Have you ever had the feeling that you were being watched?
That somehow, somewhere, there were eyes on you. Watching, studying your every move. It can strike from anywhere. You can be at a party with friends, walking through a crowed mall, or even laying comfortably in your dark bedroom. The cold feeling of being observed by someone, an unwelcome stare that never blinks.
Who could it be? Are they waiting for you to let your guard down, or are they waiting for you to turn around and meet their eyes? Maybe it’s all in your head, and there’s really nobody there at all.
It’s a natural feeling, and it happens to everyone from time to time. It strikes suddenly, and just as quickly, it tends to vanish.
If you feel like someone you don’t know is currently watching you, my advice is to close this story right now. Act natural, feel free to look over your shoulder if it helps the feeling go away. You won’t see anything there. You’ll be safe.
Believe that your gut feeling must have been mistaken this time, and forget all about it. Be stronger than I was, don’t let your curiosity control you.
Ignore me, and you will meet your doom. I promise you that. Consider yourself warned.
If you’re still here, you’re either incredibly foolish, or you’re stuck in the same situation I was. Either way, hold onto those gut feelings. They’re the only defense humans have against the supernatural, and are the difference between a relaxing day, and never seeing your world again.
My name’s Oliver Garden, and I am the victim of the worst April Fools prank in the universe.
I’m an 18 year old university student about to finish their first year’s winter semester. Well, I won’t be able to attend the last week of classes, or write the exams, on account of my currently indefinite absence. I don’t know if I can still call myself a student.
I also work part time at a cafè on campus, so you can call me a cashier or server. Then again, can’t go to work, so who knows how long until I’m technically fired. I probably already am, my manager has fired people for showing up a few minutes late, who knows what they’d say to me if I skipped work with no notice until the end of time.
I don’t really know what my title is anymore. I guess I’m just a guy who’s not where they’re supposed to be.
I live, or lived in a student res on campus. I’m one of the lucky souls who got a single room. I have my own bathroom, my own shower, and my own fridge. I’m an air fryer owner, and I also have a rice cooker, both were going away/birthday gifts from my family. I insisted I’d pay them back for it, despite their protests, but I’ll never be able to. I never got to say goodbye to them.
I don’t remember when it started, sometime after second semester began, back in January, I think. I live in Canada, and the cold was starting to kick in. The walks to class and work became harsher and exhausting, and it was hard to manage my time. I didn’t get as much sleep every night as I probably should have, and my workload was heavy. I was exhausted most of the time, making me a perfect target.
The first time the feeling hit me, I was at home one night, working at my desk. I didn’t look behind me, but I glanced over to my door. Seeing it was still locked, I knew that nobody could have slipped inside. I have the only key, not to mention you need a card to get through the building doors. The feeling eventually went away on it’s own.
A few days later, it happened again. I checked my door, and it was still locked, of course. The feeling lasted longer this time. I had to check my room and make sure I was alone. Maybe my gut knew something my brain didn’t. That’s how it gets you. It uses our instincts against us, and makes us doubt them when it matters most.
I searched everywhere. Under the bed, in the bathroom, in the wardrobe, through the peephole, behind the shower curtain, anywhere someone could hide. I found nothing. I slept with the bright white light of my desk lamp that night. It’s more of a lantern than a lamp, and I moved it to my bedside table at some point.
Around the end of January, it happened one more time. The same feeling washed over me, and I knew someone was there. I checked the door, only to find that it was unlocked this time. I’m sure I had locked it when I got home, but I questioned myself. Did I truly remember to lock it?
I searched extra thoroughly after that. I even checked places where no human could hide, like inside the air vents, behind the pipe maintenance panel, in my kitchen drawers, anywhere. I’m not sure why I did. Maybe I was worried I was being watched by something that wasn’t human, like a bug or mouse I kept missing. The feeling stayed with me, and it felt bigger. I don’t remember going to bed that night.
As I was searching my entire apartment, the world went black, and suddenly, I was dreaming. In the dark dream, I was laying in my bed, as if I had just woken up. I felt far too heavy, and the room was filled with a thick haze. I struggled to sit up, and slowly reached for my lantern. When I flicked it on, the light was a deep orange, instead of it’s usual white. It illuminated the purple mist that had filled my room practically to the brim.
