18 People Whose Misfortunes Could Fill a Best-Selling Horror

You don’t need to search for creepy stories to feel unsettled—sometimes life provides its own chills. While some eerie events can be explained away, others defy logic and leave you wondering if what you experienced was even real. The unsettling moments we’ve gathered here will linger in your mind long after you’ve finished reading.

• My father had a heart attack, and I rushed to the hospital at 2 a.m. They wouldn’t let me into the ICU, but hours later, a kind nurse let me see him. Months later, my father called, urging me
  to turn on the news. Turns out that the nurse wasn’t a nurse at all.
  
  She had been arrested for pretending to be one, and some patients had even worsened under her care. Investigators found out she had a serious mental condition, and although she attended nursing school, she never graduated. Years later, she somehow managed to infiltrate a hospital and deceive everyone. Thankfully, she was caught, and I’m relieved she never treated my father directly.

• I was playing the game FEAR in my room at night with the lights out when I turned around and saw what looked like the girl from the game standing there, watching me play. It turned out to be someone visiting my roommates who, for some reason, had let themselves into my room and watched me play for who knows how long before I noticed. © Unknown author / Reddit

• I went to the bathroom one night and heard scrabbling from behind the wall of my shower. It sounded too big to be a mouse... more like an oversized rat or something.
  
  I thought I was hearing things, but when I went back to my room, I could still hear it. I peeked out the window, and there was nothing outside clinging to the side paneling or anything. It wasn’t the upstairs neighbors doing anything, either.
  
  To this day, I have no idea what it was. But it was terrifying as someone who lived alone.
  © Unknown author / Reddit

• I was playing with blocks with my son. He was spelling words with the letter blocks. His sister, who was only about two at the time, wanted to join in. She quickly lined up four blocks, and I was horrified to see that she had spelled the word ’’evil’’. © Particular_Ad8156 / Reddit

• In college, I used to sneak into the campus theater at night and play the piano, which was next to the stage. One night, I had been playing for 30 minutes when I heard a loud crash coming from behind the curtains. It startled me, but I thought maybe the props were haphazardly stacked and had fallen, so I went right back to playing. A few minutes later, I felt something tap my shoulder and blow into my ear. I jumped up and ran back to my dorm room across campus.
  © summeringseventy8 / Reddit

• A couple of weeks ago, I was abroad and using a dating app to meet people, get recommendations, etc. A guy started messaging me, and we talked a bit, discussing maybe meeting up. The next day, I was in line for a tourist attraction and received a message that was a picture of me in line! Turns out he worked at the attraction, but it was still very creepy to receive a picture of yourself. © PuzzleheadedShow5680 / Reddit

• I moved into a house that is almost 100 years old, and after about a year of living there, one day I was sitting alone painting some figurines when Alexa blurted out, ’Yes, Diana. It is Jimmy’s favorite song,’ and then proceeded to play Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. Diana is the name of the lady who previously owned the house and had been dead for about 5 years. Jimmy was her cello-playing husband who, after Diana died, moved into a senior assisted living community.
  © Traxe33 / Reddit

• I worked in an old hospital late at night and noticed the elevator doors open behind me. I then heard the clip-clop of hard-soled shoes take a few steps my way. When I turned around, no one was there. A linen cart sat across the hallway, so I thought this person was hiding behind it. I knelt and looked underneath, only to see two shiny, old-fashioned, pointy nurse’s shoes pointed my way. I eased my way around the cart to scare the person who was trying to scare me, but no one was there. I looked down and could no longer see what I thought were shoes.
  © banditk77 / Reddit

• I was on a hike, and my dog suddenly froze up and basically dragged me back to our camper. When we got back, I heard a pack of wolves howling VERY close to our site. I feel like if we were still out on the trail, they would have found us pretty easily. © To_Fight_The_Night / Reddit

• I was under 5 years old when I used to see a man sitting in the corner of my room. He had blue eyes and was quiet; all he ever did was look over me. He was kind and felt like a guardian angel or something. Then one night, he wasn’t there anymore, and I remember hearing voices in my closet telling me to stay away. It felt... wrong. I felt stuck to my bed and couldn’t sleep because I felt something standing over me that didn’t belong there. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it. I made my mom sleep next to me for weeks after that. © bahumbug_ / Reddit

• I was working at that time, and my workstation was close to the window. My sister was calling me from outside. She was mumbling, so I didn’t hear what she said, so I asked why she was outside. Still crying, she asked me to open the door. As I was about to go outside my room, ready to open our house’s door, my sister came out of her room.
  
