Shadow Mirror

This is creepy.

“A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepy pastors and urban legends in the world.”

Whether these stories truly happened, or while simply fabrication is for you to decide. These stories made in teen graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. Everyone, please take a moment with me while I welcome and thank new patrons. Michelle Jarvis, Natalie Contra, Gregorius of Pumpsk,

devour of pop-tarts, victor of many battles, my leash, rubber Campbell, and mikrob. And now a special added thank you to our five-year or more Patreon supporters. Uncomfortable dark horror, Elvyn W. Foley Jr. Ryan Barracko, Alicia Leskowski,

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Bunnies, Jenna Ullmana Reyes, Robert Moy, Julie Knight, the weekend warrior, and elicifer. I know, we have a lot of long-time supporters and it constantly humbles me to see not only the new patrons who join but the people who stuck with us over the years, so thank you. As a reward for supporting us, all patrons get their shout out and early commercial free access to all our Sunday, Wednesday, and special event stories, like the rapidly approaching 31

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by creator John Sachs and delivers a cinematic core experience for the immersive sound design and unforgettable storytelling. Whether you're a lifelong horror fan or just looking for your next obsession, sadistic offers chilling standalone tales and a growing world of interconnected mysteries. New episodes are released regularly, with an ever-expanding library waiting to keep you up at night.

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left on her. I've also put the link in today's show description. Okay, first up. A young woman

in her Instagram parents isolated house, along with one chilling rule, never looked into the old hallway

mirror after sunset. From writer Jonathan Farrow and her editor by Michelle Cane, creepy presence, shadow mirror. It's just a mirror. The phrase echoed in a Lisa Smith's mind every time her gaze fell on the blackened glass, hanging in the long hallway in her grandparents' house. The mirror was nearly her height. Its opaque surface barely reflecting the room's outlines. While the carved wooden frame, with its twisted, nodded Gothic motifs,

wore the marks of time and the dust accumulated over the years. No one has seemed had ever bothered to clean it. Her grandmother shortly before passing away, had left her only one enigmatic instruction. Do not remove it. Ever. For no reason and above all, do not look at it after sunset.

Lisa had never dared to ask why, and perhaps she would never have the courage to find out.

Now, with her grandparents gone and the decaying house inherited, Lisa was forced to live alongside that silent and settling presence. She spent her days between the desk and dusty shelves, restoring old books with the patience of someone who knows that every gesture matters, while the sun barely filtered through the darkened windows. The idea of staying here for a few months just long enough to get everything in order

and prepare the house for sale didn't disturb her. At least not yet.

The first week passed in an almost unreal silence, broken only by the creeks of the old wooden

floors and the distant moan of rusty pipes. Tiny, almost imperceptible sounds yet enough to fill

the product of the house's advanced age. Yet every night, when she had to pass the mirror in the

“hallway to reach the bathroom, something made her hesitate. The reflection in the mirror moved with”

a slight delay. Half a second perhaps, almost imperceptible interval but enough to make her skin crawl.

And in that suspended moment, her reflected face seemed to watch her. As if it were no longer a simple image but a living presence trying to imitate her, or perhaps figure out how. Night after night that feeling grew, creeping into Lisa's thoughts and leaving a trail of an ease that followed her until dawn. When evening driven by an impulse, Lisa stopped in front of the mirror. She studied it carefully, trying to determine whether

fatigue or her imagination were playing tricks on her. Behind her in the hallway, there was

“only the slightly open living room door, the small table with its chipped face and dust gathering”

in the corners. Nothing unusual, at least in the real world. But in the mirror, everything appeared

different. The vase was intact, gleaming as if time had never touched it. And the flower she

had thrown away two days earlier, wilted in lifeless, now bloomed in vibrant colors. Its petals glossy and so vivid, they seemed to radiate their own light as shiver ran down her spine. It's just your imagination. She murmured at loud trying to convince herself. Then she turned, walked slowly back to the bedroom, and closed the door behind her, trying to leave that vision behind. But that night, sleep betrayed her.

She dreamt of the hallway. The long hallway illuminated by the flickering lights of the dusty chandelier. The mirrors stood before her, imposing and silent. But something had changed. Her reflection was smiley, and she was not. Her reflections mouth curved into a disturbing smile that did not belong to her. Alisa awoke with a start. Her heart pounding, her skin covered in a cold sweat, aware that something in the mirror was waiting, studying her. Every night,

the mirror changed, imperceptibly at first. Small details, the reflection seemed darker.

The contours blurred as if a thin veil filtered the light. Her face appeared slightly tilted with features that did not fully belong to her. Alisa tried to convince herself that it was just fatigue, confused dreams, her mind playing tricks on her. But as the days passed, the alterations became more evident. Objects that did not exist in reality materialized in the mirror, and antique candelobrum with untouched candles, a carved piece of furniture in Baroque lines

that no one had ever owned in this house. Every time she tried to touch them or look through them, the glass showed only the emptiness of the real hallway, leaving her with the sensation of being observed by something that did not belong to the normal world. And then came the voices, not understandable words, barely whispered, amelotic and disturbing flow, yet calling her, insinuating themselves and to her thoughts and vibrating her nerves to the bone. That night,

exhausted from insomnia with her nerves frayed, she could no longer hold back. Her hands trembling

“in her voice broken with anguish, she shouted into the hallways darkness. What do you want from me?”

