Twisted Stories That Will Leave You Bewildered

Some people find horror movies and chilling novels thrilling, but for others, real-life encounters with disturbing events are enough to send shivers down their spines. In this collection, we present a series of true stories that will undoubtedly leave you in a state of bewilderment.

Fear and disgust are instinctive emotions that we often try to avoid. However, in these stories, you’ll find a combination of unease and revulsion that will captivate you.

My fiancé was visibly tense and avoided driving me home, but eventually relented after my persistent urging. As soon as I got into his car, a horrid, putrid smell hit me. When we stopped at a gas station, I got out and vomited upon noticing a slimy green liquid leaking from the trunk. Later, I found out there were cases of rotten broccoli inside. His dad, who sells vegetables at the market, had borrowed the car and forgotten about the vegetables. They had decomposed in the heat, turning mushy and stinky. My fiancé was so embarrassed by the situation and planned to get the car cleaned, which explained his reluctance to drive me home.

At 3:00 AM, I saw someone walking toward my bedroom through the gap in the open door. Terrified, I watched as the figure quietly entered my room. It turned out to be a deflated birthday balloon that had been on the ceiling for three months. It had deflated enough to hover and was slowly drifting into my bedroom due to the airflow from my fan.

When I was around 14 years old, I played hide and seek with my 4-year-old brother. I hid in his room, which was next to mine, and he took a while to find me. Suddenly, he ran straight to my hiding spot. Surprised, I asked, “How did you know where I was?” He replied, “The man in your mirror told me where you were hiding.”

While wild camping in a dense forest, I was abruptly awakened around 2 AM by the sound of a girl crying nearby. Unsure of what to do, I anxiously waited as she continued crying for about 15 minutes. Then I heard a guy say, “Oh, come on now, let’s go home.” After that, there was silence. It really scared me.

I was heading to the bathroom, everything seemed normal as I was on my phone, when I noticed a spider by the door. It wasn’t big or small, just an average-sized spider, but I have arachnophobia. My parents weren’t due back for at least half an hour, so I sat there the entire time, staring at it and crying. Thankfully, I made it through without incident.

My parents’ house is over a hundred years old. In high school, my friends and I would hang out and “ghost hunt.” Usually, nothing happened, but one night, we were there alone. The house was dead quiet with no lights or TV on. We left a digital camera recording sound in the hallway. When we played back the recording, we clearly heard someone talking. We still don’t know what it was, but the house has always felt eerie.

A couple of years ago, I was in bed with my cat asleep at my feet. I was browsing Reddit on my phone when my cat suddenly woke up, stood, and turned toward the closed doorway. He arched his back and began hissing and growling, making that creepy low-pitched meow cats do. He stared at the doorway at eye level as if a person were standing there. After a couple of minutes, he stopped and went back to sleep next to me as if nothing had happened. I was too freaked out to sleep for the rest of the night.

When I was 15, I was home alone and clearly heard the sound of a child laughing and running on a hard-surfaced floor throughout the house. The house was one-story, and all floors, including the kitchen area, were carpeted.

When I was 15, my parents went away for a weekend. I had gone to sleep but was awakened by strange voices. I came downstairs to find the TV on static with the volume at maximum, a radio tuned to a late-night talk show, the oven manually turned on, and the fridge open. All the doors and windows were locked, and I still can’t explain it. I didn’t sleep a wink that night.

I was camping in northern Michigan with a few friends. We set up some tents by a river. About two hours before sunset, everything went silent except for the river for around 30 seconds. During that time, I could hear whistling far off across the river. It was the tensest moment of my life. It’s hard to explain why it affected me so much, but my friends and I never went back that way.

I worked as a receptionist between 2013 and 2015 in a hotel whose owner would close it during the low season but always kept me there to keep an eye on the place. In the middle of the room area, there was an indoor garden with some trees. One night when I got there, I heard a noise from that area and went there without turning the lights on. The small trees were shaking as if someone was playing on them. I got close to the branches, and they kept moving. I stood there for a while and saw nobody but me. I ended up ignoring it and went back to the reception. There were also other weird episodes in the same hotel.

I was driving home on a dark, country road when two cars suddenly turned their lights on, blocking the road ahead. I stopped a ways away and noticed two guys standing in the lights. I quickly turned my car around and sped off toward the police station. As I drove, I realized that someone was following me with their lights off.

Similar to fear, disgust is a feeling we instinctively recoil from. This article features a series of profoundly cringeworthy scenarios that expertly combine sensations of unease and revulsion.