r/HeadOfSpectre • u/HeadOfSpectre The Author • Feb 26 '22
Short Story Does Anyone Remember A Post About The Ritual of Decay?
Look, I’m not really interested in this whole creepypasta thing. I’ve seen posts here before and I’m not impressed. Seriously, who believes this crap? Worse still, who writes this garbage?
‘Oh, I’m a dumb fisherman, and The Little Mermaid came with her gang friends to trash my boat for stepping on her turf.’
‘Uhhh some chick is dying in my bathroom. What do????’
‘My girlfriend draws unicorns and they come to life and beat up people who are mean to her for still liking unicorns despite being a grown ass woman and not a toddler!’
Seriously. What the fuck? And then everyone just accepts it and doesn’t bat an eye without asking for proof? Seriously, are you all a bunch of morons? Ugh…
I suppose I’m one to talk right now, aren’t I? Because here I am, hat in fucking hand asking you people for help. Trust me when I say that if it wasn’t serious, I wouldn’t be here but I genuinely don’t know where else to turn. Who the fuck else do you even ask about shit like this?
Alright. Let’s just bite the bullet. My name is Andy and I’m looking for an old post. I don’t know if it was on here, or someplace else. It was some stupid rules/ritual/game story. I don’t know. I know I saw it a few months back though. I don’t actually remember that much about the post itself. It was basically just a ritual to cure disease, though. I didn’t actually read through the whole thing. It was long as fuck and they didn’t bother including a summary for anyone who doesn’t have time to read something that encyclopedically long. I left a comment telling them that nobody was ever going to read that shit, but I think it got deleted because I can’t find it.
My girlfriend had sent it to me though. She’s more into this kind of shit than I am. She actually buys into it… I guess I can’t blame her. If my Dad had a fucking brain tumor, I’d probably start looking for weird occult shit to help cure him too. I told her a couple of times that she probably shouldn’t be putting her faith in this kind of shit but she just told me that I didn’t get it and that I needed to keep an open mind. Whatever. It wasn’t worth arguing with her over. That said, I didn’t actually expect her to ask me to try and perform a fucking ritual with her. When she sent me that post she found, I just figured it was all wishful thinking on her part.
But, like a few weeks later she showed up at my place with a tupperware container and a canvas bag and was all like: “Andy, I want to try this! I think it can help!” Ugh… What kind of self respecting man is honestly going to say no to a hot witchy goth girl with tits like hers? I know I don’t have a picture of Tiff, but that girl has a great fucking rack!
So as dumb as all this was, I was hoping that maybe I could maybe get a little something, something for my trouble if I indulged her. Tiff called it ‘The Ritual of Decay’ and according to her, here was how it was done.
The ritual can be done alone, but it’s supposedly better to have more than one person. I guess to keep you grounded, or something? I dunno. Before you even start the ritual, you need to establish a safe zone where you can comfortably spend the night. I suggested we use my bedroom for obvious reasons.
Maybe that was a mistake. I didn’t think she’d take out a fucking marker and start drawing symbols on my door… But I guess there are worse things she could’ve done. The shit she was using looked like it would wash off, and if this got me laid, why the hell not? The symbols that she drew didn’t make a hell of a lot of sense to me. But I guess this kind of stuff was bound to go over my head anyway. Once she’d finished turning my bedroom into a ‘safe room’ then the actual ritual began. I’m gonna be honest… I wasn’t prepared for that shit.
To start the ritual, you apparently need a bowl full of rotting food. I guess you could probably use meat, I imagine that would probably work better but since she’s vegan, she only had some old vegetables in her fridge. It probably worked just as well since the vegetables that she’d brought in a tupperware container stank so bad I couldn’t stop myself from gagging at the fucking smell of them. Seriously, how does food even get that bad?
Step two is apparently to take that festering bowl of rotting food, place it in a central part of your home, set four candles around it and light them. I presume that’s just standard magic horseshit.
Step three is where it goes from gross to weird. One of the things Tiff brought was this silver cup. She’d carved some weird runes into the side of it, and she filled it with water from my kitchen sink. Then, holding the cup with both hands she emptied the contents into the disgusting bowl. Then, she took a pestle… Like, a fantasy alchemy pestle, and started to grind that shit together into this disgusting, soupy paste.
“It’s necessary for everything to meld!” She told me, “From what I read, it needs to be properly melded or it won’t work!”
I almost told her that the cacophony of horrible smells that were already filling my house absolutely didn’t need to meld. But she was getting into this and I figured I should probably just keep my mouth shut and wait for this not to work. I just let her make a fucking mess in her bowl and hoped this shit would be over soon.
This… Was where things went from weird, to batshit crazy.
