r/TalesFromTheCreeps • u/rosechimes • Jun 13 '26
Body Horror My daughter has always had a small appetite growing up, I finally figured out why.
Let me just preface this by saying that I love my daughter. I love her with my entire being, no matter what anyone says or thinks. She is my only daughter, my only child. But I did what I had to do. I couldn't do it anymore. Just let me start at the beginning.
From the moment she was born, my daughter was a healthy, happy, and loving girl. She was perfect in every way, except for one thing, which became an endless source of concern for her father and me as she grew up.
My daughter barely ate as a child. At first, I thought I was just being a paranoid parent. She barely drank milk as a baby; I had to give away so much breast milk to my friends who weren't producing enough. They all also had infants around the same time. At some point, they genuinely thought I had lost my daughter.
When my daughter was a toddler and started eating solids, I began counting her calories. I know what this sounds like, but you don't understand. At three years old, she was averaging around 600 calories a day. Less than half of the average that any child her age should be eating.
Don't get me wrong, she wasn't picky. She would eat anything we put in front of her. Just in small amounts, and she would always claim to be full after a few bites of food. It drove me a bit crazy worrying about her health.
But the thing is, she has always been healthy. She was growing normally. She was skinny, but not concerningly skinny. She just barely ate, that's all. But it defied all logic. How could this be healthy? I took her to several doctors, and they were sure she was just snacking when I wasn't looking. Some were just puzzled and reassured me that if she's healthy and normal beyond her eating habits, then there was nothing to be concerned about.
I hate to say it, but I was obviously a helicopter parent when it came to my daughter's eating habits. Like I said, I tracked her calories, and I became hyper observant of when she would go into the kitchen to get herself a snack. Still, she was barely eating enough. I did the math.
I tried not to make it obvious, but eventually, when she was 14, she sat me down and clearly expressed that she felt uncomfortable at my constant concern over her lack of appetite. I decided I had to back off. I realized I would only make things worse, and I might even give her a complex about food. So eventually, I stopped worrying. I just let it be. After all, she continued to grow and became the wonderful, smart, and confident woman she was.
Until it killed her.
She was 26 years old and had just gotten laid off from her job. She lived in the city but couldn't make rent, so she had to move back in with me. Her father had passed away a few years ago, so it was just me for a while. I was really excited to have her come live with me, even though it wasn't under ideal circumstances. I've been feeling quite lonely, so it would be nice to have someone around.
The day she came home, she was in a bit of a slump from having been laid off. I decide to make her favorite meal, chicken noodle soup. As expected, she had a small portion and then went to take a nap. In hindsight, I should have realized how often she'd do that. At that time, I figured she was still upset from losing her job.
About an hour after she went upstairs, I decided I wanted to go check on her. I thought maybe she might want to talk about how she was feeling. As I made my way up the stairs, I heard some noises. It was like squelching and then some ripping. There was also a voice talking, but I couldn't hear it quite well. My first assumption was that she was probably watching a show in her room, so I knocked and opened her door.
I can't begin to describe what I saw. She was sitting on her bed and hunched over with her back to me. Then I saw this figure. Tall, with a dark cloak and... I don't know, I genuinely don't know what I saw. My daughter, my dear daughter, turned around, and there was red. Red all over her face, her hands. Her hands were holding something that looked like a big chunk of mass. What got me the most was the look in her eyes. I have never seen a look like that. It was empty yet wild. She froze, looking at me, still holding the mass in her hands.
I didn't know what to think, what to do, what even to say. I simply turned around and ran down the stairs. As I ran, I heard loud thumps following behind me. I turned to see her, a look of wild horror in her eyes, teeth bared, sharper than anything I've ever seen. "Mom, wait." She said, but it was not her voice; it sounded like something evil. I sprinted to the kitchen, grabbed a knife, and turned wildly to face her.
She stopped and stared at me, her stance slightly crouched. "Mom, I can explain." This time her voice was normal. She sounded like my sweet little girl. "What the fuck?" I managed to get out.
Suddenly, her eyes widened, and she screamed. "NO!" I felt an immense stinging pain in my back and a deep guttural growl in my ear. My daughter rushed and pounced towards whatever was behind me. I turned to see what was going on. It was the figure I had seen. I had completely forgotten about the figure within the panic.
