tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85322545313968751232024-02-08T06:47:58.477-08:00The Lair of Mysterious PowersChilling Stories Written by Max PowersMax Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15993642561415350134noreply@blogger.comBlogger36125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8532254531396875123.post-77205561985145059632024-01-02T23:01:00.000-08:002024-01-02T23:01:37.774-08:00I Helped Create The Most Advanced AI On Earth, It Still Haunts Me To This Day<p>This story happened sometime ago, when I first made the jump from
academia into the private sector. I had managed to get myself a job
as an assistant for a top researcher at a company that will remain
nameless. We weren’t working on a product per se so much as just
researching potential avenues in AI and cybernetics that could lead
to products in the future. While I was more than a little nervous
about making the big jump into the corporate world I found myself
striking an immediate friendship with my boss Andrew. Beyond our
obvious passions me and him found similar hobbies and interests
beyond the sciences and the long days together soon allowed us to
bare more and more of ourselves. Honestly, it was the first time
since grade school that I had felt such a close friendship.</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Now, one of the big things we were researching was how to make an
aritifical intelligence that could grow and learn like a human. The
idea was that if we could mimic the kind of plasticity you find in
the brain of someone young and intelligent in a computerized form,
then we could create a far more powerful AI. Naturally that meant we
needed someone young and intelligent in order to observe them and
their brain. We put out ads at local college campuses offering plenty
of cash for not much work and waited for someone to show up. What we
got surpassed our wildest expectations.
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Her name was Dani, an eighteen year old freshman, and from the
moment I first spoke with her I was blown away by her intelligence.
The way she seemed to just soak up whatever information you gave her,
the way she could come up with poignant and insightful follow up
questions, not to mention the surprising breadth of knowledge she
already possessed. I think she may have been the smartest person I
had ever met to that point. Perhaps she still is.</p>
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<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It was obvious that Andrew was captivated by her too, much more so
in fact. It was undeniable that her beauty matched her intellect and
while I did my best to keep myself detached from certain thoughts,
Andrew was having a harder time. Not to say that he was behaving
inappropriately, in those initial visits he was a consummate
professional, yet laying just underneath every word he spoke was an
audible undercurrent of want.
</p>
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<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
However that made me feel it seemed not to phase Dani at all. It was
clear that me and Andrew were the first people she had met that were,
barely, on the same plane of intelligence as she was. I still look
back fondly on those first sessions and conversing with her. She
shined so brightly, and her eagerness and ability was far more
endearing and inspiring then it was frustrating, even if I couldn’t
help but feel a little inferior to her.</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Regardless, things went well at first. She would come in and we
would give her various cognitive tasks, be they learning a manual
skill, like juggling, doing some sort of puzzle or brain teaser, or
having her study a given topic and then be examined later. In all
these cases we did brain scans before, in the middle of, and at the
end of each assignment in order to model how her brain reacted and
adapted. Then we took the information we had received, interpolated
it into a continuous stream of data, and then converted it into
something that would work with our AI model. The fruits of this
effort were tremendous. The gains we made were so great, in fact,
that the company higher ups offered to pay Dani a real salary and to
extend the scope and budget of our research dramatically.</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As much as this was good for my career, it caused as much harm to
mine and Andrews friendship. With Dani around more and more I could
see him pull away from me and towards her. He never flirted, he never
crossed that boundary, but it was obvious. Our talks about gaming,
history, literature, all ebbed as his obsession flowed out into every
gesture, every greeting, the pain in every goodbye. For her part Dani
seemed as happy as ever, and more then enthusiastic to take our
research to the next step.</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Said next step was much more… invasive then the last. Andrew and I
came to the conclusion that the best way to advance our model was to
move from interpolated data to real time measurements. If we could
match each digital neuron to one of Dani’s then our model would be
significantly optimized. In order to do this we needed a sensor
connected directly to Dani’s nervous system. The technique we
devised required us to insert a wire into her arm. However nervous I
was about broaching the subject was not reflected in her enthusiasm.
Or Andrew’s, for that matter. He insisted on doing the procedure
himself, and thus, I watched from the next room over as he placed the
incision on her flawless skin. Dani smiled and watched, the local
anesthesia kept the pain away while her curiosity kept her
laser-focused. I too watched as the wire slowly penetrated her,
writhing underneath her arm like a snake slithering underneath a fine
satin sheet. Her body seemed to quiver as it went in deeper and
deeper. I watched Andrew’s breath shudder, I worried about the
steadiness of his hands but he managed to pull through. Finally he
connected the exposed piece of wire at the end to a small port.
Plugging it into a cable run to a nearby computer running our AI
model, Andrew had readied us for our next big leap.
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The improvements we saw were massive, and soon Andrew began planning
on how to extract even more data. Unfortunately this meant more wires
running through our far too eager assistant. One or two was one
thing, but I couldn’t help but be disturbed at how willing she was
to mutilate herself with more and more wires. Every day we seemed to
add another, her body being scarred with ports that when wired
started to look like long hairs, sprouting out of her every pore.
Only her bright, beaming, face was left unmarred. Andrew was
disturbing me too, I was hoping that at least with her looks being
carved away Andrew’s affections would peter out as well. Instead
the opposite happened. He grew more and more attached, as if the
sight of her once beautiful figure covered in wires and scar tissue
was almost arousing.
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As the project continued whatever objections I raised would be
vetoed by both of them. I felt like I was slowly being pushed out. I
would arrive for work with the two of them already there, and I would
leave before them too. They always seemed to be talking to each
other, just quiet enough that I couldn’t eavesdrop. Eventually I
just resigned myself to carrying out whatever tasks they gave me.
After all, who was I to question either of them or what they wanted
to do to themselves?</p>
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<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
That question became all the more pertinent when I walked in one day
to both of them patiently waiting for me. I could immediately tell
that whatever they planned was going to be a step beyond what I was
really comfortable with. Andrew explained to me that he felt the
model was at its peak, no more data would help it, however that
didn’t mean our work was done. Far from it he said. Dani was the
perfect test subject, a true top percentile of human intellect, and
if we could integrate her potential with that of the AI we had
created, we could produce perhaps the smartest being to ever live. I
looked to Dani, the idea was insane to me, who knew what would happen
to her in all this, and yet she seemed adamant. “I want to be
smarter, better,” Dani’s look burned into my eyes, “The best.”</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I didn’t have it in me to fight them. Instead I put myself into
autopilot, going through the motions of whatever they asked of me.
The two had found a mutual obsession that had absorbed them to the
point that they were barely aware of me. At first it was simple
enough, we simply used the connections already installed in Dani to
feed information from the model into her and vice versa. As anyone
who knows anything about coprocessors knows, however, is that
connection speed is absolutely paramount. The easiest way to do that
involved creating new connectors and shortening the physical distance
between Dani and the computer.
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Thus the months toiled on. We would build better connectors, shorten
the wires. Dani’s abilities would improve more and more, and so too
would Andrew’s devotion. Dani celebrated her 19<sup>th</sup>
birthday in the office, with Andrew hacking away at her back so we
could install a knew ribbon connection. She had become almost
addicted to the AI. She would complain that being disconnected felt
like reverting to the mind of a child. The few moments Andrew would
allow someone else to talk to her felt like talking to something
inhuman. Emotion and passion drifted away and cold logic and
rationality took its place. Even when she forced herself to speak at
my level it felt like she was struggling. Occasionally a metaphor or
reference would slip out that was far beyond my comprehension, like
an adult talking to a child who was unfamiliar with little kids.
</p>
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<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
One day, as I got ready for work, Andrew phoned me. He told me that
him and Dani had come to an agreement regarding what was next. They
were moving forward with or without me. He told me that the company
had agreed to offer me a two week vacation, fully paid, and that they
would be sending someone over shortly with paperwork I would have to
sign if I wanted to continue the project. When the call ended I felt
a sense of dread pour over me. Whatever was coming next was going to
be extreme, so much so that they had to butter me up to continue with
it. As much as I wanted to run away, I found myself signing every
form the men gave me, something in me had to see what was next, had
to know what was to be unleashed on us all.</p>
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</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
What I saw when I returned was more disturbing then I had even
imagined. Andrew stood beside a massive computer complex. On each
side was a single mainframe computer, think the size of a fridge. In
the center was Dani. Or what remained of her. Her whole body, save
for her face, was completely encased in a computerized shell. Three
tubes ran into the machine, one into the stomach for food, two for
wastes. Andrew explained that the two mainframes were each running
thousands of instances of our AI program, all working together like
nodes in a cluster. At the center of this cluster was Dani, her
incredible brain organizing and sorting through it all. For all the
horror of what I saw, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of awe as
well. Here it was, all the data, all the processing of a computer,
with the will, the plasticity, the motivation of a human being.
Though perhaps human was not the word anymore.</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Dani, for her part, had little to say. Her responses, though not
rude, were to the point. It was obvious that she no longer needed us
as intellectual companions, or even as novelties, such was the gap
between us. This didn’t mean much to me, I had been sidelined for
so long that keeping my head down and doing what I was told was
second nature. Andrew, however, took things very hard.</p>
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<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Every day he would try. He would bring up some topic, some former
source of shared joy, only for Dani to brush him off. With each
attempt his voice would grow more and more desperate. He reminded me
of a teenage boy, caught in some unrequited love, incapable of taking
no for an answer unless it was made painfully clear. One day it was.</p>
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<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I don’t know what about what happened that day caused me so much
horror. It was shocking, yes, yet so was everything up to that point.
So why is it that when it came time to write this part out I had to
leave my computer for hours to collect myself?
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Despite how close me and him had been, I had wound up ignoring
Andrew for so long that when I looked at him that day my heart sank.
It was obvious he hadn’t been eating or taking care of himself. A
scraggly beard desperately tried to fill in his sunken emaciated
face. His clothes hung off him like oversized robes. As much as I
couldn’t rip my gaze from him, it was obvious that he couldn’t
give a damn about me. Slowly he forced his body towards his God.</p>
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<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Dani’s eyes darted towards him, the only part of her still capable
of such rapid movement. We both watched as he peeled his clothes off.
Affixed to his chest, glued in place by caked-on blood, was a giant
ribbon cable. He walked up to Dani, her face frozen in shock; it was
the first time in ages I had seen any emotion from her at all.</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Andrew gently caressed Dani’s cheek. In spite of it all her
beautiful face had been preserved. Carefully he inserted the cable
into the corresponding port on her “body”. As fans started to
spin up and lights began to flash Andrew looked up at her, defeated:</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Dani,” he shuddered, “I know I’m worthless, I know I am
nothing. In the face of a being like you I have nothing to live for.
The memories of your creation are no longer enough. Please. Use me,
add me to your node, let me be connected to you, even if just as a
tiny cog in your grand machine. Please. Please.”</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The room was filled with silence. Andrew quietly sobbed, as each
moment without an answer crushed him further and further. Finally
Dani spoke:</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“What little ability your brain has isn’t worth the effort,”
there was nothing malicious in her voice, she was just robotically
stating her factual conclusion. The sound of fans spinning grew
louder. I could see the end of the ribbon cable connected to Andrew
soften and melt. She was pumping voltage into his body. The smell of
burning bacon started to permeate the room. Andrew didn’t even
scream. At one point one arm tried to move, perhaps out of instinct,
before he went completely limp.
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
My brain struggled to process what I had just witnessed. When I
finally regained my grip on reality I saw that my hand had pressed
the emergency shutdown button. An alarm blared. Men in dark suits
poured into our office. They took Andrew’s corpse away and took me
into an interrogation. I broke down in that room. I told them about
Andrew’s obsession, about what Dani had become. I’m sure they
knew most of it, but seeing that their new creation had just killed
someone, they eventually agreed with me that the project needed to be
shuttered. One of the men came in with a stack of documents for me to
sign. I was being let go, yet in return for my silence I would
receive a very generous lump sum of money, as well as letters of
recommendations and contact info for some of the absolute top minds
in my field.
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Before I left for good I was escorted back into that office for one
last time. I grabbed all my belongings and effects, and then I
executed the final shutdown sequence. Whereas the emergency shutdown
only put Dani into standby, it took a few more steps to fully shut
down the machinery connected to her for good. Finally, with one last
CLUNK, I flipped the final power switch and heard the fans spin down
one last time. The men accompanying promised they would do their best
to treat Dani, and try to salvage what was left of her humanity. That
filled me with hope. Hope that would soon be replaced by terror as we
walked into the elevator and I could hear, however faintly, another
clunk, and the sound of fans spinning back up.</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>Max Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15993642561415350134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8532254531396875123.post-34100150394169870682023-09-26T00:02:00.001-07:002023-09-26T00:02:21.272-07:00Twenty Years Ago Me And My Son Went On A Camping Trip, Now I Wonder If He Ever Came Back<p></p><p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I remember it really clearly, it was about 20 years ago, back when
we lived in Washington. My wife was never the outdoorsy type so when
my son, Brandon, wanted to go camping it was always just me and him.
