There is a moment each leap year, at exactly three minutes past three on the morning of February twenty-ninth. If you possess the courage, await that moment in darkened room, with no other present. At that moment, the darkness will deepen. If you were to hold you hand directly before your face,…
In Berlin, after World War II, money was short, supplies were tight, and it seemed like everyone was hungry. At that time, people were telling the tale of a young woman who saw a blind man picking his way through a crowd. The two started to talk. The man asked her for a favor: could she deliver the letter to the address on the envelope? Well, it was on her way home, so she agreed.
She started out to deliver the message, when she turned around to see if there was anything else the blind man needed. But she spotted him hurrying through the crowd without his smoked glasses or white cane. She went to the police, who raided the address on the envelope, where they found heaps of human flesh for sale.
And what was in the envelope? “This is the last one I am sending you today.”
Read more at http://www.creepypasta.com/the-blind-mans-favor/#mJtfQFt7a3uiQTML.99
Credit for this post goes to FuckYeahNightmares.
THE DARK CHRISTMAS SPECTRE
By David M.
I was 15 in 2000 and was spending Christmas in Syracuse, New York with my family at my grandmother’s home. I slept downstairs in the living room and had the most odd occurrence of my entire life that night.
It began with a dream. I dreamt that I was at the local Carousel Mall walking through the hallways. The stores were all black, so I was just following the long walk-ways. I saw my cousin Paul; he was ahead of me and kept moving further away as I was walking toward him and trying to catch up with him. (It is important to note that now he is on the outs with my family after trying to swindle my grandmother out of money while she was sick.)
Eventually, we came to a dead end and he ran to his left into a store, which was all black. I was scared in the dream, but since he was family, I ran into the darkness right after him.
As soon as I entered the darkness, there I was in the living room. I looked around and saw my body on the couch. I could see the entire room from where I was sleeping. I couldn’t speak or move, but my mind was active and alert.
I noticed a tall, all black figure in the corner of the room, 6 or 7 feet tall. My hairs are standing up as I write this and remember. If anyone has felt that weird presence, then you understand the feeling. It’s odd that this shadow being was there and in my mind I started shouting at it because I had no idea what was going on and why I couldn’t move.
“Who are you? What are you? Get out of here!” I shouted in my mind. The figure moved over my body and grabbed hold of my arm, which was draped over my body. I don’t know if it physically touched me or pulled my spirit of out my body, but it pulled me standing straight up, face-to-face with it. I had the feeling of floating in my head, and this was all so surreal.
“How did you stand up?” it said to me. I don’t know if I heard those words or it put them into my mind but it was giving me a response. It then slowly let me fall back into my body. I distinctly remember the feeling of falling backward and having that rush in the pit of my stomach that I was falling.
Once I was back in my body, I regained control and shook myself up, still awake the whole time, but now I could move. I immediately called my brother’s name because I believed it had to be a person, but nobody was in the room with me. I ran upstairs and my entire family was sleeping. It shook me up and I have no idea what that was all about.
In any city, in any country, go to any mental institution or halfway house in you can get yourself to. When you reach the front desk, ask to visit someone who calls himself “The Holder of Dreams”. The person behind the desk shall stare at you with piercing eyes, tell you such person is not there. Ask him or her, where can you find him, and you’ll be presented with a key, with a number attached to it.
Walk out from the building, into the street, and go north. If the street doesn’t go either north or south, go east, then turn north once you notice a street at your left. Keep walking until you see a hotel. Maybe you’ve never heard of it, maybe you never realized it was there, but this is your destination. Enter the hotel, speak to no one, and answer no questions asked to you by the employee in the lobby or the guests. Look at the number attached to the key, and find the bedroom’s door where the key belongs. Once you find it, open the door. Enter the hotel bedroom, and close the door.
You’ll want to wait until at least sunset, when the first stars show up in the sky. Turn off any mobile phones, don’t turn on the TV, and have no objects which can make sounds. Without changing clothes, lay down in the bed, and close your eyes. Even if you’re not sleepy, your mind will drift away, and you’ll be sleeping soon. Think of good things while waiting with your eyes shut, because if fear or bad thoughts emerge, it might be too late. They know you’re there.
