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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/EquipmentBig6806 on 2024-12-25 13:37:18+00:00.

Hey Reddit. Please, if anyone’s out there, if anyone’s seeing this—I need to know I’m not alone. Is anyone else experiencing this? Has anyone else seen the fog? Please, for the love of God, respond if you can.

My name’s Evan. I live alone in a small suburban neighborhood—the kind where every house looks the same, the lawns are perfectly trimmed, and nothing exciting ever happens. It’s one of those places where every street is like a mirror image of the last, with rows of houses painted in bland colors and identical mailboxes lined up like soldiers. It’s quiet here. The kind of quiet some people find peaceful, but I’ve always found unnerving—like the silence is just waiting for something to happen.

Until today, nothing ever did.

This morning, I woke up to the buzzing of my phone on the nightstand beside my bed. At first, I thought it was some spam call or maybe a notification about a package I’d forgotten I ordered. The sound was sharp and grating, cutting through the stillness of my room like a knife. I groggily reached out, squinting at the screen through sleep-blurred eyes, expecting to just dismiss it and roll over for a few more minutes of sleep.

But when I saw the screen, I froze. It wasn’t showing the usual caller ID or some meaningless notification. No, it was an emergency alert, bold and impossible to ignore.

At first, I couldn’t make sense of it. My brain was still foggy from sleep, and the words seemed to blur together as my eyes tried to focus. Slowly, I sat up, my heart beginning to race as the reality of what I was reading sank in. I read it again, and again, like somehow the second or third time would make it less terrifying.

My heart pounded harder as I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood up. My knees felt shaky under me, like they might give out at any moment. The room felt unnaturally cold, the chill creeping into my skin. Something felt wrong, like I was already in the middle of something I didn’t fully understand. My breath quickened as I reached for the curtain, the tips of my fingers brushing the fabric before pulling it back just enough to peek outside.

What I saw made my stomach twist. The street, which normally looked so ordinary, so predictable, was now blanketed in a thick, heavy fog. It wasn’t the kind of light, wispy mist you might see on a calm morning. This was different. It was dense, almost alive, clinging to everything around it. I could barely make out the shapes of the houses across the street, their familiar outlines distorted and hazy in the gloom.

The silence outside was deafening. No birds. No cars passing by. The usual hum of distant traffic was completely gone. It was like the entire world had just stopped, swallowed up by the fog. The air itself looked thick, suffocating. I almost felt like it was pressing in on me, right through the window.

I stared into the eerie stillness, my heart pounding harder in my chest. My mind was racing with questions—What the hell was this fog? Where did it come from? And why did it feel so wrong? I pulled the curtain shut quickly, stepping away from the window as a cold sweat broke out on my forehead. I felt trapped, cornered in my own house by something I couldn’t explain.

My phone buzzed again in my hand, snapping me out of my thoughts. I fumbled to unlock it, my fingers shaking so badly it took me a few tries. The screen lit up again with that same emergency alert:

URGENT WARNING: Do not leave your home. Barricade all doors and windows. Keep food and water stock ready. Do not make noise. Stay silent. Stay inside. They are drawn to sound.

At first, I thought it was a glitch or some kind of prank. I checked the time: 7:42 AM. The green glow of the digital clock on my nightstand seemed sharper than usual in the dim light of the room. The house was unusually quiet, even for my neighborhood.

The floorboards creaked softly under my weight. That small, familiar sound felt out of place in the silence. I rubbed my eyes, trying to shake off the grogginess, and made my way to the kitchen. The air inside the house felt strangely still, almost heavy, but I brushed it off.

I reached for the coffee maker, grabbed the pot, and filled the reservoir with water. The sound of it splashing felt unnervingly loud in the quiet. I flicked the switch to start brewing and stood there for a moment, staring at the counter. I reached for my phone, scrolling through my contacts. First, I tried my parents—straight to voicemail. My sister—same. I frowned, trying a couple of friends, but the calls didn’t even go through. Just dead air.

