>>263672
>itch in your throat
>sneeze
>button hits the floor
>missing girl whose blouse shows the same buttons
THEN WHO WAS CANNIBAL?

!MESSAGE BEGINS

We made a mistake. That is the simple, undeniable truth of the matter, however painful it might be. The flaw was not in our Observatories, for those machines were as perfect as we could make, and they showed us only the unfiltered light of truth. The flaw was not in the Predictor, for it is a device of pure, infallible logic, turning raw data into meaningful information without the taint of emotion or bias. No, the flaw was within us, the Orchestrators of this disaster, the sentients who thought themselves beyond such failings. We are responsible.

It began a short while ago, as these things are measured, less than 6^6 Deeli ago, though I suspect our systems of measure will mean very little by the time anyone receives this transmission. We detected faint radio signals from a blossoming intelligence 2^14 Deelis outward from the Galactic Core, as photons travel. At first crude and unstructured, these leaking broadcasts quickly grew in complexity and strength, as did the messages they carried. Through our Observatories we watched a world of strife and violence, populated by a barbaric race of short-lived, fast breeding vermin. They were brutal and uncultured things which stabbed and shot and burned each other with no regard for life or purpose. Even their concepts of Art spoke of conflict and pain. They divided themselves according to some bizarre cultural patterns and set their every industry to cause of death.

They terrified us, but we were older and wiser and so very far away, so we did not fret. Then we watched them split the atom and breach the heavens within the breadth of one of their single, short generations, and we began to worry. When they began actively transmitting messages and greetings into space, we felt fear and horror. Their transmissions promised peace and camaraderie to any who were listening, but we had watched them for too long to buy into such transparent deceptions. They knew we were out here, and they were coming for us.

The Orchestrators consulted the Predictor, and the output was dire. They would multiply and grow and flood out of their home system like some uncountable tide of Devourer worms, consuming all that lay in their path. It might take 6^8 Deelis, but they would destroy us if left unchecked. With aching carapaces we decided to act, and sealed our fate.

The Gift of Mercy was 8^4 strides long with a mouth 2/4 that in diameter, filled with many 4^4 weights of machinery, fuel, and ballast. It would push itself up to 2/8th of light speed with its onboard fuel, and then begin to consume interstellar Primary Element 2/2 to feed its unlimited acceleration. It would be traveling at nearly light speed when it hit. They would never see it coming. Its launch was a day of mourning, celebration, and reflection. The horror of the act we had committed weighted heavily upon us all; the necessity of our crime did little to comfort us.

The Gift had barely cleared the outer cometary halo when the mistake was realized, but it was too late. The Gift could not be caught, could not be recalled or diverted from its path. The architects and work crews, horrified at the awful power of the thing upon which they labored, had quietly self-terminated in droves, walking unshielded into radiation zones, neglecting proper null pressure safety or simple ceasing their nutrient consumption until their metabolic functions stopped. The appalling cost in lives had forced the Orchestrators to streamline the Gift’s design and construction. There had been no time for the design or implementation of anything beyond the simple, massive engines and the stabilizing systems. We could only watch in shame and horror as the light of genocide faded into infrared against the distant void.

They grew, and they changed, in a handful of lifetimes they abolished war, abandoned their violent tendencies and turned themselves to the grand purposes of life and Art. We watched them remake first themselves, and then their world. Their frail, soft bodies gave way to gleaming metals and plastics, they unified their people through an omnipresent communications grid and produced Art of such power and emotion, the likes of which the Galaxy has never seen before. Or again, because of us.

They converted their home world into a paradise (by their standards) and many 10^6s of them poured out into the surrounding system with a rapidity and vigor that we could only envy. With bodies built to survive every environment from the day lit surface of their innermost world, to the atmosphere of their largest gas giant and the cold void in-between, they set out to sculpt their system into something beautiful. At first we thought them simple miners, stripping the rocky planets and moons for vital resources, but then we began to see the purpose to their constructions, the artworks carved into every surface, and traced across the system in glittering lights and dancing fusion trails. And still, our terrible Gift approached.

