One Left on the Ghost Ship

Every time I have a chance, I always have a chance to get a grip. I always have a chance to get a grip.

“You can get all the exciting points. The crypto is simply a bit of a nonsense.”

Basically, you can get 100 points to trade, buy a short one, buy a short one, buy a short one, buy a small one or a small one. No, no. No. This is creepy. Abroadcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepy pastas and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened,

or perhaps simply fabrications, is for you to decide. These stories make and taint graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. This no discretion is advised. Hey, everyone, we're going to do something a little different, open things up with our Patreon things.

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First up, a lone maintenance technician awakens a Gordon abandoned colony ship stranded on an impossible world, where every answer only deepens the mystery of what may be waiting beyond the hatch.

From better Jason Peaburnum, creepy presence, one left on the ghost ship.

“Back home, when you would have called this a ghost ship.”

Well, mostly. My presence on it would negate the ghostliness of it, but to me, it's a ghost ship. I woke up from cryo to Clexon's warning me that I needed to reprogram the atmospheric entry trajectory to avoid catastrophic hall failure. It wasn't sure why that was my problem, since I know very little about piloting an orbital mechanics as a maintenance and repair tech. However, I found that I was something of an autocadied act, and the fast one at that, seeing as how there was nobody left a live on the ship, and it was either I fixed things or end up dead.

My landed. A little banged up, the ship too. The ship's computer tells me that we'll not be able to achieve escape velocity due to the damage incurred during landing. But honestly, I don't think it matters. There's no way I was going to be able to coordinate a launch in the orbit again all by myself. There are no corpses.

There are definitely no people left alive. The computer isn't one of those intelligent designs that can give me any information about what happened while I was in cryo. This ship wasn't designed for that. All it can tell me is that there are no crew presently on the ship. Except myself, that there are no air quality problems that will kill me.

No lingering pathogens that may have taken me crew out that are lurking in the life support systems. The computer can also tell me that we're not where we were supposed to be. So now I'm on a ghost ship, just like the other ghost ships that left Earth. At least the ships of old, the ships of Earth sees, or we'll find the empty ship.

Just like me.

“I can leave the ship, now that I'm planet-bound.”

The ship's computer has no name or designation for this planet.

We're supposed to be going to an Earth-like planet to see if we could potentially live there. But now I'm here on this unnamed planet. And it's weird. The computer tells me that the samples I've brought back indicate that I can't eat the native flora. Human digestive enzymes are incompatible.

I guess technically I could eat the flora. Just wouldn't be broken down in my digestive tract anything useful and would pass untouched. Like, leaving me some loose bowel movements on the way out. Not my idea of a good time. Someday I'll sit down and work out whether the remaining food on the ship can tell me anything about when the rest of the crew disappeared.

But I'm not sure it will be useful information at this point.

“The crew isn't coming back, and nobody's coming for me.”

The ship tells me the food supplies will outlast me, even if I live until the maximum estimated human longevity. How do I know nobody's coming for me? I can't be certain, but there are several factors working distinctly against that probability. For one thing, I can't send any outgoing messages. Thanks, reentry damage.

For another, since the ship has no designation for the planet, I can't imagine humanity even knew about it. We name everything as soon as we find it. Perhaps it has been discovered since I left, but given the lack of log communications with Earth, I don't believe they knew we changed course.

We didn't receive any updated star maps.

If anyone discovers these entries, they'll have had to come retrieve them themselves by hand. Everything about this planet I've had to discover for myself.

“And it's all rather off-putting, even if sometimes fascinating.”

That I just have a different system, it looks like I should be able to eat here. It looks like there are trees here. It looks like there are oak trees here, which shouldn't be possible. And clearly isn't since their constituent components don't match Earth on a molecular level. But they really do look like oak trees.

Big thick trunks, old unpouched by oak wilt, big bifurcating limbs, saw me hanging low and gnarled, running just along the surface, green leaves, forming and overstory that seems to cover the entire planet. Yes, the entire planet. I managed to figure out how to send some probes out to cover data gaps left from my limited entry,

slash crash landing trajectory. The planet seems to be one giant oak tree forest. There are no large bodies of water visible from above, even though it rains frequently. I can only assume that the water is all stored underground somewhere. I imagine the planet is a surface layer of oak trees, some dirt,

than a massive, world-spanning aquifer that keeps the whole ecosystem running. The gravity seems pretty earth-like. I could ask the ship to calculate it for me, but I don't really want to know. I try not to ask the ship questions. It feels weird having conversation with what amounts to a calculator within alarm system.

Trying to engage with the ship makes me want to often myself. And I could, and maybe I will yet. If not from boredom and despair, then maybe out of fear. I can leave the ship. But I'm not sure I should anymore.

Evidence points to something else besides the oak trees on this planet. And I'm not sure this something else is gone. There was an old adage back on earth that sufficiently advanced technology would appear to be magic to us. There was a lesser known but related hypothesis as well. One that may seem ten gentle, but to me is perfectly aligned with the magic technology metaphor.

The salurian hypothesis. The salurian hypothesis can be simplified as this. If there had been an advanced civilization on earth long before humanity, we might not be able to detect any clues of that civilization. This is highly relevant to my current situation.

There are things I'm seeing on this planet that I can't explain. And I'm not even sure I'd know what to look for.

Something greater than trees.

But I am so out of my depth that I'm not sure what I'm looking at. It could be salurian magic for all I'm equipped to decipher. The trees now. I know they know, but they won't be up their secrets. At least not in a language I can translate.

