Ewww... thats just creepy. Share some stories, bishes!

[Sveglia]

Deformed Jawbreaker

About six years ago in Indiana, Carmen Winstead was pushed down a sewer opening by five girls in her school, trying to embarrass her in front of her school during a fire drill. When she didn't submerge, the police were called. They went down and brought up 17-year-old Carmen Winstead's body, with her neck broken from hitting the ladder, then the concrete at the bottom. The girls told everyone she fell... They believed them.

FACT: About two months later, 16-year-old David Gregory read this post and didn't repost it. When he went to take a shower, he heard laughter, started freaking out, and ran to his computer to repost it. He said goodnight to his mom and went to sleep, but five hours later, his mom woke up in the middle of the night from a loud noise and David was gone. A few hours later, the police found him in the sewer, with a broken neck and the skin on his face peeled off.

Even Google her name - you'll find this to be true.

If you don't repost this saying "They hurt her," then Carmen will get you, either from a sewer, the toilet, the shower, or when you go to sleep, you'll wake up in the sewer, in the dark, then Carmen will come and kill you.



Lol, i normally don't believe in things like this, but for some reason it really freaked me out.

They hurt her.

They hurt her.

I thought we we're finally rid of this...

[Erin_Dracona]

Alexia426

I thought we we're finally rid of this...

Just kill her and remove every trace of her ever existing

[ieatbabies cheeks]

i dont really get scared of anything except rape stories, cause i know that stuff can actually happen. im just as terrified as Tom from the Boondocks when he's scared of getting a**l rape in jail.

[Ace_Jokerz]

bumpity bump

[Pogue-O Stick]

About six years ago in Indiana, Carmen Winstead was pushed down a sewer opening by five girls in her school, trying to embarrass her in front of her school during a fire drill. When she didn't submerge, the police were called. They went down and brought up 17-year-old Carmen Winstead's body, with her neck broken from hitting the ladder, then the concrete at the bottom. The girls told everyone she fell... They believed them.

FACT: About two months later, 16-year-old David Gregory read this post and didn't repost it. When he went to take a shower, he heard laughter, started freaking out, and ran to his computer to repost it. He said goodnight to his mom and went to sleep, but five hours later, his mom woke up in the middle of the night from a loud noise and David was gone. A few hours later, the police found him in the sewer, with a broken neck and the skin on his face peeled off.

Even Google her name - you'll find this to be true.

If you don't repost this saying "They hurt her," then Carmen will get you, either from a sewer, the toilet, the shower, or when you go to sleep, you'll wake up in the sewer, in the dark, then Carmen will come and kill you.



Lol, i normally don't believe in things like this, but for some reason it really freaked me out.

They hurt her.

They hurt her.
HAHA THIS WAS FUNNY!

[Blissful Squall]

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.

[Blissful Squall]

It wasn’t until I broke down in front of my sister that it occurred to me to use the word ‘haunted’. When I tried to explain what was happening to me, finally articulating the weeks of dread and utter dislocation, I found that no other word would come. Haunted. There’s still a part of me that scoffs and glowers at this, to use the language of folklore; it seems to compress what I’d experienced into a simple banality, a prisoner of language.

I paid cash upfront for the house in West Toluca Lake. Something about the 1930’s Spanish architecture tucked behind the grove of weeping willows triggered a strong association with my childhood ideal of what it meant to be famous and successful in Los Angeles. It was far more than I needed, and I struggled to fill the extra rooms with bedroom sets and elaborate smoking lounges; more out of an obligation to keep up appearances when guests were over than to satisfy myself. I was happy there, for a short while.

My friends stop visiting a few months after I moved in. Increasingly elaborate excuses were spun, and I soon stopped asking. It only occurs to me now that I was doing the same, finding every reason to stay in the house.

There was such a gentle descent into the insanity of it all, that I hardly felt it happening. The unusually stormy winter hit me hard, and long hours in front of the sun lamp seemed to do little to halt my growing feeling of melancholy and nameless unease. I started sleeping later and I abandoned even the pretense of writing, spending long hours in silence on the back porch, listening to the dry rasping of the dead leaves in the cold breeze.

