Welcome to

Smoke covered the midnight moon, while cheers could be heard all across a small farming village. Bonfires were lit all around the main road. Young and old folk alike celebrated as the Fire Runners, dressed in dark clothes adorned with bright red and yellow ribbons, moved among them, their faces covered with masks whose abhorrent features imitated the unholy visage of demons and monsters. They were performing what was locally known as the Devil’s Dance, an ancient pagan tradition, much older…

Having just finished my Master’s in Classical archaeology, I decided to celebrate by trekking my way through Italy. I spent about a week in Rome seeing the usual sites and eventually I made my way south down to Sorrento.  But backpacking through Italy wasn’t just for leisure, it was actual fieldwork — well, sort of.

There was this tiny indie horror movie that basically nobody had seen. I don't even remember how we found it. Maybe TikTok, or maybe someone on Reddit recommended it. It had one of those titles that sounded way cooler after you finished watching it than before, and it looked like it had a budget of maybe twenty dollars. Somehow it still worked. It wasn't really scary in the traditional sense. There weren't any monsters or cheap jump scares. It was just... unsettling.

Did you know tens of thousands of people die in their sleep each night? Most of them succumb to natural causes like heart disease, stroke, or just plain old age. But in that vast group of the fallen, a small subset of them have perished with no explanation at all. Hell, I've heard some have outright disappeared. The funny thing is they all shared one curse that led them to such a demise.

My cousin told me it happened in a very small village in Mexico, the one our grandfather grew up in. Late one night, a young man was leaving a friend's home. Despite the late hour, he insisted that he could walk home. After all, his own abode was only a mile away. Stepping out into the quiet streets, he started his journey. Breathing in the humid summer air, listening to the buzz of the street lamps mixed with the crickets and his own footsteps on the gravel ground.

(Based on A Real-life Encounter With a Cryptid Nov 25, 2025) (text was edited with the use of ai, but shares the same irl story as intended) It was one of those bright, harmless days this place likes to lie with — sun glinting off the beachside distractions, tourists buzzing around like mindless moths. Out there, everything looked normal. But I’ve never been much for sunlight or crowds, and the few of you reading this already know that.

My name is Edward Polist, and for most of my life I was a detective. People used to say I had a gift for seeing things others missed, that I could notice patterns hidden in chaos, that I could follow the smallest detail until it led me somewhere real. I believed them, maybe more than I should have. My work became the only thing that made sense to me, the only place where the world followed rules. Evidence led to answers, actions had consequences, and nothing simply happened without a reason.…

Have you ever wished to go back? Even if it was just for a short while? I’ve seen many collapse under the weight of reality and instead choose the comfort of rose-colored glasses. It’s strange how we accept language for what it is and rarely question its origins. Take idioms, for instance—we use them every day with carelessness, never respecting their weight or power. I hear you hurl them into the void, not realizing how close you are to unveiling a path not meant to be traversed. These phrases…

Poster: DoomBathRoom033 Subject: Weird story (?) I found in my attic This is my first time posting on this part of the forums and if I'm breaking any of the rules please let me know! Quick background: my husband and I recently bought a house and we've been documenting our DIY adventures as we renovate it. Here's a link to the thread, check it out if you enjoy questionable design choices and photos of our superstar celebrity cat, Mr. Scratch!

She walks into my life after dark—and disappears before the world wakes up. I rent a tiny one-bedroom apartment in a quiet coastal town just outside San Francisco. I work from home doing overnight tech support for a major software company I’m not allowed to name. Most of my calls come from system admins in Europe or Australia — people who get locked out of their accounts or freak out when syncs fail. It’s not glamorous, but it pays the bills. Anyway, I’m Nate.

If I could travel back in time, I would have changed a lot of things. Would you? I wouldn't just do better at everything or undo certain mistakes, I would probably become your friend. Do you remember, when we were little, that we actually lived quite close to each other? Y'know when you're born here you just don't seem willing to leave. All the locals have this problem. Well anyway, your house was just a couple of streets away from mine.

The verdict was final. I wished I had just died then. The people tasked with performing this ritual drank, Drank until they couldn't anymore, For if they were sober, They wouldn't have been able to go through with it. They stripped me of my clothing. They flogged me. Scraps of metal and shards of glass, Embedded into each tail of the flogger. Each tail would wrap around me, Glass and metal digging into my flesh. Then they would pull it back, Shards dragging inside my skin,

I laid in bed last night unable to sleep. I tossed and turned, for hours, trying to focus on falling asleep. My eyes closed and breathing slowly and deeply; Still, sleep never came. As I laid there, wrestling with the wake demon, searching endlessly for the sandman, I was frustrated with my inability to pass into the dreamland.

I would like to start this story by saying that Ray was great. A perfect gentleman and consummate professional. He didn't send a single untoward word or glance in my direction the entire time we were together. Even when things got scary, he put my safety first. And in spite of everything that happened to us, we're already talking about working together again.

In hindsight, this story is pretty embarrassing but hear me out. It’s not easy being the new kid who just moved to town in the middle of the school year. It didn’t help that this place was practically the middle of nowhere, the only restaurants being a mom and pop diner and a Taco Bell that was attached to a gas station. I nearly cried when I looked up how far away the nearest music venue was; an hour and a half, and they only showcased country bands.  I’ve never had a knack for fitting in, and…

You don't know me. But perhaps you know my voice.

‘Hey, girly! I’ve decided to start selling cosmetics.’ I groaned as I read the text message. When a girl you haven’t spoken to since high school, Kimmy in this case, sends you a message like that, it means they’re trying sell you on some MLM BS. My phone buzzed again, and despite my better judgement, I checked it and braced myself to read the words ‘boss babe’.

Paramedics are incredibly superstitious. It’s surprising how much people will argue with me about this simple fact. “Oh, definitely not. They’re too reasonable, too smart, too calm in a crisis to engage with something as irrational as superstitions.”

I’m usually a ‘take things slow’ kind of girl, but there was something about her in the bar that night. I was sitting at a table in the back, watching my friends’ coats and purses while they were out on the dance floor. This was my usual role, and I suspected it was the only reason they still invited me out.

I last saw my girlfriend around seventeen years ago. Although for me, it was last week.