Within it stood a large bipedal silhouette, towering over me. It’s neck was too long, curving in an arc to stare down into my eyes. I woke up in a cold sweat back in my bed, the real one this time. Unlike the other experiences, the light of dawn didn’t free me from the feeling. It was still watching me.
Come February, the feeling almost never left me alone. It began following me out of the house, across the snowy pathways, and into buildings full of other people. It began to feel more like a presence, something tangible, that could watch me from specific directions, and different dark corners.
I swear I saw that silhouette a few times outside those dreams while I was awake, along with the mist. Once, I swore I saw it, stationary in a misty 5th story window of one of the buildings on campus, gazing down at me as I passed by. I went up there, but found a locked, empty classroom with the lights off. I also swore I saw it in a bathroom mirror, a shadow peeking out from behind a closed stall. I turned around to open it, finding nothing inside. I bet the thing didn’t even wash it’s hands, it was out of there before I could close the bathroom door, ready to stare at me from somewhere unseen.
The days started to blur together, and my school performance may have started to dip, but I was still scraping by. I held strong, never missing a class, and meeting every deadline. One day, I was in the middle of one of my classes, math I think. I know I wasn’t falling asleep, the course can be a little boring, sure, but the teacher was good, and I like the certainty math questions have. Anyways, I didn’t remember falling asleep again, but the world faded, and I was back in that same dream.
On instinct, I forced my weak, heavy body to sit up, and slowly turned on my lantern. It glowed orange, and illuminated the figure. There was less haze this time, or maybe, I was just able to see further.
The creature was there again. I couldn’t make out much, but it’s face was looming over me, and I could make some of it out. The creature had a long snout, something that should never be on a bipedal creature. It was coated in strange dirty orange fur, which seemed clumpy, smooth, and was full of strange moving lumps. It’s nose was a deep brown, and it’s eyes were black voids, almost like buttons, reflecting the orange light of the lantern within them.
It opened it’s mouth, and whispered something to me. I was just barely able to hear it, distracted by the way it moved. It was mushy, strings forming between the top and bottom of it’s mouth, like it was made of curdled orange milk.
It spoke in what sounded like multiple voices at once, some high, some low. I didn’t recognize any of them. “You’re not home” Is all they had to say.
The next morning, I woke up in my pajamas, and in my bed. I think I stepped in something mushy when I got up to start the day.
Once I saw it, it never went away. I saw it’s face in places it shouldn’t have been able to be. It started to escape my dream, and I began to see it in the distant corners of rooms, and in dark crevices where my eyes could trick me.
It kept showing up more and more, every time I could see it, the feeling got so much stronger. It just stared at me with those empty voids, waiting for something. I started to see it’s face imposed on the faces of distant people, inside the windows of passing cars, and peeking at me from over impossibly tall ledges, and the roofs of buildings.
I started to find myself in the dream more and more, never remembering quite when I went to sleep. Every time, the purple haze faded bit by bit, revealing the form standing in my pitch dark room, illuminated by the orange lantern. I was never able to stop my dream self from turning that light on, to rest in the darkness, and ignore the creature.
As more of it was revealed, I realized what it was. It was a bear, a massive, viscous, gelatinous bear with no teeth and gloopy skin, which seemed to always be naturally sloshing around to try and maintain it’s shape. The more of it I saw, the more of it was able to show up in the real world.
Around early March, it started getting stronger. It was able to get closer to me, whisper to me in the real world. I would hear it, turn my head, and play a game of i-spy with the melty cheese bear. They would always be there, somewhere behind me. They didn’t bother to hide from anyone anymore. Only I could see them.
They would always say the same thing as before, “You’re not home”. At first, they only did it when I was out, but they started whispering it when I was indeed at home too. You’re not home. I don’t know what they wanted me to do, but whatever it was, going back to and being in my actual home didn’t get it to stop.
