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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/MagesticFireFly on 2024-11-27 12:18:28+00:00.

This has been going on for awhile now. At first, it was harmless—hell, it was even kind of funny. But now I’m scared, and I don’t know what to do.

It started on a Monday afternoon. Greg leaned over his desk at me, grinning like a kid on Christmas, and said, “Dude, they installed a new vending machine. No more warm cans in my bag!”

I smiled back, mostly because Greg seemed genuinely excited about it. Me? I couldn’t muster the same enthusiasm. I’m a broke college student, working this job for scraps of extra cash, so vending machines might as well be ATMs that charge you for looking. But hey, I was happy for him.

By the time our break rolled around, Greg was practically vibrating with excitement. He bolted toward the vending machine like it was a long-lost love. I followed him, mostly because it was on the way to the break room anyway.

Now, the vending machine was… different. Most machines have that clear front where you can see all the snacks and drinks lined up, just waiting to bankrupt you. This one wasn’t like that. It was entirely red—shiny, metallic, and completely opaque. You couldn’t see inside at all. Above the keypad was a simple list of drinks and snacks, and a faint red glow made the thing look like it was alive. Greg didn’t seem to care.

He jammed his spare change into the slot, punched in the number for a Diet Coke, and stood there, waiting with a dopey smile on his face. The machine hummed softly, and I could hear gears turning inside, twisting and shifting as it prepared his drink.

It took longer than usual. Like, awkwardly long. I started to feel the drafty cold creeping in, and—of course—I sneezed. Great. Just what I needed: a head cold to top off a miserable Monday.

Finally, the machine clunked, and Greg crouched to grab his drink. “What the hell?” he muttered.

“What?” I asked, stepping closer to see.

He stood up, turning to me with a confused look on his face. In his hand wasn’t a Diet Coke. It was… a packet of tissues.

Greg stared at the tissues in his hand, clearly disgruntled, but he just shrugged. “Must’ve punched in the wrong number,” he muttered, tossing the pack at me before sulking off back to his desk.

Weird. I didn’t even know vending machines had tissues in stock, but whatever. I blew my nose, grateful for them anyway, and got back to work.

Greg spent the rest of the afternoon pouting, griping about wasting his last bit of change on “some bloody tissues” while sipping his warm Diet Coke like it was some kind of protest. The day dragged on as painfully slow as ever, and one by one, my colleagues packed up and headed out.

I regretted taking overtime as soon as I realised I was the last one left in the office. But hey, a broke student’s gotta do what they’ve gotta do, right? By the time I finally finished, it was pushing seven, and the hallway was eerily quiet as I made my way to the exit.

Rain was hammering against the windows, loud enough to make me groan. “Ughhh,” I muttered, pulling my thin jacket over my head in a pathetic attempt at protection. I was going to be soaked. Just as I reached for the door, I heard it. A noise.

The vending machine’s gears were turning again.

The sound echoed through the empty office, weirdly loud in the dark silence. It made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. For a second, I just stood there, frozen, telling myself it was nothing. Machines settle sometimes, right? That’s just what they do.

Then came the thump.

It wasn’t the light clink of a soda can or the soft rustle of a pack of tissues. It was heavy. Much heavier than anything I thought a vending machine could hold. Against my better judgment—and believe me, I knew this was dumb—I turned around and walked toward it.

Let me tell you, I’d be the first to die in a horror movie.

I crouched down, peering into the machine’s dispensing bay. The item sitting there was too big to make sense, but I reached in anyway and gently pulled it out.

It was an umbrella.

The next day at work, I could hardly wait to tell Greg what had happened. I’d spent half the night tossing and turning, trying to figure it out, and by morning, I’d convinced myself that the vending machine was some kind of experimental AI. Maybe it could somehow detect what you needed and just… provide it. I wasn’t super technical, so I didn’t know exactly how that would work, but it was the only explanation that made sense.

When Greg finally appeared and slumped into his chair, I leaned over and told him everything—about the machine, the noise, and the umbrella. “It didn’t even ask for money,” I added, trying to sound casual but definitely failing.

