled and whispered, “That was perfect.”

“Wonderful,” the operator said. “We at Boothworld Industries aim to serve. Would you like to make another appointment?”

As I stared at the water leaking from the door of the dishwasher, I smiled even bigger.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes I would.”

“Name?”

“Dan. I don’t have a last name. He’s a contractor.”

“Dan Arencibia. July 13, 2032. Would you like to reschedule?”

“Yes,” I said.

“How would Wednesday work for you?”

“Didn’t you say you had a Tuesday appointment available?” I asked.

“I did, but unfortunately that slot has been filled by another member. Would Wednesday work for you?”

“No,” I said. “I have a job interview that day. What about Thursday?”

“Unfortunately Thursday will not work. You are due for remodeling Wednesday night.”

“What?” I asked.

She repeated the exact same thing to me again.

“Can we reschedule my remodeling?” I asked.

“Of course we can, sir,” the woman said. It sounded like she was smiling on the other end of the phone. “There’s always a way.”

I waited for her to tell me how. She didn’t speak.

“HOW?” I asked.

“Boothworld Industries is always looking to add new members. We are, of course, a membership by invitation only club. Sadly, our membership numbers have fallen in recent years. Economic recessions. Wars. Politics. What we would like you to do, in order to avoid your own remodeling appointment, is help us add several new members.”

The light at the end of the tunnel, I thought.

“How many members do you need?” I asked.

“One thousand.”

I choked. “One thousand?”

“Yes, sir. Otherwise we’ll have to keep our scheduled appointment. We must inform you that the member that scheduled this appointment did request a courtesy call.”

Everything stopped at that point for me. All my life I’d just skated by, not doing anything, not making a difference.

My mouth actually dried up. I’d always thought that was just a thing people wrote in books to be dramatic.

It’s not.

“I’ll get you your one thousand members,” I whispered.

“We at Boothworld Industries say thanks and welcome to the club. You have a marvelous day.”

The connection ended.

I hung up the phone and stared at it for a long time. I’m scheduled for remodeling on Wednesday, and somewhere, someone will be getting a courtesy call to listen to my last few breaths if I don’t get one thousand members to join Boothworld Industries.

It’s funny. I’d always wanted to join an elite club. Skull and Bones. New World Order. I'm not sure how I got in, but now I’m a member. I've got until Wednesday to enjoy it.

Like I said at the beginning: even if I wanted your help, you couldn’t give it to me, because you’re not a member.

Membership is by invitation only.

I’m inviting you in.

You can help me.

Just call 630-296-7536.

Credits :  boothworld

The Ritual ( Part III )

Part II

“Got to find the others.” I stated. “No way we can leave ‘em here.” We both helped Tiffany to her feet, “Alright, we stick together and search for the others.”

We began searching, Alexia staying right next to Tiff. The beast already knew we were there so there was no need to remain quiet. We moved through the halls of the 3rd Floor calling for our friends.

We heard the sound of someone running from down the hall; I shined my light and hit Steve right in the eyes with the bright beam. His face had no color and his shirt was covered in blood. I caught him as he reached us and practically collapsed.

“It got Mark,” He stammered out between breaths. “Ripped him in half.” Steve grabbed me and started screaming, “WE’VE GOT TO GET OUT OF HERE!”

“We’ve got to find Tonya and Jeff.” I told him, “Calm down, we’ll get them and then get out of here.” I tried speaking to him in a calming tone.

“They’re probably dead already!” Steve shouted, “Let’s just go!”

“We’ll be fine if we stick to-” Alexia started saying but was interrupted by a blood curling scream that came from below us. “That’s Tonya!”

I was already starting to run towards the stairs when Steve grabbed me, “NO, IT’LL KILL YOU!”

“We have to get Tonya!”

“SHE’S AS GOOD AS DEAD!” Steve shrieked in my face. Then we heard Tonya scream again. I grabbed Steve’s arm and started dragging him along with me as I began the decent down the stairs.

“If we stick together we’ll be fine!” I told him. Steve tried to fight against me, but I’ve got quite a bit more muscle than he does, so I was able to drag him down the stairs. I let him go when Tonya came into my light. She was still screaming and was trying to get up from the floor, which was covered in blood, as was she. She managed to get to her feet when I saw her, but a leg came out of the darkness and slammed into her legs causing her to fall back to the floor. I noticed that the leg wasn’t attached to anything. I managed to run over to Tonya and shine my light down the hall where I saw it.

