Ever Dream of This Man?

In January 2006 in New York, the patient of a well-known psychiatrist draws the face of a man that has been repeatedly appearing in her dreams. In more than one occasion that man has given her advice on her private life. The woman swears she has never met the man in her life.

That portrait lies forgotten on the psychiatrist’s desk for a few days until one day another patient recognizes that face and says that the man has often visited him in his dreams. He also claims he has never seen that man in his waking life.

The psychiatrist decides to send the portrait to some of his colleagues that have patients with recurrent dreams. Within a few months, four patients recognize the man as a frequent presence in their own dreams. All the patients refer to him as THIS MAN.

From January 2006 until today, at least 2000 people have claimed they have seen this man in their dreams, in many cities all over the world: Los Angeles, Berlin, Sao Paulo, Tehran, Beijing, Rome, Barcelona, Stockholm, Paris, New Dehli, Moscow etc.

At the moment there is no ascertained relation or common trait among the people that have dreamed of seeing this man. Moreover, no living man has ever been recognized as resembling the man of the portrait by the people who have seen this man in their dreams.


THEORIES

Several theories have been developed to explain the mysteriously recurring presence of this man in the dreams of different people who are not related in any way. The following theories are the ones that elicit the greatest interest among the dreamers themselves.

ARCHETYPE THEORY
According to Jung's psychoanalytic theory, this man is an archetypal image belonging to the collective unconscious that can surface in times of hardship (emotional development, dramatic changes in our lives, stressful circumstances etc.) in particularly sensitive subjects.

RELIGIOUS THEORY
According to this theory this man is the image of the Creator, that is to say one of the forms in which God manifests himself today. This is the reason why his indications and the words he utters during the dreams should be decidedly followed by the dreamers.

DREAM SURFER THEORY
It is the most interesting theory and the one that has the greatest implications, but it has also the lowest scientific credibility. According to this theory this man is a real person, who can enter people's dreams by means of specific psychological skills. Some believe that in real life this man looks like the man in the dreams. Others think that the man in the dreams looks completely different from his real life counterpart. Some people seem to believe that behind this man there is a mental conditioning plan developed by a major corporation.

DREAM IMITATION THEORY
This is a scientific psycho-sociological theory which claims that this phenomenon has arisen casually and has progressively developed by imitation. Basically when people are exposed to this phenomenon they become so deeply impressed that they start seeing this man in their dreams.

DAYTIME RECOGNITION THEORY
This theory states that the apparitions of this man are purely casual. Normally we do not remember precisely the faces we see in our dreams. The image of this man would thus be an instrument which, in the subject's waking life, facilitates recognition of an undefined oneirical image.

The Shaman

Many many years ago, there lived a very powerful shaman. Many people went to see him for he was able to summon the spirits of their dead relations from beyond the grave. These spirits would then possess him and converse with their living relations through him.

At the same time, there was a very eminent doctor in the region who had great ambitions not only in the medical field but also in politics. He sought to be a community leader and he wanted to lead the people through the knowledge and wisdom he had obtained from his overseas Western education.

The doctor was appalled when he discovered his own wife was visiting this shaman in order to talk to the spirit of her dead grandmother. When he scolded his wife and forbade her to visit the shaman again, he found that friends and relations of her inner circle would take her side and warn him against doubling the power of the shaman.

Furious, he vowed to prove them all wrong. That night, he drove over the shaman's house together with his wife and some friends and relatives He instructed his wife and the others to remain in the car while he and his brother went to "test" the shaman's power. In order to prove the hoax, he lied that his wife was dead and he wanted to speak with her spirit.

The shaman, not knowing that this was the husband of one of his regular customers, went into the ritual of the trance.

It was an elaborate ceremony for this invoked the very guardian of the gate between the world of shadows and the land of the living. After half an hour or so, the shaman collapsed in exhaustion having tried without success to summon the spirit. There were many others present in the house of the shaman beside the doctor and his brother. The doctor gloated over the shaman's failure and denounced him as a charlatan to the others. He said people must never believe such superstitious nonsense again.

At this point, the whole room was stunned by the sudden movements of the shaman. he sat bolt upright in a rigid lotus position and began to weep in a woman's voice. The cry was so eerie, even the doctor was afraid.

"What... what kind of trickery is this?" the doctor stammered.

