Tales From The Dark Forest
There's Something Hungry On Mount Everest! | Creepypasta
You have to celebrate your wins. We've won the Mint 400, and I celebrated that win for weeks. But then we had to focus and move on. Dustin Jones, championship winning Ken M off-road racer. Ken M's the same. The most race wins in all types of terrain with the Maverick X3. But then they focus and move on the Maverick or 240 horsepower in the first seven speed dual clutch transmission. This thing's a game changer. We celebrate those wins, but never for too long. The Ken M Maverick X3 and Maverick R visit KenMoffroad.com. The 1924 expedition to Summit Mount Everest was crude. It was a ragtag band of English survivalists, guided by Sherpas, who were more often than not treated as disposable. They were at their wit's end and on their second expedition in two years. That kind of pressure can change a man's psyche. A man's psyche can emanate something into the unknown. An event that's significant that can have ripples through mediums. We have never even begun to understand. Man has always conquered extremes, but the highest point on Earth is by definition an ultimate extreme. It is the tip of something more than us. Over 4,000 people have made their pilgrimage to the park of our little world now. Everest, no more than an expensive vacation for 20 something's with trust funds and adrenaline addictions, but it used to mean something. The first true summit attempts were different, and it wasn't because it was the last time George Mallory and Sandy Irvine were still alive. Something else happened that day on the mountain that still is unexplained. It was their third attempt during this expedition that something happened on the mountainside. It was as if God himself cursed humanity for our hubris. Mallory and Irvine were seen close to the summit and the clouds rolled in. They were never seen alive again. The event was biblical. At times, reality can be stranger than fiction. It's hard to write a story that compelling hard to outdo reality and its endless capacity for chaos. Sometimes the chaos is aligned and you can practically see the fractional ticking clock of the universe at work. It's a mystery so tantalizing that to this day, it casts a tiny lingering doubt on the 1953 official first summit to the mountain. It is believed that Irvine and Mallory did not make it to the top of the mountain by many, but this tiny sliver of doubt, this possibility of history being rewritten remains trapped on the mountain like a flashing, apostostic memory burned into the rock's face. Something sinister sits at the rotten core of that mountain. Reality is stranger than fiction. I know it because I have stared into the reality of what really happened on that fateful day in 1924. I've seen the photographs they took in their final moments. When Mallory and Irvine went up the summit, they took a camera with them to take a photo of man's great achievement. It hasn't officially been found. That is the public and climbing community. No, it is to be missing still. I'm here to tell you that the obfuscation of the truth is completely and entirely purposeful. It is orchestrated by powers you could never imagine. It is exactly what they want you to believe. I developed the film myself. I've gazed into the abyss and the abyss has filled me up past the brim. I carry the burden of what was captured on that rudimentary technology. I don't have long left. That's the only reason I'm laying this burden down. I'm not old, but sick beyond my years. Maybe releasing this ballast will let me finally rest in peace, knowing that someone else will believe the truth about what had happened up there. What became of Irvine. For his sake, I hope he will be killed instantly. I think that's what bothers me the most is never really knowing what happened to him. He could even still be out there somewhere in a different form that we can't even perceive. I'm getting ahead of myself. Every scrap of information about that day has my head spinning. The Kodak organization, of course, is known best for photographic film, cameras and development procedures. As a budding chemical engineer in my field, it was difficult to imagine that my life had dwindled to the shriveled speck it is now. I had so much career hope, so much optimism. Now I find it hard to get out of bed in the morning. My peace in this puzzle has been set, faded from the start, and my part in this picture is long over. I was killed off in the first act and I'm just waiting silently in the wings for it to all be over. The silence must be broken. Kodak became very comfortable with the government over a long period of time. When the United States began nuclear tests in the Nevada desert, all our X-ray paper was splatter painted with high energy particles. We never got hush money like that again. We were in cahoots whether we liked it or not. We knew and we didn't squeal. The kids and I had a great vacation that year. Analog photography in the United States were just chummy. They scratched our backs and returned for our silence. Men and suits and badges always coming in and out without warning. They never took a damn thing. They just asked us some vague questions and made wretched forced smiles, lingering in our labs and warehouses. They knew something we didn't and we had to sit there and take it. You could hardly look over your shoulder without someone hovering, taking little notes and speaking sweet nothings into each other's ears. Get a room. Any questions we asked got polite smiles and condescending chuckles in return, like we were schoolchildren asking where babies came from. It was clear that they had a plan for us. They were developing us, making us comfortable with their