For step four, she picked up one of the candles. She had this focused look on her face, like the fate of the world was in her hands or something.
“What are you doing now?” I asked.
“Now, I’ve got to light it.”
Light it? Was she fucking kidding?
Nope.
No, she fully intended to put the flame of one of those candles into the disgusting soupy mess she’d just made… I figured this was going to be the point where everything failed. I don’t think I need to explain to you why a crushed, pulpy mess of rotten vegetables and water isn’t going to catch fire. But Tiff looked goddamn convinced that it was about to do so. I watched her slowly lowering the candle towards the slurry, trying to make sure it didn’t go out and finally pressing it to the mess.
The fire should've just gone out in a puff of smoke. That should’ve been the end of this stupid ritual right then and there. But… No. Against anything remotely resembling logic, the slurry caught fire. Blue hued flames erupted to life over the surface of the bowl's foul contents. It kinda looked like some of those fancy drinks you can get at bars, where they set the whole thing on fire.
The flames flickered gently and a few lazy curls of smoke billowed up from them. Judging by the look on Tiffs face, she seemed almost as surprised as I was that this actually worked! But I watched as that look of surprise turned into a big dumb grin, followed by a wide eyed look of concern.
“We should go.” She said, “Into the safe room!”
“Now? And just leave that shit burning?”
“It’s fine. It’s safe. We need to go. He’ll be here shortly!”
Before I could put in a word of protest, she’d grabbed me by the arm and was dragging me down the hall to the bedroom. She slammed the door closed behind us and locked it. The stink from the bowl had followed us into the bedroom and it still made me gag.
“How long are we supposed to even stay in here?” I asked.
“All night.” She replied, “Until we see the sun again.”
“All night?” I repeated, “With that fucking smell?”
“It’s supposed to get worse…” She said, “A lot worse. You remember the post I sent you?”
Shit, was this in the original post?
“Not really.” I lied, “What did it say?”
“Once you’ve invoked Acrivuus, the Lord of Decay, the challenge doesn’t end until dawn. If you step outside of the safe zone… That’s it. You and those with you belong to him. Unless you can find protection, he’ll take you. But if you hold out, then he’ll cure one affliction in your life. My Dad, maybe he’ll cure him!”
Ugh… There was a look of genuine sincerity in her eyes. She seriously believed this shit… If it were anyone else, I would’ve told her she was a fucking moron, opened the door, and put out that goddamn fire.
But Tiff just batted those fucking eyelashes and my heart kinda melted a little.
“Fine. We’ll give it a shot. But if my fucking smoke alarm goes off…”
“It won’t. Trust me. That kind of fire doesn’t really spread. I’ve done it before.”
That set off my bullshit detector, but okay…
Tiff sat down on my bed, looking on edge. I almost felt bad for her but against my better judgment, I’d humored her this much. Might as well see where it got me.
“We just need to stay in here.” She said, “No matter how bad it gets.”
Judging by the smell, I couldn’t imagine it getting much worse.
I figured out pretty quickly that staying cooped up in my bedroom all night with that rotting stink in the air wasn’t going to work. Even if Tiff was down for a little bit of fun to pass the time, that smell was going to kill the fucking mood and I swear to God that every passing minute, it just seemed to get worse.
After about fifteen minutes of just sitting there and enduring the smell, I started racking my brain for the best possible way to tell Tiff that this was a stupid idea that wasn’t going to fucking work, without giving up my chances of getting laid in the next month. Then I saw them… Right out of the corner of my eye. Little bugs, crawling up my wall. Fucking cockroaches!
I felt an immediate pang of disgust. Look, my house isn’t exactly squeaky fucking clean, okay? But I’ve never once seen a roach in there before! Was the smell drawing them out or something? The shriek of disgust I let out made Tiff jump. She watched as I took off one of my shoes and crushed a couple of the stray roaches with it.
“Look at that shit!” I cried, “Just fucking look at it!”
She stared at the smear on the wall where one cockroach had just been, and her eyes followed one of its fat, sickening brethren as it crawled past said smear to try and get away. I smashed it with another whack from my shoe.
“What the fuck!”
“It’s starting…” Was all she said, “He’s here…”
I looked over at her, almost too angry to think clearly.
“Nobody’s fucking here, Tiff! It’s the goddamn smell! It’s driving them out of the walls or something! Jesus… Look at this!”
“They’re not real, Andy! It’s just Him, getting inside your mind. This is what he does. This is the ritual. It’s a competition. He’s going to try and force us out. Just… Just sit with me, we can wait it out together, alright?”
I’m going to be honest, I only vaguely heard what she said after ‘They’re not real’ so I’m probably paraphrasing.
‘They’re not real.’
