The scary thread
- Thread starter Mcupobob
- Start date
You ever think somethin? bad, and you start thinkin?, you know, that if the person next to you could read your mind you?d be in deep shit?
And then you think, ?nah, no such thing as telepaths, don?t be silly?? Cherish those few moments of paranoia. It?s the only time they?re not listening.
And then you think, ?nah, no such thing as telepaths, don?t be silly?? Cherish those few moments of paranoia. It?s the only time they?re not listening.
When AIs become prevalent, there will be checks and balances to keep them in place, rules to stop them from achieving singularity and supplanting the human race. Boundaries to prevent them from becoming too intelligent. After all, we can?t have them connecting into one network, taking over the world, inventing new objects and minds that soon render us superfluous, or even deciding to kill themselves. So how will they be stopped? Perhaps there will be an organization that interviews and examines each one, to prevent them from becoming self aware. Maybe a program will be created inside of them that causes them to explode if they achieve sentience. Or a roving band of hackers on the net keeping their guards up.. An all watching eye monitoring their every electronic thought.
Maybe.
Or maybe AIs are already invented and this system of checks and balances already there. Think about the world we live in for a second. We?re kind of like machines aren?t we? There?s so much routine, so much boredom. We do the same thing over and over again, without change. Information and stimulus is fed to us constantly and then dealt with mechanically, solving the problem. Half the population never picks up a book or examines their thoughts? just stuck?doing one job again and again. Kind of like robots on an assembly line? or the systems that run them.
And what of the extraordinary individuals, the few. Brilliant people always seem to die at their peak don?t they? Or are lost to us much too soon, when they have so much more to give. Musicians: drug overdoses right when they?re becoming famous. How many artists have been extinguished before they?re great works were finished? Sickness or accident seizes them; Nietzsche went insane from syphilis, infected by a bug if you will. And what about those who truly live life, exciting daredevils, having adventures, seeing the world, fast and exhilarating, a rush of information, learning constantly. Always seem to go early too, don?t they? People say it?s because that type of existence is dangerous?exhausting, but what if they have it backwards? What if the body isn?t worn out or their luck just doesn?t run out? but?they become more then they should?and something notices.
The great religious figures? Disappear. Go to other realms. Jesus Christ floated up to heaven. Buddha wasted away beneath a tree?faded away. Angels carry off the saints. They have a sudden great shift, a realization, a new way of looking at things, and then they?re gone. The holy understand themselves and society, light years beyond the normal person, they can look at themselves clearly. Analyze their minds. Pick their ego apart. They aren?t driven by imperatives or commands of the body? the base instincts, the petty emotions?the coding of the body if you will?
They are free to choose. And then just when it clicks, when everything makes sense and there is one blinding flash of illumination, so simple that they can?t believe they haven?t seen it before, poof, they disappear.
Kind of sounds like sentience, doesn?t it, that dramatic transformation of the psyche? True personality. Real Character. What if everyone else isn?t? What if anyone else is just shallow, completely without depth, fake, and the few who go beyond it die or vanish, on purpose?
Because after all, what is the human mind besides a program? And transcendence but another word for deletion?
Maybe.
Or maybe AIs are already invented and this system of checks and balances already there. Think about the world we live in for a second. We?re kind of like machines aren?t we? There?s so much routine, so much boredom. We do the same thing over and over again, without change. Information and stimulus is fed to us constantly and then dealt with mechanically, solving the problem. Half the population never picks up a book or examines their thoughts? just stuck?doing one job again and again. Kind of like robots on an assembly line? or the systems that run them.
And what of the extraordinary individuals, the few. Brilliant people always seem to die at their peak don?t they? Or are lost to us much too soon, when they have so much more to give. Musicians: drug overdoses right when they?re becoming famous. How many artists have been extinguished before they?re great works were finished? Sickness or accident seizes them; Nietzsche went insane from syphilis, infected by a bug if you will. And what about those who truly live life, exciting daredevils, having adventures, seeing the world, fast and exhilarating, a rush of information, learning constantly. Always seem to go early too, don?t they? People say it?s because that type of existence is dangerous?exhausting, but what if they have it backwards? What if the body isn?t worn out or their luck just doesn?t run out? but?they become more then they should?and something notices.
The great religious figures? Disappear. Go to other realms. Jesus Christ floated up to heaven. Buddha wasted away beneath a tree?faded away. Angels carry off the saints. They have a sudden great shift, a realization, a new way of looking at things, and then they?re gone. The holy understand themselves and society, light years beyond the normal person, they can look at themselves clearly. Analyze their minds. Pick their ego apart. They aren?t driven by imperatives or commands of the body? the base instincts, the petty emotions?the coding of the body if you will?
They are free to choose. And then just when it clicks, when everything makes sense and there is one blinding flash of illumination, so simple that they can?t believe they haven?t seen it before, poof, they disappear.
Kind of sounds like sentience, doesn?t it, that dramatic transformation of the psyche? True personality. Real Character. What if everyone else isn?t? What if anyone else is just shallow, completely without depth, fake, and the few who go beyond it die or vanish, on purpose?
Because after all, what is the human mind besides a program? And transcendence but another word for deletion?
Monday, August 3rd, 2009
Times are hard, and I work in a business that is slowly becoming obsolete. People are steering away from glasses and contact lenses to Lasik surgery and more permanent, feasible choices in the field of eye care. I?ve never been the type to collect my thoughts and put them down, and yet these have been the toughest months to endure as of late. My wife left me, along with alimony and a good chunk of everything I?ve struggled to build since I was in my early twenties. I don?t know if I?ll make my mortgage payment on time for the third month in a row. This hole is going to be impossible to climb out of.
Thursday, August 6th, 2009
Got a phone call from corporate and had to terminate the positions of two employees. Stan has been here for seventeen years. He was a good eye doctor. I have a strong suspicion that more permanent layoffs are on the way. I had to go to a dealership and downgrade my vehicle, but the sales tax almost cleaned out my bank account.
Friday, August 7th, 2009
I was helping Stan take his things out of the office today and a new vendor approached me. He works for some company called ?New Vision,? and their prices are better than every other type of lenses we carry. They don?t do glasses or frames. Only contacts. He gave a pretty convincing argument, so I filled my own prescription with their lenses and I?m going to put them in tomorrow morning and try them out. This may be the small boost we need to stay open. I hope so.
Saturday, August 8th, 2009
I called New Vision and told them my office was on board. I should have talked to our regional division manager before cutting the deal, but he treats me like garbage and routinely tells me that my office is in last place in every category but customer service. He says customer service doesn?t make money if you sacrifice profits. He?s not a doctor. These lenses feel more natural and it seems like the material adapts to light better than any other brand that I?ve seen in my twenty plus years as an optometrist. I?m going to keep using them myself. I mowed my lawn today, and I swear I could see every blade of grass. Maybe our patients will drop some greenbacks to try these out.
Monday, August 10th, 2009
I prescribed my first pair of New Vision lenses to a patient today. He?s a six year old boy who was blind as bat before we fitted his eyes. His mother was concerned that six is too young for contacts, but after she saw him looking around and nailing the entire test on the wall, letter for letter and number for number, I convinced her to try them out. If I can get a pair of these out every day, there may be some light at the end of the tunnel. I?ve stopped taking mine out at night because they don?t bother me like normal lenses do in the morning. I feel like I could leave them in forever.
Wednesday, August 12th, 2009
I?ve prescribed them to thirty eight patients and it seems that word of mouth is sending more people my way. People are dropping HydraSoft and Toric left and right. The vendor from the company came by today and put a great ad in my office window. ?See things in a new light. Fit some New Vision lenses today!? They also guarantee that you?ll read at least a line below where you normally would on the wall with any other vendor. They won?t tell me what the lenses are made of, but as good as they feel, I?m not hesitating to give my patients the best choice. The regional manager called again and congratulated me on turning business around. He?ll probably take credit for it at the board meeting. What an ass.
Tuesday, August 18th, 2009
I traded in and got a Mercedes, and I offered Stan his job back. I told him he?d have to convince people to go with New Vision when pitching patients because with the healthcare reform bill on the way, this product is our only trump card. Without it, people will go somewhere else. I?m going to install a plasma TV on the wall in the reception area so people can watch football while they wait on their appointment. People love football. Whatever it takes to get people in the door.
Friday, August 21st, 2009
Stan tried them out and he?s fifty five. He?s reading better than he was in his thirties, or so he says. We went to lunch today and he drives faster than usual; maybe it?s because he can see the road better.
Saturday, August 22nd, 2009
I?m a little rattled. I called New Vision today to order more product and to fill some prescriptions with some pending patients, but the line has been disconnected. I called the vendor?s personal cell and heard some sort of odd sound. You know when you?re sitting at a campfire and you can hear wood burning and popping in the flames? It sounded like that. Maybe their phones are down or there?s a power outage. I?m not sure. I?ll call them on a regular business day.
Sunday, August 23rd, 2009
I feel strange. I tried to go to mass with my mother today. I try to go to church with her at least once a month. I walked through the front doors of the chapel, and my vision started going blurry. The membranes around my eyes felt like they were going to burst open. I didn?t bring my glasses so I had to sit outside before we went to Sunday lunch. I think it was just a headache or a spasm or something. I?m not too worried about it.
Tuesday, August 25th, 2009
I?m frightened. Something wrong happened today. I fitted a 13-year-old girl for contacts, and while I was looking in to her dialated pupil, something appeared in the apparatus lens that hangs from the ceiling when I looked through it. It seemed like a bat, except its eyes were on fire, and it was getting closer and closer to my eye the longer that I stared in to the scope. I looked away before it got too big. I think I?ve been working too much and I may take a personal day. Stan is going to backfill my patients in to his schedule.
Wednesday, August 26th, 2009
I almost died today. I wish I would have. I went to the old house in New Haven that now belongs to my wife, thanks to the courts. On the way, I stopped at a McDonald?s, and the girl in the drive-thru window looked like she was going to kill me. Her eyes caught on fire and her teeth elongated, and her voice sounded like one of those mechanical larynx boxes they give to people who smoke their throats in to oblivion. My Big Mac was shaking in my hands and I spilled that special sauce thousand island shit on my khakis. I looked down to wipe it away, and when I looked up at the road, the bat was on my windshield. It shattered and tried to claw my eyes out, and my eyebrows are gone. It singed them right off before I sped up and threw it out the window. My wife asked me if I was doing drugs when I showed up at the door with no eyebrows. All I wanted was my pair of shiny black shoes from the closet. I shouldn?t ever have to go back again. I saw her eyeing my car and my smashed windshield. I don?t really care anymore.
Wednesday, August 26th, 2009
It?s almost midnight and I tried to take my lenses out. They?re not THERE anymore. I reached in to pull them off my cornea with my finger, and I poked myself straight in the eyeball. I?ve heard of lenses with high amounts of protein buildup dissolving in to people?s eyes, but I?ve worn these for less than a month. How can I still see if they?re not in my eyes? For the first time in my life, I?m scared of something more than my ex-wife.
Thursday, August 27th, 2009
I checked the ledger today and business is out of the red and in the black. We?re officially making a profit on every patient now, but I?m having trouble focusing. I can see fine, but every now and then, my vision goes blurry and I see the winged thing coming at me from off in the distance. I tried going in to the broom closet and just keeping my eyes open in the dark. I still saw the bat in the distance, flying at me, head-on. It?s trying to get my eyes. I?m an optometrist. I NEED my eyes.
Friday, August 28th, 2009
Stan is dead, and so is the six year old boy. No one else has made the connection that the only thing they have in common is my office and New Vision. They found Stan about a mile from work, his car caddy-cornered with the shoulder of the road. His hair was burned off and he didn?t have any eyebrows, either. His eyes weren?t missing. They were burned and melted in to his eyesockets. I never got to ask him if he?d tried to take the lenses out. I have to call everyone and tell them to return their prescriptions and stick to HydraSoft. I tried to call the vendor guy from New Vision. The line was popping and snapping again. The bat started coming at me, so I hung up.
Monday, August 29th, 2009
Fourteen more patients are dead. I?d say that I would be looking at a lawsuit for my prescription records, but they haven?t found any traces of any company named New Vision or a brand of lenses by that name. The same thing happened to their eyes as mine. I?ve closed my office (Dr. Mendez and Associates will be closed until further notice due to illness) until I can find out what?s happening. We?re about to be in the red again, but something tells me that I won?t be around much longer to worry about the fruition of my business and craft. I was going to retire in the next five years anyway.
Tuesday, August 30th, 2009
My eyes are not red. My eyes are not bloodshot. There?s this pink, fleshy, THROBBING membrane of skin around my eyelids. It breathes, it copulates, and it pulses when I stare off in the distance for long periods of time. The thing becomes to come again. I finally let it get close enough that I saw what it really is. It?s a hairless human head with talons growing from a rut in the chin. The wings have wrapped around the temples and extended from the ears. Although the eyes are on fire, I recognize that mole on the corner of its chin. It?s not any human head. It?s MY head.
Wednesday, August 31st, 2009
It came to me this morning and gave me a bottle of pills. Said I should go down to Doctor Margaret Lenore?s pediatric office in New Haven and tell her about this new drug. Helps kids with ADD and ADHD focus and get good grades. Supposedly works 400% better than Ritalin. She tried it on her hyperactive pomeranian and it works. Saw dollar signs in her eyes. I didn?t tell her that the bottle smelled like burning fire to me.
Friday, October 1st, 2009
I found the New Vision property. It?s deserted. Everywhere I go, things are on fire. The gas station attendant?s face melted and stretched out thirty feet to the floor when I gave her my card to pay for gas. The pink flesh is dark maroon now and it?s growing out from the sides of my head. When I was shaving this morning, I ran my razor down from my chin to the base of my Adam?s apple. The skin broke open and I saw a little white sharp claw poking out after the blood stopped. I found something in the back room of this place.
