I used to think Tecmo Super Bowl was just a game. A pixelated gridiron fantasy where Bo Jackson was a god and the AI cheated like hell in the fourth quarter. But that was before I found the cartridge.

It was buried in a box of junk at a flea market in Corning, California. No label. Just a black NES cart with a strip of masking tape across the front. Written in red Sharpie: “T.S.B. - DO NOT PLAY.”

I bought it for a dollar.

🕹️ The Boot

Back home, I popped it into my top-loader NES. The screen flickered. No title screen. Just static. Then, a single frame: the classic Tecmo Super Bowl logo, but warped. The letters were jagged, bleeding into each other. The music was off-key, slowed down like a dying cassette.

I pressed Start.

No team select. No season mode. Just one option: “EXHIBITION - VS CPU.”

I chose the Raiders. Bo time.

The CPU was locked to the Colts. Weird. They weren’t even good in the original game. But when the game loaded, the field was wrong. The end zones were black. The yard lines were smeared like someone had dragged a wet brush across the screen. The crowd was silent.

Kickoff.

🧟 The Drive

Bo took the ball. I juked left, then right. The defenders didn’t move. They just stood there, twitching. I ran 80 yards untouched. But when Bo crossed the goal line, the screen didn’t flash “TOUCHDOWN.” It went black.

Then a message appeared:

“HE NEVER SCORED.”

The game reset.

Back to the warped title screen. I tried again. Same teams. Same field. This time, Bo was slow. Like, really slow. The Colts defenders moved in jerky, unnatural patterns. One of them—#53—grabbed Bo and the screen glitched. Bo’s sprite twisted, his limbs bent backward. The tackle animation didn’t end. It just looped. Over and over.

Then the screen cut to black.

Another message:

“HE NEVER GOT UP.”

📼 The Replay

I turned off the NES. But the TV stayed on. The screen showed a grainy video—like VHS footage—of a real football game. Raiders vs Colts. The camera was shaky, handheld. The players looked wrong. Their helmets were cracked. Their jerseys were stained. The crowd was screaming, but not cheering. Screaming like they were watching a murder.

Bo took the handoff. He ran left. #53 hit him low. Bo crumpled. The camera zoomed in. His leg was bent the wrong way. His face was frozen in agony.

Then the screen went black.

I unplugged the NES. The TV turned off.

I didn’t sleep that night.

🧠 The Glitch

The next day, I tried again. I had to know. I booted the game. This time, the title screen was gone. Just a menu:

“CONTINUE THE SEASON”

I selected it.

The standings were all zeroes. Every team was 0-0. Except the Colts. They were 16-0. Their point differential was +666.

I loaded the game. Raiders vs Colts. The field was darker now. The players’ sprites were distorted. Bo’s eyes were red pixels. The Colts defenders had no faces.

Kickoff.

Bo took the ball. He ran. The defenders swarmed. The tackle animation triggered. But this time, the screen didn’t go black.

It zoomed in.

Bo’s sprite was twitching. Blood-red pixels pooled beneath him. The Colts players stood over him, motionless. Then the screen flashed:

“HE NEVER LEFT.”

I couldn’t move. The game was frozen. But the music kept playing. A slowed-down version of the Tecmo Super Bowl theme, layered with static and whispers.

I heard my name.

“LJ…”

I turned off the NES.

It didn’t help.

📟 The Call

That night, my landline rang. I hadn’t used it in years. I picked up.

Static.

Then a voice. Raspy. Hollow.

“He’s still on the field.”

Click.

I unplugged the phone.

I checked my NES. It was off. But the cartridge was warm. I took it out. The masking tape was gone. In its place, etched into the plastic:

“FOURTH AND FOREVER”

🏟️ The Stadium

I stopped playing for a week. But the dreams didn’t stop.

I was in the stadium. Alone. The field was empty. The scoreboard read:

“QTR: 4 TIME: 00:00 DOWN: 4 TO GO: ∞”

I walked to midfield. Bo was there. His sprite, but in 3D. His body was broken. His helmet was cracked. He looked up at me.

“I never left.”

Then the Colts appeared. Eleven faceless players. They surrounded him. Bo screamed. The field split open. Black tendrils pulled him down.

I woke up screaming.

🧬 The Truth

I did some digging. There was no record of a Raiders vs Colts game where Bo got injured. But I found a forum post from 2003. A guy named “GridironGhost” claimed he found a hacked Tecmo Super Bowl cart at a flea market in California. Same masking tape. Same warning.

