The Moon Is On Fire | CreepCast

42:45If it's not, how do I shake this waking nightmare? And why do so many of you keep insisting I go outside and look at the moon? I'm not finding this funny anymore. I have a text from Ashley. She wants to go on our date now, which is way sooner than I expected, I guess, but who knows? I gotta go. But I'll be back with more updates when I can manage. Wish me luck, guys. I'm not gonna let this get to me. i'm not gonna let my issues get in the way of my life not this time end of part one man what what a first part dude i really like the ending too because yeah i can't i i think you're right it's almost like something is like predatory and it wants him to look up and see it yeah you know and now the only other person that is making any sense is also a man who has been uh basically insane so it's like has their psychosis or has their mental uh blockage basically stopped the effects of whatever this entity is that's looking down you know what i mean uh i think the idea is everything is trying to get him to look at it but then that begs the question like okay did something actually happen to the moon then was he right about you know there was a comet coming and then everyone quit talking about it like it basically took over everyone who was outside and now they're trying to convince him very similar to psychosis right it also reminds me a lot of um did you ever watch i don't think we did a creep tv video about it but did you ever watch local 58 no i feel like you've told me about it though we should do a creepy thing on local 58 it's like the first analog whore um at least in like the modern because that was the one it was like a dashboard cam right the guy there's one the woods is it that or no there's one episode of local 58 called um you're on the fastest available route which is from a dash cam perspective uh but i mean there's a bunch of different entries most of them are like psas like tv uh cable network programs um hence the analog in analog horror but i mean marble Hornets was arguably the first, but local 58 was the one that made the framework that like the Mandela catalog and stuff like that came off of.

45:03So I think that this is very similar to that. Cause there's a whole thing in local 58 where something's happening to the moon and all the PSAs are instructing everyone to come outside and to look up. Um, and in that in local 58, there's an entity within the moon like the moon's effectively a giant egg that some creatures bursting out of um which actually i feel like that happens in monument mythos too no monument mythos it's the earth the earth was an egg for the giant george washington serpent which is another story but yeah i like this idea of like the moon being some great entity that there's something happening with it it's very as you would say lovecraftian so i think it's cool it is cool i was gonna say the uh just such a great hooking i'm really excited to get into part two here very rarely does these i'm curious to see because very rarely do we at the end of these part ones the amount of times we've been like this is really cool and then it divulges into something kind of weird i'm curious to see does it keep does it keep us intrigued does it keep us hooked throughout this next two parts because i think that it's it's three parts right um or is it just three parts okay it's three yeah i uh i'm very curious to see it let's let's fucking just jump in yep part two as i was getting ready i saw some of the replies many of you advised that i should secretly record my date if i could and well i gave in to the paranoia for the first time in my life i'm glad i did it was already getting late by the time i managed to shave shower and fix my hair up the best i knew how she drove and i tried to make small talk to be honest i had no idea what i was doing she didn't seem to mind my awkwardness and she took us to a nearby bar that she said was a favorite of hers i don't drink ever my doctor had mentioned once that alcohol might interfere with anti-psychotic medications and i've been fearful ever since Still, I was determined not to let my issues ruin my life.

47:10I ordered a beer and pretended that it was something I did all the time. I wasn't sure if she noticed my shaking hands, but I clenched my fingers together and put on a calm face. I said stuff, and she laughed. I didn't get it. Nobody had ever thought my sarcastic and bitter comments were funny before. I'd always just been that weird guy on the fringe. Why was this girl even talking to me? Just didn't make sense. that's when your comments started getting to me i just couldn't believe that i was interesting or attractive to anyone so i left my phone at the bar set it to record audio and i said i was going to the bathroom i did stay in there quite a bit longer than i wanted to but i was afraid to come back out what if she noticed that i'd set my phone to record what if i shook my head messed with my I hear a little in the mirror and then finally went back out.

48:04Everything seemed normal. She sat at the chair, checking her phone. I used that opportunity to pick up my phone and pretend to do the same. Oh, a voicemail. One second. Instead, I actually listened to the recording. I heard myself making a small excuse and walking away. A moment later, I heard her ask someone. How are you liking the weather? A voice I recognized as the bartenders followed. It's fine. Their reactions were odd. it sounded as if there was some sort of hidden meaning to the exchange but that the two were unsure of one another i looked over and noticed the bartender watching me i hurriedly glanced away the recording wasn't much but something about it felt off i couldn't shake the feeling that something was very wrong but i was on a date and i was still determined not to let my paranoia get the best of me even as i began to put the phone down the last of the recording captured one more muttered sentence he's not gonna look damn it had i really just heard that was my mind playing tricks on me again feeling heady i lowered the phone everything all right yeah just forgot about something i have to give back to a friend i lied i put on a happy face and pretended like i hadn't heard anything and had i really i could feel ripples in my awareness as if i was half dreaming but I knew that I was awake.

49:26It was a familiar and typically disconcerting sensation, and I hated that it was happening now of all times. Saying that I needed some air for a second, I stepped outside. Thankful that nobody was out front smoking at the moment, I clutched my head and tried to breathe in some sense. The sidewalk beneath my feet still seemed cast and burnt orange. God, why did I have to be like this why did i have to suspect everything why did i have to see and hear things that weren't there feeling a rather strong bout of paranoia an idea occurred to me going back inside i sat down and put on a neutral face i just looked at the moon it's gorgeous tonight she hesitated in the middle of a sip of a drink and lowered it slowly she watched me intently her eyes and expression carefully balanced is it now it had the distinct impression that she wasn't sure whether to believe me why would that matter if i was just talking about the moon what's it like i imagined i heard a subtext of interrogation beneath her nonchalant question i hadn't thought the idea through this far but what if everything was fine i sound like a weird asshole if I said what I really knew was up to you.

50:46Full. Very like bright silver. She locked gazes with me for a very long moment, but I had years of practice faking that I was fine. Long last, she sighed. I thought you'd never look. Blast of panic tore through me, but my practiced fake calm kept me in place. I wanted to scream, what did you just say? instead I nodded gave a weak laugh picked up my drink so what now I guess we wait she replied leaning against the bar it's tough you know can't be certain about anyone these days this is so well done because this my my fist her jaw me dead I'd be like she loved I guess we just wait boom right to her fucking right to her temple boom i'm out i'm out dude this story is so well done because it at on the surface it's just like oh well he figured them out he figured out they wanted to look so he lied and they're like oh well you did it now you're a part of the hive mind but he's been established as so unreliable and hallucinating so much this conversation may not even be happening they may not even be in a bar uh they might be but she's not talking about this or this is a completely innocuous conversation that he's applying to he is so unreliable that there are so many layers as to what could be going on here and if that thing that donald said the shadow man or whatever is real and messing with his mind this could all be his orchestration right he could be dreaming yeah i mean i it it's continuously it's continuously uh throwing us off its trail it's continuously like leading us down roads like you're like okay i think i get a oh nope no i don't it's just i i love the uh i love the constant misdirection but also this this whole this whole creepy like hive mind or like kind of gives me that vibe of uh uh invasion of the body snatchers where it's like all these plant people are trying to like scope out all of the uh all the humans you know yeah so it's it's i love that well again it's like his other story psychosis where throughout most of the story you think that uh he's just paranoid but then the last sentence it's like oh no there was a conspiracy to try to get him i'm nervous for our main character though i will say that nervous for the main character because that boy is down so bad that i think he might he might even dip into some moon pussy at some point you gotta to watch out for that boy yeah well i mean i don't see if anyone would resist it would be him because he is paranoid enough living living la vita loca yolo yolo that's what he says before he died from the way you from the way you just said that i now have to picture that it's nick no no no we have to give the man a bit more respect than that it was specifically the voice like yolo like that yolo she's just a little quirky she just wants me to look at the moon eye it's okay the whole it's tough you know can't be certain about anyone these days I'd be like mm-hmm I'm telling you man I would my fucking my fist her jaw teeth dusted

54:11Mississippi Queen Yeah, I'd say, what's that? She's look over barely. As soon as she looks back, boom.