The ship is in the hope. It really tells me that there are no live humans on the ship except for me. I used to think it could be cool to be a paleontologist. Finding giant Theropod skeletons may be even new Theropods.

Theropods that survived the initial asteroid strike.

That would be cool. But then I watched some documentaries while paleontology. Saw what the paleontologist really did on site. It came through the dirt, picking out fragments of what appeared to be nothing. Little globs of nothing no bigger than sand or dirt cloud.

And somehow figuring out that these are in fact important organisms that lived at the same time as whatever larger dinosaur the site surrounds. Each and seeds are copulites or fragments of tiny organisms that to the untrained or perhaps even to the train I look like dirt.

“That's what it feels like on this planet.”

Then I'm looking at a bunch of dirt globs that could tell a train dive very important things. But I'm just staring at dirt. Menacing dirt, but dirt nonetheless. I'd explored roughly a one-click radius from where the ship mostly crash landed. Based on data from the probes, it seems that this ship crash created clearing in the oaks is one of the larger clearings in the immediate vicinity.

Perhaps the largest on the entire planet. I'm going to call this world creepy oak planet or cop for short. Much like earth cobs, I suspect that cop houses untold aldrich horrors within it that may be a threat to my continued personhood. It all started with a footprint.

I told myself it was my own footprint at first, but I double checked the data I've been collecting and I hadn't entered that part of the forest before.

Then I told myself it was only one footprint, so maybe it wasn't the footprint at all. I double checked the size and shape. It was larger than the Prince left in the mud by my own environments. But it had a homology of shape close enough that I could have been bribed to believe it was a footprint left by a human. Of which there's only me.

And it had simply been eroded or smudged. Coming to this conclusion, I managed to convince myself that the disappeared crew had somehow come here before me and left many footprints. Of which this was the last remaining one, the rest previously raised by time and oaks and rain.

“But then I remember that I was the only human that arrived here.”

There's no possible way that they would have landed here, taken off and then the ship circle backed crash land here with only me on board. At least it can't create a logical series of events that would lead me to that conclusion. But I convinced myself that it wasn't footprint at all. It took me a while, but I remember the term for it. Peridolia was seeing a Jesus face in a piece of toast when the toast was really just burnt.

And I believed that. Really and truly, until I found two footprints, then three, then a line of them. That's when I stopped leaving the ship. During the day, I landed probes on a flat surface on top of the ship so they can recharge. While they recharge, I can't be actively surveilling.

And that's what it feels like I need to be doing. I've now convinced myself that the tracks are human.

“As they say, what's the only thing scarier than thinking you're all alone?”

Realizing you're not. So there are humans here. One is me. One or more are not. And that is the most terrifying part.

They are here. I am here. They have seen my ship. Their feet have been within one click of my ship, where I am. Yet they've made no attempts to contact me.

The why of that is perhaps most terrifying thing I've ever considered. Far more terrifying than going in the cryo to an unknown planet.

Far more terrifying and crash landing on a planet you weren't supposed to go to.

That earth had never even heard of.

“Humans are scarier to be alone with and of woods and a bear.”

And now I find myself in that exact predicament. Being alone in the cop woods with at least one other human. Why won't they contact me? How did they get here? Why would the ship drop some humans here?

Leave then come back with only me. No messages of any sort left to me is the why this was happening. The computer isn't intelligent as I've mentioned before. But it can run algorithms. I did my best with my limited self-taught out of current situation necessity coding abilities

to run pattern recognition software. I gave a 72% match between the footprint photos I took and the human invariable print.

“That seemed pretty good to me, especially for someone who's not a programmer for their job.”

The probes have no visible evidence of this these humans. It is possible that prints were left here before I landed and nobody has been near the crash site. But that still leaves many unanswered questions. Why were their humans here? Why did they not come to investigate my crash?

There are new footprints. The line of them points in the direction of the ship that suddenly disappears. The humans could be using the oak trees easily. The probes show me no evidence of this. No evidence of anyone but myself in the oaks.

My working hypothesis is bad. But I can't peace anything else together. So, here's my working hypothesis. After the JWST was the SRST, which helped us discover things further into space and we'd ever dream possible. Planetary discovery became so rapid and easy that they started letting middle school and younger kids name them without official voting ballots.

This is consequently how there are over 500 planets named after genitalia.

Regardless, I find it hard to believe that this planet had never been discovered and named.

SRST could see almost anywhere into space. So, I'm guessing that this planet was discovered. A mission was sent here and humans were left behind. Because of what they found, this planet was scrubbed from the records. Perhaps even given it do not travel designation.

I can't reconcile how ended up here if this were the case. Perhaps that ties into why all the other humans are dead. Perhaps there was someone on board this ship that sabotaged our original navigation plan to instead go to an investigate cop. Perhaps they had family on the previous mission and were tired of governmental lies and cover up to their wearables or to long lost family. I could buy that.

The problem with this is that I'm not sure what happened to the people aboard my ship that were the ones. In this proposed scenario, they were seeking their family members.

“Or can I determine why they may have disappeared and why I alone survived a land here?”

If this hypothesis were true, it would explain why they have not attempted to contact me. Perhaps they are afraid of whoever sent them here. Fortunately, I feel that I'm left with more questions and answers. I send out the probe as often as I recharge permits.

Stagering them is best I can so that something's always watching.