It stood over 7 feet tall and its skin was dark and shiny. The thing’s mouth was large and vile looking. Its eyes held a terrible presence, burning terror into my very being. In one of its grotesque hands was Mark’s body, what was left of it, and its other hand pulled the last limb, an arm, and threw it at us. I ducked under the arm and grabbed Tonya, hauling her to her feet.

“RUN!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, shoving Tonya toward the stairs. I heard the thing laugh as we ran down the stairs to the first floor. The exit, we just needed to get out of the building.

I was the last in line as we hit the first floor. Steve was first to the door and tried to open it, it wouldn’t move. Alexia shined her light on it revealing a glob of black goo stuck to the doors, preventing them from being opened.

We heard the laughter of the creature. It was on the stairs, coming for us. Steve took off down one of the hallways that went off of lobby and the rest of us followed. I looked back behind me and shined my light; the creature was following us, scuttling on the walls.

That was not what I wanted to see.

I turned back to make sure I didn’t get separated from everyone else, but I knew that this thing was going to catch us soon if we didn’t manage to get outside. Steve ducked down yet another hallway, continuing to run at a breakneck speed with Tiff, Tonya, and Alexia right behind him, and I was at an ever increasing distance behind them. I heard Steve hit something before I rounded the corner, a door leading outside!

“It’s locked!” Steve wailed, franticly trying to get the door open. “I can’t get it open!” The girls caught up to him and started trying to help get the thing open. The door had a window in it, one with the metal netting in it to keep people from breaking in, or out. Somehow we had made a few turns and I could see into the parking lot, our cars were just a little ways away. Salvation was just one door away.

I skidded to a halt as I reached them and looked back behind us; the monster was nowhere to be seen. “I don’t see the thing.” I called out.

“Maybe we lost it?” Tiff sounded hopeful, almost pleading.

“No, it knows where we are.” Alexia replied. I took up a position to be able to keep a look out as they worked on getting the door open.

The door was at the end of a short hallway, with rooms to both sides and the crossing hallway a little ways away, so I knew that it only had one way to come to get us. I stood, shaking with fear, watching for this thing to come for us.

Mark’s head rolled into the intersection and stopped, his lifeless eyes looking at me, his face frozen in an expression of sheer terror.

I screamed.

So did everyone else.

The Ritual ( Part II )

Part One

I didn’t believe that some creature had been summoned from the ether to wreak terror on these dunderheaded college students; I figured that someone was playing a prank on them. I mean, they posted it on Facebook, for crying out loud!

It didn’t take long to get there, only about 15 minutes and that was due to hitting every – single – stoplight on the way. It was still raining hard when I parked in the old asylum’s lot. No lights were on in the parking lot and the big building was completely dark. The only sources of illumination were the street lights and the occasional flashes of lightning. We got out into the cold rain, using the small umbrellas we kept in the car as protection against the weather. I pulled our flashlights out of the back of the car. A 3 D Cell LED Mag-Lite for Alexia and a big 6 D Cell Mag-Lite (called Bessie) with the ultra-bright Xenon bulb for me. With our flashlights in hand we headed to the building.

The front entrance wasn’t locked so we stepped inside to the lobby. Alexia tried to call Tiffany but the reception was horrible. The only thing that she could make out was, “It’s coming for me.”

After hanging up, Alexia looked at me and asked, “Time to search, shall we split up?”

“Sure,” was my reply, “That way it can eat us easier.”

“Good,” She said. We both looked around, “I feel like I’m walking into a horror story. Shall we skip to the end and just go down to the basement and-”

A scream from upstairs cut her off. We both headed up the stairs that were in the main lobby of the asylum. There was another scream, one filled with even more terror than the first one. It sounded like it was on the third floor, so we ran that direction. It took a moment on the third floor landing for us to catch our breath. Neither one of us was in good enough shape to really run, much less run up 3 flights of stairs. As my girlfriend and I were wheezing on the landing, my light hit something big and odd looking, but it vanished just as quickly as I saw it.

Tiffany was on the floor against the wall right next to where I saw whatever it was. Alexia went over to her as quickly as she could. Tiff grabbed Alexia and sobbed against her. I continued looking around; keeping an eye out for whatever it was that had run off.  Finally after a few moments, Tiffany regained some composure.

