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submitted by /u/DoctorManox to r/PixelArt [link] [comments] |
source https://www.reddit.com/r/PixelArt/comments/9jnf2e/my_first_tree_in_pixel_art/
Friday, 28 September 2018
My first tree in pixel art.
source https://www.reddit.com/r/PixelArt/comments/9jnf2e/my_first_tree_in_pixel_art/
![Tallest building in my city in fog. Is it too bright and should I flip vertically back to original orientation? [Exposure][Edit]](https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/5T2O6syT4dLmrxydmIcmTfcd-QG_w67RSew38YTBQKM.jpg "Tallest building in my city in fog. Is it too bright and should I flip vertically back to original orientation? [Exposure][Edit]")
Don't Let Strangers Take your Picture
The conversation was normal—until one of the speakers suffered a sudden and violent death.
It began when a young, fresh-faced youth with an old-fashioned camera draped around his neck approached a young woman sitting on a park bench.
“Excuse me, miss,” he began tentatively.
She looked up from her phone, and brushed a lock of blonde hair out of her green eyes.
“Yes?” she said, masking her mild annoyance with a smile.
“I’m doing a photography project for my school,” he said, “and I was wondering if I could photograph you.”
“Oh,” she said. The request seemed to puzzle yet flatter her. She thought for a moment and then said, “Sure.”
“Great,” said the young man, smiling. “Over there by that tree would be best.”
The woman gladly obliged, and the two strode over to the tree together, where the woman posed, somewhat awkwardly, with a smile that was almost genuine.
“Actually,” the young man said, “would you mind moving over a couple feet to the left?”
“Just here?” the woman asked, shuffling over a couple feet.
“Just a bit more,” he said.
She moved over a few more inches and smiled. Two things happened at once: the camera flashed, and the young woman’s head exploded into a bloody pulp.
Suddenly, the world’s volume was turned down.
My heart pounded in my ears. The woman’s body went limp and sank to the grass, spilling blood from her neck in a torrential fountain. The bystanders screamed, and my hands fumbled for my phone to dial 911.
My hands were shaking badly, and I almost dropped the phone into the grass.
After I dialed I held the ringing phone to my ear and looked up. The young man was nowhere to be seen.
I wondered where he had gone, but the thought was driven from my head as 911 operator picked up.
“911,” said the woman’s voice. “What is your emergency?”
But I could not answer. Something was severely wrong with me. There didn’t seem to be enough air in my lungs, and my hands started to feel cold and numb.
I was dizzy now. The world span and the ground rose up to meet my face, smashing my nose painfully. My vision began to swim in darkness, and then there was nothing.
When the EMTs revived me the woman’s body had already been packed into the ambulance and taken away, though the bloodstain remained, a dark stain of brown against the green of the grass. The EMTs said I’d had a panic attack and passed out.
The police took my statement and they sent me home, numb with shock. A few weeks later I found out that the woman had been hit by a stray bullet from someone shooting cans in their backyard a mile away. It was a one in a million shot, they said.
A week later, I saw the young man again.
He wore the exact same clothes, had the exact same haircut and cheerful grin, and the same old-fashioned camera was draped around his neck. I saw him by chance through the window of a restaurant, chatting up an elderly couple who sat in a corner booth.
The silent, smiling conversation did not last long before the young man convinced them to get up and move to another booth. He lifted his camera to his face and... nothing happened.
The old woman smiled and cocked her head to the side, as if she was asking him something. He smiled back and raised a finger, before lifting the camera to his face again.
There was a sound like roaring thunder, and the wall of the restaurant exploded into dust and debris. A truck had crashed through the wall and demolished the old couple’s booth.
The young man stood there as if nothing had happened. He raised the camera to his face, took one more picture, and then turned to leave. He pushed the door to the restaurant open and walked out. He stopped and scanned the street.
His gaze halted on me. The screaming and the chaos faded into silence as his preternaturally blue eyes bored into mine, turning my insides to ice. And then, in a moment, he was gone. It was as if he had vanished into thin air.
I hoped after that to never see him again, but fate did not care much about my hopes. It never does.
I was having dinner with my wife and five-year-old daughter, Sarah, and the air was filled with laughter and the smell of my wife’s baked pork chops and creamed mushrooms. Sarah was telling us a story about a strange man she’d met by the school who had offered to take her picture. She said he had a strange smile and a really old camera like she had never seen before.
My heart sat up and began to beat against the inside of my chest. Trying to maintain the illusion of calm, I set my fork down gently on my plate, and I told her that if she ever saw that man again she was to run. And that she absolutely, under no circumstances, was she allowed to let him take her picture.
“But he did take my picture, dad,” said Sarah. “He wouldn’t let me see it—but he said he’d come show me when it was ready in a week.”
“What?” I gasped. My voice was hoarse and small. My wife was looking between my Sarah and I with a look of concerned confusion.
Sarah seemed to sense that something was wrong, and her chin began to quiver.
“Nothing is wrong, honey,” I said. “Everything is going to be okay.”
The lie struggled out of my throat, and the guilt of it seized my heart and squeezed it tight.
Sarah’s eyes were watery, but she continued what she was saying.
“He said something else, too, dad,” she said uncertainly. “He said it was very important.”
“Yes?”
“He said he wouldn’t develop my picture, if you’d let him take yours. In the park tomorrow at noon.”
A wave of relief intermingled with sadness washed over me, and a tension I hadn’t even noticed dissolved from my shoulders. I could feel the tears standing out in my eyes as I kissed my daughter’s head, taking in a huge whiff of her scent, that scent of pure youth that makes the old feel young again.
I kissed my wife hard on the lips, savoring the taste, half lipstick and half the pork chops she had just eaten.
“I love you Janine,” I said. “And I love you too, Sarah.”