They had less than 2^2 Deeli to see it, following so closely on the tail of its own light. In that time, oh so brief even by their fleeting lives, more than 10^10 sentients prepared for death. Lovers exchanged last words, separated by worlds and the tyranny of light speed. Their planetside engineers worked frantically to build sufficient transmission infrastructure to upload the countless masses with the necessary neural modifications, while those above dumped lifetimes of music and literature from their databanks to make room for passengers. Those lacking the required hardware or the time to acquire it consigned themselves to death, lashed out in fear and pain, or simply went about their lives as best they could under the circumstances.

The Gift arrived suddenly, the light of its impact visible in our skies, shining bright and cruel even to the unaugmented ocular receptor. We watched and we wept for our victims, dead so many Deelis before the light of their doom had even reached us. Many 6^4s of those who had been directly or even tangentially involved in the creation of the Gift sealed their spiracles with paste as a final penance for the small roles they had played in this atrocity. The light dimmed, the dust cleared, and our Observatories refocused upon the place where their shining blue world had once hung in the void, and found only dust and the pale gleam of an orphaned moon, wrapped in a thin, burning wisp of atmosphere that had once belonged to its parent.

Radiation and relativistic shrapnel had wiped out much of the inner system, and continent sized chunks of molten rock carried screaming ghosts outward at interstellar escape velocities, damned to wander the great void for an eternity. The damage was apocalyptic, but not complete, from the shadows of the outer worlds, tiny points of light emerged, thousands of fusion trails of single ships and world ships and everything in between, many 10^6s of survivors in flesh and steel and memory banks, ready to rebuild. For a few moments we felt relief, even joy, and we were filled with the hope that their culture and Art would survive the terrible blow we had dealt them. Then came the message, tightly focused at our star, transmitted simultaneously by hundreds of their ships.

“We know you are out there, and we are coming for you.”

!MESSAGE ENDS

I love this pasta.

>>263675
This one was never scary. It's entirely too HUMANITY- FUCK YEAH! to be scary. You stupid alien fuckers, you blew up the wrong planet full of crazy people.

A man saw a Ferrari at a used-car lot and asked for the price of the car. The salesman lit up with a smile and said he'd give it to the man for $500 dollars. The man bought the car instantly on the spot after hearing the ridiculously cheap deal.

The man had the car for months now, but on a cold, winter day as he got into the driver's seat he was startled to see someone in the rear-view mirror. He quickly turned around and saw nothing in the empty seat and quickly shrugged it off thinking he must have imagined it.

As the cold days went by, the car doors started to lock up on him, the engine would stall, and he would hear sounds of something hitting in the back. The man started getting anxious about this bad omen. That horror soon showed itself as he was driving to the airport to pick up his relatives. He looked up and saw 3 bloody bodies in the rear-view mirror staring at him. He screamed and realized that this car is really haunted and fled from the car.

Later he heard the story of the car from the salesman. The police found the car 2 years ago abandoned in an empty airport parking stall where 2 dead bodies were found in the the back seat and another one found in the trunk.


Yeah, I'd keep the car. It's not like they're doing anything, just sitting around and staring. Pussy.

I heard this one was a true story, but you never know.

There was a couple from Texas who was planning a weekend trip across the Mexican border for a shopping spree. At the last minute, their baby-sitter canceled, so they had to bring along their two year old son with them. They had been across the border for an hour when the baby got free and ran around the corner. The mother tried to find him, but he disappeared. The mother found a police officer who told her to go to the gate and wait. Not really understanding the instructions, she did as she was told. About 45 minutes later, a man approached the border, carrying the boy. The mother ran to him, grateful that he had been found. When the man realized it was the boy's mother, he dropped him and ran. The police were waiting for him. The boy was dead, and in less than the 45 minutes he was missing, he was cut open, all of his organs removed, and was stuffed with cocaine. The man was going to carry him across the border as if he were asleep.

>>263693

Not so much creepy as it is horrifically disturbing. My mom said the thing that got her to stop smoking pot was a news report about a drug smuggling ring that would making living human sacrifices to try and ensure that their drug runs were successful. Something about cutting out a girl's spinal cord while she was still alive.

It's not that scary at first, but then you consider that it's true and it gets really horrific.

