r/nosleep

My family experienced something I can’t explain, and we’ve stopped talking to each other. I don’t know what to do.

I don't want to sound crazy. We're normal people. If any of this sounds familiar, please reach out to me. I need to know what's happening to my family.

It's hard to know where to begin. I don't know when this all started, but it hasn't stopped.

I live with my wife and two college-aged daughters. I’m a private chef; my wife is a teacher. We live in a suburb outside a coastal US city, in an eighties-era planned community where every house and street feels like a mirror image. Crisp lawns, HOAs, everyone knows everyone. The people are a little bland, but we have a yard and a pool, and we can pay for groceries, and we can (barely) afford to send our kids to college out of state. We were lucky, I thought.

My first experience with the supernatural was last spring.

"Okay, you're really gonna hate this one," Sarah said. It was Monday, my Saturday, and I was grilling vegetables by the pool. My eldest daughter, a born trickster, sat on the least-broken pool chair, bombarding me with the most willfully ignorant pop music she could find, or terrible cooking videos, or clips of classic cars refurbished with electric motors.

Anything to get a reaction out of her poor, Gen X dad.

"Please, no. How about the guy who makes things out of chocolate?" I countered, hoping for a compromise.

"I’m looking for the Kings game you went to in 2006 where they lost 1 to 10." Sarah, jabbed.

"I’m burning your food on purpose.” I quipped.

"Wait." Sarah said, suddenly still.

Whatever this thing is, whatever these things are. My wife and my daughters feel it before I do. I don't know if they're more sensitive to it or what, but they always know something is there before me. Call it women's intuition.

"What's wrong?"

As I said it, I remember it got very quiet. Like the volume for the outside world turned all the way down. The birds, the traffic and the white noise of suburbia went silent. I couldn't even hear the sizzle of the vegetables cooking two feet in front of me.

The lack of sound didn't bother me however, because I saw something in the sky.

A disc.

I didn't want to see a disc. But I saw a disc. It was made of metal, perfectly smooth, no rivets, no seams, no wings, no exhaust. A perfectly formed metal disc, fifteen feet wide, like two contact lenses stuck together just... sitting there.

There were lights, big ones, bright in the sun even in the middle of the day, moving all around it.

I remember thinking... Really? Part of me was exasperated at how, well, dumb it looked. Like an old movie model. Only somehow, I knew it was real. And I was being watched.

And then I felt The Fear.

If you ask me I think the craft makes people feel it. I don't know. I know it sounds crazy. It’s like a madness. It fills you up, cold, just pure terror. As soon as your eyes see a craft, in a few seconds your mind blanks and you feel only fear of the thing in front of you. The disc-shaped ones, and the triangle shaped ones, they always seem to broadcast The Fear.

I’d never felt panic like that. I know how to deal with it a little easier now, but back then I wanted to put my daughter in the car and drive as far away from the thing as possible.

Only I was completely frozen.

I couldn't move, I couldn't speak. I could only move my eyes, and even that took tremendous effort. I struggled to look in my daughter‘s direction and saw she was equally paralyzed. Her pupils turned to me, then back to the craft.

And we did that for a few seconds, trying to process what was happening, looking to the disc, to each other, and back. It was agony.

And then the disc was gone.

I was looking right at it. It didn’t fly away, it didn't zoom off at incredible speeds. It was like it stopped existing while I was staring at it. When it was gone I could move and I could breathe and my daughter started crying, and I comforted her, and we swore and shook.

What the hell was that?

“Are you okay?!”

I remember we both asked that.

I remember reaching for my phone, but it was dead. Sarah’s phone was dead too. We went inside to charge them, still in a daze.

”Your face is really red,” said Sarah, concerned.

I caught my reflection in the hallway mirror. She was right. My face was burned. Like a sunburn. I wear sunblock every day and often work long hours in the sun. I never get sunburned.

“I’ll get you some aloe.” Sarah said, retreating into the downstairs bathroom.

I glanced at the oven clock. It was three hours later than I expected.

"Three hours?" I muttered.

"We were only outside for a few minutes... right?" Sarah's eyes widened in realization.