They looked at me uncomprehendingly, concerned, as if I had lost my mind.
I’ve always loved my family more than life itself, and tomorrow at noon, I guess I will have to prove it. Perhaps I can get the better of the stranger, perhaps not.
I don't know what he is, but I know that he isn't human.
Wish me luck.
[link] [comments]
source https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/9jmvj0/dont_let_strangers_take_your_picture/
Do not accept a download of the app “Polterzeitgeist!”
I work as a clerk for a large northwestern law firm that is in the process of preparing a class action suit against the makers and distributors of a mobile app called “Polterzeitgeist! Find that ghost!”. Due to false names and information being utilized in the initial distribution of the application, the search for the responsible parties is ongoing (so that the suit can be properly served on the defendants). In the meantime, I was tasked with going through the available materials and generating summaries and reports for the attorneys working on the case.
What I found scared me enough that I felt that I needed to issue a warning while attempting to maintain some level of anonymity. I will begin by giving a brief description of the app. “Polterzeitgeist! Find that ghost!” was originally distributed through various means online with the publisher listed as [null143325]. It was later discovered that this was not actually the name of any known publisher, but an error message generated when the required information was somehow removed from the databases of the platforms distributing the app. There is no known record of the actual name of the organization or the people behind the app, and as I said, that investigation is ongoing.
The app is described as a “ghost hunting tool” that uses “crowdsourced EVP (electronic voice phenomenon) and sighting reports to provide likely locations for paranormal activity” as well as “activity-driven and streaming rewards for investigations and live-streams”. Basically, the app takes your data and that of others and uses it as a basis for suggesting places to look for ghosts. At the same time, it provides a form of metagame that rewards you with unlockable digital items, cosmetics for your “ghost hunter” avatar, and access to special forums when you post data and when you livestream your investigations through the app.
The livestreaming portion is wholly proprietary, and the app does not work or give any “ghost credits” if you are streaming through another service. Similarly, viewing of a ghost hunter’s livestream must be done through the app itself for optimal results. Attempts to watch someone else’s phone or tablet through a different streaming service causes severe degradation of video quality caused by what our tech guy is calling “intentional random-sequence frequency modulation”. I don’t know what any of that means, but the practical effect is that as of three months ago, there were about 3,000 regular stream viewers using the app in the continental United States. Out of that, nearly 600 were watching Sam the Spookhunter when he was murdered.
Sam “the Spookhunter” Morris was a low-tier internet celebrity for the paranormal investigator crowd before Polterzeitgeist!, but he found a much stronger following as one of the first and best streamers on the app. His first few weeks of in-app streaming were unremarkable by most accounts. Then, on June 29, 2018, he started his stream very excited, saying he thought he had just unlocked a secret location. Included below is my summary of this and subsequent streams that I prepared for work. I do not post this lightly or for entertainment value. But I hope it will serve as a better warning than I alone could provide.
June 29, 2018
Sam begins stream inside his apartment. He is clearly very excited. He says he has somehow unlocked a secret paranormal hunt called “The Dark Path”. He shows the app on his phone, leading to the assumption that he is streaming from another phone or tablet. Given that the app screen is clearly legible, it is to be assumed he was streaming through the app on the tablet.
The app screen says “Welcome to the Dark Path. You have shown bravery and ingenuity in your past investigations, and as a reward, you will be given the opportunity to visit four secret locations that are known for supernatural activities and past atrocities. Are you strong enough to make it to the end?” Below this text, there was the low-resolution map used by the app to guide you to recommended locations. But unlike most users, Sam’s map had a pulsing red star in one corner.
He manipulated the map, sliding towards the star and zooming in. He said that he guessed it was about forty miles away, and he was about to head out. Within ten minutes he was on the road, talking to viewers as he drove toward the destination. At one point he stopped for gas, and it was at this time he caught up on reading the chatroom attached to the livestream. Several viewers had searched online for information based on what his destination seemed to be, and no one had found anything remarkable. It was a quiet street in the suburbs with a small bus stop nearby. This didn’t rule out something interesting being out there, but it was easy to see that Sam was starting to get worried his trip would be a bust. He begins to sing along with the radio and discuss possible fallback things to do on stream if the red star wound up being nothing.
But it wasn’t nothing.
Based on the available information, Sam arrived at the marked location at approximately 10:41 at night. After driving around the area slowly, he eventually parked and tried to zero in on the red star’s location by foot. It didn’t take long for the young man to realize it was taking him to the aforementioned bus stop, which amounted to little more than a pair of metal benches and a small overhang enclosure to keep waiting riders out of the weather.
He entered the enclosure and panned the camera around, his forced excitement turning into something more genuine as he saw something on the edge of one of the benches. Zooming in, there was a small toy skeleton sitting on the bench. Its white, plastic bones and skull had been smeared with something that looked like blood, and based on his reaction to it, it seems likely Sam truly thought it was blood as well. Next to the skull, a red word had been written on the metal:
What
The first video ends there.
July 3, 2018
This video begins with Sam explaining that he was somewhat troubled by what he had found, but he had decided to go ahead with the investigation, noting that a second star had popped up on the map since he found the bus stop. This portion of the video did not seem genuine. It seems likely that, as is a common cliche for both paranormal investigator performances and internet performances, Sam’s fear and reluctance to continue were fake. The obvious reason for this is to generate dramatic tension and potentially make relatively mundane events appear more dangerous or interesting. This is in stark contrast to the earnest emotion he sometimes shows at other points in these videos.
Again, he drives to the location of the star while streaming. This point is closer to his apartment, but it requires him to go into a closed construction site to find the exact location of the star. He appears to be truly nervous about trespassing, but in a perceived attempt at false bravado, he makes a point of moving slowly and casually past several pieces of heavy machinery on his way to a office trailer that had been set up by the construction company.