If all goes well, you’ll wake up in the next morning. Leave the hotel with no explanations, return home, and resume your life, but be prepared. You completed, without knowing, a pact. Accepting this path has earned you horrible consequences.
Three people you know will die in the following days. They will die in horrible, disgusting ways you couldn’t imagine were possible. React no more than what is normal to a human. Go to their funerals, mourn for them. Keep moving with your life. Do not attempt to return to the hotel or back to the asylum, or it will be all over, and you will wish you had died the same way your friends or loved ones did. It would have been less horrifying.
After one week — seven complete days — you will see the death of the 3rd person. There will be no way to avoid it. It will be the person you most care for, and no matter how much you’ll try to stay alone that day, the person will still come to you, unaware of his or her fate. It doesn’t matter how he or she appeared, the person will be there. When it happens, while you’re unable to save the person, you cannot turn around or close your eyes, or you’ll suffer the same fate. It will be as though the entire legion of Hell came to consume your friend into pain, agony and despair until their last breath.
You must not scream, or react. Just watch. When all is over, when there’s nothing left but the mutilated corpse of your loved one, you’ll feel a hand tap your shoulder. Do not turn around, or the boned hand will grasp your neck, and death will be slow and painful. The figure behind will ask “Did you enjoy that?”
Do not answer. Instead, ask “How can I protect my dear one?”
The hand patting your shoulder will rise and point at the corpse. Approach it, and you shall see a faint light coming from inside their now decomposing chest. Reach for it, and remove a small silvery trinket from their flesh. Do not fret if it looks different from what you heard, for it is never the same for anyone. Once you do this, you’ll hear a pitched scream, and the ground under your feet will vanish. Keep holding the trinket tightly, and do not let it go, or you fall into the darkness.
You’ll wake up in the hotel bedroom. Check the calendar. Those seven days were a dream. Nothing happened at all, and your friends and family are safe and sound. But you’ll have the trinket in your hands.
The trinket is Object 84 of 538. Give it to the one you most care for - it might well be their only hope of salvation, even coming, as it may, at the price of your own salvation.
Vee submitted:The Man on the RoadLocation: Western Ireland, near Galway.
A few weeks ago, I was on a road-trip with some friends. We stopped on the edge of a road, so my friends could go to the toilet in the trees.
I was alone in the car, while the others (a group of five) went to the bathroom. Being a martial artist, I thought I’d be safe in the car. After a minute, I noticed a man in his fifties on the edge of the road a few feet from the car. He was smiling at me.
ladylikefoxes submitted:Shadow manMy then-boyfriend and I were asleep in my bed one night, and I was turned away from him, facing my closet. I woke and opened my eyes, though remained laying down, to see my the silhouette of my boyfriend standing in the closet
In any city, in any country, go into any mental institution or halfway house you can get into. Go to the front desk and ask to see the one who calls themself “The Holder of the Self”. They will cock an eyebrow at you, then throw a bit of whatever they were eating at you and call you an idiot. Repeat your request, and they will relent. They will take you behind a door and waive you to an examination table. They will then leave, shaking their head at you.
Take off your clothes, although you may keep on your underwear if you choose. Lay back on the table, your arms at your side, and your legs slightly spread to the edges of the table. At this moment, dozens of monstrous hands will burst from the table, grasping with their jagged, filthy nails onto your body. Struggle all you like, you are theirs now. They will begin kneading your skin, pushing and twisting, tickling and caressing. More will erupt from under you, pushing into your back with their knuckles. If at this point you cannot stand the treatment, if you are far too disgusted by their attentions, merely say “I reject this test. End it.” They will pull at your extremities, ripping you apart joint-by-joint. This will be mercy.
If, however, you can stand this, say “I relax in your care, bring me to the object, oh Holder.” At this point, five arms will erupt from the bed. Two will cover your eyes. Two will grasp your mouth and hold it as open as it can be. You will taste the salt and grime on their fingers. The last one will hold a bit of sweet fruit. It will dangle it across your tongue, and its juice will dribble into your mouth. You will want to hold this fruit in your mouth for a day, then begin to chew for the rest of eternity. Do not bite it. Do not savor its flavor. This is a trap. If you give in to this sweet fruit, your corpse will be as a sweet fruit for the million hands of the Holder.
