It was night and two guys in classic car traveled down a lonely stretch of I-95 in Pennsylvania. The one in the passenger seat had a pensive look about him. The driver reached down to fiddle with the radio. They slowly pulled ahead of me. Squinting through the darkness and the bug-dotted windshield of my eight year old Isuzu I observed a blue bumper sticker with the words in white “Hilary ‘08” on it. “God damn it. I hate those guys.”
Gabe looked at me inquiringly, still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “You mean guys who look like they’ve been pulled out of some teen drama on basic cable?”
“Huh? No. Guys who leave bumper stickers up from previous elections. For fuck’s sake Hilary didn’t even win the primary.”
“Where are we anyway?” Gabe stretched out until his hands touched the car roof. Admittedly that wasn’t that much of a stretch, he was one of those shaggy looking wiry fellows.
“Just out of Jersey. You think you can help me stay awake? The Blush Twins back there aren’t much of a help.” My sister Prissy and her friend Claire were passed out in the back seat. When they drank more then they were used they had the tendency to turn as red as tomatoes. That limit was two glasses of red wine.
Gabe mumbled something that sounded like “alcohol camels” and responded, “Yea sure. There’s not much to talk about though, Jack.”
“Well it’s night and Halloween is a day away. You ever seen anything that could be considered paranormal?” That was always a good topic if two people need to stay awake through the night. I did not even need to worry about a “no.” Even the most logical human being has had that one weird experience, whether it was a bad trip or one of those waking nightmares experienced during sleep paralysis.
“Well, uh, no. But I swear to God, Jack, this one time when I was five I remember flying. This isn’t paranormal, but I had this one reoccurring nightmare back before my father left. Haven’t had it recently, but I remember it pretty clearly.
“I was about eleven and remember lying in bed listening to a shouting match in the living room. My bed room was on the second floor, so I couldn’t make out exactly what they were saying except for the occasional ‘Fuck you.’
“Then I dunno, time passed, I fell asleep. The hall lights were out and screaming stopped. The doorway to my room was half open. Next thing I know I can’t move, not even blink. But I could see things moving on the walls, man. It was trippy.” Gabe was rubbing that scraggly blond thing on his neck he called a beard as he told his story.
“Don’t stop there. What kind of things?” I said.
“Shadows, man, shadows. But not like those stories on the internet. They had hair, like people hair. They were flat to the wall except for the hair. It was like the hair was three dimensional and the rest of them was two dimensional. They had different color hair too. I mean black and brown, normal people colors, but some of them weren’t people shapes. They did have people hair though, they all did. I could hear—
“I could hear them say, ‘Carry on my waywar—” The radio turned on without warning. Prissy had left the damn thing on at max volume, the girls in the back stirred with a bunch thrashing thumps.
I shut the radio off. “Sorry about that, my elbow must of hit the dial.”
Gabe gave me a weird look before he went on. “I was saying I could hear whispering and feel tingling on my toes. It felt like when a dog licks your toes. That’s when I saw it, the big it, or her, I really don’t know. All I know is that thing was boss and all the rest of them were bitches, ‘cause they all scattered off to the corners. She had really red hair, Christmas present red, and curly too. Its thin shadow was stretching out from behind my bedroom door.
“I didn’t hear her voice, dude, I felt it. Not like telepathy, like felt it reverberate in my skull. Almost as if it were that loud nagging voice in your head when you’ve done something real bad. She said, the voice in me said, ‘Dear—
“John on DVD this Friday at Wal-Mart.” Blared the radio again.
I shut it off again. “I guess I should get that looked at, sorry. Go on.”
Gabe went on, “It said, ‘Dear soul, you have grown so much. Why you’re so pink and cute, how’d like to come home with me? I could just dress you up with gravy. Look at those crinkles on your forehead you look just like a juicy jelly donut. The powdery dough is always the best part of a fresh baked donut.’
“I didn’t see a hand, but it felt like she pinch my cheek. Then the licking would not stop!” Gabe pounded the “would”, “not”, and “stop” out on the passenger side of the dash board.
If I had not been focusing on the road ahead of me Gabe would of seen the wide eyed bewildered look in my eyes. It was not over the dream, I have had weirder. The bewilderment extended from the clearly unresolved issue that were clearly bubbling beneath Gabe’s Chewbacca-like surface. “It was just a dream, Gabe. I’m sorry I asked. Relax, I‘ll drive the rest of the night. One of the girls can take over in the morning.”
The night after our chat in the car we spent the night in some shit motel in northern Georgia. In the morning we found Gabe feet up in a garbage bin behind the Waffle House next door.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
String Theory
Have you ever had an experience that suggested someone else was in your house, and just thought “I don’t wanna know” and left it? Sometimes, fear of the unknown just seems like the preferable option than facing a real, concrete danger. Normally it’s nothing, though. One time, the beeper function of my wireless housephone went off, when I was the only one home. It could only be called from the living room. Another time, I swear someone took some change from my desk. They’re all probably just slightly disconcerting tricks of the memory.
But what would you do when something truly suggestive happens? Would you run, or just ignore it, like I did?
Last Monday was a normal day. I got up, brushed my teeth, changed into school clothes… All little parts of my morning ritual. It seemed like it would be another totally un-noteworthy day, until I saw the strings.
There were three or four thick twine strings in my room. They criss-crossed between the walls around my bed, one attached to the door. No way would I have missed them before; I should have tripped over them. They were tied to pins in the walls, which had also not existed before ten seconds ago.
Nobody could have been in my room while I was in it, let alone set this up. It was early, and my brain wasn’t processing correctly. I simply discredited the sight, untied the strings and left for school, leaving them balled up on my desk.
It didn’t get any better later. Outside my house there were hundreds of them, tied between houses, around cars, across streets… This had to be some super elaborate prank. One of those hidden camera shows, or a comedy improv blog. They had gotten everyone else to play along too; passer-bys were tangled in them, tying them to objects they were walking towards and away from, as if they had been and were continuing to follow the course laid out for them.
I nervously continued my journey to school. On the bus, every except me was tied to the door. At school, groups of friends were tied to each other; teachers were tied to their desks and boards. Oddly enough, at this point all I could wonder was why I had been left out.
When my friend Lucy sat beside me in first period, she simply plonked her bag down on my lap and rested her chin in her hand, looking right past me to the window outside.
“Hey Lucy.”
No response.
“Come on, I didn’t expect you to be in on this too. “
She sighed and started taking books from her bag. All the books were tied to her hands. I grinned, and yanked one of the strings off a book. She didn’t seem to notice, instead simply disregarding the book completely, letting it drop to the floor without a moment’s hesitation.
“Um.” I leaned down, picking up her book and placing it back on her desk. She took no notice.
“Well, if that’s how we’re gonna play it.” I smiled, trying to look playful, but really just trying to hide my nervousness. I bundled all the strings attached to her together with one hand, then pulled them all free.
She blinked, turning to stare at me.
“Holy crap, Martin. You’re like a ninja or something.”
“I’ve been sitting here for maybe ten minutes.” I smiled again, relieved my friend had finally “noticed” me.
“Where did all these strings come from??” She gasped, seemingly noticing for the first time.
“I assumed you were all fucking with me…”
She stood up, backing into a corner. No one else in the class noticed.
“They weren’t here just a minute ago! Do you see them too??” Her tone made it clear she was genuinely scared.
“No. Didn’t you-. “ I was interrupted by my teacher slamming the door behind her. Everyone except me and Lucy murmured a good morning, and still, no one seemed to pay either of us any notice.
“People have been ignoring me all day.” I said to Lucy, before turning to our teacher. “Hey! Dumb bitch! You can’t teach for shit!”
No reaction.
“I’m getting away from all this shit.” Lucy pulled a few strings aside and left the class. I followed, and surprise-surprise, no one else noticed.
We wandered the corridors, leaving and entering classes as we saw fit. Whenever we untied a chair or book from someone else, it was like it suddenly didn’t matter to them. It didn’t exist.
In the coffee shop, we grabbed a couple of sandwiches and drinks from the fridge. We found a table, untied all strings attached to the chairs, and sat down. We both ate in silence, both of us too scared, both of us distracting ourselves by watching the strangers in the shop, oblivious to the strings.
After twenty minutes, Lucy spoke up. “Now she’s gonna take that sandwich.” She said, pointing at a woman across the shop. Sure enough, she walked to the fridge and took the plastic wrapped sandwich she was tied to. “She pays for it and leaves.” She did so, according to the prophecies of the strings. “That guy doesn’t intend to pay.” I watched as a man took his coffee and ran out of the store, the two servers just looking too exasperated to go after him.
“This is horrible.” She whimpered. “Let’s go. Please.”
Outside wasn’t much better. Everyone just followed the strings’ instructions, going about their daily lives. Lucy announced she was going home to sleep this off, and I agreed to walk her home. She only lived ten minutes away.
Away from the busier part of town there were fewer strings. It was nicer; we could pretend it wasn’t happening.
When we turned onto Lucy’s street, she stopped, her mouth falling open.
“What now?” I broke the silence, my voice sounding surprisingly small.