The sound echoed off the peeling walls, and the mirror motionless and impenetrable, did not answer. Yet she felt more than ever the weight of its gaze, a silent and insidious observation that seemed to dig into her mind. For a moment, everything seemed to freeze. The very air seemed to hold its breath, and the hallway shrouded in half-light became strangely unreal. Then the mirror's glass began to change. A thin, almost liquid mist slowly spread,

With her hand trembling uncontrollably, a Lisa approached and almost instinctively traced a word

“on the condensation. Why? Her breath condensed into tiny rivulets beneath her fingertips,”

and each letter seemed to dissolve, as soon as it was formed. On the other side of the glass, as if an invisible entity wanted to answer her. A word slowly appeared, clear and scratched into the mist in all caps. Memories, Lisa jumped, her heart hammering in her chest. She spun around searching the room for any sign of presence, but everything was still. From that moment, Lisa's dreams became disturbingly vivid. They were no longer mere fragments of nocturnal thoughts,

but parallel worlds seemingly built to confuse her. Rooms of the house that did not exist,

“endless corridors that led nowhere. Door sealed yet filtering a reddish light,”

worm and sinister had the same time, and always at the center of it all. The mirror. Motionless,

dominant as if observing her every move even in sleep. One evening returning from the bathroom, she saw a flickering light in the hallway reveal something strangely familiar yet deeply unsettling. The living room door in the reflection of the mirror was a jar. She turned slowly, cautiously, her eyes scrutinizing every detail. In reality, the door was perfectly closed. She stepped forward carefully, holding her breath each step a precarious balance between courage

“and fear, as if the slightest mistake could bring everything crashing down. Her hand reached”

toward the glass, hesitant, trembling. As soon as her fingers brush the surface, the mirror

quivered under her touch, like water stirred by invisible hands, and then the impossible. Her hand sink in. There was no solid wood behind the glass, no barrier, only a liquid, cold, and unsettling resistance, pulling her inward, as if the mirror itself wanted to engulf her into a world beyond reality. Helyce screamed, the sound choked by the fear tightening her throat, and withdrew her hand with desperate force. Her skin was icy and damp, and a sharp sulfur

smell clung to her nose and mouth, making her cough. She looked at her palm and arm. The skin was stained, covered in a black, viscous substance, as if something monstrous had spilled from a nightmare, and left its mark on the real world. The portal was open, and the mirror was no longer a mere object. It was a window into another dimension, alive and hostile, ready to invade her reality. In the days that followed, Elisa tried to find a way to ignore it. She barricaded the mirror

with furniture, blankets and tape, hoping to seal its power. She slept upstairs, surrounded by sheets and cushions, but the relief was short-lived. In her dreams the mirror appeared again, more alive and menacing than ever, and then on the seventh day, it happened. A red light filtered through the mirror's glass, pulsating and alive. It was not a reflection, not a trick of lamps or flickering lights. It was fire, primordial and untamable, illuminating the hallway, with unsettling flashes

and sudden heat. The floor beneath Elisa's feet began to vibrate, rippling slightly, as if the house itself were breathing heavily, an ancient organism awakening after centuries of silence. The walls once cold and stale oozed moisture, black drops dripping slowly, like diluted blood, leaving dark streaks on the cracked old plaster. The air was thick, laid in with accurate, metallic smells. The mirror opened. No distinct being appeared, no

As if the very air had condensed into a living form, its contours were uncertain, blurred,

“dissolving into the surrounding environment, like pulsating, dirty mist.”

Where eyes should have been, there were two white sockets, empty, cold, and devoid of any pupil or iris, yet they saw. Elisa felt a gaze that penetrated beyond flesh into the bones scrutinizing every thought. The figure advanced slowly, silently. Each step making the world around her vibrate, as if reality itself bent under the weight of its presence. The hallway felt narrow, the air heavy, and the smell of sulfur and smoke saturated

every pore of her skin. It spoke not, nor made any gesture. It moved with an unnatural calm,

“each silent step leaving no creek on the floor, as if the house itself recognized it as part of”

its shadow. It passed slowly by Elisa, completely ignoring her, as if she did not exist. It entered the kitchen, sat in the chair nearest the window, and remained there, motionless, waiting,

like a patient predator. Driven by terror, Elisa finally found the strength to flee,

she ran into the woods screaming with all the voice she had. But the world seemed to death. No one hurt her. The silence around her was absolute, and the nocturnal sounds of nature seemed too distant to reassure. Trimbling and filthy, she took refuge among the trees and

“tilled on. When she returned to the house, the rising sun filtered through the branches,”

bringing it cold and certain light. The creature was gone, but the marks of its passage were clear and disturbing. On the mirror, written in blood, appeared a terrible phrase. One has entered, another must leave. Elisa approached her breath ragged and realized with horror that her reflection in the mirror was no longer her own. The figure watching her from the other side had changed, it deformed, alive with the will of its own. That night,

terror gave way to a desperate decision. She could no longer run. She had to know to understand what blade beyond that glass, even at the cost of her life. She took a torch and the backpack with the essentials, then stepped into the hallway. The portals stood there, motionless and silent, like an ancient guardian waiting for centuries. Elisa drew a deep breath, gripped the torch with trembling hands, and prepared to cross the threshold between the

