When Science Found God
15 Aug, 2018
When Science Found God
I’ve never much cared for religion. I mean, it’s interesting and all; the old parables and philosophic insights from people two millenniums removed from the present. I particularly enjoy the books of the Apocrypha, and the Bible’s magnum opus of Revelation if for nothing else than the interesting stories. Even some of the tenants, like an emphasis on strong family bonds and moral stature I can resonate with, but in terms of a giant omnipresent entity that created everything yet loves us unconditionally watching our every move from unseen planes – yeah, I don’t know about that.
I still don’t ascribe to a singular religious doctrine, but knowing what I know now… well, let’s just say the title of atheist would be a little disingenuous. Staking my flag in that camp would contradict all the principals of which my life has been founded upon. Try as I may, I cannot in good faith deny or refute what I myself witnessed. Calling whatever we discovered ‘god’ may in time prove a bit inaccurate, but there is no denying it; we found something.
Science has at times become this sort of monolithic and infallible institution. One that suffers from the ostracization of fringe concepts that fail to breach the egotistic blockade. It is all too often wielded as a trump card to negate all that doesn’t assimilate to the prevailing narrative. Too often outlandish claims are torn asunder because no metrics exist to properly digest them.
For all the good it has brought, science is not and will not ever be an absolute. Nothing is. Absence of proof, is not proof of absence. And what happened out there, in that lab deep below the streets of Stockholm, now stands as a testament in my life, to all the ventures humanity has yet to embark upon. It serves as an anchor, and if ever I find myself drifting away into the blissful seas of cognitive dissonance, it is there to remind me how small and naïve I truly am.
I graduated from UCLA with a Bachelor’s in physics and an incredible opportunity landed in my lap. One of my professors had put in a good word for me with a lab out of Stockholm. I was contacted and offered an internship. One of dozens to be extended the opportunity. I accepted the offer without a moment’s hesitation.
From there I uprooted my Californian lifestyle to move halfway around the world to the frigid north of Sweden. I was not prepared for the cold. Most of my summers were spent in a bikini, frolicking on the sandy beaches of Santa Monica and lounging in the sun. Sweden might as well have been another planet. Temperatures would plummet to a bone-chilling negative 30 in the winter. Luckily for me though, I had a marvelous host family who helped me acclimate myself and integrate into Valhalla.
I was brought on to the team and slowly began the arduous process of melding into the group. They were all incredibly kind and welcoming, but still the feeling of being woefully outclassed by my colleagues was thick as tar pitch. The project consisted of over fifty men and women, all of them among the best the world had to offer. They hailed from Germany, Japan, Poland, Hong Kong, South Korea and many other sovereign states. It was a melting pot of some of the greatest minds I’d ever met. Seeing them in their element, and marveling at the way their minds hurdled asinine topics to delve straight to the cortex was altogether incredible, and more than a little intimidating.
The expressed goal of the coalition was to study the behaviors of quarks, protons and other particles in the subatomic realm to further decode the complex world of theoretic energy matrices. By extension, the group also allotted resources to develop tools for observing and decoding quantum entanglement and string theory. These principles were still in their infancy at the time, and none of us could have ever imagined the enormous magnitude of the things that were to come.
The lab had its very own particle accelerator, which I myself pretty much obsessed over from day one. Most of the concrete data however, was relayed from the lab in Geneva, home of the large hadron collider. I even got to see the magnificent machine in person on a few occasions.
One thing that has always staggered me, is the amount of incredible achievements capable when pursuit of knowledge guides the way. However, the complete polar opposite is also true, as curiosity without empathy all too often yