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The original was posted on /r/ghoststories by /u/Much-Evening6686 on 2025-10-06 12:05:45+00:00.

This story is a true experience told to me many years ago by an old male friend whom I haven’t seen in over a decade. Here, I’ll call him “Michael.”

Michael had been running a small home-security company with his wife for about eight years. The business had finally begun to get on track with a bank loan approved. But just then, his wife—who had supported the company as managing director—was killed in a car accident.

After that, Michael could no longer focus on his work. Even knowing it was wrong, he started blowing off meetings, spending his days staring at his wife’s photo and drinking until the day was over. He had completely fallen apart, living like an empty shell.

Eventually, his business plan collapsed, the bank cut off his loan, and he shut himself in at home, leaving the office abandoned. By the time he realized it, both the debt and the company were beyond saving.

And then he decided to end his own life.

With his beard grown out, Michael went to a hardware store and bought the thickest rope he could find. Back at home, he went down to the basement, tied the rope to an exposed steel beam in the ceiling, and climbed up on a chair.

When he put the rope around his neck, he felt far less fear than he had imagined. All it would take was kicking the chair, and everything would be over. He thought vaguely that stories about “your life flashing before your eyes” or “needing courage to die” were nothing but fiction, and he gave a bitter laugh.

As he glanced down at the chair again, ready to finally die, he noticed something in front of him.

He thought to himself, “All right, time to die,” and looked at the chair. But just as he was about to do it, he realized something was standing there.

It was small and distorted, barely three heads tall—something not of this world. Long, greasy hair hung down, and through the strands he saw round, bloodshot eyes that never blinked. Its mouth stretched unnaturally wide into a devilish grin. At that instant, a single word flashed through his mind—Imp.

It just stared at the chair Michael was standing on, and he could clearly feel its pitch-black malice, as if it were silently urging him to fall.

Stunned, mouth open, he stared back in disbelief. The thing seemed to realize it was being seen, and their eyes met.

It, too, looked startled that he could see it; the corners of its mouth dipped briefly, then it returned to its sly grin. “Mind if I take the kid if you’re going to die?” it said, in a voice like a middle-aged man’s, sounding almost pleased.

Unable to comprehend the situation, he blurted out, “I’m not going to die…” and in that instant realized the horror of what he was about to do.

He still had a five-year-old daughter. Since his wife’s death, his in-laws had been taking care of her for a while, seeing how he could no longer manage anything. You might think he was a terrible father, but losing his wife so suddenly had truly broken him. For the first time in a month of isolation, he remembered having left his daughter in his wife’s parents’ care.

He pulled the rope from his neck and stepped down from the chair. He heard a sharp “Tch” of a tongue click, and the thing vanished—but the sense of its presence lingered.

He went straight to his wife’s parents’ house, apologized to his in-laws, and embraced his daughter. Both she and his in-laws cried and forgave him.

Now he’s paying off his debts while raising his daughter and working desperately as a sales rep.

He told me this at the end:

“I don’t know what happens after you die, but things like that definitely exist. They pick up on the ‘scent of death’ coming off weakened people who are thinking of dying—people like I was back then—and they come for you.”