”Look.” She pointed outside one of her neighbours houses.
I saw it clearly, and I’ll take my memory of that moment ‘til the day I die. A little dark imp, maybe three feet tall, walking along with its knuckles on the ground, almost like a monkey. It had two bulbous yellow eyes taking up about half its face, and no mouth or any other facial features. It was holding a hammer and a ball of twine, which it was letting out behind it.
It walked quickly and quietly from the front door of the house to the mailbox. It stopped, hammered a nail into the side of the box, and tied it’s string around it. It turned to face us, and stopped when it spotted us.
My bottom fell out even further than it had already been, but it just stared with a look of surprise and curiosity. You could almost say it was the more frightened one. Suddenly, it beckoned to us with its tiny hand.
I looked at Lucy, she hadn’t moved. I looked back at the imp, which stared at me.
I halved the distance between us, and then halved it again. This wasn’t fear of the unknown anymore; it was fear of this little guy. Didn’t seem like anything to be scared of. When I was a meter away from it, it extended its hand.
“Uh. Hi.” I shook it. It nodded in approval, blinking its massive yellow eyes up at me.
“So you’re the ones in charge of the strings?” It nodded eagerly. I called Lucy over, but she stayed where she was.
“There are more of you?” Another nod. I wanted to ask it so many questions, about what it was and where it came from, but it seemed for now I was stuck with only yes or no questions.
“Do we even have free will?”
It just looked at me, almost sadly. I immediately felt sick to my stomach, and couldn’t bear looking at the little monster anymore. I grabbed Lucy, who had been listening to our exchange, and now sat on the curb with her head in her hands.
“Come on.”
We entered her house, and I made her a cup of tea. When I found her in the living room, she had untied her dog and was curled up with it, crying. I set the tea down and sat beside her.
“I’m so scared.” She whispered after a good ten minutes of sobbing. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.
“I’m going to sleep” She mumbled suddenly, and was under within the minute. Sleep was starting to sound pretty good all of a sudden, my eyelids suddenly felt like they were being weighed down.
I collapsed to the rug, and the last thing I heard before I fell asleep was the scurrying of several sets of little feet nearby.
I felt much better the next day, as if the whole affair had been a dream. I’d probably have believed that if I hadn’t been awoken by Lucy’s mother that morning, wondering what I was doing sleeping over without permission or something.
Over breakfast, Lucy asked me why I looked so pale and nervous. I turned to her and smiled, mumbling something to her about feeling sick.
But the truth was, I was scared because I couldn’t see any strings, and was wondering whether my actions were truly my own.
But what would you do when something truly suggestive happens? Would you run, or just ignore it, like I did?
Last Monday was a normal day. I got up, brushed my teeth, changed into school clothes… All little parts of my morning ritual. It seemed like it would be another totally un-noteworthy day, until I saw the strings.
There were three or four thick twine strings in my room. They criss-crossed between the walls around my bed, one attached to the door. No way would I have missed them before; I should have tripped over them. They were tied to pins in the walls, which had also not existed before ten seconds ago.
Nobody could have been in my room while I was in it, let alone set this up. It was early, and my brain wasn’t processing correctly. I simply discredited the sight, untied the strings and left for school, leaving them balled up on my desk.
It didn’t get any better later. Outside my house there were hundreds of them, tied between houses, around cars, across streets… This had to be some super elaborate prank. One of those hidden camera shows, or a comedy improv blog. They had gotten everyone else to play along too; passer-bys were tangled in them, tying them to objects they were walking towards and away from, as if they had been and were continuing to follow the course laid out for them.
I nervously continued my journey to school. On the bus, every except me was tied to the door. At school, groups of friends were tied to each other; teachers were tied to their desks and boards. Oddly enough, at this point all I could wonder was why I had been left out.
When my friend Lucy sat beside me in first period, she simply plonked her bag down on my lap and rested her chin in her hand, looking right past me to the window outside.
“Hey Lucy.”
No response.
“Come on, I didn’t expect you to be in on this too. “
She sighed and started taking books from her bag. All the books were tied to her hands. I grinned, and yanked one of the strings off a book. She didn’t seem to notice, instead simply disregarding the book completely, letting it drop to the floor without a moment’s hesitation.
“Um.” I leaned down, picking up her book and placing it back on her desk. She took no notice.
“Well, if that’s how we’re gonna play it.” I smiled, trying to look playful, but really just trying to hide my nervousness. I bundled all the strings attached to her together with one hand, then pulled them all free.
She blinked, turning to stare at me.
“Holy crap, Martin. You’re like a ninja or something.”
“I’ve been sitting here for maybe ten minutes.” I smiled again, relieved my friend had finally “noticed” me.
“Where did all these strings come from??” She gasped, seemingly noticing for the first time.
“I assumed you were all fucking with me…”
She stood up, backing into a corner. No one else in the class noticed.
“They weren’t here just a minute ago! Do you see them too??” Her tone made it clear she was genuinely scared.
“No. Didn’t you-. “ I was interrupted by my teacher slamming the door behind her. Everyone except me and Lucy murmured a good morning, and still, no one seemed to pay either of us any notice.
“People have been ignoring me all day.” I said to Lucy, before turning to our teacher. “Hey! Dumb bitch! You can’t teach for shit!”
No reaction.
“I’m getting away from all this shit.” Lucy pulled a few strings aside and left the class. I followed, and surprise-surprise, no one else noticed.
We wandered the corridors, leaving and entering classes as we saw fit. Whenever we untied a chair or book from someone else, it was like it suddenly didn’t matter to them. It didn’t exist.
I showed her the street outside; there were more strings than when I came in this morning. Twice as many. We carefully picked our way through the tangle, making our way to a nearby coffee shop. Not particularly grand, I know. But what would you do in our situation? As I said, fear of the unknown sometimes seems like the safer option. On a few occasions, I suggested we untie a few more people. Lucy was opposed to it, remembering how terrified she’d been.
In the coffee shop, we grabbed a couple of sandwiches and drinks from the fridge. We found a table, untied all strings attached to the chairs, and sat down. We both ate in silence, both of us too scared, both of us distracting ourselves by watching the strangers in the shop, oblivious to the strings.
After twenty minutes, Lucy spoke up. “Now she’s gonna take that sandwich.” She said, pointing at a woman across the shop. Sure enough, she walked to the fridge and took the plastic wrapped sandwich she was tied to. “She pays for it and leaves.” She did so, according to the prophecies of the strings. “That guy doesn’t intend to pay.” I watched as a man took his coffee and ran out of the store, the two servers just looking too exasperated to go after him.
“This is horrible.” She whimpered. “Let’s go. Please.”
Outside wasn’t much better. Everyone just followed the strings’ instructions, going about their daily lives. Lucy announced she was going home to sleep this off, and I agreed to walk her home. She only lived ten minutes away.
Away from the busier part of town there were fewer strings. It was nicer; we could pretend it wasn’t happening.
When we turned onto Lucy’s street, she stopped, her mouth falling open.
“What now?” I broke the silence, my voice sounding surprisingly small.
”Look.” She pointed outside one of her neighbours houses.
I saw it clearly, and I’ll take my memory of that moment ‘til the day I die. A little dark imp, maybe three feet tall, walking along with its knuckles on the ground, almost like a monkey. It had two bulbous yellow eyes taking up about half its face, and no mouth or any other facial features. It was holding a hammer and a ball of twine, which it was letting out behind it.
It walked quickly and quietly from the front door of the house to the mailbox. It stopped, hammered a nail into the side of the box, and tied it’s string around it. It turned to face us, and stopped when it spotted us.
My bottom fell out even further than it had already been, but it just stared with a look of surprise and curiosity. You could almost say it was the more frightened one. Suddenly, it beckoned to us with its tiny hand.
I looked at Lucy, she hadn’t moved. I looked back at the imp, which stared at me.
I halved the distance between us, and then halved it again. This wasn’t fear of the unknown anymore; it was fear of this little guy. Didn’t seem like anything to be scared of. When I was a meter away from it, it extended its hand.
“Uh. Hi.” I shook it. It nodded in approval, blinking its massive yellow eyes up at me.
“So you’re the ones in charge of the strings?” It nodded eagerly. I called Lucy over, but she stayed where she was.
“There are more of you?” Another nod. I wanted to ask it so many questions, about what it was and where it came from, but it seemed for now I was stuck with only yes or no questions.
“Do we even have free will?”
It just looked at me, almost sadly. I immediately felt sick to my stomach, and couldn’t bear looking at the little monster anymore. I grabbed Lucy, who had been listening to our exchange, and now sat on the curb with her head in her hands.
“Come on.”
We entered her house, and I made her a cup of tea. When I found her in the living room, she had untied her dog and was curled up with it, crying. I set the tea down and sat beside her.
“I’m so scared.” She whispered after a good ten minutes of sobbing. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.
“I’m going to sleep” She mumbled suddenly, and was under within the minute. Sleep was starting to sound pretty good all of a sudden, my eyelids suddenly felt like they were being weighed down.
I collapsed to the rug, and the last thing I heard before I fell asleep was the scurrying of several sets of little feet nearby.