54:20I nodded again and took a long gulp of beer, trying to understand what was happening. I couldn't be hallucinating this entire conversation, could I? And I couldn't ask questions without exposing the fact that I was what? That I was myself, that I hadn't actually looked at the moon bartender came over and slid me another drink as i nervously finished mine i went to offer him some cash but he shook his head i couldn't help but overhear i wasn't sure but i suspected now i know first one's on me welcome to the club and here's one for the lady too slid a second drink over actually smiled at him thanks my god god get me out actually i'm fucking swallowing a shotgun barrel that night.

55:08I'm telling you that right now. I can tell you that. You're going to see my... If I wasn't so fat, I'd be fucking swinging. That's our triumph. That's our triumphant heroes ending. Exactly. That's my Shutter Island ending. Not a lobotomy. It's me swallowing a shotgun barrel. Gosh. So intense. Like a fucking 12-inch sub. It's so graphic, but like the Looney Tunes cartoon where their jaws get really wide it's like gold I look like Scooby eating a fucking footlong sub that's something I look like chewing down that shotgun barrel tonight absolutely like Zoinks Scoops Scoop oh my god Scoop killed himself

55:59like Zoinks his brain matters all over the mystery van or the mystery machine. This isn't a Hanna-Barbera cartoon at all. Jesus Christ. There's so much blood. There's so much blood, Scoob. I would kill for that. You know what? You know what was a fucking horrifying Scooby-Doo one? Was that movie? The one with the... It was like Zombie Island. Is that what it was called? With the werewolf people? Yeah. That was fucked up. That's the one where Scooby gets his brain blown off. Jesus Christ Scooby Scoob that's what happens the whole time while that song's playing cause it's Tim time again cause it's Tim yeah yeah

56:48it's like that Cajun riverboat guy's like quick take this and just throws a shotgun on shore yeah well they have to take one shell they have to take fucking Scoob's headless body down to the voodoo priest to resurrect him. He's going to be a bumpy road, Scooby. I can't wait for the comments to be like, yeah, it was a good episode. Scooby's suicide. We can't cut that. We can't cut that. We can cut a lot of things. We can't cut that.

57:28Because it's terror. I took a moment to text my brother my location and a message. Please help me. It feels like I'm losing my mind. I don't know what's going on. There are people here acting strangely. I don't know if they're messing with me or what. Don't you know it's rude to text during a date? Ashley said, and I sheepishly dropped the phone. I could do nothing but act normal. Past the initial weirdness, nothing else strange seemed to be happening. Waffling back and forth between terror and self-doubt, I did my best to keep up our prior level of conversation. After an hour or two of drinking and hanging out, I started to doubt I'd ever seen or heard anything strange.

58:10In fact, I was glad I ignored the few odd sentences I thought I'd heard from Ashley and the bartender. Alcohol did, indeed, make me feel weird. Was it interfering with my medication, or did alcohol just naturally make people red-faced, loud, and stupid? it. I knew I was starting to behave oddly, and I actively tried to reel myself in. Still, she noticed. Okay, time to get you home. You don't drink much, do you? Uh-uh. Shook my head. Uh-uh. Good, I'm glad. Dean's an asshole when he drinks. She helped me up and led us outside. This time, three guys and a girl stood outside smoking. we crossed the street heading for her car she looked up as we got to the opposite corner she sighed and smiled isn't he beautiful oh god fuck's sake that's awesome where are you we gotta we gotta do it quick now shh but I can't see The way you shake and shiver.

59:22You know, Scooby, you gotta put the gun right down your throat. That's no joke. And, Scooby, when you pull the trigger, you're gonna find that life is really whack. That's a fact. That's a fact.

59:42I know you'll catch that villain. Oh. And then the remake, it's like, what's your Scooby-Doo coming after you? Gotta... gotta i don't know i'm not as good this as you are whatever the equivalent would be for what's wow real peak creativity we have here i'm an artist i'm an artist in my zone over here there's nothing that rhymes that fits those two concepts together in that opening i froze did she mean the moon there was no helping it it only took a moment she knew i was purposefully avoiding looking she backed away a step you lied She looked across the street at the smokers, and I guess that she was judging whether she could trust them.

1:00:36She half-shouted something, but then changed her mind mid-sentence. If there were other people in the know with whatever she was doing, was it possible that she didn't know who they were? She couldn't scream for help in that regard, so instead she shouted something much worse. Help! There's creeper attacking me! What? I screamed back. It was my worst nightmare. To have my awkward interactions misinterpreted as threatening, but wait, that wasn't what was happening here. No, no, no, I'm not. Immediately, the three guys across the street frowned, assessed her fear, and then charged in my direction.

1:01:14I ran, but they were faster than me, and one took me down from behind with wide, gripping arms. I hit the sidewalk roughly, barely keeping my face from slamming into concrete, and they rolled me over. I remember holding up my arms, feebly trying to keep the punches from landing somewhere critical, but one did manage to leave a horrible pain in my eye socket. I was certain I'd have a black eye if they didn't just kill me. Someone tore them off, shouting at the top of his lungs. Pushing and shoving them away, he'd kneeled next to me and helped me sit up. I'm not proud of it, but I did cry. There was blood and bruising all over me, and my date had turned horrible in all the ways I feared most.

1:01:57What if I'd really attacked her? I couldn't believe anything. Not with the alcohol messing with my head. Like a Christ! Came to save your voice from above. What the hell's going on? Will. I couldn't believe it. He'd actually come. I'm really confused and she made me drink, but... Don't look at the moon, something's going on. He sighed and went to lift his head, but I covered his face with my hand. Don't look, Will. This isn't a joke. Remember how you said I had three promises I could ask you as a brother? Yeah. Well, I've got two left and I want to use one for this. Don't look at the moon. I can't explain why, but because it would sound crazy even for me.

1:02:38If it's that important to you, fine. It'd probably hurt to look at anyway since it's still burning so brightly. It's what? I asked, done out of my pained days. The moon's on fire? Of course it is. Did you somehow miss all this craziness? Oh. Uh-uh, interesting. I couldn't talk anymore after that. I was too overcome by relief, as if I'd been plucked right out of a nightmare and saved. The moon was on fire, at least in the memories of myself, Donald, my brother Will. It wasn't just me. As long as it wasn't just me, I was happy. but I did have to show him though online I had to show him how all the articles videos and pictures have been scrubbed there wasn't a trace online he'd met crazy Donald once before too and it shocked him to see the old man lucid and calm well mostly sit and calm he still sat in the corner stunned by the loss of 30 years of his life and now I'm trying to figure out what to do next my date went horribly but I'm not convinced that something isn't really going on Guys, is anyone acting strangely around you?

