Monday, September 14, 2020

My Halloween VR Experience

So this happened a couple of years ago when I was 18. I had just finished high school and was only working part time so I had tons of free time, and most of it was spent with my girlfriend. When Halloween came we made plans to attend a friends party but that fell apart in a big way (long story) and so we decided to have some fun and seek out some haunted houses. We live in one of the biggest cities in the Midwest so there was a lot to choose from.

Most of the places we visited were pretty cheesy. Some guy in a bedsheet jumping out and yelling “Boo!” the occasional plastic spider, you know the stuff. But then we came to one that was really something else.

It was a fairly small booth set up down a busy pedestrian street and was marketing some sort of tech company, Virtua something maybe? I don’t know, I had never heard of it before and I didn’t really bother trying to remember it. Besides, it wasn’t the company that was supposed to draw your attention, it was the sign, which read “Experience Pure Horror in VR.”

Now I always thought VR was cool, but being a broke teenager I never actually had the chance to use it, so I was pretty excited. My gf felt differently, normally she was a huge horror junkie but this time she seemed spooked. I asked her what was up and she said that it just felt “off” to her. I shrugged my shoulders, told her to wait for me to come back and I stepped into the booth.

Inside the booth an, admittedly quite attractive, lady directed me to a chair and placed a VR headset on me. She asked me if I was ready and when I said yes the screen turned on and I immediately found myself in the most immersive virtual world I had ever been in. The graphics were amazing, not quite photorealistic, but the total immersion of VR made that irrelevant, I felt like I was really in that world.

Within the simulation I was strapped to a railcar. There was no real way to move, but I could rotate my head and look around me. As the railcar started I was brought through an amusement park-esque haunted house experience. At first it was really tame, and thus kinda lame. Lots of ghosts and vampires and other basic stuff, though the sheer immersion did make it a bit more interesting then a regular haunted house.

Now, the whole experience was mostly like that, just generic Halloween monsters and jump scares, but what really sold the experience was the narration. The narrator had a soft but confident voice, it really reminded of a college professor. In fact, what he was talking about was kind of like a lecture too, as he kept going on and on about the inevitably of death, man’s irrelevance to nature and how God didn’t exist.

As the ride went on and the voice kept talking in my ear I found myself getting more and more scared. Not at any one thing but just the way that the narrator would distract me just enough for the monsters to take me by surprise. And then, when I was used to the monsters, the narrator would come back into focus and remind me of the emptiness of existence.

As the narration went on things started to get more personal. He started to shift focus away from God and nihilism and onto my family and my loved ones. He started asking me if I loved my girlfriend more for her personality or for her body. He asked me if I thought my parents were happy that I was born. As he was saying these things the monsters jumping out started to change. Instead of zombies and vampires it was my father covered in blood, my mom with her wrists slit, my girlfriend with half her face blown off.

At one point the monster that jumped out was me, at the age of 14. He was holding a gun and the narrator asked me if I was truly happy that I hadn’t killed myself. I don’t even know how he could’ve known about that.

Eventually the ride came to an end. The railcar stopped and a hooded man appeared. He spoke to me and I realized he was the narrator. He said that though my journey was at an end, he was going to leave me with something that would make me remember it for the rest of my life. Then he pulled out a knife and ran it across my forehead.

The screen went black and the headset was lifted off me by the attractive assistant. I thanked her and walked outside to meet my girlfriend. I told her all about the experience and how immersive it was and what she had to say once I was done will stick with me forever. She pointed at my forehead and said: “how did you get that cut?”

Saturday, September 5, 2020

I'm Studying to be an Archeologist, But This Old Forum Post is Making me Reconsider

Hello everyone, I think I have a mystery here that I was wondering if you could help me with. There’s this anthropology forum I frequent (I’m a grad student) and one day while I was looking through some old posts I found this series of posts from this one account, Arkygirl286. If you know anything about this cave or even know the girl let me know:


2017-02-28 Arkygirl286 wrote:

Hey guys, I’m posting here cause I need your help finding out some stuff related to a professor of mine. His name is Steve Hartford and I think its safe to say that he’s everyone’s favourite professor. He teaches Anthropology here in Idaho and has always poured his heart and soul into it. I’ve taken three classes with him and each one has been a blast. However, things have been strange with him lately and I need some help figuring out what’s up.

Basically, the semester started and everything seemed normal. Steve’s class didn’t have any pre-reqs so there were a lot of freshman. Normally I find freshman to be a little disruptive, just because they don’t really “get” how to act in a college class yet, you know? But this batch was actually really cool, and you could tell that they were all really into the subject matter and super curious.

So anyway, Steve was up lecturing one day and he was talking about early examples of art in the Americas. He mentioned that talking about stuff like this always reminded him of his research back in grad school. After he said that one of the freshman raised her hand and innocently asked what exactly his old research was about. That was when things got weird. Normally Steve always answers questions, he’s not shy, and he’s never been afraid to discuss his other research, but this time he just got real quiet, and you could feel the mood of the room suddenly drop. Kind of quietly he murmured, “That… that would take too much time to explain…” Then he went back to lecturing, however, it was pretty clear that his heart wasn’t in it after the question. When class ended, instead of staying and talking to students like normal, he instead quickly packed up his stuff and rushed out as fast as he could, despite the limp he has.

We didn’t have class with him the next day, but the day after he came in looking different from normal. He seemed less energetic and more reserved, and the limp that he always had seemed even worse. He cleared his throat to start the class but instead of hopping into lecture like normal, he said he was going to do something different. He explained that he was thinking about the question from the other day and realized that it was unfair of him to skip over it, and, given the nature of the topic we were learning about, it actually made a lot of sense to go over his old research.

