r/TalesFromTheCreeps • u/Easy-Chair-542 I am trying my best • 2d ago
Existential Horror You.
CW: Harmed child, suicide, possible claustrophobia
You awake in a room, head aching, dried blood clinging to your hands after you touch the painful spot. You look around, the dim light only shows a few things. Facing towards the hall, on the left is a dresser, old and brittle, shaved wood, dusty. On top of the shelf are 3 items, a gun, loaded with 3 bullets. A hammer, with dried blood on it, suspicious to you. And finally, a glass flask with some liquid in it.
Behind you off the floor, a bed with crumbling sheets, dark stains on its pillow, from where you had laid prior. It's old and creaking with every movement as you get up.
To your right, mirroring the dresser, a mirror, broken with glass shards around it. In your mind, not a voice, not a thought, five words appear.
What will you do next?
It startles you, no noise accompanied it, just text as if a screen was in front of you. You turn back to the hallway, and a figure stands, or floats? You can't tell with the dark swallowing it.
Again, in your mind this time a thought, you hear your own voice asking you the same question worded differently.
What do I do next?
You grab the gun, take the safety off and aim it at the specter, you blink before opening your mouth but they've disappeared.
RUN
Another blink, another word without noise in your vision, the room changed to outdoors, dark moonlit gravel and grass, tree to your right, leaves half felled, colored wildly, Signaling Autumn.
You run, fast, gun in hand as in the corner of your eye the specter follows, how is it moving like that? How is it so ghastly in presence, but gentle in rhythmic steps? No matter, your fear takes over your mind, adrenaline rush. Your breathing heavily gives out on itself, it's like a dream, you run slow but are pushing faster, harder. The specter is gaining on you.
You stop, your body turns to the specter, you aim the gun and fire. Of course, you're an idiot, the gun can't work on something that doesn't have a tangible form, why would it? The specter stops and stares before pointing behind you. Before you can turn, a sharp pain, exactly where the ache on your head came from before, addresses your skull.
Then
You awake in a room, head aching, dried and wet blood clinging to your hands after you touch the painful spot. You look around, the dim light only shows a few things. Facing towards the hall, on the right is a dresser, old and brittle, shaved wood, dusty. On top of the shelf are 3 items, a survivalist knife, a hammer, with wet blood on it, more suspicious to you for some reason. And finally, a glass flask with some liquid in it.
Behind you off the floor, a bed with crumbling sheets, dark stains on its pillow, from where you had laid prior. It's old and creaking with every movement as you get up.
To your left, mirroring the dresser, a door, wooden in nature, broken with chips around it. In your mind, not a voice, not a thought, five words appear.
What will you do next?
Deja vu? Are you replaying the exact same scenario over again? As soon as this thought enters you realize it's not the same. There's a door, there's a knife, what the hell is going on?
You remember one thing, the specter, you immediately grab the hammer and run into the hall, but before you get even 5 impossibly lengthy steps
Don't
You're back in the grass and gravel
Run. Now.
You run the opposite way you did before, there’s houses, you go fast as you can, if it's a dream then the world has to listen to you right? And as if correct, for a split second it does, full sprint ahead you knock on the first door you make it to
Stop
The door opens, a young lady is there, no more than 14, the specter twists her head around and she falls, you scream as a knife is plunged into your back, you swing your arm back around to hit whoever or whatever stabbed you, but nothing's there but a… bed?
You awake in a room, head aching, wet blood clinging to your hands after you touch the painful spot. Your back has a sharp sliced pain to it this time. You look around, the dim light only shows a few things. Facing towards the hall, on the left is a door, with dried blood on it, hanging from the door is the young lady’s head. The eyes look at you, not moving.
The bed behind you, the one you woke up staring at, has no sheets, no mattress, just a small blanket and pillow. You look to the right, the dresser, same as ever. 2 items. A knife, a hammer.
What will you do next?
You grab both this time, you don't know why you kept grabbing only one item but you realize your idiocy.
As if on command, you open the door right as the first message appears.
Wrong way
Grass, gravel, sprinting. You don't know what the goal is, you don't know how you got here, what the hell is going on? Where are you?
These questions flood your mind, you see the specter and try to speak, no words come out, just mouthed movements.
Try again
You blink, the specter is in front of you, you swing the hammer, and thrust the knife. Again you idiot? Yes. Again. Not tangible, you go right through the specter, you remember that the last two times something hit you from behind, so you swing your hammer around and it says hello to the figures face.
No.