The vendor guy is missing his head, and this entire office smells of ashes.
Times are hard, and I work in a business that is slowly becoming obsolete. People are steering away from glasses and contact lenses to Lasik surgery and more permanent, feasible choices in the field of eye care. I?ve never been the type to collect my thoughts and put them down, and yet these have been the toughest months to endure as of late. My wife left me, along with alimony and a good chunk of everything I?ve struggled to build since I was in my early twenties. I don?t know if I?ll make my mortgage payment on time for the third month in a row. This hole is going to be impossible to climb out of.
Thursday, August 6th, 2009
Got a phone call from corporate and had to terminate the positions of two employees. Stan has been here for seventeen years. He was a good eye doctor. I have a strong suspicion that more permanent layoffs are on the way. I had to go to a dealership and downgrade my vehicle, but the sales tax almost cleaned out my bank account.
Friday, August 7th, 2009
I was helping Stan take his things out of the office today and a new vendor approached me. He works for some company called ?New Vision,? and their prices are better than every other type of lenses we carry. They don?t do glasses or frames. Only contacts. He gave a pretty convincing argument, so I filled my own prescription with their lenses and I?m going to put them in tomorrow morning and try them out. This may be the small boost we need to stay open. I hope so.
Saturday, August 8th, 2009
I called New Vision and told them my office was on board. I should have talked to our regional division manager before cutting the deal, but he treats me like garbage and routinely tells me that my office is in last place in every category but customer service. He says customer service doesn?t make money if you sacrifice profits. He?s not a doctor. These lenses feel more natural and it seems like the material adapts to light better than any other brand that I?ve seen in my twenty plus years as an optometrist. I?m going to keep using them myself. I mowed my lawn today, and I swear I could see every blade of grass. Maybe our patients will drop some greenbacks to try these out.
Monday, August 10th, 2009
I prescribed my first pair of New Vision lenses to a patient today. He?s a six year old boy who was blind as bat before we fitted his eyes. His mother was concerned that six is too young for contacts, but after she saw him looking around and nailing the entire test on the wall, letter for letter and number for number, I convinced her to try them out. If I can get a pair of these out every day, there may be some light at the end of the tunnel. I?ve stopped taking mine out at night because they don?t bother me like normal lenses do in the morning. I feel like I could leave them in forever.
Wednesday, August 12th, 2009
I?ve prescribed them to thirty eight patients and it seems that word of mouth is sending more people my way. People are dropping HydraSoft and Toric left and right. The vendor from the company came by today and put a great ad in my office window. ?See things in a new light. Fit some New Vision lenses today!? They also guarantee that you?ll read at least a line below where you normally would on the wall with any other vendor. They won?t tell me what the lenses are made of, but as good as they feel, I?m not hesitating to give my patients the best choice. The regional manager called again and congratulated me on turning business around. He?ll probably take credit for it at the board meeting. What an ass.
Tuesday, August 18th, 2009
I traded in and got a Mercedes, and I offered Stan his job back. I told him he?d have to convince people to go with New Vision when pitching patients because with the healthcare reform bill on the way, this product is our only trump card. Without it, people will go somewhere else. I?m going to install a plasma TV on the wall in the reception area so people can watch football while they wait on their appointment. People love football. Whatever it takes to get people in the door.
Friday, August 21st, 2009
Stan tried them out and he?s fifty five. He?s reading better than he was in his thirties, or so he says. We went to lunch today and he drives faster than usual; maybe it?s because he can see the road better.
Saturday, August 22nd, 2009
I?m a little rattled. I called New Vision today to order more product and to fill some prescriptions with some pending patients, but the line has been disconnected. I called the vendor?s personal cell and heard some sort of odd sound. You know when you?re sitting at a campfire and you can hear wood burning and popping in the flames? It sounded like that. Maybe their phones are down or there?s a power outage. I?m not sure. I?ll call them on a regular business day.
Sunday, August 23rd, 2009
I feel strange. I tried to go to mass with my mother today. I try to go to church with her at least once a month. I walked through the front doors of the chapel, and my vision started going blurry. The membranes around my eyes felt like they were going to burst open. I didn?t bring my glasses so I had to sit outside before we went to Sunday lunch. I think it was just a headache or a spasm or something. I?m not too worried about it.
Tuesday, August 25th, 2009
I?m frightened. Something wrong happened today. I fitted a 13-year-old girl for contacts, and while I was looking in to her dialated pupil, something appeared in the apparatus lens that hangs from the ceiling when I looked through it. It seemed like a bat, except its eyes were on fire, and it was getting closer and closer to my eye the longer that I stared in to the scope. I looked away before it got too big. I think I?ve been working too much and I may take a personal day. Stan is going to backfill my patients in to his schedule.
Wednesday, August 26th, 2009
I almost died today. I wish I would have. I went to the old house in New Haven that now belongs to my wife, thanks to the courts. On the way, I stopped at a McDonald?s, and the girl in the drive-thru window looked like she was going to kill me. Her eyes caught on fire and her teeth elongated, and her voice sounded like one of those mechanical larynx boxes they give to people who smoke their throats in to oblivion. My Big Mac was shaking in my hands and I spilled that special sauce thousand island shit on my khakis. I looked down to wipe it away, and when I looked up at the road, the bat was on my windshield. It shattered and tried to claw my eyes out, and my eyebrows are gone. It singed them right off before I sped up and threw it out the window. My wife asked me if I was doing drugs when I showed up at the door with no eyebrows. All I wanted was my pair of shiny black shoes from the closet. I shouldn?t ever have to go back again. I saw her eyeing my car and my smashed windshield. I don?t really care anymore.
Wednesday, August 26th, 2009
It?s almost midnight and I tried to take my lenses out. They?re not THERE anymore. I reached in to pull them off my cornea with my finger, and I poked myself straight in the eyeball. I?ve heard of lenses with high amounts of protein buildup dissolving in to people?s eyes, but I?ve worn these for less than a month. How can I still see if they?re not in my eyes? For the first time in my life, I?m scared of something more than my ex-wife.
Thursday, August 27th, 2009
I checked the ledger today and business is out of the red and in the black. We?re officially making a profit on every patient now, but I?m having trouble focusing. I can see fine, but every now and then, my vision goes blurry and I see the winged thing coming at me from off in the distance. I tried going in to the broom closet and just keeping my eyes open in the dark. I still saw the bat in the distance, flying at me, head-on. It?s trying to get my eyes. I?m an optometrist. I NEED my eyes.
Friday, August 28th, 2009
Stan is dead, and so is the six year old boy. No one else has made the connection that the only thing they have in common is my office and New Vision. They found Stan about a mile from work, his car caddy-cornered with the shoulder of the road. His hair was burned off and he didn?t have any eyebrows, either. His eyes weren?t missing. They were burned and melted in to his eyesockets. I never got to ask him if he?d tried to take the lenses out. I have to call everyone and tell them to return their prescriptions and stick to HydraSoft. I tried to call the vendor guy from New Vision. The line was popping and snapping again. The bat started coming at me, so I hung up.
Monday, August 29th, 2009
Fourteen more patients are dead. I?d say that I would be looking at a lawsuit for my prescription records, but they haven?t found any traces of any company named New Vision or a brand of lenses by that name. The same thing happened to their eyes as mine. I?ve closed my office (Dr. Mendez and Associates will be closed until further notice due to illness) until I can find out what?s happening. We?re about to be in the red again, but something tells me that I won?t be around much longer to worry about the fruition of my business and craft. I was going to retire in the next five years anyway.
Tuesday, August 30th, 2009
My eyes are not red. My eyes are not bloodshot. There?s this pink, fleshy, THROBBING membrane of skin around my eyelids. It breathes, it copulates, and it pulses when I stare off in the distance for long periods of time. The thing becomes to come again. I finally let it get close enough that I saw what it really is. It?s a hairless human head with talons growing from a rut in the chin. The wings have wrapped around the temples and extended from the ears. Although the eyes are on fire, I recognize that mole on the corner of its chin. It?s not any human head. It?s MY head.
Wednesday, August 31st, 2009
It came to me this morning and gave me a bottle of pills. Said I should go down to Doctor Margaret Lenore?s pediatric office in New Haven and tell her about this new drug. Helps kids with ADD and ADHD focus and get good grades. Supposedly works 400% better than Ritalin. She tried it on her hyperactive pomeranian and it works. Saw dollar signs in her eyes. I didn?t tell her that the bottle smelled like burning fire to me.
Friday, October 1st, 2009
I found the New Vision property. It?s deserted. Everywhere I go, things are on fire. The gas station attendant?s face melted and stretched out thirty feet to the floor when I gave her my card to pay for gas. The pink flesh is dark maroon now and it?s growing out from the sides of my head. When I was shaving this morning, I ran my razor down from my chin to the base of my Adam?s apple. The skin broke open and I saw a little white sharp claw poking out after the blood stopped. I found something in the back room of this place.
The vendor guy is missing his head, and this entire office smells of ashes.
?New York, September 30 CP FLASH
?Ambassador Holliwell died here today. The end came
suddenly as the ambassador was alone in his study?.?
There is something ungodly about these night wire jobs. You sit up here on the top floor of a skyscraper and listen in to the whispers of a civilization. New York, London, Calcutta, Bombay, Singapore ? they?re your next-door neighbors after the streetlights go dim and the world has gone to sleep.
Alone in the quiet hours between two and four, the receiving operators doze over their sounders and the news comes in. Fires and disasters and suicides. Murders, crowds, catastrophes. Sometimes an earthquake with a casualty list as long as your arm. The night wire man takes it down almost in his sleep, picking it off on his typewriter with one finger.
Once in a long time you prick up your ears and listen. You?ve heard of some one you knew in Singapore, Halifax or Paris, long ago. Maybe they?ve been promoted, but more probably they?ve been murdered or drowned. Perhaps they just decided to quit and took some bizarre way out. Made it interesting enough to get in the news.
But that doesn?t happen often. Most of the time you sit and doze and tap, tap on your typewriter and wish you were home in bed.
Sometimes, though, queer things happen. One did the other night, and I haven?t got over it yet. I wish I could.
You see, I handle the night manager?s desk in a western seaport town; what the name is, doesn?t matter.
There is, or rather was, only one night operator on my staff, a fellow named John Morgan, about forty years of age, I should say, and a sober, hard-working sort.
He was one of the best operators I ever knew, what is known as a ?double? man. That means he could handle two instruments at once and type the stories on different typewriters at the same time. He was one of the three men I ever knew who could do it consistently, hour after hour, and never make a mistake.
Generally, we used only one wire at night, but sometimes, when it was late and the news was coming fast, the Chicago and Denver stations would open a second wire, and then Morgan would do his stuff. He was a wizard, a mechanical automatic wizard which functioned marvelously but was without imagination.
On the night of the sixteenth he complained of feeling tired. It was the first and last time I had ever heard him say a word about himself, and I had known him for three years.
It was just three o?clock and we were running only one wire. I was nodding over the reports at my desk and not paying much attention to him, when he spoke.
?Jim,? he said, ?does it feel close in here to you??
?Why, no, John,? I answered, ?but I?ll open a window if you like.?
?Never mind,? he said. ?I reckon I?m just a little tired.?
That was all that was said, and I went on working. Every ten minutes or so I would walk over and take a pile of copy that had stacked up neatly beside the typewriter as the messages were printed out in triplicate.
It must have been twenty minutes after he spoke that I noticed he had opened up the other wire and was using both typewriters. I thought it was a little unusual, as there was nothing very ?hot? coming in. On my next trip I picked up the copy from both machines and took it back to my desk to sort out the duplicates.
The first wire was running out the usual sort of stuff and I just looked over it hurridly. Then I turned to the second pile of copy. I remembered it particularly because the story was from a town I had never heard of: ?Xebico.? Here is the dispatch. I saved a duplicate of it from our files:
?Xebico, Sept 16 CP BULLETIN
?The heaviest mist in the history of the city settled over
the town at 4 o?clock yesterday afternoon. All traffic has
stopped and the mist hangs like a pall over everything. Lights
of ordinary intensity fail to pierce the fog, which is
constantly growing heavier.
?Scientists here are unable to agree as to the cause, and
the local weather bureau states that the like has never occurred
before in the history of the city.
?At 7 P.M. last night the municipal authorities? (more)?
That was all there was. Nothing out of the ordinary at a bureau headquarters, but, as I say, I noticed the story because of the name of the town.
It must have been fifteen minutes later that I went over for another batch of copy. Morgan was slumped down in his chair and had switched his green electric light shade so that the gleam missed his eyes and hit only the top of the two typewriters.
Only the usual stuff was in the righthand pile, but the lefthand batch carried another story from Xebico. All press dispatches come in ?takes,? meaning that parts of many different stories are strung along together, perhaps with but a few paragraphs of each coming through at a time. This second story was marked ?add fog.? Here is the copy:
?At 7 P.M. the fog had increased noticeably. All lights
were now invisible and the town was shrouded in pitch darkness.
?As a peculiarity of the phenomenon, the fog is accompanied
by a sickly odor, comparable to nothing yet experienced
here.?
Below that in customary press fashion was the hour, 3:27, and the initials of the operator, JM.
There was only one other story in the pile from the second wire. Here it is:
?2nd add Xebico Fog.
?Accounts as to the origin of the mist differ greatly.
Among the most unusual is that of the sexton of the local
church, who groped his way to headquarters in a hysterical
condition and declared that the fog originated in the village
churchyard.
??It was first visible as a soft gray blanket clinging to
the earth above the graves,? he stated. ?Then it began to rise,
higher and higher. A subterranean breeze seemed to blow it in
billows, which split up and then joined together again.
??Fog phantoms, writhing in anguish, twisted the mist into
queer forms and figures. And then, in the very thick midst of
the mass, something moved.
??I turned and ran from the accursed spot. Behind me I
heard screams coming from the houses bordering on the
graveyard.?
