The day is January 28th,. It’s been three weeks since this started. Three weeks was all it took to completely derail my entire life. It was a normal evening when I was just getting home from work. I’m a game designer for a horror indie studio, so as you could imagine, I was quite experienced with coming up with paranormal events and monsters to scare people. But I had no idea of the true limit of human fear yet. I was just about to get into bed when I thought I heard something groaning from the closet. But then I soon realized to myself that it was just my mind playing tricks on me after a long day in the studio. I woke up the next day to go eat breakfast with my coworker, and roommate, Tom sitting at the kitchen table. Tom and I were best friends since elementary school, and he seemed unusually happy that day. He greeted me in the morning while grinning like a Cheshire Cat
“What’s with the smile, did something happen?” I asked Tom curiously
“Oh nothing, John, just feeling great today. I read a book saying that smiling a lot helps your mood, and it seems to work.” Tom said, losing part of it but still grinning.
“I see, Sorry for the randomness it just surprised me to see you up this early let alone with such a large ”
Tom isn’t the kind of guy to wake up early, he is usually in bed until noon at least and it’s only nine in the morning right now. However, at the time I had brushed it all off as a fun new thing he was doing this week and that he would probably drop it like all the other random activities he’s tried over the years. At the time I had forgotten about the groaning I’d heard last night and now that I’m writing this I wish that I hadn’t ignored it. Maybe it could’ve been stopped. It was a weekend that day and I was glad to have work off, I spent most of the day just hanging out with Tom and playing board games. It was a pleasant day away from electronics when I noticed something strange. A foul odor was emanating from upstairs. I had ignored it at first but It became almost overwhelming after a few hours. I had a splitting headache when I finally asked “Tom, do you smell that? The air is practically noxious here.”
“I don’t smell a thing, might need to get your nose checked” Tom replied jokingly to my question“Whatever you say, but I’m going to go crack a window,” I said lightheartedly as I stepped out of the room for a second. Towards the door and the source of the odor, I noticed that it seemed to loom from the hall leading into Tom’s room. I opened the window and before I walked back I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. Like something was very very wrong. As if there was something of great evil lurking behind the door causing this smell. It seemed silly at the time to think that but now.
Looking back on the events I’m glad I checked because I shudder to think of what would’ve happened if I had ignored it. Not wanting to be caught snooping around I slowly cracked the door open to reveal a pitch-black bedroom. It was surprisingly messy, even for Tom’s standards. there was blood on the walls and shattered glass on the floor as if it was a warzone in here. The smell seemed to be the strongest in the area near the closet. I had a bad feeling about it, but curiosity got the better of me. I opened the door to reveal Tom’s body. He was dead and something had killed him. It didn’t take long for me to realize that the thing in our living room was not Tom. Something had done this to him and then replaced him. I rushed out the door to find a mutual friend of ours, Sydney. I grabbed the key to my car and drove like a bat out of hell down the road and to her house. I didn’t feel safe in my own house. At the time half my mind said to go back and confront it, but I knew better than that. This wasn’t a normal missing person situation, something supernatural was happening here. As I got to Sydney’s place, I pounded on the door frantically. A few seconds later she swung it open “Hey, what are you doing?! You’re going to break the door down if you keep that up!” She shouted
“I’m sorry I’ll explain in a minute but please let me in and lock the door, something happened to Tom”
“Fine.” she let out as she closed the door behind me. She gestured toward the couch in her living room and I took a seat
“So?” she questioned
“Tom is gone, and something is taking his place,” I said as I let out a deep breath, I hadn’t had time to process since the incident and this was all a huge surprise to me at the time
She sat up immediately, “Excuse me? What do you mean ‘Something’?”
“As in, I found his body in the closet. But I saw him at the same time,” I said more frantically, “He was acting really strange when I saw him, almost as if it was a clone or a doppelganger.”
“Are you ok?” she said questioningly as if she didn’t believe me, “Have you been sleeping well? Your mind is probably playing tricks on you,” she spoke with more empathy and calmness in her voice this time.
“I’m not insane, you should’ve smelled the stench of it, it was vile,” I said tiredly. “If you don’t believe me then please come look at it with me, though don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Fine, if it’s so important to you then I will,” she said almost dryly. Some time passed as I walked up the stairs leading into the house slowly, and quietly.
“What are you doing? Tom isn’t going to bite you, John,” She said walking up to the door, and knocking before opening the unlocked door, “Hey Tom, are you home? You left the door unlocked.” she projected with her voice raised. We didn’t get a reply. I was skeptical about this and more timidly walked inside after her. Though I must admit I felt a strange satisfaction when she admitted to the vile stench in the air. “What in the world is that?” she questioned, “It reeks like a corpse in here.” realizing the gravity of what she had while only half thinking “John you might be right about something, it smells horrid in here,” she said trying to lighten the mood. I walked down the hallway more quietly this time and I assumed she had started to believe me as she began taking more care to be near silent as well. I motioned for the door as I heard it. A loud groan came from inside as well as odd whispers that I couldn’t understand from outside. I was near losing my nerve as I whispered to Sydney “Grab something heavy.” She understood and picked up a metal toad that was sitting on a window sill as decoration. I slowly creaked the door open as she placed herself against the wall beside me.
