March 17, 2025 • 28 mins
In this chilling video, we dive into true horror stories where friendship takes a terrifying turn. From creepy encounters to betrayals that spiral into nightmares, these unsettling tales reveal the dark side of trusting those closest to you. Brace yourself as we explore the stories of friendships that turned into haunting experiences, leaving a trail of fear and unease. Join us if you dare, and don't forget to like, subscribe, and share your own creepy stories in the comments below. You might just find your story featured in a future video! 🔔 Hit the bell so you never miss a scary story! You can also listen in podcast form "Scary Stories from Bad Vibes" Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6WCjzGChSiOtskaZjonvqz Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/scary-stories-from-bad-vibes/id1614005565 iHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/53-bad-vibes-nightmares-94022380/ Deezer: https://www.deezer.com/show/3497187 Podcast Addict: https://podcastaddict.com/podcast/3868720 Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/bad-vibes-nightmares-4264713 JiloSaavn: https://www.jiosaavn.com/shows/Scary-Stories-from-Bad-Vibes/1/A7Unzn6te1Y_ Become a CHANNEL MEMBER for early access for as little as 99 cents a month: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7N-0n6MRuhtRVfCpj_oArQ/join Perhaps buy some MERCH: https://teespring.com/stores/bad-vibes-storytelling Follow me on Social Media: TWITTER: https://twitter.com/BadVibesYOUTUBE INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/badvibesstorytelling/ Send your TRUE story in: badvibes760@gmail.com Music by: C.O.A.G: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXZsUCwRkPs Rain sounds: https://t.co/nQiu86WD20 https://www.youtube.com/@UCiSKnkKCKAQVxMUWpZQobuQ C.O.A.G: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXZsUCwRkPs "Quinn's Song: A New Man" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ "Echoes of Time" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Timestamps: Story 1: (00:00) Story 2: (03:44) Story 3: (07:05) Story 4: (11:49) Story 5: (17:00)
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
I don't know if this sub is the most suitable
place for this post, but I don't know what to do,
so I'm just hoping to vent and hope for advice.
My encounter with this individual we all call Ben, began
in November twenty twenty four in school. He was a
friend of one of my friends, Tom, and eventually we
(00:27):
became part of the same friend group. I have always
found Ben a bit creepy, which seemed to be the
school's population's general view towards him. However, once we became
regularly socializing, I began to feel bad for my presumptions.
That was until we were added to the WhatsApp group.
That's when things started to turn. First, it was the mindless,
(00:51):
constant images of gore he would send, involving torture victims
and murdered children. I don't know if these images were real,
but the really uncomfortable, to the point I asked him
to stop, which I was told to take a joke
and stop being a pussy. This was followed by messages
where he stated that he had killed a cat, along
(01:11):
with sick fantasies involving people I knew. I wasn't sure
if Ben was just the average edge lord, which was
the other friend's attitude. But something didn't seem right. Then
one Saturday, I was alone Christmas shopping in town when
I know is Ben standing on the road for me,
just staring directly at me. I waved at him awkwardly,
(01:35):
to which he just stared before walking casually down a
side street. For the rest of the trip, every time
I turned Ben was standing there, just staring at me
at a distance. I eventually just gave up shopping and
went home. Pissed. I text him about it, to which
he just stated that he didn't know what I was
talking about. Then, in school, on lunch, Ben and another friend, Jack,
(02:00):
convinced me to come with him to the forest behind
the school, along with another friend named Zach. Stupid, I know,
but I was bored and accompanied anyway. We started getting
deeper in and Ben was becoming weird. He was laughing
and kept repeating closer closer. Eventually, both me and Zack
(02:22):
agreed that it was creepy and off putting, and we
returned back to school. Ben seemed pissed when he and
Jack returned. However, when we asked why they wanted us
to go further, he responded he wanted us set fire
and show us. After this, I distanced myself and left
the group chat, though eventually was readded. While in my
(02:45):
hiatus from the group, Ben attacked Tom with a homemade blade.
I believe it was a razor from a sharpener. He
attacked him in school, resulting with a wound near the wrist.
This resulted in Ben being expelled from school, However, no
legal actions were taken. It's now been a month and
I was readded to the group chat to find that
(03:06):
Ben I've been sending graphic self harm photos and talking
about his hatred towards his family, blaming them for his misfortune.
I'm worried he generally gives off killer vibes, but perhaps
I'm just being paranoid. I often wonder about that time
in the forest and in the town plaza. Should I
(03:26):
be concerned or am I overreacting? I sometimes worry that
Ben knows where I live and isn't far away. This
happened over ten years ago, but I still think about
how close I came to dying. I was already with
(03:48):
my future husband when I met his cousin. We had
a lot in common. We both struggled with addiction and anorexia.
We talk on the phone and meet up to eat
and see a movie, but he kissed me in the car,
so I decided it would be best if we stop talking.
I told my future husband about the kiss, and he
(04:08):
was understanding. I didn't tell him that his cousin got
extremely upset over me turning him down. Some time passed
and we started meeting up as friends. Since we were
both starving ourselves, we always went to the same places,
but after a couple times I felt like it wasn't
healthy for either of us to meet up. He asked
(04:29):
me to meet up with him one last time, and
I stop believe said yes. We went to our place
and during dinner he was talking about his apartment and job,
how happy he could make me. I got uncomfortable and
I asked him to drive me home. It wasn't really late,
and instead of driving me home, he drove me to
(04:50):
a forest preserve. It was pitch black because all the
lights were off. I immediately felt uneasy. We were alone in
the parking lot, and I had a horrible feeling at
this point that something was going to happen. He parked
and turned off the car and looked at me and
said that we were meant for each other. I didn't
(05:11):
want to upset him, so I just said that he
knew I was engaged and that we were just friends.