It was the middle of the night when I first saw him. After a long time of lying motionless in the dark, I slowly pulled myself out of bed from an Ambien fog at the sharp urging of my bladder, and shuffled towards the bathroom.

He was in the hall, standing perfectly still, his back to me. His head was cocked slightly to one side as if he was listening, but he showed no signs of seeing me. My heart leapt and my body locked as I tried to comprehend this intrusion. He was walking away from me now, the soft tread of his feet on the carpet the only sound that punctuated the stillness. Less than three seconds had passed from the moment I saw him, to when he turned a corner and was gone.

When I wrenched control from my frozen limbs, I found the house empty, and the doors still locked. Sleep came slowly that night as I tried to convince myself that what I had seen was a product of my medicated and half asleep mind.

He returned the next night, as I lay in bed. I awoke to the sound of the door opening and my eyes snapped open to complete darkness. There was the soft shuffling of feet, and then with a sickening feeling deep in my core, the sound of bed springs softly creaking, as if he had sat at the foot of the bed. Fear held me in place like a vice. There was a sound from far away, a dusty crackling breath of wind.

My mouth went dry and I croaked a small involuntary rasp as I struggled to extricate myself from the sheets that suddenly clung to me. In that naked moment of helpless animal terror, he vanished, leaving a palpable hole in the darkness.

After that night, I was never alone in that house. At the corner of my eyes I saw slow plodding movement, the lumbering gait of a shadow that evaporated as soon as I turned. Rarely at first, but increasingly, I would see him in full view; walking slowly from room to room, sitting motionless on the patio, standing solemnly and silently in odd corners of the house. He would be gone only moments after I registered his presence, simply ceasing to exist, taking with him the tiny muffled sounds of his movements.

I could not describe him now if I tried. He was not vague or indistinct, but utterly unremarkable in every appearance. I can no longer even recall the image of him, only the idea of it all. Beyond the sight, there was an indescribable quality around him, a lingering fog of unease and dread that slowly suffused the house and clouded my mind.

My friends and my family all swear that during the darkest weeks they called me often, increasingly sick with worry. I remember none of it, just the constant crashing waves of dread and shock that weathered away at my reason.

The moment of clarity came on a clear February night. In a near daze, I stumbled towards the sleep, not wanting to stay awake, not wanting to wake up again in this house. I turned out the light, sat down gingerly on the edge of the bed when the miasma of his presence enveloped me.

He was behind me in the dark.

I pressed my eyes tightly together, and exhaled a slow wheeze, trying to calm my racing heart.

The bed behind me bucked with sudden movement and a raspy cough of air, and I leapt away, flinging the light switch upward. The bed, once immaculately made was in shambles, the sheets strewn on the floor.

Something deep inside me seemed to slowly bend and snap, and I grasped at a fragment of epiphany that slipped through my fingers away into the gloom.

I felt suddenly and sharply awake and lucid, like I hadn’t in months. I held onto my momentary courage close as I approached the front door; stepping over the threshold for the first time in weeks brought a faint wave of dizziness, and then I was in the car trying not to look back. As I pulled the car into the street, I turned to the house, the last time I saw it, its lights ablaze in mimicry of life. He was at the window, his hands clasped at his side, a momentary silhouette that vanished with only the soft sway of the curtains.

I was at a motel within an hour and at my sister’s Studio City apartment the next morning. My throat was raw from not speaking for so many days and I croaked out the story to her, embarrassed at the absurdity of the way it all, but swaddled in a profound relief.

Despite the usefulness of it to describe the events, the word ‘haunted’ soon turns sour in my mouth. It never occurred to me to call the intruder a ‘ghost’. This was… something else. Something I can’t explain with the clubs and spears of language. The phantom impression of a right word, the perfect word, seems always at the tip of my tongue, but it never comes. It wasn’t the intruder. It was the house. There’s something wrong with the house itself.

The house is… broken.

