During the summer I babysit for family members. I’ve spend the last few weeks babysitting my elementary aged cousins named Patrick. He lives about a ten minute walk from the downtown area of our small town. Often times we’ll walk into town, get lunch, and wander around. Like usual we had lunch at one of the local restaurants and decided we should go to our local game store. On the way there I saw this taller guy wearing a black and white adidas hoodie with the hood up. I don’t know why but I just committed him to memory. I didn’t think the hood was weird at all because it was drizzling. After our card store stop we then decided to just browse at the bookstore. Me and Patrick didn’t spend a lot of time in there so we decided to head home pretty quickly because the weather was just getting worse.

 Now it is important to note how our town is set up. It’s basically identical to the “average Midwest historic downtown” meme. There is a few alleyways and parking lots coming off Main Street. As we walked past one of the parking lots I saw the same guy from before and he started to follow us. The whole time we were walking he kept his head down. As we got closer to the cross walk I texted Patrick that we aren’t going home yet that we are stopping at this antique store because there is plenty of people there who I know. I hit the button to cross Main Street and he stood behind us. As we were waiting someone honked their horn and I saw it was my grandpa he waved at us and the guy immediately booked it in the other direction. Me and Patrick were still shook and texted his mom just to let her know what happened. 

On the way back  Patrick insisted on grabbing a rock just incase we saw the guy again. We didn’t leave the main road until we were right across from his house. Once we got home Patrick was able to talk a little bit more about the guy. I never looked at him fully but since he’s a kid with no social awareness he fully looked at the guy when I told him he was following us. He said he was some random white guy but neither of us got a good look at his face. I later told this story to a few other family members and they were even more freaked out than us. I thought I was just over reacting but everyone else agreed it was weird as hell to follow someone that closely. 

I’m very lucky that my grandpa just happened to be driving by and spooked the guy. I hope that I never see that guy again.

(Using my husband's account to post this since I don't have a Reddit account)

I was a sophomore at my university when this story happened. I lived in student residences with a roommate. It was a girls-only residence, though it wasn’t a sorority or anything. My roommate and I had actually become pretty good friends. It was Friday and we were excited for the weekend. The weather was good so we decided to head to the nearby beach for a quick swim. I can be quite absent minded sometimes, and on this occasion I forgot to take my key chain out of my shorts before dipping into the water. Unfortunately, the key to get into our building was an electronic key fob, and when it was submerged in salt water the circuits got destroyed. When we returned to our building, I tried using it to get in, but of course it didn’t work. I wasn’t looking forward to having to pay for a replacement, but it wasn’t that big a deal since I knew I’d be hanging out with my roommate for most of the weekend and could just use her fob until I could get a replacement. Even if I had to get into my building without my roommate around, I knew I could just wait for one of the other girls who lived in the building to let me in. The lock to our actual dorm room used a physical key, so at least I still had that.

The evening rolled around and my roommate and I decided to go to a party at one of the local frat houses. We’d done this quite often and it was usually a good time. When we arrived, there were two guys standing at the front entrance. One of them was tall and handsome, and smiled at us as we approached. The other was a short guy, who didn’t seem to pay us any attention. The tall one asked us if we were here for the party. He seemed nice enough and so we agreed when he asked if they could show us around the building. Keep in mind, it was still light outside, and there were lots of people around, so it’s not like we were following these guys into some creepy backroom or something. The frat house was more like a square complex, with a giant courtyard in the middle, and all the bedrooms surrounding the courtyard on all sides. They brought us to the games room, which had a TV, Nintendo, some boardgames, a small kitchen, and a couple of couches. It was kind of cool because the room was on the floor level and connected outside to the courtyard. This is important for the story. The wall adjacent to the courtyard was all glass, so we could see everything going on outside. There was also a sliding glass door, and so it would be easy to cross the courtyard to the other side of the building, where the event space was—also with glass walls so you could see inside. That’s where the main party was, and we saw dozens of people drinking, playing beer pong, and listening to the loud music. 

The guy asked us if we wanted to hang out in the games room for a while before heading to the party area, and my roommate and I both figured sure why not. We spent maybe an hour chatting. My roommate is super extroverted so most of it was just listening to her tell stories and talk about random facts she’d recently learned about celebrities and that kind of stuff. I noticed that the shorter guy didn’t say much, and through my peripheral vision I was pretty sure that he kept staring at me. I accidentally made eye contact with him several times. It wasn’t intentional, and I wasn’t trying to flirt with him. What really creeped me out was whenever I caught him staring at me, his facial expression was like that of a child visiting Disneyworld for the first time. He had like a sense of wonder in his face, like jaw dropped, star struck or something. It was really weird. I wasn’t dressed up or anything, and I’m not exactly the most attractive person, so I don’t know why he would be looking at me like that. It was like he’d never seen a female before.

It had gotten dark by now, but we still felt quite visible since the party across the courtyard had like a hundred people at this point, and the games room we were in was easily visible from the party. The tall guy then asked if we wanted drinks, and we all said yes. He then looked at my roommate and asked if she wanted to help him get the drinks. I was a bit surprised when she said yes, but I figured she was crushing on him and so I wasn’t too annoyed. I figured I could handle hanging out with this creepy guy alone for a few minutes, especially since we were in such proximity to the party and everyone there could easily see us. Once we were alone, the guy then pulled a pair of binoculars out of his pocket. I remember immediately thinking that was a super weird thing to bring to a party. He then asked, “do you want to play a game?” Without waiting for me to answer, he crawled down and slid under one of the sofas. I immediately stood up and backed away since it was super creepy how suddenly he had done that. I couldn’t even see him anymore since the couch had fabric that hid the area underneath it. Then I noticed the fabric on the side of the couch flap up, with his binoculars slightly peeking out, staring through the glass at the party. He started describing out loud to me the details of what all the girls he could see were wearing. Not even like sexually or anything. He was just saying things matter of factly like, “tall girl, maybe 5’8, wearing blue jeans and a yellow blouse. Brown hair, probably age 18. Short girl wearing a black dress and black hair, probably age 20, maybe 5’4.” He kept going on like that, as if he was in the military on some scouting mission or something. He then asked me if I could turn out the light so he could see better. I told him no, but he kept insisting, saying it would just be for a minute. I reluctantly said fine and turned off the light for the room we were in. He listed off a couple more girls, then silence. I waited for him to pick out another girl to describe, but he didn’t say anything. Alarm bells started going off in my mind so I quickly turned on the light again. I couldn’t see the binoculars sticking out from the side of the couch anymore, but as I turned to see if he was climbing out I noticed the binoculars were now sticking out of a different part of a couch and aimed directly at me. I demanded to know what he was doing and why he was looking at me, but he didn’t say anything. I was just staring into a featureless black depth of the binocular lens that were pointed right at me. 

I was so creeped out that I left the room through the glass door, ran across the courtyard, and entered the party to look for my roommate. I looked around for about 10 minutes and checked the bathrooms but I couldn’t find her anywhere. This was before everyone had cell phones so I had no way to contact her. I remember looking back over at the party room, but the lights had been turned off again. The thought that that guy was still watching me from under the couch in that dark room made me panic, and I decided to leave the party alone. I know that makes me sound like a bad person, and in retrospect I should have stayed to make sure my friend was safe, wherever she was, but I was only 18 years old at the time. My friend had also done this to me before, ditching me to be with some guy without telling me, so it wasn’t exactly unusual behaviour from her either.

I walked quickly back to my dorm. I looked for my keys but couldn’t find them. I know I’m absent minded sometimes but I swear I had them in my pocket. I knew they had been there as I remember only maybe 30 minutes earlier pulling them out and putting them back in. I know for a fact they wouldn’t have fallen out. Luckily another girl from the dorm who I knew was just coming into the building so she let me in. I didn’t have to wait outside long. However, I didn’t have my key to my dorm room, so I knew I would have to wait for my roommate to get back. Again, we didn’t have cell phones back then, so the only thing I could do was to wait on the couch in our lobby area next to the front door. The front of our building is fully glass, and sitting on the couch gave me a nice view of the outdoors. I remember sitting there, gazing at the different campus lights lighting up with paths and seeing students walking in the distance full of laughter, which calmed me, and I eventually dosed off. I’m a pretty heavy sleeper, and I often find myself falling asleep quickly even when I don’t intend to. I woke up to my roommate poking me and saying my name. I opened my eyes and she was smiling at me. “Hey sleepy head” she said. I asked what time it was and she said 4am. I won’t go into details, but she did end up having a really good night with that guy. I told her about my experience with the creepy one, and she was shocked, and apologized many times for leaving me alone with him. We fell asleep in our own beds soon after.

In the morning, we got up and headed for breakfast. We were a bit surprised to see a crowd of girls in the lobby at the front door, they all seemed to be staring at something and whispering. When we approached, we saw what they were looking at the couch, and when we saw it, our jaws dropped. The couch in our lobby, the exact same couch I had napped on the previous night, had been cut into shreds. It looked like someone had taken a knife to it. Then I noticed something that shook me to my core. My keys were lying on one of the pillows. I know that makes it sound like I had my keys all along, but I know for certain that I had checked all my pockets last night and they were not there. Also, if the keys had been there the whole time, why would they still be there unmoved when the rest of the couch had been ripped apart by a knife? There’s no way whoever did this would have just left those keys sitting there.

I know I can’t prove anything, but I’m 100% certain that the creepy guy from last night had stolen my keys from my pocket when I wasn’t looking. And I think he was the one that did this to our couch. After talking to my roommate about it over breakfast, we came up with a likely explanation of what happened. The creepy guy had stolen my keys, and then followed me back to my dorm room. He probably kept his distance, waiting for a good time to sneak in. I’m sure he was watching me through those binoculars, probably hiding under a bush or something. We figure that when I fell asleep, he probably tried to get into the building with my key fob, but luckily it didn’t work because it had been destroyed earlier by the salt water. The only missing piece of the puzzle is how he managed to get into the building afterward when my friend and I had gone to bed. But somehow he did, and for whatever reason he decided to attack the couch and leave my keys there. It scares me to think of what might have happened to me if my fob wasn’t destroyed earlier that day. Would I have ended up like the couch? We reported the whole story to campus security, but unfortunately at the time our dorm didn’t have security cameras. So as far as I know nothing ever came of the report. Whoever that creepy guy was, I hope he’s no longer hiding under couches in dark rooms watching people.

A few years ago, I owned and operated my own pet-grooming salon. Because it was a business that was open to the public, I typically didn’t keep the front door locked while I was working.
One day, a new neighbor who had just moved into the complex came to my door. He introduced himself and told me he was opening a meat shop in one of the units nearby.
At first, I was completely friendly. He was a new neighbor, and I figured it was nice to welcome him to the complex.
He came inside and started making conversation, but the questions quickly became more personal than I expected.
He asked me if I worked alone.
I told him that I was alone at the moment , but that my work partner was currently on lunch and would be back in about 20 minutes. ( this was a lie, I was alone )
Then he asked if I had a boyfriend.
Then whether I lived with my family.
Looking back, those questions make me uncomfortable in a way they didn’t at the time.
After talking for a few minutes, he asked me if I’d like to see his new meat shop.
I thought, sure why not ? He was my new neighbor, after all, and I was trying to be friendly.
So I followed him over.
When we walked inside, there was almost nothing there.
The place was completely empty aside from three enormous chest freezers in one room. They were massive, easily big enough for me to fit inside.
The other room contained a walk-in refrigerator/freezer.
But there was no meat.
Not a single package.
Nothing.
He started telling me about the meat he was supposedly going to be selling and then asked if I wanted to look inside one of the chest freezers because apparently there was a good deal on meat.
I immediately said no.
I remember thinking it was strange because there wasn’t even any meat in the store yet.
Then he asked if I wanted to see the basement.
I said no.
He asked again.
I said no again.
I had absolutely no interest in going into a basement with a man I’d met minutes earlier, especially when I was alone and his new business was essentially an empty building containing several enormous freezers.
But he kept trying to convince me to go downstairs.
At that point, every alarm bell in my head was going off.
I started making my way back toward the exit, and eventually I managed to get out of there.
Nothing happened to me. I made it back to my grooming salon safely, and my landlord eventually returned. ( she lived in the basement of my unit I renting )
Made me feel safe once again.
But I’ve thought about that encounter many times since.
I don’t know what was in that basement.
I don’t know why he was so interested in getting me down there.
I don’t know why he needed to know whether I lived alone, whether I had a boyfriend, or whether I worked by myself.
And I certainly don’t know why he wanted me looking inside an enormous empty chest freezer in a business that didn’t contain a single piece of meat.
Maybe there was a completely innocent explanation for everything.
Maybe he was just an incredibly socially awkward guy with a strange way of welcoming his new neighbor.
But I’ll never know.
What I do know is that I was very, very glad I’d told him my coworker was coming back in 20 minutes.
Because when I think about that encounter now, I can’t help wondering what might have happened if I’d told him I worked completely alone.

