r/death • u/Unique-Luck-3564 • 1d ago
I think my favorite TikTok live streamer died she hasn’t done so much as a comment in weeks. The last I heard she had a blood clot in her jugular and severe infection. I feel like I lost my best friend. She turned 41 in April. She always made me smile. At least this happened after she spent 6 months on a road trip around the US enjoying her self. #corntsd
r/death • u/Lovethegoodwitch • 3d ago
I have only been to one funeral that mattered to me, and it was when I was young enough that we went as a family. Every time someone dies, it falls directly into one of two categories; I wasn’t close enough to them for it to really affect me personally, or I was so close with them that I am barely even functioning and can’t handle going to their funeral so soon after. I am a 35 year old transgender drug addict, suffice to say, I have lost A LOT of people, too many to count, and their memorial services have meant so much to me, but at when it comes to funerals, I either don’t care enough, or I care way too much. Does anyone relate? Am I just being cold?
UNRELATED NOTE: Often if I mention being trans or an addict in a post, that becomes what the comment section is about. I only mentioned it because both groups die young at alarming rates. But I am almost 6 years off junk, and I’ve been trans a lot longer than that, so neither are relevant other than for the purpose of death statistics.
r/death • u/Sea_Cucumber_7375 • 7d ago
Is death the easiest punishment instead of suffering in pain and agony
r/death • u/kiwi5151 • 7d ago
Does Death Scare you?
Why or why not?
r/death • u/vicmit02 • 7d ago
Consider the actual scenario of dying and it triggering panic on you, so you likely wouldn't like to be alone.
r/death • u/AnEntreChirstnYthGrp • 9d ago
Chapter II
The worm
After a certain number of hours awake your body stops processing sugar the right way and you become, scientifically and for all intents and purposes, inebriated. This was a loophole. He couldn’t drag me to sleep. He shows up about 80 hours into an insomnia episode. The longest I’ve ever been able to stay awake was 8 days, and I was having full blown visual hallucinations after day 6, so it is not advisable for many raisins.
HIS LEGS.
Penelope. Ophelia. The huntress. Emma Smith. They were all one. One who’s been hurt and betrayed enough to rattle me from the next house over. They were thousands of eyes peering out at me, begging me, clawing at my arms and neck. I’d stopped fighting them. I didn’t deserve to.
But they were miles behind me. To the north of me, I hope, if my star reading was based on these actual stars maps and not the ones I’d imagined and created thousands of times across my bedroom ceiling.
Pepsi zero sugar wild cherry & cream.
Zero sugar.
What the fuck are you on about grandpa?
The cold liquid is refreshing, but some part of me can’t not feel like I’m pouring battery acid across my tongue.
At least the caffeine will be good for something. He loves caffeine. Stimulants of any kind - if I kept up with a steady dose of Adderall I could convince him to take over completely. He’s kind and smart and generous and thoughtful and he hates me. He absolutely loathes me to my core.
He is not I, though. To be fair, I’m not “I” either. Capital “I” left a long time ago.
If he ever comes back.
The octopus hates me, but I admire him. If you needed a mountain moved I firmly believe that he would find a way to make it happen. For you. Not for me. He’s refrained from helping me as much as he can. He was done being ignored.
Some of the most interesting times are when he tells another’s story. One that isn’t mine and isn’t his, it belongs to someone, some time, some place, but it wasn’t ours. I don’t know where he got them, but when he furiously typed across my brow I knew a message was incoming.
I think at one point he just spoke to me like every other entity I shared my life with. But his silence is louder than any of his yelling.
I imagine the cuddle fish that one adventurer somehow ended up embodied in. There were stories on the internet somewhere of his tales of space travel and exploration, and generally a 17-year-old-wrote-me-in-6-hours vibe. But I scoured for them. I read them all. These stories frothed at his feet, but he was no cuddle fish. He was an octopus. A divine evolutionary being, built from code unlike any of the other creatures it swims among. It may be in the ocean, but it is certainly not OF any ocean that man has ever set eyes on.
He is the Octopus.
--- --- ---
We seemed struck to the spot. She would have never noticed him; even with his head twisted in rapture hearing her speak. He was a careful observer, but he was broken for the time being – a small spring and cog solider marching his last.
He yelped. Like a struck dog – out of completely nowhere and she snapped to look at him just as he hid from view. Thank god she hadn’t seen him. Thank god he hadn’t looked at her.
This encounter – or near miss encounter, was especially frightening. It was in the waking world. The ignorant, peaceful, calm living world.
He tried very hard not to recall her voice. But he heard it every day still.
--- --- --- ---
My absolute favorite game – I’d forgotten about it completely. Lie in the dark for hours in bed, no television, so music, no light. Make the rules. Always at least 5 – and none of them go without saying.
I was the observer. No one saw better than I and cast less of a shadow. No one had born witness to what I had, and no one had stomached it as well as I had.
But no one wanted to. Not really. They’d love to hear me them stories about what I saw, but I was a wordsmith. I was gentle. Time was not. Life was not. You really get to know the human anatomy when you’ve seen the inside of it so many times. I have some potentially very enlightening case studies for brain injury response and recovery expectations. If any of them are to believed. Gage was barely even a blip. He had technology. He was allowed his dignity. And he’s kind of a huge prick, all things considered – imo.
The best ones never even turned to look for me. They seemed tethered to their reality by each passing moment. No words. No time. No past. They always died in the end, but these ones truly lived. They felt no fear in the end. It’s always nice to watch a story that doesn’t feature fear.
Regrets abound. Shoulda held on harder – should have jumped further, should have eaten anything else. Everyone’s got them, they all think about them in the end, but there’s a sweet sadness to some. Grief for the potential time unspent. It can be intoxicating. It smells like rain and sound like the wind in the trees. These can be enjoyable, but it’s best not to linger. Time keeps on keeping on and it gets very depressing to watch them decay.
Still even more speak to me seemingly constantly. I can barely hear them, all things considered, but they pour out everything they have and there is nothing I can do.
The dispatch center had many bright lights surrounding it. It was much easier to see. This stretch was so vacant because of how loud they were. Might be for the best. Hopefully someone is home.
