Born March 1986 - writer of poetry and creepy tales that are perfect for a campfire. So bring your marshmallows and your favourite soft drink, pull up a chair and get comfy while we begin…
I write various forms of horror from Black Eyed Kids through to Aliens and Mental Health/Drug Use so please read at your own discretion. I’ll try my best to add content warnings on each individual piece as I go along.
This is a creepy space away from my main writing page; unless otherwise stated these are SFW.
Mostly Void || Narration by Otis Jiry
The Angel Statue Stole My Soul || My YouTube
I went Camping On a Ranch || Narration by Campfire Tales
I Know I’m Being Followed || Narration by Campfire Tales
They used to laugh and call Rudolph names…
But then one foggy Christmas Eve, a little voice did say, Rudolph with your nose so bright use it to guide as you slay tonight.
An image of a man flashed up on screen as the newsreader continued “the deceased body of a local man has been found by the river…”
I gasp and run to the back porch doors, looking out in terror and confusion at the hastily dug, now open, grave.
Have you flipped the tumblr switch to not get scraped for AI-theft today?
It’s in the account settings. If in the app do the following:
1. Go to your blog (tiny human symbol)
2. Go to account settings (tiny cogwheel on the top right).
3. Scroll down to and hit Visibility (the second option from the end)
4. Activate the last oft the three switches (depending on your previous settings it may already be activated (symbol sky blue with switch to the right)
If you have several blogs you need to do it for each one.
A small PSA to all those new to dealing with the porn bots that Tumblr now has a fresh wave of – I understand that when you go to report them, you want to report them as "[containing] sexually explicit material", but don't do that. Report them as spam instead.
These are spam bots flooding tags and the website in general with spam links. They often do not have anything sexually explicit on their blog (although they often have implicit material). Plus, these two reports get very different results. Reporting explicit material gets the bot slapped behind an 18+ wall, so minors can't check if they're a bot or not. Reporting spam gets the bot taken down.
Remember, folks: when dealing with a bot, report spam, not smut!
I Was Paid to Stay Awake for 15 Days. Here’s What Happened.
Nothing.
Nothing Happened.
I don't mean that metaphorically nothing happened... As in, there were no consequences, good or bad, for breaking the previous record by 4 days. No, I mean literally nothing happened. Time stopped. Reality became empty and meaningless.
According to the researchers, I fell asleep for 15 minutes at exactly the 15-day mark but for me, that moment lasted much longer. It's hard to explain but my body and my mind didn't experience the nothingness. It's something I felt inside of me. Deep down in whatever makes up my existence. It was as if the rules of reality that we all abided by broke down and everything stopped... and then I was awake again.
As if the agony I endured to reach the 15-day mark wasn't bad enough, what came after is something I wouldn't wish on anyone.
I guess I should explain. About 6 weeks ago, I was approached by a trio of researchers on my college campus. They were graduate psychology students who were studying the effects of no sleep on the human body and mind. They were recruiting volunteers for a new study in which the subjects would undergo treatment to help them stay awake longer. Their ambition was to create medication that allows people to stay up weeks at a time without any negative consequences.
It was a grandiose goal and perhaps dangerous for the people volunteering but they were paying $400 for each full day we could stay awake. As a broke college student, this was the opportunity of a lifetime. Tuition was due soon, I was already months late paying it, and I already had $50,000 in student debt.
A few days later I was scheduled. I would be staying in their lab while they monitored me 24/7. The first couple of nights weren't anything special. I've pulled all-nighters before at LAN parties with my high school buddies. It wasn't until the 55-hour mark that I started to slow down. I was given a few pills that would help me stay alert. They told me I'd have to take them every six hours for them to be effective and with life-changing money on the line, I was willing to do anything.
The rest of the study was a blur. It's hard to remember the details, what I did to stay awake. Did I do any experiments to test my cognitive ability? Did I even interact with anyone? It's too hard to remember now and it doesn't matter anymore. I'm too tired to think about it.
I don't remember the nothingness but I can still feel it. The emptiness won't go away. It flows through my soul. It's not something I can easily explain to someone who hasn't experienced it. It feels as though I'm no longer connected to myself as if I've moved beyond my physical body but it's hard to tell what reality is. I haven't slept for quite a while now.
Eventually, the experiment came to an end and my experience left me delirious and confused. A doctor checked my vitals and thanked me for volunteering. I was handed cash, $6,000 right in my hand. If I hadn't been awake for 360 hours, I would have done a little more than a small smile and nod. I was then escorted back to my dorm room so I could finally rest.