I felt much better the next day, as if the whole affair had been a dream. I’d probably have believed that if I hadn’t been awoken by Lucy’s mother that morning, wondering what I was doing sleeping over without permission or something.
Over breakfast, Lucy asked me why I looked so pale and nervous. I turned to her and smiled, mumbling something to her about feeling sick.
But the truth was, I was scared because I couldn’t see any strings, and was wondering whether my actions were truly my own.
Binary DNA
They say when you take a picture of someone you capture their soul in the camera. They also say if you print it off, that picture contains the soul itself and you can control them with it.
I’m not sure where to start. Do you know what the Primordial Soup is? A veritable ocean of elements, all floating around randomly. And through millions of years of time, eventually the right set of random circumstances came to pass, and the elements were able to connect together and form the worlds first single cell organism.
Now that’s a really boiled down version of it but I’m sure you get the gist of it. Fast forward a few billion years to the early 1990s, when internet use began to rapidly accelerate. Every home had a computer, and new connections between computers were opening on a by the second basis.
Trillions of bytes of data began to transfer around the world at the speed of light, music, text, sound, and most importantly; pictures. Now if, when you take a picture of someone and capture their soul, what happens when that picture is converted to data and placed on a hard drive? Does the soul follow? 15 years later we believe so. We believe that when you take a picture of someone and upload it onto your computer, alongside the image data a blueprint of the person’s soul itself is imprinted on the file itself.
Look at your pictures folder. How many souls reside in that folder alone?
That’s just the beginning though. These soul blueprints each retain pieces of a puzzle, parts of the soul itself as well.
Recently a group of hackers, who referred to themselves as the Cardinals, took an interest to this theory and began experiments. They found anomalies within the binary sequences of images based on similar features of the person they had taken a picture of. A binary DNA if you will.
Now these hackers had come to posses a set of three extremely important data files. One avi, one jpeg, and one .mp3, each of which possessing interesting unexplainable qualities.
The first, cradle.avi, depicts what appears to be a group of teenagers with a low quality video camera, exploring the basement of a house. The quality of the video is distorted completely beyond any comprehensibility, and the video is very low quality. For most of the video the camera is passed around the group, handed back and forth and jerked around too much to make anything noticeable out.
But near the end the camera turns at an odd angle, and you can semi clearly make out a young girl standing in the corner facing the wall. Her hair is long and black and she is wearing some form of white dress. You only see her for a split second but many people who have seen the video claim there just seems something wrong with her. A bit deformed but not in a way anyone can explain.
But the truly peculiar property of this video is what happens to the users computer at the end of it. On the last second of the video, if not already so the video will force full screen itself. Along with this you are left with a one second looping clip of a window in a wall. It loops 15 times, and then the girl is seen again, standing on the other side of the window with her back to the viewer, slowly wavering back and forth. After a few moments the video ends and the user’s computer permanently shuts down.
Inspection has shown that the entire registry becomes completely corrupt, requiring the user to do a total wipe and reinstall.
The second file is known as needles.mp3. This sound file, when played, plays for about 3 minutes. It is extremely distorted. One can occasionally make out some form of voice talking, but most of the sound is some form of growling, rolling crackled roar.
Users who listen to this file often experience extreme nausea and loss of balance for a brief period of time.
The final file is known as burningman.jpg.
The file name has nothing to do with what the actual picture depicts. Instead it just displays a haphazard mess of overlayed and meshed images of dolls and a hallway. There also seems to be an image of a man standing with his head cast down in the background, but the image is too distorted to make anything out, much like the other files.
The image, when downloaded and opened on a users desktop, will proceed to stay permanently open on whatever program it is opened through. Not only that, the program becomes disabled. Nothing else happens, the image just permanently sits there on your desktop, unclickable, unminimizable, and your just left there with the mans invisible gaze staring at you.
From what the group of hackers were able to discern, this file seems to have precompiled into the data something along the lines of Cmdow. Yet, as complex and intricate as the program is (it works across all OS platforms) no one knows who the original creator is. In fact, few people have heard of it as the file is uncopyable nor sendable.
This in fact further adds to the mystery, as often receivers of this file will obtain it from random anonymous emails, posted on forms on a download link. Posing the question, how was that poster able to upload it?
If you ever see any of these files, refrain from downloading ANY of them. They all have varying detrimental effects on your computers, from practically taking out your whole registry, corrupting system 32, freezing your mouse or crashing your computer.
This group of hackers, the Cardinals, took to analyzing these 3 files and comparing their odd behaviors. They had heard of other such odd files, images, data, etc, but were never able to get their hands on them. At least as far as we know, though rumour states they in fact were able to locate and collect all of the known files like the original smile.jpg, barbie.jpg, even suicidemouse.avi. Not even the grifter was able to escape their grasp, rumour states. But rumour also states the grifter video even exists, but thats another story.
Nonetheless, all these files in hand, the group lined the files up and begin to meticulously work through the binary one 0/1 at a time, checking for similar strains and series of binary that matched.
And they did manage to successfully do so, at least legend states. The result were 7 individual execute files that did nothing. Simply a gibberish pile of 0s and 1s. They endless puzzled over the files, each tackling an execute each. They decided to name them after themselves, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Envy, Sloth, Wrath, and Pride.
At last they attempted to line the files up. Remarkably, something odd happened. The copies of the files quite suddenly meshed together. The result was a single complete Execute, already named.
“BarelyBreathing.exe”
And what of this file? Well not much else is known after that point. They were too smart to just execute it. They analyzed the file every possible way. Hex, binary, conversions, anything to figure out what this odd file would do.
To no avail, even after forming together it was an even bigger jumble of 1s and 0s and made no more sense than the separate executes.
They backed the file up on a flash drive and proceeded to run it. That was the last command found run on their destroyed computers a week later. Their corpses had been disfigured beyond recognition. Description of the corpses stated that it almost seemed as if they had been brutally slashed across their faces and arms. Every square inch of skin that had been bare had been mutilated. Almost microwaved and then sliced repeatedly by a micro thin razor.
The government attempted to hush up the event, but there was some media leakage, and because the Cardinals had been keeping a blog amongst themselves and a few close friends (its closed down and deleted now so don’t go trying to find it) it quickly spread out as per what they had been attempting to accomplish. And if it was or was not related to their terrible deaths.
And what of the flash drive? A friend, who knew of its existence, later checked the home of the group and was unable to find it. According to reports the drive was found in the pocket of one of the group and had been taken into custody by the police, and then simply vanished.
The trail continues on, far more though. The file resurfaces every few weeks around the globe. Governments attempt to cover it up but some media leaks out, of course. Look to the news for people mutilated in their own homes by a “murderer”, their computers stolen, etc.
And if you ever get a cryptic email with an attachment labelled BarelyBreathing.exe, for fuck sakes DO NOT OPEN IT!
I’m not sure where to start. Do you know what the Primordial Soup is? A veritable ocean of elements, all floating around randomly. And through millions of years of time, eventually the right set of random circumstances came to pass, and the elements were able to connect together and form the worlds first single cell organism.
Now that’s a really boiled down version of it but I’m sure you get the gist of it. Fast forward a few billion years to the early 1990s, when internet use began to rapidly accelerate. Every home had a computer, and new connections between computers were opening on a by the second basis.
Trillions of bytes of data began to transfer around the world at the speed of light, music, text, sound, and most importantly; pictures. Now if, when you take a picture of someone and capture their soul, what happens when that picture is converted to data and placed on a hard drive? Does the soul follow? 15 years later we believe so. We believe that when you take a picture of someone and upload it onto your computer, alongside the image data a blueprint of the person’s soul itself is imprinted on the file itself.
Look at your pictures folder. How many souls reside in that folder alone?
That’s just the beginning though. These soul blueprints each retain pieces of a puzzle, parts of the soul itself as well.
Recently a group of hackers, who referred to themselves as the Cardinals, took an interest to this theory and began experiments. They found anomalies within the binary sequences of images based on similar features of the person they had taken a picture of. A binary DNA if you will.
Now these hackers had come to posses a set of three extremely important data files. One avi, one jpeg, and one .mp3, each of which possessing interesting unexplainable qualities.
The first, cradle.avi, depicts what appears to be a group of teenagers with a low quality video camera, exploring the basement of a house. The quality of the video is distorted completely beyond any comprehensibility, and the video is very low quality. For most of the video the camera is passed around the group, handed back and forth and jerked around too much to make anything noticeable out.
But near the end the camera turns at an odd angle, and you can semi clearly make out a young girl standing in the corner facing the wall. Her hair is long and black and she is wearing some form of white dress. You only see her for a split second but many people who have seen the video claim there just seems something wrong with her. A bit deformed but not in a way anyone can explain.
But the truly peculiar property of this video is what happens to the users computer at the end of it. On the last second of the video, if not already so the video will force full screen itself. Along with this you are left with a one second looping clip of a window in a wall. It loops 15 times, and then the girl is seen again, standing on the other side of the window with her back to the viewer, slowly wavering back and forth. After a few moments the video ends and the user’s computer permanently shuts down.