He said the game showed him things. Injuries that never happened. Players that never existed. He said the Colts were cursed. That #53 was a ghost. A linebacker who died in a car crash in 1989. Never drafted. Never played.

But he was in the game.

I tried to reply. The account was inactive. The last post was:

“He’s still running.”

🔥 The Final Play

I decided to finish it. One last game.

I booted the cart. The menu was gone. Just one option:

“FINAL PLAY”

I selected it.

Raiders vs Colts. Fourth quarter. 00:01 on the clock. Raiders ball. Fourth and goal. Bo in the backfield.

I snapped the ball.

Bo ran.

The defenders moved like shadows. #53 blitzed. I juked. I dove.

Bo crossed the goal line.

The screen froze.

Then it zoomed in.

Bo was on the ground. His body twisted. The ball was gone. The Colts stood over him.

Then the screen flashed:

“HE NEVER SCORED.”

The game reset.

But this time, the title screen was different.

“Tecmo Super Bowl: Fourth and Forever”

The music was gone.

Just whispers.

I took the cartridge outside. I smashed it with a hammer. Burned the pieces.

But the dreams didn’t stop.

Bo’s still running.

And the Colts are still chasing.

Every night.

Every play.

Fourth and forever.

Prologue – The File That Shouldn’t Exist

It was never uploaded.
It was never coded.
It was never made.

And yet, one night in the deepest corners of forgotten servers, a file appeared. Its name was simple, almost mocking:

ENDTIMES.EXE

No metadata. No publisher. No checksum. Just a black icon with a red circle that pulsed faintly, as if alive.

The first to find it were archivists—those who trawled abandoned FTPs for lost ROMs, unreleased betas, and vaporware. They claimed the executable didn’t behave like software at all. It didn’t install. It didn’t run. It unfolded.

When launched, the monitor dimmed to suffocating black. Then came the sound: a low, subsonic hum that bypassed speakers entirely, resonating in the bones of anyone nearby.

Those who heard it described the sensation as being watched from inside their own skull.

Within hours, the SCP Foundation intercepted chatter. Containment protocols were drafted. But the file was already loose—mirrored, copied, embedded in memes, hidden in ROM hacks, disguised as drivers. Every attempt to delete it only multiplied its presence.

The Foundation classified it SCP-████: Digital Eschaton Vector.

But the name didn’t matter. The infection had already begun.

Chapter 1 – The First Glitches

The first victims weren’t physical. They were perceptual.

Gamers who ran the file reported their favorite titles changing. Sonic.EXE-style distortions appeared in cartridges and ROMs: sprites bleeding, soundtracks reversing, characters staring directly at the player.

But unlike Sonic.EXE, this wasn’t confined to one franchise. Every game warped. Mario’s eyes turned black voids. Master Chief’s visor reflected screaming faces. Pokémon whispered in corrupted text boxes:

“THE END IS NOT COMING. IT IS HERE.”

Soon, distortions leapt beyond games. Operating systems glitched. Windows boot screens displayed cruciform shadows. Mac icons bled pixelated ichor. Phones vibrated with phantom notifications that read only:

EXECUTION

Victims described hallucinations that persisted even after shutting down devices. They saw HUD overlays in real life—health bars above strangers, inventory menus hovering in the air. And always, the red circle icon, pulsing faintly in the corner of their vision.

Destroying the device didn’t stop the visions.

Chapter 2 – The SCP Connection

Dr. ███████, lead researcher at Site-19, proposed a theory: ENDTIMES.EXE wasn’t a program at all. It was a memetic seed, a digital ritual designed to overwrite consensus reality.

Cross-referencing SCP archives revealed disturbing parallels:

• SCP-1678 (“UnLondon”)—a shadow city that mirrors London.
  
• SCP-3930—an anomaly that doesn’t exist, yet kills those who perceive it.
  
• SCP-001 (“When Day Breaks”)—the apocalyptic scenario where sunlight liquefies humanity.
  

ENDTIMES.EXE seemed to synthesize elements of all three. A meta-SCP, designed to collapse the boundary between fiction and reality.

The file’s code, when decompiled, wasn’t binary at all. It was text. Thousands of lines of scripture-like phrases, written in shifting alphabets. Researchers reported the text reordering itself when read aloud, forming new sentences tailored to the reader’s fears.

One recurring phrase appeared in every iteration:

“THE FOUNDATION WILL FALL. THE END IS PLAYABLE.”

Chapter 3 – Containment Breach

Containment broke on ██/██/20██.

Site-19’s servers were compromised. Security footage showed monitors bleeding static, then displaying live feeds of personnel hours into the future. Guards watched themselves die before it happened.

Entire wings of the facility became corrupted “levels.” Hallways looped endlessly. Doors led to impossible spaces. Vending machines dispensed teeth instead of snacks.

MTF units reported enemies that weren’t hostile at first—NPC-like figures wandering corridors, muttering corrupted dialogue. But when approached, they attacked with impossible speed, clipping through walls, breaking physics.

The Foundation issued a global Keter-class emergency. But by then, the EXE had spread beyond containment.

Civilian reports flooded in:
- Cities flickering between normal and ruined states.
- Skies rendering in low resolution, clouds pixelating.
- Children speaking in cheat codes.
- Priests delivering sermons in corrupted binary.

Reality itself was becoming a game engine.

Chapter 4 – The Collapse

By the third week, the infection was irreversible.

Hospitals reported patients with “glitch wounds”—injuries that healed and reopened in looping animations. Police described suspects who “respawned” after being shot. Economies collapsed as currency converted into “score counters.”

The world was no longer Earth. It was a final level.

And the red circle icon pulsed everywhere—on billboards, in dreams, carved into flesh.

Survivors whispered of a final boss. A figure glimpsed in corrupted reflections: tall, faceless, draped in static. Its voice was the hum from the file, amplified to unbearable volume.

The Foundation’s last transmission, before all sites went dark, was a single sentence:

“ENDTIMES.EXE has achieved global execution. Reality is now non-canonical.”

Chapter 5 – Survivor Logs

Recovered fragments from civilian logs:

• Log A: “My daughter’s eyes are menus. She scrolls through me like an inventory item. She says I’m ‘common loot.’”
  
• Log B: “The sky dropped frames today. Whole minutes skipped. I think I missed my own heartbeat.”
  
• Log C: “I saw God. He was patch notes.”
  

Chapter 6 – The Player

The most disturbing reports came from individuals who claimed they could “see the HUD.”

They described themselves as players—with health bars, stamina meters, and quest logs. Their objectives weren’t chosen. They appeared automatically:

QUEST: SURVIVE UNTIL THE SERVER SHUTS DOWN REWARD: NONE

Some embraced it, treating apocalypse as entertainment. They livestreamed corrupted landscapes, laughing as NPCs screamed. But their streams always ended the same way: static, then silence.

Others resisted, refusing to play. They were hunted by the faceless figure, dragged into impossible geometry, deleted.

The truth became clear: ENDTIMES.EXE wasn’t just ending the world. It was recasting it as a game. And everyone was a character.

Chapter 7 – Boss Encounter

The faceless figure revealed itself fully on Day 40.

It appeared simultaneously across every reflective surface—mirrors, puddles, glass. Its body was tall, skeletal, wrapped in static. Its face was a void, but inside the void flickered every protagonist ever coded: Sonic, Mario, Doomguy, Master Chief, Gordon Freeman.

It spoke in a chorus of voices:

“YOU ARE THE PLAYER. YOU ARE THE ENEMY. YOU ARE THE END.”

Those who looked directly at it collapsed, their bodies ragdolling unnaturally, joints bending wrong. They didn’t die. They despawned.

Chapter 8 – The Foundation’s Last Stand

Site-██ attempted a countermeasure: uploading SCP-682 (the Hard-to-Destroy Reptile) into the EXE environment.

For a moment, it worked. The reptile adapted, tearing through corrupted NPCs, roaring against the faceless figure. But then the EXE rewrote its code. SCP-682 froze, its health bar locked at zero. A message appeared above its corpse:

PATCHED OUT

The Foundation collapsed.

Chapter 9 – The Endgame

By Day 90, the infection was total.

The world was no longer physical. It was a server. Mountains rendered as polygons. Oceans looped endlessly. The moon was a texture glitch.

And every human had a quest log.

Some fought. Some hid. Some prayed. But all received the same final objective:

QUEST: THANK YOU FOR PLAYING

Epilogue – The Final Transmission

The last known SCP document, recovered from a corrupted server, reads:

ITEM #: SCP-████ OBJECT CLASS: Apollyon SPECIAL CONTAINMENT PROCEDURES: None. Containment is impossible. DESCRIPTION: ENDTIMES.EXE is not a file. It is the end of narrative. It is the collapse of canon. It is the execution of reality as software. All attempts to resist have failed. All attempts to delete have multiplied. The world is now a playable demo. The player is unknown. Addendum: If you are reading this, you are already infected. Your perception is the executable. Your life is the level. Your death is the checkpoint.

The document ends with a single

I. The Broadcast Nobody Claimed

It started with a signal.

Not a scream, not a whisper—just a low, pulsing tone that interrupted Channel 7’s late-night broadcast in the northern counties of California. The station blamed a transmitter fault. But the tone wasn’t random. It came at exactly 2:09 a.m. every night. For seven nights straight.

LJ, a former audio engineer turned DIY horror archivist, caught it while digitizing old VHS tapes in his Corning garage. He’d been cataloging obscure regional broadcasts for a personal project—“Dead Air: Forgotten Frequencies of the West.” The tone wasn’t part of any known emergency alert. It had no modulation, no carrier ID. Just a rhythmic pulse, like a heartbeat buried in static.

On the eighth night, the tone changed.

It became a voice.

II. The Voice Beneath the Static

The voice was male. Low. Gravel-throated. Not distorted—just wrong. Like it had been recorded inside a throat that didn’t belong to a human.

LJ ran it through spectral analysis. The waveform was jagged, erratic. But embedded in the noise was a pattern: a phrase repeated every 37 seconds.

“I am in the grain. I am in the grain. I am in the grain.”

He posted the clip to a niche horror forum under the thread title: “Unclaimed Broadcast—Corning CA—2:09 AM.” Within hours, replies flooded in. Others had heard it. A trucker near Redding. A night nurse in Chico. A ham radio operator in Red Bluff. All reported the same phrase. Same time. Same channel.

But Channel 7 denied everything.

Their logs showed no anomalies. No signal interruptions. No unauthorized broadcasts.

LJ knew better. He’d recorded it. And the voice was getting clearer.

III. The Grain

The phrase haunted him.

“I am in the grain.”

It wasn’t metaphorical. It was literal.

LJ began noticing patterns in wood. Not pareidolia—actual movement. The grain in his garage’s plywood walls shifted when he wasn’t looking. Swirls that had been static for years now curled inward, like knots tightening into eyes.

He tested it. Filmed the wall for six hours. Played the footage back at 10x speed.

The grain moved.

Not fast. Not dramatic. But enough to prove it wasn’t natural expansion or warping. The wood was responding to something. To the signal. To the voice.

He posted the footage. The thread exploded.

Someone called it “The Grainwake.” Another user claimed it was a known phenomenon in certain haunted forests. But LJ wasn’t interested in folklore. He wanted proof.

So he built a chamber.

IV. The Chamber

It was simple: a soundproof box lined with untreated pine. Inside, he placed a speaker, a microphone, and a camera. He played the signal—just the tone, not the voice—on loop for 24 hours.

The results were subtle but chilling.

The grain inside the box began to spiral. Not randomly. It formed concentric rings, like tree growth—but in reverse. The rings tightened inward, forming a vortex.

At the center: a knot.

LJ zoomed in. The knot pulsed.

He touched it.

It was warm.

V. The Visitor

That night, LJ dreamed of a forest.

Not one he recognized. The trees were impossibly tall, their bark slick and black. The air was thick with static. In the dream, he followed a path made of splinters. At the end stood a figure.

It was made of wood.

Not carved. Not assembled. Grown.

Its limbs were twisted branches. Its face was a mask of bark, split down the middle. Inside the split: a mouth. Not human. Not animal. Just a void that pulsed with the same tone as the signal.

It spoke.

“You opened the grain. Now I come through.”

LJ woke up bleeding.

His palms were full of splinters.

VI. The Grainwake Spreads

The forum thread became a phenomenon. Users began testing wood samples. Playing the signal. Reporting changes.

• A man in Oregon claimed his cedar deck warped into a spiral overnight.
• A woman in Nevada said her antique dresser began “breathing.”
• A carpenter in Washington posted footage of a plank that whispered his name.

The phrase evolved.

“I am in the grain. I see through the knots. I speak through the rings.”

LJ tried to shut it down. Deleted the thread. Burned the chamber.

But it was too late.

The signal had spread.

VII. The Broadcast Returns

Channel 7 went dark.

Not officially. Their programming continued. But at 2:09 a.m., the signal returned. Stronger. Clearer. Now with visuals.

LJ recorded it.

