Pt 10-https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/16dr7a4/trapped_in_the_dollar_general_beyond_pt_10/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
Hey everybody, and I know there are quite a few of you because the greatest thing happened when I walked into the Outside.
I could see your comments! I know that you can see my story! I can’t really post replies for some reason, it keeps refusing or saying “Something went wrong”, but I’m glad to know that I’m not just yelling into a void. I want you all to know that all your advice, all your love, and all your comments have meant so much to me, and they’ve helped me out here in the Outside more than you know. When I walked out that door and my phone spent about ten minutes making chime noises with each “new” comment that hadn’t come through, it scared the crap out of me. But once I got somewhere safe and started reading them, it really gave me the strength to keep going and explore this place.
Sorry, sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself.
Let me start from the beginning.
So I walked through the door and out into the Outside. The door shut behind me after I had taken about ten steps, but when it did, something weird happened. It had been pitch black up until that point, the only light the one that came from the open door, and when it closed, I was stuck in total darkness. I mean, like, unable to see my hand in front of my face darkness. That was about the time my phone started going nuts, and I had to fish it out of my pocket and put it on silence real quick.
I didn’t know what sorts of monsters or creatures might be out here, and I didn’t want to make myself a target right off the bat.
I had just found the silence switch, the little thing vibrating like my table was ready at Texas Roadhouse, and just stood there for a moment basking in the backlight of the screen. It was a picture of me at Comicon a few years ago, standing between my two friends who were dressed as Marvel heroes, and every time I went to switch the screen off, I found I couldn’t. I was like a moth staring at a bug zapper, fully aware that the light might bring danger but unable to stop myself from looking. That’s when I noticed the battery ticking down, something I hadn’t had to worry about in a while, and decided to turn it off. There would be nowhere to plug it in out here, at least I didn’t think there would be, so I decided to save the battery for as long as I could.
Once the light was off, I noticed a slight light in the distance ahead.
It was dim, like a light seen through a window, but it was the only light I had so I started following it. As I walked, it started getting bigger, and the closer I got, the more I started feeling drafts of air that smelled sharp and sulfurous. I started hearing things too, noises like rocks grinding together, and when the ground started going up, I thought I might be underground. The walls were rocky, the floor hard but not uneven, and when I came out into the light I had to squit against the strangely yellow sun.
The above-ground wasn’t much of an improvement from the cave.
The ground was dark-colored rock, the sky a pissy yellow with a sun that looked like it had been drawn by a five-year-old. The rumbling turned out to be these large mountainous creatures that rose into the sky and grumbled along the ground like earthquakes. I found that I still had my backpack, the charger, the tools I’d brought, and the small amount of food that was still in there, so at least I wasn’t likely to starve right away. I really didn’t want to leave the little cave I was in, but I didn’t seem to have much of a choice. I could either stay here for two to three days and starve, or I could take my chances and maybe find something out in wherever I was.
It didn’t take me long to decide to take a chance.
Day 1
I mostly just tried to see what was close to the cave on day 1.
I Keep calling it a cave, but it’s more like a subway entrance, I guess. The cave comes out of the ground with a long walkway and up to the surface where it opens onto the sky. I decided it might make a good shelter so I stuck close.
I found some wood but it’s more like tree bark fashioned into trees. It’s incredibly thin and snaps off from the ground when I push at it. It burns when you light it, I only had to touch the flame to it, but I had to collect a lot of it to get a fire that lasted more than a few minutes. It smells greasy when it burns and the heat it makes is slightly unpleasant.
I found some mushrooms, big ones with black tops and white undersides, and after stealing my courage I found them to be eatable. They tasted like rubber, but they didn’t make me sick and they didn’t make me hallucinate so they could make a good food source. I cooked a little and it tasted pretty good. What’s more, the stalks burn really well and I mixed it with some wood so I could make a fire for the night.
There’s a pool of water nearish to the cave. It tastes like sulfur but its kinda drinkable. It gives me terrible burps, but it’s better than dehydrations, I guess.
I haven’t seen any animals, except for the big hill things, and that’s kind of good. I don’t really have any weapons on me, besides the chain I swiped from automotive and the chairleg I tore off a display table, so I’m kind of glad I don’t have to fight anything. There may be some away from the cave, I guess, but I won’t know until I leave it.
The dark kind of comes on all at once, and fortunately, I was cooking mushrooms for dinner when it hit. I’m assuming that the light I saw from the cave was dawn, so daylight lasts around nine or ten hours (roughly). I left my phone switched off to conserve battery life so it’s hard to tell, but I’d say it’s no more than twelve at the longest.
I’m sitting next to my fire and eating roasted mushroom so I’m going to turn the phone off again and write more tomorrow.
Note- I fell asleep for a little bit, but I woke up and heard something scrabbling around near the mouth of the cave. I don’t know if it smelled me or if it’s interested in my fire, but I’ve got my chair leg out and I’m ready for whatever.
second note- I think it went away, I’m trying to stay awake but I’m getting tired. Gonna switch off the phone again.
Day 2
Didn’t sleep well after whatever it was came to visit. I packed up some of the mushrooms into ziplock bags, put some wood into my backpack with the stalks, and set out towards the smelly water I found yesterday. I can stay here long term, I suppose, but I’d like to see more of this place. Like the Dollar General, it kind of makes me want to explore, so I’ve set out to see what I can find.
Wherever I am, it’s a strange place.
