Creepy true story's from Reddit

Did you ever play Area 51?

I sure did. As a kid I lived next to a pizza parlor/arcade. I'd sink a couple dollars in quarters pretty regularly into one particular cabinet to play a first person shooter-on-rails about an alien invasion on a military base in Nevada.

The dream I'm recollecting is from that time period, I still remember the wave tops of it however. I awake to my dark bedroom, the faint buzz of the tv in the living room. The kind of tv that's thicker than it is wide, and makes a loud crack when you turn it on.

The only light in the house is coming from the glow of the television, and to my excitement there's a light-gun connected to the tv, exactly like the one used to play Area 51 in the arcade. I played Nintendo 64 as a kid but as I look at the tv cabinet all I see is a VCR and a three VHS box with a radioactive symbol emblazoned on the side. I flip the box over and see a man in a hazmat suit in a menacing pose. The cannon fodder for rail shooters is always those low resolution video clips of real people in costumes jumping from behind cover, only to fire a few rounds and hop back into cover. This should be easy, I'm a good shot.

I slot the first VHS tape in and dream logic is dictating that this is a perfectly normal platform for a video game. There's no start screen, there's no cutscenes, just a large empty military style hangar. This game wastes no time getting to the good stuff.

As the camera starts to move through the level, I steady my aim at the television. But a few seconds in I start to feel this dread. There's no animations. No menacing hazmat clad enemies. But it definitely feels like there should be. I stand there in my living room, and realize that it's much darker than usual, the glow of the tv barely illuminating the furniture. A feeling of dread begins to set in as I realize that my house feels just as lonely as the research lab displayed on the screen. Where is my family? Where did this game come from?

I put the gun down and stare transfixed at the tv as I'm lead down empty office hallways, hangar catwalks, and underground bunkers. This game is boring, but I can't shake the feeling that it wasn't supposed to be like this.

As I'm shown a "mission complete" screen at the end of the level, I pop the tape out of the VCR and decide to shove in the second one. Surely both can't be glutted out.

However the second tape is more of the same. I'm being lead deeper into an underground bunker this time.. but there's no one. And the feeling of dread sinks a little deeper as I realize that the game has not glitches. Something has caused the compound workers to flee. Or to hide. The last room in this level is a blast door with signs of recent activity strewn about in some sort of haste. As if everyone in this game decided to hole themselves up in a panic room. The same radioactive symbol on the box is stenciled onto the door.

I pop the tape out and reach for the third one in the box. But as my finger touches it I realize something. This is not a game, this is not a rail shooter. This is camera footage of some abandoned facility who-knows-where. The hazmat clad hoards I envisioned were not waiting to pop out and shoot me. They were taken deeper into the bunker by some unimaginable horror. I know that the third tape will reveal what is inside that room. Bodies. And with those bodies whatever monster that's been feeding on them, locked in that room. If I put that third tape in that door will open not only on my screen in my home, but in real life somewhere in the desert base where this footage was taken.

I aim my light gun at the third tape and blow it away in a flash of sparks.

I awake to a sunlight filled house and the voices of my family.

Posted by u/Ingrahamlicoln