If you pass this test, you will be rewarded. The hands will transform as they knead you. They will be as soft and delicate as a young maiden’s. Their nails will be perfectly trimmed and manicured. The smell of elegant perfume will gently waft across your nose. It will not be very powerful at all, but tantalizing. You will hear a chanting from inside your mouth, in a voice that is not your own. This is, was, the sweet fruit. It has now dried up into a small, ashy stone. It will chant of the heroes who tasted its brothers and sisters of yesteryear. Relax, for now the Holder is pleased with you.
When your relaxation has drifted you off into a state of utter bliss, the ash-fruit will be withdrawn from your mouth. The hands that held open your mouth will grip your throat tight enough that you cannot escape. The hands that closed over your eyes will open, but only far enough to see straight ahead. The hands that once caressed you will hold you tightly, almost painfully. you will be tilted into a vertical position and the long eye-stalks of the Holder will poke into your limited view. They will watch you: some of them critically, some of them angrily, some of them sympathetically, and some… some will look at you lewdly. Say to it, “May this body offend your eyes, oh Holder. Bring me the object.” Pray that this is true, for if it is not, the Holder will rip out your arms and eyes, and you will forever experience life through it.
If you are indeed offensive to its eyes, you may still count yourself unlucky, for your quest will not end this day. From between your legs will erupt a pair of arms. Held in their hands will be a massive, jagged, ornate key. It will stab you in the chest, and rip out from you a glowing light. The wound where it plunged into you will be gone. The key will be tossed away.
The sphere of light will consume the key. It will take on a form identical to yours, and will dim until it is your exact twin. Your twin will discuss with you all manner of things. What it will say, none may know, except that to answer its questions and respond to its statements will slowly erode your every mental defense. Be perfectly honest with it, in precise and full detail. If you wish to laugh, laugh. If you wish to cry, cry. If you are enraged, yell. Hold nothing back. Focus only on your twin. Do not look at the eyes or hands, no matter what they do. Do not listen to the whispers coming from the hands on the side of your head. If you do, you will be crushed, and your twin will drink deeply of your blood.
When your twin is done with their conversation, it will revert to being a key. A small key. At that point, the hands by your head will say “Speak, for you have faced yourself.” Ask it only one question: “Who are we to Him?” The hands will hold your neck absolutely still. You will not be able to move your head. The hands will close over your eyes and mouth. You will be unable to speak or see. The hands will spread your arms and legs as far as they might be spread. You will not be able to move. You will feel something slimy sliding along the inside of your thighs. You will be unable to protest. At that point, the Holder will describe to you every single evil thing that He has done to humanity and every evil thing He will do to humanity. He will describe in vivid detail how each of the objects will be used to discover and create new evils to perform and enact. Then he will describe, to your horror, the results of these evils. He will tell you tales of the husks of humanity as they spend the rest of eternity reenacting His work, writhing in an agony beyond all imaginable hells multiplied together. And then, beyond it all, he will tell you of the abominations reserved by Him for you, to be heaped upon you by those innocents you once held dear. Then, he will tell you what humanity is to Him. This knowledge alone may kill you.
Without warning, the hands wil stretch you, pulling you apart until you think you might break. Then it will fold you at each of your joints until you are rolled in a ball. It will pull and stretch and twist your body every which way, and your body will scream in pain as the Holder discovers new ways to contort your body without destroying it. Then it will dump you on the floor. You will be fully clothed, and in your pocket will be a small, jagged, ornate key. You may leave at any time.
That key is object 94 out of 538, the Key of the Inner Self. With it, you will discover the inner truths of any person or objects you stab with it. May it never discover the truths of the others.
To whoever may find this –
My recently deployed expedition into these vast mountains has been proven fruitless to say the least. In the past twenty-four hours I have witnessed events my mind cannot quite grasp. I feel my sanity melting away by the moment as this single red candle’s wax drips upon the cold floor of this dark grotto.