Using his phone’s light, he searches around the perimeter of the trailer to no avail. Sam then tries looking underneath it, but there was little access and nothing to be seen of note. At this point he seems close to abandoning the search, but after viewing several encouraging messages in chat, he opts to try the doorknob of the trailer instead.
It opens easily, and the interior is dark. Walking in slowly, you can hear his breath puffing nervously as he quickly shines his light around in a desperate search for whatever sign or clue might be there. It only takes a few seconds for him to find the small black cat toy nailed to the back of the door. Similar to the skeleton, it is covered in what looks like blood. Similar to the skeleton, there is one word written in crimson above the tiny stuffed feline:
does
July 5, 2018
This video is longer than the rest, as Sam spends some time at the beginning trying to explain and justify himself in reaction to several criticisms he had received after his earlier videos. Some people were complaining about him doing next to no “investigation” at the locations, likening it more to a televised scavenger hunt than the traditional ghost hunts his viewers were accustomed to. Others noted that he was taking unreasonable risks by following directions from an unknown source that clearly had been to the locations indicated. A handful just called the streams “lame” or hoped “you get your fat ass locked up for trespassing!”
All of this clearly upset Sam, and he awkwardly tried to take up for himself while placating his fanbase. He said that he was trying to play it safe, but that there also just hadn’t been much to investigate other than the items and the words themselves. He did promise, however, that the first place he ran across that looked ripe for really exploring, he would do so.
However, it wouldn’t be that night. The third star was only ten miles away at a public park. Sitting on the edge of a large stone fountain was a tiny clay pumpkin, and as expected, it was smeared with blood or something similar in appearance. This time there were two words:
the ghost
July 12, 2018
This stream also started with a kind of apology, this time for his absence. Sam explained that his father, who lived in the house next door, had recently had a severe stroke, so he had spent the last several days at the hospital and helping his dad transition to a nursing home for rehab. It appears that he is close to tears at this point, but he quickly turns it around by talking about the latest message he received in the app. As before, he shows the screen in the video so the audience can read it.
It said “Congratulations! You have made it to the final turn on the Dark Path. Your final red star location will appear at precisely 9:00pm PST. Good luck!” Despite his earlier sadness, Sam seemed truly excited and nervous about reaching the end of the strange game. He commented that he had twice as many live viewers as he’d ever had before, and it is clear from his conversation with people in his chatroom and his overall demeanor that he doesn’t want to let them down.
He also discusses what the Dark Path could really be. It was clear it wasn’t really a collection of traditional haunts, and Sam agreed with many of his viewers that it was most likely a promotional contest of some type to get the word out about the app. As 9pm came on, he excitedly showed the tablet’s camera the appearance of the new red star. It was only after talking for a few seconds and studying the map that his enthusiasm faded.
The red star was next door at his father’s house.
He gave a nervous laugh when he realized this, and there was a moment when he looked into the camera and you could see real fear in his eyes. But then he seemed to shake it off somewhat and started making jokes about how big a deal he must be if they set up the end of the contest this close to his house. He pauses again as he reads his chatroom, and that fearful, haunted look briefly returns to his face. He says several people are telling him not to go over there. That something wasn’t right and he should call the police.
He seems to weigh the suggestion before rejecting it, smiling nervously into the camera as he gets up to go over to his father’s house. “It’ll be okay, guys, I promise. Besides, I have you all to protect me if it gets too scary, right?”
July 12, 2018 (Continued on second camera)
Based on the change in image quality and comments by Sam, it appears he abandoned the tablet and began using his phone as his primary streaming device for his journey next door. While not explicitly stated, it can be assumed from the circumstances and Sam’s behavior that he wanted less restrictions on his attention and movement during this last leg of the Dark Path, and managing two electronic devices was too unwieldly.
He leaves his apartment and walks next door to a small gray house with peeling paint. After taking a moment to survey the empty street, he walks to the front door and lets himself in. He immediately attempts to turn the lights in the front hall on, but they don’t work. You can hear him curse softly as his breath begins to pick up speed. “Things are finally getting really spooky, guys,” he says with a shaky laugh. After a moment of looking around with the phone’s small flashlight, he moves further up the dark hall.
At this point he has moved past a narrow set of stairs going up to a second floor and has reached the intersection of three doorways. To the left is an open doorway into what looks like a living room from the shadowy glimpses that the camera affords. To the right is a doorway covered by a long curtain—likely a closet or storage area of some kind. Straight ahead is a white door that Sam says leads into the kitchen. He is about to open it when he notices something above the kitchen door.
It is a small ghost that had been fashioned out of dried cornstalk leaves. It wears a small black velvet bow tie, and would have been very cute if not for the blood coating it and the wall around it. Written to the left of the bloody ghost is:
say?
What does the ghost say?
The phone is shaking some by this point, and it seems like Sam might be having second thoughts about being in the dark house by himself. He sits silent for several moments, shining his light around in the dark before muttering the completed phrase as though trying to solve the unknown puzzle of it all.
“What does the ghost say?”
“Boo.”
Suddenly a large form rushes out from behind the curtain to his right. There is only a glimpse of the figure as Sam drops his phone and starts screaming, but it appears to be a massive man wearing some kind of prosthetic or mask to make himself appear monstrous. When the video is slowed down, there is also some indication of a weapon, though it cannot be clearly discerned beyond appearing to be metallic and heavily serrated.
There is a moment of chaos as Sam’s screaming, the sounds of a struggle, and finally a wet, tearing noise occurs off camera. Then the livestream is dead.
