12 Real-Life Stories That Feel Like They Belong in a Book

The events in books are often inspired by things the author has seen or read, and they develop new plots and characters to make the story more engaging. Some people, however, don't need inspiration, as life itself has given them a story straight out of a book.

• "I called my brother and said hi. A voice answered saying hi, and continued a conversation we had just been having in person. I recognized the voice. It was mine. I said something, and it responded by asking what.
  Without thinking, I quickly hung up and called my brother's number again. I asked him what happened, and he said he didn't know. He'd answered the call, but it was just static from his end." outtakes / Reddit
• "I lived in a small 1 bedroom under house flat and as my cat walked past the bedroom door she looked at the wall above my head, froze, fluffed up, and hissed. She started moving to the side really slowly, still fluffed up and staring at that spot above my head. I looked up, but there was nothing.
  When she got near the side of the door frame, she bolted. I got up to see if she was OK, and as I walked past the TV it went off channel to static. My cat wanted out badly, and I went out with her! The TV went back to normal and chastising myself, I opened the door to go back in, and as I took one step in, the TV went back to static.
  I stayed outside with my cat until she calmed down, and nothing like that ever happened again. I still think about it sometimes." LadyMelmo / Reddit
• "One of the creepiest things I ever experienced was late at night when I heard faint whispers coming from an empty room. It felt like someone was standing right behind me, breathing down my neck.
  I turned around, and there was absolutely no one there. The air felt heavy, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t alone. To this day, I have no idea what it was, and it still gives me chills just thinking about it!" LisaBMaid101 / Reddit

• "I live alone in my apartment, and I’m a horror gaming fan, and thus I was scouring Steam looking for a cool horror game. I put on my headphones and I watched multiple trailers and eventually came to a game called ‘Horror in da Hood’. Looked at the page and watched the trailer - here is where the creepy part begins. Near the end of the trailer, there’s a very creepy voice saying something like “Can you help me please?”
  One second, literally one second after I watched it, I could clearly hear (from outside my headphones so it was muffled) an old male voice saying “I can help haha” from the hallway behind me. The laugh was especially creepy. Needless to say, I threw off my headphones and immediately looked behind me, only to be greeted by the dark hallway. I stared into it, slowly grabbing my ruler that was on my desk.
  After moments that felt like an eternity, I was able to stand up. Slowly moved towards the hallway while grabbing a tiny flashlight I had on my nightstand. I flashed the hallway from a distance, but there was nothing. To give light to the hallway, I had to go into it and turn the switch there, which was very creepy to do. Of course, there was nothing there at all, but it creeps me out still.
  I left the light on everywhere that night, and still keep the light in the hallway when I am on my computer now. Two days after this happened, I went back to watch the 'Horror in da Hood' trailer to make sure that the “I can help haha” was not in the trailer and I just made a mistake… it’s not in the trailer. It gives me the creeps just typing this." Membershipinfamous0 / Reddit
• "We were playing team tag at night back in middle school - a friend and I were hiding near a bush around a tree. Suddenly something in the bush moved and we assumed it was an animal. We threw a stick into the bush, and it came flying back out, and a dark figure about 4 feet tall ran across the field into the woods. We freaked out and ran back to our house about a 1/2 mile away." GorganzolaVsKong / Reddit
• "In 1989 I was driving on a familiar rural highway in broad daylight. I was rounding an easy bend and shocked to see a small town on the right side of the road. There’s a sign: St. Vincent. A few of the things immediately noticeable were a shop called Webster Welding, an old-fashioned horse-drawn water pump for fire fighting, several large poplars with dead tops, and black and white painted rocks along the street that faced the highway.
  I kept watching in the rearview mirror and it stayed visible. I drive a few miles and there is a gentleman waving at me from beside his car. He’s obviously broken down, and I pulled over. A quick chat and I learned he’s blown a tire and wrecked his rim. He asks if I’ll drive him back to the town. No problem.
  In he gets and off we go. The town is not there. It’s a dusty Alberta crossroad. This fellow and I just sat in my truck in silence. I raised an arm and my hair was standing on end. His too. He said, “All the trees were dead. Are we dead?”
  Eventually, I drove him to a nearby town. He simply got out of the truck and walked away. I remember it like it was yesterday. I could tell you what that town looked like in perfect detail." beardedsawyer / Reddit