[Blissful Squall]

As a child, I was always quiet, and my conversations with others would always end up awkward. Because of that, I always preferred to be alone growing up. Which probably explains my strange obsession with toys, being as old as I am. They never talk. They just stare. I have to say though, being alone in an apartment full of figurines can be creepy sometimes.

However, being with my girl for almost two years, she understands my obsession well, but with this much, she would probably be shocked when she first sees them.

That night, she was more than excited to see my house. as we approached the door, she could barely contain her excitement, so without further delay, I swing the front door open. “Make yourself at home.” I say to her, “it’s kind of messy, but its more comfortable than it l-” her face was in shock, then absolute terror as she started to scream.

I tried to calm her, but it just got worse. I was puzzled. is she afraid of my toys? “I understand its a bit strange, but is it that horrifying? I take a quick look in my house but theres nothing horrific. I had to calm her down, as the neighbors were starting to come out. With a quick impulse, I quickly drag her in my house as I try to ease her mind. Her screaming just got louder and louder. At this point, I had no choice but to put my hand over her mouth. She watched me in terror with tears rolling down her face. I turn around and they were all staring at me as well.

…

I’m alone again. I placed her doll on the top shelf above all the others I have dated. Her look made me feel depressed, so I made it face the wall until I was able to get over it.

[Blissful Squall]

We’ve all experienced it, right? That sudden feeling like someone is looking you. A chill runs up your spine, and you are convinced that you have to find the source of the sensation. You look around and see someone just randomly staring at you. At gives you even more of a spook, but, after a few seconds of awkwardness, it subsides. You and the person go your separate ways, never to see one another ever again.

Or are you?

Why is it that we get that sensation when we make eye contact with another human being? I will tell you why. Its because they aren’t human beings. Not. At. All.

They look just like us, talk like us, act like us. But there is something strange about these creatures that mock us. They are each destined to certain people in their lives, they know not of who they are or what they look like. Just ordinary people, like you and I. When they find one of those people, the two of them make eye contact. At that moment, they are linked to you by a mortal bond. That is, if you die, the human, then they die.

Well that’s not so bad, now is it? I mean, if I was linked to someone by those means, I would personally try and protect the person. Wouldn’t you?

Remember that chill? That eerie feeling of ice shooting up your spine and back down again. That is your memories and your future, both of which are being copied at that moment and stored into their minds. Yet again, so what? Now they know all of your personal secrets. Its not like they will do anything, save for steal your money or something. But no one ever does that, really they don’t.

Imagine this. Say you met someone the other day, a random person. Who’s to say that’s not the next Hitler? If I was to be endowed with all of the mindset of that person…I wouldn’t care if I died, as long as I took them with me.

Then again…maybe its not so bad. Sure, it’s rare, but there are defiantly good people out there, they are just hard to find. And, if I was to see an extreme goodness in someone’s heart, I would want to protect them. For my life, yes, but for theirs as well. Like a guardian angel, right?

Just…remember one thing. If anything, remember what I am about to tell you, because if you are like me, it will change the way you think about your life and the way you live. It may even save you from being struck down by one of THEM.

Humanity is inherently evil.


----------------------------------------

10:30 PM. Late in the Summer Season. It’s storming outside. My favorite time of year and my favorite kind of weather. Whenever it storms I just have to smile. Storms are beautiful, or at least I used to think so.

Almost all the lights in the apartment were off, and I’m just talking to some friends over AIM. Then suddenly it became very very cold. As if the storm from outside was creeping thru the door. I just figure there was a temperature drop because of the storm, so I toss on a sweatshirt. After about 30 minutes or so I’m still freezing cold.

I start to get this feeling.

It’s a feeling we all have felt before.

The feeling that someone is staring at you.

The feeling that this someone is not very far away.

The feeling that if you turn your head the slightest bit, you would see them.

I shrug this feeling off because I am an extremely paranoid person and I get this feeling all the time. I continue to converse with my friends, I even mentioned this sensation that I currently had, and my friends naturally laugh at me saying I need to stop being a baby. The sympathetic ones say it will go away eventually and not to worry. I waited awhile…it did not go away. In fact it increased.