Greg raised an eyebrow, clearly still salty about wasting his spare change. “So you didn’t even have to put anything in?” he asked, deadpan.

“Nope,” I said, grinning. “And I got a sweet umbrella, too. Held up against the rain perfectly. Didn’t blow inside out or anything.”

Greg just grunted and went back to whatever he was doing, sipping his warm Diet Coke like it was a point of pride.

Over the next few days, the vending machine became the center of office gossip. Everyone had a story about it. Mark, who forgot his gloves on a freezing morning, punched in a number and came away with a brand-new pair. Sally, who was starting to get a migraine during a meeting, returned from the machine with two paracetamols. Sophie’s phone was on its last legs—2%, maybe—and, yep, the machine spat out a phone charger for her.

It was bizarre. None of us could figure out how it worked. How would an AI—or whatever it was—know about Sally’s headache or Sophie’s phone battery? Theories flew around like confetti. Some people thought it was programmed with some crazy advanced algorithm. Others joked that it was possessed.

It was impressive. But it was also… unsettling. There was something about it that didn’t sit right with me. It wasn’t anything I could put into words, exactly—just a feeling.

Still, we kept using it. Curiosity won out over caution, as it usually does.

Everyone, that is, except Greg. He hadn’t forgiven the machine for stealing his last bit of change and replacing his Diet Coke with tissues. He continued to sip his warm soda defiantly, throwing occasional side-eye at the machine like it had personally wronged him.

And honestly? I couldn’t blame him. As amazing as it was, there was something about that vending machine that felt off.

The items from the vending machine started getting… weirder. It was subtle at first, but enough to make people uncomfortable. John was the first to mention it. He walked back to his desk one afternoon, holding a bloody bandage between two fingers like it was a dead rat. “Look what I just got,” he said, half-laughing, half-grossed out. Everyone chuckled nervously, brushing it off as a glitch or a mistake. But later that day, John slammed his finger in the door frame so badly it split the skin.

Angela’s turn came a couple of days later. She walked up to the vending machine on her break, and instead of a snack or something useful, it spat out a photograph. It was of her—sitting in her car, completely unaware. Her laugh was shaky when she showed it around. “Okay, which one of you is screwing with me?” she asked, but no one confessed.

Then there was Jessica. She didn’t even get to make a joke about hers. She stood frozen next to the machine, holding up a small, delicate lock of blonde hair. It was eerily similar to her own. Everyone agreed it was strange, but we tried to laugh it off, like we always did. “Maybe it’s possessed,” Mark joked, earning a few strained chuckles. “It’s trying to spook us for Halloween!”

But no one could quite shake the unease. The vending machine wasn’t just helpful or quirky anymore—it was starting to feel… personal.

People got nervous, but they hid it behind sarcasm and half-hearted jokes. We told ourselves it was harmless. Just a weird machine. Nothing to be afraid of.

But deep down, I think we all knew it was only a matter of time before something worse happened.

I was typing up a report when Megan, usually quiet and polite, stormed into the office, screaming at the top of her lungs. “Is this some kind of sick joke? Do you think you’re fucking funny? Who did it?”

Everyone looked up, startled. Megan was never like this. Concerned murmurs rippled through the room as she stomped toward her desk, still shouting. Her voice cracked with anger—or maybe fear—and before anyone could say a word, one of the managers hurried over and gently led her away.

But as they left, something slipped from Megan’s trembling hands and fluttered to the floor. I don’t know why I grabbed it. Maybe it was morbid curiosity, or maybe I just wanted to make sense of the chaos. Either way, I snatched it up, and what I saw made my blood run cold.

It was an obituary.

For Megan.

Her name, her face, her details—everything was printed there. And under “Date of Death,” it said today.

I just stared at it, heart pounding, trying to wrap my head around what I was seeing. Was this some kind of cruel prank? My first thought was the vending machine—could it have done this? Before I could say anything, the manager led Megan out of sight, her sobs echoing down the hallway.

About ten minutes later, I heard the front door open and close. Our office was right next to the exit, and the windows faced the street. I glanced out just in time to see Megan crossing the road toward the bus stop, still crying.

I quickly looked away. It felt wro…

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