This video contains some graphic and horror
content, and is not recommended for those who are faint of heart, who have serious health
conditions, or are under the age of 14. Viewer discretion is advised. Number 15. Candle Cove: Told through a series
of forum posts, Candle Cove began on the horror forums of Ichior Falls on March 15, 2009.
A person under the name Skyshale033 asks if anyone remembers a children's show called
Candle Cove. Several other members soon respond stating they remember the show, and begin
to discuss the bizarre plot of what amounts to a rather disturbing television series.
The premise was a young girl befriending a group of pirates, and the crazy antics they
get into. Characters included Pirate Percy, a ragdoll-esque puppet who appeared to have
bits of other dolls stitched to it, the terrifying Skin-Taker, a skeleton who would utter the
threat “To grind your skin,” and Horace Horrible, a monocle wearing, moustached villain
and spy for the Skin-Taker with a menacing grin. The discussion continues with the writers
reminiscing on the more odd and scary moments of the show, even an infamous episode with
only screaming for audio, and the main character crying. The posts end with a user by the name
mike_painter65 remembering how he asked his mother about the show, and she said how she
remembered he would go to the tv the same time every week to watch Candle Cove, only
for him to be watching static for 20 minutes. A fan video of the screaming episode has appeared
online, recreating the surreal episode; fans of the story, wishing to keep the idea alive,
jokingly commented how the video was just static, hopeful to freak out unsuspecting
viewers to no end. Number 14. Robert the Doll: Artist Robert
Eugene Otto receives a doll in his childhood between the late 1800s and early 1900s, which
he names Robert after himself. However, the doll begins to take on a life of its own,
and starts terrorizing the Otto family after a servant was suspected of performing black
magic on Robert. Apparently, Otto could be heard by his mother talking to Robert, and
she would hear Robert respond; household objects would move around or go missing, and Otto
would always say “Robert did it!” when asked by his mother where the objects went.
Otto kept Robert into his adulthood, and reportedly drove his wife insane. Neighbours would report
seeing Robert running around the house when nobody was home. While sounding like a Child's
Play inspired story, the true horror in this creepypasta is Robert the Doll actually exists,
and is on display at the East Martello Museum in Florida. The story of Robert's devilish
activities are also highly documented, which is why this story has remained popular. Enthusiasts
travel to the museum in order to get a glimpse of Robert, and it has been reported Robert
hates having his picture taken, and will blur himself out of pictures with a blinding light
even though a person's flash is off. Staff have also said they have found Robert in a
different position in the morning than he was the past evening. Readers of Robert's
story are left to decide whether the stories are true, or if they are only an early example
of creepypasta. A fair warning, Robert the Doll hates skeptics. Number 13. The Portraits: An pure example
of the terror creepypastas can provide in a person regardless of the length, Portraits
is a short story detailing a hunter lost in the woods coming across a derelict cabin.
Upon entering, he finds nobody inside. Night is beginning to fall, so he decides to wait
for the occupants to return and explain his story, but hours soon pass and he figures
he'll just spend the night there. As he lays down to sleep, he can't help but look up at
the portraits all along the walls, staring down at him. He tosses and turns, but can't
seem to rid himself of the sight of the haunting portraits, until he finally rolls towards
the wall and manages to fall asleep. He is awoken by the morning light, and sits up,
only to be both puzzled and horrified by the fact there are no portraits on the walls,
only windows. Short yet sweet, and truly psychological, Portraits plays on a persons fears of becoming
lost alone and darkness approaching. It also has the creepypasta charm of acting quite
normal through most of it, and then placing the absolute terror into readers with the
last line. Number 12. Squidward's Suicide: While no longer
possessing the same strength in horror it did when it was written, Squidward's Suicide
was at a time the most popular creepypasta on the web. In the genre of Lost Episodes,
the story is told through the eyes of a Nickelodeon intern in 2005, and he and his coworkers receive
a tape labelled Squidward's Suicide. They all decide to watch the film, and find a disturbing
twist on the beloved Spongebob Squarepants program. The episode depicts the typically
cynical squidward sitting on a bed, while unsettling sounds play in the background.