I've taken to staring on various windows of the ship to add my own eye to the equation. I see nothing but trees. Each further away from me into endless shadows of the open forest of this world. All the more reason to be disturbed by the footprints. How are the ones leaving them avoiding my detection?

Your rain yesterday. The deluge. The washed away all the footprints. The probes chucked. Any lingering doubts I had about whether the footprints preceded my time here could now be put to rest.

Wash away with the rain watered wherever it goes. The mud is wet. Fresh. The rain is stopped. Besides of clear, leaving us serulean that reminds me of what Earth used to look like before the first climate disaster.

There's a line of footprints ending just meters from the ships main hatch. They disappear into nothing and there are no trees nearby for the humans who've jumped into.

The computers assured me that I'm the only living human inside its walls.

It can't tell me whether there are any living humans outside its walls because of what it calls a data boundary error. This all adds up one horrifying conclusion. In the six hours since the rains have ceased, a human is walked up to the ship, stood outside the main hatch, then vanished. My best case scenario is that the human retract the footsteps extremely precisely, walking backwards through their footprints, then leapt into a tree and disappeared.

Otherwise, where did they go? Are they invisible?

“Still standing within stones through the ship's main hatch?”

They were to knock, I wouldn't let them in. Now what am I supposed to do? The hatch is unlocked. There's no manual override from outside. The ship wasn't designed for EVAs in space.

And there was never a reason for the hatch to be shut on planet.

Except I've closed them and told the ship to treat outside as a vacuum because I didn't want anything getting in. Is the hatch really a barrier for a human that can evade detection by the ship's external sensors? The probes and my own two eyes? I have so many questions. What do they think of this ship?

Can they see me inside? Did they know I'm alone? My initial answers to these questions are probably not.

“They don't like the ship, maybe, and hopefully not.”

But it's not like I'm going to go there and ask them. I'm currently safe within the walls of the ship. Going outside takes away any advantage I currently hold.

Marooned with no help of rescue, trapped inside a ship on a planet I was never supposed to go to.

All alone except for an unintelligent ship computer may not sound like much. But I guess it's the only life I've got. Non-existence seems harder to achieve unless interesting at the moment. So, I'll keep things going for now. I've been hearing static on comms.

First time I was asleep and thought I'd dreamed it. The second time I was awake. I could have sworn I heard a voice in the static. The third time I could almost make out a word. It in interval where I just considered venturing back outside.

The fourth time static came it said, "Outside." Later it said, "Come outside." Now there's no static. Only requests to exit the ship. The man's more like it.

The voice demands have gone away. I thought it might be safe to go outside. I sent the probes around again to look for the voices to look for the footprint markers. There was nothing. Nothing that hadn't already been there.

Nothing except a ceaseless oaks. The line of footprints near the hatch is long-washed away. But the probes cut something on the hatch. Something I don't remember being there before. Claw marks.

Right where one would expect the manual emergency release that this ship doesn't have. How did they get there?

“Did the human leap to the door from their footprint line?”

Not touching the ground. Hanging from the door and scratching the ship's hull. Then leap back into the same footprints. The idea of that kind of precision is terrifying. Or perhaps they leapt up onto the ship, making no footprints, hanging down and clawing at the hatch.

Surely it would have heard them running around and topped the ship's hull. But all this speculation ignores another fact. Human hands could not make those scratch marks. Not without a weapon. Which leaves me with either humans that also have weapons waiting outside hiding.

Or another creature that possesses something sharp and leaves no trace of its presence beside footprints. Neither seems favorable. The probes find no evidence of the scratch marks anywhere, but the hatch. No footprints, no static voices, no claw marks now for a long, long time. I could ask the ship how long it's been, but I don't want to.

Maybe it's safe to go outside. Or maybe this is just an extraknar arsenal. Whoever they are. I almost went outside.

Just to be thorough.

Just to be paranoid, I sent the probes out one more time.

He sent them further than I usually send them, testing the limit to the batteries. They even lost one. Got five meters from the ship on its return. The footprints were the edges of the probes range. They were myriad.

There's no evidence that they're paying any attention to the ship anymore. No footprints are oriented in my direction. I could conclude from the date I have that I'm no longer interested in. They no longer care that I'm here. They're going about their mysterious invisible business. I could also conclude that it's deliberately being made to appear that I'm being ignored.

After all the footprints I see are at a range I usually don't send probes to. Maybe to turn the range of my probes from previous flights and determine that outside that bubble of my probes vision, they could walk freely. Yet, come let back to the beginnings to the underlying assumption of all of this. Are they human? Is there more than one of them?

What are they? How did they get here?

“Where are the other humans that used to be on the ship?”

Where am I? What's with all the oak trees? Where does all the water go? The probes can only give me so much information. None of which has answered any of these questions.

At some point I'll have to accept my ignorance or accept that I must go outside to satisfy my curiosity. Better to live in ignorance, safe inside the ship of plenty of food and water, or better to know what's out there. Humans so often answer the latter. Those that seal the oceans of earth, those that went to the moon, to Mars and beyond. All said it was better to know than to live safely.

I guess I did too, coming here. Better to know if a new planet could support humans. But this is the wrong planet. And I think that fundamentally altered the premise, the stakes. I said it was better to know coming here, but I'm on a ghost ship now.

“And I think that means I was probably wrong.”

The sky's gray everywhere. The wind hollows so loudly I can feel it inside the ship. This will be the worst storm in my tenure here. All footprints have been washed away. I can't see them.