I have always been a wanderer; a lover of all things beyond my reach. Ever since I was a young boy residing in a small Pennsylvania town where the mountains stretched for miles outside the windows – the windows looking out upon a world where freedom truly existed – I had always taken a fond interest in what could only be called the Great Outdoors. I wanted to scale those snowy cliffs – reach the very top and watch the normal world below. I would be closer to the stars and the heavens than I could ever be. Those dreams stayed with me through my adolescence and only escalated as I grew into a young adult. Even after the untimely death of my father – a man who had stayed inside his whole life and eventually decided to venture onto those mountains in search for a missing couple, only to find death among the snow-capped peaks – my affinity for those very same frozen hills and natural skyscrapers remained unscathed. If anything, I had wanted to avenge the death of my father: battle those beautifully treacherous banks and cliffs with my own two hands and feet – and win the fight in a victory I’d take to my grave. Alas, these mountains have proven to be far too powerful an opponent for a man of my weakened and baffled condition. I fear I will take something to my grave – very imminently – but a victory it will not be.
My current whereabouts are unknown. My father’s old compass is gone now, lost somewhere among the ever-growing snowstorm raging on outside of this bitter cave in which I have unwittingly sought temporary refuge. Even when I had the compass in my possession, it was a useless tool, as useless as my withered hands that tremble as I try to write these passages in the dimming light of my remaining candle. Perhaps this monstrous altitude had been much too high for the usually-reliable compass. Or perhaps something even more menacing had befallen me: a curse. Hikers and mountain-climbers and folks who have traveled the very same twisting paths upon which I’ve traveled have told and retold superstitious tales of paranormal events occurring on these cliffs. Tales of murder and greed throughout the colonies of Native Americans of old. Those stories haunted my slumbering mind during many cold nights as a child, and now they are cutting at my aching muscles like ancient, blunt arrowheads being driven into my brain by the cold hand of some violent ghost unseen by living eyes.
Twelve years prior to this moment in time – or so I can only assume, although time at this juncture seems beyond my knowing – two local lovers named Francis and Ruth grew bored one frigid evening: bored with their tedious lives as average townsfolk, lusting for adventure – thirsty for the arctic taste of the unknown. The young hearts had made an unwise impromptu decision to wander off in the dead of night toward the grey-white mountains at the edge of civilization, telling only the barkeep at the town’s only tavern of their sudden plans to challenge God’s hills. The particular range chosen by the lovers had, according to legend, been home to ruthless Natives who fought for centuries to protect their land only to be forced amidst the stone-cold peaks for eternity. Vengeful spirits roamed those cliffs, but Francis and Ruth, intoxicated with whisky and an insatiable curiosity, ignored all stories and warnings and made their way to the top of the deadly mountains. Four days went by and the couple had not returned. Their families grew more and more concerned by the hour – until finally three fathers declared that they would form among themselves a search party and follow the footprints left behind by the wandering lovers leading up the winding trails of the accursed cliffs. My own father – a factory man all his life – stepped forward and opted to join the manmade search party to my mother’s chagrin. Perhaps he, like the missing couple, had been bored with his regular life. Or perhaps he felt the unyielding bite of responsibility, and chose not to ignore the firm grip of the beast’s sharp teeth. Nonetheless, he and the other three men packed their supplies – including, notably, the compass I had brought with me on my own doomed escapade – and followed the couple’s footprints up the winding trail of the mountainside.
Five days later a second rescue party was sent for my father and the other three fathers, who had not come back from their search. This second party returned in a mere eight hours – and with them they had dragged down the slippery slopes three stiff cadavers. The first corpse was that of an unknown man – likely a vicious Native American – who had been found frozen to death, his gaping face shielded in blue, in a small cave about a mile from the other bodies. The second body belonged to one of the fathers who had joined mine in the search for Francis and Ruth – his body was frozen over, and both his legs had been broken. And the final cadaver, to me and my mother’s dismay, was the body of my own father – whose iced cuts and wounds implied he had been stabbed to death. Uncovered with the unknown man, my weeping mother had been told, was a stack of soaked parchment. Spotted beside my father’s dead body was his lucky compass and a blood-encrusted Indian arrowhead. The compass was given to me as an heirloom. All three bodies, along with the damp parchment, were set aflame the following morning.
As a boy of only eight years, I was unsure how to properly handle the unsettling news of my father’s death. My mother spent every following day in morose silence and every following night in heartbroken tears – up until she chose to take her own life two weeks prior to this very moment. Now I am twenty, and the powerful lure of the mountains has continued to entice me. One week ago I felt the need – the unavoidable urge – to travel upon the very same path which had, twelve years earlier, led to my father’s demise. Perhaps the unpredictable call of the wild was to blame, or perhaps it was the fault of an odd sense that somehow I had been destined to repeat my father’s wicked mistake, but the reasons matter not. Regardless of them, whatever they may be, I began my voyage upward toward the heavens, trudging along the same path a foolish young couple had once been drawn to so many nights ago.