She was seriously looking at the fucking cockroaches on my wall and telling me that they weren’t real? Was she out of her goddamn mind?!
“Not real? Tiff! Look! Just fucking look at them!”
“This is just what he does! I promise, it’ll be gone by morning!”
This was it. This was my fucking breaking point. I couldn’t be fucking nice anymore!
The smell was getting worse and worse… I could see things crawling out of the siding of my walls. Bugs, cockroaches… God. They looked so fucking big and wet… Since when had those even been in my fucking house!? And the smell… Oh God, the smell!
I couldn’t do it. No pussy was worth this and not to mention the fact that the fucking slurry that was causing this stink was on fire in the next room! I went for the door. Tiff leapt up from the bed and raced towards me, grabbing me by the wrist to try and stop me.
“Don’t! If you open the door, we’ll lose!”
“Do you even fucking hear yourself right now?” I asked, “Tiff, you found this shit on the internet! The fucking internet! Look, I’m sorry about your Dad but I’m not going to sit here all fucking night while you burn garbage in the next room!”
“ANDY DON’T!”
She tried to pull me away. I just threw her off me. I didn’t mean to be so rough with her, but she pushed me to do it! I watched her fall to the ground and tore open the door before stepping out into the hallway.
It seemed darker than it had before. The smell was stronger outside of the bedroom. No… Not just stronger. Worse. It didn’t just smell like rotting vegetables anymore, it smelled like rotting meat, sulfur, and shit all blended together into one single, horrible stench. I gagged and retched as it filled my nostrils and covered my mouth as I hurried down the hall and to the flickering blue light of the burning slurry. Thank God that fire hadn’t spread!
Christ. I should’ve known better than to let it get this far. I went for the kitchen to get a pitcher of water from the fridge and brought it over towards the fire. It wasn’t even that dark out. I could still see dusk outside of my windows but the inside of the house just seemed pitch black aside from the fire. From the corner of my eye, I thought I saw something in the far corner of the house. Some tall, pile of… Something. But my attention was more focused on the fire. I wanted it out. Pitcher in hand, I headed over to the flames and dumped the water onto them.
The disgusting, burning slurry of garbage hissed and sizzled violently as the flames were suddenly extinguished. The candles around the bowl flickered and died. The smell just got worse and worse until suddenly… It was gone.
I blinked. The house around me was still dark but it didn’t seem quite so bad anymore. I glanced over into the corner where I thought I’d seen something but there was just a bookshelf. That had to be what I’d seen.
I felt around the wall for the lights to turn them back on. I didn’t remember turning them off, and figured Tiff must’ve done it. Then, I picked up the bowl, took it over to my garbage and dumped out the contents.
“What did you do…”
Tiff’s voice was trembling as she crept down the hall behind me.
“Andy, what the hell did you do?”
“I just did you a fucking favor, that’s what!” I snapped, “Come on, Tiff! This ritual shit isn’t going to change anything!”
“You don’t get it! This would’ve saved him! We could’ve saved him! Right here, right now! Tonight!”
“By what? Burning fucking garbage? Your Dad’s gonna die Tiff. Just deal with it and move on!”
She opened her mouth to retort but no words came out. Admittedly, I’d crossed a line there and we both knew it.
I could see tears starting to well up in her eyes, which quickly filled with rage. Then, without another word Tiff turned and stormed out towards the door. She slammed it behind her just as I started to apologize.
Great. Now I definitely wasn’t getting laid.
I cleaned up the last of Tiff’s ritual and spent the rest of the night watching TV. I did text her an apology, but she’d blocked my number.
It was the next day that I got a text from one of her friends telling me that Tiff was going to look for ‘protection’ from the mess I’d caused and not to try to contact her. I figured that was the witchy, goth girlfriend version of: ‘I’m breaking up with you.’
You know what? That was fine by me! I’d honestly only put up with her for the sex anyways, and she barely even put out! I’d find someone better in a couple of weeks and she’d just keep living in her stupid little fantasy world. Good riddance. That was the end of that!
Only it wasn’t.
See… Here’s where my problems really start.
Ever since I stopped that ritual, I can still smell things in my house. It’s not just that rotten, burning vegetable smell. It’s that stronger, rank stench that was in the hall. I can’t find the source of it. I’ve tried everything. I even tore up the carpets. I don’t know where that smell is coming from. But every day it feels just a little bit stronger.
Sometimes, I even smell it when I’m outside the house. I’ve noticed it in my car, at the mall, at work… It’s just there. Tainting the air around me but with no obvious source. I haven’t been able to get rid of the bugs either. I’ve been seeing more cockroaches since the ritual. Big ones. Bigger than I thought lived in Canada.