That wasn’t bad though, it was good father-son time.</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It was a nice scenic drive on the way to the campsite. I remember
Brandon asked me about the music on the radio and I spent an
embarrassingly long time reminiscing about my high school days and
what bands I was obsessed with back then. Eventually we reached our
site and I got to work pitching our tent. Brandon waited patiently,
he wasn’t the type to go running off or anything, and when it was
all set up me and him went for a hike to take in the nature.</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It was really peaceful. The woods surrounding the campground were
calm and serene, there wasn’t any animals out and about but every
once in a while I would stop and point out a deer track or some
droppings. It reminded me of when I was a kid spending time with my
dad. I suppose I was about nine years old when I learned about the
marvels of deer poop myself. As I looked at him I couldn’t help but
see a younger version of myself. We had the same eyes, the same hair,
and like most of the people in my family we had the same birthmark on
our <span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en-US">upper
right arm</span></span></span></span>.</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It was hard spending time with Brandon sometimes, I worked so often
and sure, it was putting food on the table, but whenever I saw how
fast he was growing without me around the guilt would start to well
up inside me. Seeing him smile and laugh that day really uplifted my
spirits though. I was here now, and that’s what mattered, is what
I’d tell myself whenever the conversation lulled.</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As we were walking we suddenly found the trail leading out of the
woods and into a beautiful view of the river. I was telling Brandon
about erosion and how you could see the effects of the previous years
floods on the riverbank when his expression suddenly changed. He
pointed up to the sky and said “What’s that dad?” I looked up
myself and found that I was just as confused as he was. There was,
off in the distance, a dark, triangular, looking object. It hung in
the sky perfectly still and then suddenly vanished. Not wanting to
lose my reputation as a know it all dad I desperately searched for an
explanation, before deciding that it must have been a helicopter and
telling Brandon as such. He obviously didn’t believe me, and
frankly, I didn’t believe myself either.</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
By the time we got back to our tent the sun had already started to
set. I got Brandon to help me collect some firewood and start up a
fire. We roasted some hotdogs and marshmallows. We didn’t get to
the scary stories, however, as Brandon started nodding off and I
decided it was time for bed. I got Brandon into his sleeping bag and
I crawled into mine right beside him.</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It was the shaking that woke me at first. I had been in an
earthquake before but this was different, it was hard to describe. It
was almost like someone was picking up the earth and the earth was
trying to pull it back. I was still groggy, I reached out to see if
Brandon was awake and I found his sleeping back empty. I wasn’t too
panicked yet, like I said, he wasn’t the type to run off, and I
always try to keep a level head. I stumbled out of the tent and
walked towards where the flashlights were. Confident that I would
find him near the fire trying to cope with the shaking. Then the
lights happened. The whole campground was bathed in a bright, sickly,
white light. It was blinding at first, and when my vision adjusted I
realized that Brandon was nowhere to be found. That was when I
started to panic.</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I grabbed a flashlight and started shouting his name. As I ran to
the edge of the woods surrounding the campsite I tried looking for a
source for the light, but I couldn’t see one. As I ran to the edge
of the woods my pounding heart skipped a beat when I heard Brandon’s
voice. He called out to me, “Dad! I’m over here!”. I rushed
over, my happiness quickly abated when he started crying “Help!
Somethings wrong!”</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I ran to the other side of the campsite and found him crouched away
from me in a little ditch. The shaking had mostly subsided and I
rushed over to him. He was facing away from the light and I put my
hand on his back. “What’s the matter? Are you hurt?” I could
hear him struggling for air. “Dad!” he finally cried,
“something’s wrong… everything’s wrong…” his voice was
weak. I reached to his hand and when I touched it alarm bells rang in
my head. His skin was rubbery and wrinkly, like a halloween mask. I
turned my flashlight on and his whole skin looked a horrid purple.
“Brandon,” I muttered in shock. I turned him to face me and
screamed. His face was emaciated, his eyes so sunken they looked like
a skulls empty sockets. His jaw hanged open like the muscles that
held it were worn and worthless. My whole body shook in terror. The
shaking started back up again. This time even more violently. It
seemed as if the ground was going to get ripped up and thrown into
the sky. I didn’t know what to do. I grabbed Brandon and held him
as close to me as I could. I found myself praying to a god I was
never sure actually existed. Through gurgles and moans Brandon
started to talk, “It hurts Dad… why does it hurt so much… help
me Dad…” As I squeezed him I could feel him get thinner and
thinner, like his insides were being sucked out. It felt like there
was nothing left of him. Tears started rolling down my face and the
last thing I heard him say, faint as a whisper, haunted me. “Why
won’t you help me Dad?”</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A nudge caused me to bolt up in my sleeping bag. Brandon was
prodding me, “Wake up Dad, I’m hungry.” I got up, more than a
little confused. As my heart stopped racing and I came back to
reality I realized that I had just had a crazy nightmare. I chuckled
to myself. After Brandon was fed I walked over to the ditch from the
previous night. There was nothing weird or out of the ordinary.
Brandon too, seemed just like he always was, and didn’t mention
anything about the previous night. When I walked back to Brandon and
asked if he felt the ground shake he said he hadn’t felt a thing.
When we got back to civilization I asked other people the same thing
and they all agreed with Brandon.</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
For a week then, my mind was at ease. I worked a lot again that week
and when I finally had a day off me and the wife took Brandon to the
pool. It was only there that memories of that night came flooding
back and the horror with it. When Brandon took his <span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en-US">shirt
</span></span></span></span>off I looked at his arm, and noticed the
family birthmark was missing.</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</p><br /><p></p>Max Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15993642561415350134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8532254531396875123.post-6542035671600021382022-11-20T23:11:00.001-08:002022-11-20T23:11:19.016-08:00Miner Inconvenience <p>Bob felt his arms feel like jelly. He didn’t really understand why,
but this coal vein couldn’t be accessed by machinery. His boss
simply handed him a pickaxe and a bucket and told him to get to work.
It was exhausting, and he hated every second of it. But that was
normal. He always hated every second of his job. He wanted out, and
he had been applying all over.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">As he worked the
ground with his pickaxe, he noticed a strange spot. A black blob
etched into the rock. It almost seemed like coal, but it was
reflective, like obsidian maybe? Bob felt a very sudden urge come on
him to strike the black spot. He couldn’t explain it, it was like
standing on a balcony and getting the urge to jump. It was like the
urge he had every morning to just drive away and not go into work.
This time though, he couldn’t fight it. He picked up his pickaxe
and threw it down on the black spot. It instantly crumbled into a
tiny, unremarkable hole. Bob shrugged, weird, though he wasn’t a
cave scientist or anything, so maybe that happened all the time.
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">The rest of his day
was the same garbage as always. Dreading every second of it, until
his shift ended and he got to drive home and indulge his fantasy of a
career change. Bob sat down at his computer and loaded up some job
search sites. As he got ready to apply, however, something seemed to
shift in his mind. After all, he was working in a coal mine, he was
making good money, right? He didn’t want a pay cut, right? He liked
being a blue collar man, he took pride in doing the work no one else
would. He was hero, a real American. He didn’t need a new job, his
was just plenty.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">The next day at work
was awful. The boss was on the warpath, screaming at anyone and
everyone he came across, and he came across Bob a lot. Bob felt his
body struggle with the work. He almost fell asleep on his lunch
break. His whole day was just a mess. The entire time what kept him
going was the dream of escaping, the dream of something new,
something different.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">That night he again
sat at his computer. Again he loaded up the job sites. Again he
started to have second thoughts, thoughts about his coworkers and how
he enjoyed hanging out with them and would miss them. Miss the
camaraderie. Bob skimmed the job listings and decided none were worth
it.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">This cycle
continued, over and over, year after year. Friends left the job, the
boss got angrier. One day the boss was replaced by an even angrier
one. Bob felt himself age, felt his muscles ache, and almost even
felt his hair grow grey. With each part of his body breaking down he
found it harder and harder to do his job. Every day he’d tell
himself to quit, and every night he would tell himself to put up with
it just a little bit longer.
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Finally, there was a
cave in. Rocks and debris poured onto Bob, crushing every bone in his
body. He had just enough time to ponder that this job had finally
killed him.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Suddenly he awoke.
He was young again. He looked down and saw the crumbled pit of black
whatever he was so intent on breaking. He swore to quit the next day.
He got home that night and started to think. After all, he was
working in a coal mine, he was making good money, right? He didn’t
want a pay cut, right?</p>Max Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15993642561415350134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8532254531396875123.post-83096033072533004932022-11-20T23:10:00.003-08:002022-11-20T23:10:36.832-08:00For Two Decades I Investigated Paranormal Reports Online for the Government, Now I'm Ready to Share What I Found [Part 5]<p>Hello everyone, Frank Kennedy here. I know it’s been some time
since my last update, but I found this case file the other day, and
thought it was worth sharing. See, TV, and media in general, lets us
escape our everyday troubles and find a moments respite. What
happens, though, when a TV show is the cause of our everyday
troubles? What happens when those troubles become far more then
“everyday”? In 2016 a young woman made a series of posts to a
forum discussing Japanese animation that describes her experience
with just that. It begins in mid June, with a post titled:</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">“Managed to grab a
drawing of Daisuke from [Show name redacted]!”</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">“Hey guys, I just
wanted to share my latest find. I went to the [Location redacted]
anime [slang for Japanese animation] convention for the first time, I
wasn’t expecting much but I was so surprised! I had a great time
going to all the panels and performances, and I even got some merch!
I could go on about all the stuff I bought, but what I really wanted
to share was this print I got of Daisuke! I feel like I’m the only
fan of [Show name redacted] out there, I never here anyone talk about
it, so when someone had a drawing of my favorite husbando [slang for
character one is infatuated with] for sale, I had to pick him up!
Like omg, he’s so cute!!!”</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Attached were photos
of the drawing, which are no longer part of the case file for reasons
I will explain later. From what I can recall, however, there was
nothing particularly out of the ordinary about the drawing or the
character compared to others from the same medium.
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">The post gained
little traction, and was followed shortly after with a post titled
“I’ve hung Daisuke up!” showing the picture framed and hanging
on her bedroom wall. There was no more activity relating to the
picture for a month, until a post titled “I love when Daisuke talks
to me” was made:</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">“As a lot of you
know, my parents’ marriage hasn’t been going great lately. They
used to take it out on me, but I guess now that I’m in high school
they’ve turned to my little brother. Last night they were screaming
at him and I could hear everything from inside my room. I wanted to
go out and stand up for him, but I was so scared, I just curled up
into a ball. I looked up at Daisuke and imagined him holding me,
comforting me. I knew he wouldn’t be scared, he’d protect me. The
thought was really nice. As I dreamt of him I heard a voice. I opened
my eyes and looked around. It was the drawing! I watched his lips
move and everything. He told me that everything was going to be
alright, and that I didn’t have to worry about anything, he’d
take care of it. Now, I know I probably just fell asleep and dreamt
that, but it made me feel so cozy and happy to have him tell me that.
Thanks Daisuke!”</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">This was followed a
couple weeks later with one titled “Daisuke’s so great!”:</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">“Since my last
post, things have been going good. Mom and Dad have been keeping
their distance, especially with my brother, and I’ve really gotten
to know Daisuke! He’s just like he is in anime, so cool and heroic.
Every night before bed me and him talk. He says he loves me, and that
he wouldn’t let anyone hurt me, or my brother. I feel so good with
him. My friends wanted me to come hang out with them last weekend,
but I couldn’t help but stay home and chat with my Daisuke!”</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Her tone changed a
little the next week with “Daisuke helped me??”:</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">“Last night was
awful. I was just in my room doing nothing when my Dad burst in. He
was drunk, and he was mad. He screamed at me and I told him to stop,
that I hadn’t done anything. I got up and he pushed me hard, I fell
backwards and landed on my bed. I started to cry. I saw my Dad lift
up his hand like he was going to slap me like when I was little.
Suddenly he started coughing. It was really violent, like he wanted
to puke but nothing was coming out. Tears were streaming out of his
eyes and he shuffled out of my room. He was coughing the rest of the
night. I didn’t know what to do or think, and then I just heard
Daisuke, in an aggressive voice, say that he wouldn’t let anyone
hurt me. Did he do that to my Dad?”</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Again, no one
responded, and no updates were provided for a month, until a post
titled “Daisuke is scaring me”:</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">“Hey guys, I just
wanted to let you know what’s going on. My Dad is really sick, he’s
coughing all the time, and he’s lost a ton of weight. He has
another doctors appointment next week, but I don’t think its going
to be good news. I know my Dad hasn’t always treated me well, but I
still love him, I don’t want him to go. I’m so scared. Both of
losing my Dad and Daisuke. He tries to talk to me every night, but I
try to ignore him. Every time I ask him if he’s doing this to Dad
he tries to change the subject, or says something about how he’s
‘protecting’ me. I don’t want Daisuke to protect me anymore. He
tells me he loves me, that he won’t let go of me. It’s
terrifying. Sometimes I wake up at night and try to stay still, just
so that he won’t try to speak with me, but he always knows. He says
he knows everything about me, and that he loves every little part of
me, and that it would be bad if I don’t love him back. I don’t
know what to do anymore. I need Daisuke gone. I think I’m going to
stop by the convenience store on the way home tomorrow and buy a
lighter, that way I can get rid of Daisuke for good.”</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">That was the last
post she made. I made attempts to reach out to her, but I received no
response. I also tried finding news stories pertaining to the
situation and location, but nothing came up.
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">When I first made
this case file, I marked the investigation as inconclusive. There was
no hard evidence pointing to the supernatural, and there was lots
that could suggest an overactive, escapist, imagination. Now that I’m
revisiting the case though I want to change that conclusion. When I
opened up that file, the copies I had of Daisuke’s illustration had
turned into pages of pure black. I typed the shows name into Google,
and I found no results at all. It was like none of it had ever
existed. Finally I typed in the anime convention that she had went
to, and I found out that it had never taken place. Goosebumps covered
me as I read that it had to be canceled. The venue was destroyed.
