The scary thread

[David_G]

Many classic horror icons, such as Geger?s xenomorphs, Silent Hill?s Pyramid Head, and other disturbing creatures, share common characteristics. Pale skin, dark, sunken eyes, elongated faces, sharp teeth, and the like. These images inspire horror and revulsion in many, and with good reason. The characteristics shared by these faces are imprinted in the human mind.

Many things frighten humans instinctively. The fear is natural, and does not need to be reinforced in order to terrify. The fears are species-wide, stemming from dark times in the past when lightning could mean the burning of your tree home, thunder could be the approaching gallops of a stampede, predators could hide in darkness, and heights could make poor footing lethal.

The question you have to ask yourself is this:

What happened, deep in the hidden eras before history began, that could effect the entire human race so evenly as to give the entire species a deep, instinctual, and lasting fear of pale beings with dark, sunken eyes, razor sharp teeth, and elongated faces?

? Just be careful out there.

Yeah... already has been posted.

 

[kickassfrog]

Spoiler: The Gift of Mercy

!MESSAGE BEGINS

We made a mistake. That is the simple, undeniable truth of the matter, however painful it might be. The flaw was not in our Observatories, for those machines were as perfect as we could make, and they showed us only the unfiltered light of truth. The flaw was not in the Predictor, for it is a device of pure, infallible logic, turning raw data into meaningful information without the taint of emotion or bias. No, the flaw was within us, the Orchestrators of this disaster, the sentients who thought themselves beyond such failings. We are responsible.

It began a short while ago, as these things are measured, less than 6^6 Deeli ago, though I suspect our systems of measure will mean very little by the time anyone receives this transmission. We detected faint radio signals from a blossoming intelligence 2^14 Deelis outward from the Galactic Core, as photons travel. At first crude and unstructured, these leaking broadcasts quickly grew in complexity and strength, as did the messages they carried. Through our Observatories we watched a world of strife and violence, populated by a barbaric race of short-lived, fast breeding vermin. They were brutal and uncultured things which stabbed and shot and burned each other with no regard for life or purpose. Even their concepts of Art spoke of conflict and pain. They divided themselves according to some bizarre cultural patterns and set their every industry to cause of death.

They terrified us, but we were older and wiser and so very far away, so we did not fret. Then we watched them split the atom and breach the heavens within the breadth of one of their single, short generations, and we began to worry. When they began actively transmitting messages and greetings into space, we felt fear and horror. Their transmissions promised peace and camaraderie to any who were listening, but we had watched them for too long to buy into such transparent deceptions. They knew we were out here, and they were coming for us.

The Orchestrators consulted the Predictor, and the output was dire. They would multiply and grow and flood out of their home system like some uncountable tide of Devourer worms, consuming all that lay in their path. It might take 6^8 Deelis, but they would destroy us if left unchecked. With aching carapaces we decided to act, and sealed our fate.

The Gift of Mercy was 8^4 strides long with a mouth 2/4 that in diameter, filled with many 4^4 weights of machinery, fuel, and ballast. It would push itself up to 2/8th of light speed with its onboard fuel, and then begin to consume interstellar Primary Element 2/2 to feed its unlimited acceleration. It would be traveling at nearly light speed when it hit. They would never see it coming. Its launch was a day of mourning, celebration, and reflection. The horror of the act we had committed weighted heavily upon us all; the necessity of our crime did little to comfort us.

The Gift had barely cleared the outer cometary halo when the mistake was realized, but it was too late. The Gift could not be caught, could not be recalled or diverted from its path. The architects and work crews, horrified at the awful power of the thing upon which they labored, had quietly self-terminated in droves, walking unshielded into radiation zones, neglecting proper null pressure safety or simple ceasing their nutrient consumption until their metabolic functions stopped. The appalling cost in lives had forced the Orchestrators to streamline the Gift's design and construction. There had been no time for the design or implementation of anything beyond the simple, massive engines and the stabilizing systems. We could only watch in shame and horror as the light of genocide faded into infrared against the distant void.