world she knew, and the unknown. One has entered, one must leave. Those words echoed in Elisa's mind, a relentless obsessive echo, who had entered, who had already crossed the threshold of that portal. She inhaled deeply, trying to steady her trembling hands, and stretched her arm toward the mirror's surface. The glass reacted immediately. It rippled under her touch, warm and viscous, as if it were a living substance, ready to swallow her. A sickly nauseating smell burned her nostrils,

seeping down her throat and forcing her to cough. With a hesitant step, she entered the portal, then another. Her heart pounded her knees shook, yet she did not stop until her entire body was

beyond the glass, immersed in a world she could never have imagined. The dimension was a

parody of reality. The house seemed familiar yet everything was corrupted and twisted. The room she knew were ruined by centuries of decay, shrouded in a darkness that seemed to have a life of its own. The walls wept congealed blood, dripping in dark, foul-smelling rivulets. The floor was a macabre mosaic of broken bones and long wet hair, as if the history of countless tragedies were

now should screaming, deformed faces, twisted into expressions of terror and pain. Yet,

“among those tormented faces, at least a recognized one in particular. It was hers, or at least a”

version of herself, contorted and indistorted, with eyes that stared at her from within the canvas, watching her with an unsettling awareness. A shiver ran down her spine. There was no longer any distinction between her and her reflection, between reality and horror. And the silence so dense and suffocating made her perceive every drop of congealed blood and every breath of the corrupted house

as if it were the very heartbeat of the world beyond the mirror. In the living room, the creature

sat in an armchair made of intertwined bodies, a grotesque, shapeless mass that seemed to breathe. The white empty eyes yet deeply aware, fixed on Alyssa. And for a moment, the sensation of being observed in every fiber of her body paralyzed her, then as if in a gesture of macabre courtesy, the shape turned to her and offered a smile. "Welcome home," it said. The voice resonating in Alyssa's mind, without passing through the creature's lips. She trembled, trying to gather enough

courage to speak. "Who? Who are you?" Her voice came out broken, almost a shatter to whisper.

“"It is not important," who I am. The shape replied, "It's presence filled with unnatural calm.”

What matters is who you are." I, Alyssa, stammered, her heart hammering in her chest. I just want to go back to how it was before. The creature tilted its head slowly as if peering into the depths of her soul, reading every fear and every desire. Then choose. With a smooth calm gesture of its hand, it indicated the mirror in the center of the room. Alyssa approached hesitantly, her breath shallow, and looked

inside. The real house was reflected, orderly and familiar. Something was not as she remembered.

“The rooms were the same, but the furniture appeared slightly distorted, and and fleeting shadows”

moved along the walls. On the sofa a figure sat motionless. It was her. Or at least it seemed so. The eyes were completely black, bottomless pits that sucked in the light and every trace of familiarity. A cruel smile twisted its lips, and in its hands it clutched a photograph. Alyssa and her parents frozen in a happy moment. Now trapped in the horror of this distorted copy of reality. If you return, the creature said, "It's voice resonating in Alyssa's mind,

sharp as a razor." "You will take its place, and it will take yours."

But know this. Whoever leaves, never comes back. The world beyond the mirror did not obey the rules of

reality. Time flow distortedly, hours stretched in today's minutes shattered into eternity. Voice has repeated in loops, always the same, like a chorus of ghost trapped in an endless symphony. Each room had its own rules. The floor could turn to liquid. The walls pulsed like lungs. The light changed an intensity in color for no reason. There was no logic. Only the harrowing awareness that every action she took would be observed, judged, and manipulated.

Desperately, Alyssa sought an anchor to reality. With hands dirty from dust and plastered she wrote words and phrases on the walls, trying to tether herself to the real world. It's not real. It's not real. She repeated the obsessive mantra, like a fragile prayer against the chaos surrounding her. But each word each phrase painstakingly traced, slowly vanished into the wall,

in languages, at least in ever studied. Symbols and letters that seemed to live on their own.

“And yet, she understood them. The words flow through her mind as if they were part of an”

ancestral knowledge, teaching her secrets she never wanted to know. Each sentence etched into her

soul, making the thin barrier between reason and madness waver. Then one day she saw it. In the corner of the dark hallway, curled up like a frightened child. There was something. It was not human, not entirely alien either. Every time at least looked at it, the line between what was real and what belonged to the nightmare, growth in her, and her heart hammered in her temples. The creature was thin and fragile, almost ethereal, with translucent skin that looked like

melted wax left to cool in the sun. Through the pale surface, trembling veins and muscles were visible and unsettling geography that spoke of suffering. The face vaguely human was distorted by a horrific detail. Its mouth was sewn shut with dark threads pulled so deep into the cheeks that speech was impossible. Its breathing was uneven, labored. Each inhalation and act of pain that made the air around it vibrate. It made no sound spoke, no words. It merely raised a thin

“cold hand toward her. In its palm lay a rested, twisted key, encrusted and marked by years”

of neglect. At least hesitated. Her heart pounding so violently it felt as if it might burst. The key radiated as strange energy, a silent call that made her feel both terror and irresistible curiosity at once, trembling. She reached out and took it. The contact with the cold metal made her whole body shiver. The world around her seemed to pause, as if the hallway in the house itself were holding their breath, waiting for what was to come. What is this? At least asked her voice broken by anxiety

and fear. The creature tilted its head and with a slow, measured gesture, indicated the mirror she

had seen on the first night, set in a frame that seemed alive, made of pulsating flesh and intertwined

muscles. At least it immediately understood that she had a choice. She could cross it, perhaps find answers, perhaps save herself. Yet the price was clear. If she returned, someone, someone else, would take her place. And perhaps it was not the first time this had happened. The creature said nothing, but his empty penetrating gaze was enough to plant doubts that children. How many had been trapped? How many had seen their own reflection come to life and replace them? Step by step with

“no hope of escape, she mustered her courage, inserted the key into the mirror and stepped across”

the threshold. When she returned to the real world, everything seemed normal. Something was off. The house was too clean. Every piece of furniture gleamed as if freshly polished.