1:03:46Sorry for the delay in posting again, but I gather a bunch of you are feeling the same way. These people don't seem to know each other, but they're starting to talk and figure out who's who. I keep feeling like I'm being stared at in the grocery store, which is weird because normally I feel invisible. Will is staying for the time being. he's concerned for a lot of reasons but mainly i think he wants to make sure i'm okay donald is sleeping on our couch and we've been keeping mostly to ourselves for the past few days every time we go out conversations with other people feel strange and suspicious like everyone suspects everyone else of either being in on it or not in on it nobody knows for sure but what is it what's going on out there donald keeps having dreams about a hateful presence watching us from a great distance i can't help but think back on what ashley said isn't he beautiful who who did she mean that object that hit the moon brings something terrible to our doorstep what would have happened to us if it had landed here instead we thought we'd been saved but were we really safe at all all of these thoughts push the boundaries of the logic i usually use to keep myself sane will isn't talking much about this but i can tell he's worried he knows something's going on but nobody can say for sure what it is he did mention that he thinks ideas can be very powerful the right kind of rumor could spread all over making people fear each other maybe that was what we were feeling when we went out people afraid of each other suspicion of each other on the basis of rumor not on the basis of some spreading secret agenda funny thing is whatever's going on it isn't affecting life as usual i still see people driving and going to work people are still shopping at the grocery store i've been watching horror movies for ideas which is usually ill-advised given my condition but it feels like research and i've never seen anything like this these people aren't crazy and they're not fanatics and they're not mind controlled they're something else entirely they're completely themselves but hold on it seems like something's going on outside yeah again i really like the structure of this it feels like there's a bit more direction towards the idea that something is happening with the moon it's not all like a Shutter Island like I said earlier the the way that especially with his brother we can't really probably can't really show it the way that we usually edit our episodes but the way that these sections are written up it does feel like there's a passage of time like there's a break in the page yeah so it does feel like he's he's like coming into these forums after an unknown amount of time too which is kind of interesting sometimes usually stories you read it'll say like the specific date and time of the post but I kind of like the way that this is broken up it almost feels like a it does legitimately feel like a journal diary or just like somebody regurgitating information at their own convenience without ever really letting you know how much time has passed or anything yeah which is kind of fuck with me too to be like if he is just insane these could be like days or months between you know these thoughts he's having yet they're strung together like they're completely normal and cohesive you know just how his brain's putting them together but just a thought no i agree um also i didn't really mention it because there's so much going on but i really like that thing in the beginning where it's like scientists estimate that this shot was fired at us 4.5 billion years ago yeah you know and it was intentional like it was aiming for us that's pretty cool yeah it's also like i'm getting which i may just be like super imposing you know what i know over it of course but i'm getting kind of vibes of like book of revelation in time so like the thing fired at earth could be wormwood the falling star and then you've got like um the idea that this was set from the beginning of the universe like prophecies so maybe the he is like you know the devil or whatever but i don't think these are just ideas i don't want it to go that direction but right and somewhere it might go anyway just i mean it's just making connections i mean it's so open-ended still right now that's the fun part of this is that I still have no idea what to believe, which I'm really enjoying.

1:08:17I agree. We barely got away. A mob of people, maybe eight or ten guys, came looking for me. They said it was because of what I did to Ashley, or at least that's what they shouted as we ran. We heard them coming and went out the back basement door. Will gripped my arm hard the whole way, and I'm sure he was wondering whether I'd really hurt somebody. With nowhere else to go, Donald followed us, trembling. That's not why they're after us. They know I'm not one of them. They want us to look at the moon. I've had enough of that talk. Bull replied as he hid in the bushes outside my building. I'm not going to look, because I promised, but how can looking at the moon change people?

1:09:00It was Donald who finally got through to him. I don't know you, man, but you need to wake up. You're a nice, strong lad, and I'm sure life is going along rather well for you. You need to believe in the society that empowers you. I stared at him, surprised. Alec and I were metalheads, outcast, anti-establishment men. We don't have the same need to believe that everything is fine, and we're probably still free because of who we are. We felt at the cracks like we always do. Gazed up at the moon. I had a priest and a bitter old woman screaming at my head for thirty years. I looked up for 30 seconds and it all went away.

1:09:36There's a whispering in my brain that pushes back against the screaming. In between, I'm free. Okay. So again, this, you will think, oh, well, maybe the moon stuff's real and this is actually happening. But then a sentence like that will happen. That sounds like Donald is just reaffirming everything he wants to hear. Then you're like, well, maybe he is crazy and all this is, you know. Well, I can't tell if it's that. One collective illusion. The way that our protagonist looked up at the moon and he sees the clouds, I'm like literally wondering if that's like a fit, like an actual manifestation of like a cloudy fogged, like, like basically like mental state to where when he looked up at it, it was able to pierce through and like open him up, but it wasn't able to like grip him right away.

1:10:18You know? Yeah. So it just opened his psyche, but it didn't, you know, it didn't. You're talking about Donald. Yes, correct. But, but it's the same thing with Will where I'm wondering if he looks up, would he have the same effect? I don't know. Yeah. it's interesting how like Donald didn't immediately become one of like the hive mind or whatever but he is like the voices that were in his head are now contending with a new voice that came into his head right we'll took a moment away from peering at our building to stare him down then how do we know you're not one of them that the moon didn't change you I thought of that why hadn't I thought of that I guess you don't know but I've got nowhere to go I'm sorry he turned and shouted towards the building they're over here oh you dick uh yep yep yep so donald what that's why he was okay he was a uh in the uh so it did grab a sleeper agent not sleeper agent just a spy i guess yeah that's kind of funny will's like will's like wait a minute wouldn't that make you want them and donald's like that's an excellent point here they are well cover blown i remember screaming something in anger, but Will punched him quickly, knocking him senseless.

1:11:29It didn't matter. The mob had heard. They came storming out of the building in a flash. They'll find us. Will breathed, grabbing my arm. We ran again, diving between bushes, climbing fences, and slinking through backyards. Did you hurt that girl? No, I didn't hurt anyone. He said nothing further. His expression focused. We seemed to have been making a large circle, and after two hours of exhausting sneaking, we found his car. I climbed into the passenger seat with a sigh. Cloud cover had come and hit in the moon, and I felt strangely more secure for it. We're going to make sure Laura's all right.

1:12:05Dad and Tracy, too. We're in a coffee shop right now. I thought to bring my laptop when we ran, and I'm glad I did. It's our only lifeline to the world at large. News pages, forums, comics, they're all going on as normal. How much of the world's affected? Do the affected people even know something is different? People in the coffee shop here aren't looking around suspiciously. Do they have any idea what's going on? Have they narrowly avoided looking at the moon somehow? It has been rather cloudy. Or is all this going on in my head? How do you guys cope with feelings like this? I just can't trust myself.

1:12:44The tone of the conversation on this forum has definitely changed. I think they're reading our post and changing their behavior accordingly. If you're not affected, don't trust anybody. It's not just you. You're not crazy. I made it home. Dad's passed out drunk and Tracy is making some coffee. Will is talking to them quietly in the other room. I wish I could hear what they were saying. I have this strange feeling that Will might be making the case to lock me up. If most of this is in my head, I must look totally insane to him. or what if he's been compromised what if he's already looked at the moon oh god guys i don't know what to do i panicked i've only got like 30 in cash on me and i ran i ran away i took my stuff and i bolted i couldn't risk getting locked up i've been hiding out in an abandoned house down the street for two days and using the neighbor's unprotected wireless i used to listen to music with the kid who lived here.

