worthymartyrconstruct

[worthymartyrconstruct]

Ever had a horror movie moment in real life? Mine involved a locked room, a broken phone, and something breathing behind the door…

This happened when I was 17. Visiting my grandma’s old farmhouse in Rajasthan—no Wi-Fi, barely any signal. One night, I got locked inside a storage room. Phone dropped—screen shattered. I heard breathing outside the door. Not footsteps. Breathing. Rhythmic. Wet. I stayed frozen for hours. No light, no way to call for help.

Next morning, the door was open. No one admitted to opening it. Grandma just said, “You shouldn’t have gone near that room.”

Still gives me chills.

Have you ever experienced something that felt straight out of a horror film?

[worthymartyrconstruct]

Just finished a horror novel that made me sleep with the lights on—and I don’t scare easy. Why is no one talking about this book?

I stumbled on "The Cipher" by Kathe Koja, and holy hell—it crawled under my skin. It's not your typical horror: no jump scares, just a slow, oozing descent into madness. The imagery? Disturbing in that abstract, Lynchian way. The vibe? Like falling into a black hole lined with poetry and rot.

What other “mind-melting” horror books have you read that aren’t mainstream but leave you haunted for days? Bonus points for body horror, existential dread, or that surreal, reality-warping stuff.

Let’s dig into the underbelly of horror lit—what’s lurking there that we need to read?

[worthymartyrconstruct]

I found an old journal in my attic—and its final entry ends with today’s date. Has anyone seen this writing style before?

Cleaning out my grandparents’ house, I came across a dusty leather-bound journal buried behind the attic insulation. It starts in 1932 and reads like a traveler’s log—describing bizarre towns that don’t exist on any map and people who speak in palindrome riddles. The handwriting slowly devolves into near-illegible scrawls… but here’s the kicker:

The final page, dated June 23, 2025, describes someone finding the journal in "a house with peeling green shutters" (which this one has), and ends mid-sentence:

“If you’re reading this, the door behind you is already—”

Has anyone encountered fiction (or folklore) written in this fragmented, immersive diary style? I’m wondering if this could be part of some lost horror ARG or obscure horror lit tradition. Would love recommendations of similar reads—or theories.

[worthymartyrconstruct]

My daughter started talking to someone in her closet. She says it's me.

It started last week. I heard her laughing in her room—nothing unusual, she’s 5. But when I peeked in, she whispered, “Shh... Daddy’s sleeping in the closet.”

I laughed it off… until I heard my own voice coming from inside.

I work night shifts. That night, I set up my phone to record.

The next morning, she was curled up on the floor in front of the closet door—smiling. I checked the recording.

I didn’t go to work. I haven’t been able to sleep since.

I need someone to tell me what I heard wasn't real.

[worthymartyrconstruct]

My wife wakes up every morning thinking it's 1997. This morning, she remembered tomorrow.

Every morning, like clockwork, my wife wakes up asking who won the 1996 election. She's convinced it's still 1997. Doctors say it’s a rare case of anterograde amnesia, probably from a car crash that never actually happened.

I’ve learned to play along.

But this morning, something was different.

She didn’t ask about the year.

She sat straight up in bed, eyes wide, and whispered: “Don’t go to work today. The elevator cable’s going to snap at 9:17 a.m. You’ll die, David.”

My name isn’t David.

And I work from home.

I was about to laugh it off… until the news just now: An elevator at Langham Tower snapped at 9:17 a.m. Three dead. One survivor in critical condition. His name is David Winters.

My wife is still in bed. Eyes closed. Whispering tomorrow's news.

[worthymartyrconstruct]

My daughter won't stop talking to the man in the floorboards. We live on the 10th floor.

I thought it was cute at first. “Mr. Crawley says good morning!” she’d chirp, pointing at the floor beside her bed.

I joked that she had an imaginary friend. Harmless, right?

