15x02: Girl Unknown

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Enjoy the show.

This happened when I was fifteen near Algonquin Park.

My father and I were driving up to our cottage in the middle of winter.

I was always so amazed at the beauty of Algonquin Park.

I grew up enjoying the beauty of it every summer.

Our cottage was on a large lake, about a thirty-minute drive from the nearest town.

It was on a dead end road.

There were about twenty other cottages on the road, with ours being somewhat in the middle.

The cottages were quite spaced out, however, with our closest neighbors being too far away to see through the trees.

There were probably thousands of cottages around the lake.

During the summer, the lake and the town's population tripled.

It was cottage country, so people would spend all summer enjoying the lake and the warm nights around campfires with their family and friends.

I spent every summer there growing up, and thinking of it still brings fond memories of sunshine and laughter and the sound of motorboats on the lake.

But the winters were different.

The people who did not live there year round would venture back home to the city life and board up their cottages for the winter, leaving the area mostly deserted.

There were a few people who would still frequently come up every couple of months for a few days or so, but for the most part the lake was silent during the winters, and the town was filled with locals.

The beautiful pine trees were always covered with snow, and this made the forest even quieter than usual.

That year, near the end of February, my dad needed to head up to the cottages to do some painting that my mom had been bugging him to do.

It was a long weekend, so I tagged along with him so that he wouldn't be alone, and so that we could spend some quality time together.

Our cottage was about a five-hour drive from our home, but this time it turned out to be an eight-hour drive due to the heavy snow.

It had gotten dark quite early, and it was around midnight by the time we were driving through Algonquin Park.

It was deadly quiet and pitch black all around us, except for the the headlights of the car.

After we finally passed through the park, we were only about thirty minutes away from the cottage.

It had stopped snowing by then, and we were both eager to get there.

As we turned onto a familiar road, I remember my dad cursing since it hadn't been plowed yet.

This wasn't surprising, however.

It probably wouldn't be until later the next day that we would finally see a snowplow.

While we continued to drive down the road, I noticed that there was a fresh set of tire tracks.

The Smiths must have been up here for the weekend, my dad said.

Then as we drove around the bend, following the tire tracks, the headlights of the car suddenly shone on a white van that was parked on the side of the road.

It was almost hidden by the vast number of snow-covered trees.

Driving past the white van, I remember looking back through the back window and very clearly seeing two figures in the front seat illuminated by our retreating taillights.

I told my dad this, and he shrugged and said, Maybe they're lost.

I nodded, but I couldn't help thinking about how it was a dead end road.

Why would they feel the need to park there?

After we pulled into our driveway and started bringing our stuff in, I couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right.

I couldn't stop thinking about that van, about why it was there, with two people just sitting in the dark in the middle of the night.

It scared me so much that I begged my dad to let me sleep upstairs with him instead of sleeping downstairs in the room my sister and I usually shared.

That room had big windows with no blinds, and it looked out into the blackness of the forest.

My fifteen year old self was already scared of the dark, even without seeing the white van.

I never thought of this this window as a big deal when my sister was there, but on this night it was different.

As my dad got ready for bed, I sat in the living room reading a book.

My dad turned off all of the lights, and I was using a small lamp next to the couch to try and get through the last chapter before going to bed.

It was so quiet I could almost hear my ears ringing.

I also started to get the feeling that I was being watched.

The living room had large windows, also with no curtains, and it overlooked the lake.

It was completely black out there except for a light or two from cottages across the lake.

I shut off the lamp and got up.

Now that the cottage was dark, the moon was shining brightly, illuminating the snow.

It was beautiful, so I walked towards the window to get a better look.

Movement caught my eye, and I remember my heart dropping as I saw two figures by the back porch, below the window, barely hidden by the surrounding trees.

I dropped to the floor and crawled towards the bedroom where my dad was sleeping.

My heart was in my throat.

I wasn't sure if they had seen me or not, but I woke my dad up, and by the time he got to the window, the two figures were gone.

Where I had seen the figures, two sets of footprints in the snow led back to the front of the cottage and back down the driveway.

I begged my dad not to go outside, so he double-checked the locks and turned the porch lights on, hoping to scare anyone off.

My dad wasn't as freaked out as I was, but he still set the alarm before he headed back to bed.

I remember being very freaked out as I laid there all night next to my dad.