The journey had begun with reasonably smooth velocity. I trekked up dastardly slopes and meticulously moved across rickety manmade bridges and naturally-formed cliffs of ice and snow with impressive ease. I had spent my teenage years hiking smaller hills and less-steep mountains, so in my own way I had come physically prepared. I was not wandering along these paths to seek revenge – at least not consciously – and I hadn’t worried even for a moment that my fate would reflect that of my father and the young couple before him. This was to be a trek for myself and only myself. It was something I had felt compelled to do since my father was still alive and well. This was my life’s dream in action.
The first few days and nights were somewhat challenging, but I managed to keep my hopes up and summon deep strength when it was needed. I battled icy winds and fought through incessant snowstorms.
Predictably, the hardships of the journey worsened as hours crawled by. At times, even though my entire field of vision was covered in white static, I felt as though I had been dispersed in total blackness. No amount of darkness – no sheer lack of light could ever match the unforgiving twilight of those white-washed afternoons. Often I felt misplaced, as if my feet were no longer dragging along the crunchy snow-masked ground and instead my entire body had been heaved into the endless white space where it drifted hopelessly toward a lonely oblivion. I could not see, I could not hear; I could not make any sense of my surroundings. It was at this point that my father’s compass had ceased working – its thin metal arm spun uncontrollably as if possessed by a mischievous demon. North and South became figments of my bleak imagination as the chilling thought slowly dawned on me that precise navigation was beyond my control. How many days had gone by? Six? Seven? It felt like an eternity. The nights and the afternoons blended together in a heap of white – my entire physical being enveloped within the suffocating snow and heavy pale clouds. I was no longer a part of this earth. Pennsylvania had been erased from this sinister plane of existence, wherever it was.
Whenever my body became weary and my spirits unfathomably low, I’d spend a few moments pitching my makeshift tent – a flap of grey canvas being raised by two thin stakes stabbed into the hard ground. Sleep did not come easily, and when it did, it was not spent with an iota of comfort. The bitter evenings – or, hell, they could’ve been mornings for all I knew – had consisted mostly of the local howls of hungry wolves and the distant chant of hoarse, ghoulish voices. The inaudible chants – often uttered in eerie unison and song – grew nearer as my heartbeat quickened… harsh whispers filling the air like the hum of a wild coyote, distant but close, loud but soft, all around me from every conceivable direction. I shivered as tingling chills drew down my spine – the wailing phantoms were right behind me! I could feel their cold breaths trickle upon the back of my neck – even colder than the already-frozen air. I could taste the stale burn of death closing in on me as the storm raged and the sobbing voices echoed and squalled throughout the white-washed hell waiting for me outside of the violently-flapping canvas… beckoning me, mocking me, smothering me. My only response was to grit my teeth and shut my tearful eyes as tight as I possibly could, and pray for it to end, pray for it to end, pray for it to end…
I remember awakening abruptly from that particular slumber to find that my makeshift tent had vanished, most likely stolen by the harsh winds during my few fleeting hours of blissful sleep. I was then without shelter, and the storm was not slowing. The wind howled around me, but all other sounds were absent – diminished by the storm’s ceaseless roars. No – there were no sounds here because even the wolves wouldn’t dare retreat to this lethal altitude. These wretched, towering cliffs were devoid of all life. My fate, it seemed, had been sealed.
I was no longer in the same spot where I had set up camp the night prior. None of my surroundings held even a vague semblance of familiarity. Granted, these mountains were generally unfamiliar to me, but even in my ignorance it was obvious that that particular location was not one I had encountered before. I had been moved – mysteriously repositioned… but how? Had the strong winds lifted me and tossed me in the middle of a higher field, onto a cliff closer to the stars? The pressing sensation against my ears confirmed the presumption that I had somehow escalated to a greater altitude, but that did little to answer the ominous question of how?