This morning I stepped out of the shower and this bathroom was fine: white walls, white tiles, sink and counter with toothpaste crusted all over. Three out of the four lightbulbs over the mirror were still good -- 100 watt, clear bulb, blinding bright in the small white room. Like always I was late, so I skipped shaving. She liked it when I didn't shave, anyway. I was thinking about doing mutton chops. She'd get a kick out of that. I passed the mirror and noticed I was grinning. I didn't even know I was grinning.

I'm in the bathroom tonight before bed and there's something wrong with the lights. All three are on again but they glow kind of brown and don't really light up the rest of the room. I should get more bulbs from the kitchen. I should, but I'm busy. The date was shit and she shut her apartment door on me. You'd think that would wipe off the stupid grin from this morning. But I came back in the bathroom and, in the mirror, my face was still doing it. If I touch my face it doesn't feel like a grin, but there it is in the mirror.

In the brown light it's hard to make out but -- have you ever actually counted how many teeth show when you smile? I lean in close. One, two, three, four -- I didn't know my mouth was so wide. Nine, ten, eleven -- I can't do mutton chops after all. The corners of my lips are out to my ears. It still doesn't feel like a grin. But keep counting, for curiousity. Thirty-six. Thirty-seven. Thirty-eight. Thirty-nine...

Jesus Christ. The kind of shit that goes down in the big drug-smuggling rings... that's why I only do locally-grown.

This one is kind of cute:

Normally you sleep soundly, but the thunderstorm raging outside is stirring you from your slumber. You begin to doze, then another crash jolts you awake. The cycle lasts most of the night. So you lay there, eyes open and outward, looking at your room stretching out before you in oblong shadows. Your eyes move from nameless object, to object, until you reach your mirror, sitting adjacent to you across the room.

Suddenly a flash of lighting, and the mirror flickers in illumination. For a scant second the mirror revels to you dozens of faces, silhouettes within its frame, mouths open and eyes blackened. They stare out at you, their black pupils fixed upon your face.
Then it is done. Are you sure of what you have seen? Unsettled, you don’t sleep for the rest of the evening.

The next morning you remove the mirror from your wall and toss it in the trash. It didn’t matter if the vision you had seen was of truth or falsehood, you wanted to be rid of that mirror. In fact, you scrap every mirror in your house.

Weeks pass and the event of that night falls into passive memory. You are spending the day at a friend’s house. It’s time to use the bathroom. While you are in there the faucet starts to run without you prompting it. Taken aback by this, you do not yet act, trying to reason with your paranoia in your mind. The water starts to steam and a skin of moisture covers the mirror up above. You’re watching intently as words form:
“Please return the mirrors. We miss watching you sleep at night."

>Ctrl+F
>Fuck yeah

It's early in the morning. The sun won't be up for another couple of hours. You're fast asleep in bed, lost in a dream, when the phone rings. Rather than waking up, you roll over and cover your head with a pillow. Hours pass. The sun rises. The phone is ringing.

When you wake up, your alarm clock is blaring and the phone is ringing. By the time you will yourself to turn the alarm off, the phone has stopped ringing. You realize that it's been ringing all morning. You slide out of bed and press the blinking red button on your phone as you stumble into the bathroom. The phone beeps, followed by the friendly, electronic voice. Hello. You have six hundred and sixty-six new messages. Message one. The phone beeps again, and you're not prepared for what comes next.

Screaming.

You spin around, thinking that she's standing right behind you. There's pure terror in her screams, accompanied by other disturbing noises. You stand there, horrified, for about ten seconds. Screaming gives way to hysterical, garbled crying before dying out with the sounds of spilling meat and tearing flesh.

The phone beeps again. You're shaking.

Message two.

You get a phone call from your Mother. Since her car has been in the shop, she asks you to go to the grocery store and pick up a few odds and ends for her. Bread, milk, cereal, and chicken breasts.

After writing down a small list you reluctantly get in the car and pick up the items at the store. The lady cashier makes an odd remark to you, "You know, we're in no danger of a milk shortage." Upon arriving at her house you knock several times. No answer. You decide to try the door. It opens. You place the grocery bag on the counter. Strange. There seems to be six other grocery bags, each with identical contents. In a couple, the chicken and the milk has gone bad. "Mom," you call out, but no answer. You make your way thru the kitchen and into the living room. Sitting on the couch, with her head cut off and neatly resting on her lap, is your Mother.

