Scary stories I wrote

The Missing Time

For weeks, Ethan had been waking up feeling strange, with a gnawing sense that something was deeply wrong. It wasn't just fatigue-he was missing time. Every morning, the clock would read 6:00 a.m., but he felt like he had gone to bed only minutes before. His nights, once filled with normal dreams, had become empty. Blank. And no matter how hard he tried to remember, there was a gap-three hours each night, completely gone from his memory.

At first, he thought it was just stress. His job had been piling on more responsibilities, and he chalked the odd sleep patterns up to overwork. But soon, the missing time became impossible to ignore. He started waking up in different positions than he fell asleep in-on the couch when he was sure he'd gone to bed, shoes kicked off in a corner, or clothes rumpled as though he'd dressed himself in the night and forgotten.

Ethan began setting alarms to wake himself at random times in the night, but no matter what he did, he never woke during those three missing hours. The alarms would go off, but he wouldn't hear them. It was as if his body-and his mind-weren't there during that window of time.

Disturbed and desperate for answers, Ethan bought a security camera and set it up in his bedroom, aimed directly at his bed. If something was happening, he wanted proof. That night, he went to bed feeling uneasy, the camera's small red light blinking in the corner, silently watching.

When he woke up the next morning, he immediately checked the footage.

For the first few hours, everything was normal. Ethan tossed and turned a bit, but nothing out of the ordinary. Then, exactly at 3:00 a.m., something changed. He sat up abruptly, his movements stiff and robotic, as if he wasn't fully awake. But the eerie part was his face-it was completely blank, eyes wide open but glazed over, as though he wasn't really there.

Slowly, mechanically, he got out of bed and walked out of the room.

Ethan's heart pounded as he watched the footage. Where was he going? The camera in his bedroom couldn't capture anything beyond the doorway, so he switched to the living room camera. There he was, moving through the darkened apartment with purpose. He walked into the kitchen, opened a drawer, and pulled out a knife.

"What the hell?" Ethan whispered to himself, his pulse quickening.

On the screen, his body wandered back to the living room, knife in hand. Then, he just stood there, facing the window, not moving for what felt like hours. At 6:00 a.m., he dropped the knife onto the floor and calmly walked back to bed. As soon as he lay down, his body seemed to relax, and his face softened back into sleep. It was like someone had flipped a switch.

Ethan stared at the screen in disbelief. He didn't remember any of it.

Over the next few nights, he continued recording, hoping the strange behavior would stop. But every night, the same thing happened-3:00 a.m. sharp, he would rise, eyes empty, and move around the apartment in a trance. Sometimes he would stand in front of the mirror for hours, just staring at his reflection. Other times, he would sit at his desk, scribbling nonsense words on pieces of paper, pages filled with strange symbols he didn't recognize.

One night, Ethan woke with a start, the sound of his own voice echoing in his ears. He glanced at the clock. 6:03 a.m. But something was different this time. His hands were covered in dirt, his fingernails caked with mud. He sat up quickly, heart racing. Had he gone outside? His feet were cold, damp, and dirty-he had definitely been out there, in the middle of the night, during the missing hours.

Terrified, he rushed to check the footage.

The camera showed him getting out of bed at 3:00 a.m. as usual. But this time, instead of wandering the house, he had gone outside. He could see himself walking down the street, disappearing into the darkness, his bare feet padding silently on the pavement. He fast-forwarded through the footage, hoping to see where he went, but he didn't return until just before 6:00 a.m. when he calmly walked back into the apartment, covered in mud.

But where had he gone? What had he done?

Desperate for answers, Ethan searched his body for clues. That's when he found it-an unfamiliar mark on the back of his neck. It was small, like a puncture wound or a tiny incision, still red and tender. Panic set in. Had he done this to himself during one of his trances? Or was someone-or something-else involved?

Ethan's nights became a waking nightmare. He tried chaining himself to the bed, but every morning, the chain would be undone, as if it had never been locked. No matter what precautions he took, he would still lose those three hours, and the footage showed him doing increasingly bizarre and terrifying things-digging holes in the backyard, carving symbols into the walls, even standing over his neighbors' houses, watching them as they slept.

One night, determined to find out what was happening, Ethan set up more cameras and placed a GPS tracker on himself. The next morning, he checked the tracker first. His stomach dropped when he saw the location history. Between 3:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m., he had traveled miles outside of town, to a wooded area he'd never been to before.

Ethan raced to the location, dreading what he might find. The trees loomed above him, casting long shadows. The GPS led him deeper into the woods, to a small clearing. There, in the center, was a freshly dug pit.

Inside the pit was a small, crude wooden box.

Ethan's hands trembled as he opened it. Inside, he found old, brittle pieces of paper, covered in the same strange symbols he had been drawing in his sleep. And there, at the bottom of the box, was something that made his blood run cold-a photograph. A picture of him, standing in the exact same spot, taken from years ago, even though he had no memory of ever being there.

As he stood there, the sun rising behind him, a chilling realization crept over him: the missing time wasn't just about sleep. It had been happening for far longer than he'd realized. And whatever force had been controlling him-it wasn't done with him yet.

This one is my longest chapter yet

Word count, not including this: 1109