Perhaps my mind will be put at ease. For now. There's a wealth of information in my fingertips. More books and movies than I could watch in ten lifetimes. There's so much it overwhelms me, and I consume none of it.

I exercise daily for sanity, while the look good hanging onto that is. On long runs I see the patterns of footprints in my mind. They haunt me, taunt me. I send the probes out and they see nothing. Find nothing.

Scratch marks have never changed.

I programmed the ship to run structural integrity checks, life support checks, and food and water status every day. Everything is always nominal. Supplies last for centuries after I die. It's all very boring.

I wish now the footprints would come back, which the claw marks would elongate, which for voices in the static was for knocking on the hatch anything to break up the monotony. Yet I cannot bring myself to leave.

I cannot bring myself to end it all.

“I'm depressed, and I think you will one day kill me.”

But the depression makes me not really care. After the massive gray sky totality storm, which blue so hard the ship rocked, there's been no rain. The oaks wither, the soil dries.

There could be no footprints now even if I went out and began to stomp around and dig my toes and heels. It's been so long that daily I wonder if I hallucinated all the footprints. Sphere depression can cause hallucinations after all. I have photographic evidence,

but I'm the only one that can verify it. If the hallucinations alter my perception of the photos, perhaps I have no evidence at all.

The problem is that today I see footprints.

I see them. Not with the probes, but with my own eyes, from inside the ship. There are real.

And those who left them would have had to be here recently.

The footprints weren't here yesterday.

“I sent the probes out after I saw the footprints to track where they'd go.”

The lines long, I'm not sure how they made them in such dry soil. But they're there. And they're clear. I was so engrossed and tracking the line of footprints that I forgot to double-check the structural integrity data until after I'd laid down for bed.

I got up and checked it. It was fine. But I grow careless as my fear and/or hallucinations intensify. The rain has returned. Daily.

Every day the footprints are washed away.

Every day they reappear in the exact same place with no sign of who or what left them. Up down over Liz, every day they are nauseatingly exactly the same. I've stopped sending out the probes. It wasn't a conscious decision. It just sort of happened.

Depression, I guess. Ignorance is bliss. The human mind is a funny thing. We really are adaptable. We can use to anything after a while.

I don't care about footprints anymore. I feel no fear. I went through a period. Pre-appity where I became angry. What else was doing this?

Human or otherwise? How dare they torment me? They know I'm here.

“What could possibly motivate them to do this?”

What we say could do is knock. But I'm past that now. Past almost everything. Except living. That I continue to do, despite my feelings toward that state of being.

Days running to nights running to days and finally the rain stopped.

This world drives in the footprint stop. Surely their makers still exist, but I no longer have a daily visual reminder of their presence. My head starts to clear. And it only slowly leaves my body. I even start sending out the probes again.

Not in search of footprints, but trying to figure out where all the water on this planet goes. I sacrifice a probe to investigate an interesting lead. Far away, a tree is sunk. In its wake, an opening. The probes fly in.

Water.

“For as long as the probe flew there beneath the ground, there was water.”

A world ocean, very completely out of sight, just beneath the oaks. They ran out of charge. They sent another, but it scarcely made it any further. Just more water. That probe ran out of charge, now arrests, wherever that ocean's depths may lie.

The shroud of depression is lifted with my discoveries. It's purpose. Not completely, but things are looking up. The days no longer feel like a washed hourglass. Seaselessly turning, each grain of sand counted. The footprints fades off completely into the background that I'd wonder if they ever existed.

Or whether they truly were something my mind invented to pass to time. That makes it all the more surprising when the ship's clacks on for hull breaches begins to alarm. I've locked myself into this room to record this, perhaps the end of my journey. The marker between Tudadiv and actual ghost ship, fear, returns to me now. I can hear footsteps in the corridors.

I have a familiar human-like ring to them, though the cadence is all wrong. Invirable. Like those I'm wearing. Yet still I see nothing on the camera feeds as the too fast irregular footsteps approach my holdout. Static crackles the life from every direction. I know there's a voice barrier there, telling me to come out, but I can't hear it over the pulsing of my heart in my ears.

Sound of footsteps on metal, the hype had streak of something sharp. Claws, perhaps digging along the walls of the corridor. I've heard that people's lives flash before their eyes right before they die. But all of them, my mind's eye conjures is death, tromping down the corridor and environments.

Death knocks. Hi, the police here.

“While the code is free, why is there a group of experts here?”

Every member of my opinion, even my producer was also a well-known coach, as the next team has been kicked out. You could all be a great player. The crypto is simply a bit of a nonsense.

Basically, the app is under the coins to trade, sell it, buy it, buy it, and come to the police or the app store.

No analysis. The hand-made crypto-wearing build for the Austrian PaoDurib solution is limited to hand-made as a cracker, and the central bank of Ireland is regulated by the central bank. Audubil is presented. Zwillinga is not able to handle the difference between the two of us. We don't need to worry about Nivihani and Nani. And as one of the members of the team, what do you think?

About the other. The house, e.e. you still have my own and my own praxis. And the therapy praxis? And what do you do with it? The new Audubil Original Hörbuch and what do you do with it?

Speaking of Karolina Herford, yet Tören no by Audubil. And next, after fatal crash strands him on an impossible highway median, where death is only temporary,

“a lonely survivor finally receives the first visitor he's had in years.”

From it or Keith Volk's an area to by need to fort, creepy presence, you've got nothing to worry about. You look like someone who played Frogger. As a kid, of course. I think most people are aged it.

