This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/GeneralP123 on 2024-09-11 05:08:18+00:00.
If you ever see a man that looks like a Gandalf rip-off holding a “Gift Or Curse” sign, just turn around and pretend you didn’t notice him.
As random as this advice sounds, it will save your life if you choose to follow it.
I wasn’t so lucky, no one was there to tell me to just avoid the odd eighty year old wizard, instead I chose the wrong option and gave in to my curiosity.
You see, months ago I just finished work and was walking back home, but then an unusual sight caught my attention, standing right next to the nearby grocery store was a frail old man with an incredibly long gray beard wearing a cheap blue wizard robe and a matching pointy wizard hat, when I say cheap, I mean it looked like something a kid would buy at the costume store for Halloween, it definitely wasn’t something I’d expect a man that looked to be well into his eighties to be wearing.
More importantly, his shaky hands were holding a small wooden sign, “Gift or Curse” was written on the sign in big red letters.
I couldn’t resist, so I immediately walked up to the man and asked “So, are you providing a service?”
The man instantly responded “Oh I wouldn’t say it’s a service, you have to pay for a service, what I’m offering is free!” he said with a cheerful tone.
“Alright, I’m interested, tell me more.” I said, genuinely curious.
The man put the sign down and calmly said “What I’m offering is a game, you can choose to play it or you can just walk away, naturally, if decide to give it a shot and play the game, you will either win or lose, if you win you will get a great prize, but if you lose you will receive an equally great punishment.”
“Perfect, so can you tell me what those prizes and punishments are?” I asked.
The old man smiled and said “The prize is the ability to see warnings of the future, the punishment, however, is the ability to see creatures that exist far beyond the mortal plane.”
“Yup, he’s definitely crazy” I thought to myself.
The old man reached into his right pocket and showed me a plastic card, “Certified Wizard” was written on the card.
The so called “Certified Wizard” winked at me and said “As you can see, I’m a real wizard, my game is real as well, best part about the game is the fact that it’s completely luck based, just shake my hand and I’ll know if you won or lost, think of me as a human slot machine.”
I was stunned by his confidence, he was telling me insane things, yet he seemed to be so clear-headed and coherent.
The strange man offered me a handshake, curiosity got the better of me, so I accepted it, his grip was surprisingly strong, but he almost immediately let go of my hand.
Calmly, he said “It’s done, now you can figure out if you’re a winner or a loser!”
Before I could even think of an acceptable response, he quickly grabbed the sign from the ground and walked away, as soon as I blinked he was gone.
I didn’t know what to think, was I just too tired after a long day, so I hallucinated a wizard out of sheer exhaustion?
I wish that was the case, instead I quickly realized what happened was undisputably real, even worse, I thought I lost the game.
I decided to ignore the whole experience and just go home, but for some unknown reason I had an urge to look behind me.
I turned around, about ten feet behind me was an odd creature, it’s body was that of a mangled and twisted human being, it’s face was horribly disfigured and covered in dozens of bloody wounds, it was missing one of it’s eyes while the other one was bulging and bloodshot, the creature’s jaw looked like it was shattered by a sledgehammer, blood was dripping from it’s scarred mouth, it’s tongue was hanging out of it like a dead earthworm, the creature just stood there, frozen in place, staring at me with it’s barely functional eye.
I almost vomited as soon as I saw it, so I quickly averted my gaze, based on the reactions of the people around me, I was the only person capable of seeing the creature.
Days passed after this incident, the creature would appear randomly when I least expect it, sometimes I would see it in the mirror standing right next to me, but more commonly I’d see it in the corner of the room, just standing there and staring at me like it always does.
The creature, even though harmless on paper, was destroying my mental state, I couldn’t even sleep without seeing it in my nightmares.
My last encounter with the creature was the most meaningful one, It was an average day like any other, I was just about to cross the street, but before I could do that I received the all too familiar urge to look behind my back, as soon as I did, I unsurprisingly saw the creature once again which in turn caused me to walk away as fast as I could, completely disregarding the fact that I was crossing the street at a red light.
I don’t even remember the car that hit me or how painful the hit itself was, but I do remember waking up in the hospital, feeling like every inch of my body went through a meat grinder.
Later on, the doctor explained to me that I was lucky to be alive, the truck that hit me has left my body in an almost unrepairable state, It would be easier for me to list the parts of my body that aren’t fractured, because there’s very few of them left.
As soon as the doctor let me take a good look at myself in the mirror, the only eye I had left twitched as I slowly realized that I didn’t lose in the wizard’s game, after all.