#paranoia

Of places that you would think to be haunted and creepy, hospitals and nursing homes, at about one a.m., are the worst. Death and illness run the halls of these institutions on a daily basis. The walls become infected with it. The floors and fixtures are run down by it. Each room becomes a cell of this thing and at times, makes it appear living. Let me tell you a story about a particular room, one that has become known as the death room. That room is 210.

“Wake … up … you must … wa-“. That’s when it stopped. Those were the last words the tall, dark figure spoke to me when a white curtain fell over all that I saw, covering the previous scenery with an endless sea of snow.

I didn't open the door. On mine and violets life I didn't, but my head was pounding the same way as it did when I went through a door.

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.

Keira sits on her bed and stares vacantly at the opposing wall. She’s tired and she’d sell her soul to get a few winks in, if only for bad dreams. It’s Halloween night, but she’s not done much to mark the occasion. Just a drink and a chat with her mates. Non-costumed. Somewhere unbusy. Mature. Just a drink and a chat.

I don't know what's worse, the screams that ended a few weeks ago, or the silence that has fallen since then. Before, I felt like everything should be done to help others. Now, in my self-reflection, I don't know anymore.

Outlaws sucked. It was just another shithole bar in Columbus, Georgia. One of many I might add. Not that I was an expert given I wasn’t much for the party scene. This college student struggled to meet friends, much less find girls who wanted to talk to me. I had no wingman after all. No one to go out with.

In 2003 a photograph depicting a lost child began circulating on the internet. There was no detail on the child other than what was seen in the actual photo and could be found under the search parameters 'find_me.jpg'. The photo showed a smiling young girl about eight or nine years old. The girl is seen standing alone in front of a swing set, wearing a purple dress with a white flower in her hair. Her name or where she was seen last were never mentioned.

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.

I uncapped the red pen and added another "X" to our calendar. A small one, as not to take up more space than needed. After all, the box already had three others inside just like it. Who knew how many more we would have to add?

Ever had a fear of monsters under your bed? Like you could have sworn you saw what seemed to be a shadow moving down there, or freaked out when you heard a noise under the bed and was scared to look?

You know those sounds you hear when no one is home? Those sounds only you hear. When you’re alone. I do. I hear them everyday. The creaking. The noises. The paranoia of my mind playing tricks on me, but is it really?

It had been a long, tiring day at work. It was quiet as I waited alone for the train. It was a bit after midnight, and so dark that I could only see the square foot around me that the small light illuminated. Fortunately, I wasn’t stuck waiting long for the train. Eagerly, I ran in the second the doors opened.

I just want to start off by saying if you want an answer at the end, prepare to be disappointed. There just isn't one. I was an intern at Nickelodeon Studios for a year in 2005 for my degree in animation. It wasn't paid of course, most internships aren't, but it did have some perks beyond education. To adults it might not seem like a big one, but most kids at the time would go crazy over it.

Howdy. You can call me "Jack." It's not my real name, but that's what I'll go by for now. I reckon the time to tell my story has come. Believe it or don't, but here it is. I suggest you take away the lessons it teaches, even if you dismiss it all as bullshit like 98% of the other stories on the internet. But there's more truth in this story than any one of you could know.

The year was 1942, and I was a young Jewish boy who was sent to the concentration camp, Auschwitz. My brother and I were separated from our parents a couple weeks back, and haven’t seen them since. We were attempting to make it across the border to Russia in order to escape the Nazis, but we weren’t fast enough, and they quickly caught up. My brother, Alois, was two years older than me, and went to Auschwitz when we were caught. Unfortunately, he died on the fourth day from too much hard labor.

Day 1: I’ve called myself paranoid for quite some time because of the little things that put me on edge. I can’t stay in the dark. Even when my eyes focus I can feel the gaze of some night dweller following me as I tiptoe to stay unheard and scan with my pathetic, nearsighted eyes. I can feel something, something hidden in the dark that must be there since I can’t see it. I can’t stand the silence either. You’d think the opposite would be true, since at least the silence I can hear if something…

You are alone. A scared, fearful little creature in this dank and dark forest. I can smell you. I can feel your heart beating, every single one of them. I just love to dance to the rhythm as it quickens when you hear a sound. What as that? A squirrel? A fox? Perhaps it was. Or perhaps it was me.

I live in the middle of nowhere, far away from the rest of my friends. I have to wake up very early in the morning to catch my bus and I usually eat my breakfast as it’s bringing me to school. I don’t have any brothers or sisters; There’s just me, the Ziggy the cat, and my Dad. And then there’s Martha, the chronically pissed-off woman who insists that I call her my Mother. But lately I don’t feel so inclined to do so. She’s hardly ever around because it seems like she works every day of the…

In case you’ve been following along with the events at the gas station on my blog, I apologize that my website was taken down so abruptly. For some reason, the city council found my public record of local events to be “troubling”--to the point that they hired a fancy Orwellian legal team to bury me in cease and desists. I tried fighting back, but as of last week, it looks like my entire site has been retroactively erased from existence. Presumably, these are the same guys who’ve been scrubbing…