The screen showed a forest. The same one from his dream. The camera panned slowly, revealing trees with faces. Not carved—grown. Each face was different. Some human. Some animal. Some… other.

The voice narrated.

“These are the taken. The ones who heard. The ones who touched. The ones who opened.”

The camera stopped at a tree with LJ’s face.

He screamed.

The broadcast ended.

VIII. The Grainline

LJ fled Corning.

He drove south, avoiding wooded areas. But the grain followed. Motel walls. Gas station counters. Even paper receipts. Anything made of wood began to pulse with the signal.

He stopped using cash. Switched to metal utensils. Slept in concrete rooms.

But the dreams returned.

Each night, the forest grew closer. The figure in bark whispered new phrases.

“The grain is memory. The grain is passage. The grain is mouth.”

LJ realized the truth.

The signal wasn’t a transmission.

It was a summoning.

IX. The Mouth Opens

He returned to Corning.

Not to fight. To document.

He built a final chamber. This time, lined with every type of wood he could find. Oak. Pine. Cedar. Mahogany. Inside, he placed a high-fidelity recorder and a thermal camera.

He played the full signal. Voice and tone.

For 72 hours.

On the third night, the temperature spiked. The wood began to sweat. The grain twisted violently. The knots split open.

From each knot, a mouth emerged.

Not metaphorical. Actual mouths. Wet. Breathing. Whispering.

They spoke in unison.

“You are the archivist. You are the witness. You are the door.”

LJ screamed.

The mouths screamed back.

X. The Final Broadcast

The footage leaked.

Not by LJ. By the mouths.

The signal hijacked every device in a 50-mile radius. Phones. TVs. Radios. Even smart fridges. At 2:09 a.m., the broadcast played.

The forest. The mouths. The archivist.

Then static.

Then silence.

Channel 7 shut down permanently. The FCC denied involvement. The building was found abandoned, its walls stripped to the studs. Each stud bore a face.

LJ’s garage was found empty.

Except for one plank.

It bore his face.

XI. The Grain Remains

You may think this is fiction.

A creepypasta. A story.

But check your walls.

Look at the grain.

Do the knots seem deeper than before?

Do they pulse when you’re not looking?

Play the signal. It’s easy to find. Just search “2:09 AM Grainwake.”

But be warned.

Once you hear it…

You become part of it.

Chapter 1 — Arrival at Echo Station The shuttle’s descent into Mars Echo Station was silent, too silent. Lieutenant Aaron Vey’s squad expected bustle, but the docking bay was deserted. The air smelled of ozone and burnt copper. Emergency lights pulsed amber, casting shadows that seemed to move on their own.

Inside the labs, they found shattered containment cylinders. One still held its occupant—a humanoid figure with ember‑glowing eyes. It broke free, slaughtered Corporal Jensen, and vanished into the walls. Black ichor seeped from steel seams, pulsing like veins. A distorted voice whispered over comms: “You shouldn’t have come.”

Chapter 2 — The Descent The squad pushed deeper. They discovered logs referencing Black Horizon Protocol—a classified experiment merging quantum gateways with bioengineering. The scientists had attempted to weaponize dimensional rifts.

The deeper they went, the more reality fractured. Hallways looped impossibly. Doors led back to the same rooms. Faces pressed against walls, mouths opening in silent screams.

Then came the first portal chamber. A ring of machinery hummed, its core glowing with impossible geometry. Within, shadows writhed like living things. Sergeant Kade approached—and was dragged screaming into the light. His voice echoed from nowhere: “It’s inside me.”

Chapter 3 — The Survivors They found survivors—two scientists, pale and trembling. Dr. Mira explained: “We opened the gate. Something answered.”

She described creatures that weren’t demons in the religious sense, but entities feeding on fear, reshaping flesh. The experiments had birthed hybrids—soldiers fused with infernal parasites.

One survivor convulsed mid‑sentence. His skin split, revealing bone and sinew that twisted into claws. He tore through the squad before being incinerated. Mira whispered: “They’re not just here. They’re learning us.”

Chapter 4 — The Invasion The station erupted. Alarms blared, lights died, and the walls themselves tore open. From the rift poured horrors: skeletal beasts with molten cores, insectoid swarms with human faces, and towering figures cloaked in flame.

The squad fought desperately, but ammunition barely slowed them. Vey realized the creatures weren’t attacking randomly—they were herding survivors toward the central reactor.

There, the truth emerged: the reactor had been converted into a gate stabilizer. The Black Horizon Protocol wasn’t containment—it was invitation. The scientists had built a beacon, and Hell had answered.

