It’s watching everyone on this subreddit.
This is the price we pay for tempting fate. We should never have posted our experiences. Some stories should be left alone. We could have simply been glad to survive these terrible things, rather than flocking to NoSleep in an eager rush to gloat of our triumphs. We toyed with forces beyond our understanding, and this is our comeuppance.
Think about it. Think about what we’ve done. We’ve posted about ghastly ghouls and abominable apparitions. We’ve bragged of our narrow victories against unfathomably powerful forces. We’ve even, on occasion, made jokes in comment sections. I’m not judging you. I’m the same. Comedy is a soothing bandage for the chasms of horror that traumatic events can open in our souls. Still, evil doesn’t care about that.
Don’t fool yourself into thinking that readers might avoid this reckoning. Even the lurkers and non-voters have contributed to the thriving nature of this dark and twisted place. You’ve caught the eye of something truly insidious.
It was only a matter of time until a very bad thing would find r/nosleep and turn it into a computerised haunted house.
Perhaps I should explain what I’ve discovered. I have read the experiences of so many people on this subreddit. I’ve gleefully soaked up their tales of true horror, and it has become a slight addiction. In fact, I think I first noticed something unsettling because I obsessively pour over the finer details of everything I experience on NoSleep.
I’ve seen things that have been there one second and disappeared the next. The early events were things that seemed like glitches with Reddit. The name of r/nosleep changed to r/sleep, but clicking on that link didn’t take me to the entirely-separate subreddit of that name; it took me to a solitary Google image of a stick figure sleeping on a mattress.
I messaged countless people, searched Google, and even submitted reports of what I’d experienced. Nobody else had seen the name of the subreddit change or found the picture of the sleeping stick man. Nobody had hacked the NoSleep subreddit. There had been no glitch for anyone else. I thought, perhaps, that I had accidentally left the official Reddit site and ended up on a fake version of r/nosleep. I couldn’t really think of any other explanation.
The true terror began when events defied any form of reason.
I was reading one of many NoSleep posts on rules for dealing with certain unnatural beings. When I looked at the comment section, I saw something that unnerved me. I was disconcerted, yet again, by what seemed to be a glitch. The comment had no username listed above it.
Rule 11: It is unkind to joyfully read true horror. Sticks and stones will break your bones.
There was an almighty sound of smashing glass in my room. Soul vacating my body for a brief moment, I twisted my desk chair around to face numerous shards that were scattered across my carpet. In the centre of the wreckage was a small stone that had seemingly been hurled at my window, breaking it. I sprung to my feet and peered through the now-glassless frame. There was something on the other side of the road. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to scrub that haunting image from my mind.
Wedged between two hedges, slightly illuminated by the dim glow of a nearby lamppost, I was watched by a shadowy figure. His form was emaciated and blackened. Upon closer inspection, I realised that it wasn’t a person. It was a stick figure.
I screamed, tearing my curtains closed. Shuddering, I sat beneath the empty window frame with my back against the wall. I remained that way for the next seven hours. I didn’t sleep, unless it counts as rest to persistently daydream of a lurking stick man.
It turned out that he wasn’t a figment of my imagination. It was quite clear, even before learning of Rule 11, that the watchful stick figure only harboured sinister intentions.
In class, I struggled to listen to my teacher. During breaks, I struggled to engage in conversations with my friends. My head was elsewhere. And I know this might sound foolish, given the warning it had sent to me, but I was obsessed with the concept of this horrifying spectre. I had become the very definition of morbidly curious.
I browsed NoSleep, looking for clues. The ‘Rule 11’ comment had vanished without a trace, but I tirelessly read posts, searched for edited descriptions or images, and even scoured comment sections for anything untoward. I found nothing. That didn’t put me at ease, however. It only worsened my fear. At least the stick figure hadn’t seemed so threatening as a static, pixellated image on my screen. On the other hand, in real life, the crooked figure had been the most terrifying thing I’d ever seen.
Why me? I wondered.
I sent out requests for help from people who had endured unexplainable supernatural experiences. Somebody by the name of Archie Bolton replied:
This has the hallmarks of greycode (a programming language that connects occult things to the digital world). After receiving your initial message about the mattress image, I started to notice similar things on NoSleep. Strange comments appeared from a poster with no username. The site description read: “I’m watching you, Archie. No sleep for you? That makes me unhappy.” And I saw two long, shadowy lines stretch towards me from the darkness of my bedroom. They looked like arms. Stick arms.
His reply was one of many messages I received. People purported to experience similar things. After reading this post, you might notice strange things, too. I think, once it has been pointed out, it’s hard to un-notice the malevolent thing that is observing us.
After overcoming the initial shock and terror of being watched by a being that couldn’t be explained by science, I decided to take a different approach towards this phantom.
Moronic.
When I saw my wardrobe door swing open in the middle of the night, I strode confidently towards it.
“WHAT DO YOU WANT?” I cried.
From the void of the open wardrobe, which was only a foot in front of me, two gangly stick arms protruded. They lifted me into the air, feeling like a pair of blunt knives digging into my shoulder blades.
“All who use r/nosleep shall die of exhaustion,” It whispered. “They will lose the ability to sleep.”
I didn’t understand what the entity was saying, but I think I was struggling to understand anything. I was entirely transfixed by the petrifying nothingness before me. I couldn’t distinguish anything of the stick figure, other than the pitch-black limbs that it was employing to hoist me off the carpet.
“None of you should be on NoSleep,” It snarled, icily. “It is my home. Leave.”
I howled in agony at a searing pain that suddenly emanated from the stick arms which were digging into my shoulders. I looked down at my body, which was barely visible in the streetlight pouring through my still-broken bedroom window. The flesh of my arms was changing. In utter horror, I realised they were starting to transform into the same pen-drawn stick arms as the creature in front of me. It was morphing me.
As I screeched in fear, the stick figure dropped me to the ground with an almighty thud.
“Everyone has a choice,” It hissed. “Leave NoSleep or join my realm.”
The wardrobe door creaked shut. I lay on the carpet, considering my options. Initially, I was too frightened to return to this subreddit, in all honesty, but I felt I owed it to you. My arms have mostly returned to normal, but they won’t fully heal. There’s still a rigid, stick-like quality to them, even though my flesh has returned. I can barely type, but I’m soldiering onwards. I need to submit this post.
The stick figure is watching you, and it’s offering you the same options that it offered me. Leave NoSleep behind, or join it as some two-dimensional, soulless stick figure in a digital hellscape.
What will you choose?