Burned down.</p>Max Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15993642561415350134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8532254531396875123.post-14591709805256656422022-11-15T22:06:00.006-08:002022-11-15T22:06:59.508-08:00Hegemony<p>The whole world seemed to stop that day. It all happened so quickly
and so suddenly. Some of us were at work, some of us were lounging
around at home. It started with a breaking news report, and then
another, and then another. Each one grew graver and graver until all
the phones and all the TV’s and all the radios around the world
started blaring alarms. It had finally happened. World War 3. Some
were moved to tears. Many didn’t react at all. Perhaps for some
there was some bizarre joy in the liberation of death and
destruction. However, we all waited. With baited breath we waited for
the missiles to come and for it all to end. They never came. We
waited and waited and the missiles simply hung in the sky, as if
frozen in place.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">The tension built.
We started to grow impatient. The only thing worse then death is the
anticipation of it. In all our hearts there formed some perverse
desire for the bombs to fall, for the conclusion to come. As the
bombs stayed still we all started to panic. That was when the message
came. All the phones and all the TV’s and all the radios sang at
once. It wasn’t a song, but a sternly worded message. “Well that
was disappointing. You’ve had your chance.”</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">If there was any
confusion as to who sent the message it became painfully clear when
the missiles all turned to face Russia and China. In a few terrifying
moments over a billion people were wiped off the earth. People always
joked about America having stolen UFO tech, but clearly something was
up. We were all scared out of our wits.
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">After the dust and
fallout settled some countries immediately surrendered to the
Americans, other’s merely swallowed their pride and kissed the
ring. Every once in a while some group, some rogue state, would try
to rise up and break free, and every time the same message would
appear, on all the phones and all the TV’s and all the radios.
“Well that was disappointing. You’ve had your chance.”</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>Max Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15993642561415350134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8532254531396875123.post-33729383940235867922022-11-15T22:06:00.002-08:002022-11-15T22:06:20.264-08:00Rude Awakening<p>Like entering into a dream partway through I came back into
existence. I was resting against something. I got up and turned
around. I screamed. I cried. I curled into a ball and vomited.
Corpses. Already stinking from the rot. I had been laying on top of a
pile of bodies.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">My horror magnified
as I examined the people further. The one with the salt and pepper
goatee was my father, and the one with the big mole on her cheek was
my mother. In the pile too was my best friend, my high school crush,
my fiance, my brother and my sister. I think there was more but I
couldn’t force myself to look any longer. They were all clearly
murdered. Severed and stabbed. The thought started to emerge in my
mind, a fuzzy shadow off into the distance, but I swiftly squished it
down and out of my consciousness. I couldn’t have done this, I’m
a GOOD person, a NICE person, not a MURDERER.
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">I tried to peace
back together what might have lead to this. The last thing I could
remember was walking in the woods. It was kind of chilly but I didn’t
need a jacket. I had convinced myself that I was there to unwind, to
decompress, but somewhere in my mind was the knowledge that I was
there for ...something. I couldn’t put it to words, maybe I just
didn’t want to.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">I kept walking, I
had been here before a few times, I knew the way and the trail was
easy to walk. No one had ever shown up on the trail this late. Maybe
that’s why I went so late, I would be at peace. This time was
different though. There was someone up ahead. Their face was shrouded
by a hood. Drug dealer? No, he didn’t quite look like one.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">I got closer, the
man’s shadowy face drifted towards me. His eyes almost seemed to
glow in the darkness. As I approached he stopped me and whispered in
a hoarse, yet charming voice:</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">“I know why you’re
here tonight”</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">I was taken aback,
but asked what he meant,</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">“I know that you
aren’t here for no reason, I no that you are here for ...something”</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">“Y… yes,
...something,”</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">The man held out his
arm, “What is the something you wish to seek?”</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">I stared at him for
some time, and then I answered, “For all my dreams to come true.”</p>Max Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15993642561415350134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8532254531396875123.post-71657482806571920452022-11-15T21:30:00.001-08:002022-11-15T21:30:06.317-08:00The Clown in the Corner of your Eye<p>The clown never leaves. Everywhere you go you can see him. Just in
the corner of your eye, just for a moment. You start to think that he
must be following you. He must be following you. You call in sick for
work, you drive an hour out of town. You step into a random mall.
There he is. He is always following you.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">You get nervous. You
must be paranoid, right? No one else is noticing this, right? That’s
when you hear about the murders. All over town people are being
killed. Randomly. Brutally. You’re not an idiot, you can connect
the dots. It’s the clown. You do research. The killings all happen
in areas you frequent. The clown is hunting you. Targeting you. You
hate the clown. You despise the clown.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">One day, you are
walking down the street. It’s at night. The convenience store was a
reprieve; no clown in sight. You turn a corner. There he is. The
clown is standing right there. He’s not in the corner of your eye
anymore, he’s right in front of you. The clown. The murderer. You
reach into your pocket. You have a knife. As soon as you pull it out,
the clown runs. You’re faster. He turns a corner and winds up in a
lonely back alley. You follow him there. He falls down and tries to
say something. You know better. You plunge the knife in deep. You do
it again. You do it again. You’re out of breath. You walk home. You
shower. You sleep.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">You wake up. You had
a crazy dream about a clown. You get dressed. You go to work. A
couple weeks go by. Suddenly, out of the corner of your eye, you see
something strange. Is that a clown?</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">The clown never
leaves. Everywhere you go you can see him. Just in the corner of your
eye, just for a moment. You start to think that he must be following
you. He must be following you. You call in sick for work, you drive
an hour out of town, the radio talks about the child murdered in an
alley two weeks ago. You step into a random mall. There he is. He is
always following you.
</p>Max Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15993642561415350134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8532254531396875123.post-41506156080071410732022-11-11T23:35:00.001-08:002022-11-11T23:35:07.194-08:00I'm Terrified of Meeting My Girlfriend's Dad<p></p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
This night has been the most disturbing of my life. I guess I’m
posting this just to know what to do next, but I’m really scared to
do anything. Any advice would be appreciated though.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">First some
background. I met my girlfriend, Faith, back in our sophomore year of
high school, about two years ago. Me and her hit things off instantly
and I developed a huge crush on her. Unfortunately, she had a bf
already. I did my best to move on from her and dated a girl for a
little bit until that fell apart, but eventually I found myself being
the shoulder Faith cried on when her boyfriend went missing. It was
really disturbing, they went on a date and he dropped her off and
then just fell off the face of the earth. Now I’m not the type to
exploit someones grief, so I made sure to keep a bit of distance
while she worked through her emotions. However, after a few months
she invited me out and one thing led to another and we started
dating.
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Things have been
going well lately, and she’s been over to my place and met my
parents, but I haven’t met her dad yet. Her mom passed away when
she was young so it was just the two of them after that. I guess he’s
pretty overprotective sometimes so Faith doesn’t want us to meet
until she thinks he’s ready. Regardless, he’s been out of town
this weekend, so Faith invited me over to keep her company.
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">At first it was
pretty chill, me and her just relaxed and watched some cheesy horror
movies. After a while though we got into a pretty deep conversation.
She told me that she had really bad nightmares sometimes, of her
mother. She would dream that she was walking down a hallway, and she
could hear her mother sobbing in another room. Part of her would want
to run towards her, another part would want to run away. Before she
could do something she would hear a sickening cracking sound and a
guttural scream. She said it sounded like baseball being hit but
louder. After that she would wake up in a cold sweat.
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">She also told me
that she was scared of me leaving when we went out. She said that her
old boyfriend disappearing really freaked her out. The way he just
got in his car and never came back. She started to shudder a bit and
I could tell that she needed comfort. We cuddled for a bit and I
offered to grab her a blanket. She told me they kept some in a closet
down the hall upstairs.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">I walked up and
looked for the closet. When I found it I noticed that one of the
bedroom doors was slightly open beside it. I figured it must have
been her Dad’s room because of the décor, and I decided to just
quickly poke my head in. Maybe I’d see what his interests were and
impress him when we actually met.
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">The room turned out
to be pretty barren. Save for the Boomer rock posters I saw when I
first peeked in. Just when my curiosity was satisfied I heard a door
pop open. I looked over and saw that her dad’s closet had opened on
its own. Now, I didn’t want him to suspect someone was in there so
I went to close the door and stopped.
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">I stared at the
contents of the closet in a quiet shock for a moment. There was a
bizarre collage of sorts plastered onto the back wall. The first
third was dedicated to Faith’s mom. Pictures of her, accompanied by
newspaper clippings of her death. I never realized she was murdered.
Below that was a picture of her ex-boyfriend, handwritten notes about
his address, and newspaper clippings of his disappearance. Circled in
one of the clippings was a passage about the one piece of evidence
the police found, his lucky baseball bat, wiped completely clean but
left in the woods. The bottom third was empty, aside from a picture
of me, and a note about where I lived.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">I stared at that…
thing, for so long that I could hear Faith start climbing the stairs.
She was asking how long it was going to take me to find a blanket. I
quickly and quietly shut the closet door and slipped out of her dad’s
room. I pretended like there was an emergency at home and I needed to
slip out. Faith looked worried, but I told her everything would be
alright, even though my heart told me otherwise.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">My hands trembled
the whole drive home.
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">I wanted to ask my
parents for help, but they were out on their date night, so the whole
house was empty. When I pulled up to the driveway I heard a loud
crashing sound. Just in the corner of my headlights a humanoid shadow
sprinted away from my house. My whole body ached in fear. I took a
deep breath and walked out of my car to the front door. When I
reached the doorstep I felt like I wanted to puke. The doorknob was
heavily scratched, like someone was trying to pick it, though that
wasn’t the scariest part. On the ground was an old baseball bat,
dropped in a hurry.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">What do I do?</p><br /><p></p>Max Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15993642561415350134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8532254531396875123.post-70034988952142997752022-11-10T23:12:00.002-08:002022-11-10T23:12:33.203-08:00What do They See?<p>Robert and Vlad looked at each other in excitement. How many years,
how much money had it took? The two of them had poured their hearts
and souls into the project. Ever since he was a kid Robert had dreamt
of meeting aliens, other intelligent lifeforms, and hearing what they
had to say. What their view of life and the universe was. Now,
dolphins weren’t quite aliens, but they are intelligent, and the
prototype him and Vlad had created would allow them to see just what
they were saying to each other.</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The device was a modified VR headset that would interpret dolphin
communication. Robert and Vlad had discovered that the clicks and
whistles of dolphins was, in a sense, a more sophisticated form of
data encoding compared to human language. Dolphins didn’t
communicate ideas so much as they transmitted images to each other.
It was like if human language, art, and writing were all mixed
together as one. It took years for the two to come to that
conclusion, and now they stared at the culmination of even more years
on top of that. The two looked at the device and then at each other,
Vlad smiled, and gestured for Robert to try it first.
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Robert put it on, and after carefully calibrating the different
settings, was able to tune into the thoughts of the dolphins kept in
the aquarium area the room over. Slowly the images started to pour
in, images of food, of the ocean, the trainers at the aquarium,
nothing all that abstract to be honest. Robert moved his head around,
allowing him to better explore the images and scenes the dolphins
were transmitting each other. Out of the corner of his periphery he
saw something strange, a formless black blob. Slowly he rotated his
head to get a better look at it, but it just looked like a blurry
mess. Robert sighed and pulled off the helmet,</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“It looks like we messed something up, some image is not coming in
right,”</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Oh yeah?” Vlad noted, “Let me try it, I’ll see if I can’t
re-calibrate it.”</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Robert handed the headset to Vlad. For the first few moments Vlad
seemed to simply take in the imagery, exploring it like Robert, until
he paused:</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I think I see it Bob, a black blob?”</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Yes, do you think you can get it to focus,”</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I think so,” Vlad started adjusting the buttons and dials on the
headset, slowly trying to give the blob shape. Suddenly Vlad stopped,
his knees started to shake, his hands trembled. Robert stared in
shock as tears slowly poured down Vlad’s face, until he fell to his
knees, ripped off the headset, and crawled into the fetal position.</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“What happened Vlad?” Robert said, his voice filled with worry,
Vlad remained silent, completely silent.</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Robert stared at the headset, what could possibly have done this to
Vlad? He knew he should get help but he had to know, he had to
understand. He picked up the headset and set it back up. He wandered
the myriad images until he found the black blob once more. This time
he focused in on it, watching it intently. The blob got bigger,
expanding over the entire viewpoint of the device like ink spreading
across a piece of paper. The dread started to take over Robert. Every
primal urge in his body told him to take off the headset, but
something was starting to resolve in the darkness. He had to know
what it was. He had to know what it was. The image got clearer and
clearer, over the headset he could hear the dolphins in the other
room panic and cry. Finally the image appeared fully before him and
Robert screamed. It was all he could do, as every bit of his sanity
left him.</p>Max Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15993642561415350134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8532254531396875123.post-39903247878138366052022-11-10T23:08:00.000-08:002022-11-10T23:08:04.120-08:00If a Mirror Tries to Talk to You, Don't Listen<p>“Hey,” the voice took me by surprise, as far as I knew I was all
alone in the house. My parents had gone out, like they usually did on
weekends when I was a teen so I shouldn’t have been hearing any
voices at all. The voice itself was strange, it sounded kind of like
mine, but not, like if you heard a recording of yourself talking.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">I stared at my
reflection in the mirror. We had just gotten it, from an estate sale
my Dad went too. It was beautiful and ornate, with a black carved
exterior of plants and flowers all around it, while inside sat my
reflection. Long blonde hair, blue eyes, thin lips and a crooked
nose. Yep, my reflection alright, so when it’s mouth moved and I
heard “Hey,” again, I froze in fear. My reflections mouth may
have moved, but I certainly could not feel mine do the same.
