A Man Appeared in My Room to Answer My Prayers
The large man stood in the corner of my dark room, peering at me through puffy slits surrounded by a century’s worth of deep eyebags and crust. Every breath his ancient body took was accompanied by loud wheezing, and the occasional band of elastic spittle dripped from a bulbous head, which was two, maybe three times the size of a normal man’s. I estimated his height to be close to 7 feet despite his Quasimodo-esque hunch, likely meaning his true size was much larger. Grease-covered, meaty hands hung limply at his sides, and long, jagged nails conjured images of him tearing into flesh and bone with ease. I cowered from the monstrous figure by my bedside, calculating how fast I could get the door open before he could move his hulking frame to drag me into the deepest pits of hell. We were at a stalemate. We analyzed each other for an uncomfortably long time, neither daring to make a move. There was an unspoken agreement that the first action of this encounter would set the stage for every succeeding event. I couldn’t die here. A simple twitch of my foot in preparation for the sprint of my lifetime set this dark play into motion. His eyes grew to the size of baseballs, with pinpoint black dots tracking my every move. In hopes of creating some distance, I flung my bedsheets toward him, rolled to my knees, and scrambled forward like a frightened dog, hoping to escape. A primal scream erupted from my throat as I reached for the doorknob, my fingers barely touching it before I felt a sticky, warm feeling on my calf. I spun around and saw the man’s hand had wholly wrapped around my leg like an anaconda suffocating its prey. Try as I might to kick the hand off of me, the immense strength of the homunculus was far beyond what the elderly appearance would suggest. The man’s beak-like nose seemed to hone in on me, franticly wiggling in the air while he took in large sniffs in rapid succession. His disproportionately long arm creaked as it dragged me toward him. I scrapped the carpet until my nails bled, kicking and screaming like a desperate animal caught in a bear trap. A deep sound rumbled from the man that resembled a slow laugh. Finally, he brought me to him. His face was adorned with a large smile filled with hundreds of crooked yellow teeth. For a moment, he simply looked me over. It felt like he could see every cell in my body, and then… He stopped. The man grabbed me by the shoulders and dropped me onto my bed. Again, I tried to make for the door, and again, I was dragged backward; this time, he made sure to slam me against the wall, before placing me back on my bed as punishment for trying to run. This time, he put his hulking frame in the path. And then… He spoke. He was slow and methodical. His voice was gruff, and his throat almost sounded as if full of sores, but it was still clear. “You… Called… For me…” “I-What…?” I said, holding back tears and an oncoming panic attack. The man puffed, stepped back, and pointed a long, crooked finger toward the ground. “You… Call… For me. Here. I am here.” Again, I shook my head and eeked out a weak, “No… I-I didn’t.” He stomped his foot, turned around, and made a harsh gurgle before turning back with his hands together in the form of a prayer. “You… Call… For me.” A large smile crept back onto his face. His pupils rolled back into his head as his jaw unhinged from its previous position, and without moving his lips, a voice… Almost like a record came from his gut, and it was… Jesus, it was mine. I was crying. A deep sorrow was evident in every inhale. No wonder. I had been extremely depressed. Things in my life weren’t anywhere near what I expected at 32. Financial struggles developed as I slowly saw my hopes and dreams slipping away. I was becoming just another “person.” Another accidental birth who would eventually melt into the great grey fog of unremarkable, unimportant, boringness. I’d leave no true mark on the world all the while; I’d have to deal with all the pain that came with it. The ever-growing darkness of the news cycle. My friends seemed to all be slipping away… My brother was sick. He didn’t tell me with what, but he looked worse every time I saw him. My life was a constant cycle of “Blah” and “Who cares” doing the same thing over and over and over again until eventually the grave called with a more permanent “routine.” And to top it off? I was lonely. A three-year relationship had ended a couple months back. I was feeling the pain and bitterness of every moment I had to endure, knowing that despite my efforts, I wasn’t good enough for other people despite seeing those who were objectively worse people be happy and raise families. Suffice it to say… I was very depressed. I wasn’t religious. I left religion a while ago, but I suppose some repressed part of me held on to spirituality strongly enough to force me to say a prayer tonight. The same prayer now coming from this monster’s mouth. “Please, I don’t know who or what is out there,” I said, fighting back tears. “I’m doing really bad right now. Very fucking bad. I don’t know where I’m going or if it’s even worth heading there. I’ve tried to be a good man. I haven’t always been successful. But damn it, I’ve tried. If you’re up there, please