I was terrified that I'd look out the window and see someone there staring back at me.

The next morning my dad went outside and confirmed that there were two sets of footprints leading from the road to behind our cottage, and then back around to the front, and back up the road.

There were tire marks that showed that a vehicle had turned around and then gone back up the main road.

My dad guessed that they were probably looking to break in and steal stuff.

It was the middle of winter, and not too many people were up at the lake at that time.

However, they knew that we were there.

They would have seen our tire tracks leading to the cottage, and my dad's car was parked right in front.

They also probably saw the light that I turned on to read, or saw that I turned it off.

After I mentioned this to my dad, he didn't have an answer, so after much back and forth, he called the non-emergency line and reported it.

When he called, he found out there had been some break-ins in the area and some stuff had been stolen from some cottages that were boarded up for the winter.

However, again, I still wonder to this day why these people would be interested in stealing from a house that clearly had people inside.

When I was around twenty-two years old, I had this very scary encounter while staying at a hotel for work.

Around 2010, I was working for a traveling photography group that took church directory photos.

Each photographer drove separately from all over the place.

We were from Harlan, Iowa at the time.

I was staying at a hotel along with the other photographers who joined me.

I believe there were four of us in total, two guys, a girl, and myself.

One morning I went down to breakfast and I was watching TV in the hotel breakfast area.

There was a guy down there as well.

When he looked at me, I said, Good morning, as I do wherever I go, just to be friendly.

He said it back to complete the polite exchange.

It was a simple interaction, something that you would do with the stranger, whom you're probably never expecting to see again.

He also mentioned that he was staying there with his team for a construction job, and as I went to leave, I casually said, have a good one.

Maybe I'll see you around.

He then replied, We should hang out later.

I didn't think anything of this, so I responded, yeah, maybe, as I brushed it off.

I don't remember if it was the same day or not, but I didn't need to go to work until 11 a.m., so I decided to take a nap since I needed some more rest from the long work days.

My team was working from about 11 a.m.

to 10 p.m.

While lying in my room, I kept receiving phone calls on my room phone.

I wasn't used to getting calls to my room like that, so I thought this was strange, but I picked up.

But every time I said hello, nobody would answer.

After this happened a few more times, I just took the receiver off and placed it beside the phone so that it would stop ringing.

When it was time to get up and leave, I left my room and saw that the guy that I had seen at breakfast was there in the hall.

I waved casually, and he asked me where I was going.

I said I had to go to work, and then my friend, another photographer, showed up, and I went with her in her car, as I was going to ride with her to the church.

I told her about getting the strange phone calls, and she mentioned that she had gotten some calls as well.

Later that night, there was a thunderstorm.

I stood by the hotel lobby door with the the rest of the photographer group watching the lightning.

It was also thundering and extremely dark.

There was a chance for tornadoes, so we were doing our best to keep tabs on each other.

Eventually, I went to my room for the night, and shortly after I got there, I heard a knock on my door.

I really didn't want to answer it, but I did by slightly cracking the door open to see who it was.

It ended up being the guy again.

He talked about how I had mentioned we should hang out, but I told him I was too tired after working all day and I needed to sleep.

Then I shut the door.

Later that night he knocked again, but I refused to answer.

I pretended to either be out or sleeping, and I quietly called my mom and started talking to her.

I told her what was happening, and even though I was scared, it almost felt like I wasn't when I was speaking with her.

Then I was suddenly overcome with this weird feeling.

I whispered, Mom, hold on a second.

I need to check something.

I then tiptoed over to the room door as quietly as possible.

I looked out the peephole, and it was him.

I watched as he turned his head to my door as if he were listening for something.

My heart began to race.

I then saw him move to the side.

You know how hallway walls and hotels will sometimes have indentations for each room?

Well, he leaned against the outer part of one of those small walls by my door.

I think he was hiding because he kept trying to lean his head around the corner as he continued listening for something.

I walked to the furthest side of my room and whispered to my mom about how I was scared.

My mom suggested that I call the front desk to complain, so I did.

I can't remember if I also texted my friend or called her, but she also complained to the front desk about the various phone calls that she received.

Eventually, we were given new rooms, and the hotel told the manager of the construction group that one of his guys was creeping on us, and he needed to stay away.

I even told some of the church people about the situation, and they all offered to let us stay with them if we needed to.