It felt like something was consuming the very Happiness within me.

Like something was filling me with Dread.

That chilling Terror we all felt as children when the lights were turned out.

A true Fear of the Dark.

But it’s not the dark we are afraid of….but of what lurks in the dark

I almost couldn’t take it anymore. Here I am, almost a grown man, and I’m jumping at shadows. It’s ridiculous, but as ridiculous as it seems, I still have this little voice in the back of my head telling me that maybe I have a reason to be afraid. Maybe I should turn around and see if there’s actually anything there.

Wait…why would I turn around?

I don’t want to turn around.

Whose thought was that?

That certainly wasn’t mine.

But who else’s could it be?

I reached my limit. If I stay in this chair another second I’m going to go insane. I wonder if I can make it to my room before this thing gets me. It could be nothing, but I am not staying here to find out. I’m a pretty fast runner, there’s no way this thing can catch me. Let’s do this.

The chair clatters as it falls to the floor. I don’t think I could move this fast again if I wanted to. After my first foot was through the gateway to my room, I was already in the process of slamming the door. I rush over and turn on every light, including the T.V. making sure there’s no room for any shadows. I put my ear to do the door to see if I can hear it following me.

Nothing

Complete Stillness

The type of silence most people only experience once in a life time.

I don’t know why people would ever seek this type of quiet.

I never want to hear silence again.

I slowly back away from the door. I have one thought going through my mind. What in the hell did I just see, and why did I ever look over my shoulder. I will never forget what I saw. It was a shadow, but it wasn’t a shadow. It was free standing, as if it was a man. The surrounding night seemed to channel into this horrific being, making it seem blacker than the darkest pit in hell. It chilled me down to my very bones. Though something peculiarly odd stood out about this particular shadow being, it had a cane with a silver handle, and a top hat akin to something you’d expect to see in a movie from the early 20th century.

And the thing that was the scariest part about it:

To this day I swear it was smiling, and not the smile you ever ever want to be on the receiving end of.

A smile that said I’m evil.

A smile that said I had fun tonight.

A smile that said I enjoyed toying with you.

A smile that said I really want to hurt you.

A smile that said I’ll see you again.

[Imminence]

D< DAMMIT im on page 200.. it took me 2 WEEKS TO READ ALL THIS, I have nothing better to do.

cool

[fukaimoriMidori]

Ace_Jokerz

http://theholders.org/?Special:Series_List

I found a website with most of these holders of the ... I think "holder of the end" and "holder of the beginning has been put on this thread..

I love the holder series, though they get repetitive. Right, I'll post them up next.

[fukaimoriMidori]

In any city, in any country, there's a mental institution or halfway house you can try any of these in. There were 2538 of these, but 2000 were lost. They must never come together. Ever.

---

Any time after midnight, visit any abandoned Church in any country. Do not try this is in a Church occupied by a servant of God. Once there, kneel at the altar and repeat these words: "Show me the Holder of Absolution."

The tabernacle will flare a bright-red, but do not look at it. Instead keep your head bowed and stay on your knees. After a short while, a great booming voice will reverberate through the building as it calls out your each and every sin, trespass, misdeed, crime and transgression. For some, this may take a while. Once voice is done, it will say "Stand, but know that the way of the liar is blind." At this point you must pick up the chalice on the altar and walk to the fountain. As you walk be careful NOT to open your eyes. If you do, you will be forever unable to distinguish fact from fiction. Darkness you will perceive as light, day as night. You will become mad from trying and, convinced your life is a lie, you will end it yourself, alone and afraid.

Dip the chalice into the waters of the font and drink from it, making sure you finish the water. You will feel refreshed and free of guilt.

Eyes still tightly shut, take the chalice and walk slowly toward the door and leave. Upon returning to your life you will find your altercations forgiven, your enemies befriended and your sins forgotten. You will also find that any persons wishing to incriminate you find it exceedingly difficult to do so.