They grew, and they changed, in a handful of lifetimes they abolished war, abandoned their violent tendencies and turned themselves to the grand purposes of life and Art. We watched them remake first themselves, and then their world. Their frail, soft bodies gave way to gleaming metals and plastics, they unified their people through an omnipresent communications grid and produced Art of such power and emotion, the likes of which the Galaxy has never seen before. Or again, because of us.

They converted their home world into a paradise (by their standards) and many 10^6s of them poured out into the surrounding system with a rapidity and vigor that we could only envy. With bodies built to survive every environment from the day lit surface of their innermost world, to the atmosphere of their largest gas giant and the cold void in-between, they set out to sculpt their system into something beautiful. At first we thought them simple miners, stripping the rocky planets and moons for vital resources, but then we began to see the purpose to their constructions, the artworks carved into every surface, and traced across the system in glittering lights and dancing fusion trails. And still, our terrible Gift approached.

They had less than 2^2 Deeli to see it, following so closely on the tail of its own light. In that time, oh so brief even by their fleeting lives, more than 10^10 sentients prepared for death. Lovers exchanged last words, separated by worlds and the tyranny of light speed. Their planetside engineers worked frantically to build sufficient transmission infrastructure to upload the countless masses with the necessary neural modifications, while those above dumped lifetimes of music and literature from their databanks to make room for passengers. Those lacking the required hardware or the time to acquire it consigned themselves to death, lashed out in fear and pain, or simply went about their lives as best they could under the circumstances.

The Gift arrived suddenly, the light of its impact visible in our skies, shining bright and cruel even to the unaugmented ocular receptor. We watched and we wept for our victims, dead so many Deelis before the light of their doom had even reached us. Many 6^4s of those who had been directly or even tangentially involved in the creation of the Gift sealed their spiracles with paste as a final penance for the small roles they had played in this atrocity. The light dimmed, the dust cleared, and our Observatories refocused upon the place where their shining blue world had once hung in the void, and found only dust and the pale gleam of an orphaned moon, wrapped in a thin, burning wisp of atmosphere that had once belonged to its parent.

Radiation and relativistic shrapnel had wiped out much of the inner system, and continent sized chunks of molten rock carried screaming ghosts outward at interstellar escape velocities, damned to wander the great void for an eternity. The damage was apocalyptic, but not complete, from the shadows of the outer worlds, tiny points of light emerged, thousands of fusion trails of single ships and world ships and everything in between, many 10^6s of survivors in flesh and steel and memory banks, ready to rebuild. For a few moments we felt relief, even joy, and we were filled with the hope that their culture and Art would survive the terrible blow we had dealt them. Then came the message, tightly focused at our star, transmitted simultaneously by hundreds of their ships.

"We know you are out there, and we are coming for you."

!MESSAGE ENDS

Whoa. That was really good. Not scary or anything, but a darn good read. Thanks for posting it.

(Incidentally, that story reminds me of the Krogan and Geth from Mass Effect.)

Haunting, but basically pretty accurate

 

[Ldude893]

I can't believe I'm still contributing.

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/3431/1302341471833.gif

Nice try. I'm extra careful when clicking links to gifs, especially on this thread.

Spoiler: Speaking of gifs

 

[David_G]

I can't believe I'm still contributing.

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/3431/1302341471833.gif

Nice try. I'm extra careful when clicking links to gifs, especially on this thread.

Spoiler: Speaking of gifs

Open it... trust me...

 

[Shoqiyqa]

I chuckled a little when I saw this pop back up. It will never die.

July 2010 to April 2011 and still going strong ... but I can't remember how far through it I got so I don't know where to start reading again.

http://www.collectedcurios.com/freakshow.html

Just still images linked on the left, but ... they're kind of creepy.

 

[Shoqiyqa]

Variation on an old, sad story:

"For sale: one pair baby shoes, never worn, seventeen previous owners."

God, I've read most of this thread and i'm walking home late at night, past a graveyard.

Safest place in the world. Everybody in it's dead.

No, no, NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

i need to sleep you know!!! >.<

Anyway might as well contribute


As far as i know, it's one of the only video's that is very hard to explain...

Erm ... doesn't look very real, to be honest. "D'you hear that?" right at the start, no shake, the fact he shut the door again and so on make it look set up.