Quick flashes depicting dead children and other macabre scenes appear on screen, and
the sounds increase in volume. Squidward now appears o be fadded black and his eyes are
turning red. At the end of the video, Squidward shoots himself as a strange, demonic voice
eggs him to do it, and the tape ends. The employees dismiss the tape as a prank, but
they check the timestamp and are alarmed to discover it was edited only half-a-minute
before they received the tape. They hand the tape over to authorities, but the investigation
quickly turns cold. A video on youtube had been released depicting the disturbing video,
and while rather tame, it is still not for the faint of heart. Number 11. Ted the Caver: Ted and his friends
Brad and Joe enjoy exploring caves in their area, and their tale is told through a series
of blog posts. Ted explains how he, Brad and Joe were exploring a cave near their home
an came across a very narrow hole they wished to pass through. They drill the hole large
enough for them to fit, but soon things take a bad turn; the group starts hearing disembodied
screams, and find strange hieroglyphs on the walls. After exiting the cave, their ordeal
only gets worse; the three of them suffer from hallucinations and nightmares of their
experiences in the cave. The three men decide to go back to the cave one last time in order
to find closure for their psychological trauma, and have opted to bring a gun and a knife
with them on their last exploration. The blog ends with “See all of you soon, with a lot
of answers! Love, Ted.” That was the last anyone heard from Ted, and the blog has not
been updated since. The fear behind this story is that of claustrophobia, especially with
the amount of photos Ted posts of his experiences in the cave itself, showing off the tight
passageways they have to cross through. Fear of the dark and becoming trapped are also
heavily used, especially since Ted's, Brad's and Joe's whereabouts are unknown, and the
story is ended ambiguously. Number 10. Quantum Suicide: Less nightmare
fuel than it providing a thought experiment which will stay with the reader long after
they've finished reading the story. A woman becomes tired of her self-perceived mediocrity
and decides to end her life. After purchasing a handgun, she writes her family a suicide
note and goes off into the woods. She rests at a tree, places the gun in her mouth, and
pulls the trigger; however, the hammer falls but the gun doesn't fire. She tries again
and again, but each time results in a misfire, causing her to grow angry. The narrator then
details how she read a thought experiment years earlier about the idea a person can
obtain immortality via the Quantum Suicide. Basically, a person attempts suicide in their
life, but instead of killing themselves, they kill an alternate version of themselves instead,
leaving them unharmed. With each pull of the trigger, she has killed herself in a parallel
reality. Ten days after she left, a search party finally finds her still against the
tree, having died of dehydration. The narrator then reveals while the suicide can't kill
a person, the rule doesn't take other causes of death into account. Number 9. Two Sentence Horror Stories: A subgenre
of creepypasta, Two SentenceHorror Stories are exactly as their title sounds: Horror
stories told in two lines or less. While some might find this silly, once they begin reading
examples it is easy to understand why they fit in so well to the horror genre and creepypasta
world. Many of them are written by internet users, and range from bizarre, to terrifying,
to “sleeping-with-the-light-on-tonight.” Some examples: By Graboid27: I can't move, breathe, speak
or hear and it's so dark all the time. If I knew it would be this lonely, I would have
been cremated instead. By therealhatman: I woke up to hear knocking
on glass. At first, I thought it was the window until I heard it come from the mirror again. By guztaluz: There was a picture in my phone
of me sleeping. I live alone. By Vaultkidd321: “I can't sleep” she whispered,
crawling into bed with me. I woke up cold, clutching the dress she was buried in. If any of these peek your interest, it isn't
hard to find more with a quick search on the internet. A fair warning, a lot of these are
nightmare inducing, and you may wake up in terror with a two line story yourself. Number 8. 1999: Similar to Candle Cove, a
Canadian man from Caledon, Ontario begins posting blog entries talking about a television
channel known as Caledon Local 21, and details his experiences watching the shows Bobby and
Mr. Bear's Cellar. Bobby was a man's hand who walked around like a person, and the writer
talks about how he only watched a few episodes until one called Playing With Scissors; a
hand is seen trapped on a table jerking violently around, while Bobby enters holding scissors
and appears to stab the captive hand repeatedly to the point bone is showing. Mr. Bear's Cellar
appeared to have a deranged dressed as a bear who would interact with children on the show.