"What have you done?" said the wailing voice.

"O, what have you done? Because of the summoning, they have brought me into the shadow lands just for you!"

The doctor couldn't believe what he was hearing. It was his wife's voice! Coming from the shaman's lips.

Reeling in horror, the doctor rushed out to the car, fearing the worst. He found his wife slumped in the car, dead.

Those who were with her said she shrieked suddenly and died in an instant, just about the same time as he had heard the weeping voice.

Do Ghosts Roam NSW's Haunted Parliament House?

Anyone who claims there is no spirit left in the New South Wales Parliament should try spending a night there alone.

There is the ghostly man who walks through the floor, a silent horse drawn carriage out the front and, down the road, a phantom baby cries at night.

Once a hospital complete with a morgue, NSW Parliament House is giving up its ghostly secrets for a new history project. Most staff have a tale of a shadowy figure in the corridor, lights flickering or a strange tap on the shoulder out of thin air. And down the road at Government House the stories are even more terrifying.

The most common include a baby that cries in the night from under the building, shadowy soldiers out the front on misty mornings and an old woman in a rocking chair in one room. The old morgue under the theatrette at Parliament, which is preserved but bricked up, is considered by some to be the source of the ghosts. Education staff will compile the tales in a new bulletin named The Ghosts And Ghost Stories of Parliament House.

One parliamentary staffer said: "A guy was here late one night and there was a hand on his shoulder, he turned around and there was no one there. "The ghost stories are worse at Government House, the most common one is that a baby cries and no one can find the baby."

Another said: "You hear about people in old fashioned garb mysteriously appearing, walking down stairs or even walking through the floor." Parliament education officer Daniela Giorgi wrote in the latest Legislative Assembly newsletter that the bulletin would "explore the strange phenomena that have been reported throughout Parliament for many years".

"The building has housed the legislature for over 150 years but disembodied spirits nursing unrequited civil passion are not the only ghosts that wander these corridors of power," Ms Giorgi said.

"Once the building housed the Rum Hospital and morgue." Long-serving MP Chris Hartcher said ghosts included a man who died in his office. Mr Hartcher and fellow MP Paul Gibson said they had never seen a ghost.

The Stare

A girl was sitting on the subway late one night and she noticed that the woman sitting across from her was staring intently at her. The woman was sitting between two old men. The girl kept looking away, but the woman wouldn’t break eye contact with her. The stare was beginning to freak the girl out.

At the next stop, a new passanger got on. It was a tall man in a grey trenchcoat. He sat down next to the girl.

The woman paid no attention to the man in the trenchcoat. She just kept staring at the girl, who was getting more and more creeped out as time went on. The two old men didn’t even glance in her direction. She pretended not to notice, but each time she glanced at the strange woman the stare continued.

When the train was pulling into the next stop, the man in the trenchcoat got up to leave. Suddenly, he grabbed the girl’s arm tightly and as the doors opened, he dragged her off the train.

The subway doors shut and the train pulled off, leaving the girl alone on the platform with the man in the trenchcoat. She started screaming for help.

“Calm down”, said the man. “I just saved your life. I didn’t mean to scare you but I had to get you off that train. The woman sitting opposite you was dead and the two men beside her were propping her up. “

The White Death

I am currently sitting in front of my computer, scared witless. Every moment could be my last. My friend is here with me and he is the sole reason why my life is in danger. It may not make sense at first, but let me explain.

It all started earlier today, when a friend of mine burst into my house and slammed the door behind him. His eyes were wide with fear and he stood there with his back against the door, breathing heavily. I asked him what had happened and he told me this story:

He had been living with his Aunt for the past year because his parents were in Mexico. They were doing mission work at a small hospital in Southern Mexico. The previous night, a bedraggled man had stumbled through the entrance of the hospital. He was screaming in Spanish and appeared to be out of his mind with terror.

They brought him over to a chair and let him sit down. As he caught his breath, he told his story in broken English. He claimed that his sister had been killed by something he referred to as “La Muerte Blanca”. He kept saying that it was coming for him next.

Confused, they asked him who or what a Muerte Blanca was. With a look of unfathomable fear on his face, he said that La Muerte Blanca was The White Death. She is the soul of a girl who died years ago. She died by her own hand, he said, alone and unloved. She hated life so much that she wanted to remove all traces of herself from the earth. So great was her desire to completely obliterate her memory, that she returned from the dead as a vengeful spirit, bent on killing all those who knew of her existence.