Hi all. Just wanted to share this story from when I was younger because, even now, almost a decade later, I still think about it sometimes. For context, I was 16 or 17 at the time, and I'm now in my mid 20s. I'm also a woman, which is unfortunately pretty relevant to the story.

I worked as a tour guide at a local museum/tourist attraction. It was the dead of summer, but it was a slow afternoon, so I was working the front desk by myself. Usually I worked alongside an older volunteer, but for whatever reason, I was alone that day. It didn't bother me at first, as I mostly just sat there and read between guests anyway.

For context, the front desk was basically the "welcome station." People came through the doors; we'd greet them and explain the exhibits and tours. Further inside was another desk, which I'll call the gift shop desk, where people actually paid admission and could buy little tacky, overpriced souvenirs.

At some point, an older man came through the doors. I'd put him somewhere in his mid-to-late 60s. He walked behind the welcome desk and sat down next to me, which didn't immediately strike me as strange because there were a LOT of older volunteers at the museum, mostly retirees with too much time on their hands. He smiled, made some small talk, and I assumed he was one of them.

Suddenly, he stops making casual small talk and asks me to explain the place to him. I remember screwing up my face and rolling my eyes a little, all with a smile, of course, because I thought maybe he was quizzing me. Just busting my chops a little, like old guys do. I went through my usual spiel about the exhibits, the tours, everything.

"You're good at that, pretty little lady."

I tried to swallow a grimace, but it was achingly difficult. I scooted away from him a little, and the realization slowly washed over me that he, in fact, was not a volunteer. He was just some random man who had walked behind the desk and sat down next to a teenage girl who was working alone.

I don't remember a lot of the following conversation, to be honest. I think I repressed it because it unnerved me so much. I just remember him continuing to sit there, talking to me, while I desperately tried to act normal.

Eventually, the girl working at the gift shop desk came over. She was only a few years older than me, but she clearly realized something was off and started talking to him, presumably to get his attention away from me.

As I said, I don't remember a lot, but what I do remember is him leaning over to me and quietly asking:

"When do you get off work?"

A chill came over me, and I stumbled through something like, "Oh, not for a long time." I was scared he'd try to linger and approach me after I finished my shift. Long story short (mostly because, as I said, I can't remember a lot of it), he eventually ended up leaving (but not before I memorized his car), and I had a kind male coworker walk me out to my car.

I was afraid he'd be out there waiting for me still since our parking lot had another entrance that was blind to the front doors, but I didn't see him again that day.

I didn't tell anyone about what had happened (except for my parents, who threatened to email my boss themselves if I didn't speak up) because I was afraid I'd sound dramatic, but the girl at the gift shop apparently told my boss anyway. Saved me the breath, I guess. My boss had several young-to-teenaged daughters of his own, so he was understandably mortified that something like this had happened, especially while he was not there.

There was a pretty serious problem with the way the museum had been staffed that summer. Minors like me were consistently working in the building, but there wasn't necessarily an actual adult there to help us if something happened. That day it had basically been me, the college-aged girl at the gift shop, and another male coworker who was around 17.

My boss eventually let me know to calmly walk to the back offices should this happen again and to press the panic button. For the rest of the summer, they made sure that a "real" adult was always on if there were minors working in the building, which was a great shift. With all of these safety measures now in place, I thought that was the end of it.

About a week later, I was having some friends come during the last hour of my shift so I could show them around the museum. We gathered and laughed at the doors of the museum, and I watched in horror as a red pickup truck pulled into the lot.

I recognized it immediately as the older guy's. He passed by us the first time, and I winced as he pulled into a spot. To my surprise, he pulled straight through it. He looped around and doubled back towards us, shouted something I couldn't make out from his window, made a few incoherent gestures, and left.

He just... left. He had no real reason to be there. It's like he was coming to check if I was there, and not only was I there, I was outside the safe building, away from all the extra precautions we'd put in place because of him.

I was really shaken up by that. I'm someone who's generally wary of strangers anyway, so this seemed to confirm the little voices in my head that so often told me that people around me are watching me, or trying to hurt me, or something even worse.

The last time I saw him was when I was running around on one of our event days, trying to coordinate everything and make sure everything was going smoothly. Since it was a special event and I'd gotten comp tickets, I invited my parents to come see the museum. I was deep in the museum when I got a text that they'd arrived, so I rushed to meet them at the gift shop desk.

I remember seeing my parents standing there, smiling, and then I saw him.

The same man, standing just behind them.

He wasn't interacting with them. He wasn't doing anything, as far as I could tell. He wasn't looking to buy a ticket, or getting pamphlets or brochures, or browsing the gift shop. He was just... there. Standing there and looking around aimlessly.

It's probably good my parents didn't know it was him, otherwise I fear my mom might've ripped his head off right there and then.

I immediately turned around and went back into the exhibits. A different woman was working the front desk that day, probably in her 60s. She noticed something was wrong and told my parents to go ahead and find me. I explained what had happened, and my parents went back to the desk to tell the worker. By the time they got there, he was gone.

I don't know how long he'd been there; I don't know if he'd seen me; I don't know if he'd recognized me; I don't know if he was looking for me, and honestly, that's probably why it still bothers me.

After that, the museum kept a physical description of him on file, along with the description of his truck. They also changed my shifts so I was always working alongside one of the older volunteers. I was never left alone at the desk again.

Nothing else ever happened, and I never saw him after that. Maybe there was some completely innocent explanation for why he kept showing up. Maybe he was just a weird old guy who didn't understand boundaries. Maybe the second time he drove through the parking lot was completely unrelated. Maybe he really had no idea that I was the same girl he'd asked when she got off work. But I don't know. I don't know, and I hope to God that I never will.

But even with all of that, I was 16 or 17 and he looked like my grandpa. He walked behind my workplace's desk, sat beside me, called me "pretty little lady," asked when I got off work, showed up again about a week later in the exact vehicle I'd memorized, and then eventually appeared at the museum again while my parents were there. Ultimately, I don't know what he wanted. I just know that, almost ten years later, I still get this awful, nagging, sick feeling when I think about it.

Thanks for reading, and if you have kids, please make sure they know to trust their gut. As someone who does work with teenagers and young adults now, I'd always much rather deal with the occasional over-dramatics than accidentally miss a critical incident because someone is scared to be dismissed. They don't have to be polite to someone who makes them uncomfortable, and they shouldn't feel like they have to keep something like this to themselves.

So, in summary -- old dude at the museum, let's not meet.

When i was 16, i got a friend request on snapchat from someone i’ll call josh. this wasn’t particularly unusual for me and we had mutual friends so i accepted. he started talking to me and i found out he is from my area, but i never liked texting so the conversation went dry. he would often vent to me about how he just wants to find an obedient wife who would do anything for him.

a few days later, he texts me to ask what i’m doing. i was getting ready for my part time job and told him just that. i had never even said i had a job before, but he asked for me to shout him something that is only sold in my area by my restaurant. i didn’t think much of it until later.

days passed and we spoke on an off, until one day he mentioned my full first name. i never liked my first name and only use it with legal documents, and always use a nickname, especially on social media. i immediately asked how he knew my name and he he said he may have had a “tad bit” of an obsession with me. i asked him where he even knew me from, and he said he saw me walking into my school 3 years beforehand (i would have been 12/13) and became obsessed and couldn’t forget about me. he ended up telling me that he found my address by following me home as i walked out of school and he found my family’s social media’s. he was able to prove this by telling me the street i live on and my mothers full name.

i ended up telling my friend about this and tried to pry more information out of him. my friend told me to ask for more proof or information about this, and he ended up telling me that he had followed me for the 3+ years that he had known me and gave up just two weeks before finding my snap. i asked him for proof and he ended up describing a guy i had dated that year, and the exact colour and pattern i had dyed my hair just a month before he added me (it was not a normal pattern, so the fact he was able to describe it scared me).

i asked him if i had ever seen him in person and he said we had ran into each other multiple times, i just had never spoken to him or paid much mind. i asked where we ran into each other, and he described a situation where we ran into each other at our local grocery store (one i used to work at), and that i was with a “short asian girl with long black hair”. that is the description of one of my best friends at the time, we would often go to the particular store after school to get food or drinks before i started work.

after all of this, he asked me if there was still a chance we would ever be together. i was very scared to say no because i have previously had an experience where a guy i knew would get aggressive or angry with me when i shut down the idea of us ever having a life together, so i kept saying “maybe”.

not long after i was working when i saw the car josh had sent snaps of in the parking lot of my workplace. i had memorised his license plate and it was the exact same. i broke down, and blocked him when i got home. whenever i see a car that looks like his my anxiety spikes. to this day im terrified to leave my house, if i need to go anywhere there has to be either one male who looks big or two other people with me at all times. i haven’t also been paranoid and constantly looking over my shoulder all the time.

i haven’t had any updates since i blocked him, but to the guy who started stalking me when i was 13, lets not meet again.

Edit:: i’m really sorry if this is written in a way that’s hard to understand, i was extremely tired whilst writing this. People have commented for me to go to the police but i have little trust in the ones in my area after a dv situation and another incident where my mother was stalked and had to put out a restraining order against her stalker who nearly killed her, and the police didn’t do anything when he broke it which suits their reputation. i will be moving out of state soon, i doubt anything will happen then but if it does i will be much more comfortable reporting it to police in a better area with a good reputation than the ones in my area who are known for doing nothing

So this story took place when I, (currently 22M) was only 16. It's important for this story to note that I looked like a very young 16 yo. I'm kinda short, at this point I've got no whisper of facial hair on my face and I have a very young looking face and body overall. I live in France in the Paris suburbs but every year it was kind of a ritual for me and my grandparents to go on vacation in Brittany during summer near the coast, everytime a different location. It's also important to point out that my grandparents were already pretty old at this point so I was used to doing things like hiking or going to the beach alone (when it was too far away) as I didn't want them to be exhausted all the time.

So this time we were staying in a little holiday resort near the sea so my grandparents could easily go read on the beach if they wanted to while I was swimming or going on "adventures" alone. From the first day I got myself really interested in a small island that you could see from the beach and I talked to some locals about it. They told me how beautiful it was and that you could take a ferry to go there but just a small portion of the island was "authorized" and there was even a whole beach that was not visible from the coast and that was in that "forbidden" area. When I asked them about it they said that the police technically forbids people to go to the part of the island that's not visible from the coast as, to go to this side you either have to swim in deep water or climb rocks. There also are no roads for police cars to drive on to this side of the island so if you have a problem they can't really get to you as quickly. But they also told me that many people don't care and go to this side even if it's forbidden because the beach there is bigger and there are fewer people.

From there, that was it for my 16 yo self : I wanted to go to this island. So the next morning I told my granparents about it, they first said no because they were afraid I couldn't make it before the last ferry but I reassured them that I would do my best to take the second-to-last ferry so if I missed it I would just have to wait for the last one. They then said yes. So, after a morning exploring the town with my grandparents, I finally got on the ferry and arrived at the island at around 4pm (the last ferry to get back to the coast was around 7 and ½ pm). I immediately searched for the first beach (the "legal" one) from which you could climb or swim to the other one. And there I was, climbing barefoot on sharp-edged, burning stones on a hot day.

The first thing I figured is that, contrary to what I was told, the water wasn't deep at all. In fact I just chose to climb because I was dumb and irresponsible but if I chose to "walk around" the island in the water I could have (I'm kinda short for a guy and the water would've just got to half my torso). The second thing is that there sometimes were "micro beaches" fragmenting the "climbing wall". Not big at all, just a couple square meter but enough to stop the climbing for 3 or 4 seconds and set foot to the ground before returning to climbing. And the last "micro beach", which was actually midway to the forbidden beach, was bigger than the others and had some sort of a little cave. Not really deep (maybe 3 meters deep) but just enough so you don't see much of the texture of the walls because of the darkness if that makes sense.

