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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/iifinch on 2024-09-25 17:31:46+00:00.

The gunman walked into the classroom. Everyone froze. He was too quick for anyone to receive a hero’s death. All I remember were screams, the sound of bullets slicing through bodies, and the realization only a minute later that the shooter didn’t notice I wasn’t dead yet. He walked into the classroom to examine the bodies. Once he turned his back on me, I ran out. I was gone, and I was the only survivor in my college class.

I ran in the hallways. The intercoms blared for a complete school shutdown. 

“Let no one in.”

As I ran in the halls, I realized I was bleeding out badly. I was dying. I banged on the doors of my classmates, of my friends, and they rightfully ignored me. I was well and truly alone.

It was terrifying.

I would not wish that fear on my worst enemy.

I knocked on so many doors for help. Eventually, the blood loss got to me, my energy faded, and I passed out alone and waiting to die.

Of course, I was eventually rescued; of course, I was given therapy; of course, I was forever changed.

I would do anything to not have that feeling again. I decided I’d never be alone. So, I became everything to everyone. The wealthy always have friends, so I switched my major to engineering. Good people always have friends, so I created charities to honor the lives of my dead friends, and I was at every service opportunity possible for most other charities on campus. The adventurous and degenerates always have friends, so I joined the wildest frat on campus.

Of course, the truth about life is that you can’t have everything, but through a mix of energy drinks and other substances, I tried. I tried until my heart couldn’t take it. For all my efforts, I would still face my worst fear: I would die alone.

I had a heart attack. I grabbed my chest, looked around, and I was alone in my room. I knew I was going to die. I didn’t want to die alone. I didn’t want to die and have no one find my body.

That was the day I realized, after moving to a new city upon graduation, I hadn’t made genuine friends. I was still alone. I thought I had surpassed solitude. I thought I would always have someone around when I needed them.

If I died on my apartment floor on the first day, surely no one would come; on the second and third, the same. On the fourth, my body would bloat and distort, an unrecognizable change from the man I was. On the fifth day, my neighbor might ask to borrow a board game for the game nights he never invited me to. But if I didn’t answer, he wouldn’t care. The fifth, sixth, and seventh days, my bloated dead body would turn red. Maybe the smell would draw somebody.

If it didn’t, in a month my body would liquefy, and all my life would equate to is a pile of mush, a stain in my rented apartment.

I hoped I left my window open so perhaps a stray cat would come in and lick me up so I wouldn’t be a complete waste. The thought made me cry.

Thank God, that time it was just a scare caused by energy drinks and poor sleep. But once I got out of the hospital, I was determined not to die like that: alone and vulnerable.

Back in my apartment, I was lonely. Soul-crushingly lonely, and I didn’t think it would stop. Working remote didn’t help. I hadn’t been touched by a person in… what was my record, like a whole month? I hadn’t had an in-person conversation with a friend in two months.

Life is hard in a new city. I needed more than a friend. I needed more than a girlfriend. I needed a wife.

I would do anything for one. I tried Hinge and Tinder and was either ghosted or dumped. It all ended the same. So, please understand I had no other choice.

I dug through the internet to find advice on how to get a girlfriend.

I found somewhere dark, a place I don’t suggest you go. They were banned from Reddit and banned from Discord. This group was dedicated to good men —good guys, who weren’t jerks, who didn’t want to hurt anyone, who wanted true love—to find cults they could join to find wives.

They said the women there were loyal, kind, and really wanted love. That’s the point of all religious belief, isn’t it? Love.

Hell is mentioned 31 times in the Bible, but love 801 times. It’s not the fear of Hell that drives them; it’s the ache to be loved. I ached too, so why couldn’t we help each other?

And in whatever cult we’d join, we’d be good too. We’d make sure there was no bad stuff like blackmail and kid touching. We were just looking for someone who would love us for us.

Someone who wouldn’t leave.