presence, waiting for the right time for us to bend me and accept orders. The time came in the mid-2000s when we learned about that fateful roll of film. One day they burst through the door of the lab and from down the hallway, I could see a cart being pushed through the stockroom inventory into the development lab. It was along the hallway in that one free spinning caster wheeled squeaked multitudes past shelves of equipment and undeveloped rolls of memories. It was surrounded by armed militants. This time they were armed. Something bigger than all of us fit into that little steel box. We all have somewhere we're trying to get to. As the largest energy producer in Colorado, Chevron is helping meet rising demand and we're working to do it responsibly. Our next-gen tankless facilities reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of our operations by more than 90 percent compared to our older designs. Working to provide Colorado with energy that's affordable, reliable, and ever cleaner. So everyone can get to where they want to be. You've arrived. That's energy in progress. Visit chevron.com/tankless. You've heard of Pizza Hut $7 Deal Lovers menu, right? All these delicious items for only $7 each when you buy two or more. But something's off. I mean, pizzas, melts, boneless wings, bacon, cheddar cheese, sticks, oven, big pastas, cinebon mini rolls. And that's not even the whole menu. I'll keep eating or digging. You should too. Check out the $7 Deal Lovers menu at your local Pizza Hut. Product availability prices and participation may vary. Additional charges and exclusions may apply. Wings included are eight-count boneless. It seemed to be a heavily modified safe. A little one you would see under the counter at a gas station. It adds some kind of climate control system attached. Something that did not need external power. It let off hints of free-on and old book smell. Two large men pushed the cart into our lab. And a man I would grow to rescind appeared before me for the first time, followed by several lackeys. He wore a slim fit suit. It was too slim for his figure. The stress of his position was carried on his alcoholic gut and protruding love handles. The bags under his eyes and thinning head of blonde hair spoke volumes to which the man was carrying in his head. They had broken him in. I don't think he would fit in bagging groceries or slicing deli cuts anymore. He wasn't fit for society. He was one of them, and they had put out the light in his eyes. He had the type of paranoid exhalation you would get from always looking over your shoulder, like any moment could be your final. Like any moment could be your last. He was as kind as he could be given for what he had seen. God knows my involvement in all this took its toll. This was just another day at the office for him. His name was Jerome Newton, and I didn't fully blame him for my ruination. He was just following orders. Look at me, I've got Stockholm syndrome. I've always been a frickin' pushover. We shared an amicable handshake and some polite conversation, but the distracting nature of the 100 pound elephant in the room and its security detail quickly became the subject of the conversation. It had been found. Irvine's camera had been found. Decades ago, in fact, they had been waiting for the right moment to see just what was on it, and they chose our lab to do it. They never told us where they recovered it on the mountain, or where it was, and at the time, I was given no information on Irvine's body. In hindsight, it all checks out. They knew our curiosity as men of science would override any resistance we had. We had a feeling that we couldn't say no, and no one else ever did. My biggest regret is not being able to explain what happened to my boys and my wife. In their minds, I went to work and never came back. I wish I could see you all one last time. My involvement in this operation erased me from the public record without my permission. I became a ghost. As far as the good old USA was concerned, I had gone missing. Of course, we resisted, and things came to a head, but human beings fear what we don't understand. We never understood what they were capable of doing to us. They made it clear that unspeakable things awaited us if our new accommodations were unsatisfactory. We worked on site at our discrete location. Kodak had several manufacturing sites away from the public eye, and our development lab was chosen as the most unassuming. They provided our every need, food, water, shelter, but information was on a need-to-know basis. We got to work ensuring the film was preserved to the utmost levels of care. It was old film, and was on the mountain with blinding snow and the elements for decades. For all we knew, it would turn up blank, but we wouldn't know until we started developing. We spent two weeks discussing every possible scenario which this film would safely be transported to our proper station and developed. Every single precaution was painstakingly detailed. The floors of our lab were coated in a rubberized, subtracted to prevent accidental slipping. We were given daily sterilized uniforms and trained on containment breach protocols. They were incinerated after every day of work. The room was swept of every specked dust. Air filtration systems were installed. It may have been the cleanest clean room on Earth for that two-week period. Any tool, any machine, any chemical that the world's disposal... Any chemical at the world's disposal was sent by same-day air if it was even suggested to be used. It was a miracle to witness. For every unethical act the United States performed, they performed ten logical acts of God. When the day came, when we finally breached the camera's containment unit, it