Naturally you call the police who come over to investigate. They mention that she has been dead for nearly a week. Furthermore, the police psychiatrist is at the scene and talks to you after you give your initial statement. Sitting on the front steps, you overhear the psychiatrist talking with the crime scene investigator. "It's not uncommon for people suffering from schizophrenia to get locked into a series of repetitive behaviors," he says.

You think to yourself, "They can't be talking about me. Schizophrenia? Nah. Repetitive behavior? Do they think I did this?" Suddenly your cell phone goes off. "Hello?"

"Hi hun, it's me. Could you stop at the store and pick up some chicken and milk. Ohh, and I need some bread and cereal too."

"No problem Mom. I'll be right over."

"Daddy, I had a bad dream."
You blink your eyes and pull up on your elbows. Your clock glows red in the darkness—it's 3:23.
"Do you want to climb into bed and tell me about it?"
"No, Daddy."
The oddness of the situation wakes you up more fully. You can barely make out your daughter's pale form in the darkness of your room.
"Why not sweetie?"
"Because in my dream, when I told you about the dream, the thing wearing Mommy's skin sat up."
For a moment, you feel paralyzed; you can't take your eyes off of your daughter. The covers behind you begin to shift.

You are home alone, and you hear on the news about the profile of a murderer who is on the loose. You look out the sliding glass doors to your backyard, and you notice a man standing out in the snow. He fits the profile of the murderer exactly, and he is smiling at you. You gulp, picking up the phone to your right and dialing 911. You look back out the glass as you press the phone to your ear, and notice he is much closer to you now. You then drop the phone in shock.

There are no footprints in the snow. It's his reflection.

You stumble into the kitchen, covered in sweat. Mind racing. Heart thumping. Christ, could he have followed me here? You think. How did he even find me?

A moment passes. One thing is certain.

He’s not here now.

Your stomach rumbles. Even someone in your position has to eat. Your refrigerator door cries as you tug it open. You peer through the shelves. A jug of tea catches your eye. You take a swig, right out of the container. Your mother won’t know.

The tea tastes sharper than usual. You examine the label. Black tea. She bought the wrong kind. You shrug, reach for some leftovers. Flip the TV on in the other room as you slide them into the microwave. The five o’ clock news plays in the background. It might say something about him.

The usual teary story about the war. Some presidential candidate is coming to your town. You count down the numbers on the microwave. 5, 4…

“And, finally, tonight a food contamination alert for all residents in this county.”

…3, 2…

“A shipment of Lipton’s Black Tea delivered to local stores has tested positive for traces of the ebola solanum virus. This super-strain of the disease causes painful sores on the underarms, neck and groin followed by profuse bleeding from all orifices. The survival rate once infected is less than 10%. I repeat, Lipton’s Black Tea has been pulled from the shelves but any resident who purchased the tea is advised to call the Center for Health Control to dispose of it immediately.”

1.

You tug open the fridge once more and look at the tea you just drank.

Lipton’s. That’s not the kind your mother usually buys.

“Authorities report the shipment was tainted by an unidentified biological expert who remains at large.”

He’s not here now. You think. The jug of tea falls to the floor.

But he was.

A recent study by the National Psychiatric Institute in Boston, MA, concluded that no activity can account for the phenomenon known as nightmares. Whereas many dreams come from unconscious desires, most nightmares seem to come from an outside source independent of the individual. In fact, when subjects are asked to recall nightmares they are almost always found in the same memory section as actual physical memories, not the section where normal dreams are replayed. In other words, those aliens and creatures you see at night in your “dreams?” They’re real.

Have you ever heard the expression "an apple a day keeps the Doctor away?" Most assume, with no reason to think otherwise, that it is simply an easy-to-remember rhyme that stresses the importance of eating healthily to young children. But the saying did not originate as a harmless reminder. It was born in a frontier town in the early years of the gold rush, where food was scarce and money even scarcer.

One August, when a bad drought had struck the region, a series of bloody killings swept through the town. Every night, a single house would be broken into, and anyone who saw the invader would be swiftly, brutally slain. Nothing was ever stolen, save for a few scraps of food.