It was an old school video game that only used arrow keys. I'm sure you'd remember. If you were breathing. The goal was to hop a frog across a busy freeway without getting squished. Three tries, then.

Game over. It's different here. Here. It never ends. And I don't try to cross the road anymore because it hurts too much.

Besides, there's plenty of room on the median. And when it rains, I stay mostly dry in my car. Even though it's upside down and missing some windows. Don't worry. You'll fit too.

I ended up here after a bad day at the office. I was tired and angry and driving way too fast with a grunge playlist blasting loud enough to drown out my thoughts.

I always found grunge therapeutic.

But that's probably a generational thing. I wonder what music you like. Maybe you'll tell me later. Music might be what I miss most. Run good days.

Sometimes catch notes from passing cars. The tune will stick in my head for hours. I used to hate it when that happened. But now it's a blessing like you. I hope.

You can't hear me, can you? Because that'd be awkward. I don't mean you're a blessing in a creepy stalker way. I'm so anyway. I reached toward the console to skip songs.

And that's when I clipped the car in front of me. I'm a bit fuzzy on what happened next. But the end result was waking up alone on this median. What had crossed my eyes and I couldn't open them. I can laugh about it now.

But I was so out of it that I wasn't even scared for the first few seconds. The smell of gasoline burned the back of my throat, making me cough and wretch. I had visions of exploding cars. You know, like in the movies. No, I forgot to mention that I was upside down.

“Have you ever vomited while hanging upside down with your eyes glued shut?”

Probably not. I doubt almost anyone has. It's really messed up. Especially when each breath is thick with fumes. And moments earlier you were cruising down the highway with sunglasses on and music pumping.

I never did find my glasses.

I couldn't help it though. A puke smeared the airbag and I even got some of my nose. That's when I panicked. You will too, I bet. And I'm not ashamed to admit it.

I flailed bruising my knuckles when they clocked the driver's side window. It hurt like a bitch. Then I peeled the crystallized gore and stomach mash from my eyes. Did you know that a gore is a triangular piece of land that separates highway lanes? It's like a road island, like our road island.

I learned that at work. Funny, right? Or maybe ironic considering where we're sitting?

Hey, I just realized something.

“I peeled away gore for my eyeballs while suspended upside down by my seat belt on a gore.”

No, that's funny, right? I'm not sure if it counts as irony though.

And I'll likely never know, which is definitely not funny.

Not funny at all. The weirdest part is that highway's wake up confused. No matter how hard I try to remember. So, after my initial freak out, I managed to pry open my eyes and have to look around. Everything was upside down, of course.

And I had to need that slimy airbag out of my face for a better view. It hasn't changed much since then. Cars drove by without slowing down. And when I managed to turn my head, I saw they were doing the same on both sides. And the vehicle I'd head was nowhere, like a disappeared.

My passenger window was busted in the ground beneath glittered.

“Every time a transport truck storm passed, a gust of dusty wind would blast through the hole,”

rocking the crumpled car and thumping my head into that stupid knuckle bruising window. Somehow, I had the brains to reach down to the buckle or up to the buckle. Anyway, I managed to unclip myself and fall. The second time it happened, I was better prepared and managed to more graceful the scent. Out the shattered window I slithered, careful about the glass.

I felt no pain from the crash or side from the throb and my knuckles and where my head had bumped the window. Flying sand and gravel stunned my face as I warmed into the sun. It was July and the pavement was hot, not cool like today. And my bare arms blistered as I dragged myself from the wreck. Careful or not, that I couldn't avoid all the glass and felt the sharp sting of a dozen tiny cuts.

And I was moaning, not full sobs mind you more like an extended croak that was hard to hear over the traffic. It's scary the first time. Don't worry though, I'll be here if you stop being dead.

The volume never changes by the way.

I tried to think of it as just really bad ambient music. It's either that or go completely mad. The number of drivers wasn't sane. They were practically bumper to bumper and everyone was speeding. And I lay on my stomach, looking up at the cars, the asphalt melting my skin.

Nobody stopped there even slowed down. Of the faces I could see, a single one even glanced my way. They never do. Like right now, you'd think that two of us sitting next to an overturned car would draw some sort of attention. But nope.

Then very carefully because I still wasn't sure how hurt I was. I brought myself up and leaned against the car. I sat there more or less in the same place you were propped up now. And watched as the afternoon commuters continued uninterrupted.

“I was in shock, I think, must've been because I didn't even question their behavior.”

Not at first. Stopping on the freeway's dangerous. Everyone knows that. By the way, you showed up at the right time.

Summers here are unrelenting, especially that first one.

There's nowhere to hide from the sun, except the overturned car. And I doubt you packed sunscreen. A winters are just as bad, worse actually, but for different reasons. This is my favorite season. Not too hot, not too cold.

The smell of gas grew finker while I waited for the police or an ambulance. Hell, even a tow truck would have been a welcome sight. Dry blood cracked when I puffed my cheeks and scabs pinch the corners of my eyes as I squinted to the glare of passing windows. It was like wearing a mud mask.

The kind of use it spas minus the cool cucumbers. To people actually put cucumbers on their eyes or that's a TV thing. That doesn't matter. We'll eventually need to do something about yours though, because one of them is missing. I've been so intent on looking for whites and sirens that I hadn't noticed my pants.