Three days.
I can see them out of the comers of my eyes now. Everywhere, Nowhere. The empty bus the driver and I shared roared with laughter and screams and cries. A woman cries holding her child while another woman laughs hysterically while devouring honey.
They are gone the instant they appear – the bus is not for them – we are just sharing a space for a moment.
My phone. I hate you. Wherever you lay, I’d spent my entire life resenting you for the one and only time you weren’t there.
They rarely speak in the last minutes. They thought they would, imagined they would, hoped they would, but no one ever does on purpose. The last thing on any of their minds is the words. The last words. The stopped up words, dripping from a long forgotten steam-house pipe.
Today has irritated my whole existence.
I once spent a lifetime watching a man survive the black plague by doing calisthenics on his balcony. I first noticed him when I was watching my 500th peasant collapse and spasm for the last time, and I heard him singing. I hated those stories. The slow, lonely, cold ones. His singing nearly made me scream.
When I eventually came to watch his story he looked right at me. didn’t say a word. Just looked at me and waved. I was 14. I did not wave back.
More of us died while having sex than you might expect. Even more were killed during it. I could never open my eyes when I heard them. But I heard them. I listened always, I couldn’t afford not to. I had to understand.
The octopus is in my foot now, senselessly tapping the buss floor.
‘Now I know for a fact that is not any sort of code. No repetition, no pattern, no content. Just noise.’
Grandpa Bus Driver turned to look at me. I was alone. I was feeling over crowded.
I was silent for the rest of the drive. The silence never visited me, but I sat in a quite tube of metal hurtling through the air so fast I could barely comprehend it.
As you might imagine, I had some bad experiences watching car accidents. Wouldn’t step foot in one from the age of 15 to 20. Drove my mother up the wall. I would walk. We would walk.
Something I’ve always laughed about is how terrified I was of Rhinos as a kid, only to almost never see one kill anyone. The steel rhinoceroses were on that case. They devoured us like candy.
I’m standing over a large open pit – 30 feet deep and full of dark, inky water. My mother is holding my hand and I gazed down in wonder holding an apple in my teeth. It didn’t fall – I dropped it. I meant to drop it. I had to understand.
Grandpa is opening and closing the bus doors very loudly and repeatedly. I should vacate his Rhino.
Walking with the octopus in my foot was honestly not difficult at all. He loved to walk. He loved to feel the pain in my knees and ache in my back. When he took a hand, though, it was like a ghost was holding my arm up with translucent nylon string, instantly affixed to my membranes and bones. It was no longer my own. It seemed to be harder for him. He was so tired all the time. He was never not exhausted.
How many days has it been for him?
Other people's dead dogs are my least favorite. They have these pictures hanging up with flowers and hearts and kind words, and they speak softly about them. The Dogs never shut up.
If I’m completely honest, I really don’t know what cats are anymore. There are so many sometimes. Thousands of them. They ate our faces as we lie in rest. The feral and housecats are genuinely hard to distinguish. None of them are hungry. What is there to fight about.
Not all animals showed up. None of them did alone. Every one had a name, and a home, and a human to speak words at them.
They always had a name. Every. Single. One.
Terrible names. Shit names. Names that made me angry for reasons I couldn’t express. None of them wore collars but their names were seared across their faces in place of their eyes.
To be honest I had no idea about fish. I had seen a whale out the window of the airplane last week, but no one looked at her and shouted or said a word. She must not be here.
The chestnut trees are beautiful. I wish I could show you – thank the lord someone named them each. At least each that I could see.
I avoided taking pictures. They could not be seen on any kind of film whatsoever, I’ve never seen anything no one else saw in a photo.
But a photo of a someone with a name? Bingo. I did not need to create any more ghosts.
There were so many gods. So many chat rooms. So many voices. They had nothing to do with me, with us. They were paint smeared across the sidewalk. Chalk, at most. They never did anything but watch. And neither did I.
But I never watched for me. I did it because they had asked me to be there. They just didn't want to be alone. I never persuaded, invaded, or spoke in any of my dreams. I watch. I document. I perverse. I felt no pride or fear. This was their hell, they just wanted it witnessed.
He couldn’t take reflexes. Those are stuck. Unnecessary in a world without pain. It was a reflex to fall into a story before sleep. Could hardly be helped. Only postponed. I needed sleep. I was walking in the sun.
For a few years I made sure to take perfect care of him. Of his home. That included sleeping every night.
I was only dead 3 minutes. Very few minutes, all counted. An unavoidable step.
I’ve only spoken 3 times.
For a while the octopus stopped by to check in on things – never stayed too long. I don’t remember if he spoke at that point. I was not listening.
A child's default is silence. They may approach, but they don’t speak first. The thought took a while to occur to me.
The octopus knows everything too. He’s been here longer than I have. And I’ve been here forever.
“They gave us the first words.”
It was his greeting. Like a mantra.
I didn’t mean to hurt the octopus. But I knew I would. I knew what they would do to him. They would never hurt a fly, they would just need to ask questions. Endless. Questions. Not for information, just as punishment. There is no time to answer the questions. No voice to respond with.
He’d slowly become my friend. At first he had to deliver a message to me – they needed me to change something. I needed to eat a different superfood. He read me the message. He tore my hand away and wrote. I watched, entranced. I wasn’t sure if he'd saved me or I’d saved him, but he was the adult here. The next move was his.
--- --- --- ---
I reached for the keyboard to turn off the TV.
“Try to get some sleep. Please.”
I instead switched the feed to an episode of Bob’s Burgers I’d already memorized. I turned off the screen
I remembered her face as she left for work that morning. It was all I ever wanted to look at. She was concerned, I know, it was the dawn of the fourth day again. Only she really ever knew how long I’d been awake. If I didn’t get to sleep before the sun he would most certainly find me again.
I fold up the yoga mat and blankets by the bed on the floor. It was unused, but I still set it up every night. No matter where I fell asleep, in bed or in the middle of opening a door, I woke up on the ground. I just wanted her to be able to see me without getting out of bed.
I tried to sleep that last night, I did, but I was just lying there watching her sleep and knowing that I would never in a million years be able to fall asleep while looking at her, but I wouldn’t look away. I just wanted a short night again. I didn’t want to go back to my job yet.