"What happened to us?" Sarah said softly.

We were missing time. I don’t know where that time went. I don’t know what happened during that time. Time feels weird around these things. It’s hard to describe.

We didn't talk much for a while. We just kind of sat in the living room, scrolling our phones. The evening darkened. I remember thinking I wanted to say something, but I didn't know what.

My wife Lauren and our youngest daughter Dani returning home from work broke us out of our malaise.

"A UFO burned your face?" Lauren said, incredulous. Lauren was always funny, even when she wasn't trying to be.

I won't lie, it sounded dumb. I tried to think of how to word it better.

"I saw it too. It was really weird." Sarah said, seriously.

"You sure you weren't standing too close to the grill again?" Dani teased. Her pants were covered in flour and oil, her hair pulled back. Dani worked at a restaurant, despite my objections.

"You're supposed to make the food in the restaurant, not on your outfit." I teased back. Dani smirked, she liked kitchen talk, she was a lot like me in that way.

"I don't understand, did you provoke them? Why'd they come all the way from space just to burn you?" Lauren asked, spreading student tests on the dining room table.

"Did it look like the ones we saw when we were kids?" Dani asked Sarah.

"No, this one was different. It was a different shape." Sarah said, shaking her head.

"What are you talking about? Which ones?" I asked, confused.

"Do you remember the night we saw the blue elf?" Dani asked.

Memories of Sarah and Dani as kids flooded my brain. One night, a brilliant blue light in the sky. Sarah and Dani ran into our room to hide. The feeling of someone watching. The memory filled me with dread. Feeling uncomfortable, I tried to change the subject.

"I don't want to cook tonight. Let's order out. What should we get?" I said, presenting a distraction.

We ate dinner as a family that night. We talked about normal things. I tried to seem unbothered, but I was obsessively turning over the sighting of the disc in my mind. What was that? Why couldn't we move?

The feeling stayed with me long after the meal had ended and the dishes were done. I remember that was our last normal dinner. I wish I'd made more of an effort that night. We'll never be the same family we were then.

I guess before I tell you about that night, I should explain what an Orb is.

An Orb is a kind of floating sphere. It looks kind of like a blue basketball filled with spaghetti-looking strands of... something. It has a mind, I think. I don't know what these things are. From what I can tell, they are unknowable. They will harm you. If you see an Orb, my advice is to run. They can move through walls.

The first night with the Orbs changed all of our lives forever. We stopped talking after that night.

I don't know if I can write it down in detail, yet. Even this was hard.

I read something recently.

Scientists have communicated with apes via sign language since the 1960’s. In all that time, apes have never asked a question. Maybe they can't conceive of what a question is. Their mind just can't form the reasoning to understand how to think of one.

I think that’s what it’s like when we see these things. These orbs, or discs, or whatever. Like we’re seeing something we can’t comprehend. I don’t think we think about aliens the right way. They’re not from another planet. They’re from somewhere else entirely.

Something has happened to my family. Something happened and we're still dealing with it, and I don't know what to do. I'm afraid to tell people. We're afraid to talk about it with each other.

I'm not even sure if anyone will read this. The world needs to know what's out there, what my family experienced. My family can't be the first. There must be others.

If you're still with me after these ramblings, thank you. The next part will not be easy to write. But you deserve to know the full truth about what the Orbs did to us. What they're capable of.

For now, I present to you this information. I do not think we live in a completely material world. There are supernatural forces all around us, and most of them are unkind. Be careful with how you think, and what you think of.

• Lee

At first I was going to post this in a relationship advice subreddit, but as it started getting stranger, I realized it makes more sense here.

So every morning my (F35) husband (M36) would wake up early and cook breakfast for us and our two kids. It was usually eggs and bacon, with some toast or biscuits or pancakes. We recently moved into a new three-bedroom apartment, in a much older part of the city, with this beautiful dark wood furniture already in it (since it was real wood, the lady renting it out decided it would be too heavy to be worth selling). Well, ever since, my husband seemed to have picked up a strange habit.

