This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Real_Thalabyss on 2024-10-29 16:34:09+00:00.

I don’t know how much time I have left. My phone’s battery is almost dead, and I’m using it for light while I type. If you’re reading this, I either made it out, or… someone else found my phone.

I’m trapped in a meat locker. This isn’t just me freaking out or being dramatic though—something is seriously wrong.

It started as an ordinary maintenance job.

I handle repairs for a bunch of old buildings around town. Yesterday, I got a call about a butcher shop that’s been closed for years. It’s an old relic with worn bricks and peeling paint, like a ghost from another era. A group of investors wants to turn it into something new, keep the old-world charm but make it useful again. My job was to give it a once-over, make sure everything was up to code.

My first stop was the meat locker, lurking at the back of the shop. The steel door looked ancient, practically rusted shut. I figured it would be routine—just check for structural integrity, see if the freezer was still sealed, things like that.

I should’ve taken it as a sign when the temperature gauge on the outside of the locker was busted. The damn thing was supposed to be sealed off, no power running to it, but when I walked in, I could feel that bitter cold slap me right in the face. A chill that felt almost… alive.

It shouldn’t have been on.

As I stepped inside, the size of the room struck me. It was vast, and surprisingly, some of the old carcasses were still hanging there. Old, half-rotted slabs of meat, swinging gently in the shadows, like ghosts of the shop’s past. It was eerie. The butcher shop had shut down so long ago, it was a wonder anything was still intact. But there they were—massive, frozen, half-decayed hunks of meat, swaying in the air.

That’s when the door slammed shut behind me.

I ran back, slamming my fists against the door, but it was as if something had locked it from the outside. There wasn’t supposed to be a lock on the damn thing!

The cold hit me hard. Panic clawed at my chest as the cold seeped deeper into my bones, the air heavy and sharp. My breath hung in clouds, mingling with something else.

The carcasses… moving.

At first, I thought it was just a draft—old places like this are bound to have air currents, right? Considering they’re built to contain them and all. But the chunks of meat were moving. Not just gently shifting, but really swinging, as if someone had given them a good shove.

I told myself it was my imagination. I was cold, freaked out by the door locking, and in a place no one had been in for years. My mind was playing tricks. But as I stood there, trying to figure out what to do next, I noticed something that made my stomach drop.

The carcasses weren’t swaying at random, they were moving towards me.

Slowly, rhythmically, like something was taunting me. I took a step back, and one of the slabs of meat suddenly jerked violently, crashing into another, sending a hollow echo throughout the freezer.

I don’t know how to describe what happened next. The meat—God, the meat—started… twitching. Not like muscle spasms or random jerks. It was deliberate, controlled. Limbs, heads, muscles were shifting inside the meat. It was as if something inside those carcasses was trying to break free.

I felt like I was going to be sick. I backed away until I smacked into the far wall. There was nowhere to go, nothing to do but watch as those hunks of meat began to twist and writhe on their hooks. One of them jerked so hard it broke free and fell to the floor with a sickening thud.

I wish that was the worst part. I wish it had just stayed still after that.

But it didn’t.

The slab of meat started crawling, the flesh spasming as though some unseen force was animating it, pulling it toward me.

More slabs dropped from their hooks, thudding heavily on the floor, and each one started moving, crawling toward me with those horrible, jerking motions.

I fumbled for my phone, its light casting long, jagged shadows over the crawling mass. And then I saw them—the creatures.

They were small, insect-like things, like some kind of hellish fusion of beetles and centipedes, burrowed deep within the rotting meat, wriggling and squirming inside like parasites. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of them, each adorned with long, spindly legs that pierced the flesh, stabbing and tearing; controlling it like a grotesque marionette. Their bodies twisted and contorted in a sickening dance, all packed tightly under the skin. Their carapaces glistening with viscous fluids that oozed from the decaying flesh.

These things weren’t just living inside the carcasses; they had become one with the meat, animating it as if it had always been their host.

And now, they were coming for me.

I backed up, breath quickening, and spotted a narrow compartment behind a row of dusty shelves. This was it, my only chance.

With my heart racing, I hurriedly squeezed into the confined space. Just as I settled in, a searing pain lanced through my arm. I gasped, pressing my back against the wall as an unsettling chill began to radiate from the spot where something had just made contact with my arm.

No, not just contact.

Bitten.

My vision blurred, and when I blinked, I received an overwhelming sense of vertigo. When I opened my eyes, I wasn’t in the compartment anymore. I was standing right back in the centre of the meat locker, facing the steel doors.

Somehow, I had looped back to where I started.

My pulse thundered in my ears as I turned and saw the carcasses, advancing on me again. I ran, frantically darting back to the compartment.

I tried again.

Pushing into the compartment, only to find myself looping right back, that strange cold throbbing where the fresh mark was, only increasing in intensity after each pass through. Each time, the chill grew sharper, pressing deeper into my skin, filling my lungs with a strange, bitter numbness. The hooks creaked above me, more carcasses dropping with heart-wrenching sounds, scraping across the frozen floor, crawling closer.

I don’t know how long I can keep going. The hooks swing ominously, and I can hear more carcasses dropping each loop, their heavy thuds echoing through the meat locker, followed by the sickening sound of those things crawling across the ground.

If anyone finds this—if anyone knows what’s happening—please. Send help.

The cold spreading through my veins… it isn’t just from the air anymore. I feel it surging from the wound on my arm, crawling under my skin. It pulses, as if something is moving inside me, inching through my veins, keeping rhythm with the slow drag of meat along the floor.