There are buttes and valleys, rivers and ponds of the same smelly, sulfurous water, and there are whole forests of mushrooms. I saw some birds earlier, but they flew away from me. I’ve seen other little crevices that lead into the earth, but they all end in dead ends. Maybe those dead ends are doors to Dollar Generals? I don’t know, but none of them opened up so I’m stuck traveling. I saw three crevices today and walked until it started getting dark. I’m guessing that I walked about three miles. I’m camping again inside one of the crevices and I’ve made a pretty big fire for tonight. I’m hoping it keeps any curious critters at bay, but we shall see.
Hopefully.
Day 3
No visitors last night slept as well as you can on a stone floor with a lumpy backpack as a pillow.
I’m seeing some kind of mountain in the near distance that isn’t moving so I’ve been heading towards that. Let’s hope it isn’t just one of those things sleeping. This place is weird, but it seems like it has some kind of routine to it. Day and Night, ecosystems, life, so I guess maybe I can stay here for as long as it takes me to get somewhere.
The mushrooms I see come in three different varieties that I’ve found. The black top ones taste like portabellos and their eatable. The slightly smaller white ones have a smell to them that makes me think they might not be eatable, and I can’t get close enough to them to find out. The redones with the spots are definitely not meant to be eaten, but they burn for hours so I’ve been using them as a fuel source. They all grow somewhere near the brackish water so they clearly need it to live. Speaking of, the rivers are easier to drink from than the pools of it. If it’s moving it seems to filter out some of the taste, but if it sits too long the taste gets a little gross.
Other than the birds, I have seen these weird rat things that live in the mushroom forests. They seem to be able to get close to the white mushrooms, but I don’t know how. They don’t like me and they run anytime they see me.
Other than that, the sky is kind of yellow and heat shimmery, the sun is still a big ole lemon drop, and the temperature seems to be a constant balmy ninety-eight until sunset when it drops to around ninety. It’s humid and kind of unpleasant, but what are ya gonna do?
Day 4
Had another visitor last night in the wee hours. The silhouette looked vaguely human, but I didn’t get a good enough look. It was weird, it made my skin crawl how closely it watched me. I don’t know what to make of it, but it clearly has some intelligence.
I have decided to keep on the move so it can’t figure out my routine and trap me in what it thinks of as my home.
I found three more caves today, and in one of them, I found Kenneth.
Well, I found what was left of Kenneth.
I also discovered something I’ll have to keep an eye out for in the caves.
So I was heading into one of the crevices, as I usually did when I stumbled across something in my way. After discovering that the red stalks burn the longest, I’ve been saving some of them for torches and now I don’t have to stumble through the caves and wonder what might be in there. My phone was at sixty percent after the nightly journal entries, so I’ve started trying to keep the usage to a minimum. I still haven’t seen anywhere to plug it in at, and it’s my only way to update you guys on my journey. By the light of my fungi torch, I saw the bones of something that looked vaguely human. It was wearing flannel, the jeans ripped beyond recognition, but the nametag on the front was unmistakable.
I suppose it’s possible there could be two people out here named Kenneth, but it seems unlikely.
I heard something scritch scratching near the back of the cave and took a step back out of sheer reflex, something I’m pretty sure saved my life.
The black creature smashed into the bones, sending them scattering across the cave, and before I took off in the opposite direction, I saw a smooth black body with an eyeless, bullet-shaped head, and a mouth full of long, sharp teeth. I don’t think it sees very well, though, because when I lit out running, it started shredding Kenneth’s clothes instead of chasing me.
I made it out but, needless to say, I stayed in a different little cave that night.
A cave I checked closely for more of those weird creatures.
Day 5
I saw into one of the stores today.
I was exploring another one of the caves, this one not having a slobbering beast in it, and I thought I saw a light through the rock.
I rubbed at the rock and discovered it was actually glass. It was filthy, but as I rubbed it away, I realized I was looking into one of the stores. It wasn’t a DGB that I was familiar with, and the floor didn’t have one of my marks on it, but it was clearly a Dollar General. Despite my best efforts, the doors would not open, and I was forced to camp there for the night.
The doors at no point opened.
Day 6
I saw one of the Miasma today.
Luckily, it did not see me.
I beginning to think I got lucky both times.
I was scrounging for supplies in a mushroom grove when something came stomping along not far away. I got low, thinking it might be one of those giant mountain things I’d seen, but then up came thirty feet of undulating shadow that blotted out the pissy yellow sun as it went by. I couldn’t do much beyond keeping low, and when it finally passed without noticing me, I took my leave.
Day 7
I have made two new discoveries regarding this place.
The first is that it rains. The rain is green, and it looks like fat cartoon drops of paint. Unlike night, it doesn’t simply begin. It kind of starts up like normal rain before getting harder. I was walking when it started, and I managed to find a mushroom cap to use as an umbrella until I could make it into a cave.
The second discovery was a little more jarring.
The rain HURTS.
The first drop that hit me made me jump, and it left a big red mark on my arm. I’ve never experienced acid rain before, but thats the closest I can come to explaining it. As I looked for something to hide under, I caught a few more on the back of my neck, and I wiped them away with a hiss of discomfort. Strangely, once I was under the mushroom, it didn’t burn the fungi. I took a few more hits as I yanked it up, but I was safe from the downpour as it started falling around me.
I’m safe in a cave now and it doesn’t show any signs of stopping.
I’m hoping the rain hurts anything that might be outside the cave too and I’ve checked the inside for predators and found nothing.
Looks like I’m going to be here for a while so I might as well get comfortable.
Till next time.
Pt 12- https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/16osdli/trapped_in_the_dollar_general_beyond_pt_12/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3