I glanced at the corner of the screen. No signal. That didn’t make sense. I moved to the window, holding my phone higher, like that would somehow help. Still nothing. My Wi-Fi should’ve been working at least. I turned toward the living room, my footsteps echoing slightly as I walked.

The router’s lights were frozen, no blinking, no connection. I crouched down and unplugged it, waiting a few seconds before plugging it back in. The lights came back on, but they were still static, no change. No connection.

That was weird. Kind of unsettling, actually. I stood up, stretching my neck, and glanced around the room. My eyes landed on the living room window, and I froze.

Outside, the thick gray fog still blanketed everything. I couldn’t see much beyond it—just a dense wall of mist. I turned on the TV, hoping for some kind of explanation, something to make sense of it. The screen flickered to life, a soft hiss of static filling the air, and then a single line of text began to scroll across every channel:

WARNING: Stay indoors. Do not go outside. Remain silent. They are listening.

The message repeated, unchanging, as if locked in an infinite loop.

I stared at the screen, my pulse pounding in my ears. The words felt oppressive, heavy with an urgency I couldn’t understand. My hands trembled slightly as I fumbled for the remote, trying another channel.

The same message. Over and over.

No explanation. No updates. Just that.

I locked the front door, double-checked the bolt, and decided to take a look from upstairs. Maybe I’d spot something that made sense, or at least something familiar. The house felt off, but I couldn’t quite figure out why. I slowly made my way up the stairs, each step creaking underfoot as I went. The silence seemed to press in on me more the higher I got, and I felt a little colder with each step.

When I reached the second-floor window, I couldn’t believe what I saw. The fog was worse up here, almost suffocating. It stretched out in every direction, thick and heavy, so dense I couldn’t even see the house across the street. Just a vast, gray nothing. The world outside felt like it had disappeared.

I stared for a moment, hoping the fog would shift, maybe clear just enough for me to make sense of things. But it didn’t. The longer I stood there, the more unsettling it felt. It was like the whole world had just stopped.

And then, I remembered Max. He sleeps in the backyard at night, usually tied to his chain because he’s a little too good at escaping. My stomach sank, suddenly full of dread. I rushed downstairs without even thinking, my heart beating faster. When I opened the back door, the first thing I noticed was the chain—it was broken. Snapped clean through, the metal bent and twisted like something had yanked it with unbelievable force.

Max was gone.

I called his name, my voice a little too loud in the dead silence. “Max! Max, come on, boy!” The words felt strange, like they didn’t belong. The silence around me swallowed them whole. No barking. No paw steps. Nothing.

I called again, louder this time. “Max!” My stomach twisted as I stepped further out into the yard, hoping to see him running back, wagging his tail. But there was nothing. Just the cold, gray fog and the stillness. I stood there for a second, my chest tightening, not quite believing what I was seeing. This couldn’t be happening.

I quickly rushed back inside, slamming the door shut behind me. I locked it, bolted it, my hands shaking as I tried to make sure it was secure. The silence inside the house felt just as wrong as it did outside. I ran upstairs again, my legs almost moving on their own. I didn’t want to check the window, didn’t want to confirm what I already feared, but I had to.

I pulled the curtain back, half-expecting to see him standing there in the yard, shaking the fog off his fur. But the fog was still thick, swirling in every direction, and the yard was empty. No sign of him anywhere. Just that endless gray.

I stood there, staring out, feeling like the air was closing in around me. The world felt so far away, like it didn’t exist anymore.

That’s when I saw it.

Something was out there, in my backyard. At first, I thought I was seeing things—like my brain was still half asleep or something, but no. The shape was all wrong. Too long. Too thin. It was crawling on all fours, moving with this awful, jerky kind of motion, like its joints weren’t working properly—like a puppet with tangled strings.

I felt this tightness in my chest, my breath coming faster, and I couldn’t stop watching it. It paused, sniffing the ground in a way that felt too deliberate, like it was looking for something. Oh god I hope that something wasn’t me. I felt a cold sweat break out on my skin, and my legs went completely numb. I tried to stay still, to stay quiet, but it was lik…

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