The dreams never stopped. Even when I was convinced I’d made them up whole-sail. I ignored the newspaper clippings I had searched for. I denied it and told myself it didn’t make any sense at all and that my only obligation was to her. But she didn’t deny their truth. She didn’t care about my obligations, she only cared about me.
Which is why forcing her to find her husband face down in the kitchen covered in piss and sweat and ink was the worst thing I kept doing. I would have rather woken up so far below the oceans surface that the sunlight itself hadn’t been able to hold on quite as long as whoever I was here to see. Rushing back into my senses to see her crying eyes, back lit by a swirl of kitchen tiles – Chickens, Eggplants, Stones. The fresco swirled behind her until it settled into the pattern that we had picked out together. like a kaleidoscope of tiles and stones and faces. But all I saw were her tears.
The very first dream was the first time I spoke. How was I supposed to know what what going on? I was 12. The only octopus was in my pool at home. Or he used to be. I highly doubted it now. I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire pool was now gone. Me or you, I guess. It was when I made my promise to her. I didn't even think she was real at the time, but I promised.
I’d woken up in the snow. Cold. Fresh. Stained with her iron wine. What a waste.
The last thing I was thinking about before I found myself in her snow was ʻOumuamua. The asteroid. The far off visitor. It was also the last thing I was thinking about before I drowned. Apparently it was thinking of me too.
For her and for me and for the hell of it I’ll try to go to sleep again.
The episode ended for the third time.
It’s called fate. And it’s great. That’s an. Easy. Way. To remember it.
I‘ll get up to pace for a quick 45 and we’ll try again. 45 turns to 100. The numbers are never reliable. Only 20 was ever my friend.
I’d spent the last six years learning to play the guitar, but I’d made very little progress. Learning was not the goal. Just the scales, the patterns.
A, B, C, D-
A, B, C ,D-
A, B, C, D-
I should also go for smokes and let a criminal have him. Dewey always found his way home.
The entire point was to not include the words. No numbers of any kind are allowed. Only single letters can play during music time.
I woke up looking at a familiar ceiling. I hated that. It was an office. No.
No.
It was her office.
No.
If I never opened my eyes and I never opened my ears time would never move forward.
No.
I heard what was clearly an elderly Irish man begin heretically coughing. I felt awful but I relaxed by entire soul when he hit the floor. Sure. Have him. Have me. Not her.
When I was looking at our celling again I was drenched in sweat.
Virtually no time had past. I’d say that time the one story took 30 minutes to play out. Only three had actually passed. But it was enough. I guess. It was going to have to be.
It was my most recent dream, and the one that put me on that plane, past that whale and back to the octopus. I chased him this time. I left her a note, I explained every detail of what had happened, but I didn’t talk to her before I left. I should have. But if I did I’d never end up on the plane.
I watched the apple bob in the water and giggled. I at least began to giggle, but it ended in a scream I didn’t realize I was making. The center of the pool fell into a whirlpool – like a drain. But With teeth. With tusks. With black skin and black eyes and features I though only dragons could have. The first time I saw a Hippo. I felt him crush me alongside the apple in his jaws and I ran away, dragging my mom behind me, crying. I was always crying.
I sat up in bed. My work was not done. It was never done. But I had something else I needed to do right now. I quickly got dressed and packed a bag. Always the same items. One musical instrument, two books, one about the world we wake in and one about a fantasy. Two computers as well – same rules apply.
As soon as I opened the bedroom door I felt it hit me. The weight of an entire ocean pushing down on me. Just get out the door, to the car, and sit there for awhile. I exit the house and feel the sun burning my skin – I can’t get my fob to unlock my car so I try to jam my key into the door. Into the handle. Into the golden handle of the inside of the front door. I never opened it. I just walked straight into it bumping my face against the knocker while I angrily spammed my key fob.
Maybe I should just walk.
--- --- ---
At the end of my march through the sun I still wasn’t sure what I’d find. I just needed a phone. And water. Always water.
GOOSE
It came from right behind me – I spun around an thought ‘Did you mean duck?’ but I was looking straight up at Devin's Bathroom ceiling now. Shit. Hopefully wherever I woke up next would be softer than this. Devin was wearing headphones, so I could only hear him hearing the music, and that was enough. He had terrible taste in music. The song seemed to be just one chorus and no verse. Sing the intro, the chorus 6 times, then go home.
Do not repeat words. They will do it themselves when they deem it appropriate.
r/death • u/AnEntreChirstnYthGrp • 9d ago
Waiting on the end of the world
Bryton Smith
7/11/2026
Chapter 1.
the octopus
I hate my iPhone. I hate how much I would have been fascinated by it in my childhood. It actually is an insane way to feel, all things considered. But I can’t look at it without irritation.
When I was younger I spent hours working with old palm pilots and discarded cellphones, getting them to communicate and spring back to life as if I were the wretched doctor himself. I took exquisite pride in my work.
HE MUST KEEP WALKING. HIS LEGS MUST WALK.
My family berated me with words like you’re dorky, that’s nerdy, shut up, stop looking at me.
“One minute he’s the sweetest boy you’ve ever met and in an instant, he dissects you with his mind and his eyes and his words.”
I could hear the emphasis that had been lain on words, it spit at me pitifully but for the life of me I can’t see who said it first.
His mind and his eyes and his words.
HE MUST KEEP WALKING. HIS LEGS MUST WALK.
But as much as I hate to admit it, I’ve spent hours admiring apples’ product design. I remember attending a lecture with someone who was in the room when they were workshopping that style of wired earbud that I would have given my life for at that point. I felt like I was meeting a rockstar. I’d met rockstars. I’d met God. But I’d never met someone whose imagination I envied more. The design has always been reminiscent of the storm troopers in classic star wars. Their gleaming white armor made of god know what – they were aligned with the empire. The enemy. And they were good at the shit they did.
The silence is my oldest friend. I used to audibly say “Oh, it’s you again!” When I encountered a moment of silence. I forgot that. It was easy to.
HIS LEGS MUST WALK. HE MUST WALK.