After two weeks of this, the local grocer set out a few apples and a glass of milk in the town square overnight. He then hid in the tower of the church, hoping to catch a glimpse of anyone who came by.

Fighting fatigue, the grocer waited for any sign of life below. Just after midnight, he was rewarded by a chilling sight; a man, carrying a black bag stuffed with dully shining metal tools and covered from head to foot in cloth bandages, staggered into view. He paused at the sight of the apples and milk, and then whipped his head around, as if looking for the one who dared to patronize him. Seized with fear, the grocer ducked out of sight, staying hidden 'til sunrise.

The strange man had only taken one of the apples, and didn't even touch the glass of milk. No houses were broken into, and no one was killed. For decades, the town continued to place out an apple or two every night, even long after a single apple stopped disappearing.

It's there - just at the veil of sleep. That dull sensation of falling or spinning just before you fall to sleep. The next time you go to bed, try to hold yourself there. Just as you drift off, hold onto that feeling. Hold on, and listen. Listen close, for you cannot hold onto that edge of sleep for long. There, in the space before sleep, is a sound: a gentle hum, a distant echo; like a sigh in a brick building. Listen well, and remember that sound. That is the sound of your last breath.

Eric was reaching for the towel when he saw it. Something in the mirror, darting out of his line of vision. He stared at the mirror for a while, trying to work out what he'd seen, letting the water drip off of him into the empty shower. There was nothing but his own reflection. He began to dry himself, and he saw it again. Flickering out the corner of his eye, something in the mirror. He stepped out of the shower and towards the mirror.

Eric's wife, Sue, arrived home later that evening, but her husband was nowhere to be found. After searching the entire house, all she could find to suggest he'd ever been there was a towel lying on the bathroom floor. She phoned the police. She didn't look at the mirror.

Two days after Eric was reported missing, Sue dissapeared off the face of the earth. The only clue to suggest she'd ever been home was the shower, still running after long she'd gone.

Somewhere, in the world, there's an artist. Her only painting is a painting of a simple white room, devoid of furniture or features. The room is lit by a simple white dome with a bulb inside it. Art scholars, on examining the painting, found that there's a faint suggestion of two shadows on the floor of the room.

She disappeared a while ago, but there's still a gallery in a large American city that has her contact information - they used to handle her PR work. If you go to her apartment, you'll find a door that seems to lead into what can only be a wall.

If you open it, you'll see a pristine white room - white carpet, white walls, and a white dome light overhead with a bulb inside it illuminating the room. You'll be drawn in, and if you've seen the painting, you'll look down at the floor for the shadows. They aren't there, of course - just your shadow. When you turn back to the door, it'll be gone, only a smooth wall where you were sure there was a door.

Somewhere, in the world, there's an artist. Her only painting is a painting of a simple white room, devoid of furniture or features. The room is lit by a simple white dome with a bulb inside it. Art scholars, on examining the painting, found that there's a faint suggestion of three shadows on the floor of the room.

You wake up one morning to find a note taped to your mirror: “Don’t worry, I took care of everything.” Your clothes have been freshly laundered, the bathroom is spotless, and your garage has been organized. Even your faithful old toolbox has been replaced.
Later that week, there’s another note on your mirror: “GET OUT OF TOWN.” Paper-clipped to this message are several grainy photos of police in a taped-off section of a field. One of them is carrying your old toolbox in his latex-gloved hand.

A man was walking down a city street in the middle of the night headed home from work, when he suddenly saw a dark object coming toward him.

He squinted down the road and saw that it was a sarcouphagus, closing in on him, as it screeched along the road.

SCREE SCREE

The man turned and fled, as he heard the scrape getting faster.

SCREEE SCREE SCREEE

He ran as fast as he could to his house, the screech getting louder

SCREEE SCREEE SCREEEE

He bolted into his house. The coffin was still after him! It tore through the door as he dashed up the stairs and into his bathroom.

He heard the coffin ascending the stairs. Panicking, he grabbed a bottle of Robotussin and hurled it at the coffin.

The coffin stopped.