1:13:44He's gone but the house is still in good shape. I don't think anybody will be looking for me indoors. This will work. It has to work. I'll figure out how to live. Is his brother actually up to something or is this all just his paranoia that's forcing him into a more complicated situation? Well, what I like about it is that it's all logical from the standpoint of somebody who believes in this. Like, it would make sense. He's just like, I need to flee. I feel like they're going to lock me up. I mean, it sounds ridiculous but I'm like I understand why it doesn't feel like it's just random or that he's just absolutely out of his mind but you kind of like at the same time he could be out of his mind or like I don't know it's it's just uh it's it's it's a lot of fun yeah awesome yeah other people were using this house as a hideout I'm cramped in a basement closet and I've been here for hours they're weird cultish in a way they're all dressed in plain brown clothes that look like someone's piss poor attempt to be inconspicuous to the point that it's blatantly obvious they're not normal they talk funny too but they seem just as wary of what's going on i saw them peering out windows and hiding when a car drove by crap those people found me somehow like they knew where i was hiding but that was two weeks ago they keep to themselves and i still find them very strange but they're trying to figure out what's going on too i'm still not sure this isn't all just in my head i've been trying to get a read on these people seem like foreigners but they speak perfect english if they're a cult i can't figure out what they're called they seem to be worried about another half of their groups got changed by the moon i'm almost out of pills i'm nervous and i feel surreal all the time i have a strong feeling i'm hallucinating these people entirely i sneak out and get food at night first i used cash but i didn't like the suspicious looks i got from the people at the store how much of this world is affected now it seems like society is going on just fine without me and i'm the crazy donald on the fringes am i standing around muttering to myself on a corner somewhere maybe not but i'm still living in a basement and hallucinating a bunch of brown clothed strangers it's getting cold too now that it's november i noticed people replying less and less on here i've got to steal food oh god oh god i don't understand i can't believe it i don't want to believe it they found me a dozen men and women and my dad tracy and laura found me they stood outside the house and shouted for me to come out come on out son my dad yelled his face a little red from drinking appeared out the window behind me brown clothed people prepared to fight with makeshift weapons i thought it hilarious that my hallucinations were preparing like they could do anything look tracy yelled we know you're scared because of what you did to that poor girl don't worry we convinced her not to press charges come on out and everything will be fine what were they waiting for why didn't they just storm the house they had more than enough people and the molten moon cast everything outside and lurid orange making me terrified of even touching the light streaming in the window outside they muttered among themselves and then laura took a turn alec we're all really worried about you you need to come out on your own free will it'll show us you're not violent don't do it voice said beside me turned and looked will yeah we're not going out for anything i can rot in hell i stared when did you get here what he asked frowning i've been here the whole time hiding out with you we're not gonna get caught and get turned into one of them was i losing my mind or had he just snuck in the back and said all this to confuse me how could i have forgotten that he was here the whole time i i wished i had time to go back and read what i've written down had i mentioned will at all recently well hell with it my dad yelled we don't have time for cat and mouse games anymore we need to get radio for his coming come outside right now no shouted back he lifted a gun not at me but at tracy she shouted next alec will come out or you're gonna start paying the price for resisting.

1:18:12Don't do it. Will told me gruffly. I'm going to count to three, boy. My dad yelled. Three, two, one. I didn't move. The gunshot rang out with a surprising auditory pitch, and I felt my awareness go numb. Did she really just? Tracy fell to the ground, bleeding from the side of her head. He lifted the gun and pointed it at Laura. You understand? I'm going to count to three. I stared, horrified. Beside me, Will was crying. Behind me, the strange brown-clothed people had used the opportunity to slip out the back door and escape, if they'd existed at all. Will stood. No! I insisted, trying to hold him, but he tore free and moved for the front door.

1:18:56Don't do it! He yelled, going out with his hands up. Don't kill her! My dad smiled. That's one. Alec, come out now. Will faced the house. His expression resigned. Come on, Alec. We don't have a choice. He was right, in a way. I had no money, no allies, no idea what was really going on. Hesitantly, I stepped outside. Will grinned and the dozen men and women snatched me. But he didn't look at the moon. He didn't look. He didn't need to. He'd already been changed. I'd been tricked. I'd been tricked because I was easy and vulnerable. they held my head and forced me to stare up and some even held my eyelids as i watched the blazing cloud of fire around the molten moon seemed to condense swirl and disappear into me leaving behind a silver crescent they let me go after 30 seconds because they didn't need to hold me anymore i was myself still but no longer it was like having access to another room in my mind in one room it was me in the other i was also me but a me that eagerly awaited the coming of the dreamer on high i hated the fact that some people did not believe in him and i wanted to seek them out and make them see they had to see his glory they all had to see his glory but a temple of self remained within they didn't know slightest resistance kept the believer in me for mentioning that i was out of pills i was utterly his for a week or two somewhere around the first or second of december lack of pills began setting in i write this to you now friends because we are all on this forum for a reason if i all got our issues and those issues can free us i write to you now completely free and they don't know they don't know that i myself once more there's talk of his coming and one more cycle of the moon which i think means something big is happening in the next month december 2014 is not going to be a good month for humanity but i'm going to do my best to get close to whatever is going to happen i'm going to make sure it crashes and burns if you're out there and you're still reading any of this you have to do the same don't let them know that you know they started out with deception when they were few but they're not afraid to be violent now if anyone else has left lay low and wait for the right moment i'll write again when i can end of part two i really love this because it feels like it's going into like this cheesy cult-like world but really i'm almost reading it like he ran out of medicine and he's completely insane and he's like the like his mind finally like giving in is him just completely losing all control that he once had and now he's just completely gone into a psychosis or do you believe that there that the it's this is all real i lean more towards the psychosis thing because of all the conversations about metal and his brother coming in there to trick him then walking out and stuff and like him being so unsure of himself and the people in the brown suits i feel like this goes more towards there's a psychosis element at play or all of this is weird and he just can't trust himself which is why it took him so long to get to it right the conclusion he's at now um i'm not sure well part three then final part part three i do i do think it's interesting that i'm not sure i really appreciate the way it's written i was even gonna make a comment like well it is kind of lame that you know the the dreamer you know the dreamer man or whatever was mentioned at the game but hasn't come up since but No, there he is at the end.

1:22:48That's the first thing he saw when he looked at the moon. So that makes sense. So yeah, I really love this story so far. I think it's well done. I also want to point out that at the end of part two, the top comment is someone who simply said, some of Hitler's men used to wear plain brown clothes. Jesus. So it's this Reddit user like, maybe that's the SS.

1:23:13Good God. Maybe the people. Maybe the people trying to hide from the moon are part of the secret police. Is that what people said? Thank you. Thank you, random Redditor. Good God. Dude, any of these no sleep stories, you read through the comments, you'll get some gems. Like, here's one. Might I recommend some shotguns? God, Jesus Christ. maybe maybe perchance recommend you shotgun um some shotgun mayhaps madam here's another one did you receive my email contact me asap we need to figure this out is that just role-playing shit yeah it's like role-playing but it's um did you see my email this is so funny anyway anyway part three part three i never knew how hard it would be to set up a resistance movement you can't trust anyone at all i wish i had more time to watch spy movies we had to come up with tactics on our own especially because we didn't have the same tests that the changed had eight is four they could force someone to look up at the moon and then assume that person had become theirs.