It was around the end of March that I finally started to break. The bear had begun appearing in impossible places. It showed up overtop my math teacher, mimicking it’s movements and mouth flaps as it mimed the lecture. It showed up on the lock screen of my phone, it’s body still jiggling and flowing around as it preformed different flexing poses, trying to get the best horrific angle. One time, I found a thick orange hair in my pasta which I cooked within the safety of my house. It even appeared in the foggy mirror as I stepped out of the shower, mimicking my movements from beneath the condensation. I went to wipe it away.
When the fog was gone, I looked closely at myself. Despite leaving the shower, I was dry. My orange hair was incredibly greasy, as if I hadn’t showered in weeks, and I was wearing my purple, blue, and yellow plaid pajamas, which looked like it had been worn for just as long. Deep, dark circles lay underneath my deep black eyes. I kept losing time, and the feeling never went away. I began missing deadlines, classes, and I stopped showing up to work. Nobody checked in on me.
I don’t know why I didn’t go to get help sooner, I was stupid. It must have been late March when I tried. I went for my phone, but the bear knew what I was trying to do. It was hiding under my bed that time, and it was faster. It extended a viscous arm, which stretched out an impossible distance like spilled cream, and swiped it’s hand across my desk. With sharp inky white claws, it sliced my phone into three.
It’s attack left behind a goopy ark of sludge and mush that looked almost like caramel. In a snap, it’s arm retreated back under the bed, and the trail followed right along with it, like all the slime was alive, and connected. I watched in horror as my already broken phone had begun to get more and more mushy in an instant, merging with the trail, and assimilating back into the arm of the bear like threads of loose yarn being knitted by an invisible granny into a soggy scarf with a squelch.
The bear wasn’t down there when I checked. I couldn’t call anyone anymore. I don’t remember receiving any messages since January, but I have no way to check now. Taking my phone from me wasn’t enough to satisfy it.
The last day I remember is March 31st. I remember the date from one of the event schedule screens on campus, which was updated to show the date. I don’t know what the day’s events were, all of the text only said “You’re not home”. I tried to get to the campus hospital that day, and I sprinted as fast as I could. Just as I got through the doors, I was in the dream again.
There was no purple haze this time. I could see the creamsicle bear before I clicked on the lantern, but I was compelled to anyway. As the sunset orange light illuminated my room, I sat completely still, gazing up at the bear that had been tormenting me these past few months. For the first time in my dream, I was able to force my fist to raise up, and I tried to attack it.
It swiped at my chest, and it got me. I didn’t feel anything, but I saw my body get split in three by it’s inky claws, leaving trails like a stylized painting. It was the oddest sensation, I watched and felt myself slowly softening into mush like baby food, before getting sucked away from me, to blend into the bear’s mulchy flesh. I was losing myself, and eventually, it got to my head. My vision went fuzzy, and suddenly, I was awake.
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I woke up this morning to the sound of my phone alarm. I reached for my bedside table, and patted around for a bit. Then I remembered that I didn’t have my phone anymore. That’s when I clicked on the lantern.
The light was still orange. It’s supposed to be white when I’m awake. I’m sure I woke up, I can’t still be in the dream. The other lights in my room don’t work, I had to carry the lantern around to check everything.
I don’t know how long I’ve been stuck here. My alarm clock won’t work normally, the time display doesn’t move, it just stays at whatever time I set it to, and I’m not sure if my perception is being messed with, or if time has stopped.
Outside my curtains, it is pitch black. Not even the streetlights are on. No visible light is coming from any of the dozens of buildings I can see from my room. I don’t hear any wind either, not that I can open my windows, they seem to be locked or stuck, even when I flip the lever to unlock them. I also can’t break my windows, or even crack them. My room’s become a mess from trying everything I could think of.
That wouldn’t be much of a problem if not for my door. I can’t bring myself to open it. I can’t leave my apartment anymore. Every time I get close to the door, I hear the whispering. It’s out there, I can feel it’s eyes on me, and when I close my eyes, it’s right there, looking back at me. I got desperate enough to try checking the peephole. Either the hallway is as dark as the view outside my window, or it’s peeping in on me. If I open the door, I’ll be letting it in, and this time, it will get me for real.
I’m trapped inside my home now. I don’t know what it wants from me. “YES! I AM HOME!” I shouted at the creature, but it didn’t stop. I don’t know what to do.