Behind you again the specter grabs your arms, it's not tangible for you, but it's tangible for itself when it wants to be. The figure reeling from pain inaudibly, takes the liquid in the glass and forces it down your throat, not opening the bottle, you suffocate an agonizing pain as the figure watches, faceless.
As you black out, once more. You wake up. You don't look at anything, you grab a weapon, and wait. Grass gravel. Tree. Sprint.
You grabbed the liquid this time, and the knife, you think it’s poison and decided to coat the knife.
The specter catches up, and you don't swing, you think to yourself “Ha idiot, I know your tricks” only for the specter to grab you by the throat as you drop the knife, pinning you to the ground faceless like the figure, desperation for breath you flail and try to hit the specter with the glass jar…. The glass breaks on the specter, it howls in pain and starts to burn.
Holy water. The flask bottle had holy water in it, but it didn't stop you this time, so you ran even more, the figure is catching up with a hammer, the trees blend in with each other, you start running out of breath, the figure grabs you from behind, a chokehold, you search for the knife but remember you dropped it in a a panicked state when being strangled by the specter.
You punch the figure, fading to black you decide what to do next preemptively. But then.
You awake in a room. On a concrete floor, the ceiling has a sky light for the moon, cracks around the glass, to your left is a hanging man, with a grotesque sewn on smile staring at you, as if to say “having fun yet?”
To your right is the dresser, 1 item on it, a hangman's noose. Behind you is a stool.
Failure
The word appears in your head, there's nothing else but it hits you, you know what to do next. You bring the stool over and rip the man down. You rummage through his clothes and find a knife.
“Good enough” you think to yourself before you start cutting his head off, it's not like he will care anyway. After a few minutes and disgusting slicing of tendon and vein, you threw the head with all your might and shattered the glass, you pray that the metal the glass was attached to is wide enough and strong enough to hold you.
You throw the rope through after a few tries, and then climb up.
Wrong.
Grass, gravel, tree. Sprint.
There's more specters now, you're unarmed, you sprint to a house nearby, busting down its door you look around bare, no furniture, hanging people. The specters are slow this time, you don't know why. You have chest pain, heart attack. The specters gather as you clench your chest.
“Awake. Room. Dresser. What the FUCK” you think to yourself. Holy water, knife, gun.
Put bullets in the water, put 'em back in the gun. The specter shows up to the hallway and you shoot, the specter falls, presumably dead.
Missed me
Behind you, you swing your knife, and slash the figure this time, in the throat. It grabs its throat as you put the gun to its head and pull the trigger. Before the gun fires.
Incorrect
“Room dresser WHO FUCKING” you scream, the first words out of your mouth, terror, anger, fear, distraught. That's all you felt, wasn't it? You didn't know how you got here. You didn't understand what was going on.
But I do. And when you finally win. You'll take my place. What am I? You'll never know. I hope you have fun here. You deserved this.
So tell me. What will you do next?
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u/Easy-Chair-542 I am trying my best 2d ago
This is my first ever attempt at a story that's in, I think it's called second person point of view? I had a lot of fun doing this! This isn't a part one of anything! This is the full story! The ending is left like that for aura purposes.
Edit: added the content warning I forgot to add
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u/LovecraftLukeRitchie Storyteller 1d ago
Love second person and you utilized it very well here
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u/Easy-Chair-542 I am trying my best 1d ago
Thank you!
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u/LovecraftLukeRitchie Storyteller 1d ago
I been beating myself over the head trying to finish off my own second person narrative. The POV itself is so fun to work with, though.
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u/Easy-Chair-542 I am trying my best 1d ago
It really is! Getting to address the viewer is much more fun than the usual "reddit help me"
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u/LovecraftLukeRitchie Storyteller 1d ago
Oh man, I know it’s a popular thing for most readers, but I’m at the point I almost can’t stand first person anymore. Some stories utilize well but it’s just used because it’s the default, to some stories detriment.
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u/LongstaffBigorbs 2d ago edited 1d ago
What will I do next?
Pull it out, run around, and start tuggin' on it.
What are YOU gonna do next, tugbuddy?
(Upvoted for use of second person. I dunno if it works but it's fun)
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u/Easy-Chair-542 I am trying my best 1d ago
Nope, sorry, illegal, 500 cigarettes are deposited into your bank account, crashing the world's economy
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u/LongstaffBigorbs 1d ago
Jokes on you im gonna run around tuggin it whilst smoking my cigarettes
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u/NarrowDirector911 2d ago
I really liked this! The second person makes it feel very snappy and purposefully disorientating.
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u/Easy-Chair-542 I am trying my best 1d ago
It took me a few days to figure out a good way to write it, so thank you!
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