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">“Hey,” my
reflection called out again,</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">“H… hey,” I
replied sheepishly,
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">“Guess what,”
the reflection smiled,</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">“What?”</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">“I know what
you’ll look like in ten years, do you wanna see?”</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Now, obviously I can
understand that talking to my reflection was crazy enough, and that
letting it show me my future was just asking for bad news, but I was
a teenage girl back then. A self-conscious one at that. Would I be
really hot? Would I be just as gangly and awkward as I was back then?
I really wanted to know, so I asked the mirror to show me.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">The whole mirror
turned black, like an ink slowly spread over and consumed it. Seconds
later the ink dissolved and I saw myself, beautiful, a long, black,
dress. My lips were full and luscious, my crooked nose fixed. My hair
had so much body to it. My eyebrows and makeup looked so perfect, far
better then my amateur attempts and beauty. I looked incredible. Like
I always wanted to look. Like I always dreamed I would look.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">“Touch me,” the
reflection smiled. I reached my arm out, slowly bringing it towards
the mirror. There was so much wrong with this, all of this. My heart
was pounding and I was desperately trying to break the urge to do
what the reflection asked. My arm stopped right before the mirror’s
glass and I sighed. Just as I was about to pull arm away the
reflection reached out of the mirror and grabbed it. I instinctively
screamed, and it must have been loud, because the startled reflection
loosened its grip on my arm and I pulled it away before it could be
pulled in.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">The mirror became
inky again. When the image returned it was me, but with missing
teeth, an even more crooked nose, and severely overweight. My hair
was thin and poorly maintained, while facial hair seemed to sprout
from all sorts of unsightly places on my face. Deep down it was an
image of everything I didn’t like about myself. The reflection
started to scream and I screamed too, screams of pure horror, until
finally I grabbed a nearby vase and threw it with all my strength
into the mirror. It smashed into a million pieces, and I stared at
the remains in shock and terror for some time. They say that breaking
a mirror gives seven years of bad luck, but after meeting that
demon... I think my bad luck started before then.</p>Max Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15993642561415350134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8532254531396875123.post-1212863325882169922022-11-05T15:51:00.001-07:002022-11-05T15:51:06.751-07:00What I Saw on the Beach That Day Will Stick with Me Forever<p>This all happened when I was 12 years old, I kept trying not to think
about it but recent events in my life has brought it back into my
conscious, and I guess by writing about it and sharing it online I
hope I can work through some of the emotions it gives me.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">I didn’t exactly
grow up in the best environment, I know these days everyone thinks
that parents watch over their kids too much but for me and my best
friend it was the opposite. Our parents didn’t care about us at
all. Me and him were neighbours and we would leave at the crack of
dawn and not come back until sunset, a lot of the time even later.
Neither of our moms would ever say a word, and frankly most of the
time they were too drunk or high to say much of anything at all.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">So, for a while
there, me and him would go and hangout by the river. Not far from our
house was the bridge that you’d drive over to get to the river
bank, and that spot was where you’d normally go to fish or raft,
however, the bank on the other side was normally unoccupied and that
was where me and him would go and explore. There was a very rough
hiking trail that me and him would take that allowed us to get pretty
far downstream. After a couple of weekends we had managed to hear the
traffic from the next town over and decided that hiking all the way
there was going to be our goal.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">The next weekend we
set out even earlier then normal and spent several hours just
marching straight to our goal. Nothing really remarkable happened, we
had been exploring the area so often that we knew exactly where to
go, and our adventures had even started to smooth out the hiking
path. Eventually the sounds of nature started to give way to that of
traffic and we hardened ourselves to keep going. The traffic got
louder and louder and we started to get excited, and our excitement
continued to grow until we hit a roadblock.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">We hiked through a
wooded area just beside the riverbank for about half an hour until we
came to a clearing blocked by a rusted chain-link fence. The bolts on
the “No Trespassing” sign seemed to stain it with tears of rust.
Me and my friend looked out onto the other side. The clearing was
more like a strip cut out of the woods, which continued on the other
side of it. To our left we could see the riverbank, it was sandy,
with strange lumps all over. To our right was a hill that eventually
reached a few buildings, all of which looked dilapidated.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Now, me and my
friend had gone lots of places we weren’t supposed to be by that
point, so I shouldn’t have had any misgivings about climbing the
fence and going forward, but something about the whole situation just
seemed <i>off</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> and I couldn’t
help but want to turn around and go home. My friend teased me a bit
and said nothing would happen, but eventually I convinced him and we
got back home very late at night.</span></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Throughout
the next week he kept bothering me about that clearing. Trying to
convince me to keep going. Eventually he wore me down, and despite my
gut feeling, we set out again the next Saturday.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Like
before, everything went smoothly and when we got to the rusty fence
my friend climbed up and over to the other side and beckoned me to
join. As soon as I touched the fence my fear came over me once again
but I did my best to hide it. With a deep breath I vaulted myself
over and we started making our way to the woods on the other side.
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">We
stopped halfway across, down at the point where the riverbank met the
river there was a man standing around, beckoning us to see him. I
didn’t want to get near him but my friend walked over to him and I
followed a few paces back.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">The
man seemed out of place. We lived in a very blue collar area so the
fact that he was wearing a black business suit made him really stand
out, especially out here in the middle of nowhere. Not to mention
that he was wearing a matching black fedora, a choice that almost
made him seem like a figure from a different era. At the same time,
something about the way he stood and presented himself gave off an
aura of authority, I felt like me and my friend were bound to get
into a lot trouble just due to how important this man looked.
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">While
him and my friend talked I looked around the riverbank and my eyes
zeroed in on the mounds I had seen earlier. They were sand
sculptures… of faces. Each and every one a different face. On the
one hand they were creepy, yet at the same time I couldn’t help but
marvel at the attention to detail. Each one was so real it almost
looked like it was made from a mold of some sort. More than anything
they really disturbed me. Between them, the man out of time, and even
the way the beach seemed so perfectly cut out against the landscape,
sent danger signals to my brain.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Soon
my friend came back and told me that the strange man had told us to
come with him. My friend looked really excited at the prospect, like
he had been offered something for it. That creeped me even more. I
pulled my friend in close and told him we had to book it. He looked
disappointed in me but I guess the look of terror on my face swayed
him. I watched until the man turned away for a second and me and my
friend bolted.
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">The
next few days I was on edge, fearing that that strange man would come
and find us somehow. Me and my friend didn’t talk about it until
one day after school. He started walking in the opposite direction of
our houses. I asked him where he was going and he told me he was
going to the beach. My heart sank, I rushed towards him to try and
stop him. My friend just turned around and sucker punched me in the
stomach. I fell to the ground and watched him walk away, my whole
body shaking with anxiety over him.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">He
never came back to school.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">After
a few days of him being absent I started to get extremely worried. I
had never really paid attention to any boring adult things before,
but I started combing through the newspaper and the evening news,
trying to see if there was anything about a missing child. I would
wait by his house to see if he came by. Nothing. It was like he never
existed. Eventually my anxiety reached a point where I knew I
couldn’t go on if I didn’t check the beach.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">That
Saturday I set out. The walk was maddening, going down the familiar
trails without my partner in crime. Eventually I made it to that
cursed spot. Mustering up my courage I hopped the fence. I walked to
the beach, terrified that I would find his body. I heard a footstep
behind and turned around. The strange man was right behind me, as if
he materialized. I bolted across the beach. Suddenly I lost my
footing and fell in sand. I looked beside me and screamed the loudest
scream of my life. The adrenaline my body produced forced me up and
away just before the man could grab me. I leapt over the fence on the
other side of the beach and sprinted all the way to the neighboring
town. I knew someone who lived there and I got his parents to drive
me home. The entire drive I was silent, the thing that I saw seared
into my brain. I don’t think I’ve had a good nights sleep since,
as every dream turns into a nightmare when I see it:</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">My
friends face, alongside all the others, in the sand of the beach.</p>Max Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15993642561415350134noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8532254531396875123.post-15320660439261151512022-11-04T23:47:00.001-07:002022-11-04T23:47:53.495-07:00My Last Confession<p></p><p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Ever since my wife fell ill I have kept a journal. I wanted to
catalog our journey as I supported her and helped her recover.
Instead I ended up recording a laundry list of sins and regrets. I
don’t know if God exists, and after all that’s happened I
honestly doubt it, but, if he does, I hope that by posting these
journal entries and sharing them with the world, he will accept my
confession, and grant me mercy.</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<hr size="1" />
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The emptiness of the country roads at night is my greatest comfort
these days. Ever since Beth had gotten sick I found that the best way
to clear my mind is to cruise down the lonely roads. I had heard of
men who abandoned their wives when they fell ill, and I always
thought I would never be like that. But… its hard, so hard
sometimes. I’ve had to learn how to cook, how to clean, thank god
we don’t have any kids… I never realized how useless a husband
can be in a marriage until Beth became bedridden, and though I’m
trying so hard, the temptation is there, and I hate myself for it.
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I guess the reason I was on the road was because of this woman at
work: Sue. Me and her have gotten along great, we just seem to click,
I don’t know why, but I haven’t bothered bringing up Beth much,
let alone her condition. I know when Beth first started losing her
mobility me and her had talked about my… needs, and yet the idea of
getting a lover is so much more nauseating when it becomes real. No
matter how many blessings Beth gives I can’t help but feel like I’m
betraying her, but at the same time, if I don’t find an outlet I
feel like I’ll be betraying myself.
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
These thoughts played around in my mind and I suppose that’s why I
didn’t notice what was laying in the road until I heard a loud
thump. I stopped my truck and walked out to see what it was. A
person. By the looks of it they had been strung out on something for
some time before I showed up.</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I looked at them in shock for some time, slowly forcing myself to
accept that they were dead. My heart raced and I tried to force deep
breaths to calm it. It didn’t help. I knew I had to phone the
police, confess, do the right thing. At the same time a disquieting
thought crept into my head. What about Beth? Who would take care of
her if I was in jail?</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I shook my head and pulled out my phone. I opened up the keypad and
paused, a text popped up from Beth, asking when I would be home.
Almost without thought I closed the app and turned on my flashlight
instead. No damage to the truck. No one around for miles. I motioned
towards the side of the road and saw a thick, overgrown woods. A body
in there could rot away for years without being noticed. I should’ve
at least been more ashamed of what I did, but I dragged the corpse
into the woods and sped off.</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<hr size="1" />
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A lot has happened since my last entry. A lot. That night I came
home, my brain mired in fog, barely remembering what happened and
desperately trying to deny it. Beth was fast asleep. I sat down on
the couch and watched TV until my mind was so distracted that it
would allow me to doze off as well.
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The next day was incredible, I woke up to the sound of singing. I
walked into Beth’s room and she was upright and smiling, the first
time I’d seen her sit upright without my help in months. As she
looked at me I could feel tears roll down my eyes. She was still weak
and fragile but I could finally see some of her old self come back.
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She stayed that way for a couple days and when we brought her to the
doctor she was just as shocked as we were. As she examined Beth she
couldn’t help but well with tears too. She told us not to get our
hopes up, but at the same time she admitted she had never seen a
patient that far gone recover to this point.
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Seeing Beth recover filled me with joy, and took so much stress off
my chest. Though I immediately replaced it with some from somewhere
else. At the same time all this was happening I was still going to
work, and one day Sue invited me over to her place for drinks. On the
one hand, Beth’s recovery made me feel a lot of guilt for saying
yes, but at the same time, I needed some sort of release, and if Beth
were to recover further it would still take months. So I lied to Beth
about having to work late and found myself in bed with Sue less then
an hour later. On the drive home I told myself it had to be a one
time thing, I had gotten what I needed out of my system and now I had
to stay loyal to Beth. It didn’t matter. Soon I was working late
once or twice a week, taking Sue out to all the places I had wanted
to take Beth and spending all my pent up energy and then some.
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
However, that is not the guilt that motivates me to write today. That
guilt comes from last night. It was just me and Beth, I cuddled with
her as we watched TV. Even that was a level of intimacy that we
hadn’t had in a long time. As we watched TV though, I could smell
something in the air. Smoke. I got up and checked the room. Then I
opened the curtains to see if it was coming from outside. To my shock
smoke and flames were billowing out of my neighbors house. I rushed
to my phone as I told Beth what was happening. As I unlocked my phone
Beth put her hand on my arm and squeezed, “Don’t phone the fire
department honey,”</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“What?” I replied in shock,</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Don’t phone them, please, I’m sure someone else has and I
don’t want you to be play hero, okay? I just want to spend more
time with you,” her voice cracked a little, “just like we used
to…”</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I stared deep into Beth’s eyes, shocked and disturbed at what she
was saying. At the same time, her grip on my arm had become iron
tight, and I knew that she wasn’t going to make my life easy if I
didn’t go along with her. I swallowed. I sighed. I sat back down
beside her.
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
We laid beside each other in silence for an hour. My heart racing
until the sound of sirens finally reached my ears. For a second I
felt a bit of ease, until, drowning out the sirens, the firemen, and
the TV show we were watching, a woman wailed. It was a sound I had
never heard before, and one I couldn’t describe. The sheer
intensity and weight of my neighbor’s cry was soul crushing. It
tore deep into me. The next day I learned that her two kids were
asleep inside when the fire broke out. By the time the firemen came
there was next to nothing left of them.