Even to this day, I’m not sure how to describe what I saw. It was a horrible creature, White as snow with long spike tipped arms and legs the length of grown men. Though its height was immense, it was a slender thing, with ribs peeking out from its exposed chest cavity. It wasn’t looking at us at the time and with a long neck, it turned its lumbering head completely around at us without moving its body. It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen. Its skin was stretched out on its face like pulled rubber with a wretched smile carved into its face where a mouth would be. Dozens of teeth protruded out from its gaping chasm-like mouth. Its eyes were almost vertical and stretched out. Just the image of this thing’s face was enough to shock me.
“Smile for me, John” it wretched those words from its grotesque maw as it moved its body over a fetid pile of strange skin-like material on the floor, it crawled towards us on all fours because it was too big to fit in the room. “RUN!” I shouted to Sydney. She and I booked it out of there as its awful warped face attempted to squeeze through the doorway. Its head popped out fairly easily but its long shoulders and arms had to force the wood to bend around it, and the awful squeaking as the oak bent around this thing’s sheer power. I got in the car and turned it on immediately. I waited for Sydney to get in before I slammed the gas as hard as I could.
I tried to put as much distance between myself and that thing as possible. But as it got to the door of the house all I saw was tom waving at me with a dreadful smile. “What the hell was that?!” Sydney inquired, still horrified by the sight.
“I have no idea” I responded
“We should call the police, or animal control” Sydney posited to me.
“No use, they might not be able to do anything and even if they could, why would they believe us, up until today monsters haven’t existed and we’d sooner be mocked than be given help,” I said almost frustrated
“Look, It was just an idea, I have no idea how to stop it and figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask someone else” She quipped slightly offended
“You’re right I’m sorry for snapping” I apologized. I asked her if it would be a good idea to head back to her house since it was getting dark out and I don’t want to be caught by that thing if we can’t see it. Here in our hometown it gets very dark at night and foggy because of the humid air by the lake and the mountains in the distance. So being caught in a fog at night and with this thing blending it would be worse than any nightmare. So we raced to her place and made plans to try and sleep. She gave me some sheets and pillows and I slept on the couch by the glass door going to the backyard.
I didn’t realize at the time that it was such a terrible idea, but I woke up somewhere around 3AM to see a stretched-out face held against the door by an impossibly long, crooked neck. Startled, I got up immediately and shut the curtains, and ran upstairs to wake Sydney. She was somehow already awake and understood the idea without any words being spoken, we both took one floor and shut all the windows, and locked all the possible entrances.
With the house almost completely dark we both sat upstairs and tried to peer outside. It was so foggy we couldn’t even see the streetlights. We figured it would be safe to sleep a bit longer. But somehow, or for some reason, It didn’t go inside. Call it luck or call it fate, but It didn’t break inside. I felt powerless in the face of it and I couldn’t help but feel like it was playing with me. As if it enjoyed watching me being tormented by it. Like I was a wild rabbit hiding in its burrow while a hunter stalked outside with a ready rifle. I went to Sydney to ask “Did you see it?”
“Thankfully no, but I heard you shriek like a kid downstairs, which is what woke me actually,” She said half joking. It was lighthearted for sure but the small smirk on her face scared me. At this point, any emotion besides raw horror scared me, and fear became normal. It did explain why she was awake fairly well, though It still seemed off to me.
“Don’t joke please” I spoke quietly
“Oh come on,” she toyed, “ I was just trying to lighten the mood, you look like you’ve seen a ghost, John” she chuckled a bit after seeing the mix of emotions on my face. I didn’t yet realize what was to come. Though I knew she was acting strange, I chalked it up to both of us being in shock from what just happened as well as being woken up in the middle of the night. It took until nearly 2PM for the fog to clear. Which felt like days at the time. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary outside. Which is nice. However, it didn’t take long after inspecting the house to notice stretch marks on the window outside of Sydney’s window. As if something was climbing in there when I shut the curtains. I didn’t think much of it, until the smell. It was back and coming from outside. I wandered out of the house and tried not to make a scene. I got near the garden when I smelled it. The same stench coming from the bushes. To save myself the shock I didn’t look as though I knew what it was.
I couldn’t trust Sydney. I couldn’t trust anyone. I had gotten my car from the driveway and started the ignition and got out of there as fast as I could. I still remember that awful feeling of being watched from beyond my sight. I hated it and I drove and drove until I was out of town. I had stopped at a motel about a week ago after days of driving and I’ve been here ever since. As of right now, you’re all caught up on the events of what happened. That you would be whoever is reading this. I’ve been planning on moving out of state. It’s a big country and I doubt anything would have followed me for this long so I think I’m safe for now. I write this story just in case anyone else is in my position. You’re not alone, and this has happened before. But recently, I feel like I’ve been being watched any time I go outside. There have been people grinning at me with soules blank eyes. But truth be told I’m tired of running, I’m going to confront this beast, and whatever you do, just don’t trust the smiley.
Hey, update, the date is January 29th. It’s been a day since I last wrote and I want to clarify something. My mind was simply playing tricks on me. There are no monsters and I was just tired. Tom came this morning to find me actually, and he was really worried. We drove back to town and we don’t plan on any more monster hunting for a long while. People smiling is a perfectly normal thing and not something to be worried about. You guys don’t need to worry about me, I’ll be ok :)