The audience of that stream had mixed reactions to what they had witnessed. Many thought it was a joke or a sham orchestrated by either Sam, the app developer, or both. Others were genuinely concerned and called authorities either in their own areas or Sam’s. There was a brief criminal investigation, but no sign of Sam or his phone was ever found. The only reason we even have a recording is due to one of the viewers having figured out a way to record the streams directly from his phone. And Sam’s father died from a follow-up stroke two days after the last video, so there was no one to even file a missing person’s complaint on him. Officially, nothing has happened to Sam.
But how, then, did our firm get involved in it? We can’t file a lawsuit on behalf of a missing or murdered man.
Because since the night Sam reached the end of the Dark Path, five more people have disappeared. Two of them caught on stream, the other three known users of the app but not streaming at the time whatever happened to them…happened. It was only after six people have been lost that it was taken seriously. Complaints were filed, the apps were removed from most platforms, and criminal investigations were started and then stopped again due to claims of insufficient evidence. After talking to three of the families of the missing, our firm started work on a class action lawsuit for any and all parties injured by the app and whatever lies behind it.
The problem is it’s not really over. The app doesn’t need to be widely distributed so long as some people continue using it. We starting getting in reports last week that it uses your contacts to email and text out links to new download sites for the app. As of yesterday, the usage rate was up to over 8,000.
So I’m posting this as a warning. Stay away from the app. Tell your friends and family to do the same. And if you get an invitation….well, I don’t know what to tell you.
I got my invitation by text three hours ago. It was via a friend I haven’t seen since college, but keep up with through social media. I didn’t even know she had my phone number. But now I know she does. That they do. And they probably have much more than that.
I’m giving my notice tomorrow, and I think I’m going to use a burner phone for awhile. Unplug a bit, stay in with the doors locked. Not that I’m worried I’d ever go to visit the ghost. I’ve seen far too much to fall for that.
[link] [comments]
source https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/9jm8y8/do_not_accept_a_download_of_the_app/
![The streets of Tokyo. [4000X5000][OC]](https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/z-I993vpIkUwuJ3WheXo57yZ-58WDhQU2D6b4xWTDDM.jpg "The streets of Tokyo. [4000X5000][OC]")
![Dealing with life [OC]](https://a.thumbs.redditmedia.com/GmM-xPbfj6OFDk_o-HV9QjjXvh7ev_1CNK8SmFuMM60.jpg "Dealing with life [OC]")
![Boston in the Fall [OC][3000x2000]](https://a.thumbs.redditmedia.com/aeG1OJQtkG-my9oq26Mr6JPkG97va5sZbj8tjEgiXN8.jpg "Boston in the Fall [OC][3000x2000]")
I make little boxes. I use a mini tablesaw and for ones this small I glue veneer together to get the lined effect. Explanation in comment.
![[FO] My first time, definitely under-estimated how long it would take! (pattern in comments)](https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/iwYT2hxSDO8ncAIill-jDW3iPIGHtPPYwU8c-CnRNqU.jpg "[FO] My first time, definitely under-estimated how long it would take! (pattern in comments)")
Thursday, 27 September 2018
![The Bay Bridge burn, San Francisco, California [3456x5184][OC]](https://a.thumbs.redditmedia.com/4qanBesP6CeDrrsVdxO8rMIDEJvEWYhyD4Ow0q-Ma98.jpg "The Bay Bridge burn, San Francisco, California [3456x5184][OC]")
![You can tell how old a tree is by looking at the rings [OC] [4000x4000]](https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/ZH3LHs4zx3AwFtTyZEHsJjB-nlPnfxVYkl0Qo1DYyHI.jpg "You can tell how old a tree is by looking at the rings [OC] [4000x4000]")
![Drive bicycle to the field in fog [Composition] [Light]](https://a.thumbs.redditmedia.com/ZNkPd3yYXKF2IwkFZDdFg6aramlxVyJY_ztzVHTChI8.jpg "Drive bicycle to the field in fog [Composition] [Light]")
![[FO] Finished my first “big” piece today! Pattern by plasticlittlecovers on Etsy](https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/WoizmC1R2jiBAKiXHaSsJtcLgZt58XKVIykYGXo3I-A.jpg "[FO] Finished my first “big” piece today! Pattern by plasticlittlecovers on Etsy")
![[OC] Skyrim Lock](https://a.thumbs.redditmedia.com/Qhow0yJdyS0l0Gdfu5MMeDr5zKRhHGoXxDCeNy0v_P0.jpg "[OC] Skyrim Lock")
I knew a girl who had beautiful wings
Back in college, I worked for a chain of what my mom called “playhouse pizza parlors.” I’m not sure if that’s the technical term, but it’s apt descriptor for neon wonderlands of pizza buffets, arcade games, towering tube slides, and crowded prize counters.
Shorty after graduation, I promoted to manager and transferred to an older restaurant. I remember the first time I saw it like it was yesterday. An oversized boxy building with peeling paint and dirty windows stood sentry in a half-empty parking lot. I steered my car over the buckled asphalt and parked at the rear of the building.
The day was oppressively humid; exiting the car felt like stepping into a damp, hot tube. I could taste the air: warm and wet, flavored with car exhaust and smoke from the grassfire burning down south.
Inside didn’t feel much better. Not as hot, thanks to the swamp coolers, but every bit as damp. The drab dining area contrasted sharply against the bright whirl of the indoor playground beyond.
Even though I’d never met my staff members before, I knew all of them. Lanky teenage boys. College girls with sporty ponytails and unusually white teeth. The retiree working for pocket change and friendship. The no-nonsense assistant manager who would be either my greatest ally or my worst enemy.
But one girl piqued my curiosity.
Her hair caught my eye first: pale curtains reflecting the multicolored lights of the game room. I got the impression that she would have been nervous if she hadn’t looked so tired. She could have been nineteen or thirty-nine, with a fine-featured face dominated by the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen.