Objects were out of place, and the photographs on the walls showed her alongside people she had never

seen. A husband with familiar yet unknown features. Two children smiling innocently as if they had always been a part of her life. A family that never existed. She went outside trying to understand what happened. Everything looked the same yet different. People greeted her but with names that were not hers. Good morning, Mrs. Calderon. How are the twins? Terror gripped her stomach. She ran back home and looked in the hallway mirror, and there she saw it. herself, the real Alyssa on the other side

of the glass, trapped screaming clawing at the surface with the desperate hands, but her voice could

her, the creature now bearing her face, smiled. One has left, another has stayed. It reached into the hallway and with the silent gesture, extinguished the light, and the darkness the house seemed to hold its breath, as if the entire building were alive and aware. Then slowly, the doors closed, the windows darkened, and everything drew in on itself. The silence had become absolutely and oppressive. Reality and its reflection once separate were now two mirrored worlds,

eternally bound, with one certainty, whoever enters the mirror never returns, and whoever leaves

“carries a secret they can ever forget. The following nights were an endless torment,”

Alyssa, or rather the creature that resembled her, began to speak to itself, but not with the voice of a living person. From its mouth came broken words, overlapping voices, sometimes in lost and forgotten languages, other times indistorted echoes from the world beyond the mirror, sounds that seemed to vibrate in the skin and bones of anyone who listened, yet no one among the figures

of her new life seemed to notice. Her false children hugged her tenderly, unaware, her husband

kissed her, kind and affectionate, as if nothing had changed. Everything was immersed in a perfect orderly performance, yet profoundly unsettling, but in the absolute silence, when the flickering light of the lamps went out, and the noise assessed, someone, or something, wept behind the walls, a faint, desperate lament that seemed to come from the very soul of the house. One night, driven by an inexplicable impulse, the false Alyssa went down to the cellar. There, hidden in a corner,

“was a door she had never noticed, as if the house wanted to reveal a secret to her.”

Behind it, open a small ancient study, steeped in dust and the silence of centuries. The furniture was covered with yellowed sheets, shelves lined with dusty tones, and in the center, atop a dark wooden desk, lay a leather-bound diary. The name engraved on it was clear. "F" called her on, the diary gave off a sharp smell of leather and mold, as if it contained not only words but trapped memories and forgotten lives. Inside were dense notes, intricate drawings,

and iningmatic formulas, scribbled that seemed to oscillate between science and magic.

“On every page, a recurring phrase, mirrors do not reflect. They wait. As the creature, now,”

inhabiting Alyssa's body, leafed through it, it finally understood the truth. The mirror was not a simple portal. It was a sentinel, a gateway that opened cyclically. Every 25 years, allow a one-consciousness to replace another, but there was one dreadful condition. The original consciousness had to remain alive, trapped, condemned to watch his own life being supplanted by the shadow of another. The story unfolded in terrible cycles. It had happened

in 1897, 1922 and 1947. Every 25 years, the portal opened and something was always out of place.

House is shifted by females, names on gravestone's change, and some children were born with severe matformations. The false Alyssa snapped the diary shut. Her hands shook, but she was not alone. An invisible presence seemed to watch her, flipping through the pages with her. These sensation was palpable, a shiver running down her spine, making her perceive with horror. That anyone who crossed that portal was never truly alone, and as the room's silence grithic,

the creature realized the cycle was far from over. Something was waiting for her, and she herself

and who she was meant to be. A mirror on the wall began to tremble. It's surface rippling

“like water stirred by invisible hands. The flickering light of the lamp's cast distorted reflections,”

and from the glass emerged a scream. The real Alyssa shouted, and for the first time her voice

was heard clearly, powerful, like thunder tearing through the night. It is not over! The following night,

the sky turned red. It was not a sunset, but a warning. A blood red hue spread across the clouds, like a menacing veil, filling the air with an electric palpable tension. All the mirrors in the house began to bleed. The reflective surfaces, once still in silent, now oozed with dark liquid, leaving trails on the floor and seeming to breathe as if alive. The children no longer slept.

“They remained motionless, eyes wide in the dark, staring into the void with unnatural awareness,”

as if they were seeing beyond reality trapped between two worlds. The creature's husband began to lose pieces of his skin. Small strips falling like dust and the silence. Reality itself

seemed to unravel around them, bending and corrupting under the weight of a cycle that had never truly

stopped. And this time is seem to want more. The real Alyssa trapped behind the glass was growing. Every day her consciousness strengthened, adapting to that forced existence, and to frustration and pain transformed into pure power. And now, she was the one claiming

“what had been taken from her. The false Alyssa began to decay. First, her hair fell in”

brittle black clumps, then her nails crumbled, cracked like dry bones. And finally, her smile itself

dissolved, leaving her face expressionless and gaunt. She tried to flee, but all the mirrors in the

house had closed, sealed like prisons. There was no way back. One thing was certain. One had to leave, and one had to remain. And the dead of night, a dense and oppressive silence enveloped the house. The real Alyssa, with a strength no human body could hold, broke the glass from within. No hands or tools were needed. Her will, fueled by pain and the injustice she had endured, was enough. The false children unchanged until that moment,

screamed in a harrowing chorus and turned into statues of stone, motionless and silent. The creature's husband exploded into a whirlwind of black butterflies that flew away like dark ash, leaving only emptiness. The walls tore open revealing not brick or wood, but millions of wide open eyes. And then the silence so deep it seemed to swallow every breath. The house, reality, the mirrors, all had stopped. Staying or leaving was no longer a choice. The cycle had ended.