was funny how small the damn thing was. To think of how much money was spent on this little clumsy thing made us all chuckle by the time we had the safe doors swung open. The camera was painstakingly disabled in the back room. It was incredible how fast we got used to men with weapons at the ready. We felt like prisoners, but damn did it feel good to be finally doing my work again. It was an oasis in the vast loneliness of that same damn room. The photos were developed with the highest purity of materials available. Who knows where they got that stuff from. It was obvious they knew as much about photography as any of us or more. Jerome and I had a look at the first image. As the image came through, we saw a blank white rectangle fade into existence. It was a dud. Jerome slammed his fist on the table, startling everyone. It had been exposed to sunlight at some time between taking the photo and it's sitting on the mountain. We all just sat there in silence for what felt like hours. Then something else started coming through. As if God breathing life into Adam, a few little black smudges faded into the developed image. We shook our heads and watched as this rorschach of negative space became more and more detailed. We started piecing together what it was. It looked to be a column of lights so bright that the camera's primitive lenses became almost completely blown out. Whatever was generating this beam seemed to be firing up from the ground at the exact summit point of the mountain. It was almost like an energy field, something you would see on an episode of Star Trek. It was such a strange feeling sitting in silence holding our breaths. We simultaneously knew that they had done it, that Irvine and Mallory had summited first. But from what we could tell, the instant it occurred and the same instant the photo was taken, a light source stronger than the sun had overtaken their camera. But there was a silhouette of something halfway in the beam, an indiscernible smudge at the threshold. We spent 30 minutes discussing what was happening while the other images slowly appeared. Our tension was turned to the next string of images as our jaws dropped in horror. Our eyes all widened at the same time. The second image of the beam was the two top knuckles of a pointer and middle finger, an entire thumb, laying like a chakatri on the fresh snow. The thumb was still draped in a piece of glove that seemed to have come off with it. There was no pool of blood to be seen in contrast against the white snow. It was as if they had been burned off and fallen to the ground like an oak shedding its autumn leaves. The image was so clinical as if the person with the camera was completely still. There was no sense of haste or drama, no shake, no blur. It was like a crime scene documentation. The very tips of the fingernails were blue. Whoever's hand this was had the first symptoms of frostbite. The sense of cascading dread filled the room. None of us spoke a word. We made pale-eyed contact in cleared our throats as the next images became crisp through the fog. It would only get worse from here. The next image seemed to be the same patch of snow, except the flesh had been utterly removed. Only thin sinews remained on white bone. The severed ends appearing perfectly flat. Whatever had cut through them seemed to have done so instantly and with extreme precision. I began feeling light-headed and in turn wrenched and spilled his guts on the floor. It was as if the bits of hand were perfectly stripped of their flesh and had been placed back in exactly the same position they were in before. Jerome began barking to the few military men left around us to leave through the light-locked double doorway. They did so immediately and waited outside. It was just him and I and the squeamish intern left inside the dark room. Jerome took off his ill-fitted suit coat and draped it on a lab coat. He sat down and put his hands on his forehead, his left knee shaking, his fingers anxiously massaging his wrinkled brow. We stared at him. We all have somewhere we're trying to get to. As the largest energy producer in Colorado, Chevron is helping meet rising demand and we're working to do it responsibly. Our next-gen tankless facilities reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of our operations by more than 90% compared to our older designs. Working to provide Colorado with energy that's affordable, reliable, and ever cleaner. So everyone can get to where they want to be. You've arrived. That's Energy in Progress. Visit chevron.com/tankless. You've heard of Pizza Hut $7 deal lovers menu, right? All these delicious items for only $7 each when you buy two or more. But something's off. I mean, pizzas, melts, boneless wings, bacon, cheddar, cheese sticks, oven, baked pastas, cinnabon mini-rolls. And that's not even the whole menu. I'll keep eating or digging. You should too. Check out the $7 deal lovers menu at your local Pizza Hut. Product availability prices and participation may vary. Additional charges and exclusions may apply. Wings included or eight-count boneless. I'm like obedient dogs waiting for food. He was running this operation and he wasn't a loss thus far. When I looked back at the first image of the beam of light, I gapped. The image was now fully realized. It was undeniable. What I saw was that inside the column of light was a thin ghostly shadow of a skeleton in a wretched position of sheer agony. His hand barely outside the threshold of the column. It was the same fingers in the later photos. We realized whoever fingers it was, this was the final trace of their body. Somehow, their hand escaped the power of the column and dropped to the ground, as if the energy field had appeared and