If you lose the chalice you will be unable to resist confessing your every mistake and error.

The Chalice is Object 332 of 538. If they come together, you will be held responsible.

[fukaimoriMidori]

There are a few hundred of us living in a wide plain of dust outside some large city. We don't need shelter or warmth, obviously. We stand around in the dust, and time passes. I think we've been here for a long time. Despite my dragging entrails, I am in decay's early stages, but there are a few elderly ones here who are little more than skeletons with clinging bits of muscle. Somehow, it still extends and contracts, and they keep moving. I have never seen any of us "die" of old age. Maybe we live forever, I don't know. I don't think much about the future anymore. That's something that's very different from before. When I was alive, the future was all I thought about. Obsessed about. Death has relaxed me.

But it makes me sad that we've forgotten our names. Out of everything, this seems to me the most tragic. I don't miss my own, but I mourn for everyone else's, because I want to love them, but I don't know who they are.



Today a group of us are going into town to find some food. How this expedition begins is one of us gets hungry and starts shuffling toward town, and a few others follow him. Focused thought is a rare occurrence with us, and we follow it when we see it. Otherwise we would just be standing around groaning. We do a lot of standing around groaning, and it's frustrating sometimes. Years pass this way. The flesh withers on our bones, and we stand around, waiting for it. I am curious how old I might be.

The city where the people live is not that far. We arrive around noon and start looking for living flesh. The new kind of hunger is a strange feeling. You don't feel it in your stomach - of course not, since some of us don't even have stomachs. You feel it just...everywhere. You start to feel "more dead". I've watched some of my friends go back to being full-dead, when food is scarce. They just slow down, and stop, and become corpses again. I don't really understand it.

I guess the world has mostly ended, because the cities we wander through are decaying as fast as we are. Buildings are collapsed. Dead, rusted cars fill the streets. All glass everywhere is shattered. I don't know if there was a war, or a plague, or if it was just us. Maybe it was all three. I don't know. I don't think about things like that anymore.

In a cluster of broken down apartment buildings we find some people, and we eat them. Some of them have weapons, and as usual we lose some of our number, but we don't care. Why would we care? What's death, now?

Eating is not a pleasant business. I chew off a man's arm, and I hate this, it's disgusting. I hate his screams, because I don't like pain, I don't like to hurt things, but this is the world now, this is what we do. Of course, if I don't eat all of him, if I leave enough, he'll rise up and follow me back to our dusty field outside the city, and that might make me feel better. I'll introduce him to everyone, and maybe we'll stand around and groan for a while. It's hard to say what "friends" are anymore, but maybe that's close. If I don't eat all of him, if I leave enough...

But of course I don't leave enough. I eat his brain, because that's the good part. That's the part that, when I swallow it, makes my head light up with feelings. Clear memories. For about three to ten seconds, depending on the person, I get to feel alive. I get traces of delicious meals, beautiful music, perfume, orgasms, sunsets, life. Then it fades, and I get up and stumble out of the city, still dead, but feeling a little less so. Feeling ok.

I don't know why we have to eat people. I don't understand what chewing off a man's neck accomplishes. We certainly don't digest the meat and absorb the nutrients. My stomach is a rotted bag of dried bile, useless. We don't digest, we just eat until the weight forces it out our a** holes, and then we eat more. It feels so useless, and yet it keeps us walking. I don't know why. None of us really understand why we are the way we are. We don't know if we're the result of some strange global infection, or some ancient curse, or something even more senseless. We don't talk about it much. Existential debate is not a major part of zombie life. We are here, and we do things. We are simple. It's nice sometimes.

Outside the city again, back with the others in the dust field, I start walking in a circle for no reason. I plant one foot in the dirt and pivot on it, around and around, kicking up clouds of dust. Before, when I was alive, I could never have done this. I remember stress. I remember bills and deadlines, Asset Retention Reports. I remember being so occupied, so always everywhere all the time occupied. Now I'm just standing in a wide-open field of dust, walking in a circle. The world has been distilled. Being dead is easy.