By morning, the house was empty. No trace of the calderon family remained, as if they had dissolved into nothingness. The only sign of their presence was the mirrors. Everywhere, in every room, covered with black sheets, sealed with wax and blood like cursed relics. All except one. In the hallway by the entrance, one mirror remained uncovered. The reflective surface gleamed in the morning light, still and silent. But inside, something moved, a figure.

The real, Alyssa. Years later, the house changed owners. No one ever learned anything about the calderon family. Jocuments were confused, signatures erased by time. The new tenant was a young woman, passionate about antiques and full of naive enthusiasm. She renovated every room, painted the walls, polished the floors, arranged the furniture. Everything, except for the mirror, which remained still,

watching her, a faint smile, cold and knowing, waiting, always. Every time she passed the mirror,

“Markta felt uneasy. It was not just her reflection observing her. There was an echo, an imperceptible”

whisper, as if the sheet of glass breathed with her. One evening, for fun, or perhaps driven by a curiosity that had began to bother her, she traced a message with her finger on the dusty surface. Who are you? The glass answered, not with written letters, but with a sound that pierced Markta's mind. Once I asked the same thing, from the depths of the mirror, a whisper turned into a

laugh, soft, thin, and disturbing. Months passed, and the girl began to notice small details,

subtleties she had previously ignored. Now and then, her reflection in the hallway mirror seemed, wrong, a delayed movement, a blink that didn't match hers, a gaze that lingered too long.

“As if the other presence were studying every gesture, and then that smile. Almost identical”

to hers yet slightly different. When night she awoke in a cold sweat, her heart hammering in her chest. She was convinced she had heard a laugh coming from the corridor, trembling she got out of bed

and went downstairs, trying to convince herself it was only her imagination, but the reflection in

the mirror was not alone. Behind her trapped in the glossy pain, a faceless figure watched. Immobile, enormous, its contours blurred like dense smoke, yet terrifyingly real. Markta held her breath. When she turned, the room was empty. No presence, just cold air and suspended dust. Yet, in the mirror, the figure raised a finger and pointed at her a simple gesture, yet heavy

“with menace. The next day, Markta decided the mirror had to disappear. She ordered its immediate removal.”

The workers arrived with chisels, hammers, diamond saws, nothing could scratch the surface of that glass. Every strike echoed through the room, yet the glass remained intact, as if made of living flesh and molten stone together. That evening, one of the workers disappeared. The security footage clearly showed the man entering the room. He advanced hesitantly, as if sensing the presence of the glass before even seeing it. He reached out his hand to the reflection, barely brushing it,

and then vanished. No scream, no sign of struggle. Only a faint tremor in the glass, an echo of what had been. His face in prison distorted by terror, pounding from the other side is of asking for help. From a world, he could not reach. Now, Marta no longer sees herself in any mirror. She walked through the house with every surface covered in dark sheets. Windows blacked out every reflection hidden or sealed. Each room was silent, yet the air was thick,

charged with anticipation, and she knew it was only a matter of time. Every night, punctually, she heard three sharp knocks, tap, tap, tap, metallic beads that echoed through the corridor, through the heart of the house, like a drum marking the moment when the cycle would reopen, and among the whispers of the shadow, a thin icy voice from behind the glass, spoke directly into her mind. It's your turn.

And next, a private investigator assigned to examine the discovery of human remains on a university campus, becomes increasingly fascinated by an eccentric physiology professor who's quiet obsession with the human body, leads him toward a mystery that defines any rational explanation. From either Jensie Crookston and aerated by Cole Berkart, creepy presence, her own bones. I thought she would wait until it rained to hide the body. People usually do.

Something about a slate-gray style and the pounding crackle of water against Earth

making it easier for dirt and mud to slough off the bodies of their victims buried in shallow graves.

“But there was no rain the night she hid the body, just to the sweet and sweaty toy of late”

August in the mountains. The kind that made my shirt stick to the driver's seat of my car as I watched. I got the call about three months ago. Campus police at the University of Billings had found something odd in a dumpster behind the computer sciences building and needed a confirmation before opening a proper investigation. The confirmation I learned immediately upon my arrival was nothing more than necessary paperwork for the investigation that had already

be done. They knew what they had found and I did too. I still think about the early morning

janitor that had simply been doing her job. The scent of human remains is not one she'll likely to forget soon. Human bones, rotten skin, torn muscles and wet, sinew stuffed into individual white plastic bags and thrown into the dumpster. Where they had immediately collected flies and other squirming crawling creatures. A team of specialists removed the four neatly tied bags from the dumpster and followed the customary procedures to contain

them safely and to categorize them as evidence. I don't know what sort of degree or training you have to receive to be given the privilege to work with what was once a human body so closely. I remember wondering if the people in the plastic full body suits appreciated how lucky they were to be so close to something so intriguing. Human bones cleaned so thoroughly that there wasn't even any blood in the bag. The technicalities of being a private investigator, however, were

intimately known to me. When the job was offered to me, I accepted it immediately. The city chief of police