After a couple of months in the group of helping other members find cults to join and patiently waiting for my assignment, I was told there was a new cult I could join. But I needed to wait for another one of our members to come back who was already in the cult. They said they lost communication with him. I couldn’t take the emptiness of my apartment anymore, so I begged and pleaded to go. I even said I’d take two phones so if one didn’t work, I’d always have the backup. 

I was persistent. They relented.

This is what they told me:

The Cult of Confession appears not to be an offshoot of any of the three major religions, nor of any minor ones we can find.

It really seems to have come from nowhere, so you’re in luck; easy come, easy go. My guess is the cult won’t last long, so find true love and get out.

You’ll be in the remote mountains of Appalachia, known for general strangeness. Be careful I wouldn’t leave the commune if I was you.

There are only two guys you need to watch out for: one named Confession and another named Zeus. The rest of the thirty-person cult is all women, except for our guy.

The danger of the cult is the two men since we don’t really know what they want yet. In general, it could be death, sex, or human sacrifice.

Remember Rule #1: Be Kind—no one has ever joined a cult who wasn’t hurting on the inside.

Remember Rule #2: It’s okay to lie for the service of good.

Remember Rule #3 Know the truth, do not believe what you’re told in a cult.

Good luck, man. We’re going to miss you.

He gave me the location of the city, and with that, I moved to join a cult.

I arrived 20 minutes late to the shack on the hill in Appalachia. The plan, in general, is to look flustered, nervous, and desperate to be accepted in any cult. But clean-cut enough to not be dangerous.

With a shaved head and a black suit, I stumbled into a church shack. A sound like muffled screams erupted from the doors.

No one sat in the pews. Beside every row of pews was a bent-over woman crying into the floor as if she was worshipping.

The man or thing they worshipped stood on stage. I was not aware humans could have so much bulk. He would have won every bodybuilding contest; he had muscle on top of muscle. It was grotesque; it almost looked like a tumorous skin infection.

The man was a pile of bulky, veiny flesh that looked immovable. A creature to the point of caricature in two layers of white robes.

His eyes locked on me, but his face did not move. It was frozen; I would never see it move. It was locked in a permanent scowl.

Fear, that feeling in my gut that I fought against now. That must be how he controlled them. The reality was that he could break their necks in seconds. Yes, that could do it.

It was important he felt he controlled me. That I was under his control. So, I played the part.

I was not terrified, but I played the part. It was easy to let fear win. It was easy to let fear make me drop to my knees to worship. It was easy to let fear stir me and shake me like the rest of the women. It was easy to pray to a God because—excuse my sacrilege—I felt as though I faced one right before me.

Eventually, the impossibly muscled priest clapped his hands. It sounded like thunder. We all rose and got into our pews.

The great priest walked away, going in the curtain behind him. The rest of the women gathered in their pews and said nothing. They instead read the material provided for them.

In front of me was a composition notebook. I opened it, and in it, I saw scriptures from something I had never heard of.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder. I jumped. A man with hair down his back and wearing all white stood behind me. He was the opposite of Confession: beautiful, slim, and his perfect teeth flashed a grin.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” his grin vanished.

“Um… I thought all were welcome.”

“To Heaven maybe. Does this look like Heaven?”

“I guess not.”

In a flash, he moved to the other side of me. I flinched. He put a shockingly strong hand on my shoulder and said, “Stay.” 

I obeyed, and he examined me from side to side, moving like lightning, so fast a literal breeze formed behind me. I looked forward at the women studying the word of Confession. This was true fear: being examined by a strange man and not understanding where that giant Confession was.

I panicked as he examined me more. He patted my shoulders, put his hand in my front pocket, and pulled at my ear. I did nothing in response; I froze. Mentally, I begged for my only ally in this group to come rescue me from this humiliatinge examination.

The women didn’t seem to care; they just read the notebooks. I examined the room for my only ally in the mountains of Appalachia, the other guy. Where was he?

“What’s your greatest mistake?” he asked me, loud enough for the church to hear. I turned to look at him. He palmed my skull and faced me forward again. “You don’t have to look at me to answer a question. What’s your greatest mistake?”

I did as he said and l…

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