He explained that him and his phd advisor did extensive research on a place called Blackcom cave in Utah. He said that they were interested in it due to the cave paintings inside, which were well known among local Native American tribes, but had never been properly researched. After going over the backstory of the site, Steve then showed us a bunch of the paintings they found. Most of them were pretty basic, people, hands, buffalo, all the things you would expect. Then he started talking about one he didn’t have a picture of, apparently none of the photos he took of it developed. He drew it up on the board for us all to look at and then stood back and stared at it himself.

Suddenly he went completely silent and so did the class. The drawing was of some sort of figure, with a black head and long appendages, a black sun was in the sky, and there were weird shapes beneath it. Steve just stared at the drawing for five entire minutes before he collapsed onto the ground. The whole class panicked but eventually one of the nurses from the college medical center was called and she came and helped him out of the classroom.

From what I’ve heard since Steve is alright, but due to his health he has elected to take the rest of the semester off and we’ll be getting a new prof soon. However, this is all freaking me out a bit, I need to know more. Have any of you guys heard of Blackcom cave? Or about any weird cave paintings? Maybe with some help I can figure out what’s going on with my professor.

Update: I showed a classmate of mine this post and he sent me the drawing he did of the painting in his notes (here)


2017-03-03 Arkygirl286 wrote:

Hey guys, thanks for all your help the past few days, one of you messaged me this link to a blogpost about the cave, it was really interesting to read. If any of you guys have anything else please, please, send it my way.


She included a link to an old blog, here’s the text from it


Aug. 15, 2009 Sorry about the lack of updates, I know I said I’d tell all of you about my latest spelunking adventure but, man, it was wild. Now that I have my thoughts settled let’s get into it!

The place I went to was called Thompson cave, its on Indian land in Utah, not far from SLC so it wasn’t too bad of a drive. There’s a little hamlet right by the cave, close enough you can see some of the houses when you park there. I say park, but its more like you pull of the road onto the grassy clearing. When I got out of my car, I noticed the sign in front of the cave said Blackcom cave, maybe that’s a different name for it? Idk, anyway I was just getting ready to enter the cave when I noticed something weird. I looked back at the houses in the hamlet and it almost seemed like someone from there was watching me, intensely. I shrugged it off and walked into the cave.

Pretty much from the moment I walked in I needed my flashlight on. It was crazy how dark it was. Fortunately, it was a very straight path so I never felt like I was at risk of getting lost. I was pretty deep in the cave when I noticed something cool, there were cave paintings on the walls! I looked at them and saw some buffalo and a couple handprints. I walked a bit further but saw that part of the cave collapsed. I went to turn around and nearly tripped over a rock.

I picked it up and shined my flashlight on it. It was all black and shiny. I went to put it in my pocket when suddenly it felt like my hand was burning. Like really burning. I went to put the rock down but my hand didn’t want to move, and neither did the rest of my body. It felt like my hand was melting and yet I was stuck there unable to move.

Suddenly a voice called out, “Are you okay?” I looked up and saw an Indian man who grabbed me by the arm. As soon as he grabbed me the rock fell out of my hand and I was able to move. He helped me out to the caves entrance and then looked me over. He gestured at my hand and I looked down to see a thin, bleeding, cut.

“Obsidian’s sharp,” he told me, “You have to be careful when you pick it up,”

“That’s what happened,” I said, then I explained to him that I picked up the rock and must have been so surprised that I cut myself that my imagination ran wild and it felt like I couldn’t move. The Indian man just looked really uncomfortable and told me that I shouldn’t come around to this cave again, that it was sacred land not to be touched.

I apologized for trespassing and thanked the man for his help. I went home that night and tried to wrap my head around what happened. I guess the thing that’s been really bothering me, and the reason why I haven’t posted about it yet is that, despite the fact that I’m not a hemophiliac or anything, it took three days for that cut to stop bleeding.


2017-03-05 Arkygirl286 wrote: Great news guys! After I posted that blog post someone was able to message me a journal article dealing with the cave. It looks like it was written by my prof’s advisor! It’s a great read so I don’t know if it breaks any of the rules but here’s a link to it:


So, this article is pretty long and kinda dry, as you might expect, so rather then post all of it I cut it down to the most important parts.


Lost Indigenous Art and Curse Mythology, Examining the Mystery of Thompson/Blackcom Cave

Dr. Stanley Anderson

Many Native American societies have been lost to the sands of time. Most vanish without much of a trace, save for mentions in the local folklore of nearby tribes. A curious exception to this rule is the Malakitic tribe in what is now Utah. Seemingly a once thriving society they were steadily dwindled by old world disease until only a few remaining members were left to greet Indigenous tribes fleeing American expansion in the 19th century. From oral stories from these tribes we can gather that the Malakitic were extremely isolationist and refused to interact with the other tribes, leading to a death by extinction as opposed to assimilation. We also know that their society largely revolved around a cave through which all their religious practices were associated with.

…Named Thompson cave by Mormon settlers locals in the surrounding area have always referred to it as Blackcom cave. The name derives from the term comme the one lasting legacy of the Malakitic language. The term refers to the obsidian blades that litter the cave. Seemingly these blades served a religious function for the tribe.

…Local contemporary native tribes refuse to go near the cave, simultaneously describing the land as “sacred’ and “cursed” in the same breath, the seeming contradiction unable to be resolved giving the tribes are extremely closed off about the subject.