One leg was stained right red. It was still damp, but also cold and tacky. The fabric was thick with congealed blood. So thick that when I pinched it, it held the shape. You can still make out the stain now.

See? It's faded over time, and what wasn't bloody then is now filthy, so it's almost the same color. But you can still see it if you look closely. I undid my belt and rammed a hand on my pants. I rub my quads and thighs, my growing too, considering it looked like I wet myself with cherry coolade.

I kept yelling, "Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit!"

Over and over.

“I could barely hear my own voice above the sound of traffic.”

The jumping to my feet, I let the pants crumple around my ankles, not caring who saw. Then a gust caught me off guard in my feet tangled. I landed pretty hard with an outstretched arm and windstead up pop in my wrist, the same when I'd bruised on the window. You can still get hurt here. That's important to remember.

Anyway, everything below the belt was pasty white, not even a scratch. Something in the back of my brain was nagging at me. I'd managed to ignore it until then, but the contrast between sticky red pant legs and perfectly normal real legs, sent my head spinning. I couldn't get enough air even though my lungs were working overtime.

My heart slammed against my ribs harder and harder like they wanted out.

I couldn't even decide if I should pull up my pants or take them all the way off.

Then I noticed road dust sticking to the bloody fabric. That was it. I hollered until I was horse and weighed my arms until my injured wrist couldn't take it. No one stopped. No one slowed down.

No one even looked in my general direction. They're not real people. They can't be.

“That's what has me so concerned about your injuries.”

Every time I wake up, I'm covered in blood, but otherwise fine. You and the other hand are well past than need a medical attention. That road rash isn't nasty, by the way. But you're also not alive yet, then. Maybe never will be.

You're my first visitor, so this is new territory for both of us.

If I die, will you be waiting for me when I wake up? It'll be summer again, so might doubt it. Oh, I hope you don't mind, but I borrowed your phone. I found it in your pocket and tried unlocking it with your face. No luck, it's just as dead as mine was.

And it probably wouldn't have recognized you anyway. I lost my phone a long time ago. Well, less lost and more. I threw it at a passing car. My lost track of how long I'd been sitting there,

“pants around my ankles and head against the car.”

I'd given up trying to wave anyone down. The sunset was amazing. It's actually something I look forward to now. Every time I restart, the temperature was dropping. Not to an uncomfortable level, but enough that wearing pants

even blood soaked ones was better than bare legs. I leaned forward and took hold, but they were repulsively stiff, so I yanked them all the way off and tossed them to the side. Every time you wake up, you'll learn new things not to repeat. Taking off my pants was one of those lessons.

The wind grabbed hold and rolled my crusty cackies over the curb and into traffic. They vanished, of course. I was still new here, remember? Still learning the rules.

So, like an idiot, I marched over to the edge and leaned forward searching the gutter as one car after another blew past. Then a big rig approached. It was towing a wide load and I was looking the wrong direction.

It took off most of my head and I woke up in the car. Upside down and blinded all over again. My head was back though, good as new. But it's not something I'd recommend. So, yeah, I'm not sure what to make of that missing eye, if yours.

Or the very broken leg. I tried fixing it as best as I could before dragging you up against the car, but some of the bones still poking out below your skirt and it's too sharp to push back in. Sorry about that.

This place is just, I don't know, relentless. The wind never stops. It shifts with traffic coming at you from different angles. Doesn't matter which way you face, dust gets in your eyes regardless. It's like trying to dodge smoke from a campfire.

But forever, you might want to cut your hair, if you wake up, I mean. The wind will just whip it around and drive you crazy. It's too bad, I like your hair. If I had something to tie it back, I would. Really rain to watch the gunk out though, so, that'll have to wait.

Cunning it'll be tricky, I don't have scissors, I don't even have a knife. But if we're careful, sometimes there are shards of glass near the curb that might work. Broken bottle stuff like that. Just need to watch for cars. They'll aim at you if they can.

That said, if you do reach into traffic, the safest spots are where the roads meet. It took me a while to figure that out.

You can't see it, considering your condition at all, but the roads come out of us from three directions. Former triangle. I've tried crossing so many times.

“I've tried crossing during the day, I've tried crossing at night.”

I've even tried tricking them by pretending to cross at one side, then quickly sprinting the opposite direction. I end up hamperger every time. I've been squished, splattered, decapitated, balanced hood to hood like a pinball. In one time, I even got dragged behind a minivan, like being held against a belt sander, but worse. I think they did that on purpose.

Either way, message received. Don't try it, you'll die then wake up alone. We'll both be alone, besides getting hit, really freaking hurts. I also tried stepping off each point to tight rope walk the center line. I thought if I made it far enough, I might get this some sort of intersection.

Maybe I could find a way out. Scary as hell. I'll tell you that.

Cars and trucks ripping past on both sides, but you can only look one way, so there's always someone rushing up from behind.

Just a steady room as they whip past, making air pockets that burst, knocking you into uncoming lanes. One time, I made it pretty far and could see a bridge in the distance. Just an overpass, but I thought if I could get to it, maybe there'd be a way to climb out. The cars knew though. I'm sure they did.

“The closer I got to the bridge, the closer the vehicles drove to the center line.”

I had to crawl to avoid the side mirrors. It's the only time they've ever honked. Every single car laid on their horn at once. Not that it mattered. A school bus served into me as soon as they realized I was safe.

I saw your crash by the way. Well, sort of. In all the time I've been here, that's the only time the noise stopped. Just a brief second. But the jolt of it.