They were all very nice people, but they were still strangers to me, so I declined since I wasn't trusting anyone at that point.

I'm not sure what happened to that guy, as I never saw him again after that.

I was a little jealous of my friend because she ended up with a hot tub in her room after the hotel relocated her.

I didn't, but that was fine.

Needless to say, after that trip, I became more careful and aware of who I make friends with.

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I grew up in a small town in Alabama.

A little bit after I graduated high school when I was 18, I started dating this guy in a nearby city who was in his early 20s.

He was a very handsome, tall, muscular male who we'll refer to as Sean.

On our first date, Sean told me that he used to be part of a very well-known

He explained that he had only been a part of this gang during his younger years because he had grown up in a bad area and didn't really have any other options.

He had proof of being in this gang, including being aware of gang signs and having tattoos associated with the gang.

I fact-checked this on Google to see if the tattoos and the signs were associated with it.

I did know people who like to lie about being ex-gang members just to seem cool.

Sean didn't seem like the type to lie about that, though.

I gave Sean the benefit of the doubt because he didn't seem like a bad guy.

He was always a gentleman to me and treated me very well.

So, of course, I didn't suspect anything about him.

We dated for a few weeks before the night that I found out the truth about him.

I was staying over at Sean's apartment one night, and everything was seemingly pretty normal.

This was the first time I'd I'd ever stayed overnight at his apartment, since I tend to be a bit cautious.

I just don't like staying over at people's homes until I get to know them a bit more.

Plus, I had genuinely been too busy to stay over his place before that night.

So, as I was staying over, Sean's best friend was visiting for a bit, which honestly was when the red flags started showing for me.

It seemed weird that he planned to have a friend over when I was staying over for the first time.

It was eventually revealed to me in private that Sean's friend was also an ex-gang member, but he was from a well-known gang that was the enemy of the gang Sean had been a part of previously.

Of course, I can accept that all people have their different backstories, but this was such a weird thing to suddenly be told out of the blue.

Additionally, Sean hadn't hadn't even told me that his friend would be at the apartment in the first place.

Something else to note is that Sean's friend did corroborate that he and Sean were both ex-gang members.

After Sean's friend had left, we went to hang out in his room, and this guy had a literal arsenal stored in there.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that he had enough weaponry to arm a small militia.

The stuff he had included things like grenades, bulletproof vests, and an AK-47.

This effectively gave me red flag number two of the day.

That night, we were in bed together, and I'm not sure what led him to reveal this, but he confessed that he was still a part of the gang that he told me he was out of.

I really didn't know what to say.

I immediately gave him this look that essentially said, I'm sorry, what?

Then he proceeded to go on and tell me that he actually was a hitman for the gang, and while he hadn't been active as a hitman as of late, he would still accept hits if they were given to him.

The entire time that he was telling me this, he just looked me dead in the eyes with the most deadpan look.

There was no feeling in his eyes as he spoke, like he was talking about the weather or something.

It was extremely creepy, and I knew right then and there that this guy was a straight-up sociopath.

I stayed with him for the rest of the night, but after I left the next morning, I never talked to him again.

There was no way that I could continue dating someone like that, and thankfully he never tried to find me or contact me either.

I'm sure some people will probably wonder why I didn't just leave right after he told me he was a hitman.

Well, I didn't think it was a good idea to react strongly and admittedly storm out of the apartment.

I also didn't feel like he was a danger to me personally, but he definitely seemed like someone who had killed people in that moment.

The reason why I recognized that kind of behavior is another story.

This happened when I was a teenager.

I was in ninth grade and finally had a cell phone.

I had one of those phone plans where you had to wait until after nine to make free calls.

I started dating a fellow freshman, but as a young male teen, I had other interests.

Shortly after getting my first phone, I started receiving messages from a number that I didn't recognize.

It didn't raise too much suspicion, since it was a local number with an 804 area code just like me.

As the number continued to text me, I thought maybe one of my friends was pranking me, even though it wasn't in their character to do such things.

This would have been too elaborate for any of them to pull off, as our pranks were dumb and involved farts and nut taps, and even with that said, we barely pranked each other anyway.

The number that was texting me told me that her name was Aquaria, and she sent a picture of herself.

She was easy on the eyes, so I figured I'd entertain the conversation.

She knew my name and other details about me, like where I went to school and my age.

I didn't think anything of it since for me, school was a place where information was passed around like a piece of paper.