send me something to guide me in the direction I’m meant to go. I don’t need to be a billionaire or a CEO. All I’m asking… All I need is a guardian angel to guide me towards purpose, and maybe, if I’m lucky… A bit of happiness. Please…” When my begging ceased, the creature’s jaw snapped back into place with a disgusting cracking sound. Its eyes rolled forward to focus on me, and it grinned again. Its smile came with a sudden realization. It took a step back, allowing me to stand, but it was as if my body was filled with concrete. “No, no…” I whispered as I shook my head. “No, no, no…” This was my guardian angel. As if it could hear the thoughts in my head, it gave a slight nod, turned its hulking frame, and walked out of my door, somehow pulling its massive body through the relatively small doorway. I stood and watched it walk away, hoping it’d never return. But all it took was a glance back from the angel that I knew it wanted me to follow… And so I did. We walked out to the street and down the sidewalk. A quick look at my phone showed me it was close to 2AM. The odd car would pass by, but none so much as slowed down when passing the angel and I. I let it lead me to wherever it needed us to go. Neither of us spoke. We walked for what felt like over an hour until we finally reached a foul-smelling canal. The angel pointed a crooked finger down. I stood at the canal’s edge, heart pounding against my chest. Something was down there, but my mind refused to acknowledge it. When I finally mustered the courage to use the flashlight on my phone, it trembled in my hand There… Laying perfectly still was a man. His face appeared swollen, his puffy neck pulled to an unnatural angle, and what seemed to be the protrusions from broken bones poked through his clothes. I’d never seen a dead body before, and even so, despite that, it wasn’t the shock of that moment that truly made my skin crawl. No. When I shone a light onto the man’s face, I saw that he… He was me. How could this be possible? I wasn’t dead. I didn’t do the things I had thought about last night. Had I? Was all of this some sort of hallucination? “No, no, this can’t be me. How could I be dead? I’m standing right here!” I yelled at the angel. “This has to be some kind of misunderstanding or an awful nightmare… I…” I turned to the angel, expecting some kind of answer, but all I got in return was that horrible wide smile. “Say something, damn it! I’m not dead!” I shouted, furious at what the angel had shown me. It has to be some sort of trick or hallucination it was inducing. “Stop smiling! I’m not dead! I’m not dead!” The angel took a slow step toward me, and I backed up. It took another step; this time, I stumbled. Fear shot through my body. My movements were shaky. I contemplated grabbing a fistful of dirt and throwing it at the creature to distract it while I ran, but thoughts of how that plan had failed back at my apartment flashed through my mind. Maybe if I just turned and ran? Could I go to a friend’s house? No, no one was close enough on foot. A police station? None are open at 2AM, and besides, I couldn’t tell them I was being pursued by an angel from hell. What if I camped inside a convenience store? Just until I felt it was safe. I settled on my plan, but the angel had me by the jugular before I could turn and run. It held me in the air as I struggled to breathe. Its smile seemed to be growing more expansive, and its dark pupils now filled the entirety of its sclera. It held me over the edge of the canal, stretching out its arm until I was directly over my own dead body. “Get in!” It shouted with a visceral hiss. “Get in!” Its eyes flashed rainbow colors. “Get in! Get in! Get in! Get in!” It shook me up and down. “Your body. Your future.” It mocked me, unhinging its jaw again and playing back the sound of me crying. I screamed, begging anyone or anything to save me from this demon. “I don’t want to die,” I pleaded. “I don’t want that future! I just want to be happy!” I struggled against the angel, but its ice-cold grip locked me in place. I feared that if it didn’t kill me after dropping me into my dead body down there, it would do so by freezing my airway. Despite its cold touch around my neck, I could feel my skin begin to burn. Scorching flames simultaneously appeared from the dead body below. With each passing second, I began to sweat more profusely, every droplet raising the columns of fire toward me. The undeniable sound of maggots crawling over each other to reach soft flesh filled my ears. The unmistakable sight of cockroaches streaming out from under my clothes added a new layer of panic from within. All the while, a rising chorus of sobbing from thousands, no, millions of tortured souls, each experiencing their own version of damnation, played in the background. This was hell. This is what awaited me in death. What felt like hours rolled by until finally… I felt solid ground under my feet. The fire was gone. The insects had left my body. All I experienced was the cool air, and the angel looked down at me. This time, it was frowning. Again, it spoke. This time in a voice I hadn’t heard before. This one was soft and caring. “You don’t want to die yet, do you, my child? You want happiness and love?” I tried to speak, but no