He had history of violence, so I was terrified. He
started getting really upset and almost crying, saying that he
loved me. Then he put his arm around my neck
and held his arm really hard down on the right
side of my neck. And I've been looking straight ahead
(05:34):
when I suddenly woke up to the police officer at
my window. He was asking if I was okay. I
was really scared. I confused. I had some vomit on
my shirt and I wet my pants. It pressed down
on my carotid artery for long enough to knock me out.
He was a wrestler in high school. He was telling
(05:54):
the officer we were fine and that I was drunk.
He got a ticket, but I was I'm too afraid
to say anything because if he was arrested mine now
husband's family would have blamed me for it, or at
least that's what I thought. I said I was fine,
but I wanted to go home now. I thought if
I said that in front of the officer, he would
(06:14):
drive me home because he took our names and he
wouldn't risk trying to do something else. So he drove
me home and didn't say anything. I don't know if
he was trying to kill me or just got upset
and went overboard. Regardless, he did almost kill me, and
it really fucked me up. A person does not vombit
(06:35):
and wet themselves after neck compressions unless they almost died.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
I told my now.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Husband, but not right away because I felt like he
was partly my fault for meeting up with him. I
only saw him a couple more times on holidays, and
then he stopped coming. But he didn't dare speak to
me after what he did. If that officer hadn't shown up,
I don't know if I'd still be here. It started
(07:05):
like any other friendship. I met Ben in my freshman
year of high school. He was quiet, often keeping to himself,
but he seemed harmless enough. At first, he was a
little shy, always hanging around the edges of the group,
but over time he grew on me and we started
hanging out more. I thought we had a solid friendship
(07:26):
until things began to shift. It began with little things
he would send me long cryptic messages late at night,
talking about things that fell off. At first, I thought
it was just his way of being edgy. Ben had
this strange fascination with darker subjects, death, horror movies, and
(07:46):
violent video games. But it wasn't the usual teenage rebellion.
It was something deeper, something that made my skin crawl.
One night, Ben texted me something that didn't sit right.
It was a picture a dead animal, its body twisted
in unnatural ways.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
I did this, the message said. I was shocked.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
He's always been into some pretty crim stuff, but this
felt different. I tried to brush it off, thinking it
might be a prank. I told him to never send
anything like that again, but Ben's behavior started escalating. He'd
show up unexpectedly, standing outside my house for hours, staring
at my windows. When I confronted him, he would just
(08:35):
shrug it off, saying he was just thinking or needed
some fresh air. I started to avoid him, but every
time I turned around there he was watching me from
a distance. Then one Saturday afternoon, things took a darker turn.
I was walking through the local park my headphones in
when I felt a chill crawled up my spine. I
(08:58):
looked up and saw Ben standing in there at the
far end of the park, just staring at me. His
eyes were cold, distant, like he was studying me. I waved,
trying to brush it off, but he didn't wave back.
He just stood there, unmoving. My heart started racing. I
turned to leave, but when I was glancing over from
(09:19):
my shoulder, he was still there watching me. I felt
a not in my stomach. Something was wrong. I walked faster,
glancing back several more times. Each time he was still
standing there, his gaze fixed on me. It wasn't until
I was out of the park and on my way
home that I realized he'd followed me at a distance,
(09:41):
but he was there.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
That night, I got a text from Ben.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
I saw you today. You look scared. I like that.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
My hands went cold, and I felt the blood drained
from my face. It felt like he was toying with me.
I tried to ignore it, to pretend nothing was happening,
but the fear lingered. Over the next few days, I
started noticing little things, things that made me feel paranoid.
My things moved around in my room. My door, which
(10:12):
was always locked, was slightly a jar. When I came home,
and then there were the whispers in the hallway at
night that sounded like someone was just outside my door.
The worst part was when I found a note. It
was on my desk, tucked under a book. I had
no idea how it got there. The handwriting was messy.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
I'm closer than you think. You'll never escape me.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
I didn't know what to do. Ben had been showing
up in places I never told him I'll be, and
he always seemed to know exactly where I was. But
when I confronted him, he just laughed. You're paranoid, he said,
with a smile too wide. I just want to be friends.
But I didn't believe him anymore. Something in his eyes,
(10:58):
something in the way he spoke, made it clear that
he wasn't my friend. He was obsessed. That was when
I realized the truth. Ben wasn't stocking me out of interest.
He had been watching me because he wanted to control.
He wanted to know everything about me, where I went.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Who I was, with what I did.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
He thrived on the fear, the uncertainty, and no matter
how much I tried to distance myself, he always found
a way back into my life. I eventually had to
move to a different town, change my number, and delete
my social media. I didn't want to, but I had
no choice. I haven't heard from him in a while,
and I've tried to forget. I'd been friends with Sam
(11:49):
since elementary school. We were inseparable, two sides of the
same coin. He was charismatic and always the life of
the group. Everyone loved him. I trusted him like a brother,
never once questioning his attentions. But that all changed one
night when I found out who Sam really was. I
(12:10):
started suddenly At first, little things that didn't seem to
out of the ordinary, but added up over time. Sam
would make odd comments about people he didn't like, saying
things like if.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
They disappeared, no one would even.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Care, or he would talk about how easy it would
be to get away with things like theft or worse.