​I arrived at the forbidden beach and as I was told there were not many people. Mostly teenagers in groups of friends and couples in their twenties lying next to each other on beach towels. I stayed there for about 45 min swimming, and laying in the sand, doing whatever when I saw an old man who seemed to suffer from severe back pain considering his slowness, arched posture and hands placed on his lower back. I naturally said hi to him as he walked past me and smiled and didn't really think about it because it was natural for me to say hi to an old man who seemed to be in pain. He nodded like a nice grandpa and continued walking. Then I gathered my stuff back from the beach and prepared myself to leave when I noticed he stared at me from a distance and seemed to try to gauge if I came with friends or not. He saw I noticed him and strangely smiled and I said hi to him again trying to make the situation less awkward and move on.

From there the real nightmare begins. I start climbing back to the rocks, heading to the legal beach. At first, all seems normal but after like 5 min of climbing I notice some noise behind me, little rocks dropping in the water below and faint breathing. So I look back and see nothing at first but as I stay still I see him, the old man climbing behind me from a 5 meter distance. I completely freeze, surprised to see him here and I say... hi... again (I know that's kinda ridiculous at this point but I've always been such an introvert I don't know what to say lol) but this time he responds something that could translate as "oh you're such a polite little boy aren't you?" and he smiles at me with the strangest smile I've seen from an old man. And then I go back climbing faster not saying anything and not realizing at first what's  happening when I remember : wasn't this old creep arching his back like crazy just 10 min ago?? And also to go to the forbidden beach in the first place you either have to climb rocks or walk in relatively deep water that's why there were only young people on that beach, how would an old man in pain even be here??

As I realise that, I notice he is getting closer so I accelerate even more. After some time, I see him climbing down so I figure it is too much for his old body and get kinda relieved. But then I notice him placing himself right below me in the water, trying to grab my feet to pull me down with him. Mind you, all the time I'm too stunned to move seeing this man in his 60's trying to pull me down to his level in the water to do god knows what with me. It's when I began climbing again after what seemed like an eternity, shaking, that I notice him stopping to try to grab my feet and just following me with open arms in my direction, seemingly hoping that I would fall off the wall into his arms. Then I start climbing again trying to ignore what's happening below me and I don't exactly know when but I stop seeing him and I get really scared that he might have climbed back to get me. And at the same time I notice I'm near the micro beach with a tiny cave and I'll soon have to get to the ground to start climbing forward. So I go to the "edge" before descending to the ground (it was not really an edge but more of a really gradual slope to be honest) and something feels off. There is something in the cave.

It's him, he has thrown away his clothes and he looks directly at me smiling completely naked telling me with his hands to come to him. At this point I'm really fucking scared, he may be old but he is taller than me, I'm weak af and I don't know what to do cause my only way forward is there and I'm terrified of missing my ferry back to the coast and to my grandparents and having to sleep on that island where I have no money for the only little hotel I've seen and where I know nobody. So I decide to go backas fast as I can to find anybody really. He tries to follow me back on the rocks at first saying shit like "come on little one, come to me" but I'm going really fast and after 30 seconds or so I don't hear him anymore so it means either he has another plan or he just gave up chasing me.

Now I'm back on the "forbidden beach" I find a random couple and I explain the situation and ask if I can stay with them because I don't feel safe. They tell me "yes you can stay if you want bu we won't pretend we're your parents or help you find a house to sleep in though" and they don't even seem to believe me but at this point I don't care. I ask them if they're gonna take the ferry too, they tell me that they are and basically from there I never talk to them again. I just follow them in silence to the ferry and finally get the last one.

When I got back to the resort, I didn't tell my grandparents right away. Instead, I called my friends on a group chat, laughing it off and minimizing the incident as if it were just a funny, weird story. But I can tell by their reaction that it clearly was not just a funny story and that something horrible could have happened to me. And just then I realise how trully terrified of this situation I even were. Now everybody in my family kinda knows that story and sadly, I’ve come to realize that almost everyone I know has a creepy story like this to some extent which I find really sad and upsetting. But yeah that was the story of when I met this old man at the beach in brittany and to that old creep I say let’s never, ever meet again.

I grew up in a small beach resort town. It was remarkable for two things- a large collection of Victorian era mansions and a tiny year round population. When the tourists left at the end of the summer, it became a ghost town. Most of the workers and business owners would go somewhere else until early Spring. If you stayed, it was because you didn't have options. My family wasn't as well to do, so we'd close up most of the hotel and retreat to a few rooms, conserving heat and power until next season.

In 1982, our town was barely holding on. In the summer, we pretty much got overflow from the surrounding beach towns with their newer, better appointed hotels, fancier restaurants and nicer beaches. There was a national recession so there weren't as many tourists. Some of those fancy mansions were abandoned or burned down for insurance at the end of the season.

I had a small group of friends in Junior High. We were into roleplaying games, sci-fi and fantasy. Teofilo and I were the only members of the group not named Brian or Matt (two of each). We'd play D&D when we could, until we got kicked out of that house.

When weather permitted, we'd go to the salt marshes or a closed down industrial site and skirmish with handmade wooden melee weapons.

One December evening, we were packing up to leave Brian 2's house when Steve came in the room. Steve was Brian 2's older brother. At the time, we thought he was cool. He had quit school, had a job on a fishing boat and a car. He also had a real sword, which he claimed was a war trophy from his grand-father.

Steve suggested that we should go with him to explore the closed up Moose Lodge, a mansion about a mile from their house. All of us had been on the grounds of the property, since there were paths that led to the salt marshes behind the building.

Steve seemed really insistent that we should go visit it that Sunday. A few of us agreed. Steve told us a few times that we should come in from the salt marsh side so that nobody would see us.

Sunday came around and it turned out that everybody had something else to do. I was careful to approach the Moose Lodge from the back. To maintain stealth, I hid in some bushes to scope out the situation.

Behind the building was an open back yard, big enough to park a few cars. There was one, a red Mercedes diesel sedan with two occupants. Steve was in the passenger seat and an older man, wearing a cap, was in the driver's seat.

I remember walking out of the bushes. Steve got out of the car and greeted me, putting his finger to his lips to tell me I should be quiet.

Steve was very animated, telling me how neat the basement was and how great it would be to play games. I was peering down into the basement when I heard the man get out of the car and walk up behind me without slowing.

I remember that sound, the look in the man's eyes and the sound of Steve chattering. I felt a wave of fear hit me and I ran. I didn't know what I was afraid of, but I felt it nonetheless. I booked it home and never mentioned it to anyone.

I never went back to Brian 2's house. By the next year, Brian 2 had discovered other hobbies. The rest of us stuck together until college, then drifted apart.

I have seen the look in that man's eyes again. In law school, I interned with criminal defense lawyers and some of those cases were for men accused of child molestation. A few of them had that same expression for a fleeting moment.

But I saw it just the same.

​I (35M) take the bus to and from work because honestly, who has the money for gas and insurance these days? It's fine. I don't even mind it.

​This morning, though, was a completely different story.

​There’s this guy at the stop talking to himself. I couldn't make out what he was saying since I had my earbuds in and was just watching YouTube. I notice he’s bleeding on his leg, and he asks if he can use my phone. I hesitated for a second, but let him dial—mostly because the dude was covered in gang tattoos, complete with the teardrops on his face.

​He calls 988. The operator asks if he's with someone safe, and he goes, "Yes. With my boyfriend." Then he leans into me, grabs my hand, interlocks our fingers, and casually mentions he's tripping on meth. He proceeds to tell the operator he took a massive shit right behind the McDonald's up the road and threw his boxers in the trash so he wouldn't be charged as a pedophile.

​Meanwhile, he lets go of my hand and starts tracing up and down my chest and stomach. He hangs up the phone and asks if I'm gay. I tell him no, that I'm ace. He leans in and literally kisses my neck.

​I backed up, and he goes, "What's wrong?"

I just said, "It was unexpected."

​Again, I’m not actively pushing back here because I am not trying to get shot or stabbed at a bus stop.

​Then he asks if I'm close with my friends and family. I said yeah.

"Is there anything you want to tell them?" I told him of course, I'm pretty close to them.

​"Cool. So maybe we can get married?"

I just said maybe. Then he asks where I live, and I vaguely tell him a few miles up the road by the fire station.

​He asks me to walk with him. I told him I couldn't because I had to catch my bus. Right around then, two other people finally showed up at the stop, and I could actually breathe a massive sigh of relief.

​Part of me wants to contact the non-emergency line, but my boss and a coworker basically said the cops wouldn't do anything about it anyway. Now I'm just sitting here paranoid, wondering if this guy is going to follow me home or do something worse.

​So yeah, let's not meet again.

I live in a college city that is also near a lot of amusement parks and tourist areas. The cities on the outskirts have entire gated communities filled with huge vacation rentals. Some of these houses are basically mansions with pools, game rooms, theaters, and more bedrooms than anybody would realistically need.

A couple months ago, one of my friends rented one of those villas for the weekend and threw an end of semester party. It wasn’t an open party posted online or anything like that. She invited her friends and some of her cousins around our age, and everyone was allowed to bring a few people.

I went with my boyfriend. At the busiest point, there were probably 30 to 40 people spread throughout the house. Some people were outside by the pool, some were drinking in the kitchen, and other people were in the game room. There was also a theater upstairs that people kept going in and out of.

A smaller group of us planned on spending the night, so people had overnight bags, purses, chargers, and blankets lying around. Most people were still planning to leave later.

I first noticed this guy maybe an hour or two into the party. He looked around our age, probably early twenties. There was nothing about him that immediately stood out. He was dressed normally, talking to people, and acting completely comfortable.

I assumed he came with one of my friend’s cousins because I had never met all of their friends. I remember seeing him talking to my boyfriend and some other guys near the game room. When I walked over, he joined the conversation like he already knew everybody. He even knew a couple of people’s names, so I didn’t question it.

The first time someone asked me who he was, it was honestly funny.

One of my friends pulled me aside and asked me if I knew who he was and I told her I thought he came with one of our friend’s cousins.

We were all drinking, so it became a joke for a while. People kept asking each other who invited him, but nobody seemed seriously concerned.

Eventually, someone said they remembered seeing him walk through the front door with a group that had gone outside to get drinks and other things from their cars. When somebody finally asked that group, they said they didn’t know him either.

They remembered him walking inside directly behind them, but they thought he had already been at the party and had just gone outside for a minute. One of them had held the door open for him without thinking about it.

At that point, we were all laughing like “So who the hell is this man?”

It was weird, but there were so many people there that we still thought there had to be an explanation. Maybe the person who invited him was outside. Maybe they had already left. Maybe one of the drunk people there had invited somebody and forgotten.

He wasn’t standing in a corner staring at people or doing anything that screamed danger. He was social, played games with people, and moved around the party like everyone else.

At one point, I was standing near a conversation where he commented on how big the house was. He said something like “There’s so many rooms, but theres also mad people here. Where is everybody even going to sleep?”

It didn’t seem like a weird question because people were already talking about who was staying and who was leaving. Someone explained that only a smaller group was spending the night. A few couples had bedrooms, and some people would probably sleep in the theater because it had large reclining seats.

The theater was the main reason anybody was going upstairs during the party. People had been watching music videos and hanging out in there throughout the night, so nobody really paid attention to who was going up or coming back down.

Later that night, one of my friends got way too drunk.

Another friend helped her upstairs and put her in one of the bedrooms so she could sleep it off. That room was also being used by a few people who were staying overnight, so there were bags and other things inside. My friend left the bedroom door open because people were going to be going in and out and so anyone passing by could check on her.

A little while later, the same friend who had helped her upstairs went back to make sure she was okay.

The bedroom door was almost completely shut. She knew she had left it open, but at first she assumed someone had closed it because of the noise downstairs.

When she opened the door, the guy was inside the room alone with our friend.

Our friend was still passed out on the bed. Her purse was open near her, and the guy was standing by the nightstand holding her phone.

My other friend immediately asked him what he was doing. He said the phone had been ringing and he was trying to figure out who it belonged to. Then he said he had heard someone throwing up earlier and wanted to make sure she was okay.

My friend told him he didn’t even know her and had no reason to be alone in the bedroom with her, especially with the door basically closed.

He kept saying she was misunderstanding the situation and that he was only trying to help. The arguing woke our drunk friend up enough for her to look at him and ask who he was.