“had been brought in swiftly to take over for campus security, and I think he mistook my enthusiasm”

at the job for an over-eater sense of justice. He expected me to find the killer, his words, not mine, and to stop out the full details of the crime they committed to determine just how many life sentences would be necessary. I took about a week, learning my way around the campus. I exchanged my colored shirts and slags for hoodies and jeans, and even at 30 years old, I passed for a student moderately well. I spent time exploring each building, familiarizing myself with

what classrooms were busy and wind, which areas were open to the public and which weren't, and listening in on every stray rumor that had kicked up since the mate-shift body bags had been found and taken away. The rumors ranged from suggestions that the claims were exaggerated, and the janitor had freaked out about finding some animal bones, to speculation over which student or faculty they thought was capable of murder. I tapped a running list of names.

In the quieter moments, spent sitting and watching people move from class to class,

I let my mind wander back to the evidence. There are few things more amazing than human anatomy,

the way that every puzzle piece inside of us works together to push air through wet flesh

“and call it life. I think in another life I had been a doctor or something like that.”

On the 6th day of my investigation, I followed a rumor I had heard whispered between students in the library to the life sciences building. That's where I met professor Lauren Hitches for the first time. Lauren Hitches was a professor of physiology and had, according to one of her students, recently gone on a long rant in class, discouraging the rumors circulating the school that a murder had taken place on campus. She was an older woman and had been teaching at the school for many years.

A research to her academic and occupational background didn't find anything out of the ordinary, but I chose to sit in on one of her classes anyways. It was an evening anatomy class,

I immediately wanted to talk to her again. She'd read it me politely when I knocked on her

office door the night stay, and welcomed me inside. One wall was entirely lined with overflowing but shelves aside from a single door that I had assumed must lead to a closet. The other walls were far more interesting in my opinion, plastered floor to ceiling with various scientific diagrams of different parts of the human body. There were large detailed drawings of a human's skull in black and white, knatched to a larger and more complicated poster

of the muscles and tendons in the knee. I remember being drawn particularly to the depiction of a dissected eye. For both of us, taught him seemed to come easily. For me, it was something I had

“a natural talent in, and what I was trained to do as an investigator. For her, I think it was a”

genuine passion for physiology. I pretended that I was interested in majoring in something like her field, and let her talk and talk and talk. We talked around the rumors for nearly an hour,

before I finally brought the topic up myself in a casual, disbelieving tone, so I could watch

her reaction play out in her eyes. There's no way any of its real, human bones. They say there wasn't even any blood in the bag. Her days flit between my eyes, and she leaned back in her chair by just a fraction. "Do they now?" She said softly, not disgusted, not condescending. I'd recognize the tone anywhere, because what it implied was something I felt often. It was something I was feeling right then along side her. Intrigued. The comment effectively put an end to our

conversation, but that wasn't a problem for me. I believed I had found who I was looking for, and after that, I just needed the evidence to back up my hunch. Professor Hitch's days traveled away from mine for just a moment, to the door along the shelved walls. Rumors, she said, "People will say the most ludicrous things." And then I was being ushered out. I left her office, left campus entirely for a few hours,

and traveled back when the moon was high in the sky, and only a quarter of the lights in

“the life sciences building were on. I used the key card that university police had given me to”

get in, and took the stairs up to Professor Hitch's office. It was completely dark when I stepped in. It stepped for a sliver of dim white light, seeping in from the crack under the door by the book shelves. I stepped forward. The room was so quiet I could hear my breath. I couldn't hear anything on the other side of the door when my fingertips moved to the handle, and then I was pushing

inside. It wasn't a closet like I had first suspected. It was a room, much larger than the office

had been. I realized that the room I had just stepped into must have been a classroom of sorts. Professor Hitch's classroom. There were white, laminated tiles, and white walls,

“and a collection of tables with strange instruments and large textbooks spread across them.”

It was lit only dimly by the moonlight that streamed in through the half open windows. I stepped towards one of the tables at the front of the room, and saw an open sketchbook filled with wild, freehand illustrations on the visible pages. They were not unlike the many images adorning the walls of Professor Hitch's office. Human anatomy detailed and dissected. I was alone in the room, but the sound of footsteps from somewhere else in the vicinity implied

that I wouldn't be for long. I darted towards an open cabinet behind the table, and crawled inside, carefully pulling the door behind me, but leaving it open just enough that I could still see into the classroom. I watched Professor Hitch enter the room, pushing a large metal cart. She moved her hand to the light switch behind the door, and the fluorescent bulbs turned on

seconds ago. She carried a small book in her hand. It was tiny, and couldn't have been

“bitter than a passport, but she laid it out in front of her on the table, and layered at the”

pages with intense focus. I wondered if that was the evidence I needed, perhaps a catalog of her crimes. Some serial killers were like that. I was crouched in a cupboard, sharing a room with a potential killer, but for some reason all I could focus on was that book. It was not a catalog of her crimes. It was so much worse, and so much better. Her eyes stand over the pages, and her lips

moved soundlessly until finally, she pulled back, wrapping her right hand around her left wrist.