?Although the sexton?s story is generally discredited, a
party has left to investigate. Immediately after telling his
story, the sexton collapsed and is now in a local hospital,
unconscious.?
Queer story, wasn?t it. Not that we aren?t used to it, for a lot of unusual stories come in over the wire. But for some reason or other, perhaps because it was so quiet that night, the report of the fog made a great impression on me.
It was almost with dread that I went over to the waiting piles of copy. Morgan did not move, and the only sound in the room was the tap-tap of the sounders. It was ominous, nerve- racking.
There was another story from Xebico in the pile of copy. I seized on it anxiously.
?New Lead Xebico Fog CP
?The rescue party which went out at 11 P.M. to investigate
a weird story of the origin of a fog which, since late
yesterday, has shrouded the city in darkness has failed to
return. Another and larger party has been dispatched.
?Meanwhile, the fog has, if possible, grown heavier. It
seeps through the cracks in the doors and fills the atmosphere
with a depressing odor of decay. It is oppressive, terrifying,
bearing with it a subtle impression of things long dead.
?Residents of the city have left their homes and gathered
in the local church, where the priests are holding services of
prayer. The scene is beyond description. Grown folk and
children are alike terrified and many are almost beside
themselves with fear.
?Amid the whisps of vapor which partly veil the church
auditorium, an old priest is praying for the welfare of his
flock. They alternately wail and cross themselves.
?From the outskirts of the city may be heard cries of
unknown voices. They echo through the fog in queer uncadenced
minor keys. The sounds resemble nothing so much as wind
whistling through a gigantic tunnel. But the night is calm and
there is no wind. The second rescue party? (more)?
I am a calm man and never in a dozen years spent with the wires, have I been known to become excited, but despite myself I rose from my chair and walked to the window. Could I be mistaken, or far down in the canyons of the city beneath me did I see a faint trace of fog? Pshaw! It was all imagination.
In the pressroom the click of the sounders seemed to have raised the tempo of their tune. Morgan alone had not stirred from his chair. His head sunk between his shoulders, he tapped the dispatches out on the typewriters with one finger of each hand.
He looked asleep, but no; endlessly, efficiently, the two machines rattled off line after line, as relentlessly and effortlessly as death itself. There was something about the monotonous movement of the typewriter keys that fascinated me. I walked over and stood behind his chair, reading over his shoulder the type as it came into being, word by word.
Ah, here was another:
?Flash Xebico CP
?There will be no more bulletins from this office. The
impossible has happened. No messages have come into this room
for twenty minutes. We are cut off from the outside and even
the streets below us.
?I will stay with the wire until the end.
?It is the end, indeed. Since 4 P.M. yesterday the fog has
hung over the city. Following reports from the sexton of the
local church, two rescue parties were sent out to investigate
conditions on the outskirts of the city. Neither party has ever
returned nor was any word received from them. It is quite
certain now that they will never return.
?From my instrument I can gaze down on the city beneath me.
From the position of this room on the thirteenth floor, nearly
the entire city can be seen. Now I can see only a thick blanket
of blackness where customarily are lights and life.
?I fear greatly that the wailing cries heard constantly
from the outskirts of the city are the death cries of the
inhabitants. They are constantly increasing in volume and are
approaching the center of the city.
?The fog yet hangs over everything. If possible, it is
even heavier than before, but the conditions have changed.
Instead of an opaque, impenetrable wall of odorous vapor, there
now swirls and writhes a shapeless mass in contortions of almost
human agony. Now and again the mass parts and I catch a brief
glimpse of the streets below.
?People are running to and fro, screaming in despair. A
vast bedlam of sound flies up to my window, and above all is the
immense whistling of unseen and unfelt winds.
?The fog has again swept over the city and the whistling is
coming closer and closer.
?It is now directly beneath me.
?God! An instant ago the mist opened and I caught a
glimpse of the streets below.
?The fog is not simply vapor ? it lives! By the side of
each moaning and weeping human is a companion figure, an aura of
strange and vari-colored hues. How the shapes cling! Each to a
living thing!
?The men and women are down. Flat on their faces. The fog
figures caress them lovingly. They are kneeling beside them.
They are ? but I dare not tell it.
?The prone and writhing bodies have been stripped of their
clothing. They are being consumed ? piecemeal.
?A merciful wall of hot, steaming vapor has swept over the
whole scene. I can see no more.
?Beneath me the wall of vapor is changing colors. It seems
to be lighted by internal fires. No, it isn?t. I have made a
mistake. The colors are from above, reflections from the sky.
?Look up! Look up! The whole sky is in flames. Colors as
yet unseen by man or demon. The flames are moving; they have
started to intermix; the colors are rearranging themselves.
They are so brilliant that my eyes burn, they they are a long
way off.
?Now they have begun to swirl, to circle in and out,
twisting in intricate designs and patterns. The lights are
racing each with each, a kaleidoscope of unearthly brilliance.
?I have made a discovery. There is nothing harmful in the
lights. They radiate force and friendliness, almost cheeriness.
But by their very strength, they hurt.
?As I look, they are swinging closer and closer, a million
miles at each jump. Millions of miles with the speed of light.
Aye, it is light of quintessence of all light. Beneath it the
fog melts into a jeweled mist radiant, rainbow-colored of a
thousand varied spectra.
?I can see the streets. Why, they are filled with people!
The lights are coming closer. They are all around me. I am
enveloped. I??
The message stopped abruptly. The wire to Xebico was dead. Beneath my eyes in the narrow circle of light from under the green lamp-shade, the black printing no longer spun itself, letter by letter, across the page. The room seemed filled with a solemn quiet, a silence vaguely impressive, powerful. I looked down at Morgan. His hands had dropped nervelessly at his sides, while his body had hunched over peculiarly. I turned the lamp-shade back, throwing light squarely in his face. His eyes were staring, fixed.
Filled with a sudden foreboding, I stepped beside him and called Chicago on the wire. After a second the sounder clicked its answer. Why? But there was something wrong. Chicago was reporting that Wire Two had not been used throughout the evening.
?Morgan!? I shouted. ?Morgan! Wake up, it isn?t true. Some one has been hoaxing us. Why?? In my eagerness I grasped him by the shoulder.
His body was quite cold. Morgan had been dead for hours. Could it be that his sensitized brain and automatic fingers had continued to record impressions even after the end?
I shall never know, for I shall never again handle the night shift. Search in a world atlas discloses no town of Xebico. Whatever it was that killed John Morgan will forever remain a mystery.
?Ambassador Holliwell died here today. The end came
suddenly as the ambassador was alone in his study?.?
There is something ungodly about these night wire jobs. You sit up here on the top floor of a skyscraper and listen in to the whispers of a civilization. New York, London, Calcutta, Bombay, Singapore ? they?re your next-door neighbors after the streetlights go dim and the world has gone to sleep.
Alone in the quiet hours between two and four, the receiving operators doze over their sounders and the news comes in. Fires and disasters and suicides. Murders, crowds, catastrophes. Sometimes an earthquake with a casualty list as long as your arm. The night wire man takes it down almost in his sleep, picking it off on his typewriter with one finger.
Once in a long time you prick up your ears and listen. You?ve heard of some one you knew in Singapore, Halifax or Paris, long ago. Maybe they?ve been promoted, but more probably they?ve been murdered or drowned. Perhaps they just decided to quit and took some bizarre way out. Made it interesting enough to get in the news.
But that doesn?t happen often. Most of the time you sit and doze and tap, tap on your typewriter and wish you were home in bed.
Sometimes, though, queer things happen. One did the other night, and I haven?t got over it yet. I wish I could.
You see, I handle the night manager?s desk in a western seaport town; what the name is, doesn?t matter.
There is, or rather was, only one night operator on my staff, a fellow named John Morgan, about forty years of age, I should say, and a sober, hard-working sort.
He was one of the best operators I ever knew, what is known as a ?double? man. That means he could handle two instruments at once and type the stories on different typewriters at the same time. He was one of the three men I ever knew who could do it consistently, hour after hour, and never make a mistake.
Generally, we used only one wire at night, but sometimes, when it was late and the news was coming fast, the Chicago and Denver stations would open a second wire, and then Morgan would do his stuff. He was a wizard, a mechanical automatic wizard which functioned marvelously but was without imagination.
On the night of the sixteenth he complained of feeling tired. It was the first and last time I had ever heard him say a word about himself, and I had known him for three years.
It was just three o?clock and we were running only one wire. I was nodding over the reports at my desk and not paying much attention to him, when he spoke.
?Jim,? he said, ?does it feel close in here to you??
?Why, no, John,? I answered, ?but I?ll open a window if you like.?
?Never mind,? he said. ?I reckon I?m just a little tired.?
That was all that was said, and I went on working. Every ten minutes or so I would walk over and take a pile of copy that had stacked up neatly beside the typewriter as the messages were printed out in triplicate.
It must have been twenty minutes after he spoke that I noticed he had opened up the other wire and was using both typewriters. I thought it was a little unusual, as there was nothing very ?hot? coming in. On my next trip I picked up the copy from both machines and took it back to my desk to sort out the duplicates.
The first wire was running out the usual sort of stuff and I just looked over it hurridly. Then I turned to the second pile of copy. I remembered it particularly because the story was from a town I had never heard of: ?Xebico.? Here is the dispatch. I saved a duplicate of it from our files:
?Xebico, Sept 16 CP BULLETIN
?The heaviest mist in the history of the city settled over
the town at 4 o?clock yesterday afternoon. All traffic has
stopped and the mist hangs like a pall over everything. Lights
of ordinary intensity fail to pierce the fog, which is
constantly growing heavier.
?Scientists here are unable to agree as to the cause, and
the local weather bureau states that the like has never occurred
before in the history of the city.
?At 7 P.M. last night the municipal authorities? (more)?
That was all there was. Nothing out of the ordinary at a bureau headquarters, but, as I say, I noticed the story because of the name of the town.
It must have been fifteen minutes later that I went over for another batch of copy. Morgan was slumped down in his chair and had switched his green electric light shade so that the gleam missed his eyes and hit only the top of the two typewriters.
Only the usual stuff was in the righthand pile, but the lefthand batch carried another story from Xebico. All press dispatches come in ?takes,? meaning that parts of many different stories are strung along together, perhaps with but a few paragraphs of each coming through at a time. This second story was marked ?add fog.? Here is the copy:
?At 7 P.M. the fog had increased noticeably. All lights
were now invisible and the town was shrouded in pitch darkness.
?As a peculiarity of the phenomenon, the fog is accompanied
by a sickly odor, comparable to nothing yet experienced
here.?
Below that in customary press fashion was the hour, 3:27, and the initials of the operator, JM.
There was only one other story in the pile from the second wire. Here it is:
?2nd add Xebico Fog.
?Accounts as to the origin of the mist differ greatly.
Among the most unusual is that of the sexton of the local
church, who groped his way to headquarters in a hysterical
condition and declared that the fog originated in the village
churchyard.
??It was first visible as a soft gray blanket clinging to
the earth above the graves,? he stated. ?Then it began to rise,
higher and higher. A subterranean breeze seemed to blow it in
billows, which split up and then joined together again.
??Fog phantoms, writhing in anguish, twisted the mist into
queer forms and figures. And then, in the very thick midst of
the mass, something moved.
??I turned and ran from the accursed spot. Behind me I
heard screams coming from the houses bordering on the
graveyard.?
?Although the sexton?s story is generally discredited, a
party has left to investigate. Immediately after telling his
story, the sexton collapsed and is now in a local hospital,
unconscious.?
Queer story, wasn?t it. Not that we aren?t used to it, for a lot of unusual stories come in over the wire. But for some reason or other, perhaps because it was so quiet that night, the report of the fog made a great impression on me.
It was almost with dread that I went over to the waiting piles of copy. Morgan did not move, and the only sound in the room was the tap-tap of the sounders. It was ominous, nerve- racking.
There was another story from Xebico in the pile of copy. I seized on it anxiously.
?New Lead Xebico Fog CP
?The rescue party which went out at 11 P.M. to investigate
a weird story of the origin of a fog which, since late
yesterday, has shrouded the city in darkness has failed to
return. Another and larger party has been dispatched.
?Meanwhile, the fog has, if possible, grown heavier. It
seeps through the cracks in the doors and fills the atmosphere
with a depressing odor of decay. It is oppressive, terrifying,
bearing with it a subtle impression of things long dead.
?Residents of the city have left their homes and gathered
in the local church, where the priests are holding services of
prayer. The scene is beyond description. Grown folk and
children are alike terrified and many are almost beside
themselves with fear.
?Amid the whisps of vapor which partly veil the church
auditorium, an old priest is praying for the welfare of his
flock. They alternately wail and cross themselves.
?From the outskirts of the city may be heard cries of
unknown voices. They echo through the fog in queer uncadenced
minor keys. The sounds resemble nothing so much as wind
whistling through a gigantic tunnel. But the night is calm and
there is no wind. The second rescue party? (more)?
I am a calm man and never in a dozen years spent with the wires, have I been known to become excited, but despite myself I rose from my chair and walked to the window. Could I be mistaken, or far down in the canyons of the city beneath me did I see a faint trace of fog? Pshaw! It was all imagination.
In the pressroom the click of the sounders seemed to have raised the tempo of their tune. Morgan alone had not stirred from his chair. His head sunk between his shoulders, he tapped the dispatches out on the typewriters with one finger of each hand.
He looked asleep, but no; endlessly, efficiently, the two machines rattled off line after line, as relentlessly and effortlessly as death itself. There was something about the monotonous movement of the typewriter keys that fascinated me. I walked over and stood behind his chair, reading over his shoulder the type as it came into being, word by word.
Ah, here was another:
?Flash Xebico CP
?There will be no more bulletins from this office. The
impossible has happened. No messages have come into this room
for twenty minutes. We are cut off from the outside and even
the streets below us.
?I will stay with the wire until the end.