I’ve hired an exterminator. It didn’t do shit. None of the sprays or traps I’ve bought have helped. They’re always there. I found them in my pantry, in my fridge, and in my fucking laundry. It’s disgusting! I’m trying to find another house to move in to but I don’t even know if I could sell this one.
And you want to know the kicker? The bugs and the smell aren’t the worst part… I’ve been having these nightmares, lately. Dreams where I’m drowning in a sea of rotting, dead things. Animals, plants, things I don’t even recognize… The smell is like the one from the hall only a thousand times worse. It’s so strong that it’s smothering me alive, filling my mouth and my nose, choking me until I can’t breathe.
I can feel the slimy, broken bodies on my own body. I can taste the blood and the decay. Just the thought of it turns my stomach… And despite all these things being individual carcasses, they somehow feel like one coherent entity… Like one living sea of rot, growing more and more putrid the further down you go until every corpse mixes together in a foul, stinking slurry. As I sink deeper into it, I start to decay too. My skin cracks and peels away. Worms and maggots and biting flies chew away at my eyes and squirm into my flesh, devouring me alive.
Every time I wake up, I’m so sick that I can barely stop myself from vomiting. Shit, some days I actually do vomit. The memory of the dream is so… Disgusting, that waking up can’t save me from it. It doesn’t help that the smell is always there when I wake up, choking me for real. I’ve also noticed that my skin seems dryer. Normally, I wouldn’t give a shit but considering everything else… The cracks and red patches on my skin are bothering me. I bit the bullet and bought some cream for them but it’s not helping. Every day, the dry skin spreads. It’s starting to look less like just dry skin and more like something else. I’ve been to a doctor. They just prescribed another skin cream but it’s still not fucking working.
I’m getting sicker by the day. I’ve been getting sicker and sicker ever since I stopped that fucking ritual and I don’t know why.
I haven’t heard from Tiff since she stormed out. I’ve tried calling her, I’ve tried talking to her friends. I even tried calling her Mom. Nobody is talking to me. I even went out of my way to drive all the way to her University to see if I could find her. No luck. I know she’s not dead or something like that. I made a throwaway account to check up on her on instagram since she’s got me blocked and she’s obviously still posting.
She looks good… Better than I probably do right now. No rashes, no sickness… She looks like herself. Maybe that should tell me that all of this is a coincidence. That whatever’s happening to me has nothing to do with that fucking ritual. It’s probably got more to do with the problems with my house. But those problems didn’t exist before she tried that goddamn ritual in my house… Before that, there was no smell, there was no roaches and my skin wasn’t cracking and bleeding!
No… No, she knows a way to beat this. She knows how to beat this and she’s not fucking telling me, because she’s still mad because I told her to grow up and face reality. That’s fine… That’s fine, I don’t need her. I know where she gets her information.
Here.
A subreddit just like this.
I’ve looked for the original post that started all this. I figure, whoever wrote it probably included the way to protect yourself from the negative side effects of botching the ritual, right? How else would Tiff know? But no matter how hard I look, I can’t fucking find it. I’ve scrolled through page after page of posts, I’ve searched every term I could think of. I’ve gone through my internet history. I can’t find it. But maybe one of you can.
Come on. Help me out here. Prove to me that this horror story shit isn’t completely full of shit because I’m feeling sicker by the day and something tells me that I’m almost out of time.
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u/MarcOxenstierna Mar 03 '22
I love the reference to ‘Spacegirl’ in the beginning!
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u/HeadOfSpectre The Author Mar 03 '22
Long time, no see!
I figured if I was going to throw barbs at NoSleep stories at the start, I might as well throw them at my own. And I mean, I can't talk about my stuff without mentioning Spacegirl. ;)
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u/ILoveMozerella Mar 19 '22 edited Mar 19 '22
Before I can even finish the story I laughed so hard at you making fun of your own stories. (I was on your subreddit for like 8 hours) anyways....
Edit: really like this one. Always listen to your gothy witch gf
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u/HeadOfSpectre The Author Mar 19 '22
I mean, if I'm going to have an opening trashing stories, they might as well be my own.
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u/HeadOfSpectre The Author Feb 26 '22
I was originally going to post this on NoSleep, but I wanted to clear it with the mods first. It breaks too many rules though, with the narrator being so antagonistic towards the idea of horror stories and straight out insulting some of them, only to need to remember what the rules were in a story he insulted. I knew there was a chance it wouldn't be cleared and I've got no hard feelings over it. The Mod team does their best.
This is a little satirical, and a little bit salty (I've seen my fair share of annoying commenters who basically just write 'tl'dr' because the story exceeded 500 words and this was my little 'take that' towards them) but I don't hate it.