He's always been a bit lazy with cleaning up after cooking, so I'd always have to take the used eggshells out of the carton and throw them away for him. After we moved into the new place, I was proud of him. There'd never be eggshells in the carton, so I assumed he'd taken the chance amid all the chaos to fix a few of his bad habits.

Well, cue one random Tuesday morning. It was a work holiday at my office, but everyone else was out of the house. I decided to sweep and dust the place thoroughly, which we hadn't done since we'd moved in a month or so prior. I found a lot of dust bunnies and some coins and knicknacks, but by far the strangest thing I found was when I got to the wardrobe in our bedroom. It stood about four inches (10 cm I think) off the ground, on hand-carved clawed feet. When I peered under it, there was a lot of dust and spiderwebs, but behind it were eggshells.

Admittedly I jumped a little when I first saw them, but I pretty quickly realized (well, assumed) they were just regular eggshells. Maybe 7 or 8. I swept them out from under the wardrobe and threw them away. I figured they were from the previous owner, though I was thoroughly confused by why they'd be there of all places.

I cleaned again the next weekend. This time, I found eggshells under the couch. Pale white, slightly bigger, and slightly slimy. They must have been recent. That, and the fact I'd cleaned under the couch last time, ruled out the previous tenants as a source of the shells. I still wasn't sure if I wanted to bring it up with my husband...it seemed too strange of a thing to do intentionally, so I racked my brain for other explanations.

Maybe they got knocked under there unintentionally? But how would that happen half a dozen times? Maybe they got dragged under there by an animal? But we didn't have pets, and (thankfully) no issues with rodents or other critters. Maybe one of our kids fished them out of the trash and put them there? But Zoe was too young to get into the trash can (she could barely walk yet), and Nick...well Nick could've done it, he was 7, but I still couldn't think of a motive.

Over the following weeks, this happened several more times. Once it was in a dusty corner of the pantry, but both other times, it was the wardrobe again. I started getting increasingly curious, almost disturbed, by the occurences. It was a part of my morning routine, before anyone else got up, to check under every piece of furniture and in the corner of every closet and pantry with a little penlight, to check for shells from the previous morning without being interrupted. It had gotten more frequent...pretty much every day, I was finding eggshells, almost always under the wardrobe, nestled near the baseboard of the wall, not too far from the radiator.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to just watch my husband as he threw away the eggshells from breakfast, since now that we'd moved across the city, my commute was twice as long and I had to leave before breakfast was ready (he'd still have some toast or oatmeal ready for me though, while I did my hair and makeup). Finally, I decided to just confront him about it, since it was increasingly bothering me. Was this some sort of prank? A strange compulsion? Just his way of getting back at me for always complaining about the eggshells? Surely he knew that I knew, since I'd been cleaning them up every morning from under the wardrobe.

When he got home from his job (inspecting shipping crates) one day, I gave him some time to relax, then strode into the bedroom with him, and shut the door. "We need to talk about the eggshells."

He gave a little smile, and looked up at me. "So you noticed!"

Of course I noticed...I described to him my annoyance, and how after the first few times, I didn't really find it funny that he left raw eggshells all over the house (in fact, I didn't find it funny the first few times either...). I told him to knock it off, and stop with the wardrobe thing.

"...under the wardrobe?" came his confused reply. "I finally took the time to start throwing away my eggshells, since I knew it had always bothered you when I left them in the tray. That's what I was talking about. What on earth are you talking about?"

I was speechless. "So you haven't been leaving eggshells all over the house? Almost every morning, I've been finding them. Under the wardrobe mostly, but I've found them in closets, in the pantry, in my bookshelf, in laundry piles, hell, even under the blankets of our bed. If this is some sort of prank, you've definitely gotten me good."

His look of confusion was amplified. "Who do you think...could Nick be doing it? Or is this some sort of prank on me?"

"It can't be Nick. He's too squeamish around raw eggs. I tried testing the waters to see if it was him, he wouldn't even bring me an uncracked egg when I was baking cupcakes." Nick had always been a germaphobe, so his unwillingness to touch raw eggs didn't strike me as an act.

"Are there any shells under there from this morning?"