Inspection has shown that the entire registry becomes completely corrupt, requiring the user to do a total wipe and reinstall.
The second file is known as needles.mp3. This sound file, when played, plays for about 3 minutes. It is extremely distorted. One can occasionally make out some form of voice talking, but most of the sound is some form of growling, rolling crackled roar.
Users who listen to this file often experience extreme nausea and loss of balance for a brief period of time.
The final file is known as burningman.jpg.
The file name has nothing to do with what the actual picture depicts. Instead it just displays a haphazard mess of overlayed and meshed images of dolls and a hallway. There also seems to be an image of a man standing with his head cast down in the background, but the image is too distorted to make anything out, much like the other files.
The image, when downloaded and opened on a users desktop, will proceed to stay permanently open on whatever program it is opened through. Not only that, the program becomes disabled. Nothing else happens, the image just permanently sits there on your desktop, unclickable, unminimizable, and your just left there with the mans invisible gaze staring at you.
From what the group of hackers were able to discern, this file seems to have precompiled into the data something along the lines of Cmdow. Yet, as complex and intricate as the program is (it works across all OS platforms) no one knows who the original creator is. In fact, few people have heard of it as the file is uncopyable nor sendable.
This in fact further adds to the mystery, as often receivers of this file will obtain it from random anonymous emails, posted on forms on a download link. Posing the question, how was that poster able to upload it?
If you ever see any of these files, refrain from downloading ANY of them. They all have varying detrimental effects on your computers, from practically taking out your whole registry, corrupting system 32, freezing your mouse or crashing your computer.
Now onwards:
This group of hackers, the Cardinals, took to analyzing these 3 files and comparing their odd behaviors. They had heard of other such odd files, images, data, etc, but were never able to get their hands on them. At least as far as we know, though rumour states they in fact were able to locate and collect all of the known files like the original smile.jpg, barbie.jpg, even suicidemouse.avi. Not even the grifter was able to escape their grasp, rumour states. But rumour also states the grifter video even exists, but thats another story.
Nonetheless, all these files in hand, the group lined the files up and begin to meticulously work through the binary one 0/1 at a time, checking for similar strains and series of binary that matched.
And they did manage to successfully do so, at least legend states. The result were 7 individual execute files that did nothing. Simply a gibberish pile of 0s and 1s. They endless puzzled over the files, each tackling an execute each. They decided to name them after themselves, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Envy, Sloth, Wrath, and Pride.
At last they attempted to line the files up. Remarkably, something odd happened. The copies of the files quite suddenly meshed together. The result was a single complete Execute, already named.
“BarelyBreathing.exe”
And what of this file? Well not much else is known after that point. They were too smart to just execute it. They analyzed the file every possible way. Hex, binary, conversions, anything to figure out what this odd file would do.
To no avail, even after forming together it was an even bigger jumble of 1s and 0s and made no more sense than the separate executes.
They backed the file up on a flash drive and proceeded to run it. That was the last command found run on their destroyed computers a week later. Their corpses had been disfigured beyond recognition. Description of the corpses stated that it almost seemed as if they had been brutally slashed across their faces and arms. Every square inch of skin that had been bare had been mutilated. Almost microwaved and then sliced repeatedly by a micro thin razor.
The government attempted to hush up the event, but there was some media leakage, and because the Cardinals had been keeping a blog amongst themselves and a few close friends (its closed down and deleted now so don’t go trying to find it) it quickly spread out as per what they had been attempting to accomplish. And if it was or was not related to their terrible deaths.
And what of the flash drive? A friend, who knew of its existence, later checked the home of the group and was unable to find it. According to reports the drive was found in the pocket of one of the group and had been taken into custody by the police, and then simply vanished.
The trail continues on, far more though. The file resurfaces every few weeks around the globe. Governments attempt to cover it up but some media leaks out, of course. Look to the news for people mutilated in their own homes by a “murderer”, their computers stolen, etc.
And if you ever get a cryptic email with an attachment labelled BarelyBreathing.exe, for fuck sakes DO NOT OPEN IT!
Dead Bart
You know how Fox has a weird way of counting Simpsons episodes? They refuse to count a couple of them, making the amount of episodes inconsistent. The reason for this is a lost episode from season 1.
Finding details about this missing episode is difficult, no one who was working on the show at the time likes to talk about it. From what has been pieced together, the lost episode was written entirely by Matt Groening. During production of the first season, Matt started to act strangely. He was very quiet, seemed nervous and morbid. Mentioning this to anyone who was present results in them getting very angry, and forbidding you to ever mention it to Matt. The episode’s production number was 7G44, the title was Dead Bart.
In addition to getting angry, asking anyone who was on the show about this will cause them to do everything they can to stop you from directly communicating with Matt Groening. At a fan event, I managed to follow him after he spoke to the crowd, and eventually had a chance to talk to him alone as he was leaving the building. He didn’t seem upset that I had followed him, probably expected a typical encounter with an obsessive fan. When I mentioned the lost episode though, all color drained from his face and he started trembling. When I asked him if he could tell me any details, he sounded like he was on the verge of tears. He grabbed a piece of paper, wrote something on it, and handed it to me. He begged me never to mention the episode again.
The piece of paper had a website address on it, I would rather not say what it was, for reasons you’ll see in a second. I entered the address into my browser, and I came to a site that was completely black, except for a line of yellow text, a download link. I clicked on it, and a file started downloading. Once the file was downloaded, my computer went crazy, it was the worst virus I had ever seen. System restore didn’t work, the entire computer had to be rebooted. Before doing this though, I copied the file onto a CD. I tried to open it on my now empty computer, and as I suspected, there was an episode of The Simpsons on it.
The episode started off like any other episode, but had very poor quality animation. If you’ve seen the original animation for Some Enchanted Evening, it was similar, but less stable. The first act was fairly normal, but the way the characters acted was a little off. Homer seemed angrier, Marge seemed depressed, Lisa seemed anxious, Bart seemed to have genuine anger and hatred for his parents.
The episode was about the Simpsons going on a plane trip, near the end of the first act, the plane was taking off. Bart was fooling around, as you’d expect. However, as the plane was about 50 feet off the ground, Bart broke a window on the plane and was sucked out.
At the beginning of the series, Matt had an idea that the animated style of the Simpsons’ world represented life, and that death turned things more realistic. This was used in this episode. The picture of Bart’s corpse was barely recognizable, they took full advantage of it not having to move, and made an almost photo-realistic drawing of his dead body.
Act one ended with the shot of Bart’s corpse. When act two started, Homer, Marge, and Lisa were sitting at their table, crying. The crying went on and on, it got more pained, and sounded more realistic, better acting than you would think possible. The animation started to decay even more as they cried, and you could hear murmuring in the background. This crying went on for all of act two.
Act three opened with a title card saying one year had passed. Homer, Marge, and Lisa were skeletally thin, and still sitting at the table. There was no sign of Maggie or the pets.
They decided to visit Bart’s grave. Springfield was completely deserted, and as they walked to the cemetery the houses became more and more decrepit. They all looked abandoned. When they got to the grave, Bart’s body was just lying in front of his tombstone, looking just like it did at the end of act one.
The family started crying again. Eventually they stopped, and just stared at Bart’s body. The camera zoomed in on Homer’s face. According to summaries, Homer tells a joke at this part, but it isn’t audible in the version I saw, you can’t tell what Homer is saying.
The view zoomed out as the episode came to a close. The tombstones in the background had the names of every Simpsons guest star on them. Some that no one had heard of in 1989, some that haven’t been on the show yet. All of them had death dates on them. For guests who died since, like Michael Jackson and George Harrison, the dates were when they would die.
You can try to use the tombstones to predict the death of living Simpsons guest stars, but there’s something odd about most of the ones who haven’t died yet. All of their deaths are listed as the same date.
Finding details about this missing episode is difficult, no one who was working on the show at the time likes to talk about it. From what has been pieced together, the lost episode was written entirely by Matt Groening. During production of the first season, Matt started to act strangely. He was very quiet, seemed nervous and morbid. Mentioning this to anyone who was present results in them getting very angry, and forbidding you to ever mention it to Matt. The episode’s production number was 7G44, the title was Dead Bart.
In addition to getting angry, asking anyone who was on the show about this will cause them to do everything they can to stop you from directly communicating with Matt Groening. At a fan event, I managed to follow him after he spoke to the crowd, and eventually had a chance to talk to him alone as he was leaving the building. He didn’t seem upset that I had followed him, probably expected a typical encounter with an obsessive fan. When I mentioned the lost episode though, all color drained from his face and he started trembling. When I asked him if he could tell me any details, he sounded like he was on the verge of tears. He grabbed a piece of paper, wrote something on it, and handed it to me. He begged me never to mention the episode again.
The piece of paper had a website address on it, I would rather not say what it was, for reasons you’ll see in a second. I entered the address into my browser, and I came to a site that was completely black, except for a line of yellow text, a download link. I clicked on it, and a file started downloading. Once the file was downloaded, my computer went crazy, it was the worst virus I had ever seen. System restore didn’t work, the entire computer had to be rebooted. Before doing this though, I copied the file onto a CD. I tried to open it on my now empty computer, and as I suspected, there was an episode of The Simpsons on it.