The crack was like a gunshot in the nearest silence of the abandoned classroom. It echoed

“off the walls and made my stomach lurch, as I examined the professor's wrist, twisted at an unnatural”

angle that made the bump of bone pushed up against her skin towards the ceiling. But I barely had time to register the shock, before I witnessed something entirely more gruesome. I could feel the slow steady beat of my own heart, as I watched hits, push her hand down, down, down, until the sharp cut of broken bone protruded through her skin with a wet tearing sound. It wasn't even splintered. The break of the bone was clean when she grabbed it and began to pull.

Watching her made me intimately aware of my own hands, my arms, the way stins sat at

“top fragile flesh. I watched her pull the bone out of her arm and set it on the desk next to her.”

She dipped her fingers again into the open wound when she was finished, and began to pull out more different pieces of herself, not bones, but other things that I wanted desperately to understand and name and study. She did it with such clean precision, and I watched with wrapped attention as she placed things on metal trays or in glass tubes that sat balanced on the larger part. I don't know how long I sat crouched in that cupboard, but by the time she was finished,

my knees and hips were aching. But I still mourned at the loss when she eventually bandaged her own arm, washed her hands, picked up her book, and wheeled the part with her new collections out of the room. I eventually forced myself out of the cupboard. My feet filled with the pins and needles sensation of having lost too much blood flow. I looked around the classroom and noticed that she had left her sketchbook still open on the table, now splattered with her own blood. It was evidence. I could have taken it

directly to the chief of police, but I didn't. I made many abuses to myself over the next few days. No one would believe what you saw. There's not enough evidence for something so outrageous. Technically, she hasn't killed anyone, but the truth was, and still is, that I didn't want to put an end to whatever she was doing. Days turned into weeps, and I continued to sneak back into the life sciences building. I followed her, learned her schedule, and know how and win to arrive

without being seen. I tucked myself into that cupboard for nights on end, and watched the artist read

row and remove her own bones. It wasn't always her arm, sometimes it was her lead or her stomach.

On one particular occasion, it was her eye. It took her all evening and a series of little silver tools laid out in front of her, which she delicately used to remove the fragile organ. I watched from my hiding place, as she set a silver-notched spoon down beside her notebook. It was captivating. Filling me with a sense of wonder that nothing ever had, and nothing has since.

I shifted my schedule to sleep during the day, instead. I began to plan other events in my life,

“around my evenings, refusing to make plans or meet with others, or even eat if it came in”

the way of my time spent in the white classroom. By the time I was officially fired from my investigative job, I had long since given up any delusions of ever-turning in Professor Hatches. Instead, I used my professional skills to find different ways to get into locked campus buildings when my keys stopped working, and keep myself from being recognized or caught on camera. Daylight quickly became nothing more than the long hours between one bone-breaking session,

and the next. I watched Lauren Hatches pull apart her own body, peace by peace, until there were no more broken bones, or imperfect pieces to be tied up and thrown away in random

“dumpsters. Over the course of countless nights, she reconstructed a human body,”

lying by line, pulling it apart, and putting it back together again. I never found out why.

Maybe there wasn't a "why," simply morbid fascination, like my own. Because when she was finished, one warm, oddest night, I watched her from my hidden spot within the trees, as she buried the body, made of her own bones, deep under ground. I sat, fascinated, as she carefully set the little booklet, no bigger than a passport, on the body's chest, before covering it all with the freshly-dued dirt.

I let the sweat on my back, heat me blue to my seat, until long after she had left. My hand circling my own wrist. My body was drenched in a thin layer of sweat,

when I finally stepped out of the car. The sunset cast my lawn, dart shadow, over the mound,

of freshly-duced dirt. I knelt down. The dirt was pulled against my fingers, as I dug, removing soil by the handful. Slowly, at first, and then in a frenzy, the closer I got, until my knuckles were scraped and bloody, and my fingernails were black. My chest heaved, as I stared at the unbreathing body beneath me. I had washed or put it together for days, but it looked different now in the bronze light from the dying sun.

I knelt on top of it, staring first in amazement, and then confusion.

The body was not complete, as I had assumed. It was missing a piece, a glaring hole, and an otherwise perfect masterpiece. I couldn't understand how Hitch's had forgotten something so vitally important, as the body's second eye. Until, I saw that the familiar little book

“was not the only thing she had buried in that shallow grave alongside the body.”

My hand was remarkably steady, as I bent close, and picked up the little, notched, silver spoon, examining it, intrigued. When you're here for your job, take a look at the real mix of action, and relax and then you'll be able to do it again today and check it out. www.flucloseverden.de

And finally, a novelist struggling with a brutal case of writer's block becomes obsessed with a woman who seems to embody the perfect inspiration for his next book. For my derby am, creepy presence, my muse. It began with a deadline. I was to have my book finished and ready for printing by the beginning of November, a mere five months away. The publisher, desperate to pedal yet another podry romance novel, wanted it in time for the holiday sales frenzy, romance novels.

Was tedious for me to spew mushy dribble and move of my intellectual works.

“Academia, mystery, postmodern fiction, those were the realms in which I thrived,”

the domains were my genius shone. To stoop so low as to churn out its saccharine felt for the masses. To conform to the shallow mold of pop culture, a betrayal of my craft when I endured only out of necessity. You can't rush perfection. Any true expert would understand that. But alas, the publishing industry is overrun with imbosals. Still, time was not on my side.