…The first white explorers of the cave noted numerous detailed cave paintings. Many of these paintings were standard fare, though it was noted that they seemed to get more detailed the deeper one went into the cave. However, many of these same explorers curiously stated that they had no desire to explore the caves depths and cautioned others from exploring the caves at all.

…Me and one of my graduate students set out to fully map out the cave paintings within. While the local Indigenous groups told us not to enter, they ultimately agreed to give us permission. Once inside we found paintings of various typical things, such as buffalo and hand prints. As the old reports stated the deeper we got into the cave the more realistic the images became, showing an exceptional artistry for the time period. The deeper we got into the cave the more I felt a sense of unease, perhaps I was simply unnerved by the explorers’ accounts. My grad student, Steve, was willing to go deeper in then me.

…Our expedition was cut short when the cave began to collapse. Steve rushed out but one of his legs was caught and broken in the rubble.

…He would only describe it to me after we had left Utah but what he told me was remarkable. The image seemed to depict some sort of figure, perhaps a Malakitic god standing beneath a black sun, while figures were positioned below him. Without further knowledge of Malakitic iconography it is hard to determine what the figures were, I interpreted them to be worshippers prostrating whereas Steve seems to be convinced that they are, in fact, corpses.


2017-03-14 Arkygirl286 wrote:

Hey guys, sorry for the gap between posts. As some of you guys suggested after the last post, I brought all the information together and emailed my professor. It took him a long time to reply but when he did he asked for us to meet up to discuss my findings.

When I saw him I almost gasped as he looked really unwell, like he hadn’t ate or slept in days. He commended me on my research and said that I was probably the best student he ever had, which I have to admit, was pretty flattering. He also told me that ever since the lecture he gave he couldn’t stop thinking about that cave painting. Deep down he knew that he had to see it again, that he had to go back to that cave again. When I told him that I wanted to see it too he was taken aback but quickly became enthusiastic. There’s a long weekend coming up and he told me that by then he should be in better health and that the two of us could go together.

Now I know some of you might think its weird, but I’m actually really excited right now. I’ve been fascinated with this cave and what might be inside it for nearly a month, its all I’ve been thinking about. And getting to see it with my favourite prof? Oh man, this is gonna be so cool!

So, I guess this is it for the moment, as soon as I get back from the trip I’ll let you guys know how it went, wish me luck!

Arkygirl286

Last online: 2017-03-14

Whenever People Share Their Paranormal Experiences I Always Win

So this happened back when I was in high school. I had just left my boyfriend’s house and was going to walk home. It wasn’t too far away and it was only 1 in the afternoon. Despite being a very petite 16 year old girl I didn’t see any reason to be on guard. Though I should have been.

As I was walking down the street I started to hear footsteps behind me. Kinda slow and shuffling. I glanced behind me and saw a middle-aged man going the same direction as me. He looked gruff, with lots of stubble on his face, and he was wearing a stained white shirt, black pants, and heavy work boots. At first I didn’t think too much of it, it was probably just a guy heading back to work from his lunch. This wasn’t too far from the industrial part of town after all. However, as I rounded a couple of corners, I looked back again to see that he was still there. That was when I started to get a little freaked. My house was getting close but I figured it’d be better to just keep walking so that this guy didn’t know where I lived.

As I got to the intersection past my house, I bumped into someone. As I looked up, I gasped as I realized it was the same person who was following me. Not similar, the same person, right down to the stains on his shirt. He didn’t grab me or anything, he just glared, in that “why can’t kids look where they’re going?” kind of way. I awkwardly apologized and quickly crossed the street. I glanced behind me and the man was still standing, perfectly still, staring right at me, while, at the same time, the same man was still following me a bit further back.

I started walking faster. At the next intersection was the same man again, this time on both sides of the intersection, both glaring at me, while the man from earlier kept following me. I kept moving down the street and saw more and more of this same man all around me. Standing on the sidewalk, glaring at me from windows, stepping out of houses and leaning on balconies. Everywhere I looked I saw this man, all the while he continued to trail me from behind. Each time I looked at a new one of him he seemed angrier and angrier.

I started to run, but as I ran, I started to hear more footsteps. I looked behind me and screamed. All of them were following me now. I was sprinting as fast as I could, yet this army of doppelgangers was matching my speed walking.

I stopped at a fork in the street. The doppelgangers were behind me, they were to my left, and they were to my right. I had nowhere to go. I looked at the building I was in front of, it was the old Catholic church. I rushed to the doors but they were locked. I cursed and looked around; they were getting dangerously close. My eyes frantically darted around looking for an escape when I noticed a small trail to the side of the church. That was my only option.

I booked it down the path only to come to a statue of the Virgin Mary and heavy forest surrounding every other direction. I had ran to the church’s shrine and now I was stuck at a dead end. I turned to face my stalkers and watched as they steadily walked towards me.

However, as soon as they got to the gates of the shrine they disappeared. One by one they would enter the shrine only to vanish in a puff of smoke. I stood there in shock as the sea of doppelgangers vanished. Until finally, the last one, the first one, made his slow shuffling march into oblivion. I stood there for a while, shocked at what had happened and then ran home as fast as I could.

It’s been 20 years since that happened and now I’m married with two kids. I’ve never had anything like that happen to me since, but now I always make sure my family goes to church every Sunday.

Never Donate Your Kidney

So, this all happened about five years ago. I had just turned 21 and my life was admittedly a mess. The night of my birthday I went out and got absolutely hammered, and my wasted ass decided it would be a great idea to cheat on my gf with her best friend. Once word of what I did went back to her she dumped me and kicked me out of our apartment. On top of that she took most of our friends with her. So, there I was, alone for the first time since junior high, living out of my car, and feeling like a piece of shit. Probably because I was a piece of shit. Which is maybe why I noticed the sign on that truck.