The episode started off like any other episode, but had very poor quality animation. If you’ve seen the original animation for Some Enchanted Evening, it was similar, but less stable. The first act was fairly normal, but the way the characters acted was a little off. Homer seemed angrier, Marge seemed depressed, Lisa seemed anxious, Bart seemed to have genuine anger and hatred for his parents.
The episode was about the Simpsons going on a plane trip, near the end of the first act, the plane was taking off. Bart was fooling around, as you’d expect. However, as the plane was about 50 feet off the ground, Bart broke a window on the plane and was sucked out.
At the beginning of the series, Matt had an idea that the animated style of the Simpsons’ world represented life, and that death turned things more realistic. This was used in this episode. The picture of Bart’s corpse was barely recognizable, they took full advantage of it not having to move, and made an almost photo-realistic drawing of his dead body.
Act one ended with the shot of Bart’s corpse. When act two started, Homer, Marge, and Lisa were sitting at their table, crying. The crying went on and on, it got more pained, and sounded more realistic, better acting than you would think possible. The animation started to decay even more as they cried, and you could hear murmuring in the background. This crying went on for all of act two.
Act three opened with a title card saying one year had passed. Homer, Marge, and Lisa were skeletally thin, and still sitting at the table. There was no sign of Maggie or the pets.
They decided to visit Bart’s grave. Springfield was completely deserted, and as they walked to the cemetery the houses became more and more decrepit. They all looked abandoned. When they got to the grave, Bart’s body was just lying in front of his tombstone, looking just like it did at the end of act one.
The family started crying again. Eventually they stopped, and just stared at Bart’s body. The camera zoomed in on Homer’s face. According to summaries, Homer tells a joke at this part, but it isn’t audible in the version I saw, you can’t tell what Homer is saying.
The view zoomed out as the episode came to a close. The tombstones in the background had the names of every Simpsons guest star on them. Some that no one had heard of in 1989, some that haven’t been on the show yet. All of them had death dates on them. For guests who died since, like Michael Jackson and George Harrison, the dates were when they would die.
You can try to use the tombstones to predict the death of living Simpsons guest stars, but there’s something odd about most of the ones who haven’t died yet. All of their deaths are listed as the same date.
War of the Dead
The power does it to everyone. It corrupts us all, or at least those of us who embrace it.
Although we dive right in to be swept away by the black waters of necromancy, it’s not easy for us to stay afloat. Our humanity is the coastline, the palm trees, the dry land itself. You put your humanity side by side with the fact that you’re a wizard of hell, coastline next to infinite expanse of ocean, and you decide being a wizard is more fun. It appeals to you. You can’t get away from it, so you dive in and swim out in to the ocean to get a bigger taste. To feel it all over your body, instead of just staring at it and dipping your toes in.
The first time you swim in the ocean of the dead, the waters are electric to your soul. They shock you, show you things that you can’t possibly understand but eventually DO come to understand. One day, it just so happens that you might decide you’re tired of swimming, so you try to turn around, but the coast is gone. You don’t swim back. You keep being swept out. To the sharks and an unknown abyss below you. The only place you can go is down, and that leads to a place that no man has been before.
That is my family’s struggle, and they have devised a society and a code over the years. If I have the right person, then the man in front of me has trampled our ideals in to the ground. Our traditions, our laws, our fellowship. In truth, we necromancers are afraid not of the dead, but of each other. We know that one of us might become too potent somewhere down the line because we stumble across the right demon with the right power, or because we sacrifice a particularly powerful spirit to the underworld. We know that one day, one of us might rise up and try to assert a kingdom of the dead on earth.
The Chomhairle believe this is the man who poses that precise threat. They sent me to find him after we found his diary. When my father learned that his own brother had deserted the coven and handed over a bloodstone to a random child due to a disagreement, he put a death sentence on this man’s head. We couldn’t begin to search for him until he left his bloodstone behind. A trace of his power that we could latch on to, that we could follow.
The man shuffles past me to the urinal with a mumble of “excuse me,” and he shies away from looking me in the eye. He seems tired and drained. This is a good start. It could be him.
I linger by the sink, lather my hands, and rinse them off, hoping that he will finish in time for me to see his face in the mirror. To strike up a ten second, meaningless conversation. Anything. It’s been such a long road here. I’ll take what I can get.
I have to know. I can’t walk out of this place now, even if I’m on the brink of death. I might have to teeter here for awhile. He is so very, very familiar with the spirit world; he might know it more intimately right now in this very moment than I ever will in my lifetime. If this is him, then his guise of deception is stronger than any in our history.
We know some of what he is capable of. But not all.
I hope one minute spent in this bathroom will be the conclusion to the longest wild goose chase in the history of the Chomhairle. If this is him, then I’m initiated as a council member. If it’s not, then I’m at least another hundred years out. My ambitions within the council are nothing in comparison to the thirst for power.
The bathroom is fritzy, five star, and new age. It’s deep in the heart of Soho, of course. A cesspool of youthful rebellion. The green light in this place is too strong. That’s hint number one that I have the right man. Let me go down the list for you.
When he shakes it off, he spends an extra five seconds scratching his testicles, and then he rubs them a bit as he stares at the ad for the after hours swinger’s club in the corner above the urinal. Even if this isn’t the guy, he’s still a pervert, and I’ve decided to sacrifice him if he’s my sixth case of mistaken identity in a year out of simple frustration.
I wash my hands a second time, waiting on him, trying not to be disgusted. He finally zips his fly and moseys over to the sink. So there’s hint number two.
“You spill something on yourself?” He asks me.
I’ve never heard his voice. It sounds different than I expected.
I know how this dangerous sorcerer sees the world. He’s made a mistake, sharing his most intimate confessions with me. He never should have written them down. His ego may be his weakness, if I’m strong enough. Maybe.
This has to be him. I say it in my head a thousand times in a split second.
“Crawfish bisque. Good as hell, but I can’t seem to finish a bowl without spilling it all over my sleeves.” I say, squirting a fresh batch of soap on to the paper towel and scrubbing at my perfectly clean fisticuff.
“Aren’t you a little old to be dining here? I’d think you would be at the Mesa or the Palm.” He says, and he makes a valid point. I do feel out of place here. I’m the only person in the building over the age of twenty five.
He’s bold. He thinks he’s invincible, and I know that this is hint number three. He says the first thing that comes to mind with impunity, and he always has. That explains the four ex wives and the masculine decorations in his town house.
I stare at his eyes in the mirror, and he’s too busy focusing on my pocket. This is hint number four, and this is the best of them all. I know this is the rogue necromancer. His eyes have a green twinkle in the backs of them, something that normal humans can’t see. He feels the stone, burning with ice fire in my pocket. He knows it’s fucking on me, and he’s stood next to me for less than half a minute. That’s because he can’t ignore the pull. It shows.
This is him.
Although we dive right in to be swept away by the black waters of necromancy, it’s not easy for us to stay afloat. Our humanity is the coastline, the palm trees, the dry land itself. You put your humanity side by side with the fact that you’re a wizard of hell, coastline next to infinite expanse of ocean, and you decide being a wizard is more fun. It appeals to you. You can’t get away from it, so you dive in and swim out in to the ocean to get a bigger taste. To feel it all over your body, instead of just staring at it and dipping your toes in.
The first time you swim in the ocean of the dead, the waters are electric to your soul. They shock you, show you things that you can’t possibly understand but eventually DO come to understand. One day, it just so happens that you might decide you’re tired of swimming, so you try to turn around, but the coast is gone. You don’t swim back. You keep being swept out. To the sharks and an unknown abyss below you. The only place you can go is down, and that leads to a place that no man has been before.
That is my family’s struggle, and they have devised a society and a code over the years. If I have the right person, then the man in front of me has trampled our ideals in to the ground. Our traditions, our laws, our fellowship. In truth, we necromancers are afraid not of the dead, but of each other. We know that one of us might become too potent somewhere down the line because we stumble across the right demon with the right power, or because we sacrifice a particularly powerful spirit to the underworld. We know that one day, one of us might rise up and try to assert a kingdom of the dead on earth.
The Chomhairle believe this is the man who poses that precise threat. They sent me to find him after we found his diary. When my father learned that his own brother had deserted the coven and handed over a bloodstone to a random child due to a disagreement, he put a death sentence on this man’s head. We couldn’t begin to search for him until he left his bloodstone behind. A trace of his power that we could latch on to, that we could follow.
The man shuffles past me to the urinal with a mumble of “excuse me,” and he shies away from looking me in the eye. He seems tired and drained. This is a good start. It could be him.
I linger by the sink, lather my hands, and rinse them off, hoping that he will finish in time for me to see his face in the mirror. To strike up a ten second, meaningless conversation. Anything. It’s been such a long road here. I’ll take what I can get.
I have to know. I can’t walk out of this place now, even if I’m on the brink of death. I might have to teeter here for awhile. He is so very, very familiar with the spirit world; he might know it more intimately right now in this very moment than I ever will in my lifetime. If this is him, then his guise of deception is stronger than any in our history.