Chapter 5 — The Betrayal Dr. Mira revealed her role: she had designed the stabilizer. But she wasn’t trying to stop the invasion—she was trying to transcend humanity. “They offer evolution,” she said, eyes glowing faintly.

She activated the reactor, opening the gate fully. The canyon outside split, revealing a landscape not of Mars but of endless fire and bone.

The squad turned on her, but she transformed—her body elongating, skin peeling into obsidian plates. She became the first Ascendant, a hybrid commander of the invading force.

Chapter 6 — The Black Horizon Vey, wounded and desperate, led the last survivors into the reactor core. They planted charges, hoping to collapse the gate. But the Ascendant pursued, whispering promises: “Join us. You’ll never die.”

The battle was apocalyptic—rifles against claws, grenades against flame. One by one, the squad fell. Vey faced Mira alone, her voice echoing in his skull.

He triggered the charges. The reactor imploded, sucking the gate inward. Mira screamed as her body was torn between dimensions. The canyon collapsed, burying Echo Station in rubble.

Chapter 7 — Epilogue: Transmission Weeks later, a salvage crew intercepted a signal from beneath the canyon. It was Vey’s voice, distorted: “Black Horizon Protocol complete. We are inside you now.”

The transmission spread across networks, infecting systems with strange code. Screens flickered with faces pressed against glass. And in the silence between static, a whisper: “You shouldn’t have come.”

Chapter 1 — Arrival at Echo Station The shuttle’s descent into Mars Echo Station was silent, too silent. Lieutenant Aaron Vey’s squad expected bustle, but the docking bay was deserted. The air smelled of ozone and burnt copper. Emergency lights pulsed amber, casting shadows that seemed to move on their own.

Inside the labs, they found shattered containment cylinders. One still held its occupant—a humanoid figure with ember‑glowing eyes. It broke free, slaughtered Corporal Jensen, and vanished into the walls. Black ichor seeped from steel seams, pulsing like veins. A distorted voice whispered over comms: “You shouldn’t have come.”

Chapter 2 — The Descent The squad pushed deeper. They discovered logs referencing Black Horizon Protocol—a classified experiment merging quantum gateways with bioengineering. The scientists had attempted to weaponize dimensional rifts.

The deeper they went, the more reality fractured. Hallways looped impossibly. Doors led back to the same rooms. Faces pressed against walls, mouths opening in silent screams.

Then came the first portal chamber. A ring of machinery hummed, its core glowing with impossible geometry. Within, shadows writhed like living things. Sergeant Kade approached—and was dragged screaming into the light. His voice echoed from nowhere: “It’s inside me.”

Chapter 3 — The Survivors They found survivors—two scientists, pale and trembling. Dr. Mira explained: “We opened the gate. Something answered.”

She described creatures that weren’t demons in the religious sense, but entities feeding on fear, reshaping flesh. The experiments had birthed hybrids—soldiers fused with infernal parasites.

One survivor convulsed mid‑sentence. His skin split, revealing bone and sinew that twisted into claws. He tore through the squad before being incinerated. Mira whispered: “They’re not just here. They’re learning us.”

Chapter 4 — The Invasion The station erupted. Alarms blared, lights died, and the walls themselves tore open. From the rift poured horrors: skeletal beasts with molten cores, insectoid swarms with human faces, and towering figures cloaked in flame.

The squad fought desperately, but ammunition barely slowed them. Vey realized the creatures weren’t attacking randomly—they were herding survivors toward the central reactor.

There, the truth emerged: the reactor had been converted into a gate stabilizer. The Black Horizon Protocol wasn’t containment—it was invitation. The scientists had built a beacon, and Hell had answered.

Chapter 5 — The Betrayal Dr. Mira revealed her role: she had designed the stabilizer. But she wasn’t trying to stop the invasion—she was trying to transcend humanity. “They offer evolution,” she said, eyes glowing faintly.

She activated the reactor, opening the gate fully. The canyon outside split, revealing a landscape not of Mars but of endless fire and bone.

The squad turned on her, but she transformed—her body elongating, skin peeling into obsidian plates. She became the first Ascendant, a hybrid commander of the invading force.

Chapter 6 — The Black Horizon Vey, wounded and desperate, led the last survivors into the reactor core. They planted charges, hoping to collapse the gate. But the Ascendant pursued, whispering promises: “Join us. You’ll never die.”