Also: er, nothing really spooky there. He just sort of gasped and shut the door quickly.

Is ... er ... is everyone else seeing something in that film that I just don't see?

http://www.shibito.com/e/top_hp.html
One of the pictures there just... ugh.

Clicked first link. The "when the road narrowed down" picture was kind of pretty. The rest ... yawnsome, I'm afraid. Sorry.

I don?t get this one. What?s the piggyback?

Stand with your upper arms sloping out and down, your forearms hanging down and your hands curled round so your fingernails are against your hips. Now imagine a slender girl (or a stonking great big, hairy, smelly man with a prickly beard and whisky on his breath if you prefer) pressed against your back, arms over your shoulders, holding your lapels (or your chin if she's tiny) and thighs resting on your hands, looking forwards over your head or past your ear.

Please let this thread die. I may never sleep again.

Foolish child. The thread hungers. It can never die, for it will feed. One way or another, this thread will live on, slithering across the net, curling up in archives and reaching out to the curious, drawing in more and more minds, feeding on our contributions and the fear in our readers as long as we can satisfy it, and feeding when we fail, too. Be glad when we post, and be very glad when someone is afraid. At least you know it's been fed.

I've got one:
So ur with ur honey and yur making out wen the phone rigns. U anser it n the vioce is ?wut r u doing wit my daughter?? U tell ur girl n she say ?my dad is ded?. THEN WHO WAS PHONE?

The spelling and grammar police?

I know this has been posted ages ago but I just wanted to add:

The grammar GESTAPO more like.

Nobody expects the Grammar Inquisition! Our main weapon is apostrophes and semi-colons. Our TWO main weapons are apostrophes and semi-colons, and reflexive pronouns.

The Gift Of Mercy is good! It's more of a tragedy than a horror story, but it's good.

Pennywise as shown wasn't scary.

Pennywise in the book was scary.

*Fur Elise starts playing*

Cute, WMP. Really cute.

 

[Shoqiyqa]

NO NO NO THE SCARY THREAD MUST NOT RETURN PLEASE NO

This is like, the seventh revival...

I've revived it three or four times so seven may be a bit low.

I don't even like scary stories! they scare me too much!

I think we're alright as long as it doesn't get to thirteen, aren't we?

Safest thing to do: keep it alive.

 

[Shoqiyqa]

... check 1:22 ...

God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth."

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet:

Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart.

Errr ... I'm guessing you meant the quotation from Matthew.

 

[Shoqiyqa]

Anyone ever heard of the Blair Witch Project?

Oh, yes. I remember the ridiculous amounts of hype about it in the papers before the film came out and actually took someone to see it. We left about two thirds of the way through.

"Three dumb Yanks run around in circles in the woods screaming 'Fuck' at each other, then die."

The first five minutes told you how it would end, the last five minutes exactly followed what the first five had told you to expect and the eighty in between were three incredibly dumb Yanks running around in circles in the woods screaming 'Fuck' at each other.

 

[Macheteswordgun]

BE AFRAID VERY AFRAID. Needs more stories.

 

[Smagmuck_]

BE AFRAID VERY AFRAID. Needs more stories.

You bastard! You've doomed us all!

 

[classygangster]

My friend told me this story, I don't know where he got it from, thou I do know it isn't his.

So, this girl has a dog that sleeps in her room, and every night before she goes to sleep she sticks her hand out from the covers and it licks her hand. One night she gets up to go to the bathroom. She finds her dog dead in the sink, with the words 'Humans can lick hands too' written in blood.

 

[Coffeemaker]

I couldn't leave this thread without adding something to it. It might not be that great as I wrote it in about 15 minutes, so don't judge me to harshly.

Spoiler

Hell

So this was hell. She knew why she was here. She hadn't lived a good life. She had cheated those she loved. Taken from those who had nothing. While alive she had been the CEO of a major insurance company and she would be lying if she said she had never denied coverage to those who deserved it. Yet strapped to the chair, unable to move, she couldn't help but think that even she didn't deserve this. Surely this punishment went far beyond her crimes?