We know some of what he is capable of. But not all.
I hope one minute spent in this bathroom will be the conclusion to the longest wild goose chase in the history of the Chomhairle. If this is him, then I’m initiated as a council member. If it’s not, then I’m at least another hundred years out. My ambitions within the council are nothing in comparison to the thirst for power.
The bathroom is fritzy, five star, and new age. It’s deep in the heart of Soho, of course. A cesspool of youthful rebellion. The green light in this place is too strong. That’s hint number one that I have the right man. Let me go down the list for you.
When he shakes it off, he spends an extra five seconds scratching his testicles, and then he rubs them a bit as he stares at the ad for the after hours swinger’s club in the corner above the urinal. Even if this isn’t the guy, he’s still a pervert, and I’ve decided to sacrifice him if he’s my sixth case of mistaken identity in a year out of simple frustration.
I wash my hands a second time, waiting on him, trying not to be disgusted. He finally zips his fly and moseys over to the sink. So there’s hint number two.
“You spill something on yourself?” He asks me.
I’ve never heard his voice. It sounds different than I expected.
I know how this dangerous sorcerer sees the world. He’s made a mistake, sharing his most intimate confessions with me. He never should have written them down. His ego may be his weakness, if I’m strong enough. Maybe.
This has to be him. I say it in my head a thousand times in a split second.
“Crawfish bisque. Good as hell, but I can’t seem to finish a bowl without spilling it all over my sleeves.” I say, squirting a fresh batch of soap on to the paper towel and scrubbing at my perfectly clean fisticuff.
“Aren’t you a little old to be dining here? I’d think you would be at the Mesa or the Palm.” He says, and he makes a valid point. I do feel out of place here. I’m the only person in the building over the age of twenty five.
He’s bold. He thinks he’s invincible, and I know that this is hint number three. He says the first thing that comes to mind with impunity, and he always has. That explains the four ex wives and the masculine decorations in his town house.
I stare at his eyes in the mirror, and he’s too busy focusing on my pocket. This is hint number four, and this is the best of them all. I know this is the rogue necromancer. His eyes have a green twinkle in the backs of them, something that normal humans can’t see. He feels the stone, burning with ice fire in my pocket. He knows it’s fucking on me, and he’s stood next to me for less than half a minute. That’s because he can’t ignore the pull. It shows.
This is him.
A Warning
I’m doing this for you. And for Mike, too, I guess, though I don’t think there’s much I can do to help him at this point.
I suppose I should provide some background information first. I’m a sophomore in a fairly good university in Boston - no, not MIT or Harvard, but still one that’s a bit of a chore to get into. My freshman year, I had the option to live in honors housing and decided to roll with it; after all, at least the people would be interesting. Whatever arcane algorithm they use to process roommate requests took in my preferences and spat out the name of my future roommate: Mike, just another random honors kid from St. Louis. The two of us got along fine for most of freshman year - my enjoyment of Miley Cyrus notwithstanding-and so we decided to room together sophomore year as well.
Now, Mike had always been a pretty obsessive guy. He tended to bounce around in his interests; one week, he would devour entire series of anime, only to later start watching random online episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and then begin working his way through the archives of the hottest new webcomic. And, of course, like any real obsessive, he would keep me posted on his latest craze. I humored him; what else are roommates for?
One day earlier this week, he started telling me random scary stories. You know, those random things you find on message boards-I think his main source ended up being some site called “creepypasta” (I never understood why pasta could be creepy, but whatever). I’d hear about a med student eating an arm, or someone being autopsied alive, or some random youtube video that will drive you insane. We usually had a good laugh about them.
The third day of this obsession, however, things got weird. He threw a few more stories my way before hitting the sack, but something seemed a little off. His voice had a sharp edge to it. As the hour got later, his banter got more and more inane, as though he were talking just to stave off having to go to sleep. Eventually, I pointedly got into my bed and rolled over, effectively ending any further chance at conversation. I wish I hadn’t.
I sleep like a log, and that night was no exception. I don’t think I even came close to waking. Usually I can’t remember any of my dreams, but the nightmare I had that night has been clear in my mind for days now. I dreamt I was trapped in a fog so dense I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. The damp air sent chills down my spine. I could hear muffled screams in the distance. There didn’t seem to be any words, just guttural shrieks of pain. Instantly (don’t ask me how), I recognized the screams as Mike’s. I tried my best to run to him, but my feet just slid through the fog; I couldn’t get any real traction on the ground, if there indeed was any ground. The screams got further away and more indistinct, though I could still tell they were Mike’s. Eventually, they faded to nothing and I woke up.
And every last trace of Mike was gone from the room.
Everything. His laptop, his sheets, the “Official Zombie Survival” guide poster on the wall, the heap of trash he let accumulate on his half of the windowsill-everything. A thick layer of dust coated his entire side of the room. Absolutely nothing on my side of the room had been touched-nor had any of his stuff in the bathroom, the kitchen, or the living room of our suite. Only in the bedroom had anything been taken.
I couldn’t believe it. I prayed it was a dream. I pinched my elbow until the skin was red, until my fingernails drew blood. When I didn’t wake up, I dialed campus security, who quickly brought in the Boston Police Department. I was immediately kicked out of the room so they could go over everything with a fine-toothed comb.
I think I must have been in shock. I felt completely numb, like nothing around me really mattered. I’d left my laptop out in our suite’s common room, so I used that to distract myself-or to try to, at any rate. When I popped open the laptop, however, a word document stared at me. Its text was the following:
‘I know this is stupid. I can’t help but think how much I’ll regret this in the morning, but for some reason I’m genuinely scared and I feel like this is the only way I can tell someone why. So here goes: earlier, I was scouring the ‘net for short horror stories-you know, rituals, tales of scary places, and the like. I came across this…warning, I guess it was. I won’t say what, and I won’t say where, for fear of you finding it yourself. Suffice it to say it sent chills down my spine, something not much has managed to do. Still, as has become my habit, I just clicked on the next hyperlink, going ever farther down the rabbit hole.
The warning stayed with me, though. In the back of my head, just nibbling away, waiting until I would focus on something else to rear its ugly head. This was irrational, I knew; my mind was just playing tricks on me. Some ancestral fear had been played upon, some age-old nightmare that was just that-a nightmare, no more and no less. But that didn’t make the fear go away. Only when I looked at the clock to see how long I had until you got back that it dawned on me I had passed the time alloted me by the warning to stop what was coming (any vagueness is out of concern for you, I promise).
And then the real anxiety kicked in. My palms started to sweat, and my eyes refused to stay closed for more than a second at a time. All my hairs stood on end, and I could feel my heart rate start to increase. Instantly, I knew that the warning had been real. And I had failed to heed it. My time was limited.
It was about then that you got back from the TV station. I was so glad to see someone else, I can’t imagine how I sounded. Finally, someone to fight off the dark with, a companion against the now terrifying night. But clearly you weren’t interested; your yawns were a dead giveaway. You headed to bed, and I (to stave off sleep a little longer) decided to write you this. Do me a favor - if I’m wrong, forget this ever happened. If I’m right…warn them.’
So that’s what I’m doing. I’m warning you. Just be careful. Next time you go on an archive binge at creepypasta, or start checking the horror thread of your favorite discussion board, or even just try googling “creepy stories,” if you feel a chill run down your spine at some warning you’ve never read before you might want to heed it. If you decide not to, however - if you just click on your merry way-please tell Mike I’m sorry I couldn’t get to him in the fog.
I suppose I should provide some background information first. I’m a sophomore in a fairly good university in Boston - no, not MIT or Harvard, but still one that’s a bit of a chore to get into. My freshman year, I had the option to live in honors housing and decided to roll with it; after all, at least the people would be interesting. Whatever arcane algorithm they use to process roommate requests took in my preferences and spat out the name of my future roommate: Mike, just another random honors kid from St. Louis. The two of us got along fine for most of freshman year - my enjoyment of Miley Cyrus notwithstanding-and so we decided to room together sophomore year as well.
Now, Mike had always been a pretty obsessive guy. He tended to bounce around in his interests; one week, he would devour entire series of anime, only to later start watching random online episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and then begin working his way through the archives of the hottest new webcomic. And, of course, like any real obsessive, he would keep me posted on his latest craze. I humored him; what else are roommates for?
One day earlier this week, he started telling me random scary stories. You know, those random things you find on message boards-I think his main source ended up being some site called “creepypasta” (I never understood why pasta could be creepy, but whatever). I’d hear about a med student eating an arm, or someone being autopsied alive, or some random youtube video that will drive you insane. We usually had a good laugh about them.
The third day of this obsession, however, things got weird. He threw a few more stories my way before hitting the sack, but something seemed a little off. His voice had a sharp edge to it. As the hour got later, his banter got more and more inane, as though he were talking just to stave off having to go to sleep. Eventually, I pointedly got into my bed and rolled over, effectively ending any further chance at conversation. I wish I hadn’t.