I felt something when I saw her. Not that electric energy people like to talk about, not even attraction in the purest sense of the word. But something strong. Something that, under certain circumstances, could be beautiful or rotten.
Her name was Marjory.
Marjory had a beautiful smile that didn’t quite mask the distrust beneath. She worked the prize counter, trading stuffed animals and cheap plastic toys for reams of paper tickets. She played the piano every Sunday at church. The pizza parlor was her second job. Her first was at a local elementary school, where she helped with music and theatre classes. She was an amateur seamstress who designed costumes for school shows and made Halloween costumes for kids who couldn’t afford to buy one.
“That’s really sweet of you,” I said.
For just an instant, Marjory’s smile touched her eyes. She held my gaze for a giddy moment.
Then she closed up. I could see it, every bit as clear as doors swinging shut. That warm, shining moment withered and died.
She barely spoke to me for days. It drove me crazy even though it shouldn’t have. After all, she was a stranger. Worse, she was my employee. She didn’t want to open up. She didn’t want to be my friend.
But by the end of the month, I’d have given just about anything for one of her bright-eyed smiles.
One night toward the end of September, she called me at home. I’ll never forget her voice. Small and nervous, almost shaky. Like she was afraid I’d yell at her. “I’m sorry to bother you. Jeff and Tasha called in sick.” Her words echoed over the phone line, watery and distant, nearly drowned by music and laughter in the background. “Caleb left early. And Melissa had to go home. I’m working alone. It’s been really busy and I don’t think I can…” She trailed off miserably, small voice nearly lost in the hubbub.
“I’ll be there soon,” I told her.
t was the worst closing shift I ever had.
Three birthday parties and fifty other customers in the dining area, not counting the nightmare in the playground. A little girl froze in terror at the top of the biggest slide. It took her mother and I forty-five minutes to coax her down the ladder. One of the coin changers jammed, and an unfortunate kindergartener started a merry-go-round of vomit in the ball pit. Dishes piled up, the pizza buffet ran out twice, and a couple of teenagers decided to tip over a pinball machine.
The last customers finally trickled out over an hour after closing.
I worked as hard and fast as I could, but Marjory still did at least double the work. Even so, we were there for hours.
After I’d swept and mopped the floors, restocked the prize counter, and powered down the machines, I realized Marjory was gone. I scanned the floor – eerie and dim, crowded with the blank glass panels of unplugged machines – but caught no sight of her.
I searched the dining area, the bathrooms, and the kitchen. Clean, gleaming, and empty.
My stomach lurched. Had she cut out early? Crept home on the sly while I was closing up for her like a moron?
Feeling dispirited and almost leaden, I leaned against a steel counter.
And I heard voices. Faint, thin, and muffled, but unmistakable.
I followed the sound to the walk-in freezer. It was definitely Marjory; by this point, I’d recognize her voice anywhere.
“He won’t believe it was overtime.” Fear laced her words, sure and insidious as poison. “He’s going to be so angry. I don’t…I don’t know what to do.”
A low, crooning string of gibberish followed, like a song whispered by a madman.
My skin began to crawl.
“Shut up,” Marjory moaned. The voice continued, rising like a cold wind. “For once, please, just listen like you promised and shut up.”
More nonsense syllables, strung together in a broken melody. My head suddenly felt light. Everything around me looked jagged and bright, verging on unreal.
“I won’t let you. Never again.” Her voice broke. “I should have known.”
More of that broken, nonsensical melody.
Marjory laughed miserably. “Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. That isn’t why I wanted you here. Please just -” She broke off suddenly. The mad little melody continued, broken and almost inhuman.
Then Marjory screamed.
The sound coursed through me like an electric pulse, shattering my paralysis. I barged into the freezer. Marjory stared from the corner, wide-eyed and openmouthed.
And she wasn’t alone.
A body – dull white like dead fish, jagged and bony with too many joints – clung to her back. Round black eyes glittered over a lipless slash of a mouth.
It shifted weirdly and broke apart, unraveling like threads pulled from a sweater. Thinner and longer they became, glimmering like moonlight made solid. Then they reared up like conjoined cobras and slid into her mouth.
When the last rope of light disappeared behind her lips, Marjory spun around and threw up.
“What was that?” My voice shook wildly, issuing without any conscious effort on my part. I felt sick, possessed with the whirling, overbright dizziness of a fever. “Marjory? What was that?”
“It comes out when I’m afraid,” she answered.
“But what is it? What is it?”
“Something bad.” If I’d been in my right mind, her tone probably would have made me angry; she spoke as if to a child. “Something I have to control, even when I’m scared.”
“But what is it? What is it?”
“When I was a little kid, a little kid,” she said, “I had a cousin. He tried to hurt me. I was so scared. I can’t even…” She trailed off and covered her mouth. Her shoulders shook.
When she spoke again, her voice was almost too soft to hear.
“The thing you saw. It came out of me. Out of my pores. And it shoved that boy into a river. When he tried to climb out, it held him under until he drowned.”
“I don’t understand.” This wasn’t fair. I was barely listening, and I knew it. But it was better to babble than to hear something I didn’t want to comprehend. “I don’t understand, Marjory.”
“When I’m afraid, it comes out. If I don’t control it…if I don’t keep it jammed down…it kills what scares me. I have to control it. It’s my burden. My demon. And I know you’re not religious, but that’s what it is. A very real, very bloodthirsty demon that pretends to help, but only kills. I let it out anyway sometimes, when I’m weak.” She extended an arm and pulled her sleeve back, revealing a neat ladder of half-healed cuts and brutal scars. “This is what I do to punish myself. To remind myself that I can’t be weak.”
She watched me for what felt like a long time. I stared back at her uncomprehendingly, waiting for that white monstrosity to rise from her skin like mist and coalesce into that hideous form.
It didn’t.