I had never considered checking under the wardrobe in the evening, so I did. I dropped to my knees and peered under it, and nothing.

"What about the other places?"

Intrigued, I grabbed my penlight. I'd been finding something every morning for the last week, so if there were any shells, I was sure I'd find them. I checked all the usual places, nothing. I checked the kids' beds, the kitchen cabinets, under the fridge, still not a sign of eggshells. "They must be being moved there overnight," I said, puzzled.

I had never connected this to the eggshells, but I started noticing this odd skittering noise in the middle of the night. I would awaken, usually between midnight and 2 AM, to a strange clicking, like claws on the hardwood floor. It would go away after a second, so I assumed it was the house settling, or maybe a ceiling fan downstairs rattling the floorboards. Rodents had been an early thought of mine, but a call to the previous tenants and a knock at my neighbors' doors confirmed nobody had ever had issues with mice, and we'd never noticed food going missing, holes being gnawed, or droppings. I couldn't understand why mice would move eggshells around, but it was the most likely explanation I had, so I put out some humane cage traps with lures.

One night, I woke up and heard the skittering again. This time, I grabbed my penlight, and walked out into the kitchen. I shone it around, but the skittering faded off and stopped. On the way back to bed, on a whim, I peered under the wardrobe. At first I thought I saw the shells again, but then I realized I was mistaken. They were uncracked, whole eggs. My curisoity turned to shock, then to revulsion as I realized they weren't ordinary eggs. They were larger, more rounded, slightly moist, and slightly translucent. I could even see darkish blobs floating inside the eggs. It took all of my self-control to not scream in horror, but I jumped, and slammed my head into a shelf in the (open, per usual) wardrobe. It woke up my husband, who came to his senses instantly, jumped out of bed, and asked if I was okay. I held onto the part of my head that I'd hit, wincing in pain, but managed to gesture under the wardrobe with the penlight. After looking at my head to make sure it wasn't bleeding, he cautiously peered under the wardrobe with the flashlight. "Oh my god," I heard him say.

We whispered for a few minutes, unsure what to do. We couldn't think of any animal that laid eggs like that. We knew we needed to get rid of them, but didn't know where to put them, or how to pick them up (we certainly weren't going to touch them). I shuddered to think of all the times I'd touched those shells with my bare hands, once they'd mostly dried. My skin crawled as I realized whatever was hatching from those had done so possibly -hundreds of times under that wardrobe. We settled on using a dinner plate and a spatula to gather up the eggs, and walked them downstairs and dumped them in the dewy grass. My husband had suggested throwing them off the balcony, but I didn't like the idea of killing whatever was growing in those eggs, despite not knowing what it was. What if they were something cute? (They were NOT something cute.)

The next night was by far the most horrifying night of my life. I'm going to warn you upfront, you might want to just stop here if you've experienced something similar long ago in your life, because you'd rather not know what it actually was. But here goes nothing.

I'd felt a bit on edge ever since last night. I'd struggled to sleep at all, so I grabbed an iced coffee from the fridge and pulled an all-nighter writing in my journal about what had been happening and how my life was going. As the sun rose, I started feeling a little silly, and figured the eggs were something innocuous, though I still didn't have the slighted clue what. I went to work, albeit with a bad headache, and everything seemed fine. I didn't bring up the eggs with my coworkers, since they would probably think I was crazy or be grossed out and suggest something drastic. Like fire. Maybe I should've considered that route.

That night, I checked the house for eggs, then went to sleep, and was awoken by the usual skittering. This time though, it was followed up by a muffled metallic clang, and much more violent skittering. My heart skipped a beat. The trap must have caught some sort of animal in the house. I considered rousing my husband, but I figured I'd be brave. I took the penlight, and peered cautiously around the door. The island counter blocked my view of the trap. As I carefully circumnavigated the counter, I caught a glimpse of the trap, and screamed. It held a spider-like, gray, hairy creature, about the size of a rat, or a small dinner plate if you counted its legs. I dropped the light in shock, and it broke, engulfing the room in darkness. I heard more skittering behind me, and a hiss from the monster in the trap. My eyes were still adjusting to the darkness, but I could see movement out of the corner of my eye. I squared off with one of the creatures, which had its legs bent, as if it was about to leap straight at me. Looking around frantically, I realized my only remaining option: up. I grabbed the cord to the attic door, and pulled. Something soft and light fell on my head and rolled off my back, but I grabbed the ladder and yanked it down, never taking my eyes of the spider thing, its eyes glowing in the faint moonlight. I scrambled up the ladder to the attic, and the last thing I remember is seeing hundreds, maybe thousands of tiny pinpricks of light. Blinking.