  The one who called out to me was not my sister. © FailureSpecialiste / Reddit

• I was home by myself, reading the paper on the couch. All of a sudden, a brass ashtray on the coffee table in front of me started spinning slowly, then it wobbled up and down. Just as suddenly, it stopped, almost like an invisible hand grabbed it. It lasted about 45 seconds or so. I got up and went into the garage and waited until my parents came home. I never told them.
  © VirginiaLuthier / Reddit

• Everyone was in the living room one night when, all of a sudden, the hairdryer in the bathroom turned on. I may have been about 11 at the time. I went to investigate, and as soon as I turned the corner into the bathroom, I saw the hairdryer drop from a spot a bit higher and away from the counter, like it had been floating, and then it turned off. That was a strange one.
  
  Also, around the same time, our cat, in the middle of the night, was screaming and clawing at the air. It scared me and my sister so badly that we crawled into bed with my mom, who I could tell was also a bit freaked out. © HalfSoul30 / Reddit

• Right before I moved out of my parent’s house, my mom decided it was a good idea to teach me some cooking and other household skills. She started telling me what to do if the stove eye ever caught on fire and showed me precisely in detail.
  
  Immediately after she showed me, the stove eye caught on fire. I’ve never seen a stove eye catch on fire at any other time in my entire life. © WhiskTheSofa / Reddit

• We were visiting family years ago in an old addition to the house that was a one-room school classroom. It was just storage and a spare bed; that’s where we were going to sleep.
  
  All the lights were off, and we were watching an old television on a dresser across the room. It was the only thing lighting up the room.
  
  Suddenly, BANG! The room went black. I felt my way over to the light switch, turned it on, and saw that the TV was unplugged. I grabbed the cord to plug it in, and the cord was 6 inches too short. The TV had slid forward somehow, pulling the cord out of the socket.
  © HugeAnalBeads / Reddit

• I was playing hide and seek with my sister in our house. It was pretty dark, and I went into my parents’ room and looked in the built-in wardrobe. I could hear breathing, and when I reached in, something touched my arm. I shouted, ’Found you!’ and my sister from downstairs shouted, ’No, you haven’t!’ I ran screaming downstairs and told my mom, who went up to look, but nothing was there.
  
  In the same house, I saw a face in the mirror, and when I was in the basement, I heard footsteps in the house when nobody was home. © Unknown author / Reddit

• My friend and I were sharing an apartment. An old soda bottle was lying on the sofa on the other side of the room, nestled between two pillows. As we were talking, I noticed my friend staring, so I turned to look, and the bottle had rotated 90 degrees out of the crack between the pillows, and then rotated back down. We looked at each other, and he said, ’’Please tell me you saw that,’’ and I replied, ’’Yeah, I did!’’ © The_mingthing / Reddit

• When I was about 4 years old and my sister was 9, she picked me up from kindergarten. She told me I had to be quiet, and we were going home a different route, through some bushes, hiding and looking around. It was weird, so I asked what was going on. She said there was a man following her to the kindergarten. He was very weird, and she didn’t know him, so we had to get home fast and unseen. That’s what we did. I don’t remember if she told our parents, but since then, only our parents have come to pick me up. © myopenheart / Reddit

Uncovering disturbing secrets or hidden truths can shake us to the core, particularly when they concern those closest to us. The startling confessions shared in this article have left the storytellers reeling, still grappling with the weight of what they’ve learned even now.