It was printed on the back window and I must have seen it a million times as I came into work but this was the first time I really looked at it. It read: Help Need Kidney, Type O; and then some contact info. Now I’m not all that spiritual or anything but I realized as I read that sign that I had built up some seriously bad karma and given that I have type O blood, maybe now was the time to do something good for once.

So, I gave the phone number a call, worst case scenario I’d change my mind and just pretend like my doctor told me I couldn’t do it or something. On the other end was a very bubbly woman who seemed overjoyed that I had phoned. She explained that her husband desperately needed a transplant and that they had been trying to find a donor for months. Them and their two kids had been praying for someone like me to call. She even said that they had set aside $2000 for whoever was able to donate. All this made me feel great, I was helping out a family and I was going to make some good money too, hopefully enough to move out of my car and put an actual roof over my head. We agreed to meet up at their house and get to know each other, she explained that the actual donation process is pretty long and obviously, giving up a kidney is a big commitment, so they wanted to make sure I was serious.

I put the address in my phone and that weekend I drove out to their place. They wanted us to meet up at seven and because it was late October that meant that it was getting pretty dark by the time I set out. Following my phones directions, I soon left the city and found myself down a series of winding country roads. By the time I reached their address it was pitch black out. I stepped out of my car and walked to the direction of their home, only to find an empty lot. I looked around, there wasn’t a house in miles. Maybe they gave me the wrong address? As I walked back to my car, I started to have an uneasy feeling, thinking that maybe this whole thing was more then I could handle. As I unlocked my car and stepped inside I decided that when I got back into the city I would give that bubbly woman a call and tell her I couldn’t go through with it. I sat down in the driver’s seat and adjusted my rearview mirror, only to catch the reflection of someone in my backseat. That’s the last thing I remember.

I woke up in a grimy motel bathroom, my body in absolute agony. My lower back radiated pain and I had a splitting headache. I checked myself in the cracked mirror, there was a large stitched up incision right where my kidney had been. I slowly walked into the motel room proper and found my clothes folded up with my car keys and envelope on top. I opened the envelope to find 2 grand in $100 bills and a note that simply read “Thanks, for everything”. Once I composed myself, I went out to my car and drove as far away from that city as I could.

Now I know that the first response to being abducted and getting your kidney stolen would be to go to the hospital or call the police but I was just so spooked and frankly embarrassed by the whole affair that I just did my best to pretend it never happened. Besides, they did pay me. Eventually I healed up and outside of the scar on my back I was more then happy to believe it was all a bad dream. At least until a couple days ago. You see, I’ve been starting to go bald and the other day I decided it was finally time to just shave it all off. When I looked in the mirror after all my hair was gone, I noticed something. A second scar across the entirety of my scalp. I stared at it for what seemed like an hour, a terrifying question eating at my very soul: what else did they take?

The Girl Of My Dreams Started Living With Me And Now I Don't Know What To Do [Part 3]

Hey guys, this will be my final update on the whole doppelganger gf situation. The short story is that me and her are good, everything is going well, and I was just overreacting. She loves me, and I love her.

Now for the longer story, when I last updated you guys it was after I found out that the “real” Sarah had gone missing in Mexico despite the fact that Sarah was sleeping beside me. For the next few days, I was in a slump, I didn’t know what to do and I wasn’t sure how to proceed with Sarah. She picked up on that and asked me if I was alright but I just kept saying that I was feeling a little under the weather and needed a bit of space until I recovered. Fortunately, she bought that and I had some time to figure out my next move.

I posted my update on Reddit while she was at work and that night when she fell asleep, I scrolled through the replies and one caught my eye. It said that I should check out her family, and if they thought it was Sarah then I would know for sure who was real and who was fake. I thought that was a great idea and kept it in my mind as I fell asleep.

The next day was pretty normal until supper, at which point things started to feel even more tense then they had been. We ate in silence until Sarah suddenly took a deep breath and looked up at me:

“Corey, I think we really need to talk,”

“What’s wrong?”

“Everything Corey, we’ve barely talked the last little bit, I know you haven’t been feeling well but I’m really starting to think that you just don’t want to be with me. You know you can tell me if you’re not feeling this, it’ll hurt but you can tell me.” Her voice cracked a little while she said this and it made my heart sink,

“Sarah, no, it’s not like that, I want to be with you, its all I’ve wanted for a long time,”

“Then why are you acting like this? Why are you so distant?”

“Look…” I sighed, “obviously I haven’t been feeling well, and that’s part of it. This has all happened so quickly too, I guess its just caught me off guard. But trust me, I do want this,”

“You do?”

“Yes.”

“Then SHOW me,” her voice cracked again, “I need to know for sure that this is what you want,”

Suddenly things clicked in my head, “Here… I’m starting to feel a little better, how about this weekend we go out and you can introduce me to your parents,”

“You want to meet my parents?” She perked up a bit,

“Yeah, I mean they might very well be my in-laws,” I smiled,

Sarah walked up and hugged me, squeezing me tightly, “Thank you Corey, I’m sorry I was doubting you,”

“I’m sorry too,”

“You know…” she smirked a little, “isn’t it a little weird to meet my parents before we’ve even had sex?”

I gulped a little, “I’m just a traditional guy I guess,”

Sarah frowned a bit and sat back down to finish her meal. However, after dinner she got more excited and set things up with her parents. That night I had trouble sleeping, she didn’t seem to be defensive about her family, in fact she seemed enthusiastic. If she wasn’t the real Sarah then wouldn’t she be scared of me meeting her folks and the ruse unravelling?