There will be spoilers for several movies due to the nature of my experience.

The first instance I remember is on the day I watched “Scream” in ‘96. I was driving home from work and passed a billboard on the highway. Just a plain white background with bold black lettering:

BILLY AND STU ARE THE KILLERS

At the time I was confused, but it didn’t take long to connect it once I sat down in the theater with my then girlfriend.

“A fucking billboard ruined that for me,” I said to her as we left. She didn’t believe me which was further cemented after I insisted we drive past that billboard. And just to make me look crazy it had been replaced with an ad for motor insurance.

“I swear this morning it said 'Billy and Stu are the killers'."

“Sure it did, Marty,” she said sarcastically. “Can you take me home now?”

Over the subsequent years various major spoilers were revealed to me in different ways. Another example is upon learning I had never seen “Psycho”, my wife Anna insisted we watch it after we put our daughter Penny to bed.

“Oh Mart, you’re in for a treat,” she said as we sat down with a bowl of warm popcorn. “It’s one of the best twists in cinema.”

We paused it after the infamous shower scene, so I could grab us some beers. I noticed Penny’s alphabet fridge magnets were arranged in a way that read:

NORMAN IS MRS BATES

I called Anna into the kitchen. She was baffled. “What, you think I did that?”

“Well I doubt it was Penny,” I snapped.

She gave me daggers. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Marty.”

It was then that we had a little conversation about my strange history with spoilers.

“One time I was preparing dinner, just chopping veg or something, and it was the request hour on the radio. The DJ was like ‘This one goes out to Marty in Seattle. Shutter Island hits theaters this weekend and Leonardo Dicaprio’s U.S. Marshal actually turns out to be an inmate in the asylum.’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. But he was fucking right.”

Anna didn’t believe me. She went to bed, and I ended up watching the rest of Psycho on my own, with the inevitable Norman/Mrs Bates reveal already spoiled.

I love movies, but when every little detail is spoiled for you, it kinda puts you off. Even if there were no significant twists, there would be notes in my pocket like “Dave gets lung cancer” or “She’s having an affair with the real estate agent.”

So now we come to “The Sixth Sense.” Another movie my wife said I had to watch for the twist. I think we all know as far as twists go, it’s a big one. She’d gone out for the night, Penny was in bed. I had avoided everything like the plague that day. I didn’t leave the house, I didn’t turn on the radio or TV, I didn’t check my phone, I didn’t read a book. You get it. I was bored shitless, but there were no spoilers.

I put the DVD in the drive and started the movie. I had snacks and beer at the ready. I didn’t need to leave the couch. If I needed to use the bathroom, I’d hold it.

So I’m sitting there, in the dark, slightly on edge. Cole has his little “I see dead people” scene and I get a little shiver. It’s good, that kid was a great actor. Then I heard a voice from behind me.

“Psst. Bruce Willis is a ghost.”

I jumped out of my skin, and turned just to see the outline of someone scutter into the hallway. It couldn’t have been Penny, because this figure was definitely an adult. And that voice. It was spooky, kind of like the Cryptkeeper or something.

“Who’s there?” I shouted. “Anna, is that you?” I wondered if she’d come home to play a prank on me. It took me some time to pluck up the courage to stand up, switching on a table lamp to give more light. The TV was paused on little Cole’s terrified face. I rolled up a magazine I grabbed from the coffee table. Upon realizing how ridiculous that was I threw it down and picked up a fire poker instead. Then I crept out of the living room into the hallway.

