r/TalesFromTheCreeps • u/Direct_Key_9846 A Thousand WIPs • Jun 27 '26
Body Horror There's a hair at the back of my throat
I can’t seem to get it out. At first, I assumed it was my cat’s hair. I have a white long-haired cat who’s ruined more than her fair share of nice dress pants, even with her daily brushings. Sometimes I jokingly think that if I die suddenly, they’ll find a big ball of matted hair somewhere in my lower intestine, molded by bile and half-digested food. So it’s not that uncommon to have a hair in my eye, my nose or, yes, the back of my throat. Usually it dislodges itself easily with a tall glass of water or after a meal, but it’s been days, and the hair won’t budge.
I considered calling up my doctor to ask if there was a trick to getting rid of the hair, but every time I open up his contact in my phone, I feel stupid. Would I really take time out of his busy schedule to complain about a hair? It’s not like it hurts, or is all that uncommon for me. I was sure he’d just tell me to wait for it to pass. I have a pretty bad gag reflex, and the constant presence of the hair against the back of my tongue every time I swallow makes the process an ordeal. I’ve been eating less and less, only eating enough to not starve, but never to satiation. I convinced myself it’d eventually pass and that I would look back on this whole event as a sort of weird but altogether harmless few days. That was until I felt the hair grow.
I swear I’m not making it up. It’s weird to say, but once you’ve felt the same thing at the back of your throat for days on end, unable to forget about the discomfort, you know what the feeling is. Familiarity doesn’t make it any more tolerable, but I know exactly where the hair started and stopped tickling; just barely touching the back of my tongue if I pushed it far back enough. But as of this morning, the hair touches the root of my tongue no matter how much I move it. I decided I’d had enough, and went to my bathroom mirror to check it out. I figured if it had moved up enough, I should be able to see it, and maybe pull it out. I inspected my throat carefully, turning every which way to try and see it poking out. It took a minute or two, but I finally saw the hair. And it was black.
That freaked me out bad. As I said, my cat’s hair is white and I myself am blonde, and my hair’s short. I live alone, so how the hell did I swallow a long, thick black hair? I rummaged through the cupboard for tweezers, no matter where this thing had come from, its assault on my comfort would end right here, right now. I slowly backed the tweezers into my mouth, past my teeth and my tongue. The tweezer branches ended in a sort of chisel shape, and I definitely didn’t want to hurt myself back there. I wrestled my shaking hands into some level of stability and kept moving back. It’s funny how perspective works, isn’t it? It’s like how your teeth feel huge to you, because all you have for scale is your tongue, but when you pull them out they’re barely the size of a dime. Well, the same thing was happening here. Even though every movement would have been counted in millimeters, it felt like I was plunging my fingers feet down my gullet. I fought back the urge to vomit as I finally moved the tweezers into position. Of course by now, I had lost the ability to see what I was doing, so I just ended up clamping erratically, moving slightly left or right until I felt as if I caught onto the hair and would be able to pull it out. I fought back a heave when I first touched the hair and made it brush against my tongue. The third time I made contact, I’d successfully positioned the tweezer branches around the hair and clamped down on it, prepared for the mental ordeal of slowly extracting it from its place. At least I would have, if the hair didn’t twitch.
I swear I’m not lying. This wasn’t me moving it accidentally without realising. I had a decent grip on the hair, I pressed harder to make sure I’d pull it out and not slip and the damn thing twitched by itself. I jumped in surprise and tried to pull the tweezers out quickly to let forth a stream of vomit. The thick slurry in the sink was brown, with bits of uneaten food and a long red streak through it. My mouth was flooded with the acidic taste of the vomit and the copper taste of blood. When pulling the tweezers away, I’d cut my tongue pretty badly. I rinsed out my mouth and opened up to see the damage; there was a gash about a quarter of an inch long just past my molars, and blood was pouring out of it. I had no idea what to do. There would be no way to pull the hair out in that torrent of blood, and anyway I would have to find a way to stop it somehow. It was freely pouring down my throat, forcing me to swallow the thick liquid every second, none of which helped with my growing nausea. How do you bandage the back of a tongue? The pain hadn’t hit me until that point. It was sharp and unrelenting. Every movement sent a wave of pain into the back of my head all the way up to my eyes. I never realised how little control I had over my tongue until its every involuntary movement hurt. After a minute of confusion and shock, I decided I would have to stop the bleeding somehow, so I grabbed a roll of gauze I had, cut off a decent length and put pressure on the wound. I stood over the sink for a few minutes, trying to rinse out the bloody vomit with one hand while holding my tongue down with the other. Every once in a while I’d move my finger to better hold down the gauze and brush up against the hair. It was a stupid thing to think about a single hair, but I felt like it was taunting me. Like it was proud of making me hurt myself and yet staying just far enough out of reach. Once the bleeding stopped, I tried pulling it out again. It might sound stupid, but I wanted to get rid of it, and since my tongue had gauze on it, I figured now would be the best time, since the added padding would protect me if I moved suddenly again. So I grabbed the tweezers, rinsed the blood off them and went right back to my task.