1:24:35They didn't know that they could be wrong, and that those of us with mental issues were instead made whole by the conflicting energies in our skulls. But rumors were beginning to circulate to that effect. And for us, even if a person was free, and sound of mind, that didn't mean they wouldn't defect out of self-interest, like Donald had. I resented him at first, but he taught me a valuable lesson. I've never met my co-conspirators We can't meet I can't be sure they're on my side And they can't be sure I'm on their side I don't even know how many of us there are All I know is that we've been passing messages Through ridiculously elaborate methods Or anonymously online And I'm getting some sense of what's happening In the world at large That's the weird part Life is going on as normal Farmers are farming Cab drivers are driving office employees are lounging around talking and taking smoke breaks every hour the only difference is that any talk of religion has been replaced by praises of the dreamer on high and the world lies excited for the coming event some believe it will be a rapture some believe the dreamer will simply come in person and rule over us for all time me i'm using my newfound clarity and solid sense of reality to work my way up the rings of trust.

1:25:58I feel smart and capable in a way I've never been. Is this what normal people feel like all the time? I understand now that individual motivations have not changed. Will still thinks he's helping me in his own way. He thought tricking me out of the house and forcing me to accept him was saving me from the life of a homeless and mentally deficient outcast. He wasn't wrong, I suppose. He continues to pursue relationships with higher-ups, and he continues to try to get us deeper in and trusted more. We're going to be his prime disciples. Will says often, excited and determined. Brother, I always said I'd take care of you.

1:26:38You and Laura, and Dad, too. We're going to be at the top of the food chain when the new order comes. We'll be taken care of. I would nod and smile, but secretly think tell that to our stepmom minutes or hours it's funny that we all started out paranoid and suspicious of the changed and now the changed are paranoid and suspicious of us or is it sad rather than funny the free human race is now the fringe they had a funeral and buried tracy in the cemetery and everything dad stayed sober for two whole days and cried publicly at the reception you killed her you psychopath i remember thinking to myself but he didn't feel guilty about it since it had to be done son the double thing change engenders brings hypocrisy you want what you want for your own life but service to the dreamer on high takes precedent over all your desires no matter how strong it's why i know that i can't trust anyone not even my own family they wouldn't hesitate to murder me and passerby would cheer the silencing of another heretic that's the crazy thing i remember people acting this way before this isn't new to humanity suspected heretics are the new second class citizens the new victims of the witch hunt different race different ideology different religion now it was down to simply having a different mind it's insane how scared they are of anyone who might not share their fanaticism i gotta look at what their plan is yellow is blue i understand now why their plan will actually work they have among them members of the cult that i thought i'd imagined they're called brown shirts now because of their distinctively plain manner of dress and they're among the top priests of the order they've got abilities that i can't explain they can sense electromagnetic waves of all sorts and they hate computers and robotics of any kind i don't know who they are but i get the strangest sense that they're not human they look completely human and they eat breathe and walk around but the way they talk and move in pure things is just wrong somehow wow like somebody who never learned to be a person which is unfortunate because i need to get into contact with at least one of them if anyone out there knows a brown shirt that hasn't been changed i need to meet them leave a note at location yellow in eight minutes from the time of this post okay so i this is losing me pretty quick um i don't know if you feel differently but it's suddenly becoming like a spy action thing is not nearly as interesting to me.

1:29:35Well, that's why I'm under the, as he's just crazy. Well, that's why I'm like legitimately under the belief that he is insane. And this is what his belief is. Like, well, that would make sense. It's so, it's so fantastical. He's having this, these, he's like playing this whole thing of like, Oh yeah, I'm pretending whatever. To me, it seems like almost like in the reality of the situation I'm deciphering so far is that his family went to help him got him out of probably some fucking homeless shack or whatever you know and he is the brown shirts are just other junkies yeah or whatever whatever it is but i i'm under the interpretation that he is like just i mean he's gone he's like mentally gone is is kind of where i'm at too but i don't know i mean i i that's what i'm hoping but i i can't i i've been under the illusion now that or i'm like under the um assumption now that he's just completely mentally gone.

1:30:29And now I'm just curious to see how he reacts to his family and stuff. Like, does he try killing them? Does he actually murder people? I don't know. We've been so back and forth with it, but I don't know. We can, we'll just see. Yeah. Yeah. I like that idea better. Like it's, it's almost becoming like a Star Trek plot with the level of like, oh, the Brown shirts are not human and they can sense electromagnetic waves and they, and it's a it's a double speak and everyone is they're members of the order like it's an over complication someone would make in their mind right uh someone who's unwell and similar to all of the metal talk from earlier it sounds like him just superimposing what he wants the world to be over what the world is so what may be happening is everyone's going to work normally and acting normal because the world's perfectly normal yeah um but that's what i believe i think I'm going to choose to believe that until it gets rescinded because that's far more interesting to me.

1:31:25So the meeting went well. There are two free brown shirts still alive and present. From what they said, the rest of the free fled southeast over the mountains and to another universe. If you can believe that. You're so strange. I kind of accept it when they say it so calmly. Also accepted because of what I've seen the changed building in the center of the city. why columbus ohio this i wondered often the answer turned out to be very simple they're building the altar here because this is where the brown shirts were and are my hunch had been right the two said they remained behind to try and save what members of their kind they could they claimed to be from elsewhere and that they were on an exodus to a place of safety a place where they hoped old alliances were still in place they would not elaborate but they did say they would help we have our first real allies now i swore their assistance when i told them what i'd seen a gigantic altar being built in front of the city capital building the base was mostly in place but the rest seemed to involve strange biomechanical artifice and a row of brown shirts chained and integrated to the machine they were aware and happy to be of service save one one remained free perhaps due to the same effect that kept me so and his face and arms were battered and bloody from torture it's a week until christmas and somehow i feel like it will be humanity's last day irony is not lost on me a holiday tale about the birth of a religious savior will in some twisted sense be made true ready everyone if the plan we've built together doesn't work it's gonna get bloody they caught somebody skulking about the high rises downtown they know for certain that we exist now and they know why we exist because he was an escaped mental patient i've come under intense scrutiny but will has been protecting me i feared that they will force me to undertake some act of loyalty to prove i'm not a heretic they've been keeping Laura close.

1:33:39I have a feeling that they're going to ask me to kill her. She and I haven't been close since my illness started, but that's just one more reason I don't think I can bring myself to do it. She's still my sister, but the entire world's on the line. I've been watched and followed recently. Updates and communication are going to get sparse. Stick to the plan, everyone. Two days remain. The altar construction seems right on schedule. God, it's not going to work. I don't think even half of you will get this message in time, but it's not going to work. My brownshirt ally sensed it first, and then an observatory contact of mine confirmed it.

1:34:19Not that the holy news isn't spreading among the change like wildfire. There are five more objects on the way, coming in at near light speed. They'll be in here in a day and a half, roughly, same as the first took from detection to arrival. god we've nearly lost it all to just one it sits up there mocking us brainwashing us and now five more coming this can't be a coincidence the timing's too neat a day and a half to christmas a day and a half to the ritual a day and a half to the arrival of five more apocalyptic near luminous objects will they hit earth if so we'll never know because we'll all be dead Perhaps the moon saved us the first time, but if these five also hit the moon, the threat of the dreamer on high will grow sixfold.