I sleep like a log, and that night was no exception. I don’t think I even came close to waking. Usually I can’t remember any of my dreams, but the nightmare I had that night has been clear in my mind for days now. I dreamt I was trapped in a fog so dense I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. The damp air sent chills down my spine. I could hear muffled screams in the distance. There didn’t seem to be any words, just guttural shrieks of pain. Instantly (don’t ask me how), I recognized the screams as Mike’s. I tried my best to run to him, but my feet just slid through the fog; I couldn’t get any real traction on the ground, if there indeed was any ground. The screams got further away and more indistinct, though I could still tell they were Mike’s. Eventually, they faded to nothing and I woke up.
And every last trace of Mike was gone from the room.
Everything. His laptop, his sheets, the “Official Zombie Survival” guide poster on the wall, the heap of trash he let accumulate on his half of the windowsill-everything. A thick layer of dust coated his entire side of the room. Absolutely nothing on my side of the room had been touched-nor had any of his stuff in the bathroom, the kitchen, or the living room of our suite. Only in the bedroom had anything been taken.
I couldn’t believe it. I prayed it was a dream. I pinched my elbow until the skin was red, until my fingernails drew blood. When I didn’t wake up, I dialed campus security, who quickly brought in the Boston Police Department. I was immediately kicked out of the room so they could go over everything with a fine-toothed comb.
I think I must have been in shock. I felt completely numb, like nothing around me really mattered. I’d left my laptop out in our suite’s common room, so I used that to distract myself-or to try to, at any rate. When I popped open the laptop, however, a word document stared at me. Its text was the following:
‘I know this is stupid. I can’t help but think how much I’ll regret this in the morning, but for some reason I’m genuinely scared and I feel like this is the only way I can tell someone why. So here goes: earlier, I was scouring the ‘net for short horror stories-you know, rituals, tales of scary places, and the like. I came across this…warning, I guess it was. I won’t say what, and I won’t say where, for fear of you finding it yourself. Suffice it to say it sent chills down my spine, something not much has managed to do. Still, as has become my habit, I just clicked on the next hyperlink, going ever farther down the rabbit hole.
The warning stayed with me, though. In the back of my head, just nibbling away, waiting until I would focus on something else to rear its ugly head. This was irrational, I knew; my mind was just playing tricks on me. Some ancestral fear had been played upon, some age-old nightmare that was just that-a nightmare, no more and no less. But that didn’t make the fear go away. Only when I looked at the clock to see how long I had until you got back that it dawned on me I had passed the time alloted me by the warning to stop what was coming (any vagueness is out of concern for you, I promise).
And then the real anxiety kicked in. My palms started to sweat, and my eyes refused to stay closed for more than a second at a time. All my hairs stood on end, and I could feel my heart rate start to increase. Instantly, I knew that the warning had been real. And I had failed to heed it. My time was limited.
It was about then that you got back from the TV station. I was so glad to see someone else, I can’t imagine how I sounded. Finally, someone to fight off the dark with, a companion against the now terrifying night. But clearly you weren’t interested; your yawns were a dead giveaway. You headed to bed, and I (to stave off sleep a little longer) decided to write you this. Do me a favor - if I’m wrong, forget this ever happened. If I’m right…warn them.’
So that’s what I’m doing. I’m warning you. Just be careful. Next time you go on an archive binge at creepypasta, or start checking the horror thread of your favorite discussion board, or even just try googling “creepy stories,” if you feel a chill run down your spine at some warning you’ve never read before you might want to heed it. If you decide not to, however - if you just click on your merry way-please tell Mike I’m sorry I couldn’t get to him in the fog.
Mr. Widemouth
During my childhood my family was like a drop of water in a vast river, never remaining in one location for long. We settled in Rhode Island when I was eight, and there we remained until I went to college in Colorado Springs. Most of my memories are rooted in Rhode Island, but there are fragments in the attic of my brain which belong to the various homes we had lived in when I was much younger.
Most of these memories are unclear and pointless– chasing after another boy in the back yard of a house in North Carolina, trying to build a raft to float on the creek behind the apartment we rented in Pennsylvania, and so on. But there is one set of memories which remains as clear as glass, as though they were just made yesterday. I often wonder whether these memories are simply lucid dreams produced by the long sickness I experienced that Spring, but in my heart, I know they are real.
We were living in a house just outside the bustling metropolis of New Vineyard, Maine, population 643. It was a large structure, especially for a family of three. There were a number of rooms that I didn’t see in the five months we resided there. In some ways it was a waste of space, but it was the only house on the market at the time, at least within an hour’s commute to my father’s place of work.
The day after my fifth birthday (attended by my parents alone), I came down with a fever. The doctor said I had mononucleosis, which meant no rough play and more fever for at least another three weeks. It was horrible timing to be bed-ridden– we were in the process of packing our things to move to Pennsylvania, and most of my things were already packed away in boxes, leaving my room barren. My mother brought me ginger ale and books several times a day, and these served the function of being my primary from of entertainment for the next few weeks. Boredom always loomed just around the corner, waiting to rear its ugly head and compound my misery.
I don’t exactly recall how I met Mr. Widemouth. I think it was about a week after I was diagnosed with mono. My first memory of the small creature was asking him if he had a name. He told me to call him Mr. Widemouth, because his mouth was large. In fact, everything about him was large in comparison to his body– his head, his eyes, his crooked ears– but his mouth was by far the largest.
“You look kind of like a Furby,” I said as he flipped through one of my books.
Mr. Widemouth stopped and gave me a puzzled look. “Furby? What’s a Furby?” he asked.
I shrugged. “You know… the toy. The little robot with the big ears. You can pet and feed them, almost like a real pet.”
“Oh.” Mr. Widemouth resumed his activity. “You don’t need one of those. They aren’t the same as having a real friend.”
I remember Mr. Widemouth disappearing every time my mother stopped by to check in on me. “I lay under your bed,” he later explained. “I don’t want your parents to see me because I’m afraid they won’t let us play anymore.”
We didn’t do much during those first few days. Mr. Widemouth just looked at my books, fascinated by the stories and pictures they contained. The third or fourth morning after I met him, he greeted me with a large smile on his face. “I have a new game we can play,” he said. “We have to wait until after your mother comes to check on you, because she can’t see us play it. It’s a secret game.”
After my mother delivered more books and soda at the usual time, Mr. Widemouth slipped out from under the bed and tugged my hand. “We have to go the the room at the end of this hallway,” he said. I objected at first, as my parents had forbidden me to leave my bed without their permission, but Mr. Widemouth persisted until I gave in.
The room in question had no furniture or wallpaper. Its only distinguishing feature was a window opposite the doorway. Mr. Widemouth darted across the room and gave the window a firm push, flinging it open. He then beckoned me to look out at the ground below.
We were on the second story of the house, but it was on a hill, and from this angle the drop was farther than two stories due to the incline. “I like to play pretend up here,” Mr. Widemouth explained. “I pretend that there is a big, soft trampoline below this window, and I jump. If you pretend hard enough you bounce back up like a feather. I want you to try.”
I was a five-year-old with a fever, so only a hint of skepticism darted through my thoughts as I looked down and considered the possibility. “It’s a long drop,” I said.
“But that’s all a part of the fun. It wouldn’t be fun if it was only a short drop. If it were that way you may as well just bounce on a real trampoline.”
I toyed with the idea, picturing myself falling through thin air only to bounce back to the window on something unseen by human eyes. But the realist in me prevailed. “Maybe some other time,” I said. “I don’t know if I have enough imagination. I could get hurt.”
Mr. Widemouth’s face contorted into a snarl, but only for a moment. Anger gave way to disappointment. “If you say so,” he said. He spent the rest of the day under my bed, quiet as a mouse.
The following morning Mr. Widemouth arrived holding a small box. “I want to teach you how to juggle,” he said. “Here are some things you can use to practice, before I start giving you lessons.”
I looked in the box. It was full of knives. “My parents will kill me!” I shouted, horrified that Mr. Widemouth had brought knives into my room– objects that my parents would never allow me to touch. “I’ll be spanked and grounded for a year!”
Mr. Widemouth frowned. “It’s fun to juggle with these. I want you to try it.”
I pushed the box away. “I can’t. I’ll get in trouble. Knives aren’t safe to just throw in the air.”
Mr. Widemouth’s frown deepend into a scowl. He took the box of knives and slid under my bed, remaining there the rest of the day. I began to wonder how often he was under me.
I started having trouble sleeping after that. Mr. Widemouth often woke me up at night, saying he put a real trampoline under the window, a big one, one that I couldn’t see in the dark. I always declined and tried to go back to sleep, but Mr. Widemouth persisted. Sometimes he stayed by my side until early in the morning, encouraging me to jump.
He wasn’t so fun to play with anymore.
My mother came to me one morning and told me I had her permission to walk around outside. She thought the fresh air would be good for me, especially after being confined to my room for so long. Exstatic, I put on my sneakers and trotted out to the back porch, yearning for the feeling of sun on my face.
Mr. Widemouth was waiting for me. “I have something I want you to see,” he said. I must have given him a weird look, because he then said, “It’s safe, I promise.”
