Carried Debt

In this scary story, after a seemingly ordinary day takes a strange turn, our main character finds himself retracing his steps in search of something more than just a stolen wallet. It slowly unravels into a chilling reflection on fate, consequences, and the unseen weight we sometimes carry. 
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
I did my best to backtrack exactly where I had
been when it happened. I didn't even think of renewing
my driver's license, canceling credit cards, spending another dollar for
the public transport card, or about the three ten dollars
bills I had in there for about a year. This
was more important, way past the unfairness of it all,

(00:23):
to take a wallet that doesn't belong to you, for
what was it the cash that was going to get
you the things that would kill you just a little
bit faster. Don't we all wish for that bravery, from
the willing and the will to face the reaper. My
name is Edwin, and here's a scary story. I got

(00:51):
in the car and faced the garage door as I
did my best to think back on my day. Three
men and one child on that train that left me
with only two suspects and a father. I've heard that
being a dad does things to you, but I wouldn't know.
And a child, well, the child can't spend on anything
without being asked where the money came from. The color

(01:14):
switched easily between black and green in my mind. Book
color was his shirt either way. I remember he looked
at me not a single familiar face on that train.
I'd tell you the other one was too busy playing
on his phone. It wasn't supposed to be dumb around
these areas to show your thousand dollars phone out in public.

(01:35):
The father and his son were a few seats away,
facing away from me, and I knew it. I knew
something was going to happen as soon as I stepped
into that train car. I never missed that second one,
but this time I did. I was rushing down the
steps because of that woman who couldn't figure out how
to use a card reader. They were new back then.

(01:56):
These things cost a dollar plus another five to put
your fare in it. Tracking us, seeing where we enter
and where we leave. Not hard to figure out where
we live and where we work because of it. And
so I watched as everyone rushed past us on my
right to make that train, and desperation, I murmured something

(02:16):
to myself angrily enough for her to turn around. Bright red.
She was beautiful, older than me, long black hair, and
a light purple jacket over a white shirt. I pushed
my wallet past her, brushing her arm with mine as
a beep and the green light triggered the tiny gate
to open. She rushed forward and waited for me, acting

(02:38):
as if we knew each other. I ran straight ahead
and down the steps, ignoring her loud thank yous as
I barely made the third car on the train. It
was a nice voice she had, likely a singer, shouting
as the door was closing. I looked at her and
almost waved as the train sped away. Had I not
been in the wrong train, I wouldn't have arrived by

(02:59):
the away. From the stairs, up the platform and onto
the street, I had to go past the vendors and
the lazy taxi driver smoking when the security guards finished
their rounds. Looking back at it now, I remember the
woman expecting me to buy coffee at six pm. Who
even does that? She got up and went to the

(03:20):
cash register, and I just walked past her two I
found it odd, But when I turned around there was
a man from the train right there again ordering something,
searching his jacket for his wallet. It was then when
I was walking out of the station when I realized
I didn't have it. There was no way to tap

(03:42):
my card on the exit thing, and now I stood
there as another random person behind me murmured something to
themselves loud enough for me to hear. I turned around
and stepped back, frantically searching for my wallet. That's when
I felt the coldness flowing over my own arms and
then my legs. It was gone. Now. I didn't want

(04:07):
to do it, but I called up my friend Matt
to ask him if I could come over. His girlfriend
was going to be there. I was sure of it,
so I grabbed my things at eleven pm that same
night and went over there. They were acting as if
it was just a regular afternoon. His girlfriend, Jade was
making waffles and the toaster and heating something else up

(04:27):
in the microwave. I stepped over the clothes they had
on the floor and sat down. I started asking questions.
They were the only ones that stayed awake with me
when I couldn't sleep all those nights. They let me
crash on that same couch until I got better. My
therapist told me it was something we had to search through,
which didn't help, but they did. He would talk about

(04:51):
my past relationship and the streak of bad luck. When
I was sure I was having no job, no home,
no life. But there was something Jade told me that
would actually help. Anything you want she said, literally, that's
how we found each other, right, Mattie. She looked over

(05:11):
at Matt and pinched his cheeks, going in for another
one of those long and inappropriate kisses in front of
another person. That's actually how I got to know her
through these wishes, as she called them. At the time,
I didn't know if they were working, but they approved
themselves in time. First I got two job offers, the
second one for a lot more money than the first.

(05:34):
I got approved on the first apartment application I submitted.
They were doing well too. Business cards. They called them,
these oval shaped pieces of what I thought was paper
at the time, but later found out that it was
made of human skin. Inscribed were odd markings and soft
burn marks, all neatly around it, in such a way

(05:57):
that it looked to be all of one color you
got close enough to see them. The ink was permanent.
It spread over the years I had it, but I
tried not to look at it. Carry it with you
were the instructions for the thing. Almost three hundred dollars
for it back then. It must only stay with you.