But here's where it got weird.

Aquaria claimed that she wanted to be my girlfriend, and she said that the girl I was dating wasn't right for me since Aquaria was the one for me.

By this point in my life, I had already endured one stalker, but that situation was more annoying than it was serious.

Initially, I honestly thought it was the same stalker from before,

but things weren't adding up enough to make me truly believe that it was her.

Over the next couple of months, texting with Aquaria died out as I decided to stop responding to her.

It just felt too creepy to keep talking.

Then, one day, I was walking along the railroad tracks when I got a message from Aquaria again.

She was texting me from a different number, but she said that she saw me walking on the tracks.

This made me worry that someone was keeping a close eye on me, but the messages from this number stopped as abruptly as they started.

Around this time, my space became popular, and this girl was quick to send me a friend request along with messages about how badly she wanted to date me.

She never even told me where she went to school or how old she was.

She never told me anything other than her name.

Still, I was feeling weird about her, so I decided to stop responding to her again.

I then started receiving messages through text at all times of the day and night.

I didn't respond, and then the texts stopped until I was in 11th grade.

I was dating another girl whom I started dating the summer before the school year.

This time, when Aquaria started messaging me again, things got very weird.

She told me that she messaged my girlfriend and told her that she and I were dating.

She was also leaving messages on my page so people could see, and the messages got progressively disturbing.

She was planning our whole life.

My girlfriend called me and she said that she was upset.

She thought that I was cheating, but I tried my best to explain the situation to her.

I don't think she believed me, but she left it alone after I made some calls to prove that I had a stalker.

After that, I removed Aquaria from my friends' list and managed to make it through senior year without a single text or a message from her.

To this day, I have no idea who Aquaria was, but she knew too much about me.

She knew way too much.

She knew where I hung out, my age, my name, the school that I went to, and so much more.

It was almost as if she were lurking in the shadows, watching my every move.

This happened back in February.

I'm very active, but I don't like running, so my go-to form of cardio is usually walking.

Most nights, I get home from work at around 9.

I usually work out right when I get home, but it's worth mentioning that I have a home gym, so I'm not too concerned about the time I'm working out.

On this night, after I get home from work, I did my usual lifting routine, and then I headed out for my walk at around 11.45.

To set the scene, I live in a very rural area, and I pass a house every couple of minutes or so while I'm walking.

I did my usual loop around, and as I was walking back, I saw this car pass by on the road.

Now it's not unusual to see cars passing by while I'm walking, but since it was late, I made sure to note the make and model of the car.

It was a Black Honda Accord from the early 2000s.

As I continued walking, a couple of minutes later, I saw a car in the distance again.

When it passed me, I noticed it was the same car.

Again, I didn't think too much of it, but since it was so late, I made a mental note about how it passed me for a second time.

I eventually reached the beginning of my neighborhood, and I was walking down a dark part of the first street.

I saw headlights, and I heard a car coming up behind me.

I immediately noticed that it was the same car from earlier, so I quickly got off of the road and started walking in the grass.

The car slowly passed by on the other side of the road.

It was weird because I had never seen this car in my neighborhood before, but still I figured maybe a kid got his license and bought himself a car and was just going for a late night drive.

So I then walked up to the next street, which was the one I needed to take to get back to my house.

I saw that the car had been suspiciously parked to the side, and it wasn't in front of any house in particular.

I was staying very alert about this, so I kept my distance and stayed cautious since I didn't know what this car was up to.

I should mention that when I go on walks this late, I carry a knife and mace with me in case I run into wild animals, but I had a feeling I wouldn't be using either on an animal that night.

I continued walking, and the car was just idling on my street.

I walked past them and kept turning just to make sure that they weren't following me.

By the time I made it to the start of my driveway, I noticed that the car was fifty yards behind me.

They had their headlights off, and they were moving at about the same pace as me.

I then ran down my driveway, and that car accelerated to follow.

Luckily, I left my garage door open slightly so I could crawl under it when I got back.

I keep guns all around my house, considering I live in a rural area.

So, once I was inside, I went to the foyer closet and I grabbed the 22 hunting rifle that I store in there.

Then I ran back out and saw the car parked in front of my garage.

I fired off three rounds, and this scared the person off.

They immediately reversed and sped out of the neighborhood.

Nothing like this has happened since, but I've never dealt with something like this before.