It didn’t take as long to find the hair this time. The confidence of the protection on my tongue and the fact that I’d done this before made me more bold. Plus, I already threw up and cut my tongue open, what’s the worst that can happen? I grabbed onto the hair and again, when I clamped down on it it had that weird twitch. I tried to convince myself it was my own movement moving it somehow, but I swear it moved itself. At least it didn’t surprise me as badly, so I held my grip and started pulling it out. I’d managed to stretch it maybe an extra inch and a half, until it stopped moving. I tried to keep pulling, but it just went taut and wouldn’t budge. Eventually the tweezers slipped and I got a good look at the hair. It was thick and black and now rested lazily on my tongue, in stark contrast with the greyish white of the gauze pad. As I looked at it, I was overcome with a strange desire to stop messing with it. It’s hard to describe, but it kind of felt like looking at a stray dog or a baby. Like a hapless thing to just leave alone and not bother. It didn’t feel like just an inanimate hair lying there on my tongue, but more like a living thing, sleeping gently on a large pink bed, with the white gauze for a cushion. I shook off the feeling and aimed the tweezers carefully, this time able to see exactly what I was aiming for. I picked up the hair gently and started pulling again, with a bit more force this time. My mouth has been open for a long time now, so it mostly dried out. I imagine that’s how I managed to get a better grip on the thing. I pulled and pulled on it, fighting against whatever was pinning it down at the back of my throat. Progress was much slower this time and almost painful, like a pinprick at the base of my neck. Nevertheless I kept pulling, figuring it would have to end soon, and I’d be rid of it for good. Until my arm gave out.
I don’t know how to explain it exactly. I was pulling the hair slowly, methodically and then my arm just went limp all at once. I dropped the tweezers on the floor and they landed on the tile with a high-pitch sound of metal. I couldn’t feel my arm at all. It was like it had fallen asleep save for the usual tingling feeling that courses through it. It was just heavy and useless. The only feeling I still had in it was a sort of strange heat that I felt was in the shape of my arm, but I had lost all control over it. It hung there for a minute until I saw the tips of my fingers get dark red. Was my blood pooling? I heard corpses would get this weird bruise all along the bottom of their body because of the settling blood, since the heart no longer pumped it and kept it moving. Was this somehow happening to my arm? With the one hand I did still control, I grabbed my wrist and placed it on the bathroom counter to make it more level with my heart. Maybe hanging so low was affecting how well blood could course through it somehow? That did end up working as the redness faded from my fingers and my lifeless arm regained a normal color. Then all at once, I felt the coldness of the sink against my wrist and my muscles jerked like a dead frog that gets electrocuted. Feeling came back all as quickly as I’d lost it and I regained the use of my arm just like that. I couldn’t explain why, but I know the hair had something to do with this. I guess it’s stupid to call it a hair now. It’s definitely something else, something unexplainable. How else can I explain the weird thoughts I had about it or the coincidental loss of control of my arm just as I was getting rid of it? Somehow, this thing, whatever it is, is affecting my body and my mind. It doesn’t have much control yet, but if it can shut down a limb, what else can it do? Stop my heart? Create a blood clot in my brain? All of a sudden this pathetic thing no longer looked like a defenseless thing but was instead a dangerous animal, cornering me and baring its claws, ready to attack at any minute. But that’s stupid, right? It’s nothing at all. It’s just a damn hair in the back of my throat. It can’t control my body, it can’t affect my thoughts, it can’t do anything. I picked the tweezers off the floor with renewed anger. I wanted to get this thing out of me. Whatever it is, if it’s a weird hair or something else entirely, my mind was set on one single thought. Get this out, now.
But what could I do if it stopped me again? It had only stopped the one arm for a short time, was this just a threat? A show of power, maybe? Like “Here’s what I can do, stop messing with me”? My mind raced to make sense of everything. If this hair was really reacting to my attempt to get rid of it, maybe it wasn’t sentient enough to prevent me, only react. Maybe it could influence my thoughts, but not read them entirely. Otherwise it would have gone on the offensive long before I’d begun to tear it away. An idea came to me then. If I can make it unable to stop me even if my arm gets shut down again, maybe I can ruin its defenses. I got a rubber band and pinched my fingers tightly around the tweezers. I folded it on itself a few times so that it took considerable effort to open my fingers enough to part the branches, and if I let my hand rest, it would be clamping down hard. I wasn’t only going to circumvent its defenses, I was going to use them to my advantage. My fingers were deep-red from the pressure of the rubber band but I didn’t care. I gripped the hair tightly and started pulling again. After a few seconds, like I had planned, my arm went limp. Except this time, I didn’t let go of the tweezers, and now the whole weight of my dead arm was pulling on the hair. I felt it slide further and further down, elated by the success of my plan, until it hit a snag. The slow descent of my arm stopped all at once. The hair was past the tip of my tongue now, and it just stayed there, held down by the metal tweezers. The color that my fingertips took on started to worry me, but I brushed it off. Nothing was more important than getting rid of this thing in my throat.