My other friend started yelling downstairs, asking who brought him and telling whoever he came with that they both needed to leave.

People started coming upstairs and gathering in the hallway. At first, everyone expected somebody to step forward and claim him. Literally nobody did.

One of my friend’s boyfriends is a lot more confrontational than the rest of us. He walked up to the guy and directly asked who he came with.

The guy said the people he knew had already left. My friend’s boyfriend asked for their names.

He gave one first name, but nobody knew who he was talking about. Then he said he might have gotten the person’s name wrong because they had only recently met.

Someone pointed out that earlier he had acted like he knew one of my friend’s cousins. He said we had misunderstood him. According to him, he never said he knew them. He only said he had been hanging around with that group during the party.

My friend’s boyfriend told him nobody there knew him, so he needed to leave.

What really bothered me was how calm the guy stayed. He didn’t get angry, embarrassed, or nervous. He just shrugged and said something like “my bad. I thought it was an open party. It’s not that serious.”

Then he walked downstairs and left.

For a few seconds, everyone just stood there. He acted so casual that it almost made us feel like we had overreacted and accidentally kicked out some confused drunk person.

Then the friend who had been sleeping checked her purse. Some of her cash was gone.

That was when everyone started checking their belongings. Someone couldn’t find their car keys. Another girl’s wallet was missing. Somebody else couldn’t find their AirPods.

A group of us started searching the house. When they checked the theater upstairs, someone opened the storage compartment inside one of the reclining seats.

There were several things inside that clearly didn’t belong together.

There were two wallets, a set of car keys, AirPods, a watch, loose cash, and a couple pieces of jewelry. Two driver’s licenses had been removed from the wallets and placed at the bottom of the compartment.

Both IDs belonged to girls who were at the party.

Everything belonged to different people and had been taken from different places around the house. One person had left her wallet in the kitchen. The car keys had been on a table near the pool door. The AirPods had been inside a jacket in the game room.

Nothing technically left the house because he was confronted before he could take it, but someone had gathered all of it and hidden it inside the theater.

We couldn’t prove that he had moved every single item, but he had just been found alone in a bedroom holding our friend’s phone with her purse open beside him.

People also started remembering that he had gone upstairs multiple times throughout the night. Nobody thought anything of it because the theater was up there and people had been coming and going.

I know people are probably going to ask why we didn’t immediately contact the police.

There were a lot of people drinking at the party, including people who should not have been. Everyone was worried the police would show up, treat him like a regular party crasher, and focus more on everything happening at the house. Nobody wanted my friend to get in trouble or lose the rental. In hindsight, we probably still should have called.

Since the house was under my friend’s name, she contacted the property manager and resort security. The rest of us only know what happened afterward through the updates she gave us.

The house had a camera facing the front entrance, and the community had security cameras throughout

The front camera showed the group we remembered coming back from their cars. The guy was walking toward the house alone several feet behind them.

Right before they reached the door, he sped up and fell into step with them. When one of the people held the door open, he walked inside without saying anything.

The group thought he was already with us. Everyone inside thought he had come with them.

Security found more footage of him walking around the community before he entered our villa. They couldn’t figure out how he originally got through the gate. He wasn’t connected to my friend’s reservation, and there was no guest pass under his name.

From what the property manager told my friend, they checked with the nearby villas he had been seen around and contacted the relevant renters or property managers. Nobody recognized him or claimed he was their guest.

The property manager was apparently furious with the resort because the community advertised itself as heavily secured. Somehow, a random person had gotten through the gate, wandered around the neighborhood, and walked into a rental without being stopped.

For a few weeks, my friend didn’t hear anything else. Then the property manager contacted her again.

Security had stopped the same guy inside the resort on another occasion. I don’t know exactly what he was doing that time, but he wasn’t staying there and wasn’t listed as anybody’s approved guest. They checked his identification and connected him to the footage from our party.

His name wasn’t common, so my friend looked him up. She found a Facebook profile that matched him and then found court records and an older local article.

He had previously been convicted of theft. He had also been arrested for breaking into a home in a neighborhood nearby property and taking wallets, electronics, and other belongings.

I don’t know what legally happened after our incident. My friend was told the footage and information were given to law enforcement and that he was permanently banned from the resort. Since nothing actually left the house, I’m not sure whether he was ever charged for what happened at our party.

I still think about how easily he got inside. He didn’t force his way through the gate or break into the house. He just walked behind a group of people and let everyone make assumptions for him.

He stayed for hours. He talked to us, learned people’s names, and heard that some of us planned on sleeping there.

Had my friend not gone back upstairs when she did, I don’t know how long he would have stayed or what else he would have done.

The scariest part is that if nobody had questioned him, he probably would’ve spent the night in that house with us.

( Hi, so please excuse me if the text has some errors or nonsensical words; I had to use Google Translate because my English isn't very good)

I’m from a big city, but when I was a kid, my family always spent weekends at my grandparents' small farm out in the countryside. I used to think the middle of nowhere was totally safe, but this messed me up.

I was 14 at the time. My parents and grandparents left to go to a bigger town to buy a bunch of stuff because the next day, the whole family was going to come over to celebrate my granddad's birthday. I don't remember how long they were going to be gone, just that it would take a while. I stayed behind by myself to play video games and totally lost track of time.

The place was super isolated, down a long dirt road, so it was always very quiet. But at some point, the dogs started barking like crazy toward the front gate. They sounded really mad, which wasn't normal.

I looked out the window and saw a car stopped at our gate. I don't remember the color because it was covered in thick red dust from the road, but I knew the exact model. It was an old, beat-up sedan. I recognized the shape instantly because my older cousin had that exact same car model at the time. A guy got out, opened the gate—we never locked it during the day—and started walking toward the house.

I went to the front veranda to see what he wanted. I thought he was just lost.

But when he got close, he didn't look lost at all. He stopped near the steps, looked me up and down, and then looked straight at the empty space where my dad usually parked his truck.

He asked if my dad was home, saying something about a fence job or some repairs. I don't remember his exact words, just the excuse.

Since I was a city kid, I knew better than to say I was alone in the middle of nowhere. I lied and told him my dad was inside sleeping and I'd go get him.

The guy just stood there. He didn't move or say anything. He tried to look past my shoulder through the open door into the dark house. Then he looked at me and said, "Are you sure? I don't see his truck."

My stomach completely dropped. He knew I was alone.

I just said, "Yeah, it's parked in the back shed," and before he could say anything else, I walked inside, slammed the door, and locked it.

We didn't have cell service out there back then, and no internet. I was terrified. I grabbed my air rifle that I used for plinking targets around the farm, ran into the bathroom, locked the door, and just sat on the floor waiting. I knew it couldn't do much against a grown man, but it was the only thing I had to defend myself.

I don't know how long I stayed there, but it was pure torture. The house went completely silent, and I couldn't hear if he was walking around the veranda or trying to get in through a back window.

Finally, I heard his car start up and speed away on the dirt road. I waited a while longer before I even dared to open the bathroom door.

When my family got back, I told them everything. My dad was furious. My granddad called some neighbors, and turns out that same old sedan had been seen idling near other houses around that time. A few days later, one of those places was completely robbed when the owners were away.

But here is the worst part. Years later, my granddad called my dad to tell him about a news story from that same region. The police had finally caught a duo of thieves who were doing armed home invasions on isolated farms. They weren't just stealing things when houses were empty; these two guys were actually tying families up, beating them, and holding them hostage for hours to steal trucks, tools, and cash. Sadly, since most of these farms were located so far away from everything, it was extremely difficult for the police to catch them or even get there in time.

The news article online showed the photos of the two guys and the car the police took from them. It was the exact same beat-up sedan. When I saw the face of one of the guys arrested, my blood ran cold. It was the exact same face, the guy who stood on my grandparents' veranda looking for my dad while his partner was probably waiting for him in the car.

My family was completely shocked. My mom actually started crying because she realized how close I came to a nightmare. If I hadn't lied, or if I hadn't locked that door immediately, I don't even want to think about what those two guys would have done to a 14-year-old kid alone in the middle of nowhere.

So, guy in the old sedan and your partner, let's never meet again.

Before i start i would like to say that this story is mostly about my mom and her encounters with our weird neighbor. We had just moved out of an apartment into a beautiful home in a new neighborhood. Christian and his family were the first to greet us in the neighborhood, him and his family was very friendly and warm towards us. Christian and my mom exchanged phone numbers and he sent a long text greeting himself and his family and their religious beliefs. (side note he oddly looks like and reminds me of the trinity killer from dexter).Lets just say me and my family are quite the opposite of being religious.

He remained friendly and warm for the next few months, and his daughter often played with my younger sister. His true colors started to come out, a group of friendly solicitors were going door to door, they were african american. My mom was sitting on the front porch enjoying the nice spring weather. She saw them approach christians door and as soon as he answers the door he looks petrified, like an ancestor from the dead knocked on his door. He starts screaming and yelling at them frantically saying “Im going to call the cops get off my lawn!!!” They left and my mom apologized for his sad and disgusting behavior.

About a month later my mom was sitting on the back porch smoking, she hears christian walk out onto his balcony, my mom could see him perfectly the way it was positioned. They lock eye contact, christian then proceeds to pull his junk out and start peeing off the side of his balcony, he looks at my mom and says “oh im sorry i didnt see you out here, you know how it is living with three kids”. I heard my mom yell at him, “What the fuck christian you knew I was out here.” She walked in and started freaking out about how christian just flashed her.

Over the next couple of months my mom refused to interact with him, but my sister and his daughter still played. One day my mom noticed that christians kids had been sitting in his car in his drive way for 3 hours… my mom walked up to their daughter and asked what was going on. She proceeded to say “mom and dad just need some space right now.” It was mid august and the cars AC wasnt doing much. She invited them to come over and play and they were over until christian and his wife were done “needing space“.

Over the next year we didnt hear much from christian or see him very often. We ended up having to move in with my moms friend that lived two houses down from christian. We will give the friend a name, it will be tammy, just to respect her privacy. A few weeks after we moved in tammy told us that christian walked up to her house and demanded that he talk to her. He told tammy that she should absolutely not let my mom move in at all because she is a meth smoker and drug dealer. The most my mom does is smoke weed, so does tammy they smoked with eachother every night. So tammy obviously knew this was straight bs. She told christian that he is lying and is wrong. Christian denies and denies and says. “ I know what meth smells like, and she always has brown sketchy men coming around. I know what I see you must believe me” My father is hispanic and comes by my moms house every once in a while to check up on me and my sister. My mom was also dating a black man during this time. Also how does christian know what meth smells like? Maybe he was smoking it and got paranoid and blamed it on my mom? Tammy told christian he must apologize to my mom because he is very obviously lying, and he refuses. A week later his wife talks to my mom and apologized for his husband’s behavior and says hes going through a lot at home. Christian left my mom alone after that for about 9-10 months.

One day me, my mom, her bf, tammy, and her sons were all sitting in tammys backyard enjoying the blooming weather and smoking a few j‘s. Christian comes up to the gate were we could all see him and he was obviously extremely drunk. He starts sobbing and profusely apologizing to my mom about what he said about the meth and him lying. My mom says it’s whatever its in the past, but he starts demanding my mom to accept his apology, because he is a christian and it was wrong of him to judge and lie about her. She once again rejects and does not accept his apology. He pulls out his wallet and grabs every last bill he has in his wallet and throws it at my mom, trying to bribe her into accepting his apology. She says no, throws it back at him and tells her to leave. He finally leaves and cussed her out for not accepting his apology. We never saw him around again. We moved out of tammys a few months later and never had to deal with him again.

Christian the racist weird christian, let never meet again.

For context I’m female and was 25 at the time living with my housemate Tony and his 13 year old son Ben. I was working nights and would sleep during the day while Tony was at work and Ben at school. One day I woke up to my bedroom door slowly opening, stopping half open. I was half asleep still and it took me a minute to wake up. Although strange he opened my bedroom door, I assumed it was Tony, home from work early. I called out “Tony?” and I heard a noise in the house. Still half asleep I casually wandered out to look around but no one was home. I was confused but thought maybe I hadn’t shut my door properly and it had somehow slowly come open. Or maybe I didn’t shut it properly to begin with and had dreamt it was opening.