I left it off, thinking Sam was just being his usual,
over the top self, but something in the back of
my mind started to bother me. Than came the night
that everything changed. We were at a party, a few
(12:43):
drinks in, just having fun with our friend group. The
party was at someone's house near the woods, one of
those secluded places where people go to get away from
the world. Sam had been acting strange all night, with
drawn whiter than usual, kept looking at people in the
room with unsuddenly intensity. His eyes were cold. At one
(13:06):
point I saw him talking to Emily, a girl from
her class. She seemed uncomfortable, like she didn't know how
to get out of the conversation. I thought I would
step in and break it up, but before I could
get close, Sam's tone shifted. His voice was low and
oddly calm. I couldn't hear the words, but Emily's face
turned pale. I watched her back away, visibly shaken. She
(13:31):
muttered something to a few of us before she left
the party. I found Sam in the kitchen, pouring himself
in another drink. I asked him what that was about.
Why Emily looked so upset. Sam's smile was eerie, almost smug.
She just didn't get the joke, he said casually. But
I saw something in his eyes, a darkness that I've
(13:53):
never noticed before. I let us slide, but that night
I couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right. A
few days later I found out the truth. I ran
into her best friend, Lauren, who told me that Emily
had gone missing, just vanished. No one had seen her
since that night. The police were involved, but there were
(14:13):
no leads. I didn't think Sam had anything to do
with it, not at first, but the more I thought
about it, the more I couldn't ignore the growing suspicion.
The way Sam had been acting after the party, how
he always seemed to be watching people when they weren't looking,
how he would casually talk about things that made my
skin crawl. I decided to confront him, hoping that I
(14:35):
was just being paranoid. I invited him over to my place,
trying to keep things casual, but the second he walked in,
I felt it an overwhelming sense of dread. There was
a coldness about him, like he wasn't the Sam I
known for years. We sat down and I asked him
about Emily. His expression never faltered, but his eyes they
(14:58):
looked different. He didn't seem the least bit worried or
surprised that she was missing. He just stared at me
for a long moment before speaking. Don't worry about her,
he said, softly, his voice almost a whisper.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
She's fine.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
I'll make sure she's fine, just like I always make
sure things work out for us. It took me a
moment to process what he was saying. But when the
realization hit me, my stomach dropped. I knew, deep down,
Sam wasn't the person I thought he was. Before I
could say anything, Sam stood up, his face shifting into
something darker. He was no longer the friend I knew,
(15:37):
but someone else entirely. He moved towards me, his steps
slow and deliver it. You always were a little too curious,
weren't you. But that's okay. You'll learn to keep your
mouth shut. It's what friends do. Suddenly I was paralyzed
with fear, unable to move as he towered over me.
(15:57):
I was trapped in my own home, staring at the
face to someone I thought I knew. The Sam I
had trusted wasn't real. He was something else, something far darker.
Luckily I was able to escape him. That he finally left,
and I breathed a sigh of our leave. That was
the last time I saw Sam. It's been years now,
(16:20):
and I've kept my distance from anyone who reminds me
of Sam. I still hear his voice in my nightmares,
and my only memory of him was his eyes. In
the last few weeks that I knew him, I don't
know what happened to Emily. I don't know Sam was responsible,
or if he's still out there hiding in playing sight.
But I know one thing for sure. Sam wasn't the
(16:42):
person I thought he was. He wasn't my friend.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
He was evil.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
And if you ever meet someone like Sam, trust me,
stay far far away. And it started on one of
those meet new Friends apps. I'm not just a huge loser.
I swear. I moved to my current city during the
(17:08):
pandemic and have a work from home position, so it
just hasn't been the prime circumstances for a social life.
I matched with this random girl we'll call her Annie.
I can't remember if I saw her first or vice versa. Honestly,
I was paying more attention to the profiles than the pictures,
and she seemed okay. Spirituality came up somehow. I can't
(17:33):
remember how this happened either, and to be fair, it
could have been either of us. I had recently been
more seriously following Norse paganism, but it wasn't something that
I was seeking to explore with other people. It was
mostly a private thing. Not to mention, my own beliefs
are more metaphorical, but that doesn't mean I'm close to
(17:53):
the experience entirely. So when she mentioned having an LGBTQ
neurodivergent pagan fem coven, I was like, Okay, wow, that's
either very specific or very broad, but hey, why not
maybe it would be fun. So we agreed to meet
first before I went to the event. One weird thing
(18:16):
that stuck out in our text conversations was that their
partner was in some sort of bizarre scientology rehab. At first,
I assumed it was a place where one recovers from scientology,
but I did ask her if for a partner was
a scientologist. I didn't get an answer, well, only my
for an hour to have coffee. I think more red
(18:38):
flags would have popped up if we had more time,
because the little things that one of my radar were
things that weren't that weird, Like there were more explanations
or I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt,
and my dumb ass didn't ask about the scientology thing.
I kept meaning to google scientology rehab, but kept forgetting
(18:58):
to do it. I have since googled it and cannot
find anything about the rehab for ex scientologists. So I
wish I would have done that sooner. There were, however,
other things that stuck out. They're relatively benign out of context,
but putting everything together in retrospect made me feel dumb.
She wouldn't answer any direct questions about herself, and not
(19:21):
for lack of asking. I'm the kind of person who
is conscious of when the attention is all on me.