I have food in the fridge, I don’t remember when I bought it, but luckily everything in the freezer and my dry pasta and rice are still good to eat, among other things. There’s a ton of expired stuff and even some moldy food in the fridge. I don’t remember the last time I ate, bought groceries, or cooked myself a meal. I made myself some pasta with a canned tomato sauce to calm my nerves. I keep adding seasoning, but it’s tasteless.
I have my laptop, but it’s been acting funny. Before me is a dim orange screen I can type on. I can’t check the time, or do much of anything else. In the bottom right is an upload button. I don’t know what it’s going to do, or where this will be uploaded, but if you were able to find this, then maybe I can still save someone from my fate. Don’t end up like me.
I trusted my gut. I knew that something was watching me, and when I found it, it found me. It consumed me. Now that I know, I can’t go back. I can’t go anywhere.
I tried going back to sleep, to maybe wake up to a normal day again. The bear stared at me from behind my eyelids, and it didn’t work. I don’t feel tired. I feel more awake then I’ve felt in ages. The feeling of being watched hasn’t gone away, it’s so strong, that it feels like I’m getting pulled in, towards somewhere far, far away.
Mom, Dad, Sky, if you’re reading this, I miss you. I should have visited home more often. I should have stayed in touch, and I hope you’re okay. I can’t remember the last time I checked in with you, it’s been lost in the blur. I think something is wrong with my memories. I wish I had a family picture of you here. They were all on my phone. Please, stay safe. If you’re reading this, and have ignored the warnings up until now, take this seriously. Don’t look for it. Don’t risk coming here yourselves. Promise me that you won’t.
At first I thought I could escape by waiting it out. Maybe, if someone got to the other side of my door, and opened it, whatever space I’m trapped in would be broken, and I’d be free. My exam period ends in May, and maybe by then, someone will have somehow called the authorities to check up on me, maybe you guys, a friend no longer able to reach me, or my RA would come by.
Then I figured out what the bear meant. I’m not home, I’m somewhere else. When you open up the door to my room, I won’t be there. It HAS to mean that, right? This whole time, it was trying to take me to this place. There can’t be any other explanation.
It started saying “You’re not home” to me like a month and a half ago, back in February. I know I was in my actual, real home back then. Maybe it was just eager? Or, have my memories been messed with more than I thought? I don’t know, it feels like I’m missing something important. Like something is trying to hide from me, just out of reach.
There’s one other way out, I think. It’s the worst part about all this. Next to me on my desk sits a folded piece of paper. On it, written in my sister’s handwriting, is the number one, and the words “Happy 18th Birthday, Ollie! April Fools!”
I recognize it. My birthday is April 1st. Today is indeed my 18th birthday. Every year, my sister and I make a series of themed clues and riddles for each other’s special days. Solving one leads to the next, and the presents are hidden along the way. I got a rather tricky one on my 17th birthday, back when I still lived at home.
I now live in my student res. I have the only key, to my knowledge, and you need a special key card to get into the building. My nickname is Ollie, but only my family knows it. A horrible chill ran up my spine when I saw it. Every possible reason it could be here is more awful than the last.
Would my family have left it in here? They would never. Not without permission, or contacting me first. They can be bad with boundaries sometimes, but not this bad, they’ve been working on it, they wouldn’t backslide this far. Not to mention that it feels like I’ve been in here for hours, maybe days, enough time to try and escape, give up, cook food, write all this, and more. I don’t even know if they could get here if they tried.
Maybe the lights outside are all off due to a power outage. Maybe they could have waited by the door for someone with a keycard to enter, then slipped inside. Maybe they found a master key, picked the lock, or maybe I left my door unlocked last night. I don’t know.
Maybe they snuck in while I was sleeping, and found a way to tamper with my computer. Maybe they put a bluetooth speaker outside my door, and a black piece of tape covering the peephole. No, how would they have known about what the bear always said to me? How would they know to make my lantern orange? It can’t be them. This has been going on for way too long. This is the kind of thinking that trapped me here in the first place.
No, it wasn’t them, it was the bear. The bear must have put it here, but how? It can appear under my bed, and reach all the way to my desk. That’s how it got to my phone.