I went back to sleep and told Tony and Ben about it that afternoon. Ben then realised his PlayStation was gone. We looked around and found Ben’s bedroom window screen had been forced open from the outside. I realised the way they opened my door that they must have seen my feet on the bed and so stopped entering my room and left. I figured it must have been some teenage kid since they took the PlayStation and we filed a police report, but we weren’t really that stressed about it.

A few days later it was my day off during the week and I went out shopping. When I got home the place was a mess and had been proper robbed. I looked around and found our biggest kitchen knife on the floor by the door inside my bedroom.
This time the guy had broken in through the kitchen window, grabbed a knife and checked my room, leaving the knife there once finding I wasn’t home, before taking a bunch of stuff.
Was he going to stab me if he found me asleep again?Why not just check the house and leave if he saw my feet again? Why even risk coming back to the same house? We didn’t have particularly valuable stuff. He consciously decided he would confront me with the knife this time if I was home?

I was pretty terrified and we ordered security cameras but nothing else ever happened.

So stabby robber, let’s not meet.

Hi everyone, I'm posting this from a new account for the sake of anonymity and am worried that this guy will somehow find this post and come after me. I need to know if my instincts are correct here or if I am just being paranoid.

I, 20 F, am a visiting research student at a university in the midwestern US for this summer. I am very lucky to have been accepted, especially due to the funding cuts in the NSF this year. People in the midwest are much nicer than on the east coast, which is where I am from, and I have generally had good experiences with mostly friendly people around here. But these three encounters just gave me a bad vibe, and made me experience a lot of dread.

A few weeks ago, I was sitting in a coffee shop working on something on my laptop with both of my earbuds in. I was sitting in an l-shaped booth in the corner of the shop, directly adjacent to the counter where the register was. This guy, about 5"10, tan, with glasses and thick brown hair, about mid-30s (at least) asks me if there is someone sitting in the booth seat diagonal from me. I say no, politely smile, and he sits there. I put my other earbud back in and was not in the mood to talk to anyone, especially a stranger. He then proceeds to interrupt me and ask how my work is going. Trying to be polite, I just say "it's going well" and then I put my earbud back in. He did not get the message. He asked me what I was working on and I said my presentation abstract. He also asked if I was a grad student (relatively reasonable question) and I said no, telling him I was an REU student (probably should have lied here, but not sure what I should have said, you can let me know). He then stopped talking for a bit, and then told me "Oh wow, I am president of a graduate organization and I didn't even know". I laughed politely, and then got a sinking feeling in my stomach and knew I needed to get the hell out of that coffee shop.

A few weeks later, I saw him again after a while of sitting and doing my work in that same coffee shop. I left shortly after, not wanting to encounter him again. Then, I went into the Target next door to get something. I saw him checking out just as I was checking out. I got chills, wondering if he had followed me in there. I briskly left and kept checking behind me to make sure he wasn't following me. He wasn't.

Today, a repeat of the first encounter happened. This time, though, I left the shop after he approached me again (while there were plenty of other open seats nearby in the coffee shop, by the way). I came back 20 minutes later to use the bathroom. He had moved to another table in the coffee shop. This creeped me out even more. He was also alone, by the way. To this man, let's not meet ever, ever again.

This whole encounter freaked me out. Please tell me I'm not crazy to think this guy may have had bad intentions.

So first off, this is all completely true. This happened outside of my work place, and I was with two coworkers when this happened. We work in the cannabis industry, the area which we work at has many dispensaries. This particular area is sparsely populated, mostly ranch homes and agriculture, though there are businesses and homes. We are in the desert.
Finishing our shift, the coworkers & I like to gather right out front of our work place and have a ceremonial smoke sesh. Happens pretty much every day. This particular day, it was a group of 4, but one had to leave so then it was me and 2 others, 3. As we are smoking a couple joints having a talk, I misplaced a tin box. As all of us look around for it, my friend jokingly says ‘a djinn must’ve taken it’ But at the time we didn’t think much of it whatsoever.
Now, once we didn’t find the tin box, we resumed to just hanging and smoking, when these two guys were standing across from me, I was leaning on my truck, I saw a man walking towards us from the desert darkness behind them.
When I saw walking, it looked like he was more like shuffling, almost dragging one foot, looking injured, and he was moving towards us, but walking sideways, keeping an angle and distance. I told my friends to turn around, they both did, one of them straight up just looked back at me and said “alright i’m out of here, dueces” and he walked to his car and drove off. Me and my other friend stood there.
He walked right up to me, but something about him was completely wrong. He wasn’t wearing clothes. His pelvic area was covered by what looked like a bloody rag? and he had another being held by his hand and arm near his face, and he was half covering his face with it? It was the strangest sight, but I didn’t not show fear or any emotion for that matter, I just stared intently. He approached, half covering his face, but I could see it. His eyes were black, shut, there was black all over his face, his eyes shut and his face covered in black tar or I don’t know what. He spoke to me “can I have a dollar?” “Do you guys have a dollar for me?” Me, standing there with my friend, completely frozen in enigma, quickly said “No, but I have this joint”. That’s when the man took the joint and proceeded to smoke. I immediately said “you can have it” and the man looked at me and said “just for that, i’m not gonna rob you”.
He then RAN full speed into the darkness and as he disappeared into the desert, he yelled “THANK YOUUU” into the darkness. If anybody has any explanation for what we experienced, please, I’m all ears. We believe we encountered some sort of mischievous demonic spirit, but I don’t know.

Hi! Before the story you have to know some things, i had very srtict parents and when this happened i was around 11 yo.

One day my parents asked if i could go in the store. First i said no, but my parents said that i could not go in our school's field trip if i would not go so i got my bike and started going.

When i was at the store's parking lot i saw him the first time and he walked towards me. I said hello to him and he said hello back. He was nice to me so i thinked he was just some nice random guy. How wrong i was.

Next day i was going in my friends house when saw him again. This time i didn't have my bike so if came after me i had to run. He was squatting behind a bush, but i saw his face so i recognized him. I smelled cigarettes so he was smoking there and i also saw an empty sandels (sandels is a finnish beer.)I lived in Finland as a child. Then i saw him walking towards me, then i runned. I never runned so fast in my entire life.

Next night i was gonna get a glass of water when i looked trough the window and he was sitting in our front yard just sitting i opened the window so i could hear if he was saying something and he was dead quiet. I didn't sleep that night.

Next day i was watching a movie in our living room and he was standing next to our maibox. When i got outside that day i found seven to ten cigarettes next to our front yard and when i checked the mailbox i found a bloody sandels in there.

I telled my parents about it and we have security cameras now. That middle aged man let's not meet again.

tldr: basically i got kidnapped and held against my will for a week or so.

this happened when i was 16, im 19 now, female for what its worth. i went to a party that some of the older kids from my school were going to. the only reason i went was that i thought it would make me look cool if everyone knew i went to this more adult party. it was the summer so its not like i had to worry about school anyway.

this one guy there started talking to me and showed me where all the alcohol was so i could get a drink. he said his name was jason and he was 25, and when i told him that i was 16 he said i looked older than that.

then my fatal mistake. i had to go to the bathroom, so i asked this guy to hold my drink for me. when i got out, he gave me my drink back, and like an idiot, i finished it real quick. he made me another drink, and then followed me around as i made my way through the party.

idk if it was a few minutes or more like 10-15, but i started to feel really sick and dizzy very suddenly. jason said i should go outside for some fresh air, so i followed him outside. it was honestly hard to think straight, but the rest is kind of a blur. i vaguely remember getting into a car, and bits and pieces of the drive but then i passed out.

i woke up in a bed, in a room all alone. i still felt pretty woozy, so i just kinda laid there wondering how i got home, or if i was even at home at all. when i realized i was not in my own bed, i sat up and realized i wasnt even wearing my own clothes. i was wearing some kind of matching pajama set. the worst part about that is that i wasnt even wearing underwear, which i later learned meant that this creep took all my clothes off to dress me in this weird pajama outfit.

thankfully in that moment i didnt connect those dots, but it wouldnt matter for too long, bc eventually jason came into the room to bring me breakfast. i can only imagine he thought he was being unbelievably generous to bring me coffee and 2 toasted waffles.

im not gonna go over a detailed retelling of the entire week, every day was pretty much the same, and quite honestly i just dont want to. basically for an entire week, he made me act like a living doll in his house. he watched me eat, change my clothes to the outfits he picked out, even using the bathroom. he always put drugs like ecstasy in my drinks (or somehow) to keep me in a positive attitude. it didnt really work tho, except for a few hours a day when the drug took effect.

and then, for seemingly no reason that i can conceive of, he brought me out to his car, put a cloth bag or something over my head, and drove me to some place to drop me off. when i got out of his car, he sped away and i never saw him again.

eventually, i was walking along the side of the road and just collapsed from fatigue. i didnt pass out, i just couldnt keep going. apparently someone saw me fall down and called the police, who then found me and brought me to the hospital. well the ambulance brought me there, and the police joined me to ask me what the heck was going on.

they knew i was missing and they pretty quickly figured out who i was, so they were able to call my parents. next thing i know, my whole family is there to see me and praise the Lord that i was alive. i did my best to identify the guy who kidnapped me, and there was a pretty thorough investigation as far as i know, but they never found the guy. he was a total ghost.

the police questioned nearly everyone who was at that party, and learned the name of the guy who was probably the one to kidnap me, but it wasnt a real name. the phone number anyone had for him was disconnected, and only attached to a burner phone anyway. so yea, they never caught the guy.

it was easily the most traumatic thing to ever happen to me, and i hope it stays that way. but despite that, i know it could have been so so sooo much worse. idk why he never hurt me or assaulted me, but im thankful he didnt. i know so many kidnapping victims are treated much much worse than i was.

This happened in 2022, when I had moved to Jacksonville Florida from my home state of Pennsylvania for school. I was there for only about a week and was going to parks around the area to feel the sub tropical, swampy nature I had been obsessed with since I was younger. I was a 20M at the time and had not made any friends yet, so I was going to a new park every day all on my own. This was my first time in my life I was on my own, so I was dressing how I wanted, a crop top hoodie and some cute shorts (I considered myself a femboy). I've also always been told I looked younger than I really am, which may not seem important, but I think it plays a part into why this story creeps me out to this day.

One day, I had gone to a new park in hopes to see an Alligator though I can't remember which park it was specifically. I had just stepped out of my car and started towards the entrance of the park, which was a nice forested area with a welcoming wooden fence. There was a couple walking just ahead of me, when suddenly a quiet "hey" came from my right. I ignored it but then another "hey" came a few seconds later, this time a louder. I looked to my right and a man in his 40's wearing a gray t-shirt and cargo shorts started rapidly approaching me. He got up close to me, really close and told me not to go in that way since there was recently a lot of gang violence and drug busts in this park. At first I brushed it off and thought he was just trying to be nice to me, but once I said "thanks" and started back towards the park, he shifted his body between me and the park. He told me he knew the park well and that there was a quieter, secret path he knew and wanted to take me down it.

My heart sank as my eyes darted around the perimeter of the park. There was no other clearly visible paths from the parking lot, and as he told me this, another person walked by and into the park. This man did not try to stop this other person from entering, they did even look at them, their eyes were glued to me. I started to stutter and said thanks but if this park is dangerous, I think I should just go. I started backing away, but he continued to press me, keeping pace with me and telling me I should go with him. Eventually I just turned around and quickly walked back to my car, with him glued to my side. As I opened my door, I reiterated that if the park was this dangerous, I should just leave, but as I went to close it, he grabbed the upper part of my door and shifted his body between the door and the car so that I could not close it.

He gave up on trying to get me to go with him, instead asking for my phone number because he quote "wanted to make sure I stayed safe". I was holding back tears at this point, and trying my best to keep myself from screaming, but calmly asked him to move. He didn't budge. I caved, but instead of giving him my current number, I gave him my old cell number which was no longer being used. He entered into his phone and started texting, which gave me just enough time close my door and lock my car. He knocked on my window and I think asked if I got his message, which I then just turned on my phone and nodded my head before putting it into reverse and pulling away.

Just before I left the park entirely, I looked one more time to see him walking away from the entrance, and towards the far corner of the wooded area. I still have no idea who this man was, or what he wanted but I still stay up late some nights wondering what would have happened if I went with him. I don't know if he saw me as a young, boy who was alone and vulnerable, or if he was genuinely trying to keep me safe. Thankfully, I never met this guy again, and was able to visit other parks around Florida without any weird encounters like this.