I fell asleep the second my body touched my bed. The sleep deprivation hit me hard.
I had the worst nightmares since I was a child. I dreamt of ethereal beings stealing my very existence. They came from somewhere beyond this world to ours to fill their own. I woke up at 9 am drenched in sweat. Dreams were always weird and this was no exception. I thought it was just a coincidence that I had the same feeling when I awoke that morning that I had at the end of the study. I'm not so sure it was a coincidence anymore.
I couldn't stop thinking about the nightmare for the rest of the day. I've always heard that we dream of experiences we've already had. Sometimes it might be a movie you watched, a book you read, or maybe a random encounter with a stranger. There was always a familiarity to dreams; although, they always seem absurd and completely illogical. That dream, that nightmare, felt too real. It was hard to stay focused.
The next night I went to sleep early. My roommate was getting back late from a weekend trip and I wanted to get a head start on sleep before his rustling kept me awake.
I had the same nightmare. This time, the ethereal beings seemed hungrier, as if they had a taste for a new, exotic meal and wanted to dine on it once again. I could feel myself being ripped from my sleeping body despite my attempts to wrench myself free.
I became aware of a shadowy figure staring at me beside my bed. I tried to move with every ounce of strength I could muster until finally, after what felt like minutes, I was able to pull myself from a deep sleep. It was my roommate. He told me that I was screaming in my sleep and flailing. I even put a hole in the dorm room wall.
I used to have night terrors as a kid so I didn't put much thought into it, after all I had just recently been awake for 15 days straight. There were bound to be some lasting side effects. I pushed it to the back of my mind. There was nothing too abnormal about it.
Unfortunately, I had an exam coming up and I wasn't prepared. The terrible sleep from the previous two nights and the sleep study left little time for me to learn the new material. I decided I was going to pull an all-nighter or two since I didn't want to fail this class.
My study session started off normal but as the day came to an end I became increasingly drowsy. I was fighting off sleep when I started to hear soft whispers coming from the hallway just outside my door. They were loud enough to disrupt my studying. I wanted them to stop. I would get up to see who was standing outside my dorm but each time there was no one there. I would go back to studying and soon after the whispers would return. I tried to put on headphones but they only grew louder.
I began to hallucinate by the following morning. At first, it was just inconspicuous shadows in the very corners of my vision. Just visible enough to be mistaken for a fly or some dust floating in the air. As the day drew on, the hallucinations worsened. Small shadows turned into figures hiding within the dark recesses of my room, whisperings amongst themselves. I thought it was just sleep deprivation. That I just needed to get some sleep. I wish I listened to my instincts. I wish that the feeling of my hair sticking straight up would have alerted me to the danger I was facing. Maybe it was the lack of sleep clouding my judgment. Instead, I slept. I needed sleep if I was going to pass my exam the next day.
Another nightmare. This time I was in my room. The ethereal beings hovered over me with ghastly smiles as they began to steal whatever it is that makes me, me. I fought to move. I poured every ounce of power into my body. I commanded every fiber of my being to wake. My eyes opened and I was met with the familiar sight of my room. I laid there paralyzed, only able to move my eyes.
I watched as a shadow in the corner of my room began to grow, swallowing the light that passed through it. A void of nothing devouring its surroundings. It felt too real to be a dream... It was real. I could tell - somehow. When it reached me, I could feel it penetrate my skin. I felt it pressing against my body, suffocating me with the weight of nothing. I tried to scream but I couldn't. My lips were sealed and my words compressed in my mouth, unable to find a way out.
And then as quickly as it started, it stopped and I awoke.
I haven't been asleep since then. For a while, things seemed to get better. The whispers and hallucinations went away within the first couple of days. I began to think it really was my sleep-deprived mind playing sadistic tricks on me.
I let my guard down.
They came back... the voices. The hallucinations too. Whispers and laughter turned into screams and cackles. I was engulfed in a cacophony of wails and guffaws, a relentless torrent of suffering. The shadows grew nearer until I could feel them crawling along my skin, itching for a way in. They were always looking for a way in.
I'm trying to fight it but every hour I stay awake I get weaker and they get stronger. I know that if I sleep now, I might not wake up again. My only choice is to never sleep again.
I don't know what's happening but I do know that you shouldn't follow my path. If you stay awake too long, you'll experience nothing, just like I did. Don't experience nothing. Because when you experience nothing, nothing experiences something. It won't stop until it has something. It won't stop until it has you. It won't stop until it has me.