But there’s a problem. The handwriting. The nickname. The birthday tradition. The bear had no way to know about that.
No. I had pictures of old scavenger hunt clues on my phone. It has my phone. The bear chopped it up, but I saw the phone turn to mush, and assimilate with the bear. My morning alarm and ringtone music is still quietly leaking through the door, it has to have it somehow. Maybe it can see everything I had on there. My blood runs cold, I hope it doesn’t find a way to target the people who’s faces are in my camera roll. Then again, the feeling of being watched targets everyone eventually, doesn’t it?
Maybe this space is the bear’s creation. Like it’s saying, this is not my home. Then, it made the clue appear somehow, same with the computer, and the orange lantern.
But why? There’s too many questions here. Too many unknowns. Now that it has me, what does it want?
Am I dead? Is this my punishment for spending all my time in my room? For not visiting them?
An old fact rings through my head like voices in a static channel on an old radio. The day you’re most likely to die is on your birthday. That’s today. Was it waiting for this? For the best day to trap me here? Like a sick joke?
It keeps getting louder out there. I can’t cover my ears and type at the same time, but it’s no longer whispering. It’s not even banging on the door, or trying to get in. It’s just patiently waiting out there. It knows I can’t take this much longer.
I’m going to open it. The clue, not the door. I need to know what’s inside. Maybe, if I solve all it’s stupid riddles, it will let me go back home. I know I’ll see her handwriting in there, maybe one of her drawings too. I’ll have to ignore it, I need to ignore it. This bear has taken a tradition so close to my heart, one I never wanted to miss out on, and they twisted it into something cruel and haunting. I’ll never forgive that thing.
The bear sounds like it’s screaming now. Like hundreds of voices, singing it’s three words like sirens beneath a mound of muck and sludge. When I try to go for the paper, I feel something deep in my stomach doing flips, it’s horrible. I start to feel tired, and hungry, and greasy, but when I stop, it’s all better again. Something’s going to happen to me when I open it, I can feel it.
I’m going to flip it open if it’s the last thing I do. If this is it, please, don’t remember me. Listen to my warnings, I beg of you. There are some things we don’t need to know, that we can’t know. Use that gut feeling as a warning, not as a reason to search for the source, like a boy walking into a bear’s den. Forget about it. Stick your nose somewhere else. Live, go search for something more important.
Enjoy your favourite games, stories, and people as much as you can. If I get out of here, you’ll never drag me away from them again.
…
Leaning back in my desk chair, and slowly pulling my hands away from the dusty keyboard, I decided not to press the upload button. If my family did read this? Or anyone for that matter? They might just follow me here, or think I was crazy. I hope they can forgive me someday, if I disappear without a trace. Fighting off tears that came from nowhere in particular, I slammed my computer shut.
Who knows if that button would even send my message to them? Maybe it would go to my phone, right into the clutches of that bear. Who knows what they would do with the insight into my mind. It wasn’t worth the risk
My gaze fell upon the number one clue. I hated it. The handwriting, slightly messy and undoubtedly hers, felt insulting to see here. It was written with a type of blue pen I didn’t own. One of her pens, as if she had written and given me this herself.
I tried. I tried so hard to open that thing, to quickly bring my hand down, and just unfold it. I couldn’t. I didn’t care what it said anymore, I was stuck here. I wasn’t going to play a silly scavenger hunt for this bear’s amusement too. Who knows what else it wrote in my sister’s handwriting. Maybe it got my parents in on it too.
I was done. I tore the damn thing in half. Then I tore it again. And again. Until it was nothing but ribbons. Something was drawn on the inside, it was big, drawn messily, large, and orange. I had a funny feeling that I knew exactly what was waiting there for me.
The bear stopped screaming, my phone stopped singing, and the room went quiet. I let out a breath I had been holding. It felt cathartic, almost satisfying, just tearing up the stupid mockery the bear had prepared. I bet it was watching me, waiting for my horrified reaction when I read whatever awful message it wrote for me, masquerading as my family.
It didn’t last long.
With the sound of rusty metal on ancient wood, my front door slowly creaked open. Not only was the lock still turned, but it was supposed to be almost silent. Outside the door was pure darkness. I could feel the bear watching me, from just beyond the veil.