I gathered my few remaining possessions and moved onward in God knows what direction. I shuffled through the storm for hours until finally I spotted two objects ahead of me – silhouettes of what I had assumed were men moving toward me. I shuddered at the sight of them, knowing that no sane white man could possibly be wandering these cascading cliffs. Fearing who or what may lie in the distance, I attempted to take cover behind a small boulder, but to no avail. I could already hear their deep voices calling out to me, but I could not understand the context over the growling winds. I had known, though, that the two dark silhouettes continued moving in my direction. In my paranoid mind there was not a single doubt that the intentions of these men were malignant – and so I armed myself with the only object within arms’ reach: a somewhat sharp stone I found at the base of the boulder. It would take a bit of effort for the rock to pierce tissue and muscle, but fortunately I could already feel adrenaline begin to surge through my veins. Surely I could summon the strength to do what was necessary. The dire situation had certainly called for it.
Once the approaching silhouettes came within several feet of me, I did not hesitate to leap at them, wielding the stone high above my head as I released a powerful battle cry and lunged at the taller of the two figures. I had never been a fighter, and so it should come as no surprise that as I swung the stone downward I missed the man’s chest and had instead heaved myself upon him, tackling him to the ground. I fell safely to my knees upon the snow-covered ridge, but the bulky stranger wasn’t so lucky – I watched the man’s flailing body descend, his begging moans growing distant, into a vast empty space that had appeared seemingly out of nowhere. The sudden appearance of the deadly ledge, camouflaged against an all-white backdrop, had forced me to worry that I might accidentally slip and tumble to my own doom.
Regardless of that perfectly rational fear, I had to take down the second stranger. I turned toward the evidently stunned and unmoving man, whose face was concealed behind a brown cloth, and once again drew my arm upward, still gripping tightly to the sharp stone. In one swift blow I brought my arm down upon the muttering stranger, slamming his body to the ground, and felt warm liquid gush against my hand. The stone had penetrated the man’s chest, and a wild, incoherent groan emerged from behind the brown cloth shielding his face. I lifted the stone once more and proceeded to plunge it into the brute’s stomach repeatedly, until the pained groans ceased and the silenced stranger was dead.
By that time, cool tears had been flowing from my eyes and down my pink cheeks. I was confused, startled, and paranoid. My grip on sanity had already been steadily slipping, and those unanticipated killings had done nothing to assuage my panicked nerves. I slumped against the heavy body of the deceased assaulter and wept for several minutes, all the while attempting to gradually accept the bizarre and disturbing circumstances of my conundrum.
Once my level of emotional distraught had decreased slightly, I decided to search the dead man’s bloody body for any items that could come of use to me at that juncture. I patted down the assailant’s thick leather vest and felt in its inner pocket the round shape of a compass. Quickly and with hope, I retrieved the navigational tool from the pocket and brought it close to my face so that I could read it. An ephemeral sensation of joy took over as the thought of finally finding a way down this rotten mountain filled my head and heart. But the feeling of much-needed optimism rapidly faded as I realized not only that this man’s compass was broken and thereby rendered useless, but that a name had been carved into the back of the brass instrument. Embedded in the metal of the tool was the name ABE WARRINGTON, inscribed in capital letters that stared at me like a ferocious monster eying my gaping jaw with a wild grin. I could not believe it. Surely my tired eyes had been toying with my severely underslept mind. But this was not so – for immediately upon removing the brown cloth obscuring the dead man’s face, the weight of an entire mountain came falling upon my frail shoulders.
I dropped the impossible compass to the snow-capped ground and took off running into endless oblivion while terrible howls bellowed all around me. The cackling phantoms had returned, their grisly chants pounding against my throbbing cranium as I attempted to outrun them – but I was too slow. I was too weak, too distracted. My thoughts were elsewhere – back with the murdered corpse and the brass compass and the perpetual looming question of HOW? But my body still ran, as fast as my weary legs could move, trying desperately to escape the shrill, agonizing shrieks of whatever ungodly demons inhabited these bedeviled hills. Eventually I stumbled, tripped, fell into a dark, grey hole that appeared out of thin air, my screams bouncing off the stone walls around me as faces engraved in the cascading grey glared at me with accusing eyes and twisted grins. I descended down the narrowing grotto, reaching hopelessly for nothing, falling to my inevitable death…
…which brings me to here, where I am, now, whenever and wherever that may be. I am deep within the mountains somewhere, caught between some unholy place in history, and I know that I will soon be found, but by then I will not be among the living. My bony fingers are quivering spastically and my lungs are filled to the brim with the cold, toxic air of death. The dark floor beneath me is glowing with red melted wax and this final candle is moments away from burning out. I am not sure how any of this could have possibly happened but regardless of my blind confusion the impossible events have, indeed, occurred. I am a murderer, a prisoner, a man who was slowly lured into a demented trap, and all I can do now is write my harrowing account upon this dampened stack of parchment.