Soon the day came and the two of us drove together out of the city and out onto her parent’s farm. The drive was about an hour long and, despite my anxiety, really felt normal. Me and her laughed and joked around like we always used to, back before any of this happened. At one point, when the conversation lulled a bit, she looked at me with a soft smile and said “I can’t wait for you to meet my parents…” and despite being on guard I have to admit that my heart melted.

The two of us walked up to her parent’s place and they welcomed us both with open arms. That night we all sat around and got to know each other, had a delicious dinner, and shared some drinks. Her parents mentioned that Sarah had talked about me lots before, and that they were happy she had moved on from her ex-fiancĂ©, who they said they didn’t like at all. The thing that struck me about the visit was how normal it was, there was no sign anything was up, and it completely allayed my fears about Sarah.

While we drove home that night Sarah was extremely happy and affectionate. She rubbed my thigh while we made our way down the highway and flashed her little grin again:

“So… now that you’ve met my parents, what do you want to do when we get home?”

I looked over at her. She looked amazing in her outfit and after all that I had seen with her work and her family I was convinced that this was the Sarah I had been pining over for all these years.

“Something we should’ve done a long time ago,”

As we got back into our house, she was all over me, kissing me passionately. We quickly made it to our room and she started taking off her clothes and urged me to do the same. She crawled into the bed and beckoned me to join her. As I went to embrace her, I noticed that her phone was sitting on the nightstand and that it had lit up. There was a text message from her father that read something like “we were so sure we had lost you,” but by that point I was barely paying attention.

After the deed was done, I looked over at Sarah and realized just how much I loved her. All shred of doubt and worry was gone, replaced with a deep affection that permeated my entire being. It wasn’t that she was mine, but I was hers. At that moment I knew that I was going to spend the rest of my life with her, giving her everything she desired. I laid back down on the bed and glanced back to the nightstand. Sarah’s phone had lit up again, this time for a news alert, apparently in Cancun they had just discovered a body, mutilated and disfigured beyond any recognition.

The Girl Of My Dreams Started Living With Me And Now I Don't Know What To Do [Part 2]

Hey guys, I know its been a few days but I just want to update you on everything that has happened since my last post. The rest of the night after I posted was pretty crazy and I’m still trying to process everything that happened. While “Sarah” was gone I was reading over your comments and two things stuck out to me, that you guys didn’t think “Sarah” was being malevolent, and that I should check out where she worked. I also checked my phone a couple times and there was 100% a post by Sarah, from Cancun, made that day.

So, the first thing I did was phone her work. She works as a hairdresser so that made it easy. When one of the stylists picked up the phone I pretended to want to book an appointment with Sarah, then I said “oh that’s right, she said she was going to be on vacation, is there anyone else I could get a haircut from?”

The stylist paused for a second and then said, “You must be mistaken sir, Sarah isn’t on vacation, in fact she’s right here, I’ll get her-“ I immediately hung up the phone and slumped into my couch. “Sarah” was at work, but Sarah was also 100% in Mexico, was this a prank? Did she have a twin I didn’t know about? I was pretty lost the rest of the day.

That night “Sarah” came home and offered to make me dinner. As we sat down to eat, she told me all about how some creep phoned her work thinking she was on vacation and then just hung up. I forced a light laugh and she looked at me concerned and asked if I was feeling alright. I told her I was fine and that I was just feeling a little off that day. She walked up to me and kissed me on the cheek, then she moved to my ear and whispered in a sultry voice: “I know a way to make you feel better”. I turned to face her and saw her cheeky grin, I sighed, “I don’t know, I’m really not in the mood for that right now”. She looked at me really annoyed, “Look Corey, I’m throwing myself at you here, if you don’t want to be with me just tell me,”

“Its not like that…”

“Well then what is it?”

I sighed and pulled out my phone, “Can you explain this to me?” I showed her the picture. She stared at her phone for a bit, seemingly in shock. Finally, she set it down and looked back at me worried,

“I don’t know what that is,”

“What do you mean?”

“Look…” she pulled out her phone and showed me her account, she had full access. She brought up the picture and deleted it and then put her arms around me. Not in a sensual way but in a I’m-scared-shitless way. We held each other for a bit before moving into the living room and decompressing.

“I’m sorry I got mad at you,” she said softly,

“I’m sorry I doubted you,” I replied. We sat there for a bit before she got up and made her way to the door, “I’m going to go for a walk Corey, before it gets too dark, I’ll be back in a bit”. As she stepped outside, I felt my whole body shudder. What the hell was going on? I looked at where Sarah was just sitting, it had to be her, right? But what was with that picture? Was this some weird loyalty test? But she seemed really freaked out too…

I lied down on the couch and thought about it for a bit. Like you guys said she wasn’t acting malevolent and she seemed like Sarah, like MY Sarah. Maybe that was it, I wanted her so bad that when she literally showed up at my doorstep I couldn’t handle it. I got up and paced around the house a bit. That had to be it, the photo had to be some weird glitch or a dumb hacker or something and I shouldn’t worry about it. I had the girl of my dreams, she’s clearly super into me too. I should just relax and accept that I’m the luckiest guy in the world.

She came home about an hour later and I immediately went and apologized to her again. I told her that I was thinking and I realized that I was being paranoid. I said that I wasn’t quite ready for things to be moving as fast as they were but I wanted to be with her and I wanted to make sure that it was a lasting relationship because there was no one else I wanted to be with. She looked at me with a big smile and started to sob a bit. She said she was so worried that I was turning her down and that she wanted to be with me too. After that we shared a soft, passionate kiss, and got ready for bed.

