There are a lot of dangerous things that lurk in the shadows of this world. For that, I want to thank this subreddit for keeping me and countless others safe. I’ve followed every set of rules I’ve ever received, I’ve searched the subreddit every time I’ve received a sketchy address, and I’ve never gone camping. But now I have something to bring all of you. You know, to pay it forward. You see, I’ve recently found one of those dark corners that eludes the edge of human understanding.
I said recently, but that’s not entirely the truth. You see, I first met this special individual in my youth. Only now do I know that he is the leader of a powerful cult. One that operates in the very fabric of society, poisoning and killing us over time. It has its tendrils in nearly every organization of note in the world. It’s basically impossible to fight, but you can keep yourself safe from them. Thankfully, for all their maliciousness, they have a very defined mode of operation. Almost like a set of rules if you want to think of it like that. However, it’ll be easiest for me to tell if I start from the beginning.
I first met him in grade school. At the time he went by the name of Ethan, but he went by ET. Ethan “ET” O’Hare was a popular kid, but his antics and cool running personality rubbed teachers and parents the wrong way. He was repeatedly denounced as a hooligan and a bad influence by various authority figures, and most parents instructed their children not to associate with him. But he was very charismatic, and rarely did the children pay the adults any mind. It didn’t help that most of the parents secretly adored him. How could you not? Despite acting contrary to “good morals and wellness”, ET was the master of good times. He established this the first day he walked into school.
In elementary, he started by telling fantastic tales that you couldn’t help but both doubt and believe. He told us he had been a wise prophet in a past life, wiser than any of his contemporaries. He had a normal name, but went by Buddy or Bud, depending on the audience. He said he was a friend to everyone as Bud. He counted presidents, prime ministers, movie stars, and more as close friends. Bud was always there for them, to listen and offer advice. Only when I was much older did I realize how malicious that advice was…
Another story he told was of the time he was the captain of a merchant ship back when they were made of wood and cloth sails. He told us how his was the fastest ship of its era, and he called himself a blaze upon the waves. His clan had recently defeated another, supposedly godless clan and it was his job to keep the population sedate and compliant with various goods. He told us how he, in his service to a righteous cause, took this much further. He basically enslaved them, feeding them comforting poisons and hopeless despair to cement their loss for generations. He boasted as he recalled how he took their homes and forced them to live in squalid, overpopulated hovels. He recounted the property he took when he did so, and how the “good” people in his clan got these gifts as part of their reward for virtuous living. The way he justified it at the time, you were mad he didn’t just wipe these godless heathens from the world. What he spun as such a wretched people deserved nothing less. Nowadays, I realize what kind of dehumanizing demagoguery he was performing.
However, as kids we stayed enthralled at his ability to spin a story and generate a good mood. We didn’t, maybe even couldn’t know any better. This continued through middle school, and then into high school. Around this time, ET started to host parties, wild things that everyone loved. Only in hindsight did I realize that at least someone got hurt and a lot of people got sick during or after every party, almost like clockwork. In fact, one kid got parylzed from the waist down after accidentally falling from a balcony at one such party. Even though there seemed to be a common theme of involvement looking back, we all rationalized it at the time. With enough people, things like these happen. Even on the best of days, people get injured and die in accidents. More people close together means disease spreads easier. ET told us it was a good thing - that it would build herd immunity. Made us feel like heroes for all getting sick together to “protect the community”. It was easy to explain away. I mean, who would want to blame the most popular guy at school and in the town? Especially if that meant an end to the supposedly best parties of our lives.
Though it took several years to reach full realization, I started to understand what ET really was after one such party. Much like any other teenager, I liked to party without adult supervision, which worked out as ET’s parents seemed to never be home. At some point on one particular night, a bunch of us ended up in the woods behind his house, though nobody there could really say why. Melissa, one of the “tag along” girls at the time, ended up tripping and busting her head open. She was unconscious, and with the limited light that was available, it looked like she was in real trouble. Instead of helping her, ET convinced everyone to just leave her. He told us it was her own fault for being clumsy, and she’d want us to keep having a good time without her. She’d wake up fine and get back when she could. Who dies from a trip and a fall anyway? I protested, and he just told me I was ruining the mood. I should’ve done something, but peer pressure is a hell of a drug. Everyone just…left and continued on partying.. Melissa had to spend a few days in the hospital after they found her in the woods that morning. The strangest thing was, Melissa got blamed for being clumsy and messing around in the woods. Most of the guys there didn’t even remember ET convincing them to leave her when questioned. This way he could convince and confuse us - it was uncanny. He, of course, didn’t seem to be affected by his own spell.
The incident with Melissa had earned me the ire of ET. I had started to get suspicious, and that simply was not something he would tolerate. The thing was, I still thought we were good friends. I still went to his parties, and he didn’t treat me any differently to my face. It is only in hindsight that I can accurately recount how he had subtly enacted his vengeance. He would quickly become the most abusive and corrosive effect on my life, and I would love him for it. It started two weeks after the Melissa incident - my father was killed in a head on car crash. The strangest thing was the other driver only had minor injuries. Like he had anticipated the crash or something. Only much later did I realize the other driver was one of ET’s first acolytes.