However, his sinister motives were soon made clear as the episodes progressed, and eventually
the broadcasts were shut down by police, though Mr. Bear fled arrest. The man begins to search
for the identity of Mr. Bear in hopes of finding justice to the children he murdered and possibly
molested, and he updates his blog posts every so often. While posts are far and few in between,
the entire lore of this story makes it horrifying, playing on the fears of pedophiles and child
murder. Number 7. The Keyhole: The enjoyability in
this story is its obvious inspiration from gothic horror literature. Keyhole is a short
story about a man who checks into a hotel, and is advised by the front clerk to under
no circumstances peek into or enter the room with no number on it. During the second night
of his stay, the man can no longer contain his curiosity and he decides to have a look
inside. The door is locked tight, but he peeks through the keyhole; he is surprised to see
a pale woman resting against the wall on the opposite side of the door. The next day, the
man once again looks through the keyhole, but only sees a reddish colour, as if something
is blocking the hole. He figures the woman felt she was being spied on and covered the
keyhole to prevent this from happening again, and decides to as the woman at the front desk
about it. Upon making his inquiry, the woman sighs with disappointment and asks if he looked
through the keyhole, which he confesses to. The woman explains a man murdered his wife
in that room and she now haunts it, which is why it is out of bounds. She continues
by saying eyewitnesses describe the woman as very pale, except for her bloodshot red
eyes. Number 6. r/nosleep: A rather bizarre entry
to this list, but this subreddit has earned its place here. r/nosleep is a forum section
on reddit where redditors can post their own horror stories for the masses to read and
critique. As of January 2016, the subreddit has over 4 million subscribers, and hundreds
– possibly thousands – of stories are posted every day. Stories vary in content,
from paranormal experiences, to murder, to people recollecting memories of their past.
The most terrifying thing about the stories is the effort authors put in to create a sense
of believability to them, and they are often written to resemble entries seen on r/Confessions
or r/LetsNotMeet. The all-time top post is called “I'm a Search and Rescue Officer
for the US Forest Service, I have some stories to tell,” by Search And Rescue Woods and
is not one, but a collection of six short stories from a man's experience in the field,
from finding missing persons, dealing with delusional people, and hints of some sort
of spiritual evil being present in the area he works in. It became so popular, a part
two following the same themes. r/nosleep certainly deserves its title, as like other creepypastas,
it ranges from the bizarre and though provoking, to the nightmare fuel bound to keep people
up at night. Number 5. Bongcheon-Dong Ghost: Taking creepypasta
to the next level, Bongcheon-Dong Ghost is a webcomic about a young girl walking home
in the mid-evening when she encounters a woman walking ahead of her. As the girl gets closer,
she notices the woman is amiss, and she is walking with a disfigured leg. As the girl
stops to assess what is happening, the reader is taken by surprise when the comic suddenly
moves as the woman turns her neck completely around, with the sound of a neck cracking
accompanying it. The woman says she is looking for her baby, and the terrified girl points
ahead saying the baby is over there. The woman continues walking as the girl turns to make
a quick getaway in the opposite direction. Believing she is safe, she suddenly hears
the woman scream behind her, and when she turns, the reader is once again startled by
another motion frame of the woman rapidly spider walking towards the girl, and the readers
get a full view of the woman's disfigured face. The story ends with the girl explaining
how she was found unconscious by a passerby a few hours later, and how she learned a woman
committed suicide in the apartment complex next to the incident by jumping from the top
floor after her baby was taken away. The story draws inspiration by J and K-horror stories
and movies, such as Ju-On and Ringu, and plays a psychological game with the reader, with
the fear of anticipating a scare more horrifying than the scares themselves. Number 4. Jeff the Killer: Like others on
this list, it would not be complete without Jeff the Killer. An early example of creepypasta
and playing on the fears of one being defenseless as we sleep, Jeff the Killer is a tragic story
of a boy, who went to a neighbourhood birthday party with his brother. While waiting for
the bus, he and his brother are attacked by three bullies, but Jeff gets the upper hand
and leaves to boys bloodied; Jeff finds an overwhelming satisfaction in hurting them,
but he and his brother flee out of fear of getting in trouble. Later at the party, the
bullies return and light Jeff on fire, horribly disfiguring him. The bullies confess to the