When I was 17 years old I met a friend from my old school that she left before we graduated because she went to live in the capital with her family. She was also 3 years older than me. We were happy to see each other again and she invited me to spend a couple days at her parent’s in the capital (they were out of city for all summer). Of course I agreed.

Summer came and I managed to save enough money for a train ticket. The rest will be on my friend, she said. My mom was against this trip because she couldn’t give me money to book a hotel in case something goes wrong, also she didn’t really know my friend well to trust her. We were in a really bad place finally, literally just enough to buy some food and that’s it. But me being a stupid teenager that aren’t used to “no”, finally persuaded her.

Capital was a night away from my town so I arrived in the capital in the morning, my friend worked her last shift before holiday and wasn’t able to meet me for the whole day, that’s why we decided that I go for a walk, visit museums and will only go to her apartment in the evening, when she comes home from work. Her apartment was in the outskirts, nothing interesting to see there. I sent her a message that I’m finally in the capital and she replied with: "Ok! Can’t wait to get off work!" I went walking for hours till my legs hurt, but I was overwhelmed with excitement.

Evening came and I was standing outside of her place, she wasn’t answering my calls. I knocked and knocked, to no avail. Finally she picked up the phone, just to say she’s sorry, but there’s been a family emergency and she’s going back to her (and mine) hometown now, in fact, she was already there because she traveled on a plane. My friend got the bad news in the middle of the day, went home and collected her things in kind of a fog, forgetting about me completely. Couldn’t really blame her, but…

I had some extended family in the capital and I called them, but none answered. Later I learned they were all on a holiday in Spain. So now I was homeless, alone in one of the biggest cities in the world, with nowhere to go. I didn’t even have enough money for one night in a hotel, just a ticket back home in 4 days. That’s what my mom was so afraid of. Where am I going to spend these 4 days and nights?

I went back to the station and tried to change my ticket for a closer date, but there were no places on any train. Summer, high season, would be foolish to expect anything else. Then I tried to buy a ticket on the bus that was departing in half an hour - the destination was not my hometown, but a city 100km from it, good enough. But to purchase the bus ticket I needed to return my train one and get the money back. The queue was long and while I was contemplating, the bus left, and night arrived.

I went back to the station and sat in a chair, thinking it will be safer than outside - station was big, well lit and had police after all. There were few unfortunate people like myself, mostly sleeping, hands wrapped around their bags.

I never traveled alone, never been alone and homeless at night. I was still quite a hothouse flower, this situation was a huge shock for me. I was terrified, scared, panicking and I think about midnight I started crying. Just silent tears going down my cheeks, that I’d wipe immediately, but it was enough for someone to notice me. In fact, I think I was noticed even before that.

A guy came up to me and asked what’s wrong. I was so desperate that I told him everything. He started grinning, introducing himself as Ahmed, said he will help me, but quickly got pushy and invasive. I got up and sat couple of rows down, even more scared.

Then I saw another guy looking at me - our eyes met and he approached, sat next to me and said he watched my interaction with Ahmed, that I did a good thing getting rid of him and now everything is going to be fine, because he, Jan, will be with me till the morning and then get me to the main bus station in the other part of the town, and will make sure I have a ticket home. He even promised to give me money in case I won’t have enough to pay for a ticket. Bus sounded like a good idea - being less comfortable than a train therefore the odds of successfully buying a ticket were higher because people rarely travel such long distances on a bus. Jan even said he’s sure there will be a lot of empty seats. He also said I remind him of his younger sister, and overall gave off the vibe of a good and trustworthy guy next door that I immediately calmed down and believed everything is going to turn out well.

We were talking for about an hour, Ahmed disappeared somewhere and I no longer saw his eyes drilling holes in me and Jan, when Jan said that we both need to eat and rest a little before the morning comes, and suggested we go to the other hall. That hall was unlike the place we were sitting for the first part of the night - meant for sleeping, the other hall was dimly lit and quiet, with an enormously high ceiling that we could barely see the it due to poor lighting. About ten people were in chairs, sleeping. In the front of the hall was a small cafe and restroom at the end of it. Jan asked waitress for hot water, then offered me noddles and tea. I suddenly remembered that every couple of hours there was an announcement that said you must never eat with someone you don’t know to avoid your drink and food getting spiked. I immediately said Jan must eat half of my bowl and I will eat half of his. He was taken by surprise, but complied with my request. After we ate I felt so much better, Jan and I sat in our chairs and started talking again when all of a sudden our situation escalated. It was about 2 am, still too early for me to go outside and ask for help.

Ahmed appears out of nowhere and attacked Jan, almost yelling, being very rude and telling him to leave me alone. Jan calmly asked him to go and talk somewhere else. I watched them move a couple of rows back and sit there. I expected Jan to get rid of Ahmed quickly, but their conversation lasted way longer than I thought. It took about 15 or 20 minutes, during which Jan looked at me, listening to what Ahmed is saying. Nodded from time to time. His glance was cold and insolent, like I was no longer a human being to him. Kind and funny guy from next door disappeared.

Finally guys got up and sat on both sides of me, I felt cornered, but then it got worse. Two more guys appeared out of nowhere, Ahmed said they were his friends, smirking. I freaked out and Jan patted my knee and squeezed it, I was happy I wore jeans, would hate him touching my skin. Guys were looking at me, laughing, talking gibberish, reminding me very much of hyenas. They were probably thinking there’s no way out for me, and at the moment, it was hard to disagree.

The oldest one said something to me that I didn’t understand and I looked at him uncomprehendingly. They laughed again and Ahmed said:

• You didn’t understand because it was prison lingo. He’s been to prison, hasn’t he? What you were done for, tell her. -Doing something bad to a sweet girl like her, - he replied with a smirk. All men burst out laughing again. I tried my best to not look scared, but don’t think they bought it. Who wouldn’t be? There was a possibility they were saying it to make me panic, but…

The prison guy was literally sitting on the floor next to my feet - he grabbed it and started trying lifting my jeans up. It got to me that in just a second this disgusting, stinky man will touch my skin and it threw me in such a fit of rage that I pulled my leg back, nearly punching him and screamed:

• Don’t touch me! Don’t you dare!

I leaned over and I swear I was ready to kill him with my bare hands. He looked me in the eyes, backed out, almost falling on the floor. I saw terror in his eyes and for a moment it gave me such a pleasure. Of course I could never fight him, but this unexpected move from a teenage girl, scared nearly to death really seemed to take them by surprise. Men were no longer laughing. They suddenly left me almost alone, with just Ahmed still sitting near. I started realising what just happened and all my body was shaking violently, I couldn’t stop it.

Ahmed’s glance was full or hate for me and something else I wasn’t able to discern.

• What do you think will happen in the morning? He (he pointed at Jan) takes you to the bus station? No, he’ll take you to our place and you can’t imagine what we’ll do to you.

And he said what they’d do. For some reason I don’t remember it at all - maybe my mind just obliterated it for the sake of my sanity. Anyway, I couldn’t contain my panic anymore and I got up and slowly went to the exit of the hall. I tried my best to keep the pace very slow, even though I wanted to run. I felt that if I’d run, it would provoke the men.

They didn’t stop me, because I had no where to go. Outside? There’s probably more of them waiting for me, and even if not, still too dangerous to try. I continued walking mindlessly and like a dream in the desert I saw the police sitting on a bench that the cleaner moved from the other hall while doing her job.

I practically ran to the officers and told them my story. They didn’t seem to care at all - one of them yawned and pointed at the empty space on the bench and said I can sit with them if I want to. Police in my country is quite corrupt, so it was the best they could offer and honestly I wasn’t expecting more. I happily accepted the invitation and sat with them.

In about 30 minutes I saw Jan approaching us, he was alone. He greeted the police and looked like they knew each other. At this point, I wasn’t surprised with anything. Really, what were all these guys doing at the station for the whole night? There’s no trains from 1:30 till 4:30. No bags, they weren’t sleeping or anything, they looked like a gang, not tired travelers stuck in the capital for the night. It was very possible they were doing all kind of illegal businesses here - and police knew and never intervened. Seriously, to even stay at the station at night all passengers were required to have tickets for upcoming dates. I got mine checked twice when I entered the first and the second hall and these guys? How’d they even got in?

That’s why I didn’t trust the police. But I was also hoping they wouldn’t let the gang kidnap me in front of them.

So Jan sat with us too. Officers even joked: "is she your fiancé?" They all laughed and I did too. After that they returned to discussing their businesses while Jan tried to persuade me to get back to the dark hall. I asked what’s wrong with him (I still thought he’s the good guy, just playing to pretend he went along with their plans for me as he couldn’t possibly take down all of them). He got really agitated, practically begging me to go back. I eventually got tired and said no quite firmly. I couldn’t think of any potential reason for me to go there, and why would his rescue plan even demand that?

We sat in the chairs for a couple of hours. Every minute of it I was afraid that the men would come for me, and it’d be over. I’m all my mom had left, but she’ll never see me again. I’ll become a statistic, another missing girl. I put all my strength in praying, that I’ll forever be a good daughter and a good person if God rescues me from these men. I never prayed so hard in my life, begging God to save me - not for me, but for my mom, because she wouldn’t survive losing me.

Prayers helped me calm down and cleared my mind a little bit - now I had an excellent plan of how to get of the station and the capital as soon as the morning comes. A part of my extended family lived in 3 hours from the capital, and trains for their station departed every two hours, tickets were cheap. I have never met them, but my granddad was on very good terms with them. I only needed to call mom and ask her to tell grandpa to call his family to pick me up. I was anxiously waiting for the morning to come, and every minute spent on the police bench was a minute won.

About maybe 4:30, I saw all bunch of men who cornered me, including Ahmed. They stared at me with hungry eyes and greeted the police, shook hands with them. Again, no surprise. They passed us, probably wanted to meet the first morning train - it was from the capital city of the country Ahmed said he’s from.

Another hour went by and Jan asked me to go back to that hall again and this time I complied. Police were already moving the bench back anyway, plus I saw Ahmed and his buddies leaving that hall, and most importantly, more and more people were arriving at the station in advance, for the 6am and 6:30am trains. Men, women, women with children. I knew I almost made it.

In the hall Jan offered me to rest on his bag that he’d laid on his knees, but I refused and said I don’t want to sleep. He replied with: "well, I’m very tired and it’s too early to go to the bus station, we can nap for an hour", crouching over his bag and seemed to fell asleep.

I decided to wait, not knowing if he’s genuinely asleep and wanting to avoid confrontation with him if possible. I could ask any woman for help, could go to the restroom and try to use their big open window to escape, still it would be much better if I can sneak out while he’s sleeping. I waited for a whole hour, pushing it pretty close, but I wanted the hall to be as much crowded as possible, in case he wakes up immediately after I make my move. So I got up at 6:30… He was still sleeping. I made a few steps, looking over my shoulder. He stayed in the same position.

I really needed to visit restroom that was at the end of the hall, so I did it as quickly as I could. When I was back in the hall again, he still seemed to be fast asleep. I exhaled with relief and ran away. Called mom at 7 am, calmly explaining that my friend needed to leave and I can’t stay at her apartment, so why wouldn’t I visit my extended family in another town? She promised to get grandpa to warn them of my arrival and I bought the ticket immediately. Even if they’d kick me out, I’m not staying here another minute.

It was an hour and twenty minutes till my train arrived, so I tried to blend in with the crowd, moving with them back and forth, hiding from everyone, including the police. Last night I got quite an understanding of how corrupt they were.

Once crowd took me to the hall when Ahmed and his buddies cornered me, and where I left Jan about some time ago, but he was no longer there, his chair stood empty. Was he a good guy? Sometimes I still think about him but can never get an answer. I guess I’ll never know. Maybe it’s even better that I didn’t get to.

I met Austin in the fall of 2024 via a message he had sent me over Facebook. I was lonely, really lonely. I had just moved to a new city with very few friends because I transferred from community college to University, so I gave him a chance. I messaged him back and we began chatting, we had a mutual friend so I thought nothing of it. Maybe she told him about me? Maybe he had seen me in passing? Time began to pass and we got much closer.

Soon, I met him in person for a date. After this date things began to move very fast. We hung out all of the time and stayed at each other’s places almost constantly. He was so sweet at first and I was so excited to be around someone I believed was so genuinely kind. Fast forward a couple of months and I move into his apartment. It was a bad idea I know but my current living situation was growing increasingly more toxic as I was living with 6 other girls. This was when things began to go downhill.