The chair she was strapped into, as well as a small table beside her, were the only things in the room, which looked as if it was part of an old abandoned building. She had been there for 5 minutes and nothing had happened so far. Maybe things weren't as bad as they seemed? But just as hopeful the thought crossed her mind, a man walked into the room. With him he carried a brown bag which he placed upon the table.

"Please", she begged. "Please don't hurt me, I'll do anything you want"

The man didn't say a word, he simply opened the bag and began to place its contents out on the table. Among them she saw razor blades, knives, saws, hooks, pliers, a blow torch and other torture instruments.

She couldn't comprehend what she was seeing, what she knew was about to take place. And then she screamed. And she screamed. And she screamed. As loud as she could until finally, after he had finished unpacking the back, the man put his hand over her mouth to quite her.

"Please stop screaming", he whispered in her ear. "We haven't even started yet".

And then he began his work. He would use one instrument, then the switch to another, then another. He tore her apart piece by piece until eventually, after hours of pain worse than she could ever imagine, she finally felt it. The feeling what she had been waiting to feel the entire time. She could feel her life slipping away. She was about to die... again. But if she died in hell, surely that would be the end of it. She was sure her punishment had finished. This would finally be over.

But even as the thought crossed her mind, the feeling disappeared. Her flesh began to tingle and she could feel her body being repaired. Her skin knitted itself back together until she was whole again, as perfectly healthy as she had been when she first found herself in the room. She didn't understand. She wanted to die. She wanted this to end. And instead she had been rebuilt, had gone from barely resembling a human to not having a scratch on her. And so once again she began to scream. And scream. And scream.

After a few seconds the man walked over to her. He held the first torture device he had used on her in one hand and covered her mouth with the other.

"Please stop screaming", he whispered in her ear. "We haven't even started yet".

.

Enjoy

 

[Beryl77]

Oh not this thread again...
I guess I might as well contribute.

This actually happened to me a few days ago.
I was playing Amnesia and at some point I decided to go to sleep. So, it was a bit past midnight, nobody was at home and I had just played through some scary parts in Amnesia (which part isn't scary in that game), so it was your typical horror scenario. Normally I don't have a problem with being alone in the night but I was a bit...more cautious that night because of Amnesia, so I decided to watch a bit TV before sleeping.
I got sleepy after a while and turned it off and I'm 100% sure that I turned it off because I clearly remember that it got all dark in the room and I couldn't see anything anymore.
I was lying in my bed trying to fall asleep when I suddenly realised that the TV was on. I sat up and saw that it was static on channel 00 but the last channel that I had watched was number 14 or 16, so it should have been one of those two channels and not 00.
Now, I knew that I had definitely turned it on and the remote control was still at the same place where I had left it.

If I think now about it, it was probably just some technical issue that had caused this, though this had never happened before. But it really did scare me that night because it happened right after I had played Amnesia.

 

[Mcupobob]

Its late, your eyes feel heavy and numb. The room dark, quite, only the sound of your own heavy breathing and the shuffling in your seat. The very air stale. If you listen a littler harder. You can hear the others breath as well. If you sit still long enough, you can hear them whisper. If you close your eyes, you can feel them brush past. What are they you ask? I'm not sure, turn around and ask yourself. You might not hear a reply that moment. But at your weakest and most only moment, they'll tell you. But thats your choice and risk.

You could instead, turn the computer off and sleep. You won't though, they never do.

With love and fear - Mcupobob

 

[David_G]

I couldn't leave this thread without adding something to it. It might not be that great as I wrote it in about 15 minutes, so don't judge me to harshly.

Spoiler

Hell

So this was hell. She knew why she was here. She hadn't lived a good life. She had cheated those she loved. Taken from those who had nothing. While alive she had been the CEO of a major insurance company and she would be lying if she said she had never denied coverage to those who deserved it. Yet strapped to the chair, unable to move, she couldn't help but think that even she didn't deserve this. Surely this punishment went far beyond her crimes?

The chair she was strapped into, as well as a small table beside her, were the only things in the room, which looked as if it was part of an old abandoned building. She had been there for 5 minutes and nothing had happened so far. Maybe things weren't as bad as they seemed? But just as hopeful the thought crossed her mind, a man walked into the room. With him he carried a brown bag which he placed upon the table.