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Never compromise, drink responsibly.

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I'm a 16-year-old girl from Russia.

I went to Turkey on vacation with my family.

I play sports, so the first thing I did at the hotel was go play beach volleyball.

That was where I met a 19-year-old trainer named Ibrahim for the first time.

After the volleyball tournament was over, he came up to me and asked me what my name was and how old I was.

I let him know that I was 16, to which he said, Wow, you're so young.

I didn't pay any attention to this, I just decided that he was trying to be polite, since I haven't had much experience with boys.

The next day, I went to play volleyball again, and after the game, he asked me for my number.

I was naive and figured he just wanted to chat.

I didn't see any harm in this, since I wasn't attracted to boys like him, but I could tell that he was excited that I gave him my number.

He offered to meet up with me after he finished work.

He primarily spoke English, and since I hardly communicate with non-Russian speakers, I figured this would be a great opportunity to practice my English.

So I met up with him at about 10 p.m.

on the beach.

At first, everything seemed quite normal.

We talked about standard topics.

He was surprised that I was Russian and spoke English.

The more that he spoke, the more nervous I got.

I was nervous when I realized how helpless I would be against this big, athletic guy if situations were to turn sour.

He was built, so I knew he could easily knock me down and break me.

As this was running through my mind, he took my hand without my permission and remarked, You have such warm, small hands.

I like it.

Then he asked me how many boyfriends I had.

I told him that I wasn't dating anyone, and then he observed, Oh,

so you've never kissed a boy?

We started walking away from the beach, and as we parted, he tried to hug and kiss me on the cheek.

I didn't understand why he was doing this, so I just dodged him.

After that, I started avoiding him.

He continued to message me, since he had my number, number, but I stopped answering him.

I still went to play volleyball, and whenever he saw me, he made a point to take his shirt off.

At first I didn't care, but after a couple of days I stopped going to play volleyball altogether because this made me so uncomfortable.

He kept messaging me and insisting that we meet up again.

He also talked about how much he wanted to kiss me, but I never replied.

It was like the more I avoided him, the more I would see him around.

He started stalking me me on my hotel grounds.

I saw him everywhere.

I even saw him when I was eating on the terrace with my family.

He often came up to me when I was somewhere alone and asked, Why are you so tense?

Why are you so sad?

It was so off-putting, and I was afraid of him, but I tried not to show it.

The most unpleasant thing is that when all of this was happening, my friends said, This is just an ordinary vacation fling.

Let yourself have fun.

But as things progressed, they started getting scared for me.

In the end, I blocked him and stopped interacting with him entirely.

As a young girl, this still scares me since he saw me as a piece of meat.

So let's not meet again.

A few years ago, I was sleeping in my bedroom, which is on the bottom floor.

I woke up abruptly in the middle of the night to the sound of rushing water coming from somewhere upstairs.

I didn't know what it was, but because I like to sleep with no noise, it was bothering me.

I reluctantly got up out of bed and went upstairs.

The bathroom was at the end of the upstairs hallway.

The lights were off, but I could see that the door was slightly ajar and the sink faucet was fully turned on.

Water was gushing out.

So I walked down the hall, prepared to walk in there to turn the faucet off and shut the door before going back to bed, but right as I was in front of the bathroom door, I was overcome with this creepy feeling.

I suddenly felt like something was wrong, and I shouldn't go in there.

It was essentially that same feeling you get when someone is watching you.

So instead of going into the bathroom, I quickly and quietly made my way back downstairs, went into my bedroom, and locked the door.

I called 911, whispering, and told them that there was somebody in my house.

They told me to stay on the line and stay in my bedroom.

A few moments later, I experienced something that could very well be the scariest thing that's ever happened to me.

I heard creaking followed by footsteps.

Someone was walking downstairs.

And then I heard doors opening from all over the house as if someone were searching for me.

I was starting to panic since I knew that if they tried my bedroom door and found out that it was locked, they would know that I was in there.

My mind was racing.

I remember thinking, are

Things grew quiet after that, and ten minutes later, the police arrived.

They did a full search of my house, but there were no signs of the intruder at all.

Whoever it was was gone.

I'm completely fine now, but I still cringe when I think about what might have happened if I fully committed to going into the bathroom that night.

I'm confident that the intruder was standing behind that bathroom door waiting.

Who knows what they would have done if they had the opportunity to jump me?