We opted to sleep in the same bed again but nothing happened. Even though we were cuddling and in our underwear, she respected my boundaries and didn’t try to initiate anything. We watched some random shows and after a little while she fell asleep. Once I knew it was okay, I carefully shimmied onto my back and stared at the ceiling. Here I was, with Sarah beside me, just like I had always dreamt. I stayed like that for a bit, just lost in my thoughts. Suddenly a sound snapped me back to reality. I looked around and then realized the TV was still on, it had switched over to the nighttime news. I watched it absentmindedly for a bit until a story came on that has left me beside myself for the last couple days. While Sarah slept beside me the newsanchor said:

“For our next story: Local woman gone missing during dream Mexican vacation.”

What is going on?

The Girl Of My Dreams Started Living With Me And Now I Don't Know What To Do [Part 1]

Hey guys, I’m here looking for advice, something crazy has happened to me and I don’t know what to do. You see, ever since I was in high school I have been obsessed with this girl. Her name is Sarah and me and her have been friends for years. I think I’ve always known that me and her were soulmates and that if I just waited it out me and her would get together, even though she’s never seemed that interested. I know its pretty creepy and weird to be hung up on a girl like that so you don’t need to lecture me in the comments but its true, me and her just always felt right… you know? A few months ago, she and her long-time bf got engaged and I kinda tried to force myself to get over her but after a while I realized it wasn’t working and went back to being a hopeless romantic.

Now the thing that caused me to post here started a couple days ago. It was about 2 in the morning and I was wide awake (I really struggle with insomnia) so I was sitting there on my computer when I suddenly heard the doorbell ring. I suppose its not a good idea to answer the door at 2 am but I decided to check anyway and as I turned on the porch light I was shocked to see Sarah standing outside of my house.

I opened the door and let her in and, man, did she look stunning. She was wearing a tight black dress and her hair and makeup was all done up like she had done it just for me. Between her looks and the situation, I didn’t really say anything for a moment until I awkwardly stammered out “…why?” She laughed and apologized for not texting me. She explained that her and her fiancĂ© had had a huge fight and had broke up and now she was stuck in the city with nowhere to stay so she was hoping she could crash at my place. I agreed that would be for the best and we both sat down and talked for a bit. I let myself be a shoulder for her to cry on and I apologized for not seeing how unhappy she was with him. She told me it wasn’t my fault that she kept things so hidden and after a bit I went to my room and she fell asleep on the couch.

The next day me and her drove around the city and caught up with each others lives. Ever since she had gotten engaged me and her had drifted apart a bit so we hadn’t really talked like this in at least a couple months. While we were chatting, we just kinda went from store to store and then capped it off with a nice walk in the park before we went home.

That night we were both in my bed watching a movie. After the credits started to roll, she looked at me with a really warm smile and told me how happy she was and how amazing that day had been. I told her how good of a time I had too and she smiled even more and leaned in and kissed me. It caught me off guard but after a second I leaned in and kissed her back. Soon we started making out and I could feel her direct my hands to feel every curve of her body, but as she reached towards my belt I felt a sudden twinge of anxiety. I gently stopped her and explained that as much as I wanted it we should probably wait a bit since she had just gotten out of a serious relationship. Maybe that makes me sound like a loser but with a girl like Sarah I didn’t want to just be a rebound. For her part she looked pretty annoyed but after a moment her face settled down and her warm smile returned, “Okay Corey, you’re such a sweetheart” she said softly. Shortly after that we both fell asleep for the night.

I woke up this morning to the sound of the shower running. By the time I had gotten up and walked into the living room Sarah was standing there wearing a towel. She walked up to me and we kissed for a moment before she told me that she had to hurry and get ready for work. I explained that it was my day off so I wasn’t in a rush so I was just going to go back to bed. She kissed me again and told me to think about what almost happened last night. Eventually I dozed off while she got dressed and left.

About an hour later I woke up again and sat down on the couch, trying to process all the crazy stuff that had happened the last little bit. In just a couple days Sarah went from being the girl of my dreams to living with me and wanting a relationship. It was all so sudden but at the same time I was so happy. As I sat there in my euphoria, I realized that I had been so caught up with all this stuff that I hadn’t even bothered to check my phone for a couple days. I grabbed it from my pocket and as soon as I went online my heart sank. The very first post I saw was from Sarah:

“So happy to be starting my vacation with my fiancĂ©!!!”

Posted 2 hours ago

Cancun, Mexico

The phone fell out of my hands and I stared at the front door of my house. If the girl living with me isn’t Sarah then what the hell is going on?

You have to help me guys.

30 Years Ago I Found a Body, Now I Need Some Advice

Hey guys, I need your help interpreting something that happened to me a long time ago. It happened in the spring of 1989 when everything was starting to melt. You see, I live in the Rockies and the amount of snowfall can get pretty ridiculous over the winter. When spring comes along there is a pretty massive melt and all sorts of things can get uncovered.

As for myself, I was 18 and just wrapping up my first year of college. I honestly found the transition to post-secondary pretty stressful and so, whenever I wasn’t busy studying, I was trying to find a hobby that would help me relax. At that point in time I had taken to hiking. It was pretty cold during the winter but if you bundled up it was tolerable and you got the advantage of the trails being almost completely empty aside from you. Thus, I spent a lot of that winter hiking up and down mountain trails and taking in the beautiful scenery and razor sharp, fresh, winter air.

Spring was really nice for hiking, the weather was warming up so you didn’t have to wear as many layers or bring as much gear, but at the same time it wasn’t yet the summer rush of hikers so you still got to be alone most of the time.