The sudden silence hit like a jump scare. You know that feeling? Were your whole chest just seizes up? The wind too, at constant shifting of direction. Poof.

Nothing. Goosebumps. Big time. Anyway, I didn't witness the actual collision because even though the wind in the noise changed, none of the car stopped moving.

Strange, right? Tires screeched, followed by the crunch of metal. I shrieked and, honestly, who wouldn't? Well, things considered. My hand snapped toward the sounded. I caught you mid-bounce as you ragged all across the pavement,

sliding to a stop at my feet. Chest down, face up, you're one good eye staring at the blue sky. How spare you the details of your other socket? Then, without missing a beat, everything returned to normal. The noise, the wind, everything.

It was like nothing happened. Well, except for the fact that a dead lady was lying at my feet. And, oh, friends, you look like a bloody pretzel. Probably should have worn your seat belt. What the?

The road rash is gone. I got up to stretch my legs for a few minutes. When I came back, your skin looked brand-spankin' new. Well, dirty, and there's dried blood in the creases, but still new. That means you're healing. Same as me.

Oh, I don't know if that means you can hear me or not. Probably not. Anyway, just in case, I'm going to lay you down now, okay? Make you feel more comfortable? All right, I wasn't sure if this would really happen.

I wonder how long it'll take. I've never actually seen it, of course.

I gave you my shirt as a pillow. I hope that's okay. Sorry about the smell. If you can't smell it, that is. Okay, okay. Oh, boy.

“You really might wake up? There's still so many things you need to know.”

Like, like, how if you try to survive the winter, it feels like frostbite the entire time, but it won't kill you. You just spend three months in unrelenting, horrible pain. The cold gets inside you, like your bones are ice. Bending my arms felt like tendons would snap.

For weeks, I'd lay curled up in the car. I only did it once, and I can't survive another winter. Not by myself, at least, but here you are. Just in time for my birthday, or close enough. I was born in April, and it feels like April now, don't you think?

Actually, when you wake up, you'll probably remember exactly what day it is.

This will be the first birthday I've had in years.

But what'll happen if I die again? I can't be alone anymore. You, what'll happen to you? Oh, shit! If you can hear me, what you might've just felt was your leg bone sucking itself back inside the skin

This is incredible.

“Okay, we have to promise each other, no crossing the road, no dying, no matter what.”

Okay, it's too risky. You can't die. I won't let you. Starting over is not an option. What else? Oh, and you won't need to eat or drink or go to the bathroom. It's kind of good and bad.

I mean, I never feel hungry, but I also never get to eat cake.

Probably for the best considering the lack of food. We don't sleep either. It's impossible. And I never feel tired. You can lay down with your eyes closed, but nothing happens. There's not a lot to do here, so the days can feel long.

Sometimes I pass the time counting sports cars or antiques. That's always neat, especially because the really old ones travel way faster than they should be able to. It'll be real nice to have someone, oh my god. What the hell? Your head just spun around, like in a circle.

And I heard your neck bone snapping.

“But I think it was a good kind of snapping, because now your neck looks less broken.”

Less bendy. I don't know how better to describe it. It looks fixed though.

I don't know if this is hell, the matrix or the multi-first.

Holy crap! You're missing eye just popped in. But I'm so happy you're here. Hello? Can you hear me?

You've been in a car accident. Don't worry. Everything will be fine. [music] And finally, a best-for-visit to an enigmatic doctor

leaves one patient forever changed, drawn into a series of increasingly unsettling nights, where forgotten memories conceal an impossible truth. For me to see Sarah strafford and narrowed by J.V. Hampton Bansam. Creepy Presence? Don't roam the night.

“There is a doctor's office, you should pray, you never visit.”

Under a gaslight lamp stands an oak door. The brownstone is in a respectable neighborhood, so you ignore your growing foreboding. You only register the nausea that sent you here. A thin man answers your knocks. The doctor greets you in a thick housecoat,

made of green velvet, and glasses that seem to catch the light at every angle, to obscure his eyes. By now, the world is spinning around you. Your primary doctor gave you his address, and insisted you see him immediately.

The tone and urgency with which your doctor spoke these instructions, now feel wrong as the young doctor leads you into your spouse down a hallway, with red peeling wallpaper. Lucky your spouse is beside you, as the doctor straps you down to the gurney,

and inserts a needle under your skin. Lucky, because you would scream at the pain if you were alone. You'll be receiving a blood transfusion tonight.

It's always night in this office.

As the new blood is pumping through your veins, the doctor will leave the room and lead your spouse to his little office. Memories come back of teeth covered in blood, touching your neck. You tried to rub the spot where you could have sworn there was a bite mark. But you've forgotten that the doctor strapped your arms down,

so you can't move to examine yourself. It hurts even more to struggle against your bindings. It feels like hours till the transfusion is over. Really, it took around 45 minutes. The doctor has this down perfectly.

He's done it many times and plans to perform the treatment hundreds of times more. Your spouse appears behind you, looking shaken. This treatment costs much more than you'd assumed. Regardless, your partner paid up and is leading you out the door as you lean against them.

Those memories of the teeth will fade with time. You will forget this night and pay the bill, not realizing you could have ignored it with little consequence.

The sunlight through your windows may as well be rocked thrown at your head. You yell at your spouse to close the curtains.

“How could they leave the curtains open when they know you've been sick?”

They apologize profusely and shut them tight. As soon as the dark engulfs you, the headache disappears.