After that, my world fell apart, and ET was there to help slide me into oblivion. Even though I had seen his uncanny power firsthand, I was not immune to his charm. He worked me over until I was convinced that we were close friends, and kept me company nearly every day from my Father’s death to graduating high school. In this year-long stretch of time, I was often sick. I would throw up often, I rarely ate, and my skin started to become discolored. My grades slipped to the point that college became out of reach. I lost my part time job and couldn’t keep another, no matter how hard I tried. After enough rejections, I stopped trying, and just spent more time with ET. Even worse, my memory started to go. I became depressed, and thought about killing myself more than a few times. ET, though, was there to ‘help’ every step of the way, and as a good friend I helped him out frequently with the money trouble he seemed to get in all the time. It was in this era of my life that ET told me his real name. What he’d always been known by, apparently, in his past lives. It didn’t mean anything to me then, hell I thought he was just telling another story, but now I know. He was mocking me while he planned his coup de grâce.
Thankfully the end of high school saw me and ET part ways. My mother, seeing how hard life and ET had taken its toll on me, sent me off to spend the summer with my uncle in his cabin. The reception there was spotty at best, and although ET tried to keep touch, it proved all but impossible. Somehow it felt like he still could reach me. I would shake uncontrollably at times. I was sweating all the time, even in the dead of night. I couldn’t keep anything down for over a week. Thankfully my uncle was there to take care of me, and eventually I pulled through. Oddly enough, my uncle told me he had a similar bout of sickness when he was a younger man.
My uncle was quite a bit older than my father would’ve been and was very good at reaching troubled youth, which is what I got labeled during my senior year. In that summer he was able to bring me back to something close to what I had been before ET had thoroughly destroyed me. Towards the end of the summer, he told me a story from his own troubled youth. He had a friend, Allen Hall who went by Al. He was an entrepreneur, and would always introduce himself as Al from Al Co. One night, Al, my uncle, and another guy named Fyre that went to the same school were off doing something or another in the city. My uncle never could remember what they were doing, but he knew that he didn’t care for Fyre. Later in the evening, well past midnight, Al convinced my uncle to attack Fyre for ruining the night. Long story short, he ended up killing him in a rage, and hid the body in a dumpster. He doesn’t remember how he got home, but due to Fyre lying about where he was going, my uncle managed to avoid suspicion. The guilt, though, ate him alive for many years, though Al was always there to share the burden. Paradoxically, once Al died from liver failure, my uncle was finally able to forgive himself and move on, though not after having some of the same sickness he saw me go through. All I could think of that story was how similar Al and ET were, and those stories of his past lives he told.
The year following that summer, I took a factory job from a friend of a friend of my late father. It helped get me on my feet, and get a good grounding in life. Hard work can help you appreciate the finer things, and really drive home how much bad decisions can cost you. That next year I went to community college, looking to do something related to computers and math - STEM was always solid according to my uncle. There, I started to meet them. The acolytes of the boy I once knew as ET. They would hold the same kind of parties he would, and would tell stories to enthrall those who would come. In some circles, they were called the Tell, but the same signs and symptoms were there. Those who would go would get sick often, accidents were frequent, and some that I talked to even claimed to have trouble remembering the parties. I avoided them like the plague.
I was convinced it could not be a coincidence. Thankfully, we live in the information age, which made researching this group and phenomena very easy. What I found could not be more horrifying. I identified several other individuals that were just like ET and Al. One was a lawyer in the revolutionary era. Another owned a series of mills in Chicago around the antebellum period. Yet another was a major landowner during one of the Irish rebellions. Even worse was the extent of their activities. This cult has many houses of worship, though they don’t look like it. In fact, you may be in one now. In addition to the effects I felt, those caught in the sway of the cult of Tell can expect numerous health problems as their mind and bodies are slowly chipped away. Even worse was their involvement in crime. For nearly every major crime, the Tell played some role. One of their specialties seems to be car accidents. By taking out a father, or a mother, or a sibling, the Tell can often get at least one family member under their sway by manipulating their despair. It worked on me. It’d probably even work on you.
The craziest party is how powerful ET has become. He’s enthralled millions of people who love him and spread the word of this cult. You can see this bleed over in basically all kinds of modern media - TV, movies, hell even books sometimes have references or tributes to their love of the Tell. ET has also gotten even more deceptive. Many of those enthralled by him only ever suffer mild versions of what I experienced while still enjoying the good times the master brings, helping justify the safety and benefits of the cult. Regardless, I have to warn you. I doubt anywhere else will believe me. As you’ve probably gathered, he’s got a bit of an ego and named the cult after himself. His true name, of course. The one he let slip to me those years ago before I left for the summer. He won’t chase you if you avoid him, like I accidentally did by going away for the summer. He won’t go where he isn’t welcomed. You’d think this would make it easy, but it isn’t. Walking away was one of the hardest things I ever did. As such, from me to you, if you do anything, please do this one thing.
Stay away from the Beau Tell.