I only pray that anybody who finds this may heed my warning: leave now. Do not return. Move away from these macabre mountains – these tormented trails and snow-capped peaks which are home to something menacing and insidious… I have stared into its lifeless eyes and felt its devious glare, as I feel it now, watching me. Waiting for me to give in, to perish. Knowing that I will. It is a beast that cannot be defeated, a vengeance that cannot be achieved, a mountain that cannot be climbed. I sign this letter, a slave to the unavoidable fate and destiny of myself as well as my father, and a man lost in the white-wash of time. Beyond these grey walls that will soon become my tomb, my white hell awaits me.
In death,
Abraham Warrington, Jr.
La Llorona (“The Weeping Woman”) is a widespread legend in Mexico, the American Southwest, Puerto Rico and Central America. Although several variations exist, the basic story tells of a beautiful woman by the name of Maria killing her children by drowning them, in order to be with the man that she loved. When the man rejects her, she kills herself. Challenged at the gates of heaven as to the whereabouts of her children, she is not permitted to enter the afterlife until she has found them. Maria is forced to wander the Earth for all eternity, searching in vain for her drowned offspring, with her constant weeping giving her the name “La Llorona”.
Read below to read her story.
In any city, in any country, go to any mental institution or halfway house in you can get yourself to. When you reach the front desk, ask to visit someone who calls himself “The Holder of the Flame.” The worker will stare impassively at you for many minutes before pointing, silently, to a door behind you. The door was not there, and anyone else around you will not notice it. Approach the door and close your eyes before grasping the knocker. You need knock only once. If the metal suddenly cools in your hand, run. Run far away, and keep running. Only hope that you have escaped, for the alternative is a horror only the souls in hell can comprehend.
If the knocker grows warm, hold onto it tightly, even when it begins to sear into your hand. Eventually, the pain will stop. Once this has happened, open your eyes. You will be in a small garden, illuminated by the light of a full moon, and surrounded by ivy-covered stone walls. To your left will be a pond. Do not look directly into the water, lest the multitude of terrors lurking within capture and drown you again and again for the rest of eternity. To your right will be a funeral pyre, not yet lit, slickly dark with a flammable fluid.
Take exactly 5 steps towards the pyre. Do not ask why. You will find the corpse of a castrated male child, his arms folded over a vial of quicksilver. Say nothing but the question: “What caused their immolation?”
The corpse will not move, but the pyre will ignite of its own free will. As will the bushes, the grass, the trees, and the flowers all around it. The flames will shift colors, from the normal colors of fire, to the red of freshly spilt blood, to the green of infection and disease. The plants will shriek in agony as the walls surrounding the garden are consumed. The pond will dry out, the water itself burning with a blistering heat, as the souls of the damned rise upward in the steam, howling their litany of curses upon you.
As the first curse reaches your ears, you must summon your courage and begin to laugh. Loudly, spitefully, arrogantly, but not softly. If the curses become more vehement, you are safe. If they stop, then throw yourself on the pyre to escape a fate far worse.
In the midst of the tempest, the corpse will calmly sit upright, consumed entirely in flames, and will proffer the vial. You must continue to laugh, and cross your arms. You must not accept this gift now.
The corpse will open its mouth, and if you are lucky, what you will see in its depths will not leave you laughing in madness for the rest of your mortal life.
The vial will drop, shatter, and spill its contents upon the blackened remains of the grass as the flames die down. Everything will be silent. At your feet will be a new flower, its stem hard and spiny, its petals painted with the colors of hellfire and damnation. Pick it, and you will find yourself away from the garden and back in front of the door.
This flower is Object 30 of 538. It will burn itself deep into your soul, and ignite the fires of madness.