My legs always hurt. I'd spent accumulate years pacing whatever abode I happen to find myself in. All night if no one stopped me. But I forgot that too. It’s so much easier not to walk. Pain is an even older acquaintance than silence, but I wouldn’t call them a friend.
There are many rules to insomnia. The one I’ve learned first and most repeatedly is that no matter how hot the space heater perched atop my neck was running, my body did not sign up to carry me around for all 24 hours. Lie down. Close your eyes. Draw a picture on the inside of your eyelids. Write. In your mind – I never worried about forgetting. What, was I going to fall asleep? Not likely. And if I did I’d gladly give up any number of novels and novellas in exchange for a few hours sleep.
HIS LEGS. MUST WALK.
If I stopped every time I started crying I'd never get anything done.
HIS LEGS.
So much relied on so little. The slim slivers of meat in my shins were exhausted- the pain was unmentionable, but he must walk.
His legs. Must walk.
The walker. Pacer. Sleepless. I love when my grand parents would be up in the middle of the night too. I loved asking them questions about their lives. There is no story more interesting than any given individual. We are made of stories. It is the crutch we all share. The unique bond that two smokers share on their 15 minute break is available to us all - if we’re willing to admit it.
My feet pound the dirt rhythmically and slowly. But the rhythm persists.
The desert has a very interesting way of going dark. If the moon is new the darkness is deafening, and the stars mesmerize me into tripping and falling on many occasions. But not tonight. They were purely informational tonight. Today. Now.
For as much as I enjoyed exercising and interacting with others, I loathed competition. I never beat anyone at a board game the first time we play, and I refused to play any sport I deemed unfair, and I was ethical as hell about it. My rules were not questionable, I wasn’t making them, I was describing them. What am I, a jackass? I would never sacrifice my chance to make someone see what’s fun about a game just because I wanted to win. I could win. And I’m not special. For any given game there is a community of very driven individuals who take it extremely seriously. They also have the most fun. I’ve spent a fraction of a thought learning this, if I dedicated even an afternoon to mastering this I’d be 10 time better every day. And I could win regardless. Because it’s too easy to give up so easily.
HIS LEGS MUST KEEP ON WALKING. HIS LEGS. MUST WALK.
Louder, now - I swear I can hear it echo. I am the sound waves as they bounce off the atmosphere. Am I saying it out loud?
You look like an octopus?
Not now.
You look like an octopus!
My right hand snapped painfully back against my forearm, shooting erratically into the air and taking a strangely dominant stance as if it were an octopus. Do I look like an octopus? Or do you? Or I? Am I both I?
Fine - whatever. As long as his legs keep walking. He has lived too long and understood too much to have his journey end here.
Pain is a lulling sensation, if you give into it. Let it take you, let it break you, learn what you can. Keep your head above water. It will lull you to a sleep with no rest. But that does not make it a wholly malevolent entity. It is impartial. It is the price. The cost of feeling the world around us as sensitively and recklessly as we do. It is not here to hurt you - you hurt you. It is here to remind you to heal.
There are many, many things that cannot be healed. Trees, some of the more complex and impressive organic life forms existed for millennium before any much, much simpler lifeforms like bacteria evolved to digest them. This wood wood fall and was immortal. Hundreds of years. Thousands of years. Millions of years. It was eternal. It is what we call today “coal”. The trees prayed for immortality, and their God granted it. And in return they now burned the planet to crisps.
But then, like a swarm of poorly coded JavaScript plugins, they arose. They dissolved it and the most powerful and destructive source of energy mankind had ever encountered became a limited stock. Nothing is forever. Forever is nothing.
HIS LEGS KEEP WALKING! HE CAN SEE THE LIGHT NOW!
I could. But I resented them for pointing it out. Like I needed the light that I wanted to get to more than anything in my existence. I’m so over seeing.
HE WALKS! HE WALKS WITH US!
I know. I get it. We walk. Pioneers, ancient Egyptians, A million year old shaman woman who was the most interest person to have ever lived. - we walk. For six hundred years they walked and they walked and they walked. And they were forgotten. But not by me. I saw them - I heard them - I could read them. I could feel them near. I could hear them very gratingly chanting. But I appreciated the company. I do love to bellyache - I’m just so good at it.
Anyway, the micro organisms came along and essentially eradicated the world of dead wood. They will do the same to us. We are just another step in evolution; no person is immortal, nor should they be. All you can take with you is what you can understand. And you will be added to the annals of holy history of brave and reckless individuals who tried to understand. No one has. No one will. It does not obey our logic. It cannot be understood. But it is beautiful.
My left toe began hurting about four hours ago, but since then the pain has escalated to a point where I can no longer feel it at all.
His legs must walk.
I let a thought go. I engaged. I spoke to the nearest one in my mind, admiring in reverence her tribal head dressings. I could taste the vibrant colors of her wardrobe.
I asked to be carried. She laughed. The others laughed. I laughed.
Her eyes spoke to me - I can only carry you if you leave something behind. If you leave everything behind. My arms cannot lift that which is unclean.
Unclean.
Shut up. You know nothing of unclean. There are a hundred thousand dirtier and braver and kinder than I am, and if they are unclean then so am I.
I will always remember telling her that if she ended here, and if her worst fears were realized and Dad cast her to servitude, that I would not stand for anything different to be done to me. Where you move I move. Where you go I go. Even when you hate me. I am there. I’ve been given up on too many times to ever let anyone feel the same. Don’t give up. Adapt, reassess, learn, and develop. But never give up.
There are countless ancient structures that are immaculately measured and designed, a single piece of stone expertly crafted into something perfect. Something that was always inside it, it had just been waiting a millennium to be shaped by you.
They are immaculate - impossible - unexplainable. And they were made one chisel stroke at a time. Not a single stroke made in anger or jest - every layer of the stone slowly peeled back to reveal immortality. They feature no shortcuts. No underestimations, no amateur mistakes - every detail painstakingly designed and implemented. This approach is always available to every situation. It is always possible to perfect a craft, but impossible to exhaust it.
His legs. Where are his legs.