"Please", she begged. "Please don't hurt me, I'll do anything you want"

The man didn't say a word, he simply opened the bag and began to place its contents out on the table. Among them she saw razor blades, knives, saws, hooks, pliers, a blow torch and other torture instruments.

She couldn't comprehend what she was seeing, what she knew was about to take place. And then she screamed. And she screamed. And she screamed. As loud as she could until finally, after he had finished unpacking the back, the man put his hand over her mouth to quite her.

"Please stop screaming", he whispered in her ear. "We haven't even started yet".

And then he began his work. He would use one instrument, then the switch to another, then another. He tore her apart piece by piece until eventually, after hours of pain worse than she could ever imagine, she finally felt it. The feeling what she had been waiting to feel the entire time. She could feel her life slipping away. She was about to die... again. But if she died in hell, surely that would be the end of it. She was sure her punishment had finished. This would finally be over.

But even as the thought crossed her mind, the feeling disappeared. Her flesh began to tingle and she could feel her body being repaired. Her skin knitted itself back together until she was whole again, as perfectly healthy as she had been when she first found herself in the room. She didn't understand. She wanted to die. She wanted this to end. And instead she had been rebuilt, had gone from barely resembling a human to not having a scratch on her. And so once again she began to scream. And scream. And scream.

After a few seconds the man walked over to her. He held the first torture device he had used on her in one hand and covered her mouth with the other.

"Please stop screaming", he whispered in her ear. "We haven't even started yet".

.

Enjoy

Wow. This is really good. Good job, dude.

 

[Coffeemaker]

I couldn't leave this thread without adding something to it. It might not be that great as I wrote it in about 15 minutes, so don't judge me to harshly.

Spoiler

Hell

So this was hell. She knew why she was here. She hadn't lived a good life. She had cheated those she loved. Taken from those who had nothing. While alive she had been the CEO of a major insurance company and she would be lying if she said she had never denied coverage to those who deserved it. Yet strapped to the chair, unable to move, she couldn't help but think that even she didn't deserve this. Surely this punishment went far beyond her crimes?

The chair she was strapped into, as well as a small table beside her, were the only things in the room, which looked as if it was part of an old abandoned building. She had been there for 5 minutes and nothing had happened so far. Maybe things weren't as bad as they seemed? But just as hopeful the thought crossed her mind, a man walked into the room. With him he carried a brown bag which he placed upon the table.

"Please", she begged. "Please don't hurt me, I'll do anything you want"

The man didn't say a word, he simply opened the bag and began to place its contents out on the table. Among them she saw razor blades, knives, saws, hooks, pliers, a blow torch and other torture instruments.

She couldn't comprehend what she was seeing, what she knew was about to take place. And then she screamed. And she screamed. And she screamed. As loud as she could until finally, after he had finished unpacking the back, the man put his hand over her mouth to quite her.

"Please stop screaming", he whispered in her ear. "We haven't even started yet".

And then he began his work. He would use one instrument, then the switch to another, then another. He tore her apart piece by piece until eventually, after hours of pain worse than she could ever imagine, she finally felt it. The feeling what she had been waiting to feel the entire time. She could feel her life slipping away. She was about to die... again. But if she died in hell, surely that would be the end of it. She was sure her punishment had finished. This would finally be over.

But even as the thought crossed her mind, the feeling disappeared. Her flesh began to tingle and she could feel her body being repaired. Her skin knitted itself back together until she was whole again, as perfectly healthy as she had been when she first found herself in the room. She didn't understand. She wanted to die. She wanted this to end. And instead she had been rebuilt, had gone from barely resembling a human to not having a scratch on her. And so once again she began to scream. And scream. And scream.

After a few seconds the man walked over to her. He held the first torture device he had used on her in one hand and covered her mouth with the other.

"Please stop screaming", he whispered in her ear. "We haven't even started yet".

.

Enjoy

Wow. This is really good. Good job, dude.

Thanks Man. Glad you liked it

 

[icame]

*Shivers*

 

[Mcupobob]