I'm writing this as a warning. Whatever I did, it broke the barrier between our world and theirs. When I'm awake I drift into the realm of nothing. When I'm asleep, they invade the realm of something.
It's been 14 days, 13 hours, and 42 minutes since I last slept. I don't know what will happen to me if I stay awake any longer. I just want it to stop. I can't sleep anymore. Not unless I want them to come back and steal my existence... I just hope nothing will be better than this.
***
I write horror, fantasy, and sci-fi and will be posting multiple times a week!
Oh, and don't forget to reblog this and follow me! I want to share my writing with as many people as possible. :D
I’ve always wanted to go to a Hockey game and when I moved to Canada it seemed like the perfect time. I didn’t and still don’t know much about Hockey; I did some basic research to make sure I knew the basics but further than that – I had no clue.Â
The first game I went too was with friends and it was nothing like I was expecting; in fact I questioned many things I had read.Â
Now, even though I…
i have just stumbled upon the most beautiful public document i have ever laid eyes on. this also goes for anyone whose pastimes include any sort of character creation. may i present, the HOLY GRAIL:
this wonderful 88-page piece has step by step breakdowns of how names work in different cultures! i needed to know how to name a Muslim character it has already helped me SO MUCH and i’ve known about it for all of 15 minutes!! i am thoroughly amazed and i just needed to share with you guysÂ
A/N: based on some dreams I had; and padded out a lot.
Whenever I have tried to get my thoughts down and the events of the last god knows how many weeks or months… It’s like the thing I’ve been seeing is putting a block on everything… it gets foggy but… it’s not what I thought it was and now it affects my wife too and I have to get it out there.
I’m getting ahead of myself though. It sounds so silly and such a non event - I had nightmares. I’ve always had nightmares and night terrors. Not every night but enough that even when I was a twenty-something adult living at home my mother would wake me because I was screaming in my sleep and fighting off something from on top of me.
When I moved out and in with my girlfriend-now-wife, she would wake me when I was kicking and punching in my sleep - we’d joke that she isn’t a tree in one of our console games. The talking in my sleep was funny to us both because some of the things I would say made no sense; so we laughed when I was “in a boat” or “trading this fish” and even “just going on a trip to the moon”.
The nightmares were regular enough but became more frequent as I got older and even more so when I got news of my mother’s cancer diagnosis; too far along for effective treatment so she was given twelve months maximum.
The dreams were always the same. I would be running, not from anything at first. I was just running, not something I’d do for fun in waking life but dream-me wanted to keep fit apparently. I’d head into a wooded area and the trees would become thicker, taller, sharper. The bark would change colour from the natural browns to deep reds and sap would begin to drip out of splits in the wood. I could smell metal in the air and taste the same, the ground under my now bare feet was a mix of grass and sharp twigs and again I could feel the sharpness on my feet. The sap was no longer sap but thick blood, dying the trees as it now poured down the sides. The insects and birds were all kinds of wrong; butterflies with human skin as wings - as if just torn from the victim. Bees with large mandibles able to tear apart any prey including my skin. Birds whose feathers were made from muscles, tendons and cartilage. A snake was slithering on the floor seemingly skinned, leaving trails of blood behind it that were being licked up by lizards and frogs with exploded eyes and pus-filled warts. The flowers and other plant life looked like normal but surrounded by everything else they looked out of place and gave off an air of unease.
Now I was running from something… a thing. A being. An alien? An animal? A demon? I don’t see it but I know I must escape from it. I continue running but the strong smell and taste of blood in the air is making it hard for me to breathe. My chest feels tight, my arms heavy and my legs are decidedly not doing what legs should do. I fall to the floor on my hands and knees, screaming out in pain as the sharp blades of grass pierce my skin; it’s needles and glass, pins and bone splinters. I try to stand but I’m in too much pain and then it’s on my back and wrestling me so it can sit on my torso.
The thing that has been chasing me is dark like a shadow but I can see it’s sinewy. The skin is covered in the blood/sap from the trees which makes it sticky and slick. The eyes are large and black with a red ring around the outer edge; there are no eyelids or eyebrows. The teeth in its mouth are sharp and pointed, they’re blackeyed and brown and grey - there are no lips, it’s ears are just holes in the sides of its bald and scarred head. The thing sits on me with bent knees against its chest; crouched down in place. The arms are thin and boney, the hands are claw-like. The nails are long and sharp and easily scratch open my skin with the lightest of touch. It breathes heavily and it’s breath is like a rotten trash bin left in the sun for too long. It whispers and snarls something but it’s not a language I understand then it parts it’s knees and leans down between them placing it’s mouth over mine.