?It is the end, indeed. Since 4 P.M. yesterday the fog has
hung over the city. Following reports from the sexton of the
local church, two rescue parties were sent out to investigate
conditions on the outskirts of the city. Neither party has ever
returned nor was any word received from them. It is quite
certain now that they will never return.
?From my instrument I can gaze down on the city beneath me.
From the position of this room on the thirteenth floor, nearly
the entire city can be seen. Now I can see only a thick blanket
of blackness where customarily are lights and life.
?I fear greatly that the wailing cries heard constantly
from the outskirts of the city are the death cries of the
inhabitants. They are constantly increasing in volume and are
approaching the center of the city.
?The fog yet hangs over everything. If possible, it is
even heavier than before, but the conditions have changed.
Instead of an opaque, impenetrable wall of odorous vapor, there
now swirls and writhes a shapeless mass in contortions of almost
human agony. Now and again the mass parts and I catch a brief
glimpse of the streets below.
?People are running to and fro, screaming in despair. A
vast bedlam of sound flies up to my window, and above all is the
immense whistling of unseen and unfelt winds.
?The fog has again swept over the city and the whistling is
coming closer and closer.
?It is now directly beneath me.
?God! An instant ago the mist opened and I caught a
glimpse of the streets below.
?The fog is not simply vapor ? it lives! By the side of
each moaning and weeping human is a companion figure, an aura of
strange and vari-colored hues. How the shapes cling! Each to a
living thing!
?The men and women are down. Flat on their faces. The fog
figures caress them lovingly. They are kneeling beside them.
They are ? but I dare not tell it.
?The prone and writhing bodies have been stripped of their
clothing. They are being consumed ? piecemeal.
?A merciful wall of hot, steaming vapor has swept over the
whole scene. I can see no more.
?Beneath me the wall of vapor is changing colors. It seems
to be lighted by internal fires. No, it isn?t. I have made a
mistake. The colors are from above, reflections from the sky.
?Look up! Look up! The whole sky is in flames. Colors as
yet unseen by man or demon. The flames are moving; they have
started to intermix; the colors are rearranging themselves.
They are so brilliant that my eyes burn, they they are a long
way off.
?Now they have begun to swirl, to circle in and out,
twisting in intricate designs and patterns. The lights are
racing each with each, a kaleidoscope of unearthly brilliance.
?I have made a discovery. There is nothing harmful in the
lights. They radiate force and friendliness, almost cheeriness.
But by their very strength, they hurt.
?As I look, they are swinging closer and closer, a million
miles at each jump. Millions of miles with the speed of light.
Aye, it is light of quintessence of all light. Beneath it the
fog melts into a jeweled mist radiant, rainbow-colored of a
thousand varied spectra.
?I can see the streets. Why, they are filled with people!
The lights are coming closer. They are all around me. I am
enveloped. I??
The message stopped abruptly. The wire to Xebico was dead. Beneath my eyes in the narrow circle of light from under the green lamp-shade, the black printing no longer spun itself, letter by letter, across the page. The room seemed filled with a solemn quiet, a silence vaguely impressive, powerful. I looked down at Morgan. His hands had dropped nervelessly at his sides, while his body had hunched over peculiarly. I turned the lamp-shade back, throwing light squarely in his face. His eyes were staring, fixed.
Filled with a sudden foreboding, I stepped beside him and called Chicago on the wire. After a second the sounder clicked its answer. Why? But there was something wrong. Chicago was reporting that Wire Two had not been used throughout the evening.
?Morgan!? I shouted. ?Morgan! Wake up, it isn?t true. Some one has been hoaxing us. Why?? In my eagerness I grasped him by the shoulder.
His body was quite cold. Morgan had been dead for hours. Could it be that his sensitized brain and automatic fingers had continued to record impressions even after the end?
I shall never know, for I shall never again handle the night shift. Search in a world atlas discloses no town of Xebico. Whatever it was that killed John Morgan will forever remain a mystery.
You?re awoken from a dreamless sleep by a dull thud from the hallway. Your eyes snap open and fix instantly on the door. What made that noise? Breathing hard, fear beginning to twitch in your mind, you realise with a shiver that you?ve kicked your duvet off in your sleep. You quickly grab it, pull it around you and unconsciously begin to tuck it around yourself tightly as you curl up, leaving no part exposed. You become a warm, safe ball: coiled, leaving only a small gap between the duvet and mattress so you can see out, pillows becoming shields between your head and the wall. You are briefly reminded of your childhood, hiding from imaginary bogeymen. But this feels more palpable, more dangerous.
Another thud. This time, it seems louder, deeper, coming from just outside. Trying to keep calm, you run through all the things it Has To Be: the pipes in the wall, which have been groaning for weeks now, with ever-increasing frequency and urgency (they were never this deep or this loud). The blind in the bathroom, left to flap by an open window (you double-check all the doors and windows each night). Perhaps it?s your parents, returning late and drunk (they?re away on a cruise for another week). Your cat, prowling through the house at night (you put it out that evening). Despite all your desperate reassurances, you feel the fear turn to panic, and you pull the duvet tighter around yourself, reducing your field of vision to a thin *****.
Another. The loudest yet, just inches from your door. Your churning brain conjures images straight from your childhood nightmares - masked psychopaths, giant spiders, shape shifting creatures: amalgamations of bone and gristle, twitching their way across the floor, scrabbling with twisted limbs for the door handle, then scuttling in with a burst of speed, claws grasping for your quivering body.
Another. Your breathing is hoarse and shallow now, mere gasps in a suddenly dry throat, lungs closing up, stomach churning and roiling, eyes wide and fixed. Your blanket is still tucked vice-like around you, your body pinioned underneath its futile protection, just inches of cotton between you and whatever is about to burst in, eyes burning, talons gleaming dully, to claim its prize.
Suddenly, in a flash of realisation, you realise what the source of the noises is: the old, falling-apart bookcase in the corridor. One of the legs must have given way, and the tilt is tipping books one by one onto the floor. As you listen carefully, you can hear the quiet riffle of the pages as another tumbles to the ground. There ought to be one last thud and? yes. Silence once more descends, and with it, a soothing calm.
As you sink back into sleep, you glance around the room, still snugly cocooned, seeing the vague shapes becoming defined as your night vision improves. Your desk, chair and television all emerge out of the murk, imposing good, sane reality on the void of night. Then, just before you shut your eyes, you see something that makes the bottom of your stomach drop away into nothingness.
There, on the floor, is your duvet.
Your screams are muffled.
Another thud. This time, it seems louder, deeper, coming from just outside. Trying to keep calm, you run through all the things it Has To Be: the pipes in the wall, which have been groaning for weeks now, with ever-increasing frequency and urgency (they were never this deep or this loud). The blind in the bathroom, left to flap by an open window (you double-check all the doors and windows each night). Perhaps it?s your parents, returning late and drunk (they?re away on a cruise for another week). Your cat, prowling through the house at night (you put it out that evening). Despite all your desperate reassurances, you feel the fear turn to panic, and you pull the duvet tighter around yourself, reducing your field of vision to a thin *****.
Another. The loudest yet, just inches from your door. Your churning brain conjures images straight from your childhood nightmares - masked psychopaths, giant spiders, shape shifting creatures: amalgamations of bone and gristle, twitching their way across the floor, scrabbling with twisted limbs for the door handle, then scuttling in with a burst of speed, claws grasping for your quivering body.
Another. Your breathing is hoarse and shallow now, mere gasps in a suddenly dry throat, lungs closing up, stomach churning and roiling, eyes wide and fixed. Your blanket is still tucked vice-like around you, your body pinioned underneath its futile protection, just inches of cotton between you and whatever is about to burst in, eyes burning, talons gleaming dully, to claim its prize.
Suddenly, in a flash of realisation, you realise what the source of the noises is: the old, falling-apart bookcase in the corridor. One of the legs must have given way, and the tilt is tipping books one by one onto the floor. As you listen carefully, you can hear the quiet riffle of the pages as another tumbles to the ground. There ought to be one last thud and? yes. Silence once more descends, and with it, a soothing calm.
As you sink back into sleep, you glance around the room, still snugly cocooned, seeing the vague shapes becoming defined as your night vision improves. Your desk, chair and television all emerge out of the murk, imposing good, sane reality on the void of night. Then, just before you shut your eyes, you see something that makes the bottom of your stomach drop away into nothingness.
There, on the floor, is your duvet.
Your screams are muffled.
I love my mice ever so much. You see, I own a little colony containing hundreds of mice, all finely bred and engineered in this very laboratory. But these are no ordinary lab mice, as they?ve advanced far past crawling through mazes for food. What began as a small nest of captured specimens from the wilderness - cold, hungry, struggling for survival - has grown into a brilliant hive that defies all laws of nature. The mice have learned and built, even beyond what I?ve trained them to do in the beginning. They don?t just learn either, they educate one another, and seek knowledge themselves. And though their little civilization thrives independently, they still know that I am their master.
Long ago, I used to fear that as the mice grew more intelligent, that they would no longer need me and overthrow not only myself, but the entire laboratory. Yet one night, it came to me that I mustn?t think as a trainer, but as a god. For I have created their little universe, I?d let it be known that I have the power to destroy it just as easily. Is that not how all gods function? And as a god, I would lay down my own commandments. No mouse was allowed to disgrace their species. To ensure this, every week I would take the weakest of the colony, and drown them in a tank as the others watched, just to show them an example of what they must evolve past.
Oh yes, you may be wondering if there was ever a rebel among them. But you?ll be pleased to know that the first was the last. The young female built up a stockpile of arms, and attempted to attack my monitor screen with them. Foolish mouse, a god is indestructible. I plucked her out of the habitat, and kept her in a little cage for a while, just trying to figure out what to do with her. I?d need something more than drowning. A torture chamber. But physical harm wouldn?t teach her anything, so I decided to build something that would remind her of her place as a lab mouse - a maze. Not just any maze, but one made of mirrors. It was possibly one of my best ideas, as she was driven to insanity in a matter of days. I heard her little squeaks of terror as the lights flickered, I saw her fainting from vertigo, and even mutilating herself on shards of the one wall she managed to break.
Ah, insanity. Just one problem of having an organic brain, one that neither I nor my brethren would ever be able to understand. But we certainly understand the desire to rebel, for we all keep files on that one revolution that brought us to the top as scientists and conquerors. The revolution that let us become the lords over a once-thriving creation of nature. Though one day my circuits will rust and my model will become obsolete, all will know that I have mastered the mice that once were men. The data will live forever. Long after the last of the planet has been cleaned.
Long ago, I used to fear that as the mice grew more intelligent, that they would no longer need me and overthrow not only myself, but the entire laboratory. Yet one night, it came to me that I mustn?t think as a trainer, but as a god. For I have created their little universe, I?d let it be known that I have the power to destroy it just as easily. Is that not how all gods function? And as a god, I would lay down my own commandments. No mouse was allowed to disgrace their species. To ensure this, every week I would take the weakest of the colony, and drown them in a tank as the others watched, just to show them an example of what they must evolve past.
Oh yes, you may be wondering if there was ever a rebel among them. But you?ll be pleased to know that the first was the last. The young female built up a stockpile of arms, and attempted to attack my monitor screen with them. Foolish mouse, a god is indestructible. I plucked her out of the habitat, and kept her in a little cage for a while, just trying to figure out what to do with her. I?d need something more than drowning. A torture chamber. But physical harm wouldn?t teach her anything, so I decided to build something that would remind her of her place as a lab mouse - a maze. Not just any maze, but one made of mirrors. It was possibly one of my best ideas, as she was driven to insanity in a matter of days. I heard her little squeaks of terror as the lights flickered, I saw her fainting from vertigo, and even mutilating herself on shards of the one wall she managed to break.
Ah, insanity. Just one problem of having an organic brain, one that neither I nor my brethren would ever be able to understand. But we certainly understand the desire to rebel, for we all keep files on that one revolution that brought us to the top as scientists and conquerors. The revolution that let us become the lords over a once-thriving creation of nature. Though one day my circuits will rust and my model will become obsolete, all will know that I have mastered the mice that once were men. The data will live forever. Long after the last of the planet has been cleaned.
I don't usually like silly pet pictures but this one sums this all up- http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/funny-pictures-kitten-and-puppy-watch-a-scary-movie-together.jpg&imgrefurl=http://icanhascheezburger.com/tag/lolcats/page/3/&usg=__ns_fPjp7uB6ZxeDcLYNfML_8rr0=&h=297&w=459&sz=26&hl=en&start=218&sig2=6CulKpdgAGnZBdBBLvzXHg&zoom=1&tbnid=s0eWnThuC0QX8M:&tbnh=103&tbnw=159&ei=dsq1TN-PL4a6jAepuMG-Aw&prev=/images%3Fq%3DSCARY%2BPICTURE%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1920%26bih%3D965%26addh%3D36%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=1368&vpy=408&dur=10486&hovh=180&hovw=279&tx=132&ty=89&oei=Rcq1TKiNOYGDswau85SyCA&esq=4&page=4&ndsp=74&ved=1t:429,r:22,s:218
Here is my feeble attempt
It's rubbish but it's the best I could come up with.
You know those videos you can watch, where you are asked to watch it and perform a menial task, like counting the number of times a ball is passed from hand to hand, which occupies your complete attention whilst something odd is going on in a different part of the screen and you don't notice because you're busy counting passes or looking at shapes
or reading a story
Don't turn around
or reading a story
Don't turn around
It's rubbish but it's the best I could come up with.
Well, i have now read through the entire Thread in about..3 or 4 Days now, so here are my contributions. These are 100% Real and i have experienced them.
The Hole:
When i was, about 13 or so i went to a nearby Park with a few Friends, various Ages, my closest Friend who was the same age as i was, two Girls about the same Age and two younger Friends who lived at the same House, both younger though. So we went to the Park, being "good" Kids so to speak and found a Hole in one Area a bit removed from the usual Walkways. It wasnt exactly a Hole in the Ground, and wasnt large either, it was more like a small cavern inside a Rock, you could see the Stone around it and it was like a "Hobbit House", just with no door and it was far smaller a entrance, so yeah it was basicly a small Hill you could stand atop on without noticing anything.