Until I found the crawlspace under her floorboards—one that shouldn’t exist. We live on the tenth floor of a high-rise. There’s no attic, no basement access. But there it was. Nailed shut. Scratch marks around the edges. Like something inside had been trying to get out.

I asked her what Mr. Crawley looked like. She said, “He doesn’t have a face. Just a big smile. He likes to watch me sleep.”

Last night, I heard someone whisper my name from the floor.

I don’t think Mr. Crawley is imaginary anymore.

[worthymartyrconstruct]

My son won’t stop talking to the man in the floorboards. I never told him we buried someone there.

We moved into my late grandmother’s farmhouse two months ago. My 4-year-old, Milo, has always had a vivid imagination, so when he told me he had a “floorboard friend” in his room, I didn’t think much of it.

That changed last night.

He came into my room whispering, “Mr. Thom wants to come up now. He says you promised.”

I froze.

I’d never said that name out loud. Thom was my mother’s… secret. One I helped bury under the floorboards when I was fifteen.

I told Milo never to talk to him again. He cried and said, “But he’s lonely. He misses Grandma. He said he hears her voice under the dirt.”

I checked the floorboards this morning. There’s fresh scratches—from the inside.

I think he’s trying to come back.

[worthymartyrconstruct]

My daughter keeps drawing a man she’s never met. He’s getting closer in every picture.

My daughter Ava is six. Sweet, bright, imaginative—but lately, she’s been scaring the hell out of me.

It started three weeks ago. She was drawing quietly at the kitchen table while I cooked dinner. Nothing unusual. Then she held up her picture.

"Look, Mommy. This is Mr. Long."

The name gave me a weird chill, but the drawing was innocent enough—just a stick figure with freakishly long arms, standing far off in the corner. I asked if he was from a cartoon or a book, but she shook her head.

"He visits me in my dreams."

I laughed it off at the time. Kids say creepy things. It’s almost a rite of passage. But every day since then, she’s drawn Mr. Long. And each time, he’s closer.

First, he was just a shape behind some trees. Then he stood across the street from our house. Last Thursday, she drew him looking in through her bedroom window.

We live on the second floor.

I’ve tried to be rational. I talked to her teacher, wondering if maybe other kids were talking about ghosts or monsters. Nothing. I even checked her tablet, thinking maybe she saw something on YouTube. Nada.

She says Mr. Long doesn’t talk. He just watches.

Last night, I found her latest drawing taped to her closet door. Mr. Long was standing in her room. Right beside her bed. Her own figure was drawn sleeping, her mouth in a straight, dreamless line.

I asked her why she drew it like that.

She looked up at me and said, “Because that’s where he was last night.”

I didn’t sleep.

At 3:13 a.m., I heard something thump. Not loudly—more like a soft knock, but heavy, like someone tapping with a fist rather than knuckles. It came from Ava’s room.

I ran in. She was sitting up in bed, crying. I checked the window—locked. I checked the closet—empty. She just pointed at the far corner of the room and said, “He went back.”

The drawing on her closet had changed.

It wasn’t just pencil anymore. Mr. Long’s arms were shaded red. The paper was wet, like the ink hadn’t dried, but she hadn’t touched any markers. When I reached out to pull it down, my fingers came away sticky.

It smelled like rust.

I threw it away. Sat up the rest of the night holding her hand while she slept.

This morning, she was quiet at breakfast. I told her Mr. Long wasn’t real. That it was okay to be scared, but he couldn’t hurt her.

She looked me in the eyes and said, “You’re wrong. He said you forgot him.”

I froze.

“What do you mean?”

She just shrugged and said, “He said you promised.”

Something deep inside me twisted. When I was about Ava’s age, I had a recurring nightmare—something I haven’t thought about in decades. A tall, thin man with arms that touched the floor. He never spoke. He just watched from the corner of my room. I called him Mr. Long.

I told my mom once. She said it was just stress from moving to a new house. But it always felt more like he was waiting.

For something.

I never saw him again after I turned seven. I even forgot about those dreams until now. Until Ava started drawing him.