1:35:07What are these godforsaken things? Seeds? Embryos? Brain matrices? Portals? What? I can only imagine, and theorizing is pointless. If we don't stop this before they arrive, we lose. We lose everything. We have to move up the plan. We have to strike now. but it won't work unless everyone's on board. We're in a serious bind here. Spread the word. We have to strike at the alternate time we discussed from the beginning. Yeah. I mean, I think that I think to affirm what I was thinking earlier, he spent so much time before questioning his own sanity. And now he's saying everything with an utmost certainty, you know, like, I mean that that's to me, it's also like his peak level of delusion is that he's like lost that, that balance of what has made him sane.

1:35:56To where now it's, I think he's just, yeah, he's just like letting go. And also even just all the religious undertones and stuff too. We see that a lot with like, um, not necessarily like, not necessarily. I just like mentally ill or like cult, like member people. I just think it's like something where it's a grandeur, you know, it's like a delusions of grandeur or whatever. Something big, prophetic, biblical, you know, that he can, that he's latched onto. It seems in my opinion. Yeah. Yeah. Man. yeah i think that uh makes the most sense uh going on just all the clues that have been like put out so far i agree i mean it makes you seem it's hard for me to sorry i was gonna say like it makes it almost seem like he's going to do something horrible on christmas is what it's it's kind of the build-up is what i'm saying the story ends and this is all just a prelude to that nashville christmas bomber who blew himself up in front of the uh the nsa center i mean like even like that though like that would be a fucking insanely fascinating ending you know oh yeah if it was just like a guy that went crazy and killed himself yeah yeah this is like what was happening in his head leading up to it all of the eccentrically crazy and chaotic things that he wrote down online especially like regurgitating all this shit in a forum is so it feels so real to me I don't know I've seen so many weird posts man or emails that are sent to me of like very crazy ramblings where you're just like what the fuck are you talking about but to that person how i mean how real is it to them it's probably you know it's reality yeah yeah it's hard for me to think back on it all quite a few of you have asked me to detail exactly what happened on that day now that january's over and two months past i think i can face it news and understanding has been fragmented obviously but i do think I can paint a clear picture.

1:37:51As you know, our plan didn't work. It was a really good try, but we were amateurs, and half of us were spies and defectors. It did help that absolute chaos broke out at the proper time. I went there on Christmas morning to the city center. Tens of thousands had gathered to see the coming of the dreamer on high. My two brownshirt allies stood with me, wearing the normal clothes I'd found for them. I trained them on how to act and we worked together to mask or feel because they said their kin could sense them otherwise Will thought they were just two friends of mine He was thrilled to see me making friends Will was the highest priest assistant by then but the old man didn't trust me very much I had to stand a bit away from the altar in the dense crowd While the high priest began giving a speech to thunderous cheers and applause The weird thing is Weird in many ways as it turned out was the altar was already active.

1:38:49They'd built it and completed the first parts of the ritual the night before. A gigantic oval lay torn in space in the middle of it, kept open by the row of chained brown shirts. It was a portal. An honest-to-God portal in space. It's not the weird part, though. My two allies whispered that it shouldn't be able to do what it was doing. It wasn't just a portal in space. Among the random flitting locations on Earth that displayed, I recognized some as very ancient, but bustling with life. It was showing other times, too. I saw a tribe of cavemen. I saw the Colossus of Rhodes. I saw the crowd, our crowd, and then there from behind.

1:39:36Many of the sea of people waved at themselves for a few moments, laughing and cheering. That should have been impossible, my allies told me. the configuration of the altar was not just augmenting and focusing the abilities of the brown shirts it was fracturing space-time too whatever might have intended to use that portal they said it was something extraordinarily dangerous they couldn't emphasize it enough there was dangerous like a gun really dangerous like a nuclear bomb extremely dangerous like a universe-eating swarm of machines and then whatever this was it was worse worse than all that They couldn't even hazard a guess as to what it might be.

1:40:16But it didn't make sense to me. The dreamer on high was on the moon. That much had to be true. The object had hit, the moon had gone molten, and remained molten. So massive as it was, casting lurid orange over my free senses and the crowds and high-rises around me. And then, the dreamer on high had begun his insidious work. He was already here. He didn't need a portal strong enough to fracture space-time. He was already here. He was just stuck on the moon. And now, five more somethings were coming to reinforce his power. So what was this portal for? I understood the gravity of our errors the moment I saw him.

1:40:59A black-robed figure moved through the crowd, parting disciples like waves. A hood covered his face, but I knew who it was the moment I saw him. He walked slowly up to the altar and faced his high priest. my brother will stood to the side among many helpers and assistants each dressed in flowing purple and gold next to them and in many strategic places stood brutish men with guns we'd add provisions in our plan to handle the men with guns but but the plan was on thin ice now the dreamer on high was already here they'd summoned him the night before they'd brought him to earth somehow the night before.

1:41:39We've been tricked. We've been outsmarted. They hadn't cared about the holiday at all. They just used it to subtly dupe us. He moved past me, close enough to almost touch. I thought, in my mind, that I should pull my knife, leap forward, and slice his throat. Chill waves kept me frozen in place. My two brownshirt allies looked away, lest he sense them had that been my chance i began feeling my limbs again as he stepped up onto the altar at that moment the crowd murmured and i turned to look with the rest of humanity a single man ran down the empty wake left by the dreamers passing he looked wild and half homeless but desperate men with guns hefted their weapons and began to aim but they were too late to stop his simple attempt.

1:42:30He hurled a book at the portal. That was all. With 20 ,000 other pairs of eyes, I watched it sail through the air. It wasn't a fiction book. It had no image on the cover. It must have been a journal. It looked like it was about to fall short, but the effect was an optical illusion. It curved up a bit in the rolling air and sailed into the vast portal. The moment it passed through the portal flashed into a dozen fractured images of other similar books sailing through the air behind them we could all plainly see other individual men and women in other crowds completing throws in the midst of vast crowds in each alternate version of our scene a dreamer stood black robed calm and unmoving instead of shooting him outright the armed thugs grabbed the lone man and brought him to the ground.

1:43:21Whoever he was, the lone man screamed for help. Half in gibberish, and no one helped him. How could they? To do so would mean death. That's what it's for. One of my brown shirt allies whispered. He's accessing a different vector than we expected. He's not trying to access alternate Earths and parallel reality sense. He's trying to access different quantum choice trees of this universe what i asked fiercely sort of grasping what he was talking about he moved a little closer to speak without being heard by the crowd pressed against us this could have happened a thousand different ways we could have come to other cities a different man or woman would have thrown that book that's what you're seeing all the other presidents and futures of these events kept my expression positive despite my intense worry about what he was describing we hadn't understood or planned for any of this.

1:44:13Why? Silence. A blasting tidal wave of utter quiet tore across the city center. As one, humanity froze. The dreamer turned to face us. A vast darkness comes. A cheer began swelling. Silence. The chill voice, as if someone were whispering directly into our minds, brought absolute stillness. I can sense that not all of you love me. I can feel your minds. I can feel your hatred. I gulped, kept my thoughts positive. Each of my two allies clutched one of my arms and helped hide us from the probing energies I felt roving around the air. I speak to you now, non-believers. A great darkness is coming. I have always been here, watching you from just outside the walls.