She is a girl, but not a girl, he said. She’s not dead, but not really alive. She has cold, black eyes that weep blood. She walks without ever actually seeming to move an inch. She stalks her victims like a wild animal, pursuing them across rivers and valleys, trailing them back to their homes. You are never really aware that she is following you, until you hear her telltale knock upon your door.

“She knocks once for you skin, which she’ll use to patch her own decaying flesh. Twice for your hair, which she’ll gnash between her teeth. Three times for your bones, which she’ll fashion into clubs. Four times for your heart, which she’ll tear out of your chest. Five times for your teeth, which she’ll polish and keep in a box. Six times for your eyes, which she’ll pluck out one by one. Seven times for your soul, which she’ll swallow whole.”

“No matter where you go, The White Death will track you down and you will hear her terrible knocking begin on the door. You can try to outrun her, but she’s faster than any mortal man. If you flee from your home while she’s knocking on your door, she will follow you wherever you go.”

The terrified man was certain that this thing had killed his sister. He had tried to tell the police, about The White Death but they would not listen, dismissing it as an old wives’ tale. Next, he had tried to tell his priest, but the priest immediately shut the door of the church in his face and turned him away. The priest had seen The White Death following him, he said, and did not want to get involved.

With his head in his hands, the frightened man said that The White Death follows you forever until you tell someone else about it. Then it strikes. It kills you and begins following the person you told.

After finishing his tale, the man stole a car from the mission hospital parking lot, and vanished into the night.

Apparently, my friend’s mother and father had immediately called his aunt and told her about the stange man they had encountered. They asked her if she had ever heard of the White Death. She said she had not and they proceeded to tell her the story that the man had told them.

The aunt got a phonecall later that night. It was the Mexican police. They told her that the parents had been found dead outside the hospital. They had been torn apart.

My friend’s aunt had immediately called him at school to break the bad news to him. As he cried, she told him she couldn’t understand what had happened. She recounted the whole story to him, telling him about the strange man who had turned up in the hospital just hours before his parents were found dead. She told him how the man had given his parents a weird and disturbing story about something called The White Death.

When he hung up the phone, he had struggled to come to terms with what had happened. It almost didn’t seem real to him. When he got home after school, he found the front door of his Aunt’s house standing open. Inside was a trail of blood, leading into the kitchen. There on the kitchen floor, he found his Aunt’s dead body. She had been torn limb from limb.

He ran out of the house and all the way across town, never looking back, until he reached my house. As he told me this story, I could hardly believe it. Within the space of a day, his mother, his father and his aunt had been murdered. It all seemed too far-fetched.

But before I could utter a word, my friend and I both recoiled in horror as we heard a knocking begin at my front door.

We’ve been staring at the door for an hour now, neither of us wanting to open it. The knocking is still going on, growing louder and louder. She never gives up. She never quits. La Muerte Blanca is unstoppable. I think she wants to scare us, my friend and I. I think she wants us to blame each other. And I do – I blame my friend. It’s all his fault. He should never have told about her.

As I sit here in my house, beside my friend, both of us listening to that hideous knocking growing ever louder, I wish a lot of things. I wish she had killed my friend before he reached my house. If he had never been able to tell me about her, I wouldn’t be in danger now. I’m sorry I ever met him.

And I’m sorry for you too. I’m sorry I made you read this story. I’m sorry I ever told you about the White Death. Because now that you know about her, she’ll be coming for you next.

Gecko, Gecko

There was a young man in his twenties, who moved into a new apartment in New York City. The night he moved in, he was lying awake in bed when he heard strange noises coming from his kitchen. When he turned on the lights, he was horrified to see hundreds of tiny cockroaches scurrying under the refrigerator and kitchen cupboards. He realized that his apartment was completely infested with cockroaches.

The next day, he asked one of his co-workers for advice about his cockroach problem. The co-worker said she had a similar problem and bought a pet gecko. She let the gecko loose at night and it took care of all the cockroaches.

That evening, after work, the young man visited a pet store and bought a pet gecko. When he got home, he let the gecko go out of its cage. It immediately scurried into the kitchen and disappeared under the refrigerator. Then he heard a “Gecko-Gecko” sound followed by a loud “Snap” as the gecko’s tongue caught hold of a cockroach and pulled it back into its mouth.

