This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/ImUpsideDownNow on 2024-04-09 04:28:29.

Had this entire thing not started on Facebook Messenger of all places, I might have had an easier time believing that the gates of hell had opened into my inbox, doing their best to scare me into an early grave.

But because it was the blue chatbox lighting up my screen, offering me a message from someone outside my friends list, I met it with a healthy scepticism. Angus Bateman wanted to contact me, which was a bit of a shock considering he’d died in what our headmaster called a ‘tragic accident’ only yesterday, leaving the school reeling from his death and me without a psychology teacher. Admittedly, my hands shook as I clicked the message because I couldn’t quite grasp the idea of somebody being so horribly cruel already.

open your windows

That was all it said. No punctuation (Mr. Bateman was a stickler for the capital letter) and no introduction. Just that. I remember the wash of cold rolling over my skin as I closed the message, the way even the existence of it made me shudder. But it was 1 am, and I knew at least some of my nastiest classmates used this as their prime be-an-ass time, so I shook it off and moved on. Or rather, that was the plan before a jarring ping sounded around my room and another message appeared, right below the first.

you haven’t opened your windows

Goosebumps. Thousands of them, but I wasn’t popular at school and any reply would leave me the subject of about 20 group chats about how dumb and gullible I was. So I swallowed, closing the message again and reporting the page, blocking it for good measure. Let someone else deal with these assholes.

And in theory, it worked. I left it behind, tabbed back into the game I was playing, tried to free my mind from dead teachers climbing inside my computer and swinging bloodied hands out to grab me. All that was perfectly fine, until my PC took on a mind of its own. Ping after ping after ping, coming in so thick and fast that they all merged into one unbearable trill, drowning me in noise. So many that I clumsily tabbed out and let myself die inside my game, reaching hurriedly to turn down my speakers. It didn’t get any quieter.

it’s cold where i am let me in

it’s cold

it’s cold

it’s cold

it’s cold

it’s cold

it’s cold

it’s cold

it’s cold

it’s cold

it’s cold

it’s cold

it’s cold

it’s cold

it’s cold

it’s cold

it’s cold

it’s cold

it’s cold

it’s cold

it’s cold

it’s cold

The messages stopped dead when I clicked the chat, as though the person on the other end saw my presence and felt satisfied, raising fingers from their keyboard. It was a cold war, neither of us willing to type as I breathed shallow gasps into the emptiness, moonlight blanketing me in the only glow my room provided. Just this one night, I wished I’d left the light on. Just tonight, the darkness felt as though it was swallowing me.

Nobody spoke.

It’s the reason I wrenched the plug from the wall, watching the screen succumb to darkness as I let out a silent breath of relief. I felt about nine years old as I grabbed at my phone, galloping across my room and throwing myself on the bed as though a mangled manifestation of my teacher was waiting for me under it, grinning a bloodied smile and hoping a toe would peek under the covers for him to chew on.

Still, my stomach churned as I lay in the fetal position, white-knuckled grip on my phone clutching it for dear life. I shouldn’t have been as scared as I was, but there was a chill in the air. I swore I felt a thousand eyes on me at once, bleeding into my skin from every angle inside my room. If I lay still enough, I could hear ragged breaths that didn’t match my own.

But I was an imaginative kid. I’d been told that my whole life.

I wished I’d imagined the next message, lighting up my phone in a sick glow of horror.

i’m at your window i smell your skin

I clutched the phone tighter, trying to steady my breathing. The kids at school didn’t know where I lived - but still, I rolled over and turned my back to the window I swore I could hear brittle nails scratching across, wondering if I was brave enough to run to the bathroom to throw up or if I’d just do it right here on my worn, bedside trainers. I could have called for my mother, but I was far too old for that and besides, their room was unusually silent for this time of night. My mistake was my own sick curiosity, believing the fear of the known to be less horrifying than the unknown. I was wrong. I was so, dreadfully wrong. So I looked.

i’m watching you and you look so warm

you should be cold like me

I couldn’t tear my eyes away. The messages came in faster than anyone should have been able to type them, and if I’d been of sound mind, I’d have known that and run right out of my dimly lit tomb.

i’m going to climb in soon and drag you to the cold place

I could call for my Mum. Maybe it was stupid and childish and maybe somehow, the kids from school would find out that tears were gathering in my eyes and I was shaking uncontrollably, but it was okay, because at least I’d feel safe. I’ll never know what possessed me to do it, but I sent a clumsily stabbed reply, a pleading who is this? to my tormentor. It made it less real, as though being the butt of the joke would bring this to its crescendo. But it didn’t. My phone vibrated horribly, more violently than the last time. The words blazed from the screen, Mr. Bateman’s beaming profile picture aside them. His eyes were hollowed in the picture, dripping down to his cold, empty smile.

i’m going to eat you i’m going to eat you i’m going to eat you i’m going to eat you i’m going to eat you i’m going to eat you i’m going to eat you i’m going to eat you i’m going to eat you i’m going to eat you i’m going to eat you i’m going to eat you

“Mum!” I shrieked, voice cracking and muffled as I buried my face into the covers, “Mum!”

The fear had such a grip around my throat that I thought I might pass out, but I didn’t. I didn’t, and it meant I saw my monitor turn itself back on - the monitor I turned off at the plug - long enough for a huge, blackened message to blaze across it inside a chat box that looked like it had been drawn by a child. And yes, I could definitely hear the breathing now, because it left a trail of ice down the back of my neck and sent a single strand of hair billowing in front of my eyes.

I DIDN’T NEED YOUR WINDOW IM IN NOW

I couldn’t tell you how I knew in that moment that both of my parents were dead, tucked up in their beds in a sea of their own blood and necks snapped at the most horrible angle. Maybe it spoke to me and whispered hellish nothings in my ear, maybe it was the deathly smell crawling down my throat from the hallway. I can’t tell you why I wrote it all down either, desperately clinging to my own sanity as it felt like someone was stealing it from me.

I hear footsteps now, thunderous ones. I smell the crimson trails of blood it leaves on the ceiling under its bare feet, streaking somewhere above my head. It’s near, I know it, I smell the copper, I taste it. I can’t write fast enough because it’s moving too quickly its in the hallway it knows im here i think i hear it whispering to me it wants me to lkook into its eyes jesus christ its at my

door what the fuck is that jesus what the fuck is that mother of god its turning its head why does it look like that its looking right at m