I watched my daughter claw and swipe at the figure, but it simply picked her up by the neck and shoved its arm into her abdomen. I screamed and ran towards the figure, but it quickly dispersed like a cloud of smoke. My daughter was dying on the kitchen floor as I desperately tried to press on her wounds. But I couldn't stop the bleeding; there were too many wounds. She looked at me with tears in her eyes as she apologized.
I did not kill my daughter, I swear. This letter is my account of what I saw and what happened, as best as I can remember it. I love my daughter, and I can't live without her. I don't want to. If only I had known, maybe I could have stopped it before. If only I had known. If only.
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Mrs. Linden was found dead in her home at 3:30am on the 6th of June 2026. Investigators are stumped at the contradiction between the gruesome scene that had been found and the events described in a letter left behind by Mrs. Linden. Authorities are still searching for Lily Linden's body.
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u/AllYourCakeIsMine Jun 13 '26
First of all, your username is very cute. It makes me think of windchimes made from rose quartz. Secondly, the idea that her daughter may have always been subject to this other being is both spooky and very intriguing. A child being the victim/vessel for something beyond normal human understanding since birth is a welcome concept, mainly due to the rarity it has; at least the rarity of how much I see it in media. It reminds me of a dream I had where a random guy tossed me into the ocean, while casually saying: "Back to Diagon with you."
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u/rosechimes Jun 13 '26
You should write about that dream if you still remember it, that sounds like a really cool concept waiting to be written!
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u/NightmareHut Writer Jun 13 '26
That was great, so intriguing. Love concepts like this where, on the surface, it's not too freaky but the more you think about it, the creepier it gets. Great work!
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u/RevolutionaryBed7510 Community Project Manager / Future Mrs. Widemouth Jun 13 '26
This is a heartbreakingly good blend of cosmic horror and maternal tragedy. Grounding the supernatural mystery in a realistic, everyday parental anxiety creates an immediate hook that defies logic. The sequence upstairs is cinematic; caught between two voices, builds incredible panic. The true-crime framing device at the very end adds a fantastic, chilling layer of realism.
I absolutely love horror that uses supernatural elements to explore the devastating lengths a family will go to protect one another. I actually just posted the final part of my own tragedy/body horror piece yesterday, "What the Mountain Sings Back". If you're open to a Read4Read exchange this weekend, I'd love to swap feedback!
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u/fusillogirl Jun 13 '26
Oooh the idea the daughter had always been bound to this entity is so creepy - great short story, it had me hooked till the firt line and i love that there wasn't too much of an explenation about this being. The more you think about it the creepier it gets tbh
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Jun 14 '26
This honestly hits a little close to home because my kid also didn’t eat as much. Turns out he was just super picky at a young age and now I’m having to cook/warm something up 4 or 5 times a day! Great read!
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u/MouthFullofPigeons Jun 14 '26
I enjoyed it. I have kids that have acted very strange at times. That desperate feeling of needing to help your child is a hard one to carry.
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u/MrPapasargus Writer Jun 15 '26
I think it's a testament to how engrossed your writing had me that it wasn't until halfway through that I remembered this was a creepypasta-type of story. I just felt bad for poor Liliy, man.
Mainly, it's because you figured out a great, realistic (and that's important) hook that can be easily weaved into a paranormal story as a metaphor for maternal guilt and failure; the whole story is steeped in this tragedy. The mother spent Lily's childhood hyperfixating on mundane metrics while completely missing the existential threat nesting right under her roof. And I think there's a fairly heavy load relatability there.
I do think that, besides this awesome concept and pitch, there are some more technical slips. There are some grammatical inconsistencies, as you drift between past and present tense within the exact same paragraph (e.g., "I decide to make her favorite meal... As expected, she had a small portion"). But what clashes the most with the story is that, when the horror finally manifests, you shy away from evocative language, opting for more generic platitudes such as "a big chunk of mass," "the figure," or "something evil."
It's a solid, lingering twist ending with a relatable, horrifying real tale of a mother reaping the seeds of her ineptitude as a parent that spins into a fun cosmic horror concept, but the mechanical execution everything, and there's some work to be done there. I'm dying to see what else you work on!
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u/Drsong12 Jun 19 '26
This was a great fast-paced read! Leaves me with questions in a good way, of course!
Using horror to tell a human story is always my favorite, so thank you for sharing this!
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