So it made me uncomfortable, and I didn't learn anything
about her. Really, most of what she said had to
do with her spiritual awakening. Her spiritual awakening itself sounded
weird as fuck. She said she was like a lighthouse,
(19:43):
drawing people towards their personal enlightenment, and okay, I did
think that was weird, but like she was from California,
I don't know, maybe that's normal, and I just chalked
it up to her personal beliefs being whatever they were.
Incarnation was a big part of paganism. She told me
(20:04):
she didn't think she had any past lives and is
a new soul, which doesn't make a lot of sense,
but okay, whatever, not my circus, not my monkeys. The
vaguely supernatural element she placed on herself was strange, but
I knew a lot of people that wanted to feel special.
That didn't mean I had to believe it. At one point,
(20:24):
I told her about this random woman I met at
the Pagan festival who tried to calm me. She wanted
to charge me so I could be under her wing
or whatever. I don't need someone to protect me or
guide me, so I declined. As I was telling this story,
I could tell that Annie was conflicted, like she wanted
to agree but didn't. Finally, she said something like how
(20:48):
it was only inappropriate because the student should choose the teacher,
so I clarified that I didn't want a teacher. Her
responses were very mirroring, and I'm not a moron. I
was getting a weird sense that she wasn't being honest
with me, that she was telling me things I wanted
to hear. So I told myself she was probably just nervous.
(21:10):
I had a strong personality. I'm very independent, so I
can understand why someone wouldn't want to go up against
things I said in our very first meeting. I know
I'm just dumb at this point, but I didn't want
to be paranoid. I don't trust people easily, and I
know that, so I was just trying to loosen up
and be more chill. Yeah, big mistake. So I go
(21:33):
to this thing immediately it's weird. The second I stepped
foot in that house, I'm uncomfortable. It's filled with people
and completely silent. Everyone is looking at me. I'm laughing
and saying hi, and no one is like really responding.
And here I am awkwardly dropping my keys and phone
(21:53):
while everyone is just watching me. Eventually, I take a
seat on the short couch because there's no room on
the large circle. It's a very small living room and
there's like twenty people circled up. There's a cushion on
the couch, so I sit on that. The leader starts
talking and as she's going on, I'm looking around at
(22:14):
the people there. I was curious. Out of the corner
of my eye, I see the leader trying to look
at me. The girl sitting in front of me was
partially blocking our view of each other, so the leader
is like leaning over and trying to meet my gaze. Finally,
it felt awkward enough to like shift over, so I
was leaning against the arm of the chair, staying perched
(22:38):
on that fucking cushion. Was uncomfortable by this point, so
I shifted off and spread out a bit to be
more comfortable.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
The leader ended.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Their speech with so spread out, I guess, which was
clearly directed to me. It was said with some humor, though,
so I wasn't sure what to make of it. Everyone
introduces them and their unique brand of neurodivergent. I'm ADHD,
but I guess I don't subscribe to labels beyond the
(23:08):
requirement to stay medicated. I've been medicated since twenty fifteen,
so this isn't a new diagnosis for me. That was
the only question we got asked about ourselves beyond our name.
The leader guides us through meditation, and people are making
these weird breathing.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Sounds and hums. I get it. It's spiritual, right.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Unfortunately, my ADHD can't focus to save my life, and
it's impossible for me to follow a guided meditation. So
I'm sitting there with my eyes closed and barely paying
attention because I can't. But I do hear the leaders
say we should think of anything we would like to
ask her or need from her, and that got my attention.
(23:51):
But the fact that I need to ask her other
than where the snacks were, because I paid eight dollars.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
And I don't see a single snack.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Once the medaecation ended, Annie and the leader walked around
and gave us material for inactivity. Annie gave me two
long pieces of twine, and the leader gave me two sticks.
As the leader was hanging out the sticks, asked her
where the snacks were. She was like, in the kitchen,
on the table where snacks tend to be. I'm a dry,
(24:23):
sarcastic person, so I thought this was her brand of humor.
I laughed and played along. All right, I think I'll
find them. She literally was deadpan, unsmiling m h and
then walked away. So stupid me thought she just might
be like that. But then I saw her laughing with
the other girls and realized something was off. As activity commenced,
(24:48):
she went back over to Annie and started stroking her back,
kissing her hair, and giving me this creepy smile. Yeah,
it was weird. I was so uncomfortable. I wanted to
get up and go, but I couldn't why because of
this damn activity. The activity was the last straw they
wanted us to think of something we wanted to discard
(25:09):
that brought us pain. Then they wanted us to feel
how bad this thing made us feel as we slowly
twisted a piece of twine around a stick. That shit
that I would only do with a therapist. Obviously, people
were emotionally milking down before long. I wasn't comfortable doing
this activity for obvious reasons, so I sat there awkwardly
(25:30):
with the sticks and the string in my lap. I
was the only one not doing it, and it was obvious.
But because I wasn't doing it, I had the opportunity
to watch Annie and the leader, and it was chilling.
Annie was doing some weird pyramid thing above her head
with her arms. There were a lot of references to
(25:51):
her being a lighthouse or some sort of guiding figure
throughout the meeting. She was the only one that wasn't
doing the ritual other than the leader. They were both
running it. Suddenly it occurred to me, as it probably
did to y'all already, that Annie had been using the
app just to bring people into their group. She was
(26:13):
the only person who seemed to know everyone, yet no
one knew each other. Even the name of their group
made sense.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Now.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
They weren't being specific. They were casting a wide net,
and I had this big realization in a handful of seconds.