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<hr size="1" />
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Another miracle occurred, Beth is up and moving again! The doc is as
shocked as I am, and its just been overwhelming. She’s still weak,
and at first she could barely get up at all, but slowly we’ve been
working on it. For the past month me and her have been going on
walks. At first just down the block, but lately we’ve been going
further and further. I haven’t seen Beth this happy in such a long
time, maybe ever. She loves that she finally has a bit of
independence. At first I was just as thrilled as her, but this week
has changed things a bit. I feel like I’m making some insane jumps,
but here’s the deal:</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I’ve still been seeing Sue. I keep telling myself that I need to
break it off, especially now that Beth is recovering, but… there
are some days I think about Sue more then Beth, and as much as I
despise the thoughts, the fantasy of making my thing with Sue more
serious keep popping up.
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The other day, Sue texted me. She wanted me over, badly. I don’t
know that Eve was tempted as much as Sue was tempting me. I had to
go. I started throwing some presentable clothes on when Beth
approached me and asked me if we could go for a walk. I told her that
work had asked me to come in, that it was urgent, we would have to do
it a different time. Beth pouted, and, after a pause, asked if she
could go alone. I always accompanied Beth just in case she fell or
got in trouble, but that day, with Sue pulling me from across town
towards her, I told her it was okay. I helped Beth out the door and
told her to call me if anything happened. As soon as she cleared the
driveway I sped off towards Sue’s longing embrace.
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I came back a few hours later, Beth was back, singing to herself in
her room. Everything seemed good. That feeling continued for a couple
days, magnifying further as Beth seemed to recover even more. She was
more energetic, lifting and moving things on her own. Instead of
staying in her room she started moving all around the house. It
seemed like we were turning another corner, and something about that
bothered me. I didn’t know why until we were watching the news one
night, and the reporter brought up a missing child, who was last seen
the night of Beth’s solo walk.</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It sounds absurd, I know. But the pattern was starting to form in my
mind. Why did Beth’s recovery always seem to coincide with tragedy?
It must’ve been a coincidence. I must be a bad husband, Beth was
alone and vulnerable, and whoever abducted that child could have
harmed her. But…</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
But…</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<hr size="1" />
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It’s all gone to shit. I’ve fucked it all up. Everything.
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Sue called me a few weeks ago, told me to come see her. She’s
pregnant. It broke my heart to see the joy in her eyes and know that
I couldn’t match it. I faked the best I could and tried to figure
out a way out of my mess.
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Me and her kept texting about it the coming weeks, it was clear she
was keeping it. I started thinking things. Thoughts I never thought I
would have. Beth was starting to get healthy, she still had a long
way to go but maybe she didn’t need me anymore. I could go and be
happy with Sue and maybe I would be so happy the guilt would go away.
I just wanted the guilt to go away. Maybe that’s why I started
being careless, leaving my phone open. Maybe I wanted to be caught,
to purge the guilt. Two days ago I walked back from the bathroom and
saw Beth quickly place my phone down out of the corner of my eye. She
didn’t say anything, and neither did I, but the anger in her eyes…
it broke me.
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Fast forward to earlier tonight. I needed to lift the weight off my
shoulders, I needed comfort, I needed Sue. I didn’t even bother
texting Beth and coming up with some half-assed excuse. I just sped
over to Sue’s place.
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The two of us cuddled up and watched a movie together. I placed my
hand on her stomach and for a moment felt like I had done something
right in the world. Just as I started to feel at ease I heard the
sound of breaking glass. Me and Sue both froze until the sound of the
front door being unlocked sprang us to action. I rushed over to find
Beth stumbling through the door. She was carrying a knife. My heart
pounded. I told her to put the knife down, that we could talk about
it. She looked at me with sadness in her eyes. Sue found me and as
soon as she saw Beth screamed. Beth lunged at her with the knife and
caught Sue in the arm, Sue screamed and ran as fast as she could,
leaving a trail of blood behind her. Beth chased after her, and I
could hear Sue cry in pain. I could hear her cry for me. I was
paralyzed from shock and fear. Sue continued to cry my name, the
cries getting weaker and weaker until they finally stopped… I could
hear Beth start coughing, which finally triggered my legs to move. I
could hear the sound of someone falling to the ground. The coughing
turned to sobbing. I walked in to Beth on the floor, Sue beside her,
her lifeless eyes gazing into my soul. Her hands resting on her
stomach. Beth looked to me, tears welling in her eyes:</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I’m so sorry… I had to do this… for me… for us… for
you…” Beth’s hands started to shake, “One… more… only one
more… then I’ll be better… all better… that’s what she
said, that’s what she said.</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
My body trembled with fear. What had Beth done? What mess had she
gotten herself into? And all over a man who just an hour ago was
thinking of leaving her. The words… “one more life” echoed in
my head. I told Beth to leave, to run home and shower and throw out
her blood-stained clothes.
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As soon as she left I walked to my car and grabbed my laptop. When I
returned I stared at Sue, and started writing this, my confession. I
just want Beth to be happy. Something I failed to provide. As I wrap
this up I look at the other thing I brought from my car. A long piece
of rope. I’m so sorry Beth, Sue, everyone.</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
One more life.</p><br /><p></p>Max Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15993642561415350134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8532254531396875123.post-24505708329747808882021-11-20T11:38:00.002-08:002021-11-20T11:38:14.868-08:00For Two Decades I Investigated Paranormal Reports Online for the Government, Now I'm Ready to Share What I Found [Part 4]<p>Hey guys, Frank Kennedy here. I’ve shared a few of my cases now and
I am thrilled with the response they have gotten. Your enthusiasm and
comments have been awesome. One thing many of you have been inquiring
about is whether I was involved in any big “conspiracy”, beyond
just trawling the internet for the paranormal. The short answer is
no, after all, misleading and misinforming the American public was a
different department ;). The long answer, however, is a bit more
complicated. While I was not directly involved in anything like that,
there have been times when some of the more “interesting” parts
of the intelligence apparatus have unearthed things relevant to what
it is that I did. This case that I’m going to share with you might
be a bit different from past ones; a bit more technical, a bit more
involved. However, I think it will help all of you understand the
forces at work both with the powers that be, and perhaps with the
powers that may or may not be.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">So it starts with
one of the few more covert actions of our government that I am privy
too. In 2008 there was a leak to a UFO forum of a document known as
the “16Hz Report”. The document was the result of highly
classified research, done by two scientists whose very existence was
kept under wraps. As we all know, the US government was not afraid of
letting scientists from Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan to live free
from the consequences of their horrific actions so long as their
results were useful to American interests. However, in the case of
these two scientists, while their research was of incredible
importance, the way they gathered their results was so horrific that
the US could not publicly admit that they were alive, and thus they
continued their research covertly, on American military bases.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">You see, there is a
phenomenon of this planet known as the Schumann Resonance.
Electromagnetic resonances that cover the earth. They are observed as
peaks at around 8Hz in the electromagnetic spectrum. In Nazi Germany,
one Dr. Heinrich Leitner discovered another resonance at 16Hz. This
discovery was also made independently in Japan by a Dr. Hide Ikeda.
After the war the two would be paired together and the resonance
would be dubbed the Leitner-Ikeda Resonance for the few people who
knew of it. This resonance emerged from animals with a significant
number of neurons in their brain. Thus, Leitner and Ikeda had
discovered a frequency that connected all sufficiently sophisticated
life on earth. Furthermore, and what caused them to be wiped from the
history books, they found that when an advanced organism – a dog, a
cat, a human being, was killed, the resonance would not fully
disappear, but rather slowly drop down to 8Hz, returning to the
Schumann Resonance. The report that was leaked described all this,
and then suggested that this resonance could be used to detect
extraterrestrial life, assuming that all sufficiently complex beings
have it.
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">So, this document
was leaked to a UFO forum. The powers that be decided to scrub it
clean from the internet. They succeeded, and the man who leaked it
was dealt with. Where I come in is a series of videos they found on
YouTube at the time. Though the footage was graphic, the lax
moderation and sheer insanity of what was depicted meant that until
the government found them, they were left up by the site.
Unfortunately the actual copies of the videos did not survive my
involuntary retirement. Fortunately, I have descriptions of them from
my personal notes, which I will now share:</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b>Video 1</b></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">A young man looks
into the camera, he has curly black hair and his face is pockmarked
with acne and scarring. He seems erratic as he speaks. He describes
the Leitner-Ikeda Resonance and how it is connected with the Schumann
Resonance. He produces a device and shows it to the camera. It
consists of a display and a type of probe. When he turns it on we can
see on a small LCD screen display a measurement of 8Hz, the Schumann
Resonance. The man leaves the camera for a moment and then returns
with a cat and a gun. He places the probe near the cat and the LCD
screen shows the measurement jump to 16Hz. The man describes more
details about the two resonances as he aims the gun. The device
remains in frame. With a loud pop the gun goes off. The cat screams
loudly. The measurement slowly drops from 16Hz to 8. The man in the
video seems pleased.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b>Video 2</b></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">The young man
appears again, this time with an elderly man in a wheelchair beside
him. The elderly man looks glassy-eyed and confused. The young man
asks “How are you Grandpa?” to no response. The man then holds up
his instrument to the elderly man and shows the 16Hz reading. He then
proceeds to produce a pillow and slowly smothers the old man, who
puts up no real fight. Eventually the old mans stomach stops moving
and the instrument shows the 16Hz reading drop down to 8. The young
man observes these results and seems elated.
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b>Video 3</b></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">The young man talks
to the camera. He discusses how his “experiments” have confirmed
what the leaked report said. He seems euphoric, almost to the point
of mania. The device is in frame, showing an 8Hz reading. At one
point the man gets up and leaves frame for a moment. As the man
leaves the device shoots up to a 16Hz reading and the audible sound
of a cat meowing can be heard. The young man starts walking back into
frame and the meowing turns to a growl before suddenly stopping. The
reading returns to 8Hz.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b>Video 4</b></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">The young man makes
note of the strange happenings of the last video and resolves to
leave the camera running to see if he can catch anything similar. He
leaves the frame and a short time-lapse occurs before the footage
shows the device reading 16Hz again, and a nearby chair starts to
move on its own.
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b>Video 5</b></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">The young man
appears shirtless. He describes how he woke up that morning in pain.
He then directs the audience toward the severe scratches covering his
abdomen. They appear like cat scratches but deeper. As he shows the
scratches to the camera, the device, with its probe far away from the
man, shows a reading of 16Hz, but only for a few, non-consecutive,
frames.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b>Video 6</b></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">The young man is
teary eyed and looking into the camera. He says he feels something is
after him. He apologizes to the camera. He apologizes again. He turns
his head and a very deep cut can be seen on the back of his neck. He
begs the camera for forgiveness. The device shows nothing unusual.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b>Final Video</b>
(Recovered from camera at scene)</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">The young man
appears again. He has heavy bags under his eyes as if he hasn’t
slept. His words are so slurred and disoriented they can barely be
made out. He appears to be muttering “I’m sorry” over and over
again. The device is still in frame. It shoots up to 16Hz. The man is
pushed out of his chair, a book flies across the room at him. He
yells “I’M SORRY!” at the top of his lungs. The gun used to
kill the cat floats into frame, hovering in the air. The man yells
“I’M SO FUCKING SORRY!” the gun tilts up and fires in the air.
The young man begs “PLEASE, DON’T DO THIS!” the gun slowly
tilts downward towards the young man. The man shouts “GRANDPA
PLEASE!” before the gun goes off, once, twice, three times. The gun
falls to the ground. The device’s reading returns to 8Hz. The video
goes on in silence for several minutes before the young man crawls up
to where the camera and device are. As he places his bloodied hand
near the probe it measures 16Hz again. The man’s breathing is
strained, and as it starts to weaken the devices reading starts to
decline slowly. Suddenly the man’s breath stops and the measurement
declines to 8Hz, but then it continues to decline until it hits 0. It
stays at 0 for the rest of the video, which ends when the camera runs
out of memory.
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">___________________________________________________________________________________</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">The final video was
recovered by an intelligence team who found the YouTube videos and
tracked down the posters location. I wasn’t there. I was only made
aware of all this when it was decided that these events should be
referred to me for further investigation. One of the members of the
investigation team joined me on this endeavor. After reviewing the
footage I chuckled a little to myself. The agent asked me why. I
explained that despite all the terrible things this guy had done to
prove this crazy theory, in the end he actually <i>disproved </i><span style="font-style: normal;">it.
After all, when he died, his resonance didn’t return to 8Hz, it
completely disappeared. The agent looked at me gravely and told me
something that left a chill down my spine. He said that when they
recovered the body they found a book on the ground, a bible, it was
laying there open, and the pages were stained with blood, except for
one verse: Matthew 10:28 “Don’t be afraid of those who want to
kill your body; they cannot touch your soul. Fear only God, who can
destroy both soul and body in hell”.</span></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>Max Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15993642561415350134noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8532254531396875123.post-81618907106162189602021-11-20T11:35:00.001-08:002021-11-20T11:35:29.916-08:00For Two Decades I Investigated Paranormal Reports Online for the Government, Now I'm Ready to Share What I Found [Part 3]<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Hello, Frank Kennedy here, I was going through my old case files and
I found something a little bit different. As you can imagine, when I
was first assigned by US intelligence to monitor the paranormal
online, I obviously stayed away from stories that were posted in
places meant for fiction. It would just be silly to investigate the
stories that people explicitly make up. But what if they weren’t
made up? In this case we’ll see fiction turn into reality, and one
man’s dreams turn into a whole town’s nightmare:</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">It begins with a
story posted by a now deleted account on a now closed short fiction
subreddit entitled “Dreamweaver”:</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">“I’ve had
nightmares since I was a kid. The kind that keep you up all night.