This particular incident happened around the end of March or the start of April, in the early afternoon. I needed a break from studying for finals so I set out on one of my favourite trails. The weather was warmer than normal for the season so the snow was really starting to melt. There were a few spots on the trail that I had to carefully maneuver around on account of all the mud forming on the path. Despite the obstacles I managed to make it to a little clearing I liked pretty easily and took a break to eat lunch.

Once I finished, I decided that I should really get back to the books and started heading back. At one point of the trail it had become so muddy that when I tried to cross all that happened was that my snowboot got stuck. I awkwardly reached down and pulled it out and then decided that I would try going down off the side of the trail for a bit until I could get to a spot that was a bit drier.

As I walked through the trees, I noticed a person up ahead of me. Normally there wasn’t many people on the trail but the weather was warming up. Either way I waved at them to be friendly and went back to navigating my way back to the trail. Once I got back on the normal path, I noticed that the person hadn’t moved. Getting an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach I shouted out “Hey! Are you alright?”. No response. I walked down the trail a bit until I could reach the point closest to the person and then I stepped off and walked towards him. When I reached him, I gasped. It was a dead body.

Now, I understood before I started hiking that people would occasionally freeze out in the wilderness, especially if they didn’t take the right precautions, but actually seeing a body yourself is something else. His skin was unnaturally white and his eyes somehow looked like they retained the essence of life and yet were wholly dead at the same time. However, as much of a shock finding a dead body was, that wasn’t what really freaked me out. It was the fact that he looked just like me. The black hair in tight curls, the light brown eyes, the cleft chin, he looked like he could be my doppelganger.

I stared at him for awhile and then noticed that there was something beside him. I brushed away the snow to find a cat, also frozen, curled up beside the man. The cat was all black, save for a white stripe on the top of its head. After looking them over for a bit longer I took a deep breath and headed down towards the entrance of the trail to get help.

That night I heard a report on the frozen man on the news. They even mentioned the cat. However, I don’t know if they ever found out who he was. Either way, I soon put it out of my mind and after about a week I was back on the trail like nothing happened.

So, the reason I’m bringing it up now is because of something that happened last night. My son came home with something wrapped in his coat. He’s turning 20 this year and the resemblance to me is just uncanny, though I suppose that’s what happens when you have kids, right? Anyway, he walked into the living room and looked at me with the same light brown eyes I have and said, “I found this guy all alone, do you think we can keep him” and he unfolded his coat to reveal a black cat, with a white stripe on the top of its head.

My Late Father Left Me Everything

It was time to face reality. That was what I remember thinking to myself as I sat on the deck and watched the hot, late afternoon sun bake itself onto the fields. I thought that because I had been avoiding coming back here, the family farm. You see, my father passed away three weeks ago: heart attack, in the middle of the night, and even though I thought the funeral was alright, there was something about going back home that bothered me.

At first I thought it was my fear of commitment. This farm was built over a hundred years ago by my great grandfather, who passed it down to his first born son, who passed it down to his first born son, who passed it down to me. The whole drive in I glanced down at the envelope resting on my passenger seat, the one my mom had handed me at the funeral. As I drove down the familiar country roads I thought all about the friends and experiences I had at college, about all the freedom I had in the city and I knew that as soon as I opened that envelope I would have to accept that that was all over, and that it was my turn to carry on the families legacy.

However, as I sat on the deck, I started to realize that commitment wasn’t what had me scared, it was something else. See, in the city there are so many threats: burglars, gangsters, even just random crazies that you would run into from time to time and wish you didn’t. Yet despite all that, there is a certain… comfort to the city. There you know that you are never alone, there is always someone around to help you, to find you, to save you. In the country though, there you get to experience true solitude. One look at the sheer emptiness around you and you understand that if things go wrong there isn’t going to be anyone coming to your aid. And it was this thought that was making me nervous.

After sitting there for a bit my mother came out and joined me, as she sat down she noticed the envelope:

“Still haven’t opened it yet?”

“No, it just didn’t feel right” I responded. Gently she put her hand on my shoulder, “He thought it was very important that you read that”

Getting the hint I sighed and gently tore into the envelope and found a beautifully written letter. In it my father wrote about how I had grown into the man he always envisioned me to be, how happy he was to give me the farm, and finally how it was my duty to pass the farm onto the next generation. Admittedly all this made me cry and my mother gave me a long and loving hug. Once I had calmed down we went back inside and I placed the letter onto the old nightstand in my childhood room and got ready for dinner.

It was a nice meal, a little emotional without Dad, but me and my mom had a nice time catching up. It was the first time I had really been home in two years so she had lots to tell me about life here. She said that things had been pretty quiet, like you would expect of a small rural area, but recently there had been a big accident at a nearby factory and around the same time a young woman had gone missing. I recognized the woman’s name and recalled going to high school with her but really my mind was still focused on both the weight of inheriting the farm, as well as the shadows starting to form outside.

That night I struggled to go to sleep. It was the first time in a long time that I had slept in a place with no light pollution and the moonlit, starry sky was as captivating as it was insomnia-inducing. The old farmhouse didn’t help either, as it creaked and moaned and let pockets of wind flow through it you could almost hear a faint cry. It was unnerving but soon I closed my eyes and felt my body relax.

Soon I was falling, falling from high up. As my body raced down from the sky I braced myself for the landing, only to wake up somewhere dark. I looked around, feeling and smelling wet dirt all around me, as my vision started to adjust I noticed an old table. As I moved to the table I felt something stop me. I looked down and saw that I was chained by my right ankle to the wall. As I struggled to even reach the edge of the table, the only discernable object, I heard a door faintly creak open. Heavy boots stomped closer and closer, with the distinct sound of something metallic being dragged following soon after. Suddenly the noise stopped, and I could hear the sound of an old key turning a lock.