After a while, Marjory cleaned up her own vomit while I stood there, crying. Then she walked me to my car. The warm night air carried the fresh, wild promise of a thunderstorm. It cleared my head as effectively as a cold shower. I drew a deep breath and looked up, focusing on the deep violet clouds quilting the sky.
“Good night,” she told me. “Don’t be scared.”
I drove away without a word as rain began to fall.
Only when I was home, shivering on my couch and fighting back tears, did I wonder what Marjory was afraid of.
Marjory came in the next day caked with so much makeup that she looked like an aging ventriloquist dummy. The thick layers and skillful contouring weren’t nearly enough to hide her swollen jaw.
We didn’t speak for weeks. The mutual silence hurt me in ways I didn’t understand, ways that made me feel frustrated and stupid.
That changed on a slow, rainy evening in mid-October.
Marjory practically thrummed with anxiety. I don’t think she so much as looked at me the entire shift. Whenever I came too close, she skittered away and pretended to survey the rows of stuffed animals.
I knew something was coming, but not what. I kept thinking of that glimmering monstrosity, breaking into pieces and forcing its way down her throat. And then I thought of her swollen, makeup-caked face.
Finally, she cleared her throat. I looked up sharply. She was staring at the stuffed animals again. Neon lights reflected off her white blonde hair, ethereal and lovely. When she spoke, I had to strain to hear her. “I have a question. It’s a weird one. I’m sorry.”
I waited.
“I make costumes. Mostly for school plays and kids who can’t afford them at Halloween.”
“I remember,” I said. “You told me before.”
She took a deep, shuddery breath. “I’ve been making a bunch. There are too many to fit in my apartment. My boyfriend –”
My heart plunged to my feet. But why? I already knew. I’d known the moment she came into work with concealer-caked black eyes.
“- doesn’t like them. At all. But it’s almost Halloween, and I made a lot of promises to a lot of kids. So I wanted to ask, can I store them here? Maybe in the break room?”
Sure, I wanted to say, but only if you tell me what the hell is going on. I felt betrayed, somehow. I’d been with her when she was afraid. I’d seen her secret, that white horror crawling into her body. I had no choice but to see it. I’d been scarred by it.
And she wouldn’t even acknowledge it.
“Sure,” I said. “If you want, you can use my office.”
She finally looked at me, so obviously shocked it would have been funny under other circumstances.
Then her face broke into that smile. The wide, sincere one that touched her eyes and made them glow.
And for a minute or two, I didn’t care about throat demons or abusive boyfriends.
Marjory brought a trunkload of costumes on her very next shift. I helped her hang them in my office. Most of them were, indeed, for children: bumblebees and fairy princesses, superheroes and zoo animals. Detailed and well-made, but not awe-inspiring.
One piece, however, literally took my breath away.
It was a pair of breathtakingly intricate wings. They were enormous, nearly as long as I was tall. Each meticulously lacquered feather practically glowed: emerald and gold, silver and ruby, diamond and sapphire. A dozen colors, shimmering like gemstones and precious metals. The sheer amount of work it must have taken left me dumbstruck.
“Lucky kid,” I finally said.
She smiled nervously. “These are mine. The staff get to dress up, too, and I thought…”
I waited for words that never came. But that was typical. Marjory always trailed off. Like her words weren’t worth remembering. Like no one would listen to them anyway.
I wanted to tell her it wasn’t true. That I couldn’t get enough of them. Or of her.
But I didn’t know how, so I didn’t try.
The next day, she asked permission to enter my office. “I need to take the wings home tonight. Just to color-match.” She smiled anxiously. “I’m making a dress to go with them.”
Visions of Marjory in a slinky silver dress and glimmering angel wings danced through my head. I banished them as well as I could. “Don’t worry about it. You don’t need to ask. Go in whenever you want.”
She took them home. I expected her to come in for her shift the next day, radiant and maybe even excited enough to talk to me about her dress.
But she didn’t come into work for three days.
The other workers exchanged glances and frightened whispers. Their eyes followed me wherever I went, anxious and glittering.
Finally I’d had enough. I went to the assistant manager and asked bluntly, “Do you want me to call the police?”
“We tried before,” was her terse response. “But the boyfriend’s a cop.”
It was like I’d been punched. I looked at her helplessly and saw my own fear reflected back at me. “Shouldn’t we at least try?”
“She got in trouble for it last time.”
I went to my office and pulled up Marjory’s information. I read and reread her address, committing it to memory. But I didn’t go.
I didn’t sleep that night.
Marjory came into work the next day.
She approached the building, cradling the wings in her arms. My heart leapt to my throat. I bolted out to meet her, grinning ear to ear.
She didn’t smile back.
Confused, I looked down at the wings and gasped.
Shredded in places, shattered in others, and mended with garbage; it looked like someone had hot-glued beer cans, chip bags, and foil wrappers to the remaining feathers.
“What happened?” I whispered.
Marjory pushed past me without answering.
I found her a little while later, standing at the prize counter. She stiffened as I approached, but didn’t look at me.
“What happened?” I repeated.
“I told you. My boyfriend doesn’t like costumes.” Marjory absently tucked her hair behind her ears, revealing her neck in the process. There, stark as mud against her pale skin, were bruises clustered around a deep, half-healed cut.
I didn’t know what to do.
The playground’s mad swirl of lights played across her face: pink and blue, sun yellow and lime green. She looked very young just then, like an unusually tall and particularly exhausted child.
“Are you…are you okay?” I asked nervously.
She finally looked at me. There was nothing childish or bright in her eyes now. “Yes,” she said. Then she swept her hair back over her shoulders, obscuring the bruises, and smiled.
Helplessness exploded in my chest, heavy as lead. “If you need help, I’m always here.”
“Okay,” she said. “Thank you.”
“I mean it.”