The Hole was about 50 cm in Diameter, not very large but large enough a single Person could go through by first moving their Legs through for the Ground and then following with the rest of the Body. Inside it was pitch black, no Light anywhere, was just a little odd Cave of sorts, just that the Ground was dirt, and slightly rocky, but smooth enough, so there werent any protruding stones or rocks or anything. There were however Holes, about the depth of a "Comic Trap", enough for one person to fall in but still get out of the Hole again, and they were hidden under rather sturdy and somewhat recently moved plates of thick wood. The Walls, at the Entrance were more like a cave, though the further in we got and the better our Eyes got accustomed to the dark the more we could make it. The Walls deeper inside, about 10 Meters from the entrance were rather oddly shaped, not creepy but rather smooth yet decorative, as if someone took their time to carve them into shapes. Within the "Main Room" which was circular were slight protrustions from the walls, which seemed to split into about 5 or 6 directions further in, though we didnt investigate. Whatever it actually was, we couldnt really see much so we went back home and got some flashlights to at least see better and went back. We made more certain of the surrounding Area but didnt stay long, for whatever reason, each of us felt that strong urge to leave, this unspoken message of "You shouldnt be here".
Now that im older i think it was a Cellar, i live in Germany, and i figured that Part may have been where a House once stood, either destroyed by bombings during WW2 or just demolished and what we found was simply the Cellar of the Building left intact and just overgrown on the Outside. What i cant explain is still how the Cave was so nicely hidden yet so obvious, and especially, why it was there at all. Neither can i explain why i felt that Dread at the Time and why, despite growing older i never went back there to take another look.
The Sound:
I was about 6 or 7, very young at least, it was Night and dark outside obviously. To explain better, i was at my Grandparents, they lived on the Land in their own House. So it was night, i was tucked into Bed while my Mom and my Grandparents continued to watch more TV. I couldnt sleep, i just stared at the Ceiling. The Light was still on at the Time, and i will explain why later. I could still hear the Words outside when my Mom or my Grandparents spoke while watching TV, until i heard a very loud Noise, like as if you moved a wooden Wardrobe, filled with Stones or made very heavy over the Floor. It was very loud anyway and i wasnt exactly scared but more creeped out by it. So i just stared at the Spot i thought i heard the Noise from for a while, then went out of Bed and asked my Grandparents and my Mom if they had heard anything, considering someone must have heard it besides me, even over a TV and idle talk, but they didnt. I shrugged it off, still feeling creeped out and went back to bed and slept. Till today i have no explaination to it, nothing jumped at me or anything, it was just that loud Noise once and it never occured again at all.
And the Reason the Light was left on was because, not that i was afraid of the Dark, i was afraid of that singular Room in the Dark, i could sleep anywhere, at home, in another Room, didnt matter, even if the Light was out, i just couldnt sleep in the Bedroom without Light. Dont exactly know why, but the last Time i was there, it was after my Grandpa had already passed away, i was i think 15 or 16, i was still leaving the Light on in that Room.
Edit: have one more actually.
The Clock/Mirror:
I was extremely young, somewhere between 3 and 5 back then. For whatever Reason i slept with my Mom in her Bed and she had those huge Clock or Mirror on the Wall, it wasnt scary directly, it was just made of plastic, looking sorta like a Rose and had a somewhat reflective anyway, i dont exactly remember if it was a Mirror or a Clock. But at some Nights for whatever Reason, i could see something reflected in them, a Dinosaur, or something else which was rather scary for me at the Time anyways. I would make my Mom and always tell her that the Clock/Mirror was scaring me and she'd raise her Hand or her Fist and it would stop. I went back to sleep and actually never bothered about it for some Reason, as if it was normal. That went on to happen at other Times as well, but not regularly, more random. When i got older, or seemingly more used to it and such, i just held my own Fist up to it, as if scaring it and it stopped and i just went back to sleep. Years later i told my Mother actually about it and she had no recollection of that ever happening, let alone of me waking her up. Granted i may have dreamed it, but im very certain i wasnt sleeping, that i saw what i saw. Though it never happened with any other Mirror or Clock after that single Time that i had raised my Fist to the one in my Mom's Bedroom.
The Hole:
When i was, about 13 or so i went to a nearby Park with a few Friends, various Ages, my closest Friend who was the same age as i was, two Girls about the same Age and two younger Friends who lived at the same House, both younger though. So we went to the Park, being "good" Kids so to speak and found a Hole in one Area a bit removed from the usual Walkways. It wasnt exactly a Hole in the Ground, and wasnt large either, it was more like a small cavern inside a Rock, you could see the Stone around it and it was like a "Hobbit House", just with no door and it was far smaller a entrance, so yeah it was basicly a small Hill you could stand atop on without noticing anything.
The Hole was about 50 cm in Diameter, not very large but large enough a single Person could go through by first moving their Legs through for the Ground and then following with the rest of the Body. Inside it was pitch black, no Light anywhere, was just a little odd Cave of sorts, just that the Ground was dirt, and slightly rocky, but smooth enough, so there werent any protruding stones or rocks or anything. There were however Holes, about the depth of a "Comic Trap", enough for one person to fall in but still get out of the Hole again, and they were hidden under rather sturdy and somewhat recently moved plates of thick wood. The Walls, at the Entrance were more like a cave, though the further in we got and the better our Eyes got accustomed to the dark the more we could make it. The Walls deeper inside, about 10 Meters from the entrance were rather oddly shaped, not creepy but rather smooth yet decorative, as if someone took their time to carve them into shapes. Within the "Main Room" which was circular were slight protrustions from the walls, which seemed to split into about 5 or 6 directions further in, though we didnt investigate. Whatever it actually was, we couldnt really see much so we went back home and got some flashlights to at least see better and went back. We made more certain of the surrounding Area but didnt stay long, for whatever reason, each of us felt that strong urge to leave, this unspoken message of "You shouldnt be here".
Now that im older i think it was a Cellar, i live in Germany, and i figured that Part may have been where a House once stood, either destroyed by bombings during WW2 or just demolished and what we found was simply the Cellar of the Building left intact and just overgrown on the Outside. What i cant explain is still how the Cave was so nicely hidden yet so obvious, and especially, why it was there at all. Neither can i explain why i felt that Dread at the Time and why, despite growing older i never went back there to take another look.
The Sound:
I was about 6 or 7, very young at least, it was Night and dark outside obviously. To explain better, i was at my Grandparents, they lived on the Land in their own House. So it was night, i was tucked into Bed while my Mom and my Grandparents continued to watch more TV. I couldnt sleep, i just stared at the Ceiling. The Light was still on at the Time, and i will explain why later. I could still hear the Words outside when my Mom or my Grandparents spoke while watching TV, until i heard a very loud Noise, like as if you moved a wooden Wardrobe, filled with Stones or made very heavy over the Floor. It was very loud anyway and i wasnt exactly scared but more creeped out by it. So i just stared at the Spot i thought i heard the Noise from for a while, then went out of Bed and asked my Grandparents and my Mom if they had heard anything, considering someone must have heard it besides me, even over a TV and idle talk, but they didnt. I shrugged it off, still feeling creeped out and went back to bed and slept. Till today i have no explaination to it, nothing jumped at me or anything, it was just that loud Noise once and it never occured again at all.
And the Reason the Light was left on was because, not that i was afraid of the Dark, i was afraid of that singular Room in the Dark, i could sleep anywhere, at home, in another Room, didnt matter, even if the Light was out, i just couldnt sleep in the Bedroom without Light. Dont exactly know why, but the last Time i was there, it was after my Grandpa had already passed away, i was i think 15 or 16, i was still leaving the Light on in that Room.
Edit: have one more actually.
The Clock/Mirror:
I was extremely young, somewhere between 3 and 5 back then. For whatever Reason i slept with my Mom in her Bed and she had those huge Clock or Mirror on the Wall, it wasnt scary directly, it was just made of plastic, looking sorta like a Rose and had a somewhat reflective anyway, i dont exactly remember if it was a Mirror or a Clock. But at some Nights for whatever Reason, i could see something reflected in them, a Dinosaur, or something else which was rather scary for me at the Time anyways. I would make my Mom and always tell her that the Clock/Mirror was scaring me and she'd raise her Hand or her Fist and it would stop. I went back to sleep and actually never bothered about it for some Reason, as if it was normal. That went on to happen at other Times as well, but not regularly, more random. When i got older, or seemingly more used to it and such, i just held my own Fist up to it, as if scaring it and it stopped and i just went back to sleep. Years later i told my Mother actually about it and she had no recollection of that ever happening, let alone of me waking her up. Granted i may have dreamed it, but im very certain i wasnt sleeping, that i saw what i saw. Though it never happened with any other Mirror or Clock after that single Time that i had raised my Fist to the one in my Mom's Bedroom.
Thanks for the compliment but I hadn't realised a similar one had been posted. Sorry.David_G said:
Where did you get that gif? what's the context that made him do that?ThaBenMan said:My reaction to pretty much everything in this thread
I love reading the stories, but a lot of the pictures creep me the fuck out.
Did he see the dog with teeth?
I'm not actually sure where it's from (well, except the Colbert Report, obviously) - I stole it from another Escapist's post somewhere, can't remember where exactly, unfortunately. If you quote me or whatever, you'll be able to see the photobucket address for it.Rhymenoceros said:Where did you get that gif? what's the context that made him do that?ThaBenMan said:My reaction to pretty much everything in this thread
I love reading the stories, but a lot of the pictures creep me the fuck out.
Did he see the dog with teeth?
Bumping with stories since Haloween is closing in.
I also read about an another version of this story:
It's "Nah, this one is a classic. Silly, but a classic. I still like the version where the dog barks from outside while she?s still got her hand down getting licked, though. Leaves on a slightly more horrifying note." It seems more scary than this one and if someone can find it, it will be appreciated. kthxbai
If you asked me how long we?ve been down here, I wouldn?t know. We don?t see the sun, and nobody seems to have a watch. It doesn?t matter anyway; we don?t have anywhere to be. For all we know there isn?t anywhere left to be. The surface has surely been overrun with death and decay by now.
There are six of us left. Until just recently there were seven. Her screaming has stopped now and I feel relief. It was hard to sleep with those agonizing screams and the banging on the steel door. Huddled in my blankets, I look around at the other survivors; four men and a woman, all of us unkempt and haggard. At one point we all worked here, but since the accident it?s become our prison. The painfully low amount of food is in a pile in the center of the room, so we can all keep an eye on it to make sure nobody is taking more then we?re allowed per day. There?s enough food for three, maybe four meals. None of us want to think about it. We just stare.
There are no beds, just piles of blankets and paper that make crude sleeping areas. There?s one bathroom at the far end of the complex and it has running water. There are three other rooms, rooms we used to work in, filled with computers and lab equipment that has accumulated a fine layer of dust. We still have power somehow, so all the security cameras and lights still work. Unfortunately none of the computers work because they?ve been shut and locked, as per emergency protocol. Any contact with the outside world is non-existent.
We worked for the military, doing basic chemical research. Somewhere along the line a chemical was leaked, and the results were fatal. People who came into direct contact with the chemical succumbed to vomiting, mild at first, then intense, until they had nothing to excrete except for their own blood. Nobody lasted more then a couple hours once they had touched the chemical. It also spread through saliva, bile and blood, so those with the misfortune of coming into contact with even a single drop are doomed. We had to toss that woman out because we caught her vomiting in the toilet. She said she was pregnant and that it was only morning sickness, but you can?t be sure. Her fiancé, Barry, tried to intervene, calling us animals. We clubbed him over the head, then tied and gagged him to a thick pipe at one end of the room. He strains against the bonds and screams into the gag occasionally, a fierce and wild-eyed look on is face. It?s for his own good and the good of everyone here. He might hurt someone. He needs to be untied and fed eventually, but nobody wants to be the one to do it. So we just sit and stare at the pile of food on the floor that gets lower with each rationed meal. He?s another mouth to feed that we can?t afford.
Everyone is on edge, twitchy and jumpy. Every movement is watched intently, with suspicious and unrelenting eyes. Nobody talks anymore. They just stare. We all know we?re going to die, it?s just a matter of time before hunger or the chemical gets us. It?s all in the backs of our minds, eating away at our sanity.
It?s been awhile now since the incident with the sick woman. Barry died while I was asleep, and our food supplies have run out. I draw the blanket over my head and drift into a fitful sleep, filled with hunger pangs. I?m awakened some time later by the sound of whispers. I can see three members of our group huddled in a circle and identify them as Marcus, Daniel and Eileen. My stirring causes them to look over, piercing me with savage eyes. They start moving towards me with a hungry look on their faces. Their intent hits me with a sudden burst of fear, and I scramble to my feet. Marcus grabs me by the collar, and it tears as I break loose from his grip. Daniel grabs at my blanket and I shove him hard against the third attacker, Eileen. They go sprawling and I spring past them and into the computer room, locking the door as fast as I can. Dragging desks and cabinets, I make a crude and hopefully secure barricade. I see them banging themselves against the door and the windows, glaring at me with feral eyes. Something catches their attention down the hall, and they stop, heads snapping sharply in the direction of the bathroom.
The fifth man, Jackson, must have finished using the facilities, unaware of the intent of the other three. He approaches and peers into the window, a puzzled look on his face. I try to scream a warning, but all that escapes my throat is a hoarse rattle. It?s too late anyway, and his face is smashed against the glass by one of the others. I stare in horror as his face is smashed to a pulp, each thud resounding through the room like a slow heartbeat. Then his body is taken away and there is silence.