I tried not to let her see how shaken I was. I kissed her forehead, got her ready for school, and sent her off like it was any other day.

But I just checked her backpack.

There’s another drawing tucked in the front pocket.

Mr. Long, standing over a sleeping woman.

Me.

There’s something new, too. A speech bubble.

It says, “You broke the promise.”

[worthymartyrconstruct]

My twin died in the womb. She still texts me.

I was born alone, but I was never alone. At least, not in the way most people think.

My mother often told me I was supposed to be a twin. "Vanishing twin syndrome," they called it. By the second trimester, there was only me left. No real explanation. The other heartbeat—just gone. “A little miracle,” my mother whispered every birthday. “You survived.”

Growing up, I would talk to someone who wasn’t there. My parents thought it was just imagination. “Imaginary friend,” they laughed, nervously. They never questioned why I called her “Lena.” That was the name they had planned for my sister. A name they never told me.

When I was twelve, I got my first phone. That night, I got a text from an unknown number:

“Hi :) I’m here now.”

No contact name. No number. Just the message. I thought it was a prank until I replied:

“Who is this?”

The response came instantly.

“Don’t you recognize me, sis?”

I didn’t reply. But I didn’t delete it either.

That’s when things started happening. Small at first. My phone alarm would go off at 3:33 AM every night, even though I never set it. My bedroom mirror would fog up from the inside, with handprints too small to be mine. Once, I saw words written on the glass: "LET ME IN."

I told my parents. My mom grew pale, almost dropped her coffee. Dad said it was sleep paralysis. I stopped asking them.

The texts didn’t stop.

“I miss you.” “Why did you take all the space?” “You should’ve left some room for me.”

Then came the pictures. Blurry, black-and-white ultrasound images. Not mine. Or maybe they were—just not the ones my mom kept in the album. In one, there were two shapes. In the next, just one. The last one had my name written in red. Below it: “and Lena.”

I blocked the number. It didn’t matter. New numbers. New texts.

Last week, I moved into a college dorm across the country, thinking maybe distance would help.

It didn’t.

The first night, my roommate Claire shook me awake.

“You were talking in your sleep,” she whispered. “You said, ‘Stop choking me, Lena.’ Then you stopped breathing.”

I laughed it off. Nervously.

That morning, my phone had a new photo message. A grainy shot of me, sleeping. Taken from above. I sleep on the bottom bunk.

Claire swore she didn’t take it.

That night, I locked my phone in my desk drawer and taped it shut.

At 3:33 AM, it vibrated so violently the drawer opened on its own.

The screen was lit. One message:

“I’m almost there.”

Claire left the dorm yesterday. Said she couldn’t sleep. Said she kept hearing scratching under her bed. I sleep above it now.

Last night was quiet. Too quiet. Until I heard it.

A gurgling sound. Like someone trying to speak through water. It came from my mirror.

I sat up. My phone was already lit. The front camera was on, but it wasn’t showing me. It showed two girls sitting side by side.

Me—and someone identical, but pale. Bluer lips. Longer fingernails. Her head tilted too far, like her neck was broken. She smiled at me. Her eyes were completely black.

I dropped the phone.

The mirror cracked. Just a thin line, splitting the glass in two.

I haven’t checked it today.

Instead, I’m writing this. Because I don’t know what else to do. I tried deleting the texts, the pictures. They just come back.

Every mirror shows two of me now.

And the last message I got simply said:

“Check your heartbeat. You’re not alone anymore.”

[worthymartyrconstruct]

My daughter won’t stop playing hide and seek. I buried her two weeks ago.

I know how this sounds. I wouldn’t believe me either.

Two weeks ago, my six-year-old daughter, Ellie, died. She was chasing our dog through the woods behind our house when she slipped near the creek, hit her head on a rock, and drowned before I could reach her.

Losing her destroyed something fundamental in me. My wife couldn’t bear to stay in the house. She moved in with her sister the day after the funeral. I told her I needed time to process alone. She didn’t argue.