In fact, now you've never felt better and you're ravenous.

You had downstairs shutting the shades and closing off lights as you go. Darkness trails you. Every morsel of food you can find in your kitchen, you put onto the dining room table. None of it looks appetizing.

Yet you're hung or nauseous at you, and you force yourself to eat an apple. You rearrange your kitchen, and your spouse gaux at you as you do this for hours. They keep asking why you're reorganizing things

as you take little nibbles of your fruit. There's no explanation for it.

“All you know is you need to reorganize the entire house right this second.”

Next you move to your living room, then your bathroom, and eventually your bedroom. Your spouse trails behind you, muttering the entire time that you've lost your mind,

and asking if they can help in some way. It doesn't matter. You've too much excess energy, and allowed buzzing in your brain that's only relieved by touching every object you own

and finding a new place for it. In just a day, you've gone through your entire house. The urge to reorganize and deep clean has not left you.

With a third apple to nibble in hand,

you head out. It's dark now,

“and your spouse is questioning why you must leave at this late hour.”

There's no answer you can give, so you tell them you're going for a walk, or running an errand, or meeting a friend at the pub. It doesn't matter what your excuse is.

All they need to know is you're going out alone. You stalk the streets, still hungry with an insatiable desire to organize and touch everything. Maybe there's a library where you can grow up the books, or a clothing store where you can rub your cheeks against exotic fabrics.

Something must be open for you to roam, explore, and touch. Your skin is itchy. The only relief will be to distract yourself with an alien texture. That's when she appears. The doctor's nurse.

Her uniform is immaculately white. Her four-pointed hat sits like a halo around her short, cropped hair. Everything about her is perfect and precise. Save her red lips. Red is smudge across her face,

and deeper than any rouge should be. Your eyes meet, and her lips part, revealing teeth drenched in the same shade.

She throws her arms open and coos that she's finally found you.

That's when you notice your veins have turned thick and blue, like worms undulating under your skin. They throb painfully. You press down on them. They feel in gorge.

The nurse licks her lips at this gesture, and offers you some relief. Just bend your neck towards her to reveal a nice bear spot. There's a small mark there,

but that's all right. That's exactly what she wanted to see. You bend your neck, and she touches those bloody teeth to the fresh wound. Then, nothing.

You wake up at home. The light hurts less, but it still hurts. Your spouse watches you rarely as you go through the kitchen once more,

looking for an apple.

You settle for a banana that's half brown. The urge to organize is there, but less.

“You find a junk drawer that you somehow missed.”

Your spouse shakes their head, unsure how to help you. Tonight,

they leave first for the pub,

so you don't have to make an excuse while you leave in the dead of night. While walking the city streets, searching for a place to roam and touch, you look down at your veins.

They seem to be squirming under your skin. The movement is less urgent this time, but still obvious. And painful, like a slow burning itch

that makes your entire body need to move to get it out. When the nurse appears with her arms stretch towards you, you run to her.

As her arms wrap around you,

right before your vision goes black, the nurse whispers it's too bad, you'll last just one more night. You wake up in your bed. Your spouse isn't there,

and the sun only hurts a little, likely a hangover. Did you drink last night? You can't remember, yet you must have.

You met someone you desperately want to see again. Did you cheat on your spouse? You're not sure, and you're more afraid that you don't care. Oddly,

you stare down at the veins on your wrist. Are they moving slightly? No, your vision must be blurry from the hangover. Will this night be the same? All you know is,

“there is someone you must meet with after the sun sets.”

You will walk through the day in a fog. Your spouse left early. They can't deal with you in this state.

The first step onto the cobblestone streets is a blur.

You're swaying from side to side, and should really go home. But you need to find this person again, and see them one last time. She's standing under the spotlight of a street lamp.

The white of her nurse gown seems to glow. Her red lips brown at you, and she holds her arms close to her side. Don't come near, she murmurs. Your time is up sooner than expected.

You can't join her. That can't be right. Why won't she welcome you into her arms? You fall to your knees, begging her to let you join her.

“It's all consuming how much you desire to stay by her side.”

No, your journey ends here. Stop begging. It's unbecoming. She tells you. You grab at the bottom of her gown,

and she slaps your hand away. Three nights you were a movable feast. Now you're back to an ant. Be grateful for walking the edges of transcendence. Perhaps you'll meet in another life.

You reach for her in a last desperate attempt. Her fingers snap and your vision dims. The ground meets your body. You fall into a deep sleep. The next morning,

you wake up to your spouse, shaking you. Others are watching. You've spent the night sleeping on the street. Your spouse is frantic, asking you what happened. There's no answer you can give that makes sense.

The memories slip through your fingers like sand. The two of you push through the crowd and make your way home. Even as your life goes back to routine. The desire for something grander than this life feels like a hole in you. The absence of memory, a nagging itch.

Next time you pass the strange doctor's door,

And you'll wonder why this place fills you with longing.

There's one thing you know for sure.

“You kissed the edges of greatness beyond yourself and your imagination.”

When the sting of craving becomes overwhelming,

you roam the night in search of more. For more information on this podcast, including how to submit your own story for consideration,

please visit CreepyPard.com.

“You can also follow us at CreepyPard on social media and YouTube.”

All stories told on this podcast are done so through creative comments share a like like something, or with written consent from the authors. No portion of this podcast may be rebroadcast or otherwise distributed without the express written consent of the CreepyPard cast production team and the story's author. Hello, my name is Oliver Polak and you best.

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