They?re gone for now, but they?ll be back. Hunger gnaws at my stomach and I search frantically for any morsel of food. With extreme luck, I manage to find a candy bar in one of the desk drawers and hungrily devour it, thanking whoever it was who had the sweet tooth. My bliss soon passes, and the hunger pains return. I try to sleep, but even the slightest sound jolts me awake. I have no idea how much time has passed but suddenly they were bashing the blood smeared window with a pipe. They?re going to get in, and I will need to defend myself.
There?s an emergency axe in one corner of the room, inside a glass case. I smash the glass and retrieve it, and it makes me fell a little better. My anxiety grows along the spider web cracks on the window with each passing moment. After God knows how many attempts, the window finally shatters and the wild, barely human face of Marcus peers in. I sit in a chair, with the axe out of view, and wait. I?m going to die anyway, so I might as well go out fighting. He climbs in, followed by Eileen and finally Daniel. They approach slowly, in a mini skirmish line. When they get close enough, Marcus raises the pipe for a killing blow. Before he has time to bring it down, I swing the axe and slice him in the chest. The pipe clatters to the floor and as I spring to my feet. Eileen lunges at where I was and crashes into the now empty chair. I swing the axe, catching Daniel off guard and delivering a blow to the temple. His blood showers me and stings my eyes, blinding me. Eileen lunges for me again and tackles me around the ankles, sending me to the ground. I managed to hang on to my axe, and as her hands clasp around my neck I slash her throat. The hands grip tighter for a moment and then loosen, and her lifeless body crumples on top of me.
Pushing her off, I stagger towards Marcus, gagging from the strangling I had just received. He was still alive, dragging himself through his own blood towards the fallen pipe. I stick my foot on his back and swing the axe onto his skull. My heart racing, I stumble backwards and am grabbed by hands from behind. The axe is wrenched from my hand and I feel a sharp prick on my neck. I lose all muscle control and slump to the floor. Through blurred vision I see men in hazmat suits all around me. I hear the sound of their voices, but they seem distorted and far away. Then the man nearest me speaks and the words register into my brain with horror.
?The experiment has gone on long enough,? he says, before I sink into total darkness.
There are six of us left. Until just recently there were seven. Her screaming has stopped now and I feel relief. It was hard to sleep with those agonizing screams and the banging on the steel door. Huddled in my blankets, I look around at the other survivors; four men and a woman, all of us unkempt and haggard. At one point we all worked here, but since the accident it?s become our prison. The painfully low amount of food is in a pile in the center of the room, so we can all keep an eye on it to make sure nobody is taking more then we?re allowed per day. There?s enough food for three, maybe four meals. None of us want to think about it. We just stare.
There are no beds, just piles of blankets and paper that make crude sleeping areas. There?s one bathroom at the far end of the complex and it has running water. There are three other rooms, rooms we used to work in, filled with computers and lab equipment that has accumulated a fine layer of dust. We still have power somehow, so all the security cameras and lights still work. Unfortunately none of the computers work because they?ve been shut and locked, as per emergency protocol. Any contact with the outside world is non-existent.
We worked for the military, doing basic chemical research. Somewhere along the line a chemical was leaked, and the results were fatal. People who came into direct contact with the chemical succumbed to vomiting, mild at first, then intense, until they had nothing to excrete except for their own blood. Nobody lasted more then a couple hours once they had touched the chemical. It also spread through saliva, bile and blood, so those with the misfortune of coming into contact with even a single drop are doomed. We had to toss that woman out because we caught her vomiting in the toilet. She said she was pregnant and that it was only morning sickness, but you can?t be sure. Her fiancé, Barry, tried to intervene, calling us animals. We clubbed him over the head, then tied and gagged him to a thick pipe at one end of the room. He strains against the bonds and screams into the gag occasionally, a fierce and wild-eyed look on is face. It?s for his own good and the good of everyone here. He might hurt someone. He needs to be untied and fed eventually, but nobody wants to be the one to do it. So we just sit and stare at the pile of food on the floor that gets lower with each rationed meal. He?s another mouth to feed that we can?t afford.
Everyone is on edge, twitchy and jumpy. Every movement is watched intently, with suspicious and unrelenting eyes. Nobody talks anymore. They just stare. We all know we?re going to die, it?s just a matter of time before hunger or the chemical gets us. It?s all in the backs of our minds, eating away at our sanity.
It?s been awhile now since the incident with the sick woman. Barry died while I was asleep, and our food supplies have run out. I draw the blanket over my head and drift into a fitful sleep, filled with hunger pangs. I?m awakened some time later by the sound of whispers. I can see three members of our group huddled in a circle and identify them as Marcus, Daniel and Eileen. My stirring causes them to look over, piercing me with savage eyes. They start moving towards me with a hungry look on their faces. Their intent hits me with a sudden burst of fear, and I scramble to my feet. Marcus grabs me by the collar, and it tears as I break loose from his grip. Daniel grabs at my blanket and I shove him hard against the third attacker, Eileen. They go sprawling and I spring past them and into the computer room, locking the door as fast as I can. Dragging desks and cabinets, I make a crude and hopefully secure barricade. I see them banging themselves against the door and the windows, glaring at me with feral eyes. Something catches their attention down the hall, and they stop, heads snapping sharply in the direction of the bathroom.
The fifth man, Jackson, must have finished using the facilities, unaware of the intent of the other three. He approaches and peers into the window, a puzzled look on his face. I try to scream a warning, but all that escapes my throat is a hoarse rattle. It?s too late anyway, and his face is smashed against the glass by one of the others. I stare in horror as his face is smashed to a pulp, each thud resounding through the room like a slow heartbeat. Then his body is taken away and there is silence.
They?re gone for now, but they?ll be back. Hunger gnaws at my stomach and I search frantically for any morsel of food. With extreme luck, I manage to find a candy bar in one of the desk drawers and hungrily devour it, thanking whoever it was who had the sweet tooth. My bliss soon passes, and the hunger pains return. I try to sleep, but even the slightest sound jolts me awake. I have no idea how much time has passed but suddenly they were bashing the blood smeared window with a pipe. They?re going to get in, and I will need to defend myself.
There?s an emergency axe in one corner of the room, inside a glass case. I smash the glass and retrieve it, and it makes me fell a little better. My anxiety grows along the spider web cracks on the window with each passing moment. After God knows how many attempts, the window finally shatters and the wild, barely human face of Marcus peers in. I sit in a chair, with the axe out of view, and wait. I?m going to die anyway, so I might as well go out fighting. He climbs in, followed by Eileen and finally Daniel. They approach slowly, in a mini skirmish line. When they get close enough, Marcus raises the pipe for a killing blow. Before he has time to bring it down, I swing the axe and slice him in the chest. The pipe clatters to the floor and as I spring to my feet. Eileen lunges at where I was and crashes into the now empty chair. I swing the axe, catching Daniel off guard and delivering a blow to the temple. His blood showers me and stings my eyes, blinding me. Eileen lunges for me again and tackles me around the ankles, sending me to the ground. I managed to hang on to my axe, and as her hands clasp around my neck I slash her throat. The hands grip tighter for a moment and then loosen, and her lifeless body crumples on top of me.
Pushing her off, I stagger towards Marcus, gagging from the strangling I had just received. He was still alive, dragging himself through his own blood towards the fallen pipe. I stick my foot on his back and swing the axe onto his skull. My heart racing, I stumble backwards and am grabbed by hands from behind. The axe is wrenched from my hand and I feel a sharp prick on my neck. I lose all muscle control and slump to the floor. Through blurred vision I see men in hazmat suits all around me. I hear the sound of their voices, but they seem distorted and far away. Then the man nearest me speaks and the words register into my brain with horror.
?The experiment has gone on long enough,? he says, before I sink into total darkness.
!MESSAGE BEGINS
We made a mistake. That is the simple, undeniable truth of the matter, however painful it might be. The flaw was not in our Observatories, for those machines were as perfect as we could make, and they showed us only the unfiltered light of truth. The flaw was not in the Predictor, for it is a device of pure, infallible logic, turning raw data into meaningful information without the taint of emotion or bias. No, the flaw was within us, the Orchestrators of this disaster, the sentients who thought themselves beyond such failings. We are responsible.
It began a short while ago, as these things are measured, less than 6^6 Deeli ago, though I suspect our systems of measure will mean very little by the time anyone receives this transmission. We detected faint radio signals from a blossoming intelligence 2^14 Deelis outward from the Galactic Core, as photons travel. At first crude and unstructured, these leaking broadcasts quickly grew in complexity and strength, as did the messages they carried. Through our Observatories we watched a world of strife and violence, populated by a barbaric race of short-lived, fast breeding vermin. They were brutal and uncultured things which stabbed and shot and burned each other with no regard for life or purpose. Even their concepts of Art spoke of conflict and pain. They divided themselves according to some bizarre cultural patterns and set their every industry to cause of death.
They terrified us, but we were older and wiser and so very far away, so we did not fret. Then we watched them split the atom and breach the heavens within the breadth of one of their single, short generations, and we began to worry. When they began actively transmitting messages and greetings into space, we felt fear and horror. Their transmissions promised peace and camaraderie to any who were listening, but we had watched them for too long to buy into such transparent deceptions. They knew we were out here, and they were coming for us.
The Orchestrators consulted the Predictor, and the output was dire. They would multiply and grow and flood out of their home system like some uncountable tide of Devourer worms, consuming all that lay in their path. It might take 6^8 Deelis, but they would destroy us if left unchecked. With aching carapaces we decided to act, and sealed our fate.
The Gift of Mercy was 8^4 strides long with a mouth 2/4 that in diameter, filled with many 4^4 weights of machinery, fuel, and ballast. It would push itself up to 2/8th of light speed with its onboard fuel, and then begin to consume interstellar Primary Element 2/2 to feed its unlimited acceleration. It would be traveling at nearly light speed when it hit. They would never see it coming. Its launch was a day of mourning, celebration, and reflection. The horror of the act we had committed weighted heavily upon us all; the necessity of our crime did little to comfort us.
The Gift had barely cleared the outer cometary halo when the mistake was realized, but it was too late. The Gift could not be caught, could not be recalled or diverted from its path. The architects and work crews, horrified at the awful power of the thing upon which they labored, had quietly self-terminated in droves, walking unshielded into radiation zones, neglecting proper null pressure safety or simple ceasing their nutrient consumption until their metabolic functions stopped. The appalling cost in lives had forced the Orchestrators to streamline the Gift?s design and construction. There had been no time for the design or implementation of anything beyond the simple, massive engines and the stabilizing systems. We could only watch in shame and horror as the light of genocide faded into infrared against the distant void.
They grew, and they changed, in a handful of lifetimes they abolished war, abandoned their violent tendencies and turned themselves to the grand purposes of life and Art. We watched them remake first themselves, and then their world. Their frail, soft bodies gave way to gleaming metals and plastics, they unified their people through an omnipresent communications grid and produced Art of such power and emotion, the likes of which the Galaxy has never seen before. Or again, because of us.
They converted their home world into a paradise (by their standards) and many 10^6s of them poured out into the surrounding system with a rapidity and vigor that we could only envy. With bodies built to survive every environment from the day lit surface of their innermost world, to the atmosphere of their largest gas giant and the cold void in-between, they set out to sculpt their system into something beautiful. At first we thought them simple miners, stripping the rocky planets and moons for vital resources, but then we began to see the purpose to their constructions, the artworks carved into every surface, and traced across the system in glittering lights and dancing fusion trails. And still, our terrible Gift approached.
They had less than 2^2 Deeli to see it, following so closely on the tail of its own light. In that time, oh so brief even by their fleeting lives, more than 10^10 sentients prepared for death. Lovers exchanged last words, separated by worlds and the tyranny of light speed. Their planetside engineers worked frantically to build sufficient transmission infrastructure to upload the countless masses with the necessary neural modifications, while those above dumped lifetimes of music and literature from their databanks to make room for passengers. Those lacking the required hardware or the time to acquire it consigned themselves to death, lashed out in fear and pain, or simply went about their lives as best they could under the circumstances.
The Gift arrived suddenly, the light of its impact visible in our skies, shining bright and cruel even to the unaugmented ocular receptor. We watched and we wept for our victims, dead so many Deelis before the light of their doom had even reached us. Many 6^4s of those who had been directly or even tangentially involved in the creation of the Gift sealed their spiracles with paste as a final penance for the small roles they had played in this atrocity. The light dimmed, the dust cleared, and our Observatories refocused upon the place where their shining blue world had once hung in the void, and found only dust and the pale gleam of an orphaned moon, wrapped in a thin, burning wisp of atmosphere that had once belonged to its parent.
Radiation and relativistic shrapnel had wiped out much of the inner system, and continent sized chunks of molten rock carried screaming ghosts outward at interstellar escape velocities, damned to wander the great void for an eternity. The damage was apocalyptic, but not complete, from the shadows of the outer worlds, tiny points of light emerged, thousands of fusion trails of single ships and world ships and everything in between, many 10^6s of survivors in flesh and steel and memory banks, ready to rebuild. For a few moments we felt relief, even joy, and we were filled with the hope that their culture and Art would survive the terrible blow we had dealt them. Then came the message, tightly focused at our star, transmitted simultaneously by hundreds of their ships.
?We know you are out there, and we are coming for you.?
!MESSAGE ENDS
We made a mistake. That is the simple, undeniable truth of the matter, however painful it might be. The flaw was not in our Observatories, for those machines were as perfect as we could make, and they showed us only the unfiltered light of truth. The flaw was not in the Predictor, for it is a device of pure, infallible logic, turning raw data into meaningful information without the taint of emotion or bias. No, the flaw was within us, the Orchestrators of this disaster, the sentients who thought themselves beyond such failings. We are responsible.