You’re slowly stirred awake by the distant ringing as the phone beside your bed pulls you out of your dreams. Your thoughts gather themselves and you groan, reaching over to answer.

As soon as you place the phone to your ear, you’re greeted by the background noise consisting of twisted screams. People in agonizing pain begging for help or death, not that the interference allows you to hear any individual voice clearly enough.

“Get out of the house now!”

The call ends abruptly after what you could have sworn was a voice from closer to you than on the other end. You shift yourself to the side of the bed, sighing while rubbing your eyes. A call this startling and this early in the morning would keep you awake.

Your wife shuffles to the side, apparently also woken by the call. She wraps her arms around you and gives a light kiss on the neck.

“Don’t worry about it,” Her half asleep mumble calms you down somewhat.

Just as you’re about to place the phone down, it rings again. You fumble slightly and drop it. Instead, you feel your wife’s arms tighten around you, preventing you from leaning forward.

It’s then you notice a subtle difference between the arms around you and the familiarity of your wife’s.

“He’s too late to save you anyway.”

There once was a ghost.
Boo.

Hey Red, were you on /x/ posting in the "real stories" thread, or was that a different Red?

>>263730
And then a skeleton popped out.

>>263730
>>263739

And you were dead all along.

>>263741
Then who was Bruce Willis?

>>263743
Phone.

One school day, a boy named Tom was sitting in class and doing math. It was six more minutes until the end of school. As he was doing his homework, something caught his eye.

His desk was next to the window, and he turned and stared outside. It looked liked a picture. When it was home time at the school, he ran to the spot where he saw it. He ran fast so that no one else could grab it.

He picked it up and smiled. It had a picture of the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. She had a dress with tights on and red shoes, and her hand was formed into a peace sign.

She was so beautiful he wanted to meet her, so he ran all over the school and asked everyone if they knew her or have ever seen her before. But everyone he asked said “No.” He was devastated.

When he was home, he asked his older sister if she knew the girl, but unfortunately she also said “No.” It was very late, so Tom walked up the stairs, placed the picture on his bedside table and went to sleep.

In the middle of the night Tom was awakened by a tap on his window. It was like a nail tapping. He got scared. After the tapping he heard a giggle. He saw a shadow near his window, so he got out of his bed, walked toward the window, opened it up, and followed the giggling. By the time he reached it,
it was gone.

The next day again he asked his neighbors if they knew her. Everybody said, “Sorry, no.” When his mother came home he even asked her if she knew the girl. She didn't either. He went to his room, placed the picture on his desk and fell asleep.

Once again he was awakened by a tapping. He took the picture and followed the giggling. He walked across the road, when suddenly he got hit by a car. He was dead with the picture in his hand.

The driver got out of the car and tried to help him, but it was too late. Suddenly he saw the picture and picked it up. He smiled. He saw a cute girl holding up three fingers…

There was a hunter in the woods, who, after a long day hunting, was in the middle of an immense forest. It was getting dark, and having lost his bearings, he decided to head in one direction until he was clear of the increasingly oppressive foliage. After a what seemed like hours, he came across a cabin in a small clearing. Realizing how dark it had grown, he decided to see if he could stay there for the night. He approached, and found the door ajar. Nobody was inside. The hunter flopped down on the single bed, deciding to explain himself to the owner in the morning. As he looked around, he was surprised to see the walls adorned by many portraits, all painted in incredible detail. Without exception, they appeared to be staring down at him, their features twisted into looks of hatred. Staring back, he grew increasingly uncomfortable. Making a concerted effort to ignore the many hateful faces, he turned to face the wall, and exhausted, he fell into a restless sleep.

Face down in an unfamiliar bed, he turned blinking in unexpected sunlight. Looking up, he discovered that the cabin had no portraits, only windows.

>>265529
That's one of my favorites.

>>263675
I love this one. I've been thinking of using it as the basis for a webcomic for some time now.

You are home to watch Pravda on televisir about degenerate murderer who is on the loose. You look out the window door to beet field, and you notice Man standing in the snow. He look like foto on televisir and he smile at you. You gulp vodka, picking up fone to your right and dialing Local Militia Precinct Commissar. Back out the glass you look, pressing fone to ear. Notice he now closer to you. You drop vodka in shock.