“Anna, this isn’t funny. I have a weapon, and if anyone jumps out on me I’m using it. Do you hear me Anna? I’ve got the fire poker in my hands and I will use it.”

“I’m not Anna,” I heard from further down the hall, followed by a disturbing chuckle. "I'm the eater of worlds, and of children." There was a roughly humanoid outline standing in the kitchen.

“Fuck me!” I yelled out, running upstairs to Penny’s room. I burst in, but she wasn’t there. Her bed was empty, neatly made. “Penny!” I screamed. I screamed her name over and over. I checked the bathroom, she wasn’t there. My legs gave way. I dropped the fire poker and used my cell to call Anna.

“I see dead people,” said Anna with a chuckle when she answered. I could hear music in the background.

“Anna… Penny’s gone!”

“What do you mean?” she said.

“I heard someone in the house. Someone spoiled the movie, they said Bruce Willis is a ghost. Then I went to get Penny, but she’s not in her room!”

“Mart, this isn’t funny.”

“Anna, please. I’m serious. She’s not here! And there’s someone in the house. I’ve gotta go. I’m gonna smash their fucking head in!”

“Mart, wait…” I hung up and picked up the fire poker, creeping back downstairs. I could feel my cell vibrating in my pocket but I ignored it.

“Where’s my daughter?” I yelled out. “Where’s Penny?”

I could hear something slouching around, like it was made of liquid. There were glistening footprints on the hallway tiles, which I followed to the kitchen. My hands were trembling.

“Unless you want this fire poker to meet your head, you’ll tell me where my daughter is.”

“What’s in the box?” that weird spooky voice said. “His wife’s head!” it cackled.

As I entered the kitchen I saw it. It was like some kind of goblin, hunched over and dripping with a green, algae like slime. It had long black hair and large facial features, pointed ears, a wide nose, bulbous eyes.

“What the fuck are you?” I stuttered.

It held up a bony hand with pointed nails. “Keyser Söze,” it laughed.

“Where’s Penny?” I yelled, swinging the fire poker. It grabbed it and forced it out of my hands, throwing it to the floor. Then it pushed me against the fridge, its foul breath in my face.

“Do you know what she did?” it said. “Your cunting daughter.”

“Fuck you!” I screamed, pushing it off me. “Penny! Penny!”

The thing continued to laugh. “She’s not here.”

“Where is she?” I cried. “Please, where is she?”

A deep chuckle came from its throat. “Perhaps you’ve suffered enough.”

“Marty!” yelled Anna, appearing in the kitchen. She clocked the goblin thing and screamed, falling to the floor with me. We held on to each other. “What the fuck is that?”

“I’m Juniper,” it said. “Like the berry. I’m kind of a movie demon, that’s probably the best way to describe me. I have been summoned to taunt Marty since 1995.”

“What? Why?”

“How’s your old friend Larry these days?” it asked.

“Larry? Jesus, I haven’t seen Larry for at least 15 years. I wouldn’t know.”

“Do you remember the day you watched Star Wars with him? Well, specifically The Empire Strikes Back?”

“I mean, vaguely. Why?”

“You remember spoiling the big reveal, right? You remember how funny you found it to reveal that Darth Vader was Luke’s father?”

“I… Well, yeah. But it’s just what we did when we were young, we were dicks.”

“Well, Larry didn’t find it very funny. When he got home that night, he made a wish. He didn’t really intend to, but he did regardless, because I was listening.”

“So, what. He wished for every movie I see to be spoiled?”

“Exactly!”

It was so outrageous that I couldn’t help but laugh. “I’ve heard it all now. Okay, so where’s my daughter?”

“Oh, this is awkward,” it said. “I think I’m going to hand this one over to you.” It pointed to Anna.

“Honey?” I said. “I don’t understand.”

“Mart,” said Anna, grabbing my hands. She had tears in her eyes. “Penny died three years ago. She drowned in Pine Lake, when we were on vacation.”

I shook my head. “No, that’s not true. I saw her this morning. I put her to fucking bed this evening.”

“Spoiler alert,” said Juniper. “You see what you want to see. Hey, it’s just like that