I wake unable to breathe or move and for a few moments I can swear I hear something running away out the bedroom; I assume it’s one of our cats. I inhale sharply and cough to the point of breathlessness. My wife jumps awake and quickly offers me water as she checks that I’m okay.
I can’t speak but I nod a little; it’s a lie of course. I’m covered in sweat and I’ll spend the rest of the night awake; scared to sleep. But I don’t want her to feel the need to lay awake with me. Why should both of us lose a night's sleep over a silly dream?
A silly dream that left me with bruises on my legs, cuts on my hands and feet, a black eye, a mild concussion from a hit to the head as I fell to the floor.
A silly dream that my doctor said was just a reaction to grief and mental pain and prescribed me some sleeping pills that had fun side effects such as “sleep disturbances”, “strange dreams”, “nightmares” and the warning stated not to take them if you suffered from anxiety or depression. But sure, I’ll take these things for three nights and hope nothing worse happens….
A silly dream that repeated itself for another three nights with varying intensity.
A river of acid that I run through to aid my escape but the creature is unaffected while I lose my feet and half my lower leg. Barbed wire and razor wire vines that hang from the trees and capture me, wrap around me, trap me; cut and pierce my skin…but the thing just swings from them as though he’s the embodiment of George of The Jungle. A large boiling-mud-filled sinkhole that I fall into; Every. Single. Time.
And still the creature captures me; I can never escape it and every time it will literally take my breath away.
With every dream I find myself more exhausted than before; my wife points out my skin is paler and drier, my hair starts to fall out.
“It’s just stress…I mean I do live with you, my love…” I smile and try to assure her, but she isn’t convinced and she can see through my ploy to alleviate her concerns with humour.
The night I received the news my mother had died; I drank myself to the point of passing out. It wasn’t unexpected but it was sooner than we had originally thought and we believed we had more time.
My sleep was realistic. The nightmares always felt real anyway but this was as though I went from HDTV to a crystal clear 4K.
It was different. I wasn’t in a forest or wooded area; I was floating in a large open lake. Every time I try to move towards the shore I would slip under water. A long-held fear simply because I couldn’t swim. I tell myself I’m dreaming, that I won’t be controlled by my fears, that it’s not real. And then I feel water enter my lungs, I sputter and choke when I rise above the water again to steady myself. Somehow I’ve moved further away from the shoreline and into the open water. Looking around I see figures on a dock not far from where I am treading water trying to stay afloat. I call for help and all three figures point to the same place in the water. I follow their direction and see what looks to be a dark floatie; I slowly and carefully make my way towards it, realising too late that it’s the creature pretending to be a floatie. It winds its long arms around me and tightens its grip; a vice on my chest and when I can breathe a little I get nothing but salt water into my burning lungs. I manage to take a breath and look to the people on the dock before it pulls me under into the vast blackness. My last sight before I wake with a start is my mother, my wife and my best friend, pointing me to my death.
My eyes open quickly. They open quicker than usual after a nightmare and I’m face to face with the creature sitting on my chest. I can’t move myself but I can move just my eyes and I see that with one of its hands it keeps my wife oblivious to its being here and she sleeps soundly beside me, unaware of my panic. It hisses at me and holds a long clawed finger to its lipless mouth as if telling me to be quiet. I gasp roughly and try to speak but instead it’s mouth once again is over mine and I pass out.
I awoke feeling hungover, but more than hungover. My hands are swollen and my feet are cut and bruised. I’m drenched in sweat but even my wife points out it’s almost too salty for that. My eyes are bloodshot, I seem to have pulled out my hair in clumps and my clothes are torn by something other than hands or nails and we’re both left confused and terrified.
I thought I was just having bad dreams. I thought that stress and grief can affect you in the weirdest of ways but…. When I say I have a demon; it isn’t just hyperbole. I have a physical demon that’s slowly taking all energy and life force from me and has been doing since I was a teenager.
But now… Not only is it doing this to me but my wife has begun to have night terrors; something she has never had in her entire life; they’re scarily similar to my own but with a few other things thrown in and no matter how hard I try to stay awake to see this thing and try to stop it… I always fall asleep until she’s screaming and crying for help and there’s a skitter of feet out of our room.
Warnings: BEK/BEC. Talk of deterioration, bad health, mental health implications.
Narration by Otis Jiry for Chilling Tales for Dark Nights. (Opens in new tab.)
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