No footprints in snow. It was reflection. You dullard!

Your apartment is bulldozed down to make way for glorious tractor factory. Such is life in Moscow.

Short and sweet.

>>266076
Well, I think Molly is a lovely name, so I don't mind one bit!

>>266076

It was pretty empty in there anyway. Welcome, Molly!

>>266426

>>266426
>>266427
That's not creepypasta, that's just creepy. D:

>>266614
Well, some of that stuff does actually look like noodles... so it's perhaps a literally creepy pasta.

Up
by Josef K.

Do you know what a Cordyceps is? I didn’t either until 20 minutes ago. It’s a family of thousands of different types of fungus, grows all around the word in various rainforests and jungles. The awful thing about them is they’re parasitic, they grow on other animals. An ant happens to run into some spores, and then it starts to colonize his insides, starting with his brain. At some point, the ant starts to act visibly ill; standing in place and shivering, or walking in circles. If a fellow colony member sees him in this condition, he will be dragged to the border of the colony and exiled.

Then, when it’s almost over, the ant weakly climbs as high as he can up the vines, and locks his body on tight. Finally, he dies, and the fungus emerges from the back of his head, bursting forth like a long and foul fruit. After a short time, the little stalk spews forth its own spores, leaving the mummified and broken ant clinging to the stalk, his eye cavities filled with drying fungus.

I mention this because last night, when I was up on the roof of my apartment complex, I found my brother’s body. He’s been back from 18 months on duty in the Philippines for less than three days. This was the first I’d seen him. My parents called me up the day before yesterday to tell me that he was on his way up. They told me he’d stayed in his room since he got home, and then suddenly got up and announced he was on his way to see me. They thought he was drunk, I’d I thought he’d never made it.

He must have come straight up to the roof and died, by the smell of it. I was just finishing a cigarette, all torn up with anxiety and head throbbing, and when the acrid smoke vanished I caught a whiff of rot on the hot wind. It took me just a few minutes before I’d found him; face down behind the vents and fans. A slimy gray column rose up obscenely from the base of his skull, and a frozen waterfall of roots and tendrils was dangling from his eye sockets and mouth. At the top of stalk was small arrangement of feathery wisps, a white powder drifting idly from it tips.

The spores must have drifting over the north side of the building all day. My side of the building. I came down to my apartment to try to call up the police, and my headache was rising to a feverish throb. I got through the door, and the moment I reached for the phone, pain flared in my head, so bad I almost passed out. I’ve since tried three times and I can never get my hand up on it.

The same thing happens when I try to get up and leave the room; I feel spines of ice tunneling up into my skull and my limbs lock up and shudder.

The ants, in their last moments crawl as high up the vines as he can climb. This is so the spore will spread over more of the colony below. In the end, the parasite controls the ant with an almost intelligent drive. God help me.

The pain is almost blinding now, and a new thought has been rising up rhythmically in my head, like a record skipping. Up. Up. Up. It’s joined by an image of my office tower. It’s taller than my apartment, the tallest place I can think off and although the bulge on the back of my neck is the size of a peach, the skin stretched shiny, and I’m dizzy and my eyes are cloudy, I think I can make it there. Up.

No. I’m sick. I need help.

The building pulses again in my mind. The cold wind. The roof and the sky. These images and concepts dull the pain momentarily as they pass through my mind. I think I can get there. Up. Up.

If you live in downtown Chicago, I would get the fuck out.

>>266752
this is my favorite because holy shit cordyceps is real and it grows in places i've actually been to

just another reason for me to lie awake paranoid at night

>>266426>>266427
idk why these make me laugh

maybe it's the pterodactyl in the stocks all stressed out, or the diners who simply cannot handle such long strands of spaghetti and are slurping it all around oh dear, or the poor fellows who havent been served yet and are all tapping their hands on the table and looking up and around like damn wheres my intestine-pasta

im not drunkposting just like, no sleep, two hours, and ten of those past 48 i've been in class, how am i still functioning even

>>266900
The key is to keep reading about it.
Eventually the concept will become overused and boring, and you'll stop caring.

Here's an original I just wrote up. Feedback is appreciated.

