Speaker 1: Calaruga Shark Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Ghost Scary Stories and the October Records, a
month long Halloween nightmare. This is episode twenty five. The Survivor.
Speaker 3: October twenty fifth, nineteen seventy four, Silas Crane Clara Mitchell,
the only survivor from the nineteen twenty four pattern. She's
been in Millbrook Asylum for fifty years, screaming the same
date over and over. October thirty first, nineteen seventy four. Today,
today she stopped screaming, started laughing. I went to see her.
She's Oh God, she's pregnant, has been for fifty years,
carrying something that won't be born, can't be born. She says.
She survived nineteen twenty four by making a trade. She
agreed to carry one of the thirty inside her forever,
let it grow backward through time. Benjamin Mitchell, her son,
who was never born, who's been gestating in reverse, getting younger, smaller,
until he becomes nothing. But the nothing is aware. The
nothing whispers to her, tells her things. She knows when
each pattern will manifest, knows who will die, knows how
it ends. She grabbed my hand. Her skin fell off
where she touched me. Just sloughed away. Underneath her body
is hollow, empty except for the pregnancy, She's just skin
wrapped around a womb. Everything else dissolved decades ago. She says.
Margaret will come see her in twenty twenty five. Says
Margaret will want to know how to survive, but survival
isn't worth it. Survival is worse than death because survivors
have to carry the unborn, have to be pregnant with ghosts,
have to give birth backward until there's nothing left to birth.
Speaker 1: My transparent arm shows five mill brooks now five layers
of drowning towns, each smaller than the last. The tiniest
one is barely visible, but I can feel it, feel
those microscopic people playing their recordings, making their mistakes. Millbrook
Asylum closed in nineteen eighty seven, but the building remains empty. Supposedly,
I arrived at noon. The structure was wrong, too many windows,
not enough doors, as if designed to let things look
out but not get out. The front entrance was chain shut,
but the chains were new fresh. Note Clara is waiting,
third floor, room three thirty one. The chains fell off
when I touched them, dissolved like they were made of
crystallized water. Inside the asylum was functioning, lights on equipment, humming,
the smell of antiseptic and something else, something organic, like
birth and decay mixing. I climbed to the third floor.
The stairs multiplied as I walked ten steps twenty fifty.
By the time I reached the third floor, I'd climbed
for twenty minutes. Room three thirty one was at the
end of a hallway that got narrower with each step.
By the time I reached the door, I had to
turn sideways. Clara Mitchell sat in a rocking chair, ninety
four years old, but also nine months pregnant. Her belly
was enormous, moving with something that pushed against the skin
from inside. Hello, Sarah, she said. Her voice was young,
twenty year old Clara speaking through ninety four year old lips.
I've been waiting so long, fifty years, carrying Benjamin, my
unborn son, my never born son. She stood and I
saw the truth. Her body was a shell. Through tears
in her skin, I could see she was hollow, no organs,
no bones, just the womb, just the pregnancy. Everything else
had been consumed to feed the thing growing inside her.
This is survival. She said, lifting her dress. Her entire
torso was transparent inside the baby, but it wasn't a
baby anymore. It was all babies, every age, from conception
to birth, existing simultaneously. That was also an infant, that
was also nothing. Benjamin was supposed to be the thirtieth
sacrifice in nineteen twenty four, Clara explained, but I made
a deal. I would carry him forever, let him exist
in potential, never born, never dead, and in exchange, I
would survive. The baby inside her turned faced me. Its
eyes were ancient, older than the town, older than the lake.
He's been growing backward, Clara continued, Each year he gets younger,
closer to conception, closer to never having existed. In six
more days, he'll be nothing, just potential. And then the
baby opened its mouth. Inside instead of a throat was
Millbrook the entire town seen from above, but flooded, everyone floating,
everyone dead. Then he'll be born, Clara said, backward, inside out.
He'll emerge as nothing and consume everything, the anti birth,
the uncreation. She grabbed my transparent arm, where she touched
the tiny mill Brooks inside began to merge, five becoming four,
four becoming three. Want to know how to survive? She asked,
truly survive? Before I could answer, she pushed my transparent
arm into her belly, through the skin, into the womb.
My arm touched the backward baby, and I felt it,
felt its memories that hadn't happened yet, felt its death
that preceded its birth. I was in nineteen twenty four
watching Clara make her deal, but also in two thosy
seventy five, watching the next pattern one hundred twenty five
and twy one hundred seventy five. They never stopped every
fifty years forever. The pattern was eternal, recursive, inescapable. The
survivor doesn't survive, the baby said, through my mind. The
survivor just delays, postpones, stretches the drowning over decades instead
of days. Clara pulled my arm out. It was different, now,
still transparent, but the Millbrooks inside had changed. They were
all pregnant. Every tiny margaret in every tiny town was
carrying something, carrying themselves pregnant with their own deaths. This
is the secret, Clara said. We're all pregnant with our
own endings, gestating our own dissolutions, and on Halloween we
all give birth to nothing to every to it. Her
belly began to shrink, the baby getting younger, smaller, less.
Six more days, she whispered. Then Benjamin becomes never was.
And when he's never was, he can make everything else
never was, unmake the town unborn, the people uncreate creation.
The asylum began to shake, no, not shake, shrink. The
building was getting smaller, younger, returning too before it was built.
Speaker 2: Run.
Speaker 1: Clara said, this place is about to never have been.
Iran through hallways that were disappearing, downstairs, that were unconstructing.
The asylum was being unborn around me. I burst out,
just as the building became nothing, just empty land, like
it had never existed. But Clara's voice remained, coming from nowhere.
The ninth Point isn't a place. It's an unplace and
never was, And in six days all of Millbrook will
be a never was. I looked at my transparent arm.
The pregnancies inside were advancing, the tiny Margaret's about to
give birth to themselves to nothing. When I got back
to the library, I found a birth certificate on my desk.
My birth certificate, but it was wrong. Date of birth
October thirty first, seventeen seventy four. Date of death October
thirty first, seventeen seventy four, status unborn. A note was
attached ever born, Sarah. None of us were. We're all
still in the womb, still waiting, and in six days
will finally be delivered into nothing. Tomorrow I'll play October
twenty sixth. Tomorrow I learn about the binding. Tonight, I'm
watching my transparent arm give birth. Tiny Margaret's delivering tiny
nothings each birth, making the world a little less real.
By Halloween, there will be nothing left to be real.
We'll all be unborn, like we always were.
Speaker 2: Ghost Scary Stories is a production of Caloroga Shark Media.
Some elements of AI may have been used in this production,
but it was written, edited, mixed, and produced by Real
Live People Executive producers Mark Francis and John McDermott