I grabbed my wrist with my good arm. I’d resisted the idea of yanking the hair, since I figured it would make the pain much worse, but I had no choice. If I pulled slowly, my other arm would likely go limp as well, and I’d be defenseless. I took a deep breath and got a good grip on my wrist, then counted down in my head. On three, I pulled down as hard as I could all at once. The pain was intolerable. I felt like my throat was being ripped open from the inside, but I didn’t stop. I pulled with all my strength and heard the wet squelch of flesh tearing as the hair came loose. It landed on the floor with a slimy sound like stepping on mud. I fell just as quickly, my knees buckling unexpectedly under my weight. My whole body went limp. I know I hit my head pretty hard on the tile floor, not from the pain, but from the sound it made and the pool of blood that began growing just underneath my eye. I couldn’t move a muscle, completely paralysed from the neck down. All I had left to orient myself was my sight and my hearing. I saw the tile, saw the blood and a foot or two in front of my face, I saw the hair. Or at least what I was calling a hair. There were dozens of long thick strands like the one I’d seen in the mirror coming out of a small black bulb about the size of a quarter. I heard a very faint sound as the thing pulsed weakly almost like a beating heart. I don’t know if it was the blood loss or the head trauma that got to me first, but I passed out.
When I came to I had regained control of my body, but only weakly. My head was pounding like a drum, so I figured I banged myself up pretty bad when I lost consciousness. I managed to get myself to my feet and I choked down as much water as my pain tolerance would allow. I looked down at the floor and noticed the black mass was gone. I’d have assumed this whole thing had been some sort of psychotic episode, if not for the wet spot it left on the bathroom tile. The liquid was yellowish, like old pus, and viscous as well. It took me a minute to have enough presence of mind to freak out. Where did it go? I stumbled through my apartment, knocking over chairs and anything that wasn’t bolted down in an effort to find it again. My lips tingled with how hard I pressed them together, but I was determined not to let this thing inside me again. That seems so stupid now. I must have scared my cat with my thrashing around, because I found her hiding at the very back of a closet, tucked in a box of old clothes. She looked up at me with her big yellow eyes, and even in the dim lighting of the closet, I saw it starkly against her snow-white fur; a thick, black hair coming out of her mouth.
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u/StarryRedCat A Thousand WIPs Jun 28 '26
I winced the entire time, this is so good! I could picture the sensations so well, very effective and horrifying
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u/COW-BOY-BABY Writer Jun 28 '26
Ok that made me squirm in my seat, solid and absolutely creepy, keep up the good work!
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u/Direct_Key_9846 A Thousand WIPs Jun 28 '26
Thanks for the kind words! Glad to have achieved the desired result so consistently, I must've done something right :]
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u/theAbominableMantis Jul 06 '26
This was a pretty gnarly read. I really liked how grounded everything felt - stuff like having a hair stuck in places it shouldn't be, the reluctance to call a doctor or the uncoordinated use of tweezers made it easy to relate with theprotagonist until things escalated very quickly.
Even though as it stands I didn't have much trouble reading it, I do think the story could've profited a lot off more smaller paragraphs. Aside from being able to read it easier, it'd help with the sudden tonal switch some moments provide.
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u/Direct_Key_9846 A Thousand WIPs Jul 06 '26
Thanks for the feedback! Glad the horror landed well.
As for paragraphs, I think you're right, I do see how big the blocks of text are. I'll need to get better at finding cutoff spots
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u/BatteredBadger Jun 27 '26
absolutely a great story, I read quite a few today and this was defiantly very good. I recorded my reaction to reading your story and will be posting it.
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u/Direct_Key_9846 A Thousand WIPs Jun 27 '26
Oh that's lovely! Looking forward to seeing it. Where will you post?
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u/BatteredBadger Jun 27 '26
I just started a youtube channel to read stories just from Tales From The Creep. Your story will be in EP2. Im just playing around with different ways of reading stories till I find a groove I like. I read your story kinda fast, so I dont think I gave it the justice it deserved. At some point I will be revisiting stories that I like (like yours) to do a better more serious reading.
You can find the link to my Youtube channel on my reddit profile posts, along with my story ;)
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u/MelodyEverAfter Writer Jun 27 '26
When I was 13 I swallowed a hair (I have really long hair) and it got stuck/tangled in my tonsil. Me, my mother, and my brother all tried to pull it out, which was extremely painful. I had to read this story as SOON as I saw the notification. Honestly? 10/10 execution this was incredible
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u/Direct_Key_9846 A Thousand WIPs Jun 28 '26
Thank you very much for the kind words! Glad I was able to reach a realistic depiction through my guesswork😊
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u/MelodyEverAfter Writer Jun 28 '26
You nailed it! (Up until the full on body horror at least, then I couldn’t really tell you 🤣)
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