Days went by, and Howard saw fewer and fewer cockroaches. The gecko was doing its job well. Occasionally he would hear the tell-tale “Snap” of the gecko’s tongue and he knew it was catching the cockroaches and gobbling them up.

One day after work, he was making dinner for himself when he saw the gecko chase one of the last cockroaches on the house under the refrigerator. He saw the cockroach scurry under it with the gecko far behind struggling to go under. That’s when the young man realized that the gecko was getting bigger.

He didn’t see the gecko for days after that. Sometimes he would catch a glimpse of it out of the corner of his eye. Each time, it appeared to be bigger and bigger. One night, as he was lying in bed, he heard some strange noises in his room. Then he heard “Gecko, Gecko” and a loud “Snap!”

The next day, the young man was absent from work, but nobody thought anything of it. They just assumed he wasn’t feeling well and decided to take a sick day. When he didn’t show up the next day, or the next, his co-workers became very concerned and called the police. When the police knocked on the young man’s door, they got no answer. They broke down the door and entered the apartment.

In the bedroom, they found no traces of the young man, but were horrified to see an enormous gecko sitting on the bed. Its belly was huge and stretched and it just lay there lazily, regarding them with its big reptilian eyes. When they looked closer, they noticed something horrible. Sticking out of the corner of its mouth, there appeared to be a human foot.

The Insane, Short Film Horror Thriller

The Insane, Short Film Horror Thriller - The most popular videos are here

The Night Visitor

Richard was living in a not-so nice neighborhood with his parents. Their house was badly in need of repair and none of the windows or doors ever locked properly. Richard complained to his mom about not being able to sleep because of the "scratching" noises in his room, his mom assumed that it was rats, or that some cat had managed to get in the house again and was in the room somewhere. After turning on the lights and not seeing any sort of animal, she told Richard to go back to bed. So Richard went back to bed and was awakened almost immediately again by the scratching. Insistent, ceaseless. He still couldn't tell WHERE the sound was coming from, but this time, he decided to ignore it. So he fell asleep again.

Richard had no idea how long he'd been asleep when he suddenly sat up in bed, crying out, his hands flying to his back. He'd been bitten in the middle of his back while he slept, yet he'd been LYING on his back. Richard decided that things were just too weird and went to get his dad. His dad looked at his back. The spot that hurt certainly didn't look like a bite. It looked more like a puncture wound. So he flipped on the bedroom light and inspected Richard's bed. There was a hole in the fitted sheet and some of the mattress stuffing was showing through the hole. At a loss to explain how it happened, Richard suggested that maybe a spring had come through, so Richard's dad flipped the twin bed over to see if the box springs were the culprit.

What he found was a long knife stuck in the mattress, pointing upwards, towards where a person might lie. He also found mud and dirt under the bed, the exact length of a person. Checking immediately outside the window he found fresh footprints in the mud leading to and then away from the window. Someone had slipped into Richard's room through the unlocked window and lain under his bed. The scratching sound he heard was the person using the knife to dig through the box springs and mattress to kill him!

HIDE AND SEEK Short Horror Film

Humans can Lick too..

My great-grandmother lived alone up in the mountains at her cabin. Her husband had died, so she was there all alone. She only had one companion, and that was her loving dog. T hey both loved each other very much and the dog loved her and comforted her. Every night when she went to bed, the dog would lick her hand to let her know that he was there to protect her.

One night, she had gone to bed and the dog had licked her hand like he had done routinely every night since her husband died. But this night was different. She had woken up in the middle of the night because she heard her dog whimpering. She wanted to comfort him and let her know she was there for him, so she stuck her hand out by the bed and she felt the dog gently lick her hand like always. She figured he was just cold so she went back to sleep.

The dog's whimpering had woken her up a second time in the night so she stuck her hand out, the dog licked it and she went back to sleep. This happened a third time, and she stuck her hand out and the dog stopped whimpering and came and licked her hand. She stayed awake a few moments afterward and the dog had stopped whimpering. She went back to sleep again.

In the morning, she woke up and stuck her hand out by the bed, but nothing licked her hand. She thought that the dog had already awaken and was just in the front room. She rolled over and got out of bed and heard a drip......drip.....drip.....drip, so she walked into the kitchen and turned the handles on the sink faucet, but it wasn't dripping.