“Thank you,” she repeated.
I left, not because I wanted to, but because I didn’t want her to see me cry.
That night I found Marjory’s wings in the dumpster, crushed under pile of bulging trash bags.
The children’s costumes steadily trickled out of my office as Marjory delivered them to their owners in time for Halloween.
Now, Halloween used to be one of the busiest nights. A combination of planned parties, teenagers, sugar-high trick or treaters, and the usual dinner crowd – not to mention the holiday spirit – created a madhouse.
Everyone on staff was scheduled. Everyone came in except Marjory.
I was terrified for her, but I made excuses. I couldn’t leave in the middle of the rush; I was the manager, for God’s sake. Besides, Marjory didn’t want my help. She didn’t want anyone’s help. She never asked for it.
Unbidden, an image of that horrifying monster bloomed in my mind’s eye.
She had all the help she needed, if she needed any help at all.
But that feeling wouldn’t go away. I wasn’t the only one who felt it, either; I caught my staff exchanging frightened looks throughout the night.
The uneasiness persisted through the entire shift and beyond. I was literally sick with it; nausea plagued me on my drive home, and I was ready to throw up by the time I opened my front door.
As if on cue, the phone rang.
Somehow, I knew who it was before I even picked up. “Hello?”
“Help me,” Marjory whispered, in a tiny, terrible voice I could barely hear. “Please. I tried the cops, they won’t – they said I was a nuisance caller because he – oh no – oh no, oh my God –”
She sobbed. I heard a commotion on the other end, a series of thumps and thuds and a shattering crash.
Under normal circumstances, her apartment was twenty minutes away from my apartment. I got there in five.
The front door wasn’t locked. I burst in, struggling to take in the carnage around me. Overturned furniture, shattered glass, and blood, so much blood – spattered on the walls, puddles soaking into the carpet, plumes of scarlet splashed across the ceiling like an abstract masterpiece.
And there, crumpled in the corner –
I tried to run to her, but I couldn’t move forward. I only moved down. Sinking. I was sinking; my knees had given out.
A man kneeled by her smashed and broken body, watching her with horrifically wide eyes. He would have been handsome and clean cut, were in not for the blood and viscera clinging to his skin. He didn’t even notice me. Or if he did, he didn’t care.
I stared at Marjory uncomprehendingly, trying to make sense of it even as part of me tried to forget it. Her eyes alone were intact: grassy green, bright as ever over the ruined cavern of her face.
Then she lurched.
I sobbed, equal parts horrified and overjoyed.
Her torso jerked upward. A series of deep, harsh pops reached my ears. She jerked again and twisted forward. Her stomach strained upward, like a sped-up pregnancy. She lurched again, dragging herself belly-first. Then she split open.
And I saw feathers.
Silver and gold and ruby and emerald and diamond and sapphire, and more: jagged aluminum and multicolored foil, candy wrappers and plastic bottles. Garbage. The garbage her boyfriend used to ruin her costume wings, transformed into beautiful feathers.
The monster tore out of her, clawing the blood-soaked carpet to shreds. Marjory’s corpse clung to its feet, a battered and hideous cocoon. With an earsplitting and strangely musical shriek, it kicked her off and stood.
It was beautiful and horrendous, insectile and mammalian, angelic and demonic. Enormous eyes – one clear grassy green, the other black, glittering with cloudy formations like stars – fell upon the wide-eyed man. Then its mouth opened – a quivering black hole, an endless void – and screamed.
I heard it for only a second before it cut out, leaving thick silence in its wake. But that made no sense; its mouth was open, its throat was bulging, and it was screaming. I struggled to understand what as happening, barely aware that something hot and wet was flooding my ear canal.
Only when blood streamed from my ears and down my face did I understand.
The monstrosity launched itself at Marjory’s weeping boyfriend and tore him to pieces. Part of his scalp – wet, floppy, covered in fine yellow hair – fell across my hand. It felt like a wet rubber glove.
When it finished with him, the creature turned to me.
I stared back at it, mesmerized by its bright green eye.
It flew at me, face twisted in a rictus of wild fury. Its wings were beautiful: wide and ethereal, rich gemstone hues glowing alongside cruel shards of metal.
The monster drew level with my face, alight with rage, mouth open in its endless scream. Even its eyes were angry. Worse than angry; that beautiful green eye was full of hate.
Then it drew away, folding in on itself in ways that made me sick, and shot out the open door.
I don’t remember anything else. Not the police, not the ambulance, not the hospital.
Marjory’s boyfriend was convicted for her murder. I came close – the prevailing theory was that he and I had planned it together – but ultimately escaped charges.
I left town the moment I could.
Most of the time, I tell myself I’m crazy. That I made it up.
But I know better.
I don’t know if I could have saved her – the police, after all, wrote her off as a nuisance caller – but I could have done better.
If I had, she wouldn’t have hated me at the end. I know she did. I know because of the way that monster – her protector, her demon, her remainder – stared at me. That beautiful green eye burned with rage. She wanted to kill me. I wish she had.
If I had done better – if I had not failed her – maybe I’d feel differently. Maybe I’d even be with her, wherever and whatever she is. Or maybe I’d just be dead.
Either way, I feel like I’d be better off.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/9jh120/i_knew_a_girl_who_had_beautiful_wings/
![[OC] Rushed Stars](https://a.thumbs.redditmedia.com/1TitXOEMyCmSXmIOkXIu8vpiiI-mZk4SJ9RIdV_26B8.jpg "[OC] Rushed Stars")
The Dunburry Eleven
It was winter when they started going missing. The kids from Dunburry. An eight year old boy was first. A tragedy, to be sure, but the last time anyone saw him, he’d been heading out toward the lake. Most suspected he’d wandered on to a weak spot and gone through. The town would have to wait until it started to thaw to comb the bottom for any remains.
