r/nosleep | Reddit Horror Stories • Collection

Please remember to close your closet door at night

As a kid, I always closed the closet door when I went to sleep. The black void that engulfed the rectangle at the end of my room always seemed to turn the place that housed some of my favorite toys during daylight hours, into an unknown abyss of terror. On the rare occasion my mom or I would forget to close the door, I would lay awake in wide eyed terror, staring as tendrils of darkness appeared to snake out in lazy swirls, slowly swallowing my already darkened room into a black nothingness. When the deep nothingness seemed to reach the edge of my covers, I would frantically call my mom to shut back in whatever was leaking out.

While the fear of my closet lessened as I grew older, the habit of closing my closet door before bed stayed with me well into adulthood. Eventually I got married, and moved into my first apartment with my wife who had a habit of throwing her clothes on the closet floor, blocking it from closing completely. It never bothered me, and in fact, I slept on the side of the bed closest to the closet.

"Honey, will you turn off the light? I'm ready to go to sleep." I shifted and clicked off the light, turning around to cuddle her for the few minutes she could stand before rolling over and mumbling "it's too hot..." as she drifted off to sleep. I rolled over, facing the closet and was about to grab my phone, when my eyes locked onto something and froze.

Not something, someone. A face.

It was pearl white, with a blue hue surrounding it. The eyes were impossibly wide with black pupils. A grin stretched from ear to ear, revealing teeth that were unevenly sharpened. There was no body, only the rectangle of darkness with a floating head staring right at me.

As soon as our eyes connected, the creature whispered, "Now."

Dark tendrils swirled out and began reaching for me. I couldn't move, I couldn't speak as the pointed ends of the tendrils reached the fingertips of my hand, still frozen midair from reaching for my phone. The silence created from my own horror shattered into screams when the tendrils reached my fingertips. The knifelike points stabbed underneath each finger nail, ripping each off with a sharp, tear-jerking pain. The excruciating sensation of piercing needles being dragged along skin rolled over my body as the darkness started skinning me alive. Strips of skin from my fingers up to my shoulder left trail after trail of blood as my arm became unrecognizable. The searing pain almost kept me from realizing my wife had woken up and was now enduring the same fate, her eyes rolled back and body spasming from agony. Tears streaked down my face as I managed to entangle the word "why" amidst my screams.

The white face cocked to the side. "You outgrew fear of the darkness, but the darkness never forgot about you. Now, you will not forget."

With that the tendrils that stripped my arm, changed course and dove to my wife. Her skin tore slowly up her leg, past her knee, her hip and to her belly button. The darkness seemed to take each piece inch by inch, ripping her skin one strip at a time until she was a silent, bloody pulp on the bed. My own arm was bleeding profusely, and I began to slip in and out of consciousness.

"Do not forget about the darkness..." was the last thing I heard before crashing.

I woke up cuffed to a hospital bed. Our surrounding neighbors heard the screams and called 911. By time the officers arrived, they found my wife skinned on our bed and me, passed out in front of the closet. They pinned the whole thing on me, and now I write this from somewhere with no closets. The darkness from the closet is real. It's waiting, and it has not forgotten you even if you've forgotten it.

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⚠️!!!!Check out the original here!!!!⚠️

By: u/12KarpeDiem

https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/ej8ua1/please_remember_to_close_your_closet_door_at_night/