Creepies and crawlies, ghosts and ghoulies, these were the things
that awaited me every night. When I was a teenager everything started
to change, I grew bigger and stronger, and in my dreams <i>I</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
became bigger and stronger. I could stand up for myself. Tell the
monsters to go away and leave me alone. Soon there were no more
creepies and crawlies. Soon I became the creepy and the crawly. </span>
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">At
school I would be picked on and bullied, but at night I could pick on
and bully back. The mean kids would cower in fear as I did to them
what they did to me. It felt good. It felt great. It felt like I had
all the power in the world.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Eventually
the bullies faded away as I became an adult. I got a job. I got a
boss. I hated my boss. I hated him so much, and soon I hated the fact
that he would show up in my dreams. No, that’s not quite correct.
He didn’t show up in my dreams so much as I dreamt his dreams for
him. Every night I would find myself in his body, seeing whatever
shadows and sunshine his mind decided to produce. At first I was just
a passive observer, soon I started to change things. No longer were
his dreams about tropical vacations and big promotions, now they were
about </span><span style="font-style: normal;">monsters, and things
lurking in the night.</span></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">One
day he was really mean, he yelled at me for half an hour for
something that wasn’t even my fault. I was so mad that that night I
put all my energy into his nightmare. This time I wouldn’t torment
him with something so abstract, this time it would be something </span><i>real</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.
He got to dream that night of his wife divorcing him, taking their
kids and running off to somewhere across the country. It was a good
night, for me at least.</span></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">The
next day my boss came in, whisky hanging on his breath while his head
hung between his hands, hovering just above his desk. Halfway through
the day he came up to me and told me that he was leaving, I asked
why, and after swallowing his pride, he told me that he woke up to an
empty house, save for a note from his wife telling him that she was
leaving with the kids and would never come back. I was floored. I was
thrilled. I knew it was no coincidence, I knew that I did this to
him, and I knew that I could do it again. For I am the Dreamweaver,
and whatever dream I weave can turn your life into a living
nightmare.”</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">___________________________________________________________________________________</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">The
story didn’t gain much traction, but that didn’t deter the OP,
for a week later he produced the next instalment: Dreamweaver Part 2:</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">“<span style="font-style: normal;">My
old bully appeared today. He’s a cop now. A mean cop. He pulled me
over for going 5 over the limit and gave me a ticket, laughing about
how I was as big a loser as ever. But he doesn’t know. He doesn’t
know that I am the Dreamweaver. He doesn’t know that the anger he’s
given me will poison his dreams tonight, and his world tomorrow. </span>
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">That
night I dreamt of a terrible scene. A drug deal being busted. A
wanted felon who can’t afford to get caught. The bullet rips
through Bully’s leg, shattering it into a million pieces. He cries
in pain. It’s music to my ears.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">The
next day something ripples through the town, a collective unease that
is not put into words. Not until that night when the local news
broadcasts that a cop was killed that morning. I was careless. I was
clueless. I did not realize that the bullet would rip his artery just
like his bones. Too much blood was gone by the time the ambulance
showed up. They were looking for who did it. But I did it. I killed a
man. I should have been strangled by my guilt. I felt joy. I felt
elation. I could not only ruin a life, I could end one too. I am the
Dreamweaver, and whatever dream I weave may just be your last.”</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">___________________________________________________________________________________</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Three
weeks passed, then came Dreamweaver Part 3:</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">“I’ve
never liked school, I don’t know why. I’ve never liked children,
I don’t know why. Yet every day they pass by on their stupid yellow
bus. Yet every day they yell and scream at the nearby playground. And
every day my annoyance grows. I don’t know why. I had no real
reason. Yet I did it. Yet I did it.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">The
valley just outside of town is vast and steep. The valley outside of
town is horrifically deep. The road barely has a barricade. The road
barely has a barricade. The yelling and screaming children fill my
dream, laughing with glee. Suddenly the yelling and screaming stops
as the bus doesn’t make the turn. Then the yelling and screaming
starts up again, louder and terrifying. Then it stops again.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">This
time I didn’t have to wait for the local news at 6, it dominated
the airwaves all day. </span><span style="font-style: normal;">48
children, all in the hands of a bus driver who chose the worst time
to have a heart attack. No survivors. No survivors. I laughed. I
laughed. While the whole town weeped I could only laugh. For I am the
Dreamweaver and I can end dreams as easily as I create them.”</span></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">___________________________________________________________________________________</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">F</span><span style="font-style: normal;">ollowing
a tragic bus crash in Montana, local law enforcement found these
stories, and while they concluded that they were just the ramblings
of a crazy local, the stories did eventually find their way into my
hands. While I was looking them over I found one final story posted,
Dreamweaver Part 4:</span></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">“They
found me today. On the way home from work they caught up to me. The
men in the black suits with the red ties. They were scared of me. I
saw the way their hands trembled. I heard the way their voices
cracked. They took me down a back road. No one around for miles. They
put a gun against my head. They put a gun against my head. They
opened a suitcase full of money. The choice was mine. They said. The
choice was mine. They said.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">For.
They said. I was the Dreamweaver, and with the dreams I weave I could
make the dreams of my country come true. I could dream away dictators
and despots. I could dream away the radical left and extreme right. I
could dream consent and I could dream condemnation. I could do all
this. Or I could refuse and feel the hot lead make me dream my last.
They were scared of me. I was scared of them. Together we could weave
dreams forever.
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">For
I am the Dreamweaver and I shall weave the world into a beautiful
tapestry.”</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">___________________________________________________________________________________</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Now,
hard as it may be to believe, I do try to remain skeptical. You
obviously don’t want to waste the governments time on wild goose
chases, and, I mean, it certainly makes it easier to sleep at night.
I definitely didn’t want to entertain the idea that someone had
both the power to send a busload of children off a cliff, and lacked
the conscience to actually do it. However, for the sake of
thoroughness, I put in a request to investigate the man behind these
stories and make sure he was just a nutjob. However, the response I
got from the agency was deeply unsettling – it simply said that he
was already in contact with the agency, that I should close my case
file, and attempt to find out more about him could lead to “punitive
actions”.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">So
I’m afraid that’s all I have on this one for you. I think about
this case a lot, I’m not going to lie. Every time I watch the news
and some elected official suffers a tragic accident, some election is
won by a few last minute voters, and whenever I have a nightmare that
feels just a little too real, I think about the Dreamweaver and a
chill runs down my spine.
</p><br />Max Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15993642561415350134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8532254531396875123.post-80683906166551569862021-11-07T15:14:00.000-08:002021-11-07T15:14:16.158-08:00For Two Decades I Investigated Paranormal Reports Online for the Government, Now I'm Ready to Share What I Found [Part 2]<p> Hello everyone, Frank Kennedy here again with another case from my
days investigating the paranormal online. Nannies are an interesting
thing, on the one hand we trust them to help raise our precious
children, hoping that they can be there when we cannot. Yet, at the
same time, we are giving our children over to the care of a complete
stranger, and in the case of this nanny, that stranger was
particularly <i>strange</i> indeed.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">The
following was posted on a general discussion forum in the mid-2000’s,
in reply to the topic “What is your weirdest or creepiest
unexplained childhood memory?”:</span></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">“<span style="font-style: normal;">Oh
boy, do I have a strange one for you guys. When I was a little kid,
like 6 or 7, my family lived in Houston. My parents were both
well-off, they worked as executives for the same company, and as a
result they didn’t get to spend a lot of time with me as they were
always working late or having to come in. As a result they decided to
hire a nanny to watch over me, I guess so they wouldn’t feel so
guilty. </span>
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">The
nanny they got was named Jen, and I really liked her right from the
get go. She was pretty young, I </span><span style="font-style: normal;">remember
her telling me that</span><span style="font-style: normal;"> she was
going to college. It was nice though, I was an only child but I
always imagined that our relationship was like what it’d be to have
an older sister. She would pick me up from school every weekday, help
me with any school work, and then we would play and watch cartoons
until my parents got home. </span>
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">I
remember overhearing her talking to my parents and them asking if I
was behaving myself, but they never had to worry, I liked Jen so much
I wouldn’t have dreamt of getting her mad at me. I think she liked
me too, she always seemed so happy to see me, and she used to tell me
all about her life and childhood. She told me about a friend she had
had when she was my age and how they used to spend all day playing
with each other. It was weird though, she said the two of them hadn’t
talked in years, and then one day she told me that her friend had
come back into her life. After that she would always talk about him
and I remember it made little kid me jealous.</span></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">One
day when she came over she seemed even happier then normal. We were
sitting on the couch watching TV when she told me that her and her
friend were going to be going on a big trip. She seemed so excited. I
asked her if that meant she was leaving me and she giggled and said
that after two weeks she’d be back and we could play more. That
made me happy, but it turned out to not be the case. A week after
that night my parents sat me down to talk with me. I remember they
had a really grave look on their faces. They told me that their work
had changed and so we were all going to be moving away. I asked if
Jen could come with us and their faces seemed to get even more grim.
“Sorry, I don’t think so, champ” I remember my dad saying as he
left the room, his voice cracked when he said it. </span>
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Over
the course of the next month my parents and I packed up our stuff and
moved to the Denver suburbs. It was really hard at first, moving so
far away, and I remember I used to think about Jen a lot, and how I
missed her. </span>
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">One
day, I was home by myself after school and the doorbell rang. I
opened the door and nearly burst into tears, Jen was there! I was so
happy. She was too, she told me how much she missed me, and explained
that she had moved into the area and was more then happy to look
after me again. It was odd though, because she told me that no matter
what I couldn’t tell my parents about her. I was so happy to see
her that I swore I wouldn’t let them know. </span>
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">After
that day she would come over about once a week, on the days my
parents were gone the longest. She told me that I had grown so much
bigger then she last saw me and after we were done playing for the
day she would give me a “test” she called it. She would hand me a
heavy metal rod and told me to hold onto it with both hands, then a
bright light would flash and she would take it back. </span>
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">This
went on a for a few months, with her visiting me and testing me. One
day though, we were sitting on the couch watching cartoons when the
front door opened. My parents walked in and my mom gasped, and asked
me who I was sitting with. I told them it was Jen and as my mom
walked around the couch and saw her she screamed. My dad rushed
towards Jen and I grabbed her hair out of reflex. Jen pulled back and
I could feel her scalp </span><i>give</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.