A few weeks later, the Kellie girl vanished. She was twelve and walking to her grandma’s house just a street over from home.
After that, the Martin boy disappeared, and then the Dunlap twins and the Kim boy. All between the ages of five and fourteen over the span of a couple months.
Even after the press releases urging caution were played across every news outlet in town and the curfew was put in place, we still lost Shauna White. She was the last that year.
I joined the force the following fall. One of a small station made up of dozen cops. As the rookie, I took on the more banal cases: the ones between exes disputing who gets the blender and the noise complaints from overly sensitive neighbors. That and run-ins with the regular drunks and junkies that populate small towns was the bread and butter of Dunburry PD.
There was only one board in the office, one covered in smiling kids’ photos, that remained unsolved.
A new picture was added to it in December that year, just days before Christmas. A grinning, red haired girl with big, round glasses and braces. Morgan Crownsley.
“It’s happening again, isn’t it,” Shelly, the precinct secretary, said sadly, voicing the same thought we all had.
We called in recruits from neighboring towns. Some FBI guys showed up. The show of police had never been so strong as it was after Morgan’s disappearance.
It didn’t stop Ray Pollock from being next only two weeks later. He was a few days shy of being ten, on his way home from the arcade. He’d told his parents he was getting a ride with a friend, but had decided to walk after his friend’s mom was late. His photo was pinned up beside Morgan’s.
There were some leads, phoned in claims that they’d seen Such N’So in the same area Ray had been in or anonymous letters claiming the writer had taken all the children. We followed up on every tiny crumb thrown our way. Most were dead ends, some were outright hoaxes, and the few that seemed even the least bit promising quickly unraveled.
Paranoia gripped Dunburry. Children weren’t allowed out alone or, in some cases, at all. Schools saw a spike in absences. The parks and playgrounds were empty. Parents were tense and angry, mostly at us cops. They demanded answers. We didn’t have any.
Two more children would vanish before the winter was over. Down from the previous year’s number, but no less horrifying. No less heartbreaking.
They were dubbed “The Dunburry Eleven”.
As spring rolled in and the snow receded, every lake and pond in the area was swept. We spent hours every day going through the woods, poking around in caves, searching abandoned properties. But there were never any kids. Just more disappointment.
I’d drawn the short staw and was working the front desk the day the call came in. It was a frantic, fast talking woman on the line, and she was shouting at me before I’d finished my greeting.
“I think I’ve found them. Oh God, you need to get out here! Oh God…”
It took a few minutes for her to tell me where “here” was. She had been hiking in the woods about twenty miles outside of town in the national park reserve by Big Bend River when she made her discovery. She’d thought clearly enough to mark where she’d been on the map before running back to her car and hightailing to the nearest gas station to use their phone.
Half of the force was tearing up the highway as soon as I hung up. Because I’d taken the call, I was allowed to join them. We stopped off at the gas station long enough to pick up the woman, Gabrielle, and then continued on, a line of blaring, flashing sirens.
When asked what she’d found, Gabrielle just buried her face in her hands and sobbed.
“The children,” was all she could say.
The turn off from the highway put us on a poorly paved road that turned to dirt. Our convoy wound through the woods, to the lot where Gabrielle had been parked. She handed her map off to my sergeant and pointed out the route she’d taken. Two officers remained behind with her to try and get a further statement. The rest of us followed the path she’d created for us.
It was chilly in those woods despite the sunlight coming in through the treetops. Everything was green and lush and alive, and marching through it in our uniforms and gear was a tiring challenge. At any other time, I might have thought of it as beautiful. Now it felt far too oppressive.
Up ahead, Sarge held out an arm to stop us. We must have reached the spot marked on Gabrielle’s map. He crept ahead, hand on his holster, and ducked behind a tree to take surveillance. When he saw no movement, he nodded for us to fan out and approach.
The trees were thinned out a bit here, allowing the sun to pour brightly in, and someone had made use of the more open area. An archway marked its entrance. A handful of tiny playhouses had been built at the base of the trunks. Scattered around the houses were rough park benches, rocks laid out to form the borders of paths, and hand painted road signs. Everything was handmade. All were child sized.
The miniature village was not empty.
Eleven little bodies in various stages of decay were posed throughout. They’d been dressed in the clothing of an earlier era. The early 1900s, I thought numbly. One was seated in a house window. Another on a park bench. A pair were strung up to one of the signs so that they appeared to be standing side by side. One with red hair and big, round glasses was lying on a blanket with her hands folded behind her head. Her rotted face pointed up towards the sky.
All of them had had their chests split open, and from inside them sprouted bouquets of bright wildflowers.
More than one of us turned away, desperately trying to keep from retching. I heard my sergeant take a deep, steadying breath, and then the crackle of his radio.
“Dispatch, this is Sergeant Donoghue,” he said solemnly into his shoulder. “We’ve located the missing children.”
While we waited for the crime scene unit to arrive, we carefully picked through the village for any kind visible of evidence. We all tried to avoid looking at the children as much as we could. I reached the far end of the macabre setup and turned around again. That was when I saw that the back of the archway had words crudely carved into it. Carefully, I crossed towards it again and shielded my eyes against the sun to read it.
Only four words, but they made my heart sink deeper into my roiling stomach. Somehow, they just made everything seem that much sicker. I looked away, back at the children, still posed with their floral bursts, and I wondered how anyone could look at what had been done here and think those words fitting.
How anyone could do this.
I glanced up at the sign again and shuddered uncontrollably.
Forever young, forever beautiful
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/9jexcp/the_dunburry_eleven/
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Oh wow
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submitted by /u/DancingLamaZ to r/drawing [link] [comments] |
source https://www.reddit.com/r/drawing/comments/9jfvbd/oh_wow/
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