It made my stomach turn. So yeah, I was done,
but I can't get up because people were sharing their
experiences and shit pouring their hearts out.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
This was the most fucked up part of it, in
my opinion.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
There's no reason to do ever releasing ceremony that forces
people to feel their trauma, especially at the very first meeting.
It was inherently manipulative, but it requires people to let
their guard down. Then they can save the day by
showing people how they released the very same pain they inflicted.
But that isn't the fault of the people there, so
(27:03):
I didn't want to disrespect them. Like people were sobbing
on top of my shoes that I left by the door.
I had to wait for the best time to ask
someone to pass them to me. Finally I got up
and told everyone that I had to go to my car,
then took off. I texted Annie and told her I
wouldn't be back and that I hope she found her. People,
(27:25):
just make sure you're not hurt.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
People.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Be really careful of any spiritual ceremonies or practices that
demand's vulnerability from you, especially directed by people.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
That don't know you beyond your name. Annie.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Let's not meet under any circumstances, ever, ever, again
I don't know if this sub is the most suitable
place for this post, but I don't know what to do,
so I'm just hoping to vent and hope for advice.
My encounter with this individual we all call Ben, began
in November twenty twenty four in school. He was a
friend of one of my friends, Tom, and eventually we
(00:27):
became part of the same friend group. I have always
found Ben a bit creepy, which seemed to be the
school's population's general view towards him. However, once we became
regularly socializing, I began to feel bad for my presumptions.
That was until we were added to the WhatsApp group.
That's when things started to turn. First, it was the mindless,
(00:51):
constant images of gore he would send, involving torture victims
and murdered children. I don't know if these images were real,
but the really uncomfortable, to the point I asked him
to stop, which I was told to take a joke
and stop being a pussy. This was followed by messages
where he stated that he had killed a cat, along
(01:11):
with sick fantasies involving people I knew. I wasn't sure
if Ben was just the average edge lord, which was
the other friend's attitude. But something didn't seem right. Then
one Saturday, I was alone Christmas shopping in town when
I know is Ben standing on the road for me,
just staring directly at me. I waved at him awkwardly,
(01:35):
to which he just stared before walking casually down a
side street. For the rest of the trip, every time
I turned Ben was standing there, just staring at me
at a distance. I eventually just gave up shopping and
went home. Pissed. I text him about it, to which
he just stated that he didn't know what I was
talking about. Then, in school, on lunch, Ben and another friend, Jack,
(02:00):
convinced me to come with him to the forest behind
the school, along with another friend named Zach. Stupid, I know,
but I was bored and accompanied anyway. We started getting
deeper in and Ben was becoming weird. He was laughing
and kept repeating closer closer. Eventually, both me and Zack
(02:22):
agreed that it was creepy and off putting, and we
returned back to school. Ben seemed pissed when he and
Jack returned. However, when we asked why they wanted us
to go further, he responded he wanted us set fire
and show us. After this, I distanced myself and left
the group chat, though eventually was readded. While in my
(02:45):
hiatus from the group, Ben attacked Tom with a homemade blade.
I believe it was a razor from a sharpener. He
attacked him in school, resulting with a wound near the wrist.
This resulted in Ben being expelled from school, However, no
legal actions were taken. It's now been a month and
I was readded to the group chat to find that
(03:06):
Ben I've been sending graphic self harm photos and talking
about his hatred towards his family, blaming them for his misfortune.
I'm worried he generally gives off killer vibes, but perhaps
I'm just being paranoid. I often wonder about that time
in the forest and in the town plaza. Should I
(03:26):
be concerned or am I overreacting? I sometimes worry that
Ben knows where I live and isn't far away. This
happened over ten years ago, but I still think about
how close I came to dying. I was already with
(03:48):
my future husband when I met his cousin. We had
a lot in common. We both struggled with addiction and anorexia.
We talk on the phone and meet up to eat
and see a movie, but he kissed me in the car,
so I decided it would be best if we stop talking.
I told my future husband about the kiss, and he
(04:08):
was understanding. I didn't tell him that his cousin got
extremely upset over me turning him down. Some time passed
and we started meeting up as friends. Since we were
both starving ourselves, we always went to the same places,
but after a couple times I felt like it wasn't
healthy for either of us to meet up. He asked
(04:29):
me to meet up with him one last time, and
I stop believe said yes. We went to our place
and during dinner he was talking about his apartment and job,
how happy he could make me. I got uncomfortable and
I asked him to drive me home. It wasn't really late,
and instead of driving me home, he drove me to
(04:50):
a forest preserve. It was pitch black because all the
lights were off. I immediately felt uneasy. We were alone in
the parking lot, and I had a horrible feeling at
this point that something was going to happen. He parked
and turned off the car and looked at me and
said that we were meant for each other. I didn't
(05:11):
want to upset him, so I just said that he
knew I was engaged and that we were just friends.
He had history of violence, so I was terrified. He
started getting really upset and almost crying, saying that he
loved me. Then he put his arm around my neck
and held his arm really hard down on the right
side of my neck. And I've been looking straight ahead
(05:34):
when I suddenly woke up to the police officer at
my window. He was asking if I was okay. I
was really scared. I confused. I had some vomit on
my shirt and I wet my pants. It pressed down
on my carotid artery for long enough to knock me out.
He was a wrestler in high school. He was telling
(05:54):
the officer we were fine and that I was drunk.