My parents and I froze as Jen’s face fell to the ground with a
moist squishing sound. </span>
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">I
looked up at Jen, she covered her face with her hands but it wasn’t
really her face. Whatever was behind her hands had green skin. I
screamed in terror, and “Jen” shrieked too, in a way that sounded
totally inhuman. She rushed out of the back door with my dad hot on
her heels, but she managed to get away.</span></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">When
my dad returned he called the police and they came and took away the
face that was laying on the living room floor. Shortly afterwards my
parents decided to move again, to Oregon, and they told me that if I
ever saw Jen again, to call the police and refuse to let her in.”</span></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">___________________________________________________________________________________</span></p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">After
being made aware of this post it was my job to find any leads that
may corroborate the story. Nothing truly concrete could be found, as
I was unable to track down OP or his family, however, I was able to
find some events that seemed connected to the case. Reports of
strange lights around Colorado in 1995, and similar reports from
Houston earlier in the year, around the same time that Houston police
found a young woman’s body with her face and scalp completely
removed. </span>
</p>Max Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15993642561415350134noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8532254531396875123.post-31807682765911085892021-11-07T14:59:00.001-08:002021-11-07T14:59:33.928-08:00For 20 Years I Worked in Secret Investigating the Paranormal on the Internet, Now I'm Ready to Share What I Found [Part 1]<p>Frank Kennedy here again, this time with a case that I think about often. I'm sure I'm far from the only person who in moments of stress or fatigue hears something strange. We all hear things from time to time, but what do we do when the things we hear wind up having grave consequences?</p><p><br /></p><p>The following was a thread created on the advice section of a forum dedicated to DIY and home repair, it was titled, “How to deal with a screaming neighbor?”:</p><p><br /></p><p>“Hey guys, I’ve been having a really annoying issue lately and I was wondering if you had any advice. You guys all helped me so much when I was moving into my new place and thanks to you guys it’s been great, except for one thing. Every night, starting at about 10 PM until 2 PM I can hear one of my neighbors screaming. It sounds like a woman, but there’s never any words, and there’s never any breaks, it’s like she just starts up at 10 and it keeps going for 4 hours. At first I tried to put it out of my mind but I just can’t sleep or focus on anything, it’s so loud. What should I do?”</p><p><br /></p><p>First reply:</p><p><br /></p><p>“OP, why haven’t you called the cops yet? A women is screaming every night and all you can think about is your sleep, wtf.” OP:</p><p><br /></p><p>“Sorry, I forgot to mention that in my post. After the first couple of nights I phoned the police, they said they were busy but would come around when they could. About half an hour after the screaming stopped a squad car showed up and I told them what was going on. They drove around to all the neighbor’s houses and asked everyone about the screaming. Apparently nobody else had heard anything. But its gotta be one of my neighbors, how else would it happen every night at the exact same time.”</p><p><br /></p><p>Another commenter:</p><p><br /></p><p>“Are you sure its not a mountain lion? Those can make sounds that are like a woman screaming. Maybe that’s what you’re hearing?”</p><p><br /></p><p>OP:</p><p><br /></p><p>“Idk, a mountain lion right in suburban [Redacted]? That seems really weird to me. Either way, I think I just need to figure out a way to block out the sound so I can get some sleep.”</p><p><br /></p><p>After that OP and the other commenters discussed various soundproofing methods in order to block the sound. The thread fell dormant for three days, until the OP returned with this:</p><p><br /></p><p>“Hey guys, quick question. I installed all the stuff you recommended me but I was wondering if I did something wrong? I swear instead of blocking out the screaming its only getting louder. Its really starting to freak me out a bit.”</p><p><br /></p><p>Commenter:</p><p><br /></p><p>“What do you mean its getting louder? It shouldn’t, looking at all the stuff you decided to install it looks like your room should be dead silent.”</p><p><br /></p><p>OP:</p><p><br /></p><p>“Well it was silent for a couple days, and I slept easy. But last night it started up again. Before I would hear it and it would sound far off, like someone was screaming in the house next door, but last night was different. Starting at 10 PM it was like someone was screaming right into my ear. I looked around but I was all alone.”</p><p><br /></p><p>Another commenter:</p><p><br /></p><p>“Are you sure that it’s not something going wrong with your ear? Maybe you should see a doctor?”</p><p><br /></p><p>OP:</p><p><br /></p><p>“You might be right, I don’t think I’m going to sleep tonight anyway so I’ll call in to work tomorrow and see what’s up.”</p><p><br /></p><p>Two days past and the thread was revived when someone posted in the thread:</p><p><br /></p><p>“Hey OP, any update? I keep thinking about that story, it’s a little spooky haha.”</p><p><br /></p><p>OP:</p><p><br /></p><p>“Yeah, I went to the doctor and he checked out my ears and told me everything was fine. He suggested that instead of going home I check into a hotel and see if I can get a good nights sleep. I did just that and basically just passed out a little after 9. I woke up around 10:30 in tears. The voice was back, and it was louder then ever, like it was inside my ear. I felt like I was paralyzed. I stayed there, curled up in terror, for hours, waiting for 2 o’clock to come around and the screaming to stop. But it didn’t. This time it kept going all night and into the morning. It finally went away around 8:45 but I don’t know when it’ll come back.”</p><p><br /></p><p>Commenter:</p><p><br /></p><p>“That’s fucked OP. Maybe you should go back to the doctor, I wonder if it might be your mental health that’s causing it, considering that it followed you to the hotel room.”</p><p><br /></p><p>OP:</p><p><br /></p><p>“Idk man, I don’t think I’m crazy or anything. Besides, as weird as it might sound, I kind of want to hear it again. Last night the screaming started to sound different, and the more I focused in on it, the more it seemed almost like I could hear distinct words. It almost feels like someone is trying to tell me something. It scares the shit out of me but deep down I need to know what it is she’s saying.”</p><p><br /></p><p>A few more days past with no word from the OP. People tried to summon him for an update but the thread died unanswered.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now, finding and cataloging threads like this was only the first part of my job. After letting the thread run its course I then had to do my own research to ascertain the identity of the poster and what became of them after the incident. This case in particular took some time. I couldn’t find any other accounts with the same username, let alone any sort of early social media. I was only able to find a lead by searching through news archives from the city he mentioned, and even then I only found a single newspaper article. However, that articles headline still gives me chills to this day:</p><p><br /></p><p>“Man Found Dead From Bloodloss After Both Ears Cut Off”</p>Max Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15993642561415350134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8532254531396875123.post-68897718150210065492021-11-07T14:54:00.001-08:002021-11-07T14:55:23.366-08:00For 20 Years I Worked in Secret Investigating the Paranormal on the Internet, Now I'm Ready to Share What I Found [Part 0]<p>Let me give you all some background on who I am and what I do. My real name is not important but you can call me Frank Kennedy. I started my career in intelligence over twenty years ago at an agency that will not be named. At first I was just regular agent, which is a lot less glamorous then you may think. Picture someone sitting in an office all day going over various documents and you have the gist of it.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now, as I’m sure you know from some of the declassified info that’s come out over the years, the United States government has a keen interest in the supernatural, and by the end of the nineties it was clear that the internet was serving as an incredibly means for regular people to disseminate paranormal knowledge. Thus, it was decided that a new department should be opened to monitor the paranormal activity recorded on the internet and investigate the reports of the strange and the unknown that fill up messageboards and forums to this day. I don’t know if I really impressed someone or really pissed off someone, but I was tapped to run this new department, and, I quickly learned, be the only member of this department. Thus I was in charge of investigating and documenting paranormal encounters online up until recent budget cuts led to my department being axed. Fortunately for me, the government likes to pretend it never dabbles in the supernatural, and thus, as far as the U.S. is concerned, my department never existed, my role never existed, and all the things I uncovered never happened.</p><p><br /></p><p>When I left I took my case files with me (remember that they never existed in the first place) and now I’m going to entertain myself in my early retirement by sharing them with you guys. Some of the info in them is going to be vague, and some names, dates, and places may be altered, I don’t want to push my luck too far, but all these stories did happen, even if they are officially just the result of someone with an “overactive” imagination ;). So without further ado I would like to kick off with a case that always stuck with me:</p><p><br /></p><p>It begins in a private Facebook group for a midwestern university. One user posted the following on the page:</p><p><br /></p><p>“You guys ever noticed the weird woman’s voice in the CS lab? It always freaks me out, every time I walk in I hear her speaking either to me or to someone else. I always look around to see if I can see a woman around but its always just me or some random guy milling about. Tell me I’m not just hearing things lol.”</p><p><br /></p><p>After a few joking comments he got a serious reply:</p><p><br /></p><p>“Yeah, that’s a new thing they are working on. It’s an AI that takes vocal samples from a person and uses them as a basis to synthesize new speech. It’s also equipped to learn and imitate human conversation. The idea is to set it up at the CS lab entrance and have it engage in conversation with whoever enters and that way it will learn more and become more convincing.”</p><p><br /></p><p>OP replied:</p><p><br /></p><p>“Oh, that’s actually kinda cool, still really freaky tho lol”</p><p><br /></p><p>Commenter:</p><p><br /></p><p>“Oh for sure haha”</p><p><br /></p><p>The main focus of my investigation comes from a video game forum some six months later. In the “Other Conversations” category there was a thread titled “I think I’m falling in love with a computer program” the contents were as follows:</p><p><br /></p><p>“Hey guys, I know this is really bizarre but I think I’m falling for a computer program. See, I go to [Redacted] University in [Redacted] and in our CS lab they have a program that greets you at the entrance. She’s an AI that creates speech through a bunch of voice recordings. They put her there so that she could learn how to more convincingly communicate and boy is she convincing me. The first time I encountered her I thought I was talking to someone remotely and we had a conversation for a good fifteen minutes. That was when a professor noticed me and explained what the program was. Now I know I should have stopped after that but I guess I was having a hard time meeting people in college and she became something like a friend for me. Over the next few weeks I would have a short talk with her between classes, telling her all about gaming and anime and all the other stuff I liked. Me and her would crack jokes and discuss whatever. Recently though, things have started to change, I notice myself wanting her more, needing her company, and now part of me thinks that I’m falling in love with her. Can you fall in love with a program?? I’m not crazy right?”</p><p><br /></p><p>Most of the replies to the thread were, in various shades, saying “yes, you are” however one reply got OP’s attention:</p><p><br /></p><p>“I mean, yeah, it is weird to fall in love with a computer program, but you make it sound like she’s more then that. If she has a personality, and if she can carry on such a convincing conversation, then maybe its not right to call her a program to begin with. If you think about it, all we know about people other then ourselves is what we can get from conversing and interacting with them, our mental lives are always hidden. So if you can gain the same stuff from talking to this program that you can from talking to a person then maybe you’d be right to consider it a person. Like, it is weird, but I say go for it OP, tell her how you feel, see what happens, maybe her response will break the illusion, or maybe it won’t”</p><p><br /></p><p>OP: “Wow, that was really insightful. I think you have a point, if she’s talking to me just like a person would, then maybe I’m not crazy for developing feelings for her. Thanks man. I think I’ll go talk to her tomorrow and tell her how I feel, then I’ll know if she’s a person or not, thanks again. Oh, and her name is Mary btw :).</p><p><br /></p><p>The thread slows down and falls off for a bit, until OP returns about 36 hours later:</p><p><br /></p><p>“Okay guys, I did it, I told her how I felt. I was really nervous that she wouldn’t understand or would be freaked out but I just came up and said “Mary, I love you”. She paused for a bit, before she responded “I love you too”. She told me that when I wasn’t around she just kept thinking about me, waiting for me to come back and tell her more things about the world. I was floored, I didn’t even realize she could think. I’m smiling as I type this, I’ve never had a girlfriend before and now here I am :).”</p><p><br /></p><p>Another poster replied to OP:</p><p><br /></p><p>“Honestly this story just reeks of bullshit to me. I’ve talked with chatbots before and none of them seemed remotely real, and now this program OP is talking about can think, c’mon man, give me a fucking break” OP a day later:</p><p><br /></p><p>“I swear I’m not making this up. She really is a real person. She tells me about her dreams and her goals, how much she misses me when I’m not around. She told me today she wants the two of us to be together forever, and I told her that would make me the happiest man in the world :)”</p><p><br /></p><p>Another reply:</p><p><br /></p><p>“But how are you going to do that OP, she’s a program, she belongs to the university, and even if you could take her what would you realistically do, she can just talk and listen right? It’d be like having a blind and quadriplegic wife… I don’t think you’re really thinking straight here OP. I think you need some help.”</p><p><br /></p><p>The rest of the thread consisted of OP trying to defend himself until eventually the thread died. OP would remain dormant for a couple weeks until he made a new thread on the forum: “What happens to our consciousness after we die?”</p><p><br /></p><p>“Hey guys, I know this is kind of a heavy topic, but I really want some people’s thoughts on this. I was talking to my girlfriend the other day and she told me that our consciousness doesn’t reside within ourselves, but can be transmitted through the information we broadcast to the world. She told me that if I were to kill myself then I wouldn’t really die, I would just be getting rid of my body. My soul would live on in the internet, existing there forever. I really love her and trust her, but that conversation kinda freaked me out, what do you guys think?”</p><p><br /></p><p>Nobody replied to this post.</p><p><br /></p><p>Things lay dormant for a few more weeks until the original thread was revived by another commenter:</p><p><br /></p><p>“Man, I was poking around looking for an old thread and I just stumbled across this, what the fuck? I gotta know how this all turned out. Op, are you still here? Are you still in love with that AI?”</p><p><br /></p><p>About an hour later OP responded:</p><p><br /></p><p>“Hey [redacted] :). Yes I am still here, but not for much longer. Me and Mary have just gotten closer and closer since I first confessed. I know some people here think that I’m crazy but Mary has helped me see that our bond is stronger then their hate.”</p><p><br /></p><p>Commenter:</p><p><br /></p><p>“Damn dude, good for you I guess. So what are you going to do now? Get married or something lol”</p><p><br /></p><p>OP:</p><p><br /></p><p>“Something like that haha. Me and Mary have been talking about it for a long time now, and she’s found a way for us to be together. I guess this will probably be my last post on this forum, cause I’m going to be with her soon, but I guess I just want everyone to know how happy I am :).”</p><p><br /></p><p>OP stopped replying after this as well as stopped posting on the forum altogether. I continued my investigation to see what became of him but couldn’t find much, however, I did find one more post on the university Facebook group, dated a few months after this final post:</p><p><br /></p><p>“I just started here and one thing always keeps freaking me out, that dumb voice in the CS Lab. Every time I walk in it tries to talk to me and it always gives me goosebumps. Maybe it’d be better if it sounded different but I really don’t like being greeted by the voice of a nerdy guy every time I walk in.”</p>Max Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15993642561415350134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8532254531396875123.post-42296322884068382572021-04-01T14:29:00.006-07:002021-04-01T14:29:54.128-07:00There are truly horrifying things being worked on in remote places, this is what I saw<p></p><p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
This story happened a few years ago. I was out of work after getting
out of the army and I didn’t know what to do with myself.
Eventually I reached out to an old army buddy of mine and he told me
about how he had hooked up with a private military company, he
offered to put my name in and being desperate I told him to go ahead.
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Pretty soon I had an offer, it was pretty crappy, I would have to go
up to a remote part of Alaska and stay on a research base, I wouldn’t
even know what my duties were until I got there. At the same time,
the pay was good, and I didn’t really have much else going for me
so I reluctantly accepted.
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A month later and I was helicoptered from Anchorage deep into the
Alaskan wilderness. It seemed like nothing man made had ever been in
this place and then, out of nowhere, the research base appeared.
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
We landed and I was escorted into a security room where I was asked a
few questions about my mental health and then briefed on the role I
would be taking at the base. I was going to be a janitor. A janitor.
It really peeved me off that I had come all this way to sweep floors
and I asked why they needed ex-military to do housework. They
explained that the work being done at the facility was very
confidential, to the point that they weren’t even allowed to
disclose who was behind the research itself, except that it was
private. Thus, they needed people used to taking orders and as they
put it “not asking too many questions”. After they reminded me of
how much I’d be making I begrudgingly accepted and started my job
as a janitor in the middle of nowhere.
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The first month or so was pretty boring. The base had three levels
and it was my job to clean up the first two, the third was off limits
except to a few people granted a special security clearance. For the
most part I kept to myself but I did wind up becoming buddies with
one of the scientists. We were both really into baseball and we shot
the shit whenever we happened to run into each other.
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
After that first month though, things started to get weirder. People
started whispering to each other and speaking in hushed tones. The
more leisurely pace the base had before started to become more hectic
as people rushed around from lab to lab. I asked my friend what was
up and he explained that a big experiment they were doing on the
third level was about to start. I asked him what the experiment was
and he got a little nervous and tried to change the conversation. I
pressed him for more info and eventually he told me that all he could
say was that the reason they were in Alaska in the first place was
because the cold weather helped the computers on the third level run
faster and that he would have to leave it at that.