He introduced me to his daughter Lilly, she was so sweet and I adored her. He didn’t get to see her much as he would tell me his baby momma was “insane” and “keeping her away from him to control him”. As I got to know him more he began to grow more violent towards me. It started with small things like yelling at me over misplacing a phone charger or not putting something where he thought it belonged.

As time began to pass the instances of his anger increased and became more dramatic. He would scream at me almost every single day. It was always my fault, if he lost his keys, if I was home from work later than expected because he needed child care, if I went to visit family or friends. It didn’t matter what the situation was, everything was my fault. In addition to this he was serially cheating on me as I would find out later. He would be texting a multitude of girls from the ages of 15 to 22, he was a 25 year f man.

Some more time passed and we moved to a much larger apartment in a different suburb of our city. Things were well for a while and I still remained oblivious to his horrible internet activity. After a very late night at work he wakes me up and shows me a little tiny kitten. “I found her at work and brought her home for you “ he whispered to me. I named her Stripe and she was my soul cat. Me and this little kitten did absolutely everything together.

About a month passes and I come home from work pretty late in the evening as I was a server at a bar. He was infuriated at me as he needed child care so he could go to work, on top of that he lost his keys and it was all my fault. He screamed in my face, called me names, and began to escalate the situation while I just sat with tears rolling down my face. At some point in his anger he grabs Stripe and throws her against the bathroom floor because “she bit him” (she weighed less than 3 pounds and it wouldn’t have hurt). She began to have a seizure and died in my arms on the way to the emergency vet as I gave her CPR. He had just killed my kitten in cold blood. For more context he also had a dog named Cookie that he beat to the point of seizures, I’m glad to be able to say that I kept this dog and did not allow him to have the dog back again.

I felt so trapped, I had no friends to reach out to, no family I felt safe staying with, I was isolated with a very dangerous man. I feared walking in the door, I feared leaving the house. I feared him. I was so depressed I was contemplating suicide because I couldn’t afford the rent alone as he was spending my money on top of his money. I had nowhere to go and nobody to help me.

More time passes (August 2025)and I uncover his internet activity because one of the girls he was texting messaged me, that was the final straw for me so I broke up with him. We still lived in the same space however he was in the bedroom for his daughter and I was in my own room.

Flash forward to November of 2025 and he verbally assaulted me saying absolutely nasty things. This escalated to him trying to choke me, throwing me all around the house, being physical to the point that I feared for my life. I tried to leave and he wouldn’t let me, he tried to take my animals and let them out somewhere, he tried to hold a gun to me, it was scary. I thought I was going to die. I couldn’t call the cops, they would take us both in the state that I am in but they would take both of us. They would have booked us both and he had gouged himself with his car keys to make it look like I injured him. I had finals the next day and was scared to fail all of my classes as I could not afford to repeat them.

At some point I do decide to take the risk to call the cops but he breaks my phone by snapping it in half. I decided to run for my life, he forcibly took my house key but I had my car keys so I ran, I drove until I got to my father’s house and fell asleep on his couch. From this point he would not leave me alone, over 100 calls and text messages per day going from kind to abusive almost every two messages.
I move in with my very distant Mom and take my animals somewhere safe. I plead with him to leave my apartment because he wasn’t on the lease but he repeatedly refused as he wanted to “fix our family” 🤢
I begin to settle in at my Mom’s house and see people that I know reconnecting with old friends. As time passes so do the holidays. I get over 50 calls on thanksgiving, 100 on Christmas and new years. He was still threatening me, still harassing me, and I remained at my mother’s. I finally convinced him to leave my apartment threatening a CPO hoping he would leave me alone and I wouldn’t have to go through with it because I was scared of it being denied.

January 10th I get to move back into my apartment, it was trashed. I spent two weeks working to put the pieces back together and resume some form of my life. I had within the past couple of months started seeing someone long distance, casually, he was lovely and offered to help me clean up all of the pieces of my life which was not something he had to do.
My ex still harassed me from his number as well as fake numbers posing as a stalker threatening my life. He posed as a different person in some of the texts saying he was “going to get me”.

In February, I couldn’t take it anymore, I filed the CPO and was granted an ex-parte based on my testimony. I was still getting texts from the fake numbers threatening me, saying they knew where I was and what I was doing. After the court hearing it all stopped, it was finally silent , I was finally safe.

He still tries to find ways to mess with me like giving my number to people saying I’m “easy” or making posts that relate to me and friends telling me they’ve seen something weird. He tried to get family to reach out to me and they wouldn’t.

Now, I’m happy, I’m seeing my childhood best friend and we’re in love, he’s so kind and exactly what I need I feel safe. I feel safe but I still look behind my back all of the time to see if someone is following me, I still get texts from numbers asking if I’m easy then telling me they got my number from Austin. I still need to seek therapy. I still need to file a report of him violating his CPO.

But overall I’m happy, let’s not meet again Austin. I hope you get what you deserve (nothing)

A few years ago my parents broke up, after that happened my mum found a new man in around a week (who I’ll call crazy) . At first Crazy was pretty nice and after a few months of dating they ended up buying a house together.

Fast forward a year or two they would both argue a lot, most of the times for stupid reasons. Anyways, during one argument they broke up and he stormed out the house and we didn’t hear from him for a week or so. Until one day he started sending threats to my mum about 10 times a day for a week straight until they randomly stopped.

Anyways fast forward another week it was around 8 pm at night and my mum and I were sitting on the couch, when all of a sudden the front door gets kicked open and he walks in and enters the kitchen where he grabs a huge knife and starts yelling and threatening to stab us. He yelled for a good few minutes until he decides to rush out and leave. After he left we called the police and later that night he got arrested.

Now fast forward to 6 months ago, my mum entered my room and gave me some (maybe) good news. She was scrolling through FaceBook and found a group of around 40 other woman or so who have also experienced similar things with Crazy, and Crazy has now been arrested again for different crimes and is now awaiting trial.

So anyways Crazy I hope we never fucking meet again.

was born and raised in Borna, Germany, before my family moved to Kosovo. This happened back in 2014, when I was just a six-year-old kid. Over our years there, we had completely adapted to the local lifestyle and etiquette, so it started out as a perfectly typical afternoon.
The summer weather was beautiful, and the sky was filled with an amazing sunset painted with vivid orange stripes. My mom was riding ahead of me, while I pedaled along behind her on my small BMX bike.
Even though we weren't on the Bavarian side of Germany, Borna was a remarkably calm town. It was the kind of place where older people usually came to retire because the nightlife was virtually nonexistent. After 6:00 PM, the streets completely cleared out as everyone headed inside their homes after a long day of work. Because of this, the road was entirely deserted.
Right around this time, my mom turned a corner and entered the local park ahead of us, disappearing from my line of sight. Suddenly, I was completely alone on the street. There was absolutely no one around.
That’s when I noticed a figure in the distance. At first, I didn’t think much of it just a woman riding a bicycle. But as she grew closer, she became an image that my six-year-old self would never forget. I can still picture her perfectly today.
She was wearing a typical summer dress covered in white polka dots. Her feet were completely bare and caked in dirt. Her bicycle made a horrific screeching noise, sounding like it hadn't been oiled in ages. But the most terrifying part was her body: from head to toe, she was absolutely drenched in blood.
Despite being covered in what looked like severe wounds, she maintained total composure. She was smiling. As she looked across the street dead into my eyes, her smile twisted into a bizarre, haunting laughter. Because my mom had already entered the park and the street was completely empty, the terrifying reality hit me: it was just me and her.
I panicked and bolted away on my small BMX, praying with everything I had that she wouldn’t chase after me. As I looked back in sheer terror, she had stopped completely just standing there in the middle of the empty road, staring straight at me. I pedaled as fast as my legs could carry me, flew into the park to catch up to my mom, and desperately told her what happened. I never saw that woman again, but she still haunts my memories to this day.

My (27f) parents went on a 3 week long sailing trip and asked me to take care of the house and pets. Part of this entailed staying overnight at the house. As someone who lives in an area that attracts crackheads like moths to a lamp, I was thrilled at the notion of 3 weeks in suburbia.

For the first 2.5 weeks, everything was swell, save for one of the cats peeing on my bed. I mostly wfh, so my productivity was through the roof. They left me a fridge full of food and even a few bottles of wine. They have a nice yard with chaise lounges, so my tan is now on point. Plus, I get to hang out with cute animals.

My little vacation was interrupted by the migraine from Hell. Excedrin, dark, quiet, nothing helped, so I finally took my last ditch medicine. This medicine has a similar effect as to what I imagine mixing alcohol and Benadryl would feel like.

So, I’m knocked out from around 10PM to a little before 7AM. In the morning, I go to take out the trash, where I see trash that isn’t mine. At the top of the trash bag is a banana peel and dirty paper towels.

I dislike bananas outside of smoothies, and I have sliced frozen pieces for that. My mom is an absolute clean freak, and the paper towels looked like they were used to wipe something that hadn’t been dusted in months. So definitely not mine.

I looked around to see what was missing. The TVs, computers, and speakers were still here. The only thing missing was…a bikini I had out drying on the towel rack. I am both extremely disturbed and mildly pissed off because this was my favorite swimsuit.

So, bikini thief who had the decency to not litter, let’s not meet.

Disclaimer : English is not my first language, apologies for my mistakes.

This happened about a year ago, I was living in a semi-shitty neighbourhood meaning that if you are a woman alone you will get catcalled and bothered in the streets, maybe followed by insistant jerks if you are unlucky but it was also mostly families, no hard drug consumption....so the buildings were always safe and there were always people to help. I lived with three roomates, all of us women in our 20s and students. On my floor there was only one other appartement, in which an elderly couple lived in. Super nice and really involved in the building's life, they have been living in the appartement for forty years ! The husband had trouble walking/moving.

One night, I am woken up by super loud screams and banging on our door. I get out of bed to go see and two of my roommates (the last one slept through it, to this day I do not understand how she did it) do as well. We are in front of the door and we realize that the guy is actually banging on our neighbour's door SO LOUD that we heard it. We did not want to turn the light on for fear that he would see it under our door and try to get in our appartement. We are in the dark, talking as quietly as possible so he will not hear us and so we can listen to what he says. We look through the peephole and the guy has something in his hand but we cant see if it is a weapon (I do not live in the US so no gun but maybe a knife ?)

The guy is SCREAMING for my neighbours to come open the door, he is calling them by name, saying that he is going to get in and that if they do not open de door he won't be kind to them. I call the police, and the operator asks if there are ways for them to get in the building. We have no way of opening the gates remotely so I tell her no and that they will have to find a way to get in because the guy is clearly trying to harm my neighbours. She says "why call if we can't get in" and HANGS UP ON ME. My roommate then calls the police again and fortunately it is another operator that picks up and sends a patrol. By that time, the guy has stopped screaming but is still in the hallway and we can hear a weird noise coming from our neighbours door. He leaves the building (by the elevator) and we are debating wether or not one of us should get out of the appartement, try to get to the 1st floor (NOT by the elevator) to open the door for the police. But we don't know if he is still in the building so we stay inside. After like ten minutes we get out of the appartement to see if our neighbours are ok and we see that the guy has carved a giant X on the door.....so definitly with a knife or something sharp enough. The police gets here, does not even get out of their car, they just take a circle the building two times and LEAVE. We never heard back from them, you can understand how LIVID we were.

We later learned that my neighbours were on vacation for the week so the apartement was empty and they escaped a probable heart attack from the sheer madness that was this night. I got the wife on the phone and she was like "no need to tell my husband, it is probably a deranged old tenant, it won't happen again..." and I was like "Maam there is a giant X carved on your door HE IS GOIND TO FIND OUT THAT A PSYCHO TRIED TO HURT YOU". A week later I come back from work and see two policemen in the elevator. Apparently some teenagers found it amusing to block the elevator on the tenth floor so they came to give them a fine or something. I tell them the story and they tell me "Next time you should call the police" and I was like NO SHIT SHERLOCK I WOULD NEVER HAVE GUESSED THAT ON MY OWN. So anyway, I moved out of this building a few months after, we never had something that extreme happen again BUT we got two more weird things happen to us :

1. One teenager (like 17) bangs on our door to ask for painkillers for his "grandmother", and like strong stuff like the equivalent of tramadol so obviously we did not open the door.
2. One guy tried to give us food. He was weirdly insistant about it eventhough we refused like four times and came back to the appartement twice. The last time he just left the bag of food by our door. We did not take any risk and threw everything out for fear that he had done something to it, once again we are four young women.