Next, with a horrifying, sickening squelch, the bear flopped down out of the void, slicing a bear-sized hole through my doorway, and slammed it’s claws into the ground. It’s slow, gelatinous slam shook the entire room, knocking everything still left standing into the already impressive mess pile that covered my floor. I had to grip onto my desk to recover.
Then the entire building started to fucking tilt. Like my entire room was a seesaw balanced on a pin, it vibrated, shifted, and swung towards the bear. In a matter of seconds, I was practically standing at a 30 degree angle, holding on for my life, and trying not to get thrown off.
I watched in horror as all the objects in my room began to slide towards the bear. It slashed clean through all of them, turning them to goop, and absorbing them into it’s body. It kept growing and growing until it filled the hole in the wall, and then it swiped at that wall. It quickly ballooned up to covering the entire space. If I fell towards it, I was done for.
It reared up for another slam, and I looked for anything else I could grab onto. My desk had started slowly squeaking down the slope as the angle neared 40 degrees. In a moment of instinct, I pushed myself forward, making two strides to my bed, and a leap for my curtain rod. I prayed it would hold my weight.
It’s next slam was even worse, instantly rotating my room to about 70 degrees, the floor now impossible to stand on. The vibration shattered my desk into wooden splinters, and multiple objects on my floor into dust. The shock somehow traveled up onto my wall, and forced me to loose my grip on the rod, falling to the floor myself. I landed painfully on the loose debris that used to be my bed, and quickly began sliding downwards, like the worlds most horrifying slip ‘n slide.
I couldn’t help but scream as I plummeted towards my doom. My fingers scratched painfully against the hardwood floor, searching for any way to stop my momentum.
My room is basically a rectangle, and has no wall outcroppings. Luckily for me, I also had a bathroom, and thinking quickly, I rolled over, and grabbed onto the door handle. The door opened inwards, and I struggled in vain to try and push it open with no floor to stand on.
I gazed down at the bear in horror, the only sound it made was the burbling and flowing of it’s melty body, like the ambient sound of a cursed, horrible hot tub. It’s void-like eyes swirled, gazing into me with a look I couldn’t comprehend. It reared back for one final slam. My grip was getting exhausted, even though I couldn’t have been hanging there for more than a second or two. It rose to an impossible height, smashing through the ceiling, it’s face practically looking at me from the floor above.
The orange bear spoke in that same horrible voice of multiple pained souls all trying to call out at once through a thick, deep swamp. “Find home, Ollie” It said, using my nickname.
“DON’T YOU DARE CALL ME THAT!” I yelled, as if it would reach the creature. My arms were at their limit already, starting to slip from the round handle.
And then the bear slammed down. Impossibly, not only did the room quickly tilt past 90 degrees, but the entire place began to spin around in violent circles.
A horrible vibration tore through my hands, breaking my grip on the door like a little league baseball hitter losing their bat after trying to hit a pitch that was going mach 3. My hands throbbed in pain as the world spun around me like a dim, colourful out-of-control ferris wheel. The bear must have had a claw or two dug into the ground, because it swung along with the building, judging by the consistent location of the orange, malleable blur.
In my shocked state, I didn’t realize that the walls must have been moving strangely. I felt something powerful slam into my back, and the world slowed down. I stared helplessly and the bear wall swung directly into my path, it’s claws extended into impossibly sharp, gleaming blades.
At some point, the bear must have absorbed the lantern or something, because it glowed like a nightlight, or a massive, orange moon.
That was my final thought as I felt the claw slide cleanly through my stomach like a steak knife through a hot, mushy stick of butter. It didn’t hurt, it just felt warm and fuzzy. I felt my body and clothes begin to mollify and swirl, like I was turning into paint, or colour itself.
The spinning space blurred further, and faded to nothing as I felt my face slowly being pulled away, joining my body amidst the colourful streaks and inky trails like the cheese pull of a grilled cheese sandwich. From there, I ceased to be. The scene would look great as a painting on someone’s wall, the final moments of a boy fighting against a force he failed to understand.
Worst April Fools Birthday ever, and I hadn’t even woken up to face the morning yet!