She continued into her bathroom to take a shower. As she walked in, the drips got louder! She turned and looked above the bathtub and SCREAMED! There, hanging from the light by his tail, was her loving companion, with his blood dripping into the bathtub. She screamed and began to cry. Wiping her eyes and sobbing, she turned around and looked at the mirror. In the mirror she saw the dog hanging and written on the mirror with a finger, in her dog's blood with drips and streaks hanging down from each letter, were the words... HUMAN'S CAN LICK TOO!

A Corpse in the Attic (Short Horror Starring Alex Safi)

Quarry - A Short Horror Film

Quarry - A Short Horror Film
by Scratch_Films

"The Coffin Lid" - from Russia

A moujik was driving along one night with a load of pots. His horse grew tired, and all of a sudden it came to a stand-still alongside of a graveyard. The moujik unharnessed his horse and set it free to graze; meanwhile he laid himself down on one of the graves. But somehow he didn't go to sleep.

He remained lying there some time. Suddenly the grave began to open beneath him: he felt the movement and sprang to his feet. The grave opened, and out of it came a corpse -- wrapped in a white shroud, and holding a coffin lid -- came out and ran to the church, laid the coffin-lid at the door, and then set off for the village.

The moujik was a daring fellow. He picked up the coffin-lid and remained standing beside his cart, waiting to see what would happen. After a short delay the dead man came back, and was going to snatch up his coffin-lid -- but it was not to be seen. Then the corpse began to track it out, traced it up to the moujik, and said:

"Give me my lid: if you don't, I'll tear you to bits!"

"And my hatchet, how about that?" answers the moujik. "Why, it's I who'll be chopping you into small pieces!"

"Do give it back to me, good man!" begs the corpse.

"I'll give it when you tell me where you've been and what you've done."

"Well, I've been in the village, and there I've killed a couple of youngsters."

"Well then, now tell me how they can be brought back to life."

The corpse reluctantly made answer:

"Cut off the left skirt of my shroud, and take it with you. When you come into the house where the youngsters were killed, pour some live coals into a pot and put the piece of the shroud in with them, and then lock the door. The lads will be revived by the smoke immediately."

The moujik cut off the left skirt of the shroud, and gave up the coffin-lid. The corpse went to its grave -- the grave opened. But just as the dead man was descending into it, all of a sudden the cocks began to crow, and he hadn't time to get properly covered over. One end of the coffin-lid remained sticking out of the ground.

The moujik saw all this and made a note of it. The day began to dawn; he harnessed his horse and drove into the village.

In one of the houses he heard cries and wailing. In he went -- there lay two dead lads.

"Don't cry," says he, "I can bring them to life!"

"Do bring them to life, kinsman," say their relatives. "We'll give you half of all we possess."

The moujik did everything as the corpse had instructed him, and the lads came back to life. Their relatives were delighted, but they immediately seized the moujik and bound him with cords, saying:

"No, no, trickster! We'll hand you over to the authorities. Since you knew how to bring them back to life, maybe it was you who killed them!"

"What are you thinking about, true believers! Have the fear of God before your eyes!" cried the moujik.

Then he told them everything that had happened during the night. Well, they spread the news through the village; the whole population assembled and swarmed into the graveyard. They found out the grave from which the dead man had come out, they tore it open, and they drove an aspen stake right into the heart of the corpse, so that it might no more rise up and slay. But they rewarded the moujik richly, and sent him away home with great honor.

Korean Ghost Stories 2009 (전설의 고향 ) trailer

the legend of La Llorona - the weeping woman

This is a story that the old ones have been telling to children for hundreds of years. It is a sad tale, but it lives strong in the memories of the people, and there are many who swear that it is true.

Long years ago in a humble little village there lived a fine looking girl named Maria Some say she was the most beautiful girl in the world! And because she was so beautiful, Maria thought she was better than everyone else.

As Maria grew older, her beauty increased And her pride in her beauty grew too When she was a young woman, she would not even look at the young men from her village. They weren't good enough for her! "When I marry," Maria would say, "I will marry the most handsome man in the world."