If anyone else finds themselves in a situation like this, always trust your gut.

I decided to do exactly that on this night, and it probably saved my life.

I was with my brother and father.

We were at the Immigration Department in Hong Kong, sorting something out.

For some context, I'm a 20-year-old female, and I'm not local to Hong Kong.

It was getting late, and my dad suggested that we start taking the bus back toward the area we were staying in and eat somewhere closer to the apartment, since most of the good places would be closing up by then.

At about midway, there was a stop that my brother suggested we get off to get food at.

We all agreed.

I also desperately needed to use the bathroom, so my brother pointed to the closest McDonald's that we could see, which wound up being being a big mistake.

The three of us went inside, and I headed upstairs while my brother and dad stayed downstairs.

I headed up there since I was under the assumption that there'd be a bathroom up there, especially since there was no bathroom downstairs.

I wasn't sure if this would be the case, but my logic made sense.

I figured if I was wrong, I'd just leave and go to another place.

So I walked up the stairs and looked around, as I was somewhat pacing since I desperately needed to pee.

A McDonald's employee up there seemed to have spotted me and was looking at me, almost expecting me to bother him.

So I asked him if there was a bathroom around.

He said, Bathroom?

Through the door, turn left, and take the lift up.

The door that he was telling me to go through was this ominous brown door with no signs or anything on or around it.

He was the employee, though, so I assumed he must have known what he was talking about.

I opened the door and immediately thought, What the hell?

It led to an area of the building that was very dark and run down.

It was completely different from the modernized MacDonald's.

As soon as the door shut behind me, it was extremely quiet, almost as if it had been soundproofed.

All the loud bustling noises that could be heard in McDonald's had completely stopped.

The room that I stepped into was very dark with minimal white light.

There were multiple doors that appeared to be locked, but I didn't explore them very much, as I thought that they might be restricted for staff only.

I turned left at the corner as instructed, and there was indeed a lift.

As odd as I found this passage, I figured it couldn't be that bad, since there was a lift back there.

So I pressed the button for the lift and stepped in.

Suddenly I heard the door open again, and it was that employee who directed me to get into the lift.

He got in with me.

I noticed that he was holding a black bin bag that was filled with next to nothing.

I was thinking, Okay,

maybe he decided to take it out while helping me find the toilet.

Kill two birds with one stone?

I asked him which floor I should press, and he pressed the button for the second floor.

Once the door closed, it was quiet and awkward.

I glanced at him for a second, and I noticed that he was wearing a face mask.

One of his eyes was laser focused forward, while the other eye was lazing off to the side.

Suddenly he said, You are very pretty, and Cantonese.

I just replied with a quiet thank you, as I wondered if I even needed to pee as badly as I thought I needed to moments ago.

When the lift finally stopped, I was fully expecting it to open up into a shopping mall.

But that wasn't the case.

The doors opened, and there was just a very dark, quiet, run-down and narrow hallway leading to more doors.

I couldn't tell what the building was, but it seemed like a cross between an abandoned apartment building and maybe office space.

No matter what this place was, it was so dark.

All I could see were infinite doors and corners ahead of me.

There wasn't a single person up there except for me and this McDonald's employee.

At this point, we were both standing still in the lift, and my entire body was going into fight or flight as this whole situation made me fear for the worst.

The employee then gestured for me to step off the lift, and judging by his body language, it seemed like he wanted to continue walking me to the bathroom.

I quickly said, Oh, I've bothered you so much already.

I don't want to distract you from your work.

You can just point in the general direction, and I'll find it, I promise.

He pointed to the right, told me to go through the door there, there, and that would be the bathroom.

I thanked him, and I went on my way.

This place was like a maze.

As I walked by door after door in the narrow hallway, I was curious.

So I finally pushed on one of them, but it was locked.

Honestly, I was just trying to stall long enough for it to appear that I went to the bathroom before taking the lift back down.

I then got a call from my brother who was angrily asking me why I was taking so long.

He asked me where I was and I explained that I didn't know.

I was trying to find my way back.

Once I hung up with him, I started getting increasingly scared.

The building was massive and there were no signs or anything.

It was extremely dark, very minimal light.

The walls and the building were so run down that I figured there was no way a functioning toilet would actually be up there.

As I tried to find my way back to the lift, I began panicking.