words came, so I simply shook my head. The angel nodded. “You are loved, my child. We are watching over you.” For a moment, I swore I could see the outline of white wings extending behind it. It took a step toward me and placed a hand on my forehead. For a long moment, I felt bliss. It was true peace like I hadn’t since I was a young boy. The world opened up. Boundless opportunity and energy were before me. I felt the good of humanity and the most profound urge to share that goodness. There was nothing I could do but smile at this indescribably beautiful feeling. And then… The cold blade of reality pierced through the bliss. I saw pain, suffering, and sorrow. In an instant, I experienced the slow fall of humanity. The beginning of the end seemed simple enough. A slow degradation of human connection. Deeper divisions between people. The fall of objective truth. Minor issues that the common man believed would eventually disappear because surely our species was too intelligent and advanced to let it ruin us. Then, the problems grew out of control. What once seemed to be symptoms of a changing society became defining features of an increasingly bitter and cold world. All the while, the degradation of our planet, the dwindling of our resources, and a species who opted toward acts of violence over coming together to find solutions, primarily because they couldn’t agree on the fundamental issues or causes at hand, led to wars. Disease came. Pain. Suffering. Great fires. A billion lost lives, man and beast, among the rubble of once great cities. A spiral into a collective madness that drew horrors and a broken society, leaving humans so much different… So much more savage. Hateful. Raw… Than any incarnation before it. I saw horrors beyond horrors I dare not repeat here. But what I can say is that there’s a lot that can destroy a world. I saw how all of these things tiny little things come together to form monsters. They intermingled. They fed each other. They grew. Until pain was the only thing man could understand. This was the world that awaited us. When he removed his hand from my head, I found myself on my knees while the visions melted away. It was a future that I hated. I looked up at the smiling angel. His calm voice had returned. “You know what you must do then, yes?” My answer was as sure as anything I’d ever contemplated in my life. “Yes.” Satisfied, the angel gently guided my head toward its cracked lips, gave me a soft kiss on the forehead, and pulled me into a tight hug. I cried in its embrace. And then, unexpectedly, it began to sing to me in the most beautiful voice. For what it’s worth… The song was joyous. Maybe the most beautiful voice I had ever heard. It gave me a hint of that bliss I had initially felt. For a moment, I actually believed everything would be ok. Just as soon as it had come, it was gone. I walked home, knowing what came next. The very next day, I went to worship. I won’t say which specific belief system or type of institution, but the angel made it very clear… The visions it gave me were accurate. The fall of humanity was coming. Not only that but the specific belief system I was now part of had a hand in that downfall. A significant role, at that. Its angels were watching and smiling down. One may ask, of course, why I’d choose to be part of something that I know will lead to something horrible for all of humanity. The answer is pretty simple. The alternative is death. As wrong as it sounds… I don’t know when that future will come. I may be part of it, I may not. But death is a guarantee. It will come for me as it does for us all, but through worship, I have a purpose. I have a group of people to share philosophy with, goals I can stick to, and a community to turn to. For the moment, I can defer the eternity of suffering and pain that awaits me. Even if or… when… my joining contributes to suffering down the line, I don’t care. If you felt what I felt, as I was suspended over my own body. If you knew how long a few mere seconds felt… You’d do anything to postpone that as well. It’s not like I can stop what’s to come anyway. And hey, I have a purpose for the first time in a long time. I’m happy. Even met a woman. Ultimately, I choose to take the wins where I can and control what I can within my own life. And that’s good enough for me. Hell, if I get lucky, maybe I’ll forget any of this ever happened. However, writing this out seems counterintuitive to that goal. But perhaps that’s why I’m doing it. Maybe part of me believes I shouldn’t forget. I don’t know… All that said, there is another significant change in my life. I can still feel my angel watching me sometimes. Often with more than one pair of eyes as if he isn’t the only thing from the darkness peering into the hearts of men, guiding them in such a way beyond our grasp. I still wonder just why they do it. For entertainment? For curiosity? Whatever the reason, when I’m alone in the dark, I always keep my eyes shut until the sun illuminates every corner of my room. Credit: Bryan A Young Reddit X Copyright Statement: Unless explicitly stated, all stories published on Creepypasta.com are the property of (and under copyright to) their respective authors, and may not be narrated or performed under any circumstance.