And then one day, into Maria's village rode a man who seemed to be just the one she had been talking about. He was a dashing young ranchero, the son of a wealthy rancher from the southern plains. He could ride like a Comanche! In fact, if he owned a horse, and it grew tame, he would give it away and go rope a wild horse from the plains. He thought it wasn't manly to ride a horse if it wasn't half wild.

He was handsome! And he could play the guitar and sing beautifully. Maria made up her mind-that was, the man for her! She knew just the tricks to win his attention.

If the ranchero spoke when they met on the pathway, she would turn her head away. When he came to her house in the evening to play his guitar and serenade her, she wouldn't even come to the window. She refused all his costly gifts. The young man fell for her tricks. "That haughty girl, Maria, Maria! " he said to himself. "I know I can win her heart. I swear I'll marry that girl."



And so everything turned out as Maria planned. Before long, she and the ranchero became engaged and soon they were married. At first, things were fine. They had two children and they seemed to be a happy family together. But after a few years, the ranchero went back to the wild life of the prairies. He would leave town and be gone for months at a time. And when he returned home, it was only to visit his children. He seemed to care nothing for the beautiful Maria. He even talked of setting Maria aside and marrying a woman of his own wealthy class.

As proud as Maria was, of course she became very angry with the ranchero. She also began to feel anger toward her children, because he paid attention to them, but just ignored her.

One evening, as Maria was strolling with her two children on the shady pathway near the river, the ranchero came by in a carriage. An elegant lady sat on the seat beside him. He stopped and spoke to his children, but he didn't even look at Maria. He whipped the horses on up the street.



When she saw that, a terrible rage filled Maria, and it all turned against her children. And although it is sad to tell, the story says that in her anger Maria seized her two children and threw them into the river! But as they disappeared down the stream, she realized what she had done! She ran down the bank of the river, reaching out her arms to them. But they were long gone.

Maria broke down into inconsolable grief, running down the streets screaming and wailing.

The beautiful La Llorona mourned them day and night. During this time, she would not eat and walked along the river in her white gown searching for her boys -- hoping they would come back to her. She cried endlessly as she roamed the riverbanks and her gown became soiled and torn. When she continued to refuse to eat, she grew thinner and appeared taller until she looked like a walking skeleton. Still a young woman, she finally died on the banks of the river.




The next morning, a traveler brought word to the villagers that a beautiful woman lay dead on the bank of the river. That is where they found Maria, and they laid her to rest where she had fallen.

Not long after her death, her restless spirit began to appear, walking the banks of the Santa Fe River when darkness fell. Villagers would often heard the sound of crying down by the river, Maria crying for her children.

Her weeping and wailing became a curse of the night and people began to be afraid to go out after dark. She was said to have been seen drifting between the trees along the shoreline or floating on the current with her long white gown spread out upon the waters.

On many a dark night people would see her walking along the riverbank and crying for her loss. And so, they no longer spoke of her as Maria, but rather, La Llorona, the weeping woman. Children are warned not to go out in the dark, for La Llorona might snatch them, throwing them to their deaths in the flowing waters.

The cold passenger: a Thai ghost story

This happened a while ago when my family and me were in our car and we were on our way to our family's friend's house. They lived outside the city and there weren't many houses about anymore.

It was pretty dark outside, but also quite warm really.

On our way there we saw a girl about my age walking along the road in the middle of the night by herself; my parents were pretty worried that something might have happened to her. So they were thinking they might as well ask if she wanted a lift to wherever she was heading to, since we had one seat left which was right next to me. So my dad stopped the car to where she was at, and my parents offered to give her a lift. I thought she was going to say no, since many parents do tell their children never to take lifts from strangers. But to my surprise she said yes and hopped in right next to me.

Now there was something very weird and strange about her. She had a long brown hair tied back very neatly and she was wearing a clothing which looked could posh but also looked from the lates 1900's. Her body looked terribly pale and she had scratches on her and not to be very rude but she even stank quite very badly.

I was telling myself not to stare at her because I knew how rude that would've been, But somehow I just couldn't stop... There was just something really strange about the girl sitting next to me that really gave me goose bumps and made my hair behind my back raise.

While I was trying to move around properly around my seat, my arm accidently brushed against hers. What I experienced from that was that she was terribly freezing, it was like touching ice.

She didn't even seem to notice me at all, staring at her, since she was just staring straight ahead.