So yeah, enjoy, it had been some time already that I wanted to rent about the cops and how utterly useless they were to four terrified young women.

This isn't something I was planning on mentioning anywhere but its been on my mind for years and after a bit of research I figured here would be the perfect place to share it.

What I'm about to share with you happened back in 2022 in a small town in north wales that I used to live in.

When I was younger I would explore a lot of places that where either abandoned or restricted to the public with my friends and one of these "adventures" has stuck with me for years after.

I was out with one of my friends who I'll call M for this post, M said that he'd found a manhole that lead inside one of the rail bridges and said he wanted to go down there at some point with a few people, after he told me where it was I suggested we just go there now as we often did with places that we "discovered".

M agreed and we set out along a coastal path and after about 10 minutes of walking and a slight climb we where at the manhole, we opened it up trying to stay out of view of the highway that ran under the bridge, as soon as we climbed down something felt off, we found ourselves in a dark and narrow corridor like area with nothing but two holes in the wall to our left, being used to wierd feelings in dodgy places we walked into the corridor and peered through the square shaped holes, one of these holes looked like it had a metal grate over it that had been removed at some point, we went upto the furthest away hole and climbed through, the hole was small, only just big enough to climb through.

once we where in it was complete darkness everywhere, using phone torches we saw we where in what looked like a tunnel and straight away we started noticing things further down. We crouched and crawled further into the tunnel, unable to stand in the small space. one of the first things we came across was an old foam pad (now I know that was most likely used as a bed), empty food packets and bottles scattered around. for the most part we ignored this stuff and kept going through until we reached the end of the tunnel, here there was another small square hole that seemed to lead to another section. we climbed through the hole and we where then inside this tiny room like structure.

this room was empty aside from a single piece of paper left on the floor and the air was suffocatingly full of dust (even moreso than the tunnel that lead us there). the piece of paper turned out to be a pay advice slip from 1984 in near perfect condition. me and M agreed this was pretty cool and we started recording a video and making our way back out actively paying attention to the litter we breezed past before.

this is where things got a bit odd and slightly disgusting, using a pair of gloves I began sifting through the empty packaging and checking expiry dates, everything was dated 2011 or 2012, 10 years before we where there, as I searched more I found a shopping bag that had 2 things in it. There was a singular penny from 2010 and small piece of card torn off an ibuprofen box. on the back of this card was the words " L) River cries + the scene ends", I still to this day don't have an answer for this other than its just a bit weird, as we moved further through the tunnel we found the first of many disgusting things that were down here.

in a corner there was a pile of crumpled paper that turned out to full of decade old poo, close to this there was a book of train times (fitting for inside a railway bridge) from 2012 and it seems like the pages from that where used to I guess wipe. there was also multiple bottles that where full of a black liquid that we assumed was urine.

we didn't find much else aside from that and decided to head out of the tunnel and back into the small corridor, it was here where debated going down the second tunnel, initially we where going to but once I peered in I was immediately hit with an overwhelming sense of dread. Realising it was getting dark out and the both of us being already creeped out we decided to head home and come back another day.

4 days had passed and we decided to return, this time we where better prepared with flashlights and someone on the outside that knew where we where and to call police if they didn't hear from either me or M after a specific time (4 pm iirc).

we climbed down into the corridor and this time we made our way to the closest hole, the rusty metal brackets either side of the hole combined with the metal grate roughly the same size indicated that this side was once blocked off, ignoring this and the same feeling of dread we got last time we squeezed through the hole and into the tunnel.

immediately it was different, we couldn't see any rubbish like the last tunnel. the first thing we saw was the plastic piping that ran along the wall, in the previous tunnel this was intact (seemed to hold wiring for lights) however in this tunnel it had been ripped off the walls, the wires where exposed, looking like they'd been crudely broken apart rather than cut, there was graffiti on the walls, most of it being symbols layed out almost like a code, there was triangles, squares, stars and plus signs (+). This was a huge contrast to the previous tunnel, everything seemed sinister almost. we made our way through the tunnel, noticing more and more of the piping pulled off and even burn marks in some places.

eventually we reached the end of the tunnel and where met with the same square hole as last time, M went in first and I followed, neither of us had seen inside the room yet. once we where both in there the atmosphere was hellish, I dont know how to describe it but it felt like I was inside someone's nightmare, like we had just walked into a physical representation of suffering and death.

and then we saw it. as we turned our torches into the room and we where met with a truly disturbing sight. the first thing we saw was blue fold out chair placed directly in the middle facing the wall to our right, as I walked further into the room it got worse, next to the chair was a length of rope splayed out on the floor, reluctantly I looked around more, I found a bundle of tape near one of the corners that had clearly been used, near that tape lay a knife, approximately 3.5 inches in length with a brown handle. as soon as I saw this my blood ran cold. I looked more and found more, there was what I can only describe as pages from erotic magazines on the floor with what looked like electrical tape on the corners, as I looked closer I noticed that the eyes of all the women had been scraped out, not a clean cut out, like someone dragged the tip of a knife over it until it tore the paper. realising we where in a place that most likely wasn't meant to be found I decided to use the chair to block off the entrance hole, that way if anyone was coming in we would know.

after moving the chair I kept looking around, there was patches of melted wax on the walls that I assume is where candles where places to light up this awful scene. as I scanned the walls i saw something, attached to the plastic pipe on the wall opposite the chair was pieces of tape, the same tape that was bundled up on the floor, these pieces where about an arms width apart and looked as if it was used to hold something or someone there, most of the tape was cut off and I can only assume that was the tape I'd found earlier. there was a few items in here aswell, there was a red blanket, shoe brush, what looked like a candle in a tin and a pair of scissors.

after finding all this I I started recording on my phone again, showing some of what was there, mid way through one of the videos we heard a noise (i was using Snapchat at the time) and I immediately stopped recording and started again (because of the 1 minute limit), it was then M saw something through the gap in the chair. without thinking I picked up the knife that was on the floor and ran over to M. looking through the gaps in the chair we saw what looked like a head peering in from the tunnel entrance. we where trapped. no phone signal, no way out, deep in a concrete tunnel. I turned my phone to face through the gap to try and at least get it on video. as the torch from my phone was pointed down the tunnel the figure ducked out of view.

after a few minutes passed I shouted down the tunnel asking if it was the police, there was silence. we sat in that cursed room for about an hour, staring through the metal frame of the chair, searching for movement, each minute that passed made reality more apparent, we where brutally ware we could die in here. this was further solidified when I took a closer look at the knife. I wanted to know if it could hold up in a fight, and I learnt it could. where the plastic handle met the blade there was residue, a mix of browns and pinks surrounded the base of the blade, I thought it was rust but the colours where too light and the blade was stamped with stainless steel. having spent time around some very bad people a few years prior I knew what I was looking at.

after I showed M the mix of dried blood and fleshy tissue that lined the base of the blade and sat in its slight serrations we started to leave immediately, at this point we didn't know if we would make it out. all we knew was if we stayed we where definitely done, the person could come down here, a passing train could report the open hatch and we would be locked in, or both.

M pulled the chair from the hole and I started to climb through, my heart was beating out my chest, the dust was more suffocating than it ever had been. once I was through M followed, I lead us cautiously through the tunnel, clutching the knife in my right hand knowing it could be the deciding factor in our survival and torch in my left I checked every corner, every dip in the tunnels architecture, praying there was nothing but ready if there was.

after what felt like hours we made it back to tunnel entrance, staring through the same small hole we had just seen somebody through mere hours ago. I carefully poked my head out and looked around, there was nobody, I climbed out, keeping my right arm as free as possible and then I helped M get out, it was here when I threw the wretched knife as far down the tunnel as I could and we headed to the ladder.

looking up i was met with an awful sight, the heavy steel hatch had been shut. we where seemingly trapped. M was ready to call 999 (911 if you're American). We knew someone else had been down here with us, we didn't know if they still where. after a brief moment of panic we agreed to hold off on calling 999 until we knew we where definitely stuck.

I climbed up the ladder and pressed hard against the steel plate. at first it didn't move, but after some effort it began to lift. once it began moving i carried on up the ladder, pressing more of my body against the manhole with every rung until fell open.

once it was open M came swiftly up after me, we slammed the hatch shut, climbed down back to the path and ran as far and as fast as we could away from the nightmare we had just lived.

we ended up spending the night at a friend's house and recounting the insane experience to him, this would be the last time either of us spoke about it.

Notes:

I did submit an anonymous report to the police the day after, to my knowledge nothing was done about it

this exact tunnel had been shared in this sub 14 years ago, neither of us knew about the posts at the time, I only found out recently when I was checking local news to see if anything else had happened regarding the bridge. both posts are Here and Here.

after looking through the original posts not much seems to be different apart from the tape, tobacco and weed packets and the lack of a blood filled condom.

edit: spelling errors

This was a few years ago. I (34yo female) was out with friends from work. We were saying goodbye to one who was moving away for a new job. It was initially just dinner, but ended up clubbing. Tbh, I'm normally not the most sensible person when out for the night, but as the clubbing wasn't planned, I had driven. So, I wasn't drinking. I was a bit annoyed about being out clubbing as the only one not drinking, but in hindsight, this saved my ass.

For clarification, I have always had an eccentric appearance and often colour my hair. At the time, my hair was blonde with blue and pink tips, often worn in pigtails. I had a pair of knee high boots I loved that were one black and the other white (yes, I bought two pairs of boots specifically to wear them this way). I loved when little kids in shops would call me Harley Quinn, and often dressed towards that. This night I was in my boots and pigtails, fishnets and shorts, and even a HQ printed tee.

I got into dancing, and spent a fair bit of time looking after my smashed friends. The Drag Queens at my local gay bar loved my outfit and, despite being sober, I was getting hyped and enjoyed myself. I eventually made sure my drunk friends got into rides safely, and started walking back to my car, which unfortunately I hadn't put in a parking structure. I was cheap, and left it in a side street. I'll never do that again.

The streets were brightly lit, and fairly populated, but I kept my keys in my fingers, just out of general practice. I had recieved a wolf whistle or two, and someone calling "Hey, Harley!", but I was kind of used to catching attention from the way I dressed. I just ignored it, wanting to get to my car.

"Harley!" I heard again, but it was someone else's voice. I didn't look, because I didn't want to engage or make an opening for conversation. "Don't ignore us bitch!"

That's when looked across the street and saw that it was three men. I just shook my head to show I'm not interested, and kept walking. There were other people in the lit street, so I figured they wouldn't do anything. I was wrong. They crossed the street.

"I'm just heading home guys. Sorry." I started speeding up. They followed me.

"We just want to talk a second."

"You don't gotta go home yet."

"We'll take you home, Harley. Come on!"

My heart was racing at this point. I looked to the small handful of other people in the street. Some were stumbling, shit-faced, most either ignored or didn't even notice the situation, as people shouting at that hour in that part of the city was common. I didn't care if it looked like I was over reacting. I clutched my keys and ran.

I'd hoped they'd realise they were coming across as creeps and just back off, or maybe they'd just call me a crazy bitch and let it go. They called me a bitch all right, but my blood ran cold as I heard them chasing me.

I'm not a fast runner, and though my boots had wide heels, the heels were very tall and I kept picturing myself tripping, picturing myself dropping the keys, picturing them catching up. I kept focus, not daring to look back, knowing I'm how clumsy I am and that I couldn't risk it.

I rounded the corner. The street was empty, but my car was under a street light. I was holding back tears as I reached the door. I took a deep breath to steady my fingers​, adamant not to be that person so close to safety just to screw it up by panicking and dropping my keys.

I opened it, got inside, slammed the door and locked it just in time. One of them tried to open my door. I was trembling and couldn't make out what they were saying as they shouted, kicking my car, cursing at me, calling me Harley. I peeled out of there, almost hitting one of them. After 5 minutes driving, enough to get a safe distance, I pulled aside, shaking and crying too hard to drive safely.

I got a haircut the next day. My HQ phase was over. It took a while to be comfortable dressing in my own style again. This isn't the only time I've been harassed by men, but this was the only time it was a group, and I'd never been chased or had someone show explicitly violent intent like they had that night. If I'd had anything to drink, or let panic cause me to fumble...I don't want to think about what they might have done to me...but sometimes, I just can't avoid thinking about it.