(06:20):
Matt and Jade also had their own maid. They kept
it with them, but I sat there all those memories
circling me, mixing up with the new ones, trying to
decipher the shirt color of the man on the train
that when I was sure had taken my wallet and
then used it to buy a coffee. So late in
the day, Jade had brought over a plate of chicken nuggets,

(06:42):
the bottle of maple syrup, and her waffles to the
living room table. Spill. She yelled, Suddenly my wallet was stolen,
I said, looking at her dead in the eye. Her
shoulders relaxed, and then she looked at Matt. Oh, she said,
that sucks. Then she grabbed the nugget and stuffed it

(07:04):
in her mouth while trying to cool it down. At
the same time, Matt turned to me, trying to be
supportive as always. Did you cancer your cards or whatever? Man?
Do you need cash? I looked at them. At one
point I had trusted these two with my life, and
now I was out there looking at them for what
they really were. The business card was in there, I whispered.

(07:30):
Jade stopped chewing and her eyes opened wide. Matt got
on the floor and crawled up next to me. Do
you know who took it? Jade interrupted? You sure you
didn't just lose it. Check your pockets, man, check them.
I tried to answer both of them, but they kept
interrupting with more and more questions about where was I
sure that the business card was in there? And it

(07:52):
took only a few seconds of silence for my part
before Matt realized what this meant. Jade took off to
the the room. There was a reason that this thing
was supposed to stay with me at all times unless
disposed of properly according to the instructions. Jade was already
on the job. I could hear things being moved around

(08:13):
from down the hallway, for she came out not two
minutes after that. Her hand was shaking as she read
the instructions. I remember that yellow piece of paper from back.
Then keep the Prisserius with you at all times. It
would serve as life, as shield as sword. The sacrifice
was from the lineage of the First Death is at Bay.

(08:38):
Matt stayed quiet for a little bit before turning toward
me to ask again if I knew who had taken it.
We sat there in silence. There was a man on
the train. I started, black or green shirt. He looked
at me, and I looked at him. He followed me
out and stopped for a coffee. I think he had

(08:58):
my wallet by then. Thief Jade interrupted. Matt put his
hand on her shoulder and looked at her with serious eyes.
He will die. And that was the thing from all
of our conversations. The reason why I forked over three
hundred dollars back then, back when I was struggling with

(09:20):
groceries at the dollar store, was because of this. Somehow
death made these promises seem real, these gruesome photos of
people with the final belongings laid right next to them.
What remained of a man with a bloody white shirt
and fourteen credit cards, a license, a picture of another family,

(09:40):
and one hundred and thirty five dollars in cash, a
few coins from his pocket, a watch, the prisers or
business card as we called it. Then there were the
photos of a teenager with her black spiky purse from
hot topic, lip gloss, a prisceris, and the idea of
a man. And these were photos no person should ever see,

(10:04):
of traumatic deaths, bodies twisted in ways that showed me
how fragile we are against steel wood and pavement. The exchange,
the website said in every caption it was a way
to defer the payback if you will. They say that
when you ask for gifts from a dark force, you

(10:26):
must pay it back, but not with this. It was
yours forever, and only those who take it from you
would end up paying the price, ending the cycle at
the same time, until you bought another priceras or disposed
of it properly, essentially meaning that you send it back
for it to be prepared and sent to someone else.

(10:46):
Nothing you can do now, Jade said softly, you want
to stay here? I looked at mad. He was worried
for that stranger. Nearly four years since our lives turned
around without incident until now. We stayed up the rest

(11:09):
of the night, watching the news and scanning the radio
every so often. Not many in terms of news out there,
mainly the same music we've been listening to for ten years,
plus the occasional pop hit, but we would get announcements
every now and then. A business owner arrested for suspicion
of fraud, a mom taken to custody for leaving her

(11:30):
children alone for two days while she left with her
boyfriend to gamble. We talked about life and death, just
like back then. Matt hadn't changed a bit, though he
had gotten a new job. Jade had changed the most.
She was more serious in her tone, her lipstick wasn't
as stark, and she had stopped smoking. I must have

(11:54):
replayed that night after work a thousand times. I could
see the men in that shirt. Green, by the way,
was the color of it. He matched the logo of
his shoes, and I remember that detail. The night had
happened because of the muddy footprints he had left on
the floor. They ended right where he was sitting. It's
why he looked at me. I was blaming him with