--------------------------------------------

It’s been two days since you first noticed it. At the start it was just a human-shaped flicker out of the corner of your eye, but every time you turned to look, it was gone. The strange thing is that it would only ever appear in some kind of clear glass; your bedroom window, the glass on your cabinet your mom gave you, the sliding doors at the grocery store. You haven’t been able to get a good look at who the figure is, but it seems to get clearer every time.

Finally last night, you got a good look at it. Her. Why her? You hadn’t thought about her in years. She just looks through the glass with her hands around her eyes. It’s like she’s looking for something. For you.

The next day, her image is clearer still. You now notice that she’s holding something in her right hand. It’s small and round, but you can’t quite make it out. You don’t want to look. You drive to work. She isn’t in any of your car windows, but you don’t look at any of the nearby stores because you’re afraid one of the people inside is really her. At work, she isn’t in your computer monitor, thank god. But she is in the photo of Rodney and Sarah you keep on your desk. You flip it down. Now she’s in your framed letter of recommendation from Prof. Gilson. You throw it in the drawer. Now she’s in the window behind your desk, standing in space four flights above the busy street.

You can’t go on like this. You tell your boss you’re not feeling well, but you don’t look him in the eye because she might be in his glasses. You drive home in a cold sweat. She’s in your living room window. She’s in your family photo. You run to the bathroom. Your stomach feels like it’s turned inside out. You forget about the fish tank you keep in there, and you almost look right at her. She’s as clear as if she were really behind the glass. And now you see what she’s holding. It’s the rock.

The same rock that sat in the garden outside her house for years. The same rock you picked up that night you were angry and half-drunk. The same rock you threw into the dark room with the arm that got you on Little League team. The same rock you carefully picked up even though it was coated with red. The same rock you ran holding for almost two miles before you threw it into the pond on the golf course.

You curl into a ball behind the shower curtain. What does she want? Is she even real? You convince yourself that she isn’t. This has to be some kind of trick your mind is playing on you. Some sort of buildup of guilt over the years. But what do you do about it?

Then you realize that, during all the time she’s looked through the glass at you, you’ve never made eye contact. That has to be it. You need to face her. You go downstairs to the living room. She’s in the cabinet. You stand in front of it and look straight at her eyes. She looks right, then left. Then her gaze meets yours. Her face is completely blank.

She pulls back her right arm. SLAM! The rock hits the glass. You fall backwards, gasping for breath. SLAM! This can’t be happening. You try to tell yourself you’re imagining the noise, but you hear it all around you. SLAM! The windows shake with every blow. You try babbling some sort of apology or excuse, but you can’t form the words. She pulls back her arm. Her eyes have a look you’ve never seen before. They’re entirely without anger or sadness or joy. They’re empty.

SLAM!

For an instant you see the windows shatter inward. All of them.

>>267078
Dude, moar!

>>267078
hey this is

good

not really capable of more feedback but i swear my judgement isnt all impaired right now

I know this isn't exactly creepypasta and there's already a dream thread but I just had one I thought would be more fitting here. Could make a good prompt, I guess.

I found myself in a sparsely furnished room with with just two metal beds. The other one was occupied with this hulking mass of muscle and sinew, like some sort of large and deformed person without skin. I wasn't afraid though because in that way you know things in dreams, this was my close friend or maybe even biological sibling and they would not hurt me. I was incredibly repulsed by being in the room, all covered and reeking of rust and rot, and made a move to leave. The thing looked at me balefully and warned me not to go wearily. I went anyway.

After walking some ways down the hall I came upon a guard. He asked me to stay. He couldn't force me because that would anger the thing just as much as my absence and when it was angry, it was vicious. It was then I realized thumping and screams and a loud primal cry from the room. The guard informs me that they keep people there as a damper, a bid for time if the thing ever went on a rampage. For now, it was relatively calm, as the mood of a naturally bloodthirsty creature goes, but the longer I was away the deeper it would spiral into madness.

Despairing, I went back to the room now half splashed in blood and gore with limbs and bits of people scattered on the floor like toys and looked at my friend looking utterly defeated and disgusted with himself. But there was nothing either of us could do.

And now I really wish Body Worlds were in Vancouver again cause that is the coolest exhibit.

>>267078
This is quite good!