This story begins with addiction.
Now, I know what you’re thinking, “/u/-Faust-, how could you? An addict in our midst and we couldn’t even tell! We all feel so violated.” But I would have to stop you at that point because it’s not what you’re thinking. I’m not hooked on booze and shuffling around AA meetings. I’m not on Heroine or Cocaine or Meth. Shit, I am addicted to cigarettes, but that is not what this is about.
No, this story begins with a special kind of addiction, one which we all share: my addiction to /r/NoSleep.
You see, a couple of years ago, I really started to find my footing, as far as life goes. I hit college, started reinventing myself after highschool, you know, the general shit. I tried being an Art Major and quit, then I switched to English and found my knack for writing. Slowly, my interests and my hopes for the future became conflated until I realized that what I really wanted to do with almost all of my free time was write – write things I would be interested in reading. Naturally, this translated from watching horror movies and reading horror stories to writing horror stories.
Creepypasta was a really big thing at the time, especially to me since I frequented the /x/ board on 4Chan. As I got more and more tired of dealing with all of the shit-slinging-mouth-breathers that seemed to frequent the board (perhaps, even, never leave it at all), I began branching out to other places for my horror-reading fix and communities to submit pieces of writing that I had worked on. A couple clicks was all it took to direct me to /r/NoSleep and, after a few short stories, I was hooked.
Every day, I would scroll through my phone and read. Every night, I would log into my computer and scan page after page of horror stories. Eventually, I decided to write one, Gospel, which, on my other account at the time got a little over forty upvotes. I was floored. This, of course, fueled my addiction to the point where I became insatiable. Writing daily, attempting to post often, commenting and reading – it consumed me, became my daily, no, constant habit. There were times when my girlfriend was actually jealous of the board and how much I fawned over it!
As I spent more and more time on /r/NoSleep, I became more and more aware of the similarities we all share. A lot of us are into many of the same things – that’s why trends take off. Here it’s a mystery disease, there it is multi-part series, then there’s surrealistic horror and other such things. The reason it all gets so big is because we are all of the same mind – we are all connoisseurs of the same horror – and great minds think alike. Of course, there other posts, there are downvotes, but these are simply counterweights to raise the true greats to the top. It’s how we organize what is most important or interesting, what attracts our collective whimsy.
There were little things too. Reader reactions, how we approach “staying in character” and the believability rules. Endless cycles of similar reactions. It began to feel more like home than anywhere else and, in a strange, detached sort of way, the other authors and regulars began to feel like a family of sorts – sometimes even a part of me, if they touched on particular subjects.
Eventually, I was part of a conversation where I was looking for something in particular. I had tried searching for a fairly obscure piece – something to do with a cannibal was all I could remember. Plenty of people in /r/NoSleepOOC pointed me in various directions, but none were right. Others pushed me for more information – a request which, unfortunately, I couldn’t fulfill. My newfound friends upset by my complete ineptness, disgusted in myself for not remembering the title of one of my all-time favorite pieces on the board, I decided to just retire for the night and cool off so that I could go at it with more resolve the next day.
I closed my laptop, stripped down, and climbed into bed next to my girlfriend. After a while, the embarrassment subsided, leaving only a dull headache in my head. Gradually, I was lured into sleep.
I awoke panting. My girlfriend had been shaking me in an attempt to wake me up.
“What?!”
Her voice was a hushed, fervent whisper stippled with fear, “Th-there’s something in our apartment.”
I felt my limbs go numb. Had I forgotten to lock the door before bed? I strained my ears. At first, I heard nothing, the silence swelling to a high-pitched ring in my ears. Then, something distant – a simple, miniscule scratching sound coming from the other room. I grumbled. “It’s probably one of the neighbor’s fucking cats. You know how the door was swinging open on its own when we left it unlocked? Well, I probably forgot and it pushed its way in. Hold on, I’ll go get it.”
I made to get out of bed when I heard a cupboard from our kitchen slam. I dropped back to the bed instinctively.
“What the fuck?” My girlfriend’s wide-eyes met my own. “How the fuck does a cat slam a cupboard?”
“It doesn’t.”
I could feel the adrenaline beginning to surge through my veins. My heartbeat was thundering in my ears, my limbs raw and aching. I could feel my breathing growing shallower, more rapid. On one hand, I wanted to just slam the door and call the cops. On the other hand, I didn’t know what was out there. It could be a serial murderer or madman with a fucking shotgun. We couldn’t afford to make any noise. I’d have to take it by surprise.