But here’s where things stopped making sense.

The night after the funeral, I heard whispering.

Not just any whisper—Ellie’s voice. Playful. Sing-songy.

“Daddy… come find me…”

I shot out of bed, heart slamming, thinking maybe I was dreaming. But I was wide awake. I grabbed a flashlight and searched the entire house.

Nothing.

The next morning, I chalked it up to grief. Maybe my mind was trying to keep her alive, even if just in echoes.

But it kept happening.

Every night.

“Daddy… I’m hiding… come find me…”

The voice always came from a different direction. Once from inside her closet. Another time from under the stairs. Once—I swear to God—it came from inside the walls.

The second week, it got worse.

I found tiny muddy footprints on the kitchen floor. Small enough to belong to Ellie. They led from the back door to the cupboard she used to hide in during hide and seek.

I stopped sleeping. I kept the lights on all night. I started leaving snacks out—her favorites. Animal crackers. Apple slices. Capri Suns.

Every morning, something had been taken.

But what truly broke me was what I found in her old room three nights ago.

Her handwriting.

A note, scribbled in crayon on her drawing pad:

“You’re not playing right. You never try to find me.”

I stared at it for hours, afraid to touch it.

The next night, I tried playing along.

“I’m coming,” I whispered into the dark. “Where are you hiding, Ellie?”

Laughter. Giggling. From the attic.

I climbed the ladder, flashlight trembling in my hand. The beam swept across dusty boxes and old holiday decorations. Then it caught something that turned my blood to ice.

Her stuffed rabbit.

The one she was buried with.

Sitting upright, facing me.

The air turned cold. My breath came out in clouds. And then—

“She’s behind you.”

That voice wasn’t Ellie’s.

Deeper. Hungrier.

I turned, but there was nothing.

I haven’t gone up to the attic since.

Now she whispers during the day, too. I hear her when I’m brushing my teeth. When I’m on the toilet. When I’m doing the dishes. Always just out of sight.

“Daddy… don’t you love me anymore?”

This morning, I found the fridge open. All the apple slices gone. On the fridge door, scrawled in red crayon:

“You’re getting warmer…”

I’ve started leaving every light on. I don’t go into her room. I don’t sleep. I barely eat. Every noise feels like a breath on the back of my neck.

And then… tonight happened.

I was in the living room, trying to drown it all out with TV static, when the front door creaked open on its own.

There she was.

Ellie.

Wearing the same dress she was buried in. Caked in dirt. Eyes too wide, too black.

She smiled.

“I win.”

Then she disappeared.

The door slammed shut.

I don’t know what this is. It’s not my daughter. It looks like her, but it isn’t. It’s something else. Something that crawled into her skin and decided to stay.

I think it’s angry that I stopped playing.

I can feel it getting closer now. The house feels smaller. Tighter. Like the walls are breathing.

I’m writing this in the hallway closet—her favorite hiding spot. I don’t know why I came in here. I think… I think she wanted me to.

I can hear her breathing outside the door.

I think she’s waiting for me to say it.

“Ready or not… here I come.”

[worthymartyrconstruct]

My childhood imaginary friend just sent me a voice note—twenty years after I buried him.

When I was seven, I had an imaginary friend named "Benny." He wasn’t like other kids' imaginary friends—he was always cold to touch, hated mirrors, and told me secrets about people he shouldn’t have known.

My parents thought it was cute… until I woke up one night with mirror shards under my pillow and Benny whispering, “We’re almost there.”

After a terrifying week, my grandma (old-school Catholic) made me "bury" him. Literally. We held a mock funeral in the backyard with salt, prayers, and a tiny wooden box I was told never to dig up.

That was twenty years ago.

Two nights back, I got a WhatsApp voice note from an unknown number.

It was Benny’s voice. Same raspy whisper. “Mirror, mirror, under bed… bring me back or you’ll be dead.”

I haven’t slept since.

I think something's crawling under my bed. And my bathroom mirror… it’s fogged up, but I haven't used it in days.