1:45:02Security is illusion. Safety is a self-imposed tomb. I reeled under the icy cold of his words and my thoughts until something occurred to me. Why was he speaking to us at all? He would only address us in this manner if we were threats, if we actually stood a chance. The portal's destinations were starting to slow down, going from rapid randomness to slowing coherence, almost as if a spinning wheel was losing momentum as someone applied the brakes. I could see the chained brown shirts focusing, and a thug near one free brown shirt applied a shocking prod to him to force him to comply too. If the dreamer was addressing us at all, then we actually stood a chance.

1:45:46I lifted the flare gun I'd hidden under my shirt, wondering if it might be the last act I ever took. I pulled the trigger, and an orange flare shot up, burning the color of the molten sky. As I said, absolute chaos did break out at the proper time. Two of the armed men were with us, it turned out. They rotated in place and immediately shot several of their fellows in the back. The crowd around us surged intensely, and fighting broke out all around. Nobody knew who the enemy was. Changed or free, everyone suspected everyone else. It was as we'd expected, but I hadn't anticipated the sheer violence.

1:46:25Blood sprayed through the air as friend murdered friend, as family murdered family. A concert push aimed for the altar plateau, our plan actually taking shape. A knot of men, women, and even teenagers that I'd never seen before surrounded us, and we punched, sliced, and kicked our way to the staging area while five blue stars grew brighter in the sky. The approaching objects blew shifted by their sheer speed. The goal wasn't to get me to the portal, it was to get our two allies close. Together, the two free brown shirts stared at the portal, and the space around it trembled from the interference.

1:47:06Somehow, though, it was me that the dreamer turned to face. Stop! The command was inviolable, and I froze as ordinary men and women massacred each other in a circle around the two of us. Order them to stop! I never felt pain like that, and I can still remember it vividly. The two rooms in my mind began cracking as if their foundation was shifting. I remember shaking and seeing my vision brim crimson as blood began welling out of my eyes. Behind the dreamer, Will pushed his way through the fighting and reached me. Stop hurting him! He shouted, and the black-robed figure turned his attention on my brother instead.

1:47:47That freed me, and I stumbled forward, through misty red, lurid orange, and growing blue, to feebly try to tackle the dreamer on high. I fell right through him. Fool. A portal! He breathes, writhing on flat metal. How can you use it if you're not here? It's not for me. It's for you. All of you. I am your savior. There is a chain of events in which the human race survives the coming darkness. There is one future in which you escape the crushing forces that approach. You will come to that land of plenty and be safe there, under me. The dreamer stood in place and looked up at the molten orange sphere hanging low above us.

1:48:27He lowered his hooded head as five streaks of vivid blue rapidly sliced across the sky. I turned my head as blinding white and orange exploded above. Even that wasn't enough as successive impacts followed, and the sea of people fighting one another fell in waves against the sheer brightness. The ground trembled beneath us, and incredible winds began pouring through the channels between the high rises. Many began running without prompt, and the rest organized an evacuation. I helped unchain the brown shirts, all now free, and we ran. The dreamer was gone. The portal was gone. And as you all know, so was the moon.

1:49:08A ring of molten rock arcs through the sky now, lighting each day and each night until it cools. The remains of the dreamer on high are up there too. Gobs of unidentifiable organic mass that many say looks like brain matter. i believe it thing is we never understood what we were facing the dreamer hadn't come with that first object it had always been there it had in all likelihood formed the moon by its arrival that's why we have well had two moons why one has always been so different from the other the other moon lurks still beyond the molten ring glimmering with reflected orange I don't like that sight at all.

1:49:55Not one bit. I still feel watched. It'll go back to staying beneath my horizon for three months soon, like it was from October to December, and I can't wait for that reprieve. Let the Southern Hemisphere take a turn, feeling creeped out. Some unknown power shot those objects at us eons ago, some power unrelated to the dreamer. That's what we figure now, and I'm sure you've all heard the theories. The first object was a calibration test, possibly, and failed to kill the dreamer on high. The next five were right on target and completely obliterated the moon just to make sure. Whoever had fired those objects hadn't been trying to kill us, they'd been trying to save us.

1:50:40Had they suffered at the hands of the dreamer on high or something like that? Had this incredible gift been their final act? Scientists turned their telescopes towards the origin point, but there was nothing left there now. That star had gone nova when Earth was in its infancy. Whoever they'd been, they'd saved us without a word, and without a single thank you. Still, we thanked them the world over. But I can't help feeling like we're not safe. The words the dreamer spoke to me, and to nobody else, linger with me. was it actually in its own twisted way trying to save us from something worse brown shirts have moved on but they left me and the other members of the resistance they trusted with a few concerns first if they can find the rest of their people ones that moved on and if they can find the old allies they spoke of come back first to make sure we're all right second they left us with a small metallic chip one of several they had that will show us the way to some sort of safe haven if they never managed to return the chip is very old i'm not sure how to use it but i'm certain we'll figure it out in the coming darkness turns out to be real finally now this was the odd one they warned that someone or something was hunting them they didn't know who or what it was only that they sensed it on their trail and it had already pass through here following the rest of their kind there's no guarantee the hunter would not return they requested if anyone came through here asking about them lie gladly i told them this is why i give no specific descriptions in my tale here i didn't want the hunter to know what they look like as far as anyone else is concerned they're just slightly odd humans me i'm procrastinating I have to go visit Will's grave with Laura today.

1:52:37Dad can't go, of course, because he drinks even more than before this all happened. Before he killed Tracy, the only woman who'd put up with him. Just me and my sister now. I'm left in Will's place to take care of the tattered remains of our family. On the bright side, I don't need pills anymore. The dreamer permanently gave me wholeness of mind, even as it took away my older brother. he died there on that altar taking the dreamer's attack in my place he died there a hero along with the thousands of others who didn't survive Christmas day and the human race recovers from their shared hangover together with me as a new member I've got a strong handle on myself now and a new confidence born of everything I went through I'm even going on a second date with Ashley in a few days and this time I think I won't screw it up silver linings I suppose Yeah, I'm finally a functioning member of the human race, alright.

1:53:33Only I'm not sure I like this club. I can't help but dwell on the statistics that came out last week. According to the surveys and studies done after the fact, only 18 % of the population truly came under the dreamers' control. 18 %? That's how many people were 100 % brainwashed. That's how many human beings had completely whole minds. It was like a grand social experiment, the lead scientist said on TV. Only 18%. The rest were partially controlled or totally free. The rest simply fell in line out of fear, self-preservation, and paranoia. That's the thing. It's like so many eras in human history.