• "I lived briefly in a rental home, which was owned by a church in a small Florida town, and which was built in 1908. Every night around 8 o'clock, I heard dragging, shuffling footsteps coming from the kitchen. If I walked into the kitchen, they would stop, and if I turned my head to look into the kitchen from the den, they would pause and continue the very moment I looked away again. This lasted for 5 minutes or so each and every night." dirtybirdsriseup / Reddit
• "There was a kid in my class that no one else remembers. I distinctly remember playing with this kid in kindergarten, and we were pretty much inseparable. About a month past Christmas break, he disappeared. No one remembered him. Not the teachers, or the others in my class. No one.
  I even asked the school counselor if he was okay, and she humored me by going through records to see if he’d transferred. She couldn’t find a thing. I think about it at least once a month." CrippledUnironically / Reddit
• "This happened about 25 years ago. I was 7 or 8 years old. I was lying in the top bunk of the bunk bed I shared with my twin brother. We had an attached bathroom, and the only light coming into the room was the light emanating from under the bathroom door. I was lying in bed, listening to my brother cry as my dad tried to remove a splinter from my brother's finger.
  I looked at the foot of my bed, and I saw a man about 5'10 tall, with long hair about shoulder-length, a short beard, and what looked like a flannel shirt and possibly overalls or suspenders standing there, and his pupils were glowing, kind of green like if you see an animal's eyes in the dark.
  I started screaming, “Daddy, Daddy, there is a man in here, standing at the foot of my bed!” I looked back, and he was gone, and I just kept screaming, I was terrified. This apartment had a front and back door, but they were absolutely locked, as we lived in a bad neighborhood in a very old part of the city.
  10 years later, I recounted the story to my dad, and he had honestly forgotten about it. He did say, and he did not tell me when I was younger, that he did from time to time swear he saw a man who matched that description, minus the glowing eyes, in the apartment late at night. My dad had searched the apartment a few times after seeing him, but there was no trace of a way he came in, and often, he would follow the man to a closet and he just sort of disappeared." perpulstuph / Reddit

• "You know on cold days inside your car, you can breathe on the window and draw on the glass? I got in my car, and as I looked at the windshield, I saw a few small baby hands. I thought it was strange someone would let a baby play on my car's windshield. I had an urge to touch the baby prints, and as I touched it, I wiped away the handprints. The handprints were made from inside of my locked car." ScootyPufff / Reddit
• "The night before my birthday in 1996, I dreamed that I was walking around near the peak of Everest. It was snowing hard, but I was quite comfortable. There was a tent. To announce my presence, I sang Goober Peas. The two men inside were frightened, and I tried to calm and cheer them. I stayed with them for a while and comforted them.
  A few years later, I read about the Everest disaster in which mountaineers had to pitch a tent too high on Everest and died there, the night before my birthday in 1996. I can’t explain it, but I hope I comforted them." Yugan-Dali / Reddit
• "I was delivering newspapers on my paper route when a longtime customer pulled his car next to me and asked me to just give him his daily newspaper now because he was going on a long trip. I handed him his newspaper, then skipped his house as I continued my route. The next day I was collecting the weekly fees (you used to have to go collect the money back then, no internet payment yet) and I went to his house to collect my fee. His wife answers and promptly complains that I missed her house on my deliveries the day before.
  I explained to her that her husband pulled up next to me, I told her what he said and that I gave him the paper. She started crying and told me that he had died a couple of weeks ago, and it was obviously not possible that I spoke with her husband the day before. I know what I saw and nearly 30 years later I still think about that situation. I have no way to logically explain what happened, and it still gives me the creeps." avionchef / Reddit

People share their stories online every day, hoping to hear similar ones from others. But sometimes, the endings are completely unexpected. Once again it turns out, plot twists aren’t just for movies, real life can be even more surprising!