“What was that thing?” I asked,

“It was Arke…” Tiffany started to say but was cut off by Alexia.

“Don’t say its name!” She said to Tiff.

Tiffany nodded and continued, “It was the creature that’s summoned by the ritual.” She managed to finally stammer out. I looked at Alexia and she had a very concerned expression.

She looked up spoke in the tone that she uses that I knew better than to argue with, “We need to leave, now!”

The Ritual ( part I )

I don’t think there’s a college that doesn’t have its share of legends. Stories range from the ghost of the girl who was pregnant with the football coach’s child to the creature that roams a building at night. And everything is said to kill you in the most horrible fashion if you run into it, of course. My school, Miskatonic University, up in Maine, was no exception.

In addition to the obligatory ghost stories of the suicides and murder victims still haunting the grounds, there was a story of an evil creature that liked to torture its victims by scaring them for days on end before killing them. The thing is, you have to call this monster, invite it to hunt you. The monster is called Achildes and it feeds on the terror.

Yeah, that’s brilliant, call up an otherworldly horror to come and torture you.

But there were tons of people who did this and they didn’t die. It was some sort of rite of passage. Frats and Sororities had it as part of their initiation ritual. They would take the new kids out to the old run down building on campus.  Despite its sorry state, it still was usable, there just weren’t any classes being held in it. That wasn’t common knowledge, though. The members would send the pledges in and have them call up Achildes. The pledges would do the ritual in the men’s bathroom and then someone in a mask would jump out and scare the bejesus out of them. Most of the time the kids would run screaming out of the building, sometimes they would go deeper into the building and get lost. Which meant that all the lights would have to be turned on and a search would go on until they were found.

What a great way to get people into your frat, give them heart attacks and/or mental issues.

Then my friend Tiffany told me and my girlfriend, Alexia, that she had found the actual ritual and where it was supposed to be done. I didn’t really want anything to do with it, and neither did Alexia. We told Tiff not to do it, that it’s not a good idea to mess with things that aren’t of this world. Of course, she didn’t listen. I remember when it happened, it was at the end of November…

It was a dark and stormy night…

I was lounging on the couch in the apartment that Alexia and I shared just off campus, playing Mass Effect for the twenty-eighth time. Alexia was sitting at her desk nearby, playing some Facebook games on her laptop.

“Remember that ritual Tiffany told us about?” Alexia asked me,

“Vaguely,” was my muttered reply.

“She has a status saying that her, Mark, Tonya, Steve, and Jeff are going to perform it tonight. That was about 3 hours ago.”

“What time is it now?”

“9:27″

“Wonder if they’re still alive.” I wasn’t taking it seriously.

“Probably not.” She said in a similar tone to mine.

A while later the phone rang. It was right next to me, but I was shooting people, so obviously I couldn’t answer it. I quickly checked the caller id. “It’s Tiff,” I said as I tossed it to Alexia and went back to shooting people, but with the volume down a bit more. I didn’t really pay any attention to the call, I was too busy trying to snipe some mercs, and Alexia had gone into another room. Not sure how long the call lasted but it was long enough for me to get out of that area in the game.

“Find a save point,” Alexia called out to me, “We’ve got to go get ‘em.”

“Why?” I asked, saving and shutting down the system.

“They did the ritual and are scared out of their minds.” She replied as she put her coat on and grabbed her purse.

“Okay, so where are they?” I grabbed my coat and keys.

“The old mental hospital.”

“Why am I not surprised?” We went out to the car and started towards the old mental hospital that was just outside of the warehouse district of the city. Alexia reminded me what Tiffany had told us about the ritual.

The location for the ritual has to be a place where great fear has been felt – the mental hospital was perfect for that – and at night with no lights on. You have to have 27 black candles and, after arranging them in a specific pattern, light them. Then everyone who is participating in the ritual has to stand in the middle of the symbol that the candles form and start chanting a challenge to the demon. And you have to use its actual name, not Achildes, which is the bastardized version of it.  It takes 27 times of saying the chant for it to work. If it works, then the candles are supposed to go out and then you have to run for your life because the creature/demon/entity/thing is now hunting everyone who took part in the ritual.  Supposedly this thing feeds off of the fear that is generated by its hunt and it will try to terrorize you for days before finally killing and eating you, not necessarily in that order either.

From what Tiff told my girlfriend, it succeeded.