After a few days of this, I stop walking, and I stand still, swaying back and forth and groaning a little. I don't know why I groan. I'm not in pain, and I'm not sad. I think it's just air being squeezed in and out of my lungs. When my lungs decompose, it will probably stop. And now, while swaying and groaning, I notice a dead woman standing a few feet away from me, facing the distant mountains. She doesn't sway or groan, her head just lolls from side to side. I like that about her, that she doesn't sway or groan. I walk over and stand beside her. I wheeze some kind of greeting, and she responds with a lurch of her shoulder.

I like her. I reach out and touch her hair. She has not been dead very long. Her skin is grey and her eyes slightly sunken, but she has no exposed bones or organs. Her death outfit is a black skirt and a snug white button-up. I suspect she used to be a waitress.

Pinned to her chest is a silver nametag.

I can read her name. She has a name.

Her name is Emily.

I point to her chest. Slowly, with great effort, I say, "Em..ily." The word rolls off what's left of my tongue like honey. What a good name. I feel warm saying it.

Emily's cloudy eyes widen at the sound, and she smiles. I also smile, and then maybe I'm a little nervous, because my tibia snaps, and I fall backwards into the dust. Emily just laughs, and it's a choked, raw, lovely sound. She reaches down and helps me to my feet.

Emily and I have fallen in love.

I'm not sure how this happens. I remember what love was like before, and this is different. This is simpler. Before, there were complex emotional and biological factors at work. We had long checklists and elaborate tests to be passed. We looked at hairstyles and careers and breast sizes. And sex was there, in everything, confusing everyone, like hunger. It created longing, it created ambition, competition, it drove people to leave their houses and invent automobiles, space craft, and atom bombs when they could instead just sit on the couch until they died. Animal cravings. Subconscious urges. Sex made the world go ‘round.

This is all gone now. Sex, once a force as universal as gravity, is now irrelevant. Ambition and longing have left the equation. My p***s fell off two weeks ago.

So the equation is deleted, the blackboard erased, and things are different now. Our actions have no ulterior motives. We shuffle around in the dust and occasionally have lumbering, grunted exchanges with our peers. No one argues. There are no fights, ever.

And Emily is not a complicated process. I just see her, and walk over to her, and for no reason, really, I decide I want to be with her for a long time. So now we shuffle around in the dust together instead of alone. For whatever reason, we enjoy each other's company. When we have to go into town to eat people, we do it at separate times, because it's unpleasant, and we don't want to share that. But we share everything else, and it's nice.

We decide to walk to the mountains. It takes us three days, but now we are standing on a cliff looking up at a fat white moon. At our backs, the night sky is red from distant cities burning, but we don't care about that. I clumsily grab Emily's hand, and we stare at the moon.

There's no real reason for any of this, but like I said, the world has been distilled. Love has been distilled. Everything is easy now. Yesterday my leg broke off, and I don't even mind.

[fukaimoriMidori]

In a certain city in a certain part of the world, there is to be found an abandoned church. You will know it when you see it. Go into the church and find The Crying Room. This is the room where parents once took their fussy babies and misbehaving children so they wouldn't disturb the other parishioners. When you find it, go thru the door, walk straight to one of the couches and sit down. Look neither left nor right, only straight ahead. Take a deep breath and look at the carpeting. It will be a dark blue of the textured plush variety with muted green and brown deckling. It will also be stained by vomitus and spilt milk, but try not to pay attention to the stains. Focus your attention on the random detailing and wait. Remain silent. After twenty minutes, faces will begin to coalesce from the random details of the carpet. These are the Holders of Agonizing Instruction.

Take another deep breath when you notice the transformation, and continue breathing in a slow and easy fashion. When another twenty minutes have passed, you will see the mouths of the faces begin to move, and the expressions on the faces will change. Some will look at you. Do not lose your attentive focus when this happens. Tell yourself that this is due to the phenomena known as matrixing. It will be a lie, but it will help you ride out what is to come. When your breathing is reliably calm and even, you will begin to hear the voices of the Holders. At first, it will be a cacophany. Try your best to pick out one voice in the din and listen closely to it. It will be striking a bargain with you, and there is no way for you to refuse to accept it's terms. All that is left for you is an understanding of what you have already gotten yourself in to.