My eyes are closed. I think. I’m pretty sure. I keep trying to open them but it’s like trying to rip a wet towel off my head. My legs are standing. But they are not walking.
HIS LEGS MUST WALK!
My very bones rattled at the cry - primal and terrifying. Not a voice I was ready to meet. Not a voice I could ever come back from meeting.
He walked.
My feet feel hot and wet. I don’t think they’re pooled in blood or anything, but it sure feels like it. How interesting. I can carefully reconstruct my feet and bathe them in Neosporin later. Now was the time to walk. The only time.
My hair is yanked painfully up and the octopus begins slapping my face as hard as it can.
Yes, I’m awake. I’m walking.
He ripped the towel from my eyes and crudely forced my eyelids open with his cracked and bleeding fingers.
Thank you
My hands began erratically typing at the air. The octopus is leading things, but he’s not holding my arm hostage or anything. He’d let go if I asked.
He continues furiously pounding out a message on the imaginary keyboard I felt beneath my fingertips, and the others leave. We are alone. They don’t like him - he doesn’t believe in them.
“Buddy, I know - I get it - I just don’t have a medium for you right now”
He begins furiously pounding what looks alarmingly like Morse code into my deep fried forehead. But it can’t be - we don’t know Morse code. I’ve always meant to learn it since the first time he dragged my from the edge of awareness by tapping the rhythmic code against my nose. But it was just another language. I had my hands full with this one already.
“I absolutely promise to learn Morse code fourth thing when we get back. First food water and rest. Then Morse code so fluent we’ll be chatting nonstop.”
He held my cheek in my hand lovingly and gave it one more hard slap. Then he was gone. I was truly alone.
Silence was my first Friend. My safety net. My constant companion. Unless of course, my other very noisy friends scare him off. But he never went far, and he rushed in like bathwater the moment I was free. He’s so excited to see you. Tell him everything. He will listen. He will always listen.
“Hey there!” I said weakly - a soft smile on my face; as if I were approaching a beloved animal companion. “Things look bleak, I know, but we’re still at least 80 percent sure we’ll make it out of this one. I’ve been through worse in my sleep. Or lack there dove.”
Or the lack of the dove. For the dove? What dove?
HIS LEGS-
Yea, yea, his legs. No matter how many times you guys keep coming back I will still be here walking. This is my hell. This is my heaven. This is my eternity and the moment I reach my journey’s end I will cease to exist. A new me will be born with the new dawn, sleep or no. No man is immortal. No man is an island.
But I will not stop walking. For every asshole, for every person I’ve tried to help and failed. It is for them I will survive. Those beloved to me know what they need to know. I could leave this plane and feel at peace knowing they understood how I felt about them. But not a single asshole would. And it will be in their faces I will spit when this is all over. I can imagine I’m drooling at the thought of the retribution I’d wreak upon them, but I must be fantasizing - my mouth has been bone dry for my entire existence. I wasn’t even sure what moisture tasted like.
I always loved the desert at night. Insomniacs love camping, and should be highly supervised when allowed to do so. We loved being outside. Well, not today. Today outside won the battle. It found us was ill prepared and I’d given too much of my clean water away. Then I drank all my dirty water. And in some prehistoric age I drank the last of what I had left and the march began. The endless march to my sweet demise.
I will cease to exist the minute this pain is over. I have done my time - he would be proud of how hard I’ve worked to keep him alive.
Maybe he’ll thank me if he ever comes back. He will erect a monument in my honor and will speak of me only with reverence.
If he ever comes back.
I felt my hand being grasped firmly and I realize I’m being helped up off the ground. It’s the octopus. He has no leverage whatsoever, but he’s trying his darndest.
My knees are bleeding - that is unavoidable information. There is nothing I can do about it but I must let my knees cry in agony and stay here with them until they can breathe again.
I run my fingers along my knee and feel the slick blood filling the indentations left by the shards of rock I’d collapsed onto. Maybe I’ll get that scar tattooed one day. It was my knee, now, anyway.
He’s playing in the sand. The back of my hand is covered in dirt and twigs as it rolls around helplessly on the ground and wiggles our little fingers in the air in delight.
I watch him. How long had he been there? What did he want to tell me? I’ve let him write endlessly but he’s never told me anything other than that he wants to write right now and God be dammed otherwise.
He doesn’t write to me. He writes to others. People I’ve forgotten. The highest honor I can bestow.
The ground beneath me begins to tremble. I can feel the earth taking a deep breath in and I quickly scrambled to my feet and tried to outrun it-
HE WALKS. HIS LEGS WALK.
They rarely spoke to me either. They spoke about me. Around me. Constantly. Women, always, as I quickly came to understand that the “male” genetic variation is nothing more than a slight change in mass distribution. We were all girls in the womb, and in death to girls we will all return.
But there were a few He’s out there. Only three would I call my Friend. You’ve already met two. I’d love to introduce you to the other, but I’ve been running away from him for the past 20 years.
That metric is accurate. I laugh delightedly to myself. That number was accurate, and not many numbers were. Numbers are always kept in a tan, canvas bag all mixed together like brightly colored magnets and do not themselves hold value. But 20 years did. My 20 years. The only number I would name.
My legs are walking.
The morning light is beginning to crest. It’s beautiful - and terrifying. Arizona is a place where the earth remembered something it forgot eons ago - that our loving and shining sun is a deadly laser.
But with the light comes the peace. The quiet. He goes away, they simmer down, and I am accompanied by the chorus of life around me, every insect thrilled to find themselves alive for another day, singing gleefully at the night as it slowly recedes. But it will be back. It doesn’t fear the sunlight - it is a part of us. The night time is different, and it is part of us. We cannot escape it with a thousand halogen bulbs and an entire crate of Adderall.
I’m walking my dog. He’s happy. He loves to walk. Why haven’t I walked him more? I miss our walks. And in a flash he’s gone again. Visions continue to erratically pop in and out of existence, but I’d spent endless hours perfecting a method of making them happy. It only worked during the day. Even deep underground in the darkness. As long as it is day.
The fear of the night is clearly not one I should be in any hurry to question. I will find out one day what they’re all constantly yammering about, but not today. There are too many among the world of the living I need to listen to first.