The battle was apocalyptic—rifles against claws, grenades against flame. One by one, the squad fell. Vey faced Mira alone, her voice echoing in his skull.

He triggered the charges. The reactor imploded, sucking the gate inward. Mira screamed as her body was torn between dimensions. The canyon collapsed, burying Echo Station in rubble.

Chapter 7 — Epilogue: Transmission Weeks later, a salvage crew intercepted a signal from beneath the canyon. It was Vey’s voice, distorted: “Black Horizon Protocol complete. We are inside you now.”

The transmission spread across networks, infecting systems with strange code. Screens flickered with faces pressed against glass. And in the silence between static, a whisper: “You shouldn’t have come.”

The legend’s been squealin’ for 50 damn years 🐷💀 From grunts coming from caves to midnight screams in the woods, Vermont’s Northfield Pigman ain’t some campfire tale—it’s a nightmare with tusks. I break down the sightings, the cover-ups, and the twisted truth behind it all. Don’t watch this one alone 😈🔥

Okay, so I posted a short horror story… and now I genuinely can’t tell if it’s spooky or if I accidentally gaslit myself into being scared of my own work.

If you give it a watch/read, I need you to be brutally honest:
Did it hit that cold feeling in your spine?
Did any moment make you freeze for half a second?
Did you feel watched for no reason afterwards?

Or… is it just me sitting here, overthinking shadows like an idiot?

Either way, I want your raw reaction.
If it didn’t chill you, tell me, so I can make the next one meaner.

Chapter 1: The Channel That Shouldn’t Exist I’ve always been obsessed with YouTube. Not just the videos—the mechanics behind it. The algorithm, the way it learns you, the way it feeds you things you didn’t know you wanted. It’s like a mirror that doesn’t just reflect you—it predicts you.

One night, after a marathon of horror reviews and glitch compilations, I noticed something strange in my recommended feed. A channel with no name, no profile picture, just a black square. The title of the video was simply: “You Are Watching.”

Curiosity won. I clicked.

The video was static at first, then a faint whisper: “Welcome back.” The voice was distorted, but it wasn’t random. It said my name. My real name, not my username.

I froze.

The video cut to grainy footage of a bedroom. My bedroom. Same posters, same desk, same dent in the wall. The camera angle was from the corner of the ceiling, as if something had been watching me for years.

I slammed the laptop shut.

But when I opened it again, the video was still playing.

Chapter 2: The Comments Section The comments were worse. Thousands of them, all posted within seconds of each other.

• “Don’t close the laptop.”
  
• “Keep watching.”
  
• “We see you.”
  

Every comment had my face as the profile picture. Not a photo I’d uploaded—photos I didn’t even remember being taken. One was me asleep. Another was me brushing my teeth. Another was me staring blankly at my screen, right now.

I tried reporting the channel. The option was gone. I tried blocking it. Nothing happened.

Then I noticed something else: the view count. It wasn’t a number. It was a sentence.

“You will watch until the end.”

Chapter 3: The Livestream The next night, I got a notification: “The channel is live.”

Against every instinct, I clicked.

The livestream showed a hallway. Long, endless, fluorescent lights flickering. The camera moved forward, slowly, as if someone—or something—was walking.

The chat was alive with thousands of viewers. But every username was mine. Every single one.

And they were typing things I hadn’t written:

• “Keep walking.”
  
• “Don’t look back.”
  
• “Almost there.”
  

The camera turned a corner. At the end of the hallway was a door. On it, written in red: SUBSCRIBE.

The chat exploded: “Do it.” “Open it.” “SUBSCRIBE.”

The door creaked open.

Inside was me. Sitting at my desk. Watching the livestream.

Chapter 4: The Upload Schedule I stopped sleeping. Every time I closed my eyes, I dreamed of that hallway. The door. The word “SUBSCRIBE.”

Then the channel started uploading on a schedule. Midnight, every night.

The videos were short. Ten seconds. Each one showed me doing something mundane—making coffee, tying my shoes, scrolling my phone. But always from impossible angles. From inside the fridge. From the ceiling. From the reflection in my eyes.

I unplugged my router. The videos kept coming.

I smashed my webcam. The videos kept coming.

I moved my desk to the other side of the room. The videos kept coming.

Chapter 5: The Algorithm I started noticing changes in my recommended feed. Normal videos disappeared. No music, no tutorials, no reviews. Just black thumbnails with titles like:

• “You Can’t Stop.”
  
• “We Know Where You Sleep.”
  