1:54:11Nobody knew who was who. Nobody knew who to trust. Lines of communication were controlled by key members of the change, and neighbors were turned against one another in classic fashion. I can't shake the dark despair that such news leaves in me The dreamer had no power Except what we gave it The end The end Wow What a Wow What a lot to take in on that last part I don't know I don't know if If the author is wanting us to believe That was all real Or if it's just a man who is Because this is the thing too He's still posting on a forum and I think about all the shit that I've seen even my emails where it's that detailed and that insane to where I'm curious to know because also he stopped responding to like the replies you know if he's just mindlessly regurgitating shit that he's like that he's saying or believing I don't know what do you think um

1:55:20okay so I think he's still crazy. And I think that's what all that in part was. Cause if it's supposed to be literal, that's really lame. I don't like that. Wow. It's like, yeah, well it started as like, you know, a unreliable narrator, creepy thing, but then it became star Trek. Uh, I don't like that. But if you kind of take this to be, he is no law. Like we, if we interpret the stuff that was happening in the first two parts, his real world, like his brother takes him home and he gets into a big fight with his family and his stepmom quote unquote dies maybe she just leaves because she can't deal with this anymore and now he's just so lost in the sauce uh because there's that mention at the end that he's completely off his medication maybe this is just what happens when he gets all the way off his medication right well he leaves reality to such an absurd degree we've said he said earlier too that he was like i'm running low or whatever that was a while back that was like in part two when he's like i can't show or like you know and i haven't even thought about how i have like i basically have no medication left i think he said that in part two yeah so i don't know i mean i like this idea of trying to decipher a guy with the fantastical illusion that is presenting in front of him uh versus the reality of like his family trying to help and him kind of slowly decaying mentally over time and giving into uh i don't know not taking his meds or just you know not having the support system not being able to talk with people I really really really enjoyed parts one and two specifically part one with how back and forth it was that kind of illusion that was breaking up and I think that like a horror story written from the perspective of a senile person that is like unapologetically like filtering their thoughts in a way that almost feels cohesive to where you can't decipher what is real and what's not real I think is a really interesting concept i agree though i think that if it goes into this fantastical place with like you know the ancient god and stuff i think it's practically a bit a bit corny you know so i guess i choose to believe that it's uh that it's yeah i'll choose to believe that too because there's enough clues for it and i think that's far more interesting i think it's just it's very well written i think like part one especially i really liked the way part one was i liked the unsureness I liked part two as well with the date and I liked like there was a lot of the way that it was written, the context clues and the continuous subversion of expectation or the subversion of like, we're going down this road.

1:57:57Actually, just kidding. We're going down this road really did make me feel like I was reading something manic. And I am trying to carry that through with the end part because the end part is so heavy on lore and like this, like almost apocalyptic future. almost like the fucking uh i have no mouth i must scream like the am computer and like them living in this thing for a hundred and whatever it was 80 years or whatever the fuck it was like uh it it's so much to take in so quickly even though we've been in this other place you know that i can't help but feel like that is the actual conclusion is this man and once again like the kind of thought that i had earlier of like each time we see these breaks we have no idea the amount of time it is between him going so to me it's like this I like to think that it's almost it's been months of him between post of almost you know almost like he lost in the state lost in the state and he comes back as if no nothing has stopped you know I think it's interesting but all in all extremely well written I just very fun I'm very curious to see how people decipher it as well I think it's impossible to not like parts one though a part one was just phenomenal really loved how the story got set up and stuff and i think that like you know when you're doing a story the hardest part is like finding out how to end it or wrap it up and i'm curious to see if people deciphered it the same way did they get too lost in it you know if grounding it more outside of this outside of the unreliable narrator would that have made it a stronger more satisfying ending because right now i can't tell i can't tell if we're both just like the the wind is out of our sails a bit and we're just kind of like oh you know okay or not or how are you feeling so reading the comments it seems that people are like oh the brown shirts connects to another story he did about blah blah blah so it really feels like it's supposed to be the same thing with psychosis that he was not actually insane and that this is all real and the stuff so that does that is depressing because that's way less interesting um I don't want to start reading a horror story and then it become a Star Wars spinoff it kind of reminds me of if that's the case I'm just going to ignore it and pretend like yeah yeah well it's all in his head but I think that you can do that if you want to because at least the way that I was reading it is once it turns into like ramblings I was almost trying to decipher like okay he's at this altar I was almost like he's like I was thinking the same thing.

2:00:28He's at like a meeting. He's at like a halfway house. Well, I thought my idea was cause he kept talking about the one above all is coming and all he has armed guards. I was thinking that he, it was like a speech some politician was giving or something. And he had interpreted like this famous figure as like the person causing him pain. So I thought the reveal was going to be that like he assassinated the president or something like that. Cause in his mind, it's some multidimensional beast thing, right? Him killing his family or something would be interesting in this rough relationship he has with him already.

2:01:04And then him kind of psychotically breaking and then feeling like his dad's a part of this mass space cult is kind of fun. Yeah, or if he was in a hospital the whole time, it could be like the superintendent of the hospital. And he's been convinced that he's evil and he's convinced other people who are equally as crazy as him that they're evil. so they have this plot to assassinate him that doesn't work and he gets thrown in solitary. I'm going to pretend that's what the ending was because that's actually cool. All in all, I'm very, very, very curious to see what people say and what audio listeners think.

2:01:36But let us know in the comments. We appreciate it. And also, if you've hung out with us this long and maybe you're driving to work or you're just chilling out during your break at lunch, then maybe consider listening to us on audio platforms like Spotify and Apple podcast and give us a nice rating there. And if you want a little extra something on the side, we might be doing a little, maybe some creep TV on Patreon and just reading more exclusive stories. And you want extra content, feel free to sign up for Patreon. It does help out the channel and we appreciate it. Absolutely. I do appreciate that story really bummed me out.

2:02:12I was going to say, I was going to say you sound very dead. I know, I know. Well, I was like, well, maybe if you think back, if you look at the brown shirts are representative of like the guards at facilities. And because there's a speech, they have armed guards. Maybe it's a prison. And I was like doing all this math. And then people in the comments were like, oh, cool. These are the brown shirts from your other space story. And it's like, oh, my gosh. So I'm just. Well, you know, we at least got we at least got Scooby Doo swallowing a shotgun barrel. And I think that's at least worth the price.

2:02:45I'm feeling a little rut-row raggy right now. It is a little rut-row. I'm going to fucking, I'm parking the mystery machine in my garage and shutting the door and really revving the engine a couple times. Yeah, really take me to that big Scooby snack in the sky. But I'm going to pretend like there's a paragraph at the end where it's like, doctor's note, since going off medication, a patient has gone further into delusion. I would have. Will be seen for monitoring. That would be great. That'd be awesome. Even ending it with being like, hey guys, this is Will. My brother fucking walked into a train.

2:03:22He shot Obama. He shot Obama. He literally had to think he was the man on high. Yeah, my brother shot John McCain and he's gone crazy. Just want to say sorry for this rambling, blah, blah, blah. Even that would have been like, okay, well, there you go. I'd be like, great, awesome, perfect. That sounds fantastic. That's all I wanted. But as we were getting to the end and I was scrolling and I saw the bottom, I'm like, no, no, please. I know, man. I could tell that the wind was out of your sails. That sucks. Well, until next time. Give us a quirky thing. Your last word. Goodbye, everyone. You have to say stay creeped.

2:04:02Oh, stay creeped, everyone. Stay creeped. And if you have a mental illness, don't look up at the moon. Don't look up at the moon. Ruck shot. Instead of buckshot, ruckshot. Oh, that made me cringe. That was terrible. All right, just end it there. Just end it there.

2:04:24Thank you.

2:04:59TikaDk stabil

2:05:21Star Wars The Mandalorian and Grogu is now streaming on Disney+. What are you waiting for? Hop on. The must-see galactic adventure comes home on Disney+. This is the way. Our only chance is to work together. I like this kid. Always wear your seatbelt. Star Wars The Mandalorian and Grogu. Now streaming on Disney+. Read PG-13.