(12:15):
my eyes, Jade. I started looking for the website again
to reach out to the same guy who had sold
them to us, but had no luck. Suspicious, wasn't it.
How did they get the pictures of those who had
taken these items for lack of a better word, from
someone else. Were they on patrol for gruesome deaths? Or

(12:36):
did they get them from the police report? Somehow? Jade
had a theory that it must have been the latter.
They do take photographs of the belongings of the deceased.
Sometimes in some cases they even get more detailed. When
their's suspicion of foul play, and how do they know
it was because they had unknowingly taken the prisras. Some

(12:57):
of the reports said that the deaths were mostly ruled acts,
with a few exceptions. Was it some type of coincidence?
Matt said that it might have been marketing, you know
the photoshopp in the prisserius into the photos, say that
it was because of that, and use it to sell
us those things. But even he thought of just how
much these things had changed our lives. Matt had somehow

(13:20):
managed to sell his first business for a lot of money,
and Jade ended up with her dad's inheritance. With the
courts favored her over her step mother. They both seemed healthy,
and although it seemed to be purely on them, I
wasn't going to say anything because my life had changed
two It made me feel uneasy at first, but then

(13:40):
I noticed more and more things around me were changing.
Women were approaching me, and at work people would show
up to greet me by name, tapping a hand on
my shoulder. With confidence, I no longer thought of my past,
the fear of losing, Although fear of losing as all
the fear there is right our health, our money, our sanity.

(14:04):
I started risking, more confident enough to turn away opportunities
and wait for better ones. It was more than just
a thing I carried in my wallet, and I knew it.
And yet there was a rational part of me that
told me that this couldn't possibly be real, that it
was all a joke or a dream, that I would
wake up and no one would be dead because of me. Okay, man,

(14:37):
here's the thing, the detective started. You can tell me
what you know, so this gets a little easier for everyone.
We already have you on camera and everything. It doesn't
need to get dragged out so much. We have some
pretty nosy journalists in town. Tell them where I was
on the night of the fourth, the night I lost
my wallet. I was at Matt and Jade's apartment, and

(14:58):
part of me was afraid to tell that had they
done something wrong? Well, aside from the purchase, I knew
my rights even better back then. Now I think I
would get a little overconfident, but I managed to stay
silent until I got a lawyer. The guy was bad,
but at least he explained everything had been staying tuned

(15:20):
into the news for the death of a man, almost
believing everything I had read from the website that Jade found.
It seemed like such a scam. Now, sitting on those
generic offices with law books in front of me, but
no death ever came, well, not the one I was
looking for. The lawyer sat me down and explained even

(15:40):
more than what the detectives had found and what incriminated me. Listen,
he said, tell me all the truth here, and I
will do my best to get you a deal. It
won't be too much time. I knew it was serious then,
so I told him what I did. That night, as
we prepared for the meeting with a detective and other prosecutors,

(16:02):
I was at Matt and Jade's apartment, longtime friends that
I knew since college. I stayed with them for a
couple of nights because I was having some trouble and
wanted to be with my friends. I would go to
my house in the mornings and come back in the
evening after work, back to Matt's, and then we would
stay up watching television. That's the truth, the lawyer, mister

(16:24):
Brown said, leaning back in his chair. What about Melissa, Melissa,
I asked, confused, you gotta tell me the truth, sir,
he shot back, beginning to lose his patience. Who is Melissa,
I nearly yelled as I heard him clear his throat,
his mouth beginning to shake Melissa, the woman you were

(16:47):
with on the train. Now what happened next is to
what made me wish my memory wasn't so good. I
remember every detail he showed me the photograph. So what
was left of a woman with dark hair, the purple jacket,
and the white shirt. I remembered Melissa, the one that

(17:08):
was found on the train tracks right outside the platform,
the wrong exit, one I had never taken, The exit
that was traced back to me. The camera showed us
together by the turnstiles, the way she turned to look
at me and waited, the way my public transportation card
was scanned at the same time she left the platform

(17:29):
on Fourteenth Street, but the case was dismissed once the
full clips were released, no thanks to this lawyer. The
footage showed the way she yelled for me after I
had dropped my wallet. It showed me going down to
take the train and stepping into the wrong train car.
It showed her exit the platform alone the way I

(17:52):
had taught her with my wallet. The stories on Scary
Story podcasts are written and produced by me Edwin Kowarubias.
We needed a bit of a gruesome story with this one,

(18:12):
but kept it hidden enough with a splash of guilt.
Let me know what you thought of it, and if
you're off for it, check out my other podcast, Horror Story,
where I tell you about true paranormal mysteries and hauntings
and adds a similar feel to this one. Anyway, as always,
if you're following the show, I'll be back next week.
Thank you very much for listening. It scary everyone, see

(18:35):
as soon