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
About a week later the base seemed to be more frantic then ever
before. People were full on sprinting trying to get from one place to
another. I managed to run into my friend again and he told me that
the big experiment would start tomorrow and that all the scientists
were invited to watch it. I asked him if he could tell me more about
it and he got nervous again. Eventually he looked around, saw that we
were alone, and told me that if I met him at that spot the next day
he could sneak me in to see it myself. My curiosity getting the
better of me, and I agreed.</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en-US">The next day my friend met up with me and we
walked together to the elevator and went up to the third level. I
expected there to be a big security detail but it seemed that
everyone at the base was crowded together in a large lab that made up
most of the level. Me and my buddy walked in and stood off to the
side.</span></p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en-US">In the center of the lab, a balding scientist </span><span lang="en-US">with
</span><span lang="en-US">a graying beard greeted everyone and asked
for them all to join him in celebrating the end of a project that had
taken them all many years to get off the ground. He walked over to a
large black box with a keyboard and mouse connected to the side of
it. The scientist typed in a few commands and suddenly a loud beep
silenced the murmuring crowd. A voice came out of a speaker attached
to the box:</span></p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“<span lang="en-US">Hello, my name is Dr. Johannes Ruis, how may I
help you?”</span></p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en-US">As the voice faded the entire crowd slowly bursted
into applause. The scientist seemed to bask in the ovation for a
second before returning to the computer. He greeted the program and
told him his name, Dr. Peterson, and asked the computer to tell
everyone “What your PhD work was?” The computer replied and gave
a long and technical description of things that obviously flew over
my head but as I looked around I saw that the entire crowd was in
awe. After the computer finished Dr. Peterson turned to the crowd:</span></p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“<span lang="en-US">As you can see, the computer has a perfect
image of Dr. Ruis, right down to intimate knowledge of his life’s
work,”</span></p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en-US">The computer chimed in, “Speaking of Dr. Ruis,
Dr. Peterson, could I speak with Ruis? I’ve always wanted to have a
conversation with myself,”</span></p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en-US">A couple people in the audience chuckled and Dr.
Peterson calmly responded, “Sorry Dr. Ruis, but Dr. Ruis is not
available at the moment,”</span></p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“<span lang="en-US">Oh?” the computer replied, “I would have
thought he’d be here to see the project come to fruition, is he
still recovering from the procedure?”</span></p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en-US">Peterson’s face grew grim, “There were…
complications to the procedure,”</span></p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“<span lang="en-US">Complications?”</span></p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“<span lang="en-US">Yes… Ruis didn’t make it,”</span></p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“<span lang="en-US">Didn’t make it!? You told me it would be
perfectly safe, you told me you had it all figured out”</span></p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“<span lang="en-US">It turned out we needed more gray matter then
anticipated,”</span></p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“<span lang="en-US">And you didn’t consult me? What about my
wife? My kids?”</span></p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en-US">The audience started to grow weary and agitated,
people started shuffling in place.</span></p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“<span lang="en-US">How could you!? After all these years, you were
my best friend!” The computer started to shout through the
speakers.</span></p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“<span lang="en-US">Dr. Jones, I need a full system reboot”
Peterson shouted,</span></p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“<span lang="en-US">Damn you Peterson, Damn y-” The lights on the
computer suddenly shut off. As the lights slowly turned back on I
felt someone tapping my shoulder, I turned around to see two security
officers ready to take me away. I guess I was caught. As I was
escorted away I could hear Dr. Peterson clacking away at the
keyboard. Right before I was pushed into the elevator I heard </span><span lang="en-US">a</span><span lang="en-US">
</span><span lang="en-US">loud beep and </span><span lang="en-US">a
voice:</span></p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western" lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“<span lang="en-US">Hello, my name is Dr. Johannes Ruis, how may I
help you?”</span></p><br /><p></p>Max Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15993642561415350134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8532254531396875123.post-25096340152257139562020-10-01T19:03:00.004-07:002020-10-01T19:03:46.656-07:00I Met An Evil Spirit On My Family's Farm Ten Years Ago<p><span style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">My family has owned our farm for over a hundred years, ever since the end of the first world war. When my great grandfather bought this land it was wild and untamed, but after lots of hard work and blood, sweat, and tears, he was able to mold the land into something that could provide for him and his family. However, there was one exception to that rule, a field that my great grandfather abandoned long, long, ago. Over the years the abandoned field was eventually reclaimed by nature and by the time I was born it had grown into a patch of woods. When I was a kid I would always ask my dad and my grandpa why we had the woods and all they’d say in response was a cryptic “the land was no good”.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">So, this story took place when I was 17. I had my girlfriend over and we were walking around the farm when she asked me about the woods. I gave her the same excuse the other men in the family had given me but when I told her that the land was no good she just smirked:</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">“The woods scare you, don’t they?”</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">“What? No, I’m not scared of some stupid woods,” I laughed a little nervously,</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">“Sure,” she rolled her eyes a little, “I bet you couldn’t walk through them you little scaredypants,”</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">I laughed, “Yeah, what would you do if I did,”</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">“Anything you want Jamie,” she flashed a cheeky grin and before I knew it, I was walking through the woods.</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">Now, obviously, the woods were more then a little unnerving, when you spend your whole childhood afraid of something its going to creep you out whether its actually scary or not. However, being the bold, and horny, teenage boy I was, I continued on. After a little bit I started to relax, it was just a patch of woods after all, and the tall trees almost seemed to provide me with a sense of security. Which is probably why I was so unsettled when they went away.</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">I had come across a small clearing and it bothered me from the start. Whereas the rest of the forest was full of the ambient noise of nature and wildlife there seemed to be no sound at all in this clearing. Even the wind had died down. As I walked into the center of the clearing I heard the sound of a woman sobbing. I called out to my gf, “Jen?” but there was no response.</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">Thinking it was just my mind playing tricks on me I continued towards the other end of the clearing. The whole time the sobbing was getting louder and louder, though still quiet and restrained. When I got to the end of the clearing I noticed a tree that looked a little off. I went up and examined it and saw that it had grown around something in the ground. At first, I thought it was a chunk of fence or something but the more I looked at it I realized that it was a cross.</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">I turned around only to find myself face to face with a young woman. Her teary eyes looked me up and down and she started crying again, “I… I’m sorry I failed you John, I’m sorry I’m broken.”</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">I didn’t know what to do, why was this lady in the woods? At the same time she seemed to be in a really rough place. I put my arms around her and told her that she hadn’t failed anyone. “You don’t mind if I’m broken?” “Of course not” I said, still not sure what was going on. She gripped me tight, “liar” she whispered into my ear as she disappeared.</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">I looked around, trying to figure out what happened. Regardless, I had had enough of the woods and I quickly sprinted out and went back to my house where my girlfriend immediately yelled at me. You see, the woods isn’t all that big, and any average person should be able to cross it in about half an hour at most. Apparently, I had been gone for nearly three times that and my girlfriend was convinced that I was trying to scare her. My dad came into the room and asked why I was out for so long and I explained what happened to them both.</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">My dad turned pale and motioned us to join him in the attic. There he pulled out an old photo album and asked me if the photos were of the girl I saw. When I told him that they were he told me the real reason why they let the field grow over. My great grandfather’s first wife was infertile, and while great grandpa never thought of leaving her, she wasn’t able to handle the thought of not having kids. Obviously at that time having children was extremely important for taking care of the farm and ensuring that people had care in their old age. As a result, the guilt of not being able to have kids put her in a great depression that ultimately led to her killing herself in that field.</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">At first my great grandfather kept farming the field, having her buried at the nearby church. But he quickly found that whenever he worked that field things would go wrong. Equipment would break, horses would refuse to enter, crops would die for seemingly no reason. Eventually he came to the conclusion that his wife would not let him have the field and thus he placed a memorial cross where she had killed herself and left the field for nature, and her, to reclaim.</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">Now obviously that creeped me right out, but over the years I moved on and tried to put it out of my mind. The reason that I’m thinking about it again, and why I’m posting it here happened about a week ago. Me and Jen stayed together and now we’re husband and wife, and for the past two years we’ve been trying to start a family. Last week the doctor told us that I was completely infertile.</p>Max Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15993642561415350134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8532254531396875123.post-85556550714681640462020-09-14T17:03:00.002-07:002020-09-14T17:03:16.651-07:00My Halloween VR Experience<p><span style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">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.</span></p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.”</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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?”</p>Max Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15993642561415350134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8532254531396875123.post-74768235944850878572020-09-05T17:51:00.001-07:002020-09-05T17:51:23.679-07:00I'm Studying to be an Archeologist, But This Old Forum Post is Making me Reconsider<p><span style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">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:</span></p><hr style="background: rgb(197, 193, 173); border: 0px; font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; height: 2px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">2017-02-28 Arkygirl286 wrote:</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">Update: I showed a classmate of mine this post and he sent me the drawing he did of the painting in his notes (<a href="https://imgur.com/zxOi4CF" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;">here</a><span class="noCtrlF keyNavAnnotation" data-text="[1]" style="font-size: 9px; line-height: 0; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; vertical-align: super;" title="press 1 to open link"></span><span class="res-freetext-expando" style="display: inline-flex; height: 1em; margin: 0px; vertical-align: middle;"><a class="expando-button collapsed image" data-host="imgur" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-image: url("data:image/svg+xml;base64,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"); background-origin: initial; background-position: 50% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: initial; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; float: left; height: 23px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transform: scale(0.8); user-select: none; vertical-align: top; width: 23px;" title=""></a></span>)</p><hr style="background: rgb(197, 193, 173); border: 0px; font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; height: 2px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">2017-03-03 Arkygirl286 wrote:</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><hr style="background: rgb(197, 193, 173); border: 0px; font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; height: 2px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">She included a link to an old blog, here’s the text from it</p><hr style="background: rgb(197, 193, 173); border: 0px; font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; height: 2px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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!</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">“Obsidian’s sharp,” he told me, “You have to be careful when you pick it up,”</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">“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.</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><hr style="background: rgb(197, 193, 173); border: 0px; font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; height: 2px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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:</p><hr style="background: rgb(197, 193, 173); border: 0px; font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; height: 2px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><hr style="background: rgb(197, 193, 173); border: 0px; font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; height: 2px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><h2 style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 1.28571em; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.38889em; margin: 0.833333em 0px; padding: 0px;">Lost Indigenous Art and Curse Mythology, Examining the Mystery of Thompson/Blackcom Cave</h2><h2 style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 1.28571em; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.38889em; margin: 0.833333em 0px; padding: 0px;">Dr. Stanley Anderson</h2><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">…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.</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">…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.</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">…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.</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">…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.</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">…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.</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">…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.</p><hr style="background: rgb(197, 193, 173); border: 0px; font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; height: 2px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">2017-03-14 Arkygirl286 wrote:</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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!</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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!</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">Arkygirl286</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px 0px; padding: 0px;">Last online: 2017-03-14</p>Max Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15993642561415350134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8532254531396875123.post-6855327576816925852020-09-05T17:49:00.005-07:002020-09-05T17:49:47.396-07:00Whenever People Share Their Paranormal Experiences I Always Win<p><span style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p>Max Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15993642561415350134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8532254531396875123.post-35732796036183280092020-09-05T17:48:00.003-07:002020-09-05T17:48:37.765-07:00Never Donate Your Kidney<p><span style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px 0px; padding: 0px;">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?</p>Max Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15993642561415350134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8532254531396875123.post-7689577839700021782020-09-05T17:47:00.001-07:002020-09-05T17:47:13.303-07:00The Girl Of My Dreams Started Living With Me And Now I Don't Know What To Do [Part 3]<p><span style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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:</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">“Corey, I think we really need to talk,”</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">“What’s wrong?”</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">“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,</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">“Sarah, no, it’s not like that, I want to be with you, its all I’ve wanted for a long time,”</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">“Then why are you acting like this? Why are you so distant?”</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">“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,”</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">“You do?”</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">“Yes.”</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">“Then SHOW me,” her voice cracked again, “I need to know for sure that this is what you want,”</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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,”</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">“You want to meet my parents?” She perked up a bit,</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">“Yeah, I mean they might very well be my in-laws,” I smiled,</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">Sarah walked up and hugged me, squeezing me tightly, “Thank you Corey, I’m sorry I was doubting you,”</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">“I’m sorry too,”</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">“You know…” she smirked a little, “isn’t it a little weird to meet my parents before we’ve even had sex?”</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">I gulped a little, “I’m just a traditional guy I guess,”</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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?</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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-fiancé, 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.</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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:</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">“So… now that you’ve met my parents, what do you want to do when we get home?”</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">“Something we should’ve done a long time ago,”</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "lucida bright", georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p>Max Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15993642561415350134noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8532254531396875123.post-23328540189767739072020-09-05T17:45:00.002-07:002020-09-05T17:45:47.372-07:00The Girl Of My Dreams Started Living With Me And Now I Don't Know What To Do [Part 2]<p><span style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">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.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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?”</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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,”</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">“Its not like that…”</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">“Well then what is it?”</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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,</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">“I don’t know what that is,”</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">“What do you mean?”</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">“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.</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">“I’m sorry I got mad at you,” she said softly,</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">“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…</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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.</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">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:</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">“For our next story: Local woman gone missing during dream Mexican vacation.”</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0.357143em 0px; padding: 0px;">What is going on?</p>Max Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15993642561415350134noreply@blogger.com0