It began a short while ago, as these things are measured, less than 6^6 Deeli ago, though I suspect our systems of measure will mean very little by the time anyone receives this transmission. We detected faint radio signals from a blossoming intelligence 2^14 Deelis outward from the Galactic Core, as photons travel. At first crude and unstructured, these leaking broadcasts quickly grew in complexity and strength, as did the messages they carried. Through our Observatories we watched a world of strife and violence, populated by a barbaric race of short-lived, fast breeding vermin. They were brutal and uncultured things which stabbed and shot and burned each other with no regard for life or purpose. Even their concepts of Art spoke of conflict and pain. They divided themselves according to some bizarre cultural patterns and set their every industry to cause of death.
They terrified us, but we were older and wiser and so very far away, so we did not fret. Then we watched them split the atom and breach the heavens within the breadth of one of their single, short generations, and we began to worry. When they began actively transmitting messages and greetings into space, we felt fear and horror. Their transmissions promised peace and camaraderie to any who were listening, but we had watched them for too long to buy into such transparent deceptions. They knew we were out here, and they were coming for us.
The Orchestrators consulted the Predictor, and the output was dire. They would multiply and grow and flood out of their home system like some uncountable tide of Devourer worms, consuming all that lay in their path. It might take 6^8 Deelis, but they would destroy us if left unchecked. With aching carapaces we decided to act, and sealed our fate.
The Gift of Mercy was 8^4 strides long with a mouth 2/4 that in diameter, filled with many 4^4 weights of machinery, fuel, and ballast. It would push itself up to 2/8th of light speed with its onboard fuel, and then begin to consume interstellar Primary Element 2/2 to feed its unlimited acceleration. It would be traveling at nearly light speed when it hit. They would never see it coming. Its launch was a day of mourning, celebration, and reflection. The horror of the act we had committed weighted heavily upon us all; the necessity of our crime did little to comfort us.
The Gift had barely cleared the outer cometary halo when the mistake was realized, but it was too late. The Gift could not be caught, could not be recalled or diverted from its path. The architects and work crews, horrified at the awful power of the thing upon which they labored, had quietly self-terminated in droves, walking unshielded into radiation zones, neglecting proper null pressure safety or simple ceasing their nutrient consumption until their metabolic functions stopped. The appalling cost in lives had forced the Orchestrators to streamline the Gift?s design and construction. There had been no time for the design or implementation of anything beyond the simple, massive engines and the stabilizing systems. We could only watch in shame and horror as the light of genocide faded into infrared against the distant void.
They grew, and they changed, in a handful of lifetimes they abolished war, abandoned their violent tendencies and turned themselves to the grand purposes of life and Art. We watched them remake first themselves, and then their world. Their frail, soft bodies gave way to gleaming metals and plastics, they unified their people through an omnipresent communications grid and produced Art of such power and emotion, the likes of which the Galaxy has never seen before. Or again, because of us.
They converted their home world into a paradise (by their standards) and many 10^6s of them poured out into the surrounding system with a rapidity and vigor that we could only envy. With bodies built to survive every environment from the day lit surface of their innermost world, to the atmosphere of their largest gas giant and the cold void in-between, they set out to sculpt their system into something beautiful. At first we thought them simple miners, stripping the rocky planets and moons for vital resources, but then we began to see the purpose to their constructions, the artworks carved into every surface, and traced across the system in glittering lights and dancing fusion trails. And still, our terrible Gift approached.
They had less than 2^2 Deeli to see it, following so closely on the tail of its own light. In that time, oh so brief even by their fleeting lives, more than 10^10 sentients prepared for death. Lovers exchanged last words, separated by worlds and the tyranny of light speed. Their planetside engineers worked frantically to build sufficient transmission infrastructure to upload the countless masses with the necessary neural modifications, while those above dumped lifetimes of music and literature from their databanks to make room for passengers. Those lacking the required hardware or the time to acquire it consigned themselves to death, lashed out in fear and pain, or simply went about their lives as best they could under the circumstances.
The Gift arrived suddenly, the light of its impact visible in our skies, shining bright and cruel even to the unaugmented ocular receptor. We watched and we wept for our victims, dead so many Deelis before the light of their doom had even reached us. Many 6^4s of those who had been directly or even tangentially involved in the creation of the Gift sealed their spiracles with paste as a final penance for the small roles they had played in this atrocity. The light dimmed, the dust cleared, and our Observatories refocused upon the place where their shining blue world had once hung in the void, and found only dust and the pale gleam of an orphaned moon, wrapped in a thin, burning wisp of atmosphere that had once belonged to its parent.
Radiation and relativistic shrapnel had wiped out much of the inner system, and continent sized chunks of molten rock carried screaming ghosts outward at interstellar escape velocities, damned to wander the great void for an eternity. The damage was apocalyptic, but not complete, from the shadows of the outer worlds, tiny points of light emerged, thousands of fusion trails of single ships and world ships and everything in between, many 10^6s of survivors in flesh and steel and memory banks, ready to rebuild. For a few moments we felt relief, even joy, and we were filled with the hope that their culture and Art would survive the terrible blow we had dealt them. Then came the message, tightly focused at our star, transmitted simultaneously by hundreds of their ships.
?We know you are out there, and we are coming for you.?
!MESSAGE ENDS
This is the tale of an incident that occurred to me a few years ago, when I was a younger man, and convinced that the world was exactly as I saw it, and worked exactly as I was told it worked.
I had just finished my undergraduate degree at a college I shall not name, in the middle of Wales. Though my degree was interesting enough, I really wanted to leave behind the books and the academia, and immerse myself in the study and practical research of the paranormal. Though my funds were slight, at best, and my student loan needed repaying, on returning to London, I placed an advertisement in my local gazette, asking for anyone who had experienced paranormal phenomena, and didn?t mind talking about it to give me a call. I couldn?t offer anything in the way of a reward for their troubles, but I did promise to buy them a drink or two while we talked over what they had experienced.
It didn?t take long for me to receive my first and only caller, and to be honest, I was quite surprised that my ad had this much success. But I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. The call came while my mobile was turned off, but a number had been left on voicemail, and a few days later, I called back. I didn?t want to respond immediately, though I don?t know why. Perhaps I wanted to seem more professional. Like I had a hundred people on a waiting list or something.
Anyway, I called the next evening, and was greeted by the voice of a young man, who identified himself as Theo Twining. I asked if we could meet, but he declined, with a dry and solemn chuckle. I told him that it didn?t matter, and that we could conduct the conversation just as easily by telephone. Perhaps he was shy, I told myself. His situation was this:
Since about two weeks ago, he (and he paused for a good minute or two before recanting his tale, repeatedly telling me that I would think him stupid) had started to see worms, regular earthworms, across his path. I at first thought him a little bit paranoid before I heard the particulars of the tale. Not just outside, not just crossing his path, but in all manner of places. If he made a cup of coffee, there would be an earthworm, dried and boiled at the bottom of the cup. When he woke, he woke to find himself covered with five or six of them, and when he sat at his desk, they would crawl toward him from beneath the monitor screen, and from under his keyboard. He told me of how he lived in a neat-ish studio apartment on the third floor, and how this only happened very recently.
I listened to all he said with a rapt silence, alternating between deep fascination and a nagging guilt. I was finding such thrill in hearing this tale while Theo was undeniably suffering over it. Naturally quite hooked on his story at this point, I asked again if we could meet. Maybe he was more at ease with me now? But he seemed even less inclined now to meet. However, he did promise that he would call the next day. We agreed that I could take the call at 7pm, after I got home from work.
I work in a not-so-busy estate agent?s, so I spent most of the next day?s office hours mulling over what he had told me, and even went as far as to run an internet check on Theo Twining. What I found made revulsion rise in the pit of my stomach, a hot and acidic feeling of sickness. I don?t know for how long I sat there, still and shocked, until a co-worker shook me out of it, asking me if I was okay. It was all I could do to lie, though before me the screen gave details on Theo Twining.
A young man of (?), the same area of London in which I lived, had committed suicide in his apartment two weeks ago. The obituary and funerary notice was in the very same paper in which my advertisement appeared. I ditched my mobile as soon as I could, tossing it into a hedge, and I took the next few days off work. I went off to visit friends, not wanting to be alone.
As of writing this, I am studying for a master?s degree in my undergraduate subject. I never tried to investigate the paranormal again, after that. The world doesn?t work the way I am told it does.
I had just finished my undergraduate degree at a college I shall not name, in the middle of Wales. Though my degree was interesting enough, I really wanted to leave behind the books and the academia, and immerse myself in the study and practical research of the paranormal. Though my funds were slight, at best, and my student loan needed repaying, on returning to London, I placed an advertisement in my local gazette, asking for anyone who had experienced paranormal phenomena, and didn?t mind talking about it to give me a call. I couldn?t offer anything in the way of a reward for their troubles, but I did promise to buy them a drink or two while we talked over what they had experienced.
It didn?t take long for me to receive my first and only caller, and to be honest, I was quite surprised that my ad had this much success. But I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. The call came while my mobile was turned off, but a number had been left on voicemail, and a few days later, I called back. I didn?t want to respond immediately, though I don?t know why. Perhaps I wanted to seem more professional. Like I had a hundred people on a waiting list or something.
Anyway, I called the next evening, and was greeted by the voice of a young man, who identified himself as Theo Twining. I asked if we could meet, but he declined, with a dry and solemn chuckle. I told him that it didn?t matter, and that we could conduct the conversation just as easily by telephone. Perhaps he was shy, I told myself. His situation was this:
Since about two weeks ago, he (and he paused for a good minute or two before recanting his tale, repeatedly telling me that I would think him stupid) had started to see worms, regular earthworms, across his path. I at first thought him a little bit paranoid before I heard the particulars of the tale. Not just outside, not just crossing his path, but in all manner of places. If he made a cup of coffee, there would be an earthworm, dried and boiled at the bottom of the cup. When he woke, he woke to find himself covered with five or six of them, and when he sat at his desk, they would crawl toward him from beneath the monitor screen, and from under his keyboard. He told me of how he lived in a neat-ish studio apartment on the third floor, and how this only happened very recently.
I listened to all he said with a rapt silence, alternating between deep fascination and a nagging guilt. I was finding such thrill in hearing this tale while Theo was undeniably suffering over it. Naturally quite hooked on his story at this point, I asked again if we could meet. Maybe he was more at ease with me now? But he seemed even less inclined now to meet. However, he did promise that he would call the next day. We agreed that I could take the call at 7pm, after I got home from work.
I work in a not-so-busy estate agent?s, so I spent most of the next day?s office hours mulling over what he had told me, and even went as far as to run an internet check on Theo Twining. What I found made revulsion rise in the pit of my stomach, a hot and acidic feeling of sickness. I don?t know for how long I sat there, still and shocked, until a co-worker shook me out of it, asking me if I was okay. It was all I could do to lie, though before me the screen gave details on Theo Twining.
A young man of (?), the same area of London in which I lived, had committed suicide in his apartment two weeks ago. The obituary and funerary notice was in the very same paper in which my advertisement appeared. I ditched my mobile as soon as I could, tossing it into a hedge, and I took the next few days off work. I went off to visit friends, not wanting to be alone.
As of writing this, I am studying for a master?s degree in my undergraduate subject. I never tried to investigate the paranormal again, after that. The world doesn?t work the way I am told it does.
Driving home from a friends house, you sit at a red light when you hear a familiar tone from your phone, sitting in the passenger seat. A text message. Probably from your friend; you always leave things at their homes. Being a responsible driver, and the light still red, you open the message and wait for a moment for the image to load. Suddenly, a photo pops into view. Red, obscured, strange contrast. And no text accompanying it.
But the light is green, so you close your phone and go back to driving, wondering vaguely what that was, and who would have sent you it. Perhaps someone accidentally took a picture of the inside of their bag or pocket and sent it to you. You?re still caught wondering as you pull up to the next light, also red, and another little tone from your phone. You flip it open, hoping for an apology from a friend, but find yourself waiting as another photo loads on the screen. This one, still mostly red, but textured now with scraps of blue, yet still indiscernible. This time, it takes an impatient honk from behind you before you realize you can pass through the light and be on your way home. Closing the phone, and continue on your way.
You sit uncomfortable now as the tone rings again, at yet another stop signal. You pause, hesitate, and then open the phone. The picture now is suddenly much more clear. That scrap of blue seems to be the ragged edge of a bit of denim, half blood soaked and laying across a pile of entrails, torn straight through the back of a human torso. You can only see from the bottom of the shoulder blade to the tops of the thighs, but its unmistakably human. Blue-white spinal bone smeared in blood, tubes of intestine trailing out between ragged looking spinal tissue and going out of the frame of the picture. You choke back a throat full of bile and throw the phone back into the passenger seat, happy to be on your way again, and dreading the knowledge that you won?t be able to not look as you hear that tone again.
There is some relief as you realize there are no more stoplights before you reach your home. But as you pull up to that red stop sign, the bottom of your stomach drops out and you feel a cold sweat build on the back of your neck. You have already picked up the phone, even before that tell-tale little tone has told you there is a message. The cell vibrates in your hand as you flip it open, your mind gone on auto-pilot, driving home with your eyes on the screen as the newest photo loads. Intestines piled almost artistically to the side of the body, scalp ripped free and no hair discernable, and that sickening contrast of darkening red on blue. For some reason, you expected that, even as you taste bile on the back of your tongue.
Its not as close or obscured. Flesh torn apart by God knows what means, torn denim, and blood soaked so far into the threadbare fabric of a hand-me-down couch. The one you have in your living room. You pull your car into park, hands shaking as you make your way up to your front door. You can?t stop yourself now, your body?s just doing as it normally would, but your finger frantically scrolls down the screen, finding no name, no phone number, and a time dated on the message three minutes from now.
You put the key in the door as you try shrug off your denim jacket.
But the light is green, so you close your phone and go back to driving, wondering vaguely what that was, and who would have sent you it. Perhaps someone accidentally took a picture of the inside of their bag or pocket and sent it to you. You?re still caught wondering as you pull up to the next light, also red, and another little tone from your phone. You flip it open, hoping for an apology from a friend, but find yourself waiting as another photo loads on the screen. This one, still mostly red, but textured now with scraps of blue, yet still indiscernible. This time, it takes an impatient honk from behind you before you realize you can pass through the light and be on your way home. Closing the phone, and continue on your way.