If you have been found worthy, the task set before you will strain at the edges of possibility. You will have been given the task of, and instruction in, retrieval of all Objects known to exist as well as methods for dispatching the current owners of the Objects. Should you fail to retrieve any object and bring it at once to The Crying Room, your death will come swiftly. Remember, you have made a pact with the Holders of Agonizing Instruction and they will not be thwarted. They hold not only the knowledge necessary to possess all Objects in existence, but also the room where all the Objects will be gathered to begin That Which Has Been Foretold.

Do not falter in your task. And do not think, once bound by oath to your task, that there is any way to escape your newfound destiny. To refuse the terms of the Holders of Agonizing Information is to drawn Death to one's self. Cross them and they will send forth the Tigers of Regret, who manifest themselves in any tiling that happens to be in the vicinity of their target. Once you notice their distinctive shape in a 3x3 grid of any sort, it is already too late.

[fukaimoriMidori]

I'd had the old watch for a while now, but it was only recently that it'd been starting to bug me. It was mechanical, no battery, but no windup either - somehow the motion of your arm when you walked around was supposed to keep the internal springs wound. Very clever what they can build, these days. You keep seeing new things all over the place.

During the day, I wore it like you wear a watch. At night I kept it on the table next to my bed. Without it I was worthless - I'd never be on time to anything. I'd gone for at least a year without letting it get out of arm's reach. The idea of forgetting it somewhere was pretty scary.

But lately...lately it seemed to be getting louder. Sometimes it even seemed to be getting slower, didn't it? The ticks sounded farther apart. But it kept perfect time, I never had to adjust it. I kept checking it, shaking it, trying to figure out what had changed. I brought it to a clockwork repair shop, but the guys couldn't find anything wrong with it. They said it didn't sound all that loud.

It's loud, though. Sometimes I'll be doing something, in a meeting at work, writing something, reading a book, and I'll realize I've been sitting there for like five minutes - well, who knows how long, really? - listening to it. Tick. Tick. Tick. It's embarrassing. I'm always looking around, apologizing to everyone else for how loud it is. They always say it's nothing, they can't hear it, but I'm afraid they're just being polite. Last week I realized my girlfriend was waiting for me to answer some question - I had no idea what she'd been talking about. All I could hear was Tick, Tick, Tick.

The last two nights, it woke me up out of a sound sleep. I tried moving it farther away from the bed but somehow it still seemed too loud. You know how that happens, you get up and fix something that's noisy, a leaky faucet or whatever, and just when you think you're going to fall asleep, you hear it again? Your ears keep adjusting. I put it in the other room and closed the door but then just tossed and turned, terrified that I wouldn't wake up on time, and finally went and got it again. It seemed like I could still hear it anyway, almost like an echo - like I've been listening to it for so long, my mind kept making the noise.

Today I went to the store to get a new watch. Something quiet and digital. Obvious answer, right? People kept asking me if I was okay. I guess it's clear I haven't been sleeping well - I'm pretty pale and sweaty, bloodshot eyes. I sat in front of the display case for a long time - I don't know how long. I just couldn't make up my mind. Every time I tried to figure out what features I want or how much money I wanted to spend, I'd realize I'd just been sitting there, staring at nothing, listening to the watch. I swear I can hear it bouncing around inside my head. The clerk was trying to ask me something but I just couldn't concentrate - I could barely hear what he was saying. The watch was so damned loud...I'm sure he was asking me what's wrong with it. God, if only I could sleep right...somehow I found myself back home without a new watch.

I kind of broke down, then, a little. All I'd had to do was buy a new one, but now I was stuck with this ******** watch for another night! Damn it, how'd I screw that up? Sure, I'm tired as hell, but all I had to do was buy a damn watch. This whole pain in the a** would have been over with.