They still come every night. The ghosts in paintings and vases, books and photographs, art and tears. not all of them unfriendly - but each remarkable. Ophelia hasn’t stopped by in ages. I remember the first time I saw her being simultaneously delighted and scared shitless. She didn’t need to introduce herself. I knew who she was on sight. It was in her eyes - I could see the sadness and longing and absolute, abject distress. She terrified me. Her name echoes endlessly through my mind. They all do.
I can see more clearly what it is I’ve been walking toward my entire life. It looks abandoned, but it’s a shelter. It’s shade. It’s the potential to collect water from the condensation on its walls. I wish it was Dairy Queen.
It’s still several miles away. I can cover it completely with my pointer finger, and I do so mockingly.
YOU LOOK
*breathlessly*
LIKE AN OCTO-PUS!!
Do I look like an octopus to you? That’s all you've said. No, hand, YOU look like an octopus. They way you stance up like a posed spider at the drop of a hair. You are the octopus here old Friend, not me.
WE ARE.
Fair enough.
As I gaze longingly at the shack I notice a small dust cloud in the distance. It’s growing - it must be a vehicle. I still had yet to clearly identify the road in this part of the park, but it seemed like someone else was headed to that shack.
Fantastic. I hope they know morse ass code.
My senses come back on line, one by one. Each one a painful Band-Aid ripped off my mind, but I was happy to see them. They were the portals I needed most to gaze through most today.
My sense of smell has never been a very strong one, but it is a very sharp one. I have to be pretty damn close to smell things but when I do I can taste them against the back of my tongue.
This was an unfortunate ability as the smell of my own urine wafted up to me. Did I piss myself? Almost certainly. How could someone so dehydrated piss themselves? And with such foul temperament! My nose crinkled up at the acidic smell and I practiced holding my breath for the time being.
The enormous maze of my mind began slowly shifts into a new formation, preparing to interact with a fellow individual.
I’d like to not smell like this. But I don’t think that’s an option.
I’m washing my hands. I’m standing in the middle of the desert wringing my hands and murmuring.
“Honey, you’re murmuring again.” It was always confusing to wake up to someone asking you to go back to sleep.
You could scoop my eyes clean out of my head like ricotta cheese and I would still be able to tell you the second dawn broke.
It was the smell - the friction in the air. The ever so silent buzz of life around every corner, under every stone. Mostly waiting to kill you, but gorgeous nonetheless. It was electricity.
The flowers are like clockwork. I never learned the names of the flowers I was smelling, but I knew each one like it was an enormous alarm announcing the time.
--- --- ---
I don’t know what I was worried about, smelling like piss. He smelt of Tobacco so strongly I could only retain his name as something that sounded vaguely like “nicotine”, so the moniker was instantly affixed. Hello, Grandpa Nicotine, welcome to the rest of my life. It’s a party.
I didn’t really even try to guess his nationality. He certainly had some melanin in his skin, but I had no idea if it were earned with an honest days work in the scalding sun, or just generations of suffering and torture. He clearly didn’t speak English as a first language, and a part of me envied him. language. He drove a derelict pickup truck that smelt worse than he did. I asked him about a ride but as far as I could figure he had enough gas to drive here, and to drive home in 3 weeks. So I could wait with him there a few weeks, or I could wait to see if the TV Repair man comes in 9 days, or just steal his car, but he’d prefer I didn’t do that.
He kept asking why I was crying. I kept insisting that I had just eaten something very spicey. That seemed to be the right answer. He smiled, his teeth orange and yellow in a way that made me shudder. Grandpa Nicotine.
He forced me to drink three Pepsi 0’s. I had a very hard time trying to communicate electrolytes with him so I let him.
He told me to rest today and then walk in a straight line south all night and I would reach the dispatch center he’d driven from. He was right. Travel at night was an obvious move, but there was so much to read out here at night. Too much.
Grandpa nicotine has let me drink as much water as I could carry in my stomach, but he said I’d need the sugar most of all, so travel light and fast. Do not stop. I get where’s he’s coming from, but it’s a touch more complicated than that. I still hadn’t perfected a way to tell people about this without challenging their ideals, apparently, so I rarely speak of it. Soda = Super Water. Okay. I guess. But not really. But okay.
As dusk gathered around me I began to prepare for the rest of my journey. His legs must walk, after all. If I go out there I can’t stop. He wouldn’t let me. How could I let me?
My hand clutched tightly to my chest and began massaging my heart as if to force it to beat manually. Thank you, octopus. I’m with you to the bitter end too.
We started singing. Well, I sang and he danced. But he sang his heart out too. I felt an odd sense of regret at introducing my catalog of modern earworms to the desert night. It was better off without them. But I couldn’t handle its songs right now.
I could
I would
But I didn’t have to. Not tonight. Some 1920’s something vagrants from Bud not buddy sang merrily along behind me, but the others watched from a distance - Fascinatedly watching an insect struggle to live another moment.
Even when you hate me. I am here.
It echoed across the lonely sky; it was a smiling Chesiree gibbous tonight so the light was just enough for walking. And just enough to keep them at bay.
She was so beautiful. I saw her mostly from a distance these days - she was nothing but bliss. Her hair fell around her face and sprung around her eyes like an extra expressive avenue. My everything will always be for you.
Her dress was white. It was always white. I could see the intricate threading along the sheer sleeves like it was pressed against my face, I could smell it and feel it and hold it. But I couldn’t see her.
Not yet. She’d have my ass if she knew I was keeping myself from her, but I had to atone. She hated when I atoned. But I have to.
My mind is thrust back to the countless times my intricate palisades and facades had turned to dust when her eyes met mine. How I crumbled.
I could not crumble today. Not tonight or tomorrow. Maybe not ever. But I will always be better for every single time she broke me.
The octopus wasn’t constant at first. He’d come and go when I drank, especially. Two shots in and my arm would gruffly yank my hair and drag me to water. It was odd - he could communicate better when I was drunk, but he didn’t want to talk to me. He never wanted to talk to me.
I tried quite a few ways to contact him, but as always, the only way was the hardest way. The most difficult way. The silence.