You sit uncomfortable now as the tone rings again, at yet another stop signal. You pause, hesitate, and then open the phone. The picture now is suddenly much more clear. That scrap of blue seems to be the ragged edge of a bit of denim, half blood soaked and laying across a pile of entrails, torn straight through the back of a human torso. You can only see from the bottom of the shoulder blade to the tops of the thighs, but its unmistakably human. Blue-white spinal bone smeared in blood, tubes of intestine trailing out between ragged looking spinal tissue and going out of the frame of the picture. You choke back a throat full of bile and throw the phone back into the passenger seat, happy to be on your way again, and dreading the knowledge that you won?t be able to not look as you hear that tone again.
There is some relief as you realize there are no more stoplights before you reach your home. But as you pull up to that red stop sign, the bottom of your stomach drops out and you feel a cold sweat build on the back of your neck. You have already picked up the phone, even before that tell-tale little tone has told you there is a message. The cell vibrates in your hand as you flip it open, your mind gone on auto-pilot, driving home with your eyes on the screen as the newest photo loads. Intestines piled almost artistically to the side of the body, scalp ripped free and no hair discernable, and that sickening contrast of darkening red on blue. For some reason, you expected that, even as you taste bile on the back of your tongue.
Its not as close or obscured. Flesh torn apart by God knows what means, torn denim, and blood soaked so far into the threadbare fabric of a hand-me-down couch. The one you have in your living room. You pull your car into park, hands shaking as you make your way up to your front door. You can?t stop yourself now, your body?s just doing as it normally would, but your finger frantically scrolls down the screen, finding no name, no phone number, and a time dated on the message three minutes from now.
You put the key in the door as you try shrug off your denim jacket.
The doorbell rings, and you get up from where you sat staring stonily into space. You already know who is at your door, and why he is there. You open it, nodding numbly to the man. You make a note in your head that the man looks? sneaky, but you assume that must be because he?s a lawyer. You show him into your living room, dreading what is to come. The man hands you a CD he produces from his briefcase, and sets what looks like a birdcage on your coffee table. You can not see what is inside the cage, as it is covered in a blanket of embroidered silk. The man sits as you put the disc into your stereo and press play.
You hear the sound of stressed breathing from the speakers as you take your seat. The lawyer hasn?t said a word, but you know the breathing to be that of your late friend, the last breathes of your friend. You can hear something in the background, behind your friend?s heavy breathes, as if someone, or something, was scratching at a door. You wonder if you?re hearing things, as the sound is barely audible in the recording. You look up as you hear her voice, as if she was in the room with you, as if she was alive.
?The date is September the first of two thousand eight.? Her voice is shaky, every word she speaks is saturated with fear, ?This is my last will and testament. Now, I don?t have much time. They?re almost here, so I?ll dispense the formalities and get on with what I have to say. This is the last day of my life, as you have probably already figured out.?
?This began with the death of my uncle. I had never known him very well, only a few times at family reunions and Christmas parties, but he had left me something on his will. I sat awkwardly through the reading of the document until at last, my name was called. I collected a small box of knick-knacks and a covered cage. On the cage was a note saying ?Please do not unveil the surprise until you are home.? So I hurried home without taking the silk blanket off of the cage. What was inside the box is of no consequence, but underneath the blanket ? I warn you do not take the blanket off until this recording has ended ? is an old birdcage. Inside of this bird cage , is a parrot.?
?I was indeed surprised, but there were more shocks to come. When I lifted the blanket, the bird?s eyes were immediately fixed on me. Its beady eyes shone wickedly upon seeing a new face, and it said plainly in a squawky voice, ?hello?. I stared back at it, and it repeated itself, ?hello.? I dismissed it as a cute trick my uncle had taught it. I was very wrong.?
?The next day, when I took the blanket off of the cage, I was not greeted with a ?hello?. No, on the second day the bird didn?t talk at all. What it did do was breathe loudly, as if it was hyperventilating, or at least copying someone who was terrified. On the third day the bird did not speak, but made the sound of a grown man crying. I was very disturbed, and covered the cage for the remainder of the day.?
?The fourth day, in a voice not unlike my recently departed uncle?s, the bird cried ?Oh god. Oh god!? I thought the bird had learned it from listening to the television, and I resolved to never let it hear the television again. I didn?t turn o n the TV all that day, but on the fifth day, when I uncovered the cage, the bird screamed. Not a normal scream, mind you, and it was nothing I had ever had turned on the television. It was the sound of a man screaming in terror and pain. It was, I know now, the scream my uncle gave when he was killed. When the bird screams again it will be my scream as they tear me apart, for even now the bird is listening to me. It stares at me coldly where I?ve barricaded myself in the kitchen.?
?As you life depends on it, do not yet uncover the cage.?
?The sixth day, yesterday, when I hesitantly uncovered the cage, the bird was quiet. Perhaps ten minutes later it cocked its head to the side, as if it had heard something I could not. ?They?re coming.? it whispered, ?They?re coming?. Over and over again he repeated in a haunting voice. ?They?re coming??
?Today is the seventh day, and they are here, just as the bird said. I can hear them scratching at the door and crawling in the walls. The bird is waiting to record how I die, I swear, if it coul d grin it would have been grinning from the moment I uncovered its cage. The noises are getting louder, they?ll get in soon, so I?m saying goodbye now. Take care of the bird; I couldn?t think of anyone else to give it to, I?m sorry. You must take care of him till they come for you. You have seven days.?
The track ended suddenly, and you look around you, startled. You must have been entranced by the disc, for the lawyer was gone. You hadn?t noticed him leave. You stare at the covered cage on the coffee table, and wonder if you had just heard on the CD was real, or just some elaborate hoax. A rustling comes from underneath the embroidered silk. Your curiosity begs you to see what?s in the cage. You slowly raise up the blanket.
?Hello.?
You hear the sound of stressed breathing from the speakers as you take your seat. The lawyer hasn?t said a word, but you know the breathing to be that of your late friend, the last breathes of your friend. You can hear something in the background, behind your friend?s heavy breathes, as if someone, or something, was scratching at a door. You wonder if you?re hearing things, as the sound is barely audible in the recording. You look up as you hear her voice, as if she was in the room with you, as if she was alive.
?The date is September the first of two thousand eight.? Her voice is shaky, every word she speaks is saturated with fear, ?This is my last will and testament. Now, I don?t have much time. They?re almost here, so I?ll dispense the formalities and get on with what I have to say. This is the last day of my life, as you have probably already figured out.?
?This began with the death of my uncle. I had never known him very well, only a few times at family reunions and Christmas parties, but he had left me something on his will. I sat awkwardly through the reading of the document until at last, my name was called. I collected a small box of knick-knacks and a covered cage. On the cage was a note saying ?Please do not unveil the surprise until you are home.? So I hurried home without taking the silk blanket off of the cage. What was inside the box is of no consequence, but underneath the blanket ? I warn you do not take the blanket off until this recording has ended ? is an old birdcage. Inside of this bird cage , is a parrot.?
?I was indeed surprised, but there were more shocks to come. When I lifted the blanket, the bird?s eyes were immediately fixed on me. Its beady eyes shone wickedly upon seeing a new face, and it said plainly in a squawky voice, ?hello?. I stared back at it, and it repeated itself, ?hello.? I dismissed it as a cute trick my uncle had taught it. I was very wrong.?
?The next day, when I took the blanket off of the cage, I was not greeted with a ?hello?. No, on the second day the bird didn?t talk at all. What it did do was breathe loudly, as if it was hyperventilating, or at least copying someone who was terrified. On the third day the bird did not speak, but made the sound of a grown man crying. I was very disturbed, and covered the cage for the remainder of the day.?
?The fourth day, in a voice not unlike my recently departed uncle?s, the bird cried ?Oh god. Oh god!? I thought the bird had learned it from listening to the television, and I resolved to never let it hear the television again. I didn?t turn o n the TV all that day, but on the fifth day, when I uncovered the cage, the bird screamed. Not a normal scream, mind you, and it was nothing I had ever had turned on the television. It was the sound of a man screaming in terror and pain. It was, I know now, the scream my uncle gave when he was killed. When the bird screams again it will be my scream as they tear me apart, for even now the bird is listening to me. It stares at me coldly where I?ve barricaded myself in the kitchen.?
?As you life depends on it, do not yet uncover the cage.?
?The sixth day, yesterday, when I hesitantly uncovered the cage, the bird was quiet. Perhaps ten minutes later it cocked its head to the side, as if it had heard something I could not. ?They?re coming.? it whispered, ?They?re coming?. Over and over again he repeated in a haunting voice. ?They?re coming??
?Today is the seventh day, and they are here, just as the bird said. I can hear them scratching at the door and crawling in the walls. The bird is waiting to record how I die, I swear, if it coul d grin it would have been grinning from the moment I uncovered its cage. The noises are getting louder, they?ll get in soon, so I?m saying goodbye now. Take care of the bird; I couldn?t think of anyone else to give it to, I?m sorry. You must take care of him till they come for you. You have seven days.?
The track ended suddenly, and you look around you, startled. You must have been entranced by the disc, for the lawyer was gone. You hadn?t noticed him leave. You stare at the covered cage on the coffee table, and wonder if you had just heard on the CD was real, or just some elaborate hoax. A rustling comes from underneath the embroidered silk. Your curiosity begs you to see what?s in the cage. You slowly raise up the blanket.
?Hello.?
A gunshot shatters your blissful state of slumber. Blood stains your sheets and crimson runs from the walls and ceiling, and you notice from the blurred vagueness that is your peripheral vision, a body slumped over the foot of your bed. Somebody has been murdered in your room.
Despite the early hour, and the shock of your discovery, you desperately muster the strength to search for the last place you put the phone; you have to call the police before it?s too late.
As you frantically search under cushions, beneath stacks of papers and old CD?s, you realize something is wrong. Suddenly, you feel weak, decrepit, frail, a frailness that brings on intense and unwanted dizziness. You clench your teeth as you search for the phone, but your pain continues lurch at your bones and nag at you. The pain becomes intense, and your vision blurs, and you keel over in pain onto the floor. You are immobile due to the raging and unknown pain clawing at your insides. Helpless.
You sense a living presence in your room now, your sheets rustling, and now footsteps. The debilitated corpse that once lay helpless on your bed, you realize is moving of it?s own volition. It is alive.
In your last moments of consciousness, your last breath of air, you manage to grasp at your stomach, and you feel torn skin, and then raw flesh. And then nothing. There is a gaping hole there.
These are the last things you remembered.
Despite the early hour, and the shock of your discovery, you desperately muster the strength to search for the last place you put the phone; you have to call the police before it?s too late.
As you frantically search under cushions, beneath stacks of papers and old CD?s, you realize something is wrong. Suddenly, you feel weak, decrepit, frail, a frailness that brings on intense and unwanted dizziness. You clench your teeth as you search for the phone, but your pain continues lurch at your bones and nag at you. The pain becomes intense, and your vision blurs, and you keel over in pain onto the floor. You are immobile due to the raging and unknown pain clawing at your insides. Helpless.
You sense a living presence in your room now, your sheets rustling, and now footsteps. The debilitated corpse that once lay helpless on your bed, you realize is moving of it?s own volition. It is alive.
In your last moments of consciousness, your last breath of air, you manage to grasp at your stomach, and you feel torn skin, and then raw flesh. And then nothing. There is a gaping hole there.
These are the last things you remembered.
I also read about an another version of this story:
A young girl is left home alone with only her dog to protect her. When night approaches, she locks all the doors and tries to lock all the windows, but one won?t close. She decides to leave it unlocked and goes to bed. Her dog takes its customary place under her bed.
In the deep of night she awakens to a dripping sound coming from the bathroom. The girl is too scared to go check so she reaches her hand under the bed. She feels a reassuring lick from her dog and falls back to sleep. She reawakens to the dripping sound, reaches her hand down to the dog where she feels the reassuring lick and falls back to sleep. Once more she awakens to the dripping sound. She reaches her hand down and feels the lick of her dog.
Now curious about the dripping sound, she gets up and slowly walks towards the bathroom, the dripping sound getting louder as she approaches. She reaches the bathroom and turns on the light. She is greeted by a horrific sight; hanging from the shower nozzle is her dog, with its throat slit open and its blood dripping into the bathtub.
Something on the bathroom mirror catches her eye she turns around. Written on the bathroom mirror in her dog?s blood are the words ?HUMANS CAN LICK TOO?.
In the deep of night she awakens to a dripping sound coming from the bathroom. The girl is too scared to go check so she reaches her hand under the bed. She feels a reassuring lick from her dog and falls back to sleep. She reawakens to the dripping sound, reaches her hand down to the dog where she feels the reassuring lick and falls back to sleep. Once more she awakens to the dripping sound. She reaches her hand down and feels the lick of her dog.
Now curious about the dripping sound, she gets up and slowly walks towards the bathroom, the dripping sound getting louder as she approaches. She reaches the bathroom and turns on the light. She is greeted by a horrific sight; hanging from the shower nozzle is her dog, with its throat slit open and its blood dripping into the bathtub.
Something on the bathroom mirror catches her eye she turns around. Written on the bathroom mirror in her dog?s blood are the words ?HUMANS CAN LICK TOO?.
I know the one you mean but I can't seem to find it either.David_G said:
I'll post it if I ever do find it
Thanks. I remembered it and was like: "Hmm. Wonder if anything's been posted, probably not, better bump it again!"David_G said:
So any chance you'll be dropping off another parcel full of Creepypasta goodies? I've read through the entire thread now, but I'm still looking for more. (The Creepypasta website is ridiculously unnavigable to me.) You certainly seem to be the main provider of all things dark and scary here, after all.David_G said: