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Speaker 1: Welcome to micro Terrors, scary stories for kids where it's

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always the spooky season, full of chills, thrills and spine

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tingling spooks. Micro Terrors are family friendly frights for those

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ages eight and up, and while our stories are for

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younger years, we are still talking about things that go

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bump in the night, and some children may not be

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able to handle what others can. Parental consent is recommended

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now for tonights micro Terror.

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Speaker 2: Sludge by Scott Donnelly. The first week of summer had

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flown by in my hometown of Duncan. I wouldn't say

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I was bored per se, but well, yeah, I was bored.

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A lot of my friends went on vacation to beaches

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or the mountains. Some of them said it was too

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hot to go outside and play catch or ride our bikes.

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I scoured the internet for something to do. The Duncan

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Mall had just shut down a couple of months ago,

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so aimlessly wandering its holes was out of the question

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unless we slipped in unnoticed to experience its currently dilapidated

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creep factor. The public pool was always too crowded and

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mostly consumed by kids much younger than us, yelling and

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screaming and turning the water yellow. So gross, and plus

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the chlorine they used was overpowered and could disintegrate a

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beetle who thought a lazy dip in the pool was

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a good idea. Then I found something, the Duncan Swimming Hole.

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I'd never heard of it before. It was listed on

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a Remember These Old Places in Duncan website. There was

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a picture of it which literally just looked like a

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hole in the ground filled with muddy water. The picture

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must have been taken decades ago, and when I saw

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the years mentioned by some of the people in the comments,

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I can tell this wasn't modern day attraction. Most of

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the comments mentioned the eighties or early nineties as the

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swimming hole's heyday. It was an isolated hangout for kids,

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located behind the Duncan Quarry in a small wooded region.

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Surely it was still there. The only way to know

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for sure was to hop on my bike, brave the

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heat that my friends feared so much, and check it

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out for myself. And that's exactly what I did. I

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rode through town, past the public pool and to where

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Duncan Quarry was. It wasn't in use anymore. Actually, nothing

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on this side of Duncan was used much anymore. There

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were numerous vacant and boarded up buildings, an empty quarry,

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and natural overgrowth almost everywhere. I drove around the quarry,

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close to the wire fence that was supposed to keep

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people out, and spotted the small section of woods that

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I was looking for. I stopped my bike and lay

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it in the grass before I stepped through the bushy

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edge of the wooded area. There were no paths or trails,

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just rough, leafy and bushy terrain to conquer. A few

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minutes into the conquering, I came to a clearing. There

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it was the Duncan Swimming Hole. It was just as

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the picture made it look, giving me the impression that

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the image online could have just as easily been taken

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today instead of decades earlier. I looked around. It was

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very isolated. It was kind of peaceful. We had to

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take advantage of it for the summer, rediscover it for

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a new generation, and make it the place to be

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once again. That night, I called my two best friends,

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Leah and Zach. They both loved to swim, so I

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figured it would be an easy sell to get them

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to come to the swimming hole with me. Leah jumped

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at the chance and took only a couple of minutes

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of convincing and the promise that I'd bring sandwiches for

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Zach to agree. We had a plan. The next day

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at noon the three of us wouldn't meet at the

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Duncan swimming Hole and finally begin our summer. Leah and

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Zach were blown away by the location. I can't believe

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I've never heard of this place, Leah said, Yeah, how

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come I've never heard of My parents mentioned it before,

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Zach added, I shrugged.

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Speaker 1: Who knows.

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Speaker 2: Maybe they never came here, or maybe they made a

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pact to keep it a secret to make their summers

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at the swimming hole that much more special. Zach tore

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his shirt off and stood there in his oversized swim trunks.

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Secret or no secret. I caught DIBs on being the

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first one in the hole. Zach then sprinted through the

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dirt and leaves that covered the ground and cannon balled

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into the swimming hole. The water splashed high and wide,

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soaking Leah and I and the hot mugginess concealed in

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the woods. The water felt great, even if it was

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a little muddy, Leah and I laughed and followed suit,

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cannon balling into the swimming hole along with Zach. We laughed,

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splashed each other, and created a strong whirlpool for nearly

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thirty minutes before any of us began to get tired.

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But when that swimming fatigue inevitably hit, it hit hard.

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We all remained in the water, but sidled up along

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the rounded edge of the swimming hole to catch our

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breaths and fully take in the scenery. Birds chirped, bugs

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buzzed by, and a clear sky through the canopy hit

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us with the right amount of light. Yeah, I'm hungry,

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Zach said about those sandwiches, I laughed, they're in the

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picnic basket. I pointed off toward the thick base of

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one of the trees. Our clothes and bikes were piled up,

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along with an old woven picnic basket I found buried

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in my garage. It was filled with sandwiches, chips, fruit,

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and bottled water. Zach tried to crawl out of the

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swimming hole, but Leah and I laughed at his attempt.

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The muddy edges made it difficult to get out. He

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kept slipping back in his hands, unable to find good

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placement to pull himself out. Yes, stop laughing, Zach said,

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becoming more and more frustrated as he tried to climb

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out with no luck. Eventually we did stop laughing. It

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wasn't funny anymore. Zach was struggling, teetering on the line

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of panic. It hitt be that hard, I said, turning

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around and trying to climb out myself. But he was

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that hard. The mud was too slippery. Leah tried too,

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with the same results. We all started to panic in

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our own ways. Leah whimpered, my breathing picked up, and

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Zach began to shout for help. No one's gonna hear you,

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I told him. There's no one around. Someone's got to

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help us. Zach shouted, someone help. We're stuck just in

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a ransid moldy odor blew through the trees and surrounded us.

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Made all three of us want a gag and stopped

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us from trying to get out. Yeah, it gross, Leah said,

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what on earth is that smell? I covered my nose.

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It was unlike anything I'd ever smelled before. It reminded

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me of a hot sewage or something. Wait, Lea suddenly said,

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someone's there. She pointed off into the woods. Zach and

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I looked. Someone was there, standing still in the trees.

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It was hard to make them out. They appeared to

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be wearing dark clothing and even a matching mask. Perhaps

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help us, Zach called out to the mysterious loiterer. We

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can't get out. Something caught my eye off to the left.

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It was a second person, identical to the one Leah

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had spotted. Look, I said to my friends. They glanced

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and saw the second one as well. Behind the second person,

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a third and fourth one appeared. They all stood as

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still as statues and just watched us. Are they really

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not going to help? Leah quietly said. I spun around

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and checked the woods behind us. There were more of them,

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all concealed in the brush, all at once, every single

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one of them activated something on their faces that resembled

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bright yellow lights. Leah gasped and Zach froze up in fear.

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His fingers stug as deep as they could be into

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the muddy edge of the swimming hole. Without warning, all

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of the mysterious figures began to slowly advance toward us

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on all sides. Lea's gasps and whimpers turned into pandic

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to shrieks. Zach frantically tried to pull himself out of

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the swimming hole with as much energy as he could.

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I froze watching the horde of strange figures close in.

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As they got closer, I thought I was seeing things.

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They no longer looked like people at all, and their

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dark clothing and matching masks, well, they didn't look like

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clothing or masks anymore. It was their bodies. They all

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appeared to be covered from head to toe in a

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dripping muddy substance. Either that or that's what they were

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made of. Their muddy, sludgy composition flowed downward on their

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bodies like a hypnotizing cascading ripple effect. Yellow eyes burned

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through the thick substance on their faces, emitting a droning

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hum or buzzing noise. By now, Leah and Zach had

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also noticed their appearance. They began to scream, as did I.

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Within seconds, the horde of muddy creatures from the woods

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had surrounded the swimming hole, tramping us and gawking down

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as we pas and thrashed about in the water. Zach hollered,

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aliens are invading aliens. I thought, could that be what

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we were looking at? Some sort of species from another world?

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Speaker 1: Right?

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Speaker 2: Then, one of the creatures bent down and stuck their

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hand in the water. I watched as mud slid off

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its arm and into the swimming hole. As it mixed in,

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it began to turn the water brown and thick Leah,

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Zach and I quickly found ourselves in a pool of

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brown sludge. The water we had first jumped into ceased

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to exist. We all tried desperately to grab on to

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one another for safety for comfort. As we huddled together,

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the buzzing noise that their eyes emitted grew louder and louder,

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like a million bugs, all buzzing at the same time. Then,

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without warning, the buzzing stopped. The woods fell silent, and

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the three of us all eased off one another. The

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mud monsters were gone. Nothing surrounded the swimming bole, and

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the sludge we were stuck in began to change in consistency,

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thinning out and turning back into water. We all swam

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for the edges again, and with a mix of fear

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and determination in our attempt this time, we were all

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able to claw our way out of the swimming hole.

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That night, I hopped onto my computer and went back

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to the website that I initially found the swimming hole on.

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I scrolled down and read more of the comments. They

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went from Oh yeah, I remember that place too. We

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stopped going there after the water became too muddy. There

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was another comment that indicated the area was blocked off

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by police at one time, while an additional commenter clarified

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that it wasn't the police, but rather a government agency.

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The computer screen started giving me a headache. I turned

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it off and lay in bed. My head felt like

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it was swimming, like my brains had turned to mush

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and were just sloshing back and forth in my skull.

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I pulled the blankets up over me as chills began

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to ravage my body. I was shivering. Every muscle in

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my body cramped up at the same time. Then a

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tickle in my nose triggered a sneeze. Brown sludge shot

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out from my mouth and nostrils and splattered the wall

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on the other side of the room. I watched as

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it slowly oozed down the wall and puddled on the floor.

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I'd have to clean it up before my parents saw it.

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I couldn't have them finding out what happened to us

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at the swimming hole. I couldn't have them finding out

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my brain was now sludge, or that sludge was running

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through my veins and beating from my heart. I couldn't

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have them finding out that their precious little child had

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now been recruited by an alien species from the stars

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to systematically take over every single region of Planet Earth.

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They'd be gone tomorrow anyhow. Consumed by a surprise sludgy attack,

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I reached out and turned off my bedside lamp, my

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goofy touch, leaving sloppy prints all over it. My eyes

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droned loudly and glowed yellow, keeping the room bright even

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in the darkness. They rolled over my body, squelching beneath

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the sheets. Planet Earth didn't know what it was in

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for big news micro Terrorist fans. The first ever micro

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to micro terrors dot com and sign up. Thank you

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all for being such dedicated micro Terrors listeners. We'll see

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you next week when an interstellar creature pays a visit

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to a suburban neighborhood, unless it decides to take a

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dip in that swimming hole first, at which point it

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probably won't arrive.

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Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to micro Terrors. Join us each

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Saturday for another scary story. For more fun, visit our

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