Okay, it doesn't seem like this is a big deal. It shouldn't be, right? It's just a noisy watch. But for some reason I was totally freaked out. Something about the way it kept getting louder, the way it was slowing down. It was definitely slowing down. Like the ticks were getting heavier, like it was pushing a pendulum through syrup or rust. It made me feel sick. No, hell, I was terrified. It must have been the lack of sleep, right? When you're running on the edge of exhaustion, you get scared and jumpy. I can't explain it. I felt like something terrible was about to happen, like someone I knew was going to die, but if I tried to think who, I couldn't remember. There was no reason. It was just a watch. But it was hard to think. I kept losing time, waking up out of that empty trance, hearing Tick Tick Tick.

Just now it happened again. It's ******** dark outside. This wasn't five minutes, more like five hours I just lost. I just come to myself and I'm sitting on my bed, watch in my hands, staring at it. It was like 3 PM when I sat down. There's a bowl of soup I was about to eat, cold and thick now, on the little table over there. I just lost my whole evening listening to Tick, ...Tick...

I freak out, now. Totally lose it. I almost throw up. Somehow the missing time is the scariest thing that's ever happened to me. This ******** thing has to go. It'll be worth missing work tomorrow, if I do. I've got to sleep. I've got to get some peace from this Tick, Tick.

I turn the watch upside down in my hand, cool smooth metal in my palm, and smash the glass against the bedside table, I beat it down again and again until the thing is dead, the arms are bent, the soft metal's ********, the brass gears and springs and bits of glass are all over the place like parade confetti.

I close my eyes. I hear nothing. I take a breath. Silence, total silence. I'm at peace.

Then I feel it, terrible pressure inside my chest, like a heart attack might feel. Heavy, slow. Like a gear grinding, like a heavy weight falling. More like a clunk than a tick.

I tear open my shirt to uncover my heart, trying to press my hands against my skin. Am I that stressed out, I'm having a heart attack? I'm not old enough. My chest feels wrong.

When I look down, I see something pushing my skin out, like a rib, like something that shouldn't be there, like when my stupid cousin ended up with a B-B stuck under the skin on his forehead, only bigger. It hurts terribly, like something's broken. My arms weigh a million pounds, sweat's stinging my eyes, I feel freezing cold. I can't feel my fingers, they're clumsy and numb. For some reason I decide that I have to push this thing back into place, like setting a broken bone. I fumble around for a while, my skin is slick with sweat, my hands are useless. Finally I get enough purchase, I suck wind into aching pinched lungs, I push with all my feeble power. Chonk!

The pain is horrible, worse than anything. The world is red. Then the world is black. I can't feel or see anything. I seem to keep thinking I'm cold, though. I drift for a while, occasionally thinking I'm cold, not really understanding what that means or caring.

After a while...who knows how long? I hear crazy whispers in my ears. There's a little whirring sound, like a motor pulling an elevator far away, like a wheel spinning.

Things happen out of sequence. Or I remember them wrong. I'm sitting up. I can see my room again, but there's no color at all. I'm blind, but I can feel again - my chest, mostly. I feel something sliding around under my skin, someone pushing something into me. I try to scream but I can't make a sound. There're mechanical noises again, clicks, winding noises. I feel a strange pressure building between my ears.

There are two men in the room with me. They're doctors. Somehow I know this. Maybe it's because they're wearing white coats? I feel like I knew before I thought about it.

There's another big click, and more things sliding around inside my head. The world has color again. I still can't move. There's more winding noises.

"Very clever what they can build these days," says a doctor man. He reaches behind my head and I feel something long sliding out of my brain. Very, very long. I should be dead. I try to imagine how far into my head it was, and I gag, only I don't because I can't move. It keeps sliding out. I can't feel where it was inside, only where it moves through the skull.

Finally he pulls his hand back. There's a big brass key in his fingers, covered in blood and a little hair.

"I hear they've got new ones that keep themselves wound up somehow, just by walking around."

"Man, I'd like to see that."

"Okay, hit the reset and let's get out of here."