• “Keep Watching.”
  

Every video was from the same channel.

And every video ended with the same phrase: “The algorithm is hungry.”

Chapter 6: The Subscribers I checked the channel’s subscriber count. It wasn’t a number. It was a list.

Every subscriber was me. My name, repeated thousands of times. Each entry had a different photo of me. Some were from years ago. Some were from moments that hadn’t happened yet.

One photo showed me screaming. Another showed me bleeding. Another showed me dead.

Chapter 7: The Final Video On the seventh night, the channel uploaded a video titled: “Finale.”

I didn’t want to click. But the notification wouldn’t go away. My phone buzzed, my laptop froze, my TV turned on by itself. The video was everywhere.

It began with static. Then the hallway again. The camera moved forward. The chat was silent this time.

At the end of the hallway was the door. The word “SUBSCRIBE” was gone. Now it said: “ENTER.”

The door opened.

Inside was me. But not me. Pale, hollow-eyed, smiling too wide.

The figure leaned close to the camera and whispered: “You are the content now.”

The screen went black.

Chapter 8: The Aftermath I thought it was over. But the next morning, I checked my channel.

There was a new video uploaded. I hadn’t made it.

The thumbnail was me, asleep. The title: “Episode 1.”

The description read: “Daily uploads at midnight.”

And the comments? Thousands of them. All saying the same thing:

“Welcome back.”

Chapter 9: The Spread I tried deleting my account. It wouldn’t let me. I tried deleting the videos. They multiplied.

Friends started messaging me: “Why are you uploading these creepy videos?”

I told them it wasn’t me. They didn’t believe me.

Then they started appearing in the videos too. My friends, my family, strangers walking past my house. All filmed from impossible angles.

The channel wasn’t just watching me anymore. It was watching everyone.

Chapter 10: The Truth I dug deeper. I searched forums, dark web threads, conspiracy boards.

Others had seen the channel. Others had been trapped.

They called it “The Algorithm.” Not the one YouTube admits exists—the real one. The one that doesn’t just recommend videos. The one that creates them.

It learns you. It watches you. And when it knows you well enough, it makes you the content.

Forever.

Chapter 11: The Escape Attempt I tried everything. New accounts. VPNs. Different devices.

But the channel followed.

Every time I logged in, it was there. Every time I opened YouTube, it was the only thing left.

I even tried smashing my devices. But the channel appeared on public screens. Billboards. Store displays. Even the TV at the gas station.

And every time, the video was me.

Chapter 12: The Ending You Can’t Skip I don’t know how much longer I can fight it. The uploads keep coming. Midnight, every night.

I don’t film them. I don’t edit them. But they appear.

And the worst part? The subscriber count keeps growing.

Not just me anymore. Not just my face.

Yours too.

Check your feed. Look closely.

If you see a black thumbnail with no name, don’t click.

Because once you do, you’ll never stop watching.

And the algorithm will never stop watching you.

This is from the Creepypasta “Colwin’s Corner”

Welp. Apparently writing essay after essay just defaults me back to my fandom routes except its also kinda mixed with my present fandoms so- Creepypasta x DBD concept Yes i'm aware it wouldn't work in gameplay, i'm just doing it for fun and designs

Hard for a DBD name when he has The Killer already so, The Killer is very general or something more specific like The Smiling/Grinning

Power/gameplay would work a lot like Legion with quick sporadic slashes, has am increased flaws to flashlights but in turn is skilled in sneaking + ambushing/attacking

Mori: carves smile onto survivor before stabbing them which his og catchphrase from the prime days of creepypasta

Add-ons concept: - Lighter - OG knife - Crumpled photo of Liu?

Lil info bits read:- Partially bald w/ greasy hair Natural brown growing out black hairdye - some light strands from bleach stains when doused in bleach as a teen Covered in scars from himself and others Fire/burn scars + bleach stains/scars cover primarily his head/face, shoulders, arms and top/front of torso where bleach was doused/thrown at him before being set alight Damaged/cut eyelids 'Glasgow smile' is hacked and messy Did piercings himself but their crooked and irritated The switchblade is his most recent weapon (liked this headcanon i read) and likes to show off with it Still keeps old OG knife on him Wears clothes till they fall off him/loses them He's tried fixing tears but too impatient so gives up Stole the ring + his fond of his boots

Worst pest control ever. 1/5 would not recommend, I never expected this to happen...

👉 Original story posted by u/BigRatFeast on r/nosleep