What do I do?

[worthymartyrconstruct]

My neighbor disappeared. Now his lights turn on every night at 3:17 a.m.—but he never comes home.

I live in a quiet cul-de-sac. My neighbor, Tom, vanished three weeks ago. No one knows where he went. Cops came. Family searched. Nothing.

Here’s the thing—his porch light turns on every night at exactly 3:17 a.m. Then the kitchen. Then the upstairs hallway. Always in the same order. Like someone’s walking through the house.

I watched one night. Lights flicked on. No shadows. No movement. Just... lights.

So I left a note under his door: “If you’re here, please knock once tonight.”

I swear to God, at 3:21 a.m., there was a single knock on my door.

I live alone.

[worthymartyrconstruct]

There’s a mirror in my Airbnb that doesn’t reflect me after 3:33 a.m.

I thought I was losing it the first night. Jet lag, maybe. But when I walked past the hallway mirror at exactly 3:33 a.m., I wasn’t there. No reflection. Just the hallway behind me.

I froze. Backed up. My heart pounded so loud I couldn’t hear the crickets anymore. I reached out—and the surface felt warm, almost pulsing.

It’s happened three nights in a row now. Same time. Same result. Tonight, I left my phone recording. What I saw in the footage? Let’s just say I’m not alone in that mirror anymore… and whatever is there—it smiled.

I leave in two days. Unless it leaves first.

[worthymartyrconstruct]

My daughter has an imaginary friend. Last night, I saw him too.

Last month, my 4-year-old started talking to someone named “Mr. Cotton.” At first, I thought it was cute. She’d set out snacks, whisper secrets, even insist he slept in the closet.

I didn’t mind… until I caught her drawing pictures of him—long arms, no face, always smiling. I asked her why he didn’t have eyes.

She said, “He doesn’t need them. He sees with his skin.”

Two nights ago, our cat vanished. Last night, I heard something shuffle inside her closet.

I opened it.

There was a man-sized lump under the blankets. Breathing.

My daughter was asleep in my bed.

I haven’t opened the closet since.

[worthymartyrconstruct]

My roommate hasn't left his room in 9 days—and something else has started answering me when I knock.

He said he was feeling sick. Fair enough. But by day three, the smell got weird—like copper and burnt hair. I knocked, he said “I’m fine.” Except… it didn’t sound like him.

By day five, I slid food under the door. It was untouched. I started recording audio through the vents. There’s whispering—low, wet, and too many voices for one person.

Tonight’s day nine. I knocked again. The voice answered: “He’s gone. Do you want to come in now?”

I think it knows my name.

[worthymartyrconstruct]

My neighbor hasn't aged a day in 30 years—and now he says it's my turn.

Last week, I helped my elderly neighbor move some boxes. I’ve known Mr. Gaines since I was a kid. The thing is... he still looks like he did when I was a kid. Not just well-preserved—identical. Same creaseless face. Same calm voice.

I asked if he had a secret. He just smiled and said, “It’s not a secret. It’s a deal.”

I laughed it off until yesterday, when I found an envelope on my doorstep. Inside was an old photograph of Mr. Gaines from 1952. He looked exactly the same. On the back, it just said:

“Your turn begins at midnight.”

It’s 11:53 PM now. And I think someone just opened my back door.

[worthymartyrconstruct]

The woman in the mirror isn’t me anymore.

I live alone. I’ve always kept my bathroom light on at night—habit from childhood, nothing more. But last week, something changed.

I got up at 3:12 AM (I remember because my phone lit up), walked past the bathroom, and saw myself in the mirror... already standing there. I hadn’t even stepped in yet.

She smiled. I didn’t.

I froze. It mimicked every move I made—but a second too slow. Like it was watching and deciding how to be me.

I’ve tried covering the mirror. It doesn’t help. Every night since, I’ve woken up at the same time.

She’s always there. Closer.

Last night, she didn’t copy me. She waved.

I didn’t.