He got a ticket, but I was I'm too afraid
to say anything because if he was arrested mine now
husband's family would have blamed me for it, or at
least that's what I thought. I said I was fine,
but I wanted to go home now. I thought if
I said that in front of the officer, he would
(06:14):
drive me home because he took our names and he
wouldn't risk trying to do something else. So he drove
me home and didn't say anything. I don't know if
he was trying to kill me or just got upset
and went overboard. Regardless, he did almost kill me, and
it really fucked me up. A person does not vombit
(06:35):
and wet themselves after neck compressions unless they almost died.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
I told my now.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Husband, but not right away because I felt like he
was partly my fault for meeting up with him. I
only saw him a couple more times on holidays, and
then he stopped coming. But he didn't dare speak to
me after what he did. If that officer hadn't shown up,
I don't know if I'd still be here. It started
(07:05):
like any other friendship. I met Ben in my freshman
year of high school. He was quiet, often keeping to himself,
but he seemed harmless enough. At first, he was a
little shy, always hanging around the edges of the group,
but over time he grew on me and we started
hanging out more. I thought we had a solid friendship
(07:26):
until things began to shift. It began with little things
he would send me long cryptic messages late at night,
talking about things that fell off. At first, I thought
it was just his way of being edgy. Ben had
this strange fascination with darker subjects, death, horror movies, and
(07:46):
violent video games. But it wasn't the usual teenage rebellion.
It was something deeper, something that made my skin crawl.
One night, Ben texted me something that didn't sit right.
It was a picture a dead animal, its body twisted
in unnatural ways.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
I did this, the message said. I was shocked.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
He's always been into some pretty crim stuff, but this
felt different. I tried to brush it off, thinking it
might be a prank. I told him to never send
anything like that again, but Ben's behavior started escalating. He'd
show up unexpectedly, standing outside my house for hours, staring
at my windows. When I confronted him, he would just
(08:35):
shrug it off, saying he was just thinking or needed
some fresh air. I started to avoid him, but every
time I turned around there he was watching me from
a distance. Then one Saturday afternoon, things took a darker turn.
I was walking through the local park my headphones in
when I felt a chill crawled up my spine. I
(08:58):
looked up and saw Ben standing in there at the
far end of the park, just staring at me. His
eyes were cold, distant, like he was studying me. I waved,
trying to brush it off, but he didn't wave back.
He just stood there, unmoving. My heart started racing. I
turned to leave, but when I was glancing over from
(09:19):
my shoulder, he was still there watching me. I felt
a not in my stomach. Something was wrong. I walked faster,
glancing back several more times. Each time he was still
standing there, his gaze fixed on me. It wasn't until
I was out of the park and on my way
home that I realized he'd followed me at a distance,
(09:41):
but he was there.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
That night, I got a text from Ben.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
I saw you today. You look scared. I like that.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
My hands went cold, and I felt the blood drained
from my face. It felt like he was toying with me.
I tried to ignore it, to pretend nothing was happening,
but the fear lingered. Over the next few days, I
started noticing little things, things that made me feel paranoid.
My things moved around in my room. My door, which
(10:12):
was always locked, was slightly a jar. When I came home,
and then there were the whispers in the hallway at
night that sounded like someone was just outside my door.
The worst part was when I found a note. It
was on my desk, tucked under a book. I had
no idea how it got there. The handwriting was messy.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
I'm closer than you think. You'll never escape me.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
I didn't know what to do. Ben had been showing
up in places I never told him I'll be, and
he always seemed to know exactly where I was. But
when I confronted him, he just laughed. You're paranoid, he said,
with a smile too wide. I just want to be friends.
But I didn't believe him anymore. Something in his eyes,
(10:58):
something in the way he spoke, made it clear that
he wasn't my friend. He was obsessed. That was when
I realized the truth. Ben wasn't stocking me out of interest.
He had been watching me because he wanted to control.
He wanted to know everything about me, where I went.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Who I was, with what I did.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
He thrived on the fear, the uncertainty, and no matter
how much I tried to distance myself, he always found
a way back into my life. I eventually had to
move to a different town, change my number, and delete
my social media. I didn't want to, but I had
no choice. I haven't heard from him in a while,
and I've tried to forget. I'd been friends with Sam
(11:49):
since elementary school. We were inseparable, two sides of the
same coin. He was charismatic and always the life of
the group. Everyone loved him. I trusted him like a brother,
never once questioning his attentions. But that all changed one
night when I found out who Sam really was. I
(12:10):
started suddenly At first, little things that didn't seem to
out of the ordinary, but added up over time. Sam
would make odd comments about people he didn't like, saying
things like if.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
They disappeared, no one would even.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Care, or he would talk about how easy it would
be to get away with things like theft or worse.
I left it off, thinking Sam was just being his usual,
over the top self, but something in the back of
my mind started to bother me. Than came the night
that everything changed. We were at a party, a few
(12:43):
drinks in, just having fun with our friend group. The
party was at someone's house near the woods, one of
those secluded places where people go to get away from
the world. Sam had been acting strange all night, with
drawn whiter than usual, kept looking at people in the
room with unsuddenly intensity. His eyes were cold. At one
(13:06):
point I saw him talking to Emily, a girl from
her class. She seemed uncomfortable, like she didn't know how
to get out of the conversation. I thought I would
step in and break it up, but before I could
get close, Sam's tone shifted. His voice was low and
oddly calm. I couldn't hear the words, but Emily's face
turned pale. I watched her back away, visibly shaken. She
(13:31):
muttered something to a few of us before she left
the party. I found Sam in the kitchen, pouring himself
in another drink. I asked him what that was about.