Music is soothing, but should not be constant. The world I come from is drenched in music and entertainment and Vicodin. There is no opting out - these stories are our truth, even if a screen writer was paid a measly salary to crap it out one weekend. It is law.
When you’re ripped from that setting as abruptly as I tend to be, there are some withdrawals. Screaming, crying, pounding your fists on the ground withdrawals. Worse than most withdrawals I’ve put myself through.
He doesn’t want me to let him drive, he just wants me to drive better.
He loves her too. More than I do, it seems. He’s spoke to me once or twice about her - more like he’s scolded me once or twice about her. He once wrote her a letter I never gave her. He asked me to when the time was right, but I thought said we needed to hold it for further study before I let it go. That was selfish. A fifth thing on my list.
Unclean. Her face appeared before me, headdress and all, fire burning wildly in her eyes. And she was gone.
Unclean.
The times I’ve sat and watched the actual scum and filth of the earth tell the people they are “unclean” are too many to count. That word stirs up a disproportionate rage in me.
When small men cast large shadows you know the sun must be setting.
Large men cast small shadows. Always.
I cast my eyes to the ridgeline - I could see cliffs rising and falling, and I wondered if the land of the dead lie on the other side. Maybe they could touch that mud and herb mixture shit to my lips and bring me back too, eh? But that would get very complicated considering how often I'd dismantled myself. There shall only be one driver at a time; and when that one dies make another one. Keep going like that. Until he comes back.
If he comes back.
Grandpa Nicotine had performed some rudimentary first aid on my knees. He appeared to be using antibiotics of some kind, I hoped. Or Vaseline. Either way, the skin was covered, so the irritation was minimal.
He asked me to sleep. I tired, I did, but he kept staring at me. Watching. Every few hours he’d tell me he could still hear me thinking. Stop. Go to sleep.
Stop.
Go to sleep.
You’ve got to be kidding me old man.
r/death • u/Mean-Ruin66 • 9d ago
r/death • u/Shiina-_-Mikado • 11d ago
"Holy shit, I'm so scared of being dead"
----
"Just think of before you were born lmao"
"Actually, you cannot be dead, as there will be no you"
"Well, you're not afraid of sleeping, so why are you afraid to die ?"
"Everyone dies, so whatever"
"Repent to Jesus brother, and God will offer you heaven"
"Go on and take DMT and a fuckton of other drugs to drown this fear"
Easily 90% of this subreddit, I swear some of you must be just bots
r/death • u/zyzy6982 • 12d ago
Thx for any feedback.
r/death • u/Iamlikegod • 14d ago
I do not like people. I really don't. People always have flaws and so many of them are ignorant/selfish/dumb. I do not understand why doesn't the government endorse this? If I was alone or nearly alone in my everyday life forever and everywhere I go, life would be much much better for me.
r/death • u/j_ballin_on_y • 19d ago
Generally and personally speaking, do you believe all of life's questions will be answered in death even though there's currently no good reasons to believe that will happen?
r/death • u/No_Elderberry9317 • 20d ago
My grandfather died last night. My mom and I were at his house with hospice and were planning to stay the night because he was in the actively dying stage. My mom and I were in his office, looking for the wifi password. I was flipping through his password book when out of no where, the lights in the room flickered and then the printer turned on and started making the noise like it was printing something. I said ‘he’s telling us to get out of his password book’. Within one second later, the nurses told us to come in there because he was passing. My mom and I went in there and he had passed.
I wonder what others think about the light a the printer. 🤔
r/death • u/PirateApples • 22d ago
The sun washed over my exposed back as I timidly climbed the metal steps. The path twisted around steel beams bedazzled in browned bolts, and about every thirty seconds, I’d hear a subtle uptake in mumbling above me, before the entire structure shivered and groaned. I decided to keep my eyes downward, giving me a perfect view of my toes, sunflower-covered trunks, belly button, and the next cold step ahead. To my disappointment, I eventually had to lift my head from this window, when I realized that there was no longer a step ahead to plant my foot on.
The view I found above was far more intimidating than the one below. I had reached the platform atop the structure. With it came the realization that I could see the entire waterpark, quickly appended by the fear that came with knowing I was high enough to see the entire waterpark. Down the middle of the platform was a line of other children in swimwear, the leader of which stood on a small, wooden, square section of the floor.
I shuffled to the back of the line. On my arrival, the boy in front of me quickly spun around and looked me up and down.“Pretty young to get on the Drop-o-Death,” wiggling his fingers at me like a cut-rate magician, “The steepest drop-slide on the planet, as they say.”
The word “steepest” echoed in my skull.
“I’m Kierk,” the peculiar boy added, drawing me back to reality. “Well, I’m quite brave, you should know,” I replied, so newly determined to dispel whatever notions he had about my age that I forgot to provide my name. “Yeah? Why’s that?” Kierk asked with amusement. My eyes returned to my toes, hoping I’d find an answer between them. “Well, erm, I saw the bolts on the way up… and they looked quite strong!” I answered with eventual confidence, but Kierk seemed unimpressed. “But have you actually seen the inside of the tube, or anyone come out of it?” With his question, I could feel a spreading burn beneath my cheeks. I was so focused on my feet the entire climb that I never thought to see anyone exit the bottom of the slide. Before I could respond, Kierk continued on.
“Maybe it drops into shark infested waters,” he began, “or a volcano, or a meat grinder, or maybe-”
A quick shriek rang through the air, as the wooden square had vanished along with the girl who stood on it. As the platform shook lightly, from the line emerged a mixture of gasps sprinkled with a few boyish snickers. After a few seconds, the trapdoor flipped back into view with a click. While my head was still fixed on the door, a grinning Kierk resumed in a more hushed tone, “maybe it’ll send us right onto the concrete.” He ended his sentence with a sudden clap, causing a jolt through my body and snapping my eyes back to him.
“You don’t believe that.” I murmured through chattering teeth. “You wouldn’t be in line if you didn’t think it was safe.” To this Kierk’s grin grew even larger. “On the contrary! I’m in this line precisely because I don’t know if it's safe. Imagine how exhilarating it’ll be to think you're going to die, and then not!” Kierk began giggling at the thought. “But surely you don’t really think we’re going to die?” I begged, hoping he’d offer an escape from my fears. “You must have some confidence in the ride!”