My initial discomfort of desperately needing to pee morphed into desperately wanting to leave.

I calmed myself down a bit with breathing exercises and tried to recollect the steps that I took.

I finally found the lift and quickly pressed the button to go back down.

I stepped in alone, but pressed the close button feverishly to ensure that it stayed that way.

The lift took me back down to the original hallway, but I accidentally walked straight ahead instead of turning around the corner to get out.

From there, there were even more doors.

There were four to five next to each other.

But what I found to be strange was the fact that the doors were all facing this large glass panel wall, facing McDonald's.

I was able to look inside McDonald's at the people people as they were eating, but they didn't notice that I was there at all.

I then doubled back to the lift and made sure to turn right this time to go back through the door that brought me here in the first place.

I was finally in the McDonald's again and noticed that the glass wall that I saw on my end appeared to be a large mirror from inside the McDonald's.

It was a two-way mirror.

I looked around and there was no sight of the McDonald's employee.

As I walked through McDonald's, I saw my dad and brother.

My dad asked me if I was okay, as I looked really pale.

I said that I would tell him about it once we were out.

I asked him if he saw this worker who helped me while they were waiting for me.

I described him, but my dad shook his head and said that he didn't see any employees upstairs when he went up there to check on me.

My heart dropped as soon as I heard this, since that meant that the employee must have still been up there.

My dad also said, please don't tell me you went through that room to go up the lift.

I opened that door and I walked through a bit to find you, but it was pretty scary.

There were so many doors, and what was up with that glass wall?

It just didn't seem right.

I got out of there immediately.

Now bear in mind, my dad is a big guy.

He then sent my brother to go look for me.

Not sure why, my brother is pretty skinny and unathletic in comparison.

When my brother went up there, he opened the brown door just to see, but then got out of there.

He didn't want to walk around and explore.

After this happened, I decided I would never go to the bathrooms alone again, especially when travelling abroad.

And now, every time I see a McDonald's, I'll forever think of this memory.

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This all happened during my junior year of high school in New Mexico, around 2006.

My older brother had graduated the previous year, and I was still living in our family home as I started my junior year.

My mom had met this man at some point.

I don't remember exactly when, but during the first few months of my junior year, she eloped with him.

The man was Texan with a thick accent, and this will be important for later.

While she was eloping to her Dream Beach wedding in Texas, my brother assaulted me.

I was tinkering with a dead computer tower, and he came downstairs to see this, only to start beating me.

I got away from him and ran upstairs, but he was trailing me.

He was pulling on my shirt and ripped it as I was trying to get away from him.

Somehow I managed to get away, and when I finally did, I barricaded myself in my room and called my boyfriend at the time, who lived four hours away.

He immediately got on the road with some guns and some friends and headed towards us.

I called my mom to tell her what happened and let her know that I was leaving.

I still had a few hours to wait for my boyfriend though, and I was terrified.

So I started calling friends to see who I could hang out with until my boyfriend arrived.

I found a friend who was able to help me for those few hours, but I don't remember how I got out of the house, nor do I remember the rest of the night.

This started a trend of me missing a lot of school, spending a lot of time with my boyfriend, avoiding my brother, and eventually my stepdad, whom we'll call Jim.

A lot of the time between the assault from my brother and the next big occurrence is really blurry for me.

I don't remember a lot, and come to find out from my therapist later in life, this is because I disassociate without even knowing it.

This is common, and it's a defense mechanism for blocking out trauma.

As such, I don't remember much before the age of thirteen, and I've come to terms with it.

Anyway, I do recall one piece of information.

My mom spent weeks tracking down a shotgun that Jim had sold out of desperation, even though it was a family heirloom.

She tracked it down, bought it from the pawn shop where she found it, and gave it to him for Christmas in 2006.

He cried when he opened it.

Now, sometime during the spring semester, I was at my boyfriend's house four hours away from home when I got a call from my mom.

She said that she knew I was heading home soon, but she told me not to go home since she was staying at a hotel.

She explained that Jim had assaulted her in front of his family.

He threw his phone at her head, resulting in her kneading stitches, and he held that very same shotgun to her head.

He was arrested at the house, but his parents, who witnessed the whole thing, bailed him out, so my mom went into hiding.

When I joined my mom at the hotel, she further explained that the assaults have been happening for a while.

It always happened when I was away at my boyfriend's, so my mom just decided to hide it.