Why Emily looked so upset. Sam's smile was eerie, almost smug.
She just didn't get the joke, he said casually. But
I saw something in his eyes, a darkness that I've
(13:53):
never noticed before. I let us slide, but that night
I couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right. A
few days later I found out the truth. I ran
into her best friend, Lauren, who told me that Emily
had gone missing, just vanished. No one had seen her
since that night. The police were involved, but there were
(14:13):
no leads. I didn't think Sam had anything to do
with it, not at first, but the more I thought
about it, the more I couldn't ignore the growing suspicion.
The way Sam had been acting after the party, how
he always seemed to be watching people when they weren't looking,
how he would casually talk about things that made my
skin crawl. I decided to confront him, hoping that I
(14:35):
was just being paranoid. I invited him over to my place,
trying to keep things casual, but the second he walked in,
I felt it an overwhelming sense of dread. There was
a coldness about him, like he wasn't the Sam I
known for years. We sat down and I asked him
about Emily. His expression never faltered, but his eyes they
(14:58):
looked different. He didn't seem the least bit worried or
surprised that she was missing. He just stared at me
for a long moment before speaking. Don't worry about her,
he said, softly, his voice almost a whisper.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
She's fine.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
I'll make sure she's fine, just like I always make
sure things work out for us. It took me a
moment to process what he was saying. But when the
realization hit me, my stomach dropped. I knew, deep down,
Sam wasn't the person I thought he was. Before I
could say anything, Sam stood up, his face shifting into
something darker. He was no longer the friend I knew,
(15:37):
but someone else entirely. He moved towards me, his steps
slow and deliver it. You always were a little too curious,
weren't you. But that's okay. You'll learn to keep your
mouth shut. It's what friends do. Suddenly I was paralyzed
with fear, unable to move as he towered over me.
(15:57):
I was trapped in my own home, staring at the
face to someone I thought I knew. The Sam I
had trusted wasn't real. He was something else, something far darker.
Luckily I was able to escape him. That he finally left,
and I breathed a sigh of our leave. That was
the last time I saw Sam. It's been years now,
(16:20):
and I've kept my distance from anyone who reminds me
of Sam. I still hear his voice in my nightmares,
and my only memory of him was his eyes. In
the last few weeks that I knew him, I don't
know what happened to Emily. I don't know Sam was responsible,
or if he's still out there hiding in playing sight.
But I know one thing for sure. Sam wasn't the
(16:42):
person I thought he was. He wasn't my friend.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
He was evil.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
And if you ever meet someone like Sam, trust me,
stay far far away. And it started on one of
those meet new Friends apps. I'm not just a huge loser.
I swear. I moved to my current city during the
(17:08):
pandemic and have a work from home position, so it
just hasn't been the prime circumstances for a social life.
I matched with this random girl we'll call her Annie.
I can't remember if I saw her first or vice versa. Honestly,
I was paying more attention to the profiles than the pictures,
and she seemed okay. Spirituality came up somehow. I can't
(17:33):
remember how this happened either, and to be fair, it
could have been either of us. I had recently been
more seriously following Norse paganism, but it wasn't something that
I was seeking to explore with other people. It was
mostly a private thing. Not to mention, my own beliefs
are more metaphorical, but that doesn't mean I'm close to
(17:53):
the experience entirely. So when she mentioned having an LGBTQ
neurodivergent pagan fem coven, I was like, Okay, wow, that's
either very specific or very broad, but hey, why not
maybe it would be fun. So we agreed to meet
first before I went to the event. One weird thing
(18:16):
that stuck out in our text conversations was that their
partner was in some sort of bizarre scientology rehab. At first,
I assumed it was a place where one recovers from scientology,
but I did ask her if for a partner was
a scientologist. I didn't get an answer, well, only my
for an hour to have coffee. I think more red
(18:38):
flags would have popped up if we had more time,
because the little things that one of my radar were
things that weren't that weird, Like there were more explanations
or I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt,
and my dumb ass didn't ask about the scientology thing.
I kept meaning to google scientology rehab, but kept forgetting
(18:58):
to do it. I have since googled it and cannot
find anything about the rehab for ex scientologists. So I
wish I would have done that sooner. There were, however,
other things that stuck out. They're relatively benign out of context,
but putting everything together in retrospect made me feel dumb.
She wouldn't answer any direct questions about herself, and not
(19:21):
for lack of asking. I'm the kind of person who
is conscious of when the attention is all on me.
So it made me uncomfortable, and I didn't learn anything
about her. Really, most of what she said had to
do with her spiritual awakening. Her spiritual awakening itself sounded
weird as fuck. She said she was like a lighthouse,
(19:43):
drawing people towards their personal enlightenment, and okay, I did
think that was weird, but like she was from California,
I don't know, maybe that's normal, and I just chalked
it up to her personal beliefs being whatever they were.
Incarnation was a big part of paganism. She told me
(20:04):
she didn't think she had any past lives and is
a new soul, which doesn't make a lot of sense,
but okay, whatever, not my circus, not my monkeys. The
vaguely supernatural element she placed on herself was strange, but
I knew a lot of people that wanted to feel special.
That didn't mean I had to believe it. At one point,
(20:24):
I told her about this random woman I met at
the Pagan festival who tried to calm me. She wanted
to charge me so I could be under her wing
or whatever. I don't need someone to protect me or
guide me, so I declined. As I was telling this story,
I could tell that Annie was conflicted, like she wanted
to agree but didn't. Finally, she said something like how
(20:48):
it was only inappropriate because the student should choose the teacher,
so I clarified that I didn't want a teacher. Her
responses were very mirroring, and I'm not a moron. I
was getting a weird sense that she wasn't being honest
with me, that she was telling me things I wanted
to hear. So I told myself she was probably just nervous.