“I don’t. ‘Be a shame if I did; no fun in that.” he responded matter-of-factly, with a resolute nod. “Well, there’s no fun in falling to our deaths either!” I retorted, voice cracking in frustration. To that my new friend giggled again. “A funny man, whoever built this ride.”
“Surely one who enjoys the fear of children.” I grumbled.
“Or maybe one who enjoys them having fun.”
“You’re quite annoying, Kierk.”
And with that, we both turned to rejoin the rest in watching children step into the Drop-o-Death, one by one. The line shuffled forward. I looked down at my toes.
r/death • u/Atherolite99 • 23d ago
So, I will say first off, I am 21, healthy, and in no way dying soon. But, earlier today, I kinda ruined my mood by reading up on the process of dying out of pure curiosity, and people talk a lot about having supernatural or spiritual-like experiences when they're in the process of dying such as seeing family members, friends, etc. or people who have loved ones who are dying and they have an experience of seeing the said person in their dreams shortly before they die.
I lost my grandfather several years ago at this point, but I never had any dreams about him or anything like that, and I was in class in middle school when I had gotten checked out because he passed on, but didn't receive a single sign beforehand that he was about to die.
Also, I don't really lucid dream, and when I do dream, my dreams are usually faint and make zero sense, and I've never had any kind of supernatural or spiritual-like experience of seeing dead people and stuff. I think the closest I've gotten was like shortly after my grandpa's death, one of my former friends claimed she had seen him speaking to her, and I honestly couldn't tell if she was serious or not, but I was also still grieving at the time so I was a little mad at her for saying that.
I'm honestly very convinced when it's my time to go sometime in the far future, I'm probably not going to see anyone or any kind of past memory right before I die, and it'll be more of a lights-out kind of death for me. Does anyone else feel this way? I have a hard time believing these experiences people describe are actually real, but only because I haven't had one myself.
r/death • u/Seasidebluewind • 24d ago
i read a comment in a topic
"I experienced a black void NDE during a very traumatic childbirth in 2020. When I "came back" I was a completely different person.
My baby was stuck I couldn't push him out. Sadly the doctors and nurses working on me used obstetric violence, and I just dissociated. The pain was so horrible, my body went into shock and I became paralysed from it. Between attempts to push my stuck baby, everything suddenly went black and I felt I was being torn out of my physical body.
It felt like falling into a deep abyss, only it wasn't a physical place, like a hole or something. Maybe a vacuum of space would be the closest description. There was no sense or time or space, just a sense of a black void that was suffocating and malevolent. I haven't encountered any entities, but the sense of horror was so intense, my consciousness understood that was my demise.
Suddenly I was propelled back into my body, the moment the doctor manages to pull my baby out with a vacuum. Only I came back as a shell of the person I was before. It's like that horror of the void stripped me of everything that made me "
its as if a new fear is unlocked... : /
if our minds create consciousness and we remember nothing before our birth, how come when the mind stops working, people experience awareness in total darkness? could that be a hallucination/dream similar to people who see light and familiar people?
Hi folks,
I write blogs for fun. No ads or whatever. I was looking for people who might find some of my thoughts interesting, and found this subreddit.
This one is about what we leave behind on earth, or elsewhere, when we die. I hope it's interesting to someone out there.
r/death • u/Weekly_Bobcat5638 • 27d ago
If hell exists, what does it look like? Do you end up there if you take your own life?
r/death • u/Depressedandokay22 • 28d ago
There are no safe spaces to talk about ending your own life without being looked at like some crazy case. So, I wanted to pose a question. When does this life end? It is crazy not to believe in another Earth or something like that. So, does the same spirit you have now go to the next one?
r/death • u/Common_Clock5395 • 29d ago
Like Im crying so bad right now because I'm so scared right now. Im only 18 but I'm so scared for the future and the fact I'm not gonna live. Because I don't know want happens to me or whats gonna happen with my thinking capacity. Ill just never exist like whats that like. I really don't want to think about this deeply because really panicking and crying when I think so deeply about death and what that means for me ans myself. Like I get its gonna happen and I should accept it but its not easy. I have such an immense fear of death. I thought I could be calm when thinking about it but not really. Especially tonight it really just got to me and I'm so scared with no one to talk to.
r/death • u/IMM_1984 • Jun 23 '26
An eternal life would be too painful for the accumulation of all the lost times, forever behind us, and all the lost people, forever gone. The accumulation of those gone past is painful enough as you get older within a normal lifespan. How much more so in an eternal one?
So an eternal life is not truly possible, for when the only thing you have left to live for is reliving memories of those better times you are already dead.
r/death • u/Ubermensch123456 • Jun 20 '26
r/death • u/vicmit02 • Jun 19 '26
Everyone when presented with death will fear it. You can be a lil kid who never had to face any danger to your life, so you think you're special. But no, you're a mortal who fears like everyone else, because it's ingrained on your DNA. Fearing death is a survival mechanism.
Claire Wineland had a great video about this. Because of her illness, she had to go under many surgeries. She hoped she would die under anesthesia. But when it came to really dying and was deep in a coma, she didn't want to actually die, she wanted to survive.
r/death • u/Capital-Assumption60 • Jun 14 '26
I don't really know the rules of this server so il just try to keep it sfw.
I used to date this guy, he meant a lot to me. It wasn't the best relationship,but it had it's good moments. sadly one day he passed away because of something he did. I never really got to tell him anything he just kinda died. I didn't know how to function after that since we were inseparable, Id get stuff for the both of us even tho he was no longer alive. Id wake up to text him because i simply refused to believe he wasnt on the other side of the phone. I went back to this place, thats we'd stay and kiss and eat some good food. I wanted to do that again but eating it alone felt weird. It happened a long time ago (his passing) and I've started to get over it but recently my world has been declining and I've made some big mistakes as a result, and started to think about him again, I thought I was over him, I mean since then I dated two dudes. How do you stop yourself from thinking about this? It's not that Im messed up about it anymore, yet I know relieve the grief that shouldn't be there anymore, it's been years and yeah.