My parents tried asking her questions like what she was doing out in the middle of the night all by herself... But the girl didn't really seem answered. She just kept staring straight ahead. So my parents just gave up asking.

My sister was sitting at the back of the car right next to me on my left. She was trying to tell me something but I couldn't really tell what because she kept pointing and making faces like she was really scared of the girl too.

Then when we parked right outside the girl's house, my parents made me get out of the car to open the door for her. So I did what I was told. When I got out of the car I looked around to find nothing around but a really old house that seemed to be from the lates 1900's. When the girl got out of the car, she walked right up to her the house without knocking the door or even opening the door... She went right through...

'Where the Tides Ebb and Flow' by Lord Dunsany (1878-1957)

I dreamt that I had done a horrible thing, so that burial was to be denied me either in soil or sea, neither could there be any hell for me.

I waited for some hours, knowing this. Then my friends came for me, and slew me secretly and with ancient rite, and lit great tapers, and carried me away.

It was all in London that the thing was done, and they went furtively at dead of night
along grey streets and among mean houses until they came to the river. And the river and the tide of the sea were grappling with one another between the mud-banks, and both of them were black and full of lights.

A sudden wonder came in to the eyes of each, as my friends came near to them with their glaring tapers. All these things I saw as they carried me dead and stiffening, for my soul was still among my bones, because there was no hell for it, and because Christian burial was denied me.

They took me down a stairway that was green with slimy things, and so came slowly to
the terrible mud. There, in the territory of forsaken things, they dug a shallow grave.

When they had finished they laid me in the grave, and suddenly they cast their tapers to the river. And when the water had quenched the flaring lights the tapers looked pale and small as they bobbed upon the tide, and at once the glamour of the calamity was gone, and I noticed then the approach of the huge dawn; and my friends cast their cloaks over their faces, and the solemn procession was turned into many fugitives that furtively stole away.

Then the mud came back wearily and covered all but my face. There I lay alone with
quite forgotten things, with drifting things that the tides will take no farther, with useless things and lost things, and with the horrible unnatural bricks that are either stone nor soil.

I was rid of feeling, because I had been killed, but perception and thought were in my unhappy soul. The dawn widened, and I saw the desolate houses that crowded the marge of the river, and their dead windows peered into my dead eyes, windows with bales behind them instead of human souls.

I grew so weary looking at these forlorn things that I wanted to cry out, but could not, because I was dead. Then I knew, as I had never known before, that for all the years that herd of desolate houses had wanted to cry out too, but, being dead, were dumb.

And I knew then that it had yet been well with the forgotten drifting things if they had wept, but they were eyeless and without life. And I, too, tried to weep, but there were no tears in my dead eyes. And I knew then that the river might have cared for us, might have caressed us, might have sung to us, but he swept broadly onwards, thinking of nothing but the princely ships.

At last the tide did what the river would not, and came and covered me over, and my
soul had rest in the green water, and rejoiced and believed that it had the Burial of the Sea. But with the ebb the water fell again, and left me alone again with the callous mud among the forgotten things that drift no more, and with the sight of all those desolate houses, and with the knowledge among all of us that each was dead.

In the mournful wall behind me, hung with green weeds, forsaken of the sea, dark tunnels appeared, and secret narrow passages that were clamped and barred. From these
at last the stealthy rats came down to nibble me away, and my soul rejoiced thereat and believed that he would be free perforce from the accursed bones to which burial was refused. Very soon the rats ran away a little space and whispered among themselves. They never came any more. When I found that I was accursed even among the rats I tried to weep again.

Then the tide came swinging back and covered the dreadful mud, and hid the desolate
houses, and soothed the forgotten things, and my soul had ease for a while in the
sepulture of the sea. And then the tide forsook me again.

To and fro it came about me for many years. Then the County Council found me, and
gave me decent burial. It was the first grave that I had ever slept in. That very night my friends came for me. They dug me up and put me back again in the shallow hold in the mud.

Again and again through the years my bones found burial, but always behind the funeral lurked one of those terrible men who, as soon as night fell, came and dug them up
and carried them back again to the hole in the mud. And then one day the last of those men died who once had done to me this terrible thing. I heard his soul go over the river at sunset.

And again I hoped. A few weeks afterwards I was found once more, and once more taken out of that restless place and given deep burial in sacred ground, where my soul hoped that it should rest.