(21:10):
I had a strong personality. I'm very independent, so I
can understand why someone wouldn't want to go up against
things I said in our very first meeting. I know
I'm just dumb at this point, but I didn't want
to be paranoid. I don't trust people easily, and I
know that, so I was just trying to loosen up
and be more chill. Yeah, big mistake. So I go
(21:33):
to this thing immediately it's weird. The second I stepped
foot in that house, I'm uncomfortable. It's filled with people
and completely silent. Everyone is looking at me. I'm laughing
and saying hi, and no one is like really responding.
And here I am awkwardly dropping my keys and phone
(21:53):
while everyone is just watching me. Eventually, I take a
seat on the short couch because there's no room on
the large circle. It's a very small living room and
there's like twenty people circled up. There's a cushion on
the couch, so I sit on that. The leader starts
talking and as she's going on, I'm looking around at
(22:14):
the people there. I was curious. Out of the corner
of my eye, I see the leader trying to look
at me. The girl sitting in front of me was
partially blocking our view of each other, so the leader
is like leaning over and trying to meet my gaze. Finally,
it felt awkward enough to like shift over, so I
was leaning against the arm of the chair, staying perched
(22:38):
on that fucking cushion. Was uncomfortable by this point, so
I shifted off and spread out a bit to be
more comfortable.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
The leader ended.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Their speech with so spread out, I guess, which was
clearly directed to me. It was said with some humor, though,
so I wasn't sure what to make of it. Everyone
introduces them and their unique brand of neurodivergent. I'm ADHD,
but I guess I don't subscribe to labels beyond the
(23:08):
requirement to stay medicated. I've been medicated since twenty fifteen,
so this isn't a new diagnosis for me. That was
the only question we got asked about ourselves beyond our name.
The leader guides us through meditation, and people are making
these weird breathing.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Sounds and hums. I get it. It's spiritual, right.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Unfortunately, my ADHD can't focus to save my life, and
it's impossible for me to follow a guided meditation. So
I'm sitting there with my eyes closed and barely paying
attention because I can't. But I do hear the leaders
say we should think of anything we would like to
ask her or need from her, and that got my attention.
(23:51):
But the fact that I need to ask her other
than where the snacks were, because I paid eight dollars.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
And I don't see a single snack.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Once the medaecation ended, Annie and the leader walked around
and gave us material for inactivity. Annie gave me two
long pieces of twine, and the leader gave me two sticks.
As the leader was hanging out the sticks, asked her
where the snacks were. She was like, in the kitchen,
on the table where snacks tend to be. I'm a dry,
(24:23):
sarcastic person, so I thought this was her brand of humor.
I laughed and played along. All right, I think I'll
find them. She literally was deadpan, unsmiling m h and
then walked away. So stupid me thought she just might
be like that. But then I saw her laughing with
the other girls and realized something was off. As activity commenced,
(24:48):
she went back over to Annie and started stroking her back,
kissing her hair, and giving me this creepy smile. Yeah,
it was weird. I was so uncomfortable. I wanted to
get up and go, but I couldn't why because of
this damn activity. The activity was the last straw they
wanted us to think of something we wanted to discard
(25:09):
that brought us pain. Then they wanted us to feel
how bad this thing made us feel as we slowly
twisted a piece of twine around a stick. That shit
that I would only do with a therapist. Obviously, people
were emotionally milking down before long. I wasn't comfortable doing
this activity for obvious reasons, so I sat there awkwardly
(25:30):
with the sticks and the string in my lap. I
was the only one not doing it, and it was obvious.
But because I wasn't doing it, I had the opportunity
to watch Annie and the leader, and it was chilling.
Annie was doing some weird pyramid thing above her head
with her arms. There were a lot of references to
(25:51):
her being a lighthouse or some sort of guiding figure
throughout the meeting. She was the only one that wasn't
doing the ritual other than the leader. They were both
running it. Suddenly it occurred to me, as it probably
did to y'all already, that Annie had been using the
app just to bring people into their group. She was
(26:13):
the only person who seemed to know everyone, yet no
one knew each other. Even the name of their group
made sense.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Now.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
They weren't being specific. They were casting a wide net,
and I had this big realization in a handful of seconds.
It made my stomach turn. So yeah, I was done,
but I can't get up because people were sharing their
experiences and shit pouring their hearts out.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
This was the most fucked up part of it, in
my opinion.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
There's no reason to do ever releasing ceremony that forces
people to feel their trauma, especially at the very first meeting.
It was inherently manipulative, but it requires people to let
their guard down. Then they can save the day by
showing people how they released the very same pain they inflicted.
But that isn't the fault of the people there, so
(27:03):
I didn't want to disrespect them. Like people were sobbing
on top of my shoes that I left by the door.
I had to wait for the best time to ask
someone to pass them to me. Finally I got up
and told everyone that I had to go to my car,
then took off. I texted Annie and told her I
wouldn't be back and that I hope she found her. People,
(27:25):
just make sure you're not hurt.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
People.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Be really careful of any spiritual ceremonies or practices that
demand's vulnerability from you, especially directed by people.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
That don't know you beyond your name. Annie.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Let's not meet under any circumstances, ever, ever, again
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