vanished in an instant, taking their doomed body with it. We soon knew it was Irvine who had been caught in this anomaly. I will never tell you how we knew. The last photo on the roll of film is buried into my primal ape brain forever. I'll never unsee it. It was Mallory. He was kneeling one leg in the snow over top of the several fingers. The photo was taken from about 15 feet away. At this point in the film reel, something had happened to Irvine beyond our most terrible imaginations. As far as we knew, he had vanished. We had no idea who was taking the photos now. He was holding on to the thumb between both hands, as if he was holding a chicken leg and he was smiling. His oxygen tank was nowhere to be seen. They were well above the death zone in Everest. The air is so thin up there, your body is dying slowly every second without supplemental oxygen. His eyes were bold and bright, far from the tired eyes expected of a man weeks into an expedition. His teeth were stained with what we could only discern to be blood. Half of the fingers were de-boned already. His shirt was removed beside him in the snow. The next image was Mallory from the same angle biting off his own middle finger. His pointer already decapitated at the second knuckle. The final photo was Mallory smiling from ear to ear, his now frost-bitten face taking up nearly the entire frame. His eyes were utterly cloudy in their pupils, like someone would advance cataracts. The rest of the images were blank. The three of us just stared at these images. We couldn't seem the piece together the timeline of events. The photos had been taken in order, but elements across each image seemed to defy time. They had been rearranged somehow. We spoke at length about how impossible that was, but there it was, staring us in the face. It didn't matter what order we put the images in, they never painted a timeline of events. The same anomaly that took Irvine, or what was left of his body away, had left clues of itself behind on this film. As we laid down that night in our army cots in the break room of the facility, I think we all tried to keep our eyes open for as long as we could, in hopes of stabbing off the nightmares we were prepared for. It started the sink in that our lives would never be the same. When we woke up in the morning, the guards were gone, and the dark room was empty. Completely empty. All of our equipment was gone. Jerome was there. He explained that our lives as we knew them were over. I never went home. I won't go in the details of my personal life here, because my life is essentially over now. I have inoperable patriotic cancer. Our intern caught the same type four years ago. He passed on. Something tells me that wasn't a coincidence. I think they wanted to get rid of us sooner to put us out of our misery, and I think he rolled over and accepted it. God, I'm so frickin' paranoid. Too much time to think about all this. Seeing them follow me has been the worst part. But guess what? I know exactly when they're driving past my place, and I could tell exactly which of them are the gangstalkers and which are just my neighbors. It's all in the eyes. I don't have time to explain now, but the milky white eyes flick on for a moment. In its reference to the last image, they know why they're trying to make me feel this way, like I can't leave, like I should just stay indoors like a good little pet. Well, I've had enough. But I've accepted enough orders in my life. With the few years I have left alone on this earth after the relocation and reprogramming to ensure I never go back to my family, I have nothing left to lose. As I type this now, I'm on a flight to Nepal. If I could get out of the country and through airport security, I think I have a shot. If they want to stop me, they're going to have to climb after me. I'll be sending this out as my last message. While my health is still good, I'm going up here once and for all, even if it kills me. I know those bones are up there, some kind of residue, a burn mark in the rock. There has to be something. There has to be a trace of him left. I think his fingers are still up there. They just have to be up there. I have to do this. They made me this way. I used to think my part in this was over, but now I think I am at the utmost center of it all. I think this was my destiny. I can save all of this. I have one chance to see for myself some trace of what happened up there all those years ago. Whatever higher power did this, I want to be there when it happens again. I think it chose me next. They know I'm coming for them. They have to know. Whatever it is, whoever they are, I'm coming to see for myself what's happening up there. I know there's proof up there. There has to be good proof up there. Otherwise, it was all for nothing. It wasn't for nothing. It means something. After countless steps and more than a few miles, your dog drives you forward one last time to make that final climb. And as the rising sun peaks out from the horizon, you know incredible happens here because it starts here with a fuel that makes it all possible. Pro-plan sport. Discover advanced nutrition made to fuel strength and stamina and active dogs like yours at proplan sport.com. You have to celebrate your wins. We've won the Mint 400 and I celebrated that win for weeks, but then we had to focus and move on. Dustin Jones, Championship winning Canam off-road racer. Canam's the same. The most race wins in all types of terrain with the Maverick X3, but then they focus and move on. The Maverick are 240 horsepower in the first seven speed dual clutch transmission. This thing's a game changer. We celebrate those wins, but never for too long. The Canam Maverick X3 and MaverickR, visit canamoffroad.com.