I followed him to the beginning of a deer trail which ran through the woods behind the house. “This is an important path,” he explained. “I’ve had a lot of friends about your age. When they were ready, I took them down this path, to a special place. You aren’t ready yet, but one day, I hope to take you there.”
I returned to the house, wondering what kind of place lay beyond that trail.
Two weeks after I met Mr. Widemouth, the last load of our things had been packed into a moving truck. I would be in the cab of that truck, sitting next to my father for the long drive to Pennsylvania. I considered telling Mr. Widemouth that I would be leaving, but even at five years old, I was beginning to suspect that perhaps the creature’s intentions were not to my benefit, despite what he said otherwise. For this reason, I decided to keep my departure a secret.
My father and I were in the truck at 4 a.m. He was hoping to make it to Pennyslvania by lunch time tomorrow with the help of an endless supply of coffee and a six-pack of energy drinks. He seemed more like a man who was about to run a marathon rather than one who was about to spend two days sitting still.
“Early enough for you?” he asked.
I nodded and placed my head against the window, hoping for some sleep before the sun came up. I felt my father’s hand on my shoulder. “This is the last move, son, I promise. I know it’s hard for you, as sick as you’ve been. Once daddy gets promoted we can settle down and you can make friends.”
I opened my eyes as we backed out of the driveway. I saw Mr. Widemouth’s silouhette in my bedroom window. He stood motionless until the truck was about to turn onto the main road. He gave a pitiful little wave good-bye, steak knife in hand. I didn’t wave back.
Years later, I returned to New Vineyard. The piece of land our house stood upon was empty except for the foundation, as the house burned down a few years after my family left. Out of curiosity, I followed the deer trail that Mr. Widemouth had shown me. Part of me expected him to jump out from behind a tree and scare the living bejeesus out of me, but I felt that Mr. Widemouth was gone, somehow tied to the house that no longer existed.
The trail ended at the New Vineyard Memorial Cemetery.
I noticed that many of the tombstones belonged to children.
Most of these memories are unclear and pointless– chasing after another boy in the back yard of a house in North Carolina, trying to build a raft to float on the creek behind the apartment we rented in Pennsylvania, and so on. But there is one set of memories which remains as clear as glass, as though they were just made yesterday. I often wonder whether these memories are simply lucid dreams produced by the long sickness I experienced that Spring, but in my heart, I know they are real.
We were living in a house just outside the bustling metropolis of New Vineyard, Maine, population 643. It was a large structure, especially for a family of three. There were a number of rooms that I didn’t see in the five months we resided there. In some ways it was a waste of space, but it was the only house on the market at the time, at least within an hour’s commute to my father’s place of work.
The day after my fifth birthday (attended by my parents alone), I came down with a fever. The doctor said I had mononucleosis, which meant no rough play and more fever for at least another three weeks. It was horrible timing to be bed-ridden– we were in the process of packing our things to move to Pennsylvania, and most of my things were already packed away in boxes, leaving my room barren. My mother brought me ginger ale and books several times a day, and these served the function of being my primary from of entertainment for the next few weeks. Boredom always loomed just around the corner, waiting to rear its ugly head and compound my misery.
I don’t exactly recall how I met Mr. Widemouth. I think it was about a week after I was diagnosed with mono. My first memory of the small creature was asking him if he had a name. He told me to call him Mr. Widemouth, because his mouth was large. In fact, everything about him was large in comparison to his body– his head, his eyes, his crooked ears– but his mouth was by far the largest.
“You look kind of like a Furby,” I said as he flipped through one of my books.
Mr. Widemouth stopped and gave me a puzzled look. “Furby? What’s a Furby?” he asked.
I shrugged. “You know… the toy. The little robot with the big ears. You can pet and feed them, almost like a real pet.”
“Oh.” Mr. Widemouth resumed his activity. “You don’t need one of those. They aren’t the same as having a real friend.”
I remember Mr. Widemouth disappearing every time my mother stopped by to check in on me. “I lay under your bed,” he later explained. “I don’t want your parents to see me because I’m afraid they won’t let us play anymore.”
We didn’t do much during those first few days. Mr. Widemouth just looked at my books, fascinated by the stories and pictures they contained. The third or fourth morning after I met him, he greeted me with a large smile on his face. “I have a new game we can play,” he said. “We have to wait until after your mother comes to check on you, because she can’t see us play it. It’s a secret game.”
After my mother delivered more books and soda at the usual time, Mr. Widemouth slipped out from under the bed and tugged my hand. “We have to go the the room at the end of this hallway,” he said. I objected at first, as my parents had forbidden me to leave my bed without their permission, but Mr. Widemouth persisted until I gave in.
The room in question had no furniture or wallpaper. Its only distinguishing feature was a window opposite the doorway. Mr. Widemouth darted across the room and gave the window a firm push, flinging it open. He then beckoned me to look out at the ground below.
We were on the second story of the house, but it was on a hill, and from this angle the drop was farther than two stories due to the incline. “I like to play pretend up here,” Mr. Widemouth explained. “I pretend that there is a big, soft trampoline below this window, and I jump. If you pretend hard enough you bounce back up like a feather. I want you to try.”
I was a five-year-old with a fever, so only a hint of skepticism darted through my thoughts as I looked down and considered the possibility. “It’s a long drop,” I said.
“But that’s all a part of the fun. It wouldn’t be fun if it was only a short drop. If it were that way you may as well just bounce on a real trampoline.”
I toyed with the idea, picturing myself falling through thin air only to bounce back to the window on something unseen by human eyes. But the realist in me prevailed. “Maybe some other time,” I said. “I don’t know if I have enough imagination. I could get hurt.”
Mr. Widemouth’s face contorted into a snarl, but only for a moment. Anger gave way to disappointment. “If you say so,” he said. He spent the rest of the day under my bed, quiet as a mouse.
The following morning Mr. Widemouth arrived holding a small box. “I want to teach you how to juggle,” he said. “Here are some things you can use to practice, before I start giving you lessons.”
I looked in the box. It was full of knives. “My parents will kill me!” I shouted, horrified that Mr. Widemouth had brought knives into my room– objects that my parents would never allow me to touch. “I’ll be spanked and grounded for a year!”
Mr. Widemouth frowned. “It’s fun to juggle with these. I want you to try it.”
I pushed the box away. “I can’t. I’ll get in trouble. Knives aren’t safe to just throw in the air.”
Mr. Widemouth’s frown deepend into a scowl. He took the box of knives and slid under my bed, remaining there the rest of the day. I began to wonder how often he was under me.
I started having trouble sleeping after that. Mr. Widemouth often woke me up at night, saying he put a real trampoline under the window, a big one, one that I couldn’t see in the dark. I always declined and tried to go back to sleep, but Mr. Widemouth persisted. Sometimes he stayed by my side until early in the morning, encouraging me to jump.
He wasn’t so fun to play with anymore.
My mother came to me one morning and told me I had her permission to walk around outside. She thought the fresh air would be good for me, especially after being confined to my room for so long. Exstatic, I put on my sneakers and trotted out to the back porch, yearning for the feeling of sun on my face.
Mr. Widemouth was waiting for me. “I have something I want you to see,” he said. I must have given him a weird look, because he then said, “It’s safe, I promise.”
I followed him to the beginning of a deer trail which ran through the woods behind the house. “This is an important path,” he explained. “I’ve had a lot of friends about your age. When they were ready, I took them down this path, to a special place. You aren’t ready yet, but one day, I hope to take you there.”
I returned to the house, wondering what kind of place lay beyond that trail.
Two weeks after I met Mr. Widemouth, the last load of our things had been packed into a moving truck. I would be in the cab of that truck, sitting next to my father for the long drive to Pennsylvania. I considered telling Mr. Widemouth that I would be leaving, but even at five years old, I was beginning to suspect that perhaps the creature’s intentions were not to my benefit, despite what he said otherwise. For this reason, I decided to keep my departure a secret.
My father and I were in the truck at 4 a.m. He was hoping to make it to Pennyslvania by lunch time tomorrow with the help of an endless supply of coffee and a six-pack of energy drinks. He seemed more like a man who was about to run a marathon rather than one who was about to spend two days sitting still.
“Early enough for you?” he asked.
I nodded and placed my head against the window, hoping for some sleep before the sun came up. I felt my father’s hand on my shoulder. “This is the last move, son, I promise. I know it’s hard for you, as sick as you’ve been. Once daddy gets promoted we can settle down and you can make friends.”
I opened my eyes as we backed out of the driveway. I saw Mr. Widemouth’s silouhette in my bedroom window. He stood motionless until the truck was about to turn onto the main road. He gave a pitiful little wave good-bye, steak knife in hand. I didn’t wave back.
Years later, I returned to New Vineyard. The piece of land our house stood upon was empty except for the foundation, as the house burned down a few years after my family left. Out of curiosity, I followed the deer trail that Mr. Widemouth had shown me. Part of me expected him to jump out from behind a tree and scare the living bejeesus out of me, but I felt that Mr. Widemouth was gone, somehow tied to the house that no longer existed.
The trail ended at the New Vineyard Memorial Cemetery.
I noticed that many of the tombstones belonged to children.
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