attack and are sent to juvenile, but that's not where the story ends. One day, Jeff's
mother hears crying from the bathroom, and when she goes to investigate, she finds Jeff
carving a permanent smile into his face, having already carved out his eyelids so he can never
sleep again. Jeff's mom flees to her room and screams for her husband to wake up, but
Jeff is already there, saying “You lied to me mommy,” before killing her and his
father. Jeff then kills his brother, whispering “Go to sleep,” while stabbing him. Jeff
is never seen again, but the story ends with the familiar warning of Jeff being still out
there, waiting to kill his next victim. Number 3. Slender Man: Undoubtedly the most
famous icon of Creepypasta, the Slender Man is a paranormal figure who is bald, completely
white, faceless and wears a black suit and tie, and appears to transcend time and space
with the sole goal of kidnapping children; afterwards, he would brainwash them to become
his Proxies, and commit acts of kidnapping, assault and even homicide. The origins of
Slender Man appeared on the Something Awful forum dedicated to making photos paranormal,
and were created by Eric Knudsen under the name Victor Surge. Knudsen including fictional
quotes from the supposed photographer, which read quote: We didn't want to go, we didn't
want to kill them, but its persistent silence and outstretched arms horrified and comforted
us at the same time…, end quote. Knudsen stated he based the Slender Man on a legend
he heard about shadow people, and the works of H.P. Lovecraft, Zack Parsons and Stephen
King, mainly the novel The Mist. Since the original post, Slender Man has gone beyond
viral, and has been the subject to a successful game, Slender: The Eight Pages as well as
its sequel The Arrival, and many web series, including the highly praised Marble Hornets.
Sadly, Slender Man has also been been the inspiration for real life crime, including
the attempted murder of a 12-year old Wisconsin girl by her two friends in 2014. Number 2. Normal Porn for Normal People: An
intense story, even for creepypasta standards, Normal Porn for Normal People is about a chain
letter people receive for the titular website. Many explore the website, and find it is not
at all what they expected it to be; the site is full of bizarre videos, including a half
hour video of a woman making a peanut butter sandwich, a five minute video of an obese
man doing mime work, and a five-minute video of a legless man attempting to break dance.
The final video discussed in the story is called useless.avi, and runs for 18 minutes.
A woman is seen tied to a bed with her mouth taped. After some time, a man in a suit opens
the door and releases a shaven chimp into the room. The man leaves to chimp in the room
alone with the woman, and the chimp begins brutally maiming the woman and even consuming
parts of her body as she screams in agony. While some would dismiss the horror element
of this entry as being unrealistic, it should be reminded the existence of various disgusting
acts being committed and broadcasted on the Deep Web, giving Normal Porn for Normal People
a slight edge in the believable category. Number 1. The Russian Sleep Experiment: Inspired
by the Soviet-American technological race during the cold war, the story begins in the
late 1940s in Soviet Russia. A group of scientists and military personnel are conducting experiments
to create a gas which forces people to stay awake for long periods of time. Five political
prisoners are forced into a testing chamber as the gas is poured in, and the scientists
listen to the progress through microphones placed around the room. After nine days, one
of the prisoners begins screaming non-stop for three hours until his voice is diminished
to squeaks; the researchers are surprised of the lack of response from the other subjects,
and they would instead whisper into the microphones. After the second prisoner began screaming,
the rest covered the portholes with their own feces, and the screaming abruptly stopped,
along with the whispering. After days without any response, the researchers declare the
doors will be opened and all subjects are to lie on the floor or be shot; they receive
the response of “We no longer want to be free.” After much debate, the chamber is
opened on midnight of the fifteenth day, and it is discovered four of the five subjects
remain alive, but are now grotesque representations of their previous selves, having brutally
mutilated themselves and each other. Several of the subjects die soon after being released
after they unwillingly fall asleep. The higher command decides to continue the experiment
with the two surviving subjects, along with several scientists and military personnel.
Before the doors are to be closed, one of the scientists produces a handgun and kills
the military commander. As the others flee, he points the gun at the surviving subject
and demands to know what he is. The subject declares he is what people hide from when
they go to sleep. Distraught, the scientist shoots the subject in the head, and its last
words are “So…nearly…free…”