“Wait here.”
My girlfriend pulled the covers up over her head, her eyes peering into the darkness through one little hole. Her breathing was ragged.
I made my way to my dresser and opened the sock drawer quietly, wincing at the grating sound of wood against wood. Carefully, I dug my hand into its confines, withdrawing it with my spring-assisted knife clutched tight. I flicked it open. The blade was white in the moonlight and the darkness.
I eased the door to the bedroom open and peered outside. My eyes adjusted. The door was wide-open, a trail of something black smeared across the tiling and then the low carpet. It led into the kitchen.
I crept across the livingroom, shifting the knife so that the blade sat by my pinky. If I were surprised, I would just bring it down in a swift, downward arc and cleave the assailant. If not, it would be just as effective.
As I reached the tiled floor of the kitchen, I stopped. Crouching, I peered around the corner in an attempt to see what I could. The cupboard hadn’t been closed – it had been thrown open, as had all the drawers and the oven and the refrigerator. I cursed myself for not having replaced the broken light in the fridge. Now would have been a great time to be able to see something.
The floor creaked as I moved and I gritted my teeth. I knew that I was a sitting duck if I didn’t get some light. Carefully, I reached for the lightswitch and turned it up.
The room blazed to life. The black trail ended abruptly in the center of the kitchen. As I ran a finger across it, it collected like warm tar, perching atop my finger and running slightly. It smelled like a fried battery. I sighed, slightly, and then headed into the bathroom. When I emerged, I was relieved. There had been no one hiding behind the door or the shower curtain. The kitchen was clear, even under the table and in the corners. I turned back toward the living room.
DEARSIRMADAM DEARSIRMADAM DEARSIRMADAM
A hundred voices, some whispering, some shrieking, erupted from the darkness. The intruder emerged from the shadows. Sloughing, slouching, sluicing over itself – an ichorous, amorphous fragment of the deepest nightmares themselves – it advanced, its trail curling and coiling under and around and into itself once again. Blue lights in moving mouths and gibbous eyes, a chorus of slipping, shifting torturous faces layering on layering of layers – faces pushing forth and surfacing and diving down into the mass once again – all howling and hissing the same eldritch phrase: DEARSIRMADAM DEARSIRMADAM DEARSIRMADAM.
The knife fell from my hands and my knees crippled. My own wail of horror sounded as I felt powerless to attempt to escape. The creature ever-approaching, I heard the terrified screams of my girlfriend as she emerged and laid eyes on my sure death.
The formless mass of tarry liquid-faces paused, not an inch from my own. A face rose and remained static while the others slipped by and back and beyond again. Pale-eyed and fire-mouthed, it echoed the phrase that the other voices carried onward, then spoke in a low, fiendish voice that seemed to fade above and below dimension: DEARSIRMADAM ANSWERTOINQUIRY WARMESTREGARDS THEBUTLER.
I felt the tendrils begin to push me inward, the bulk begin to envelop me. At first, I struggled in horror, screaming and kicking, but the distinctions began to blur and then fade altogether. Those hellish things from my dreams, from the darkest parts of my mind, sprang forth and mixed with all that it was, and I felt communion and knew, once and for all, that I had never been a substance, only an extension – a part lost and then found once again. My voice mingled with the others and our singular, hive-like drone propelled the mass onward in search of its next reclamation. Any ties I'd had to horror found a home in our massive, unified cognizance. No longer was I an I – it was a we - and the consciousness that drove beast of /r/NoSleep slouched on and out and into the night…
I awoke covered in sweat. The room was gray with the first twinges of morning light. I threw the covers off of myself and swung my legs over the edge of the bed, fighting to fill my lung, to calm my tremors. I smoothed my hair, exhaled slowly, and looked around. The clock read 8:30AM. I glanced to see my girlfriend still in bed.
I stretched out a hand and nudged her, “Hey, hun. Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”
The covers shifted and a hundred eyes peered back at me.
DEARSIRMADAM DEARSIRMADAM DEARSIRMADAM
The neighbors never heard me scream… and they won't hear you either.
Submitted November 06, 2014 at 09:02AM by -Faust- http://ift.tt/1y6EJUt nosleep
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