Now stuck, confined their trivial expectations. Words which were always as symphony waiting

to be composed, now felt like a tangled mess refusing to cooperate. One after another, a forced them to form something coherent.

“Molding them into something vaguely palatable for an audience with tragically low standards.”

The majority of so-called writers spent their days obsessively researching the minutia of their work, as if those superficial details could elevate their mediocrity. I, however, do not operate in such plebian ways. Most people have heard of method acting,

or an actor immerses themselves in a role. When my process transcends even that,

I become the art itself. Embodying a creative force will profoundly be incomprehensible to most. Yet, despite my unparalleled skill, even I was thwarted by the simplicity of romance. These shallow, pedestrian stories are the foundation of all literature. Anyone with a scrap of paper and a fleeting thought could produce one.

“And yet, to my horror, it seemed I was incapable of sinking to that level.”

That is, until I met her, Omeli, a name meaning hardworking. The perfect description of what I needed to defeat my conundrum. Omeli was a kind of woman who couldn't melt even a coldest heart with just a glance. The kind anyone would be a fool not to love. I had been in my usual table at a standard coffee shop just on the road from my apartment.

I stirred the half-melted ice in my ground-day triple-shot sugar-free vanilla brevée with a caramel drizzle while staring principally out the window at nothing in particular. Wallowing in my own wordless despair, a cut-a-climp of strawberry blonde in the sunlight from across the street. Little wringlet curls bones to she adjusted freshly bloomed white carnations at the flower shop across the street. Smiling and saying hello to each passerby as if she knew them personally.

She made my heart recite every love cliché ever made. She was the son. I had to speak to her. I had been involved in a life of such a fascinating creature. I was across the street before I even finished that thought, devising my excuse for approaching her. She glanced at me when I approached. Those warm brown eyes, lighting up while they soaked

me in. Her smile was complimented by dimples as her sumptuous lips moved in greeting. Even the simple hello sounded so much sweeter when she was speaking it. It was so simple to be with her, to laugh with her and to learn from her. She became my muse, with a single smile I could write an entire saga. The novel became so effortless once I understood what true love was supposed to be.

There was nothing more inspiring in the world than waking up with her in the morning. After spending a late night together, I was captivated by the way she looked at three in the morning. Her lips still almost completely faded. Still, she would desperately fight to stay awake just to be with me one moment longer. Over time I found myself doing the same.

My chest heightened with the unbearable thought that someone as luminous as Emily had chosen

“someone as flawed as me. I didn't deserve for laughter, her patience, her love.”

Time flew by as Emily and I became accustomed to one another. These melted into months of happiness. We were content with spending our lives together. Once my previously despised romance novel was published, we celebrated together, dining at the finest restaurant I could afford off the substantial advance my publisher awarded me. Emily looked absolutely spellbound as I popped the cork to a bottle of champagne.

Her eyes like twinkling stars as I poured her glass. There's in that twinkle that I realized how deeply I needed her.

Emily moved in with me in December, spending Christmas day together was a treat.

I drafted so many stories in my head watching her decorate the entire residence.

“Emily confided she had always wanted children.”

Little children running around Christmas morning filled her with joy. I could see her sitting in my arm chair, watching two little children loving me as they ripped apart presents. She would make an exceptional mother, dedicated and loving to a fault. Emily's family didn't feel the same about me as she did. Her brother I'd me where I lay the moment she brought me home to introduce me.

Her father made comments about not trusting those creepy writer types. Their paranoia was misplaced, but I was reassured when I overheard her arguing with her brother and hushed with spruised on the hallway after he degraded me by labeling me a freak. The harshness of her tone was arousing.

“Not once she ever raised her voice with me.”

His attitude was borderline the endrothal, hulking over the dinner table like Emily was some object that could steal from him. I carefully watched him as he glowered, knowing deep down I had already won. Emily was mine. I was assigned another novel shortly thereafter.

The haunting feeling of writer's block crept back from the shadowy depths where to been lurking, slithering into the edges of my mind like a predator stalking its prey. Emily, ever the beautiful muse, tried everything. Hot coffee's midnight snacks, herbal teas. She would find me late at night and attentively rub my shoulders as I hunched over my wretched laptop.

It was sweet and I suppose, but ultimately useless, Emily didn't understand my process. Not really. None of it was close to touching the nine frustration building inside of me. There's only one proven way to conquer the monster of writer's block to return to the

method that I'd always worked before.

Emily wouldn't understand that either. Inmate, it's time for dinner. The prison guard said, sliding the tray of hooves through a slit in the cell door before stalking off in a beastly manner. I couldn't be bothered together my dinner for the evening as I tapped my pencil against my desk.

The only bit of familiar comfort in this confinement. It was so easy to recall how the knife felt piercing her skin. The warmth of her blood as it spilled onto my hands. The sight of the redness expanding on the mattress sheets as her dying screams "tore" through our apartment. Her blood had been my last inspiration.

As if each drop was in, gone to my paper. Words are supposed to be simple things to piece together. Putting one after another to inspire a semblance of meaning. But they should not be this hard. For more information on this podcast, including how to submit your own story for consideration,

please visit CreepyPod.com. You can also follow us at CreepyPod on social media and YouTube. All stories told on this podcast are done so through creative comments share a light licensing

or otherwise distributed without the express written consent of the CreepyPodcast production team and the story.