She also told me that Jim's sisters stayed in a hotel with her for a day or two.

My mom and I planned to stay there for a bit, and we didn't tell anybody where we were or what was going on, which was my mom's idea.

My grades at school were suffering, and the counselors at school had no idea what to do, since I couldn't explain what was happening to us.

In hindsight, I realize I should have been honest with them.

One night in the hotel, my mom and I were hanging out in our respective beds watching TV when the phone in the room on the nightstand between us started ringing.

My mom muted the TV and we glanced at each other as it continued to ring.

We didn't answer it.

Instead, we let it finish.

And then then my mom called the front desk.

The room was eerily quiet as I listened to the conversation that she had with the front desk.

I will never forget it.

My mom asked, Hello, did I just get a phone call?

Yes, you did, the front desk confirmed.

Was it a man with a Texan accent?

My mom questioned.

Yes, the front desk confirmed.

Where did the call come from?

My mom asked.

Another room in the hotel, said the front desk.

My mom was visibly shaken, so she paused before telling them to call the police.

I don't remember exactly what happened after that phone call, but I do remember hiding between the two beds on the floor with our cat.

We were on the first floor with our cars right outside the window.

My mom said that she booked this room intentionally to keep an eye on them, so she had good intentions, but now I realize, this wasn't the best choice.

We had no idea if he still had that shotgun or not, so we were just hoping that he didn't know which room we were in.

After what felt like forever, the police knocked on the door.

The knock was very startling, but so relieving when they announced that they were the cops.

Jim was arrested at the hotel, and after that, we proceeded to find out a lot of things.

He really was trying to find us.

He hunted for us.

The hotel had an internal balcony, so from the second floor he was able to look down and see the first floor.

He was nearly right above us, and just a room or two down.

He called the front desk to complain about our cat, which wasn't really a valid complaint, but he wanted to see what room the front desk would go to after receiving that call.

He was also texting my mom during the whole thing.

He texted her her from his parents' phone since he broke his phone on my mom's head.

He told my mom how dumb we were for leaving our cars outside, and he said that he was going to hunt us down to kill the mother lion and her cub.

And those were his own words.

It was real demented shit.

He also said some things and voicemails that my mom never let me listen to.

We then left this hotel to find another, further from home.

We couldn't sleep, so at around 3 a.m.

I left to go back to the safety of my boyfriend.

I eventually returned to my hometown, but still didn't go home since my mom was staying with a family friend.

All of the legal proceedings then started with Jim, so I went with my mom in case they needed my statement as well.

But they didn't.

While we were staying with this family friend, my paternal grandmother ended up passing away from a heart attack, so to say the least, my junior year was easily the most stressful.

After some time, my mom went back to Jim, and he went right back to physically assaulting her, and even tried to kill our cats.

Eventually, she moved away from him entirely, but she remained married to him until about 2015.

At the present, I have to say I'm happy.

I have a regular therapist, a supportive partner, and his family loves me unconditionally.

The trauma that I live with is a daily battle, but I'm in such a great place right now.

I no longer have contact with my mother, and it's one of the best decisions I've ever made.

I just couldn't let her traumatize me any further.

Thanks for listening.

If you have a story to share, send it to let's not meetstories at gmail.com.

If you're a patron, stick around after the music for your extended version of this week's episode.

If you want to get access, go to patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast to sign up and support the show today.

You'll get access to ad-free versions of all of our episodes at a higher bitrate, plus bonus content every single week with stories you won't hear anywhere else.

Also, be sure to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts like Pod Trails and the old-time radio cast at crypticcountypodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts and follow me on Twitch at twitch.tv/slash cryptic county for my live streams.

This week you have heard They Knew We Were There by Throwaway, Careful What You Say at Breakfast by The Modern Dragonfly, I Dated A Hitman by Ariah Bird, Girl Unknown by I Ate the Human Boy, Walking at Midnight by Old South 2918.

I was stalked while on vacation by Sublimation.

Intruder tried to lure me by Apprehensive Elk 7854.

The Bathroom Up the Lift by Cherry.

And finally, Junior Year by Sailor Fuck.

All of the stories you've heard this week were narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors.

Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast, is not associated with Reddit or any other message boards online.

We'll see you all next week for a brand new episode of Let's Not Meet.

Everybody, stay safe.

This story happened in September of 2023.

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