Almost at once men came with cloaks and tapers to give me back to the mud, for the
thing had become a tradition and a rite. And all the forsaken things mocked me in their dumb hearts when they saw me carried back, for they were jealous of me because I had left the mud. It must be remembered that I could not weep.

And the years went by seawards where the black barges go, and the great derelict
centuries became lost at sea, and still I lay there without any cause to hope, and daring not to hope without a cause, because of the terrible envy and the anger of the things that could drift no more.

Once a great storm rode up, even as far as London, out of the sea from the South; and
he came curving into the river with the fierce East wind. And he was mightier than the
dreary tides, and went with great leaps over the listless mud. And all the sad forgotten things rejoiced, and mingled with things that were haughtier than they, and rode once more amongst the lordly shipping that was driven up and down.

And out of their hideous home he took my bones, never again, I hoped, to be vexed with the ebb and flow. And with the fall of the tide he went riding down the river and turned to the southwards, and so went to his home. And my bones he scattered among many isles and along the shores of happy alien mainlands. And for a moment, while they were far asunder, my soul was almost free.

Then there arose, at the will of the moon, the assiduous flow of the tide, and it undid at once the work of the ebb, and gathered my bones from the marge of sunny isles, and gleaned them all along the mainland’s shores, and went rocking northwards till it came to the mouth of the Thames, and there turned westwards its relentless face, and so went up the river and came to the hole in the mud, and into it dropped my bones; and partly the mud covered them, and partly it left them white, for the mud cares not for its forsaken things.

Then the ebb came, and I saw the dead eyes of the houses and the jealousy of the other
forgotten things that the storm had not carried thence. And some more centuries passed
over the ebb and flow and over the loneliness of things for gotten. And I lay there all the while in the careless grip of the mud, never wholly covered, yet never able to go free, and I longed for the great caress of the warm Earth or the comfortable lap of the Sea.

Sometimes men found my bones and buried them, but the tradition never died, and my
friends’ successors always brought them back. At last the barges went no more, and there were fewer lights; shaped timbers no longer floated down the fairway, and there came instead old wind-uprooted trees in all their natural simplicity.

At last I was aware that somewhere near me a blade of grass was growing, and the
moss began to appear all over the dead houses. One day some thistledown went drifting
over the river.

For some years I watched these signs attentively, until I became certain that London
was passing away. Then I hoped once more, and all along both banks of the river there
was anger among the lost things that anything should dare to hope upon the forsaken
mud. Gradually the horrible houses crumbled, until the poor dead things that never had
had life got decent burial among the weeds and moss.

At last the may appeared and the convolvulus. Finally, the wild rose stood up over mounds that had been wharves and warehouses. Then I knew that the cause of Nature had triumphed, and London had passed away.

The last man in London came to the wall by the river, in an ancient cloak that was one
of those that once my friends had worn, and peered over the edge to see that I still was there. Then he went, and I never saw men again: they had passed away with London.

A few days after the last man had gone the birds came into London, all the birds that
sing. When they first saws me they all looked sideways at me, then they went away a little and spoke among themselves.

“He only sinned against Man,” they said; “it is not our quarrel.”
“Let us be kind to him,” they said.

Then they hopped nearer me and began to sing. It was the time of the rising of the
dawn, and from both banks of the river, and from the sky, and from the thickets that were once the streets, hundreds of birds were singing.

As the light increased the birds sang more and more; they grew thicker and thicker in the air above my head, till there were thousands of them singing there, and then millions, and at last I could see nothing but a host of flickering wings with the sunlight on them, and little gaps of sky.

Then when there was nothing to be heard in London but the myriad notes of that exultant song, my soul rose up from the bones in the hole in the mud and began to climb heavenwards. And it seemed that a lane-way opened amongst the wings of the birds, and it went up and up, and one of the smaller gates of Paradise stood ajar at the end of it.

And then I knew by a sign that the mud should receive me no more, for suddenly I found that I could weep.

At this moment I opened my eyes in bed in a house in London, and outside some
sparrows were twittering in a tree in the light of the radiant morning; and there were tears still wet upon my face, for one’s restraint is feeble while one sleeps.

But I arose and opened the window wide, and stretching my hands out over the little garden, I blessed the birds whose song had woken me up from the troubled and terrible centuries of my dream.