As soon as the door unlocked I woke up lying in my bed. I tried to get up to check the time but I couldn’t move. “Sleep paralysis” I sighed in my head, another thing I didn’t miss about the farm. However this time felt different. While I did my normal routine of forcing myself to move, over and over, until I started to budge, I could feel a weight shift beside me. It almost felt like someone was in the bed with me. At the same time the crying sound I heard before I fell asleep grew louder and louder. It started to sound like a woman weeping, right beside my ear. Whatever was beside me started to grow restless, and I could feel it rotate onto its side. The crying stopped. The weight disappeared. I finally gained the ability to move, and as I struggled to sit up a faint voice whispered “key… letter…” and then I woke up again.

Daylight streamed into my room and I forced myself to get out of bed. As I went to go to the bathroom I noticed a piece of paper shoved into the bedroom door. I pulled it out. It was my fathers letter. Remembering the voice in my dream I reread it to see if there was anything important, as I read it my hand grazed something on the back of the paper. I turned it around and saw a key taped onto the letter, as well as another note from my father. In it he admitted that he knew I wasn’t looking forward to taking over, but he reassured me that he had set things up for my success. Finally he concluded the note by saying:

“This farm will give you many gifts, here’s the key to them all,”

The key to the farm, I chuckled a little, “that’s cute”.

The rest of the day I spent walking around the farm, taking in all the old memories, and exploring all the old buildings. I tried the key on all the locks and yet it didn’t seem to work on any of them. Weird, maybe they were changed recently, I remember thinking to myself. Either way, they were all mine now, and as the sun started to hang lower in the sky I started to feel better about my situation. My father was a good man, if he felt I could do this and be happy then I knew I could do it.

As I walked back to the farmhouse I surveyed all the buildings on the farm, making sure that I had checked all of them. Right before I turned around I noticed one a bit far off in a field that I hadn’t checked, an old shed. Now, the thing you have to understand is that old sheds like that exist on pretty much every farm; tiny, ancient, things that have long since lost their purpose. If you drive down a country road you’ll see them everywhere, barely standing, barely noticed. However, thinking about the key, I walked closer to the shed and saw that whatever door it might’ve once had was long gone. Shrugging my shoulders I went back home.

That night was even stranger then the one before. There was no sleep paralysis or wailing voices, there was just the shed. Something about it bothered me, I figured it was because I didn’t really look too closely at it. For whatever reason I couldn’t accept that it was old and abandoned, and that night it kept re-emerging in my mind, no matter how much I tried to think of something else. I fell asleep thinking about it, I dreamt about it, and I woke up thinking about it.

That morning my mom made me breakfast. After it was all gone me and her talked a bit and I brought up the key and asked if the locks had been changed:

“No, I don’t think we’ve done anything to the locks in twenty years,”

“Weird, I checked every building…” I glanced out at the farm, “except for that old shed in the north field I guess,”

My mother looked a little uncomfortable, “I don’t think there’s anything there that would fit that key, but, if you do go check it out just be really careful, ok?” she started speaking really quietly, “there’s been a lot of weird noises coming out from there”.

That afternoon I walked around the farm again, circling around and around, always stopping at the path to the shed. Between my thoughts the past night and what my mother had said something just seemed so off about it. At the same time, it was just an empty shed, and my mother was probably right, it didn’t look structurally sound. Ultimately, I decided to head back home, but as soon as I turned around, I tripped. Except I didn’t step on anything, it almost felt like I had been pushed. When I got up, I saw that I was once again facing the shed. Touching the key in my pocket, I decided to go take a look.

he tension I was experiencing let up instantly as soon as I walked in. It was just a shed, like I thought. The interior was completely empty save for an old, rickety table. There was nothing that would need my key. Right before I was going to walk out, however, something shiny caught my eye. On the table was an old tractor decal, it probably fell off and my father just haphazardly chucked it in there. I picked it up to take a closer look and it immediately slipped out of my hand. As I went to pick it up, I noticed a round bump on the floor. I got down on my knees to take a closer look and realized that it was a keyhole.

Uneased, I pulled out the key from my pocket and put it in. It worked. Slowly I pulled and opened up a hatch that revealed a ladder. There was also a strong smell, it might be hard to explain to people outside of farming but it smelt like a dirty chicken coop. Just that strong odor of heat and waste mingling together. Holding my breath I descended down into a new room, and as I prepared myself for whatever might await I heard a faint voice:

“A… Alex?”

I swung around and let out a sudden gasp. There was a woman down here. She was chained to the wall, the only things around her was a heat lamp and a bucket of stagnant water. As I approached her, I noticed that she was extremely thin, like a talking skeleton with blonde hair.

“H… help me Alex…” she strained. How did she know my name? As she struggled to look up at me, I was hit with a realization: this was the missing girl. I stared in shock for a moment before realizing the gravity of the situation,

“Its going to be alright,” I said, not sure if that was going to be true, “I’m going to get help.” I turned around and sprinted towards the ladder. As I grabbed the first rung, I noticed that it felt strange. Looking closely, I saw a piece of paper tied around it. I opened it up. It was another note from my father:

“How do you like your gift?”

Me and My Son Invented a Time Machine, Now I'm Going to Spend the Rest of my Life Regretting It

I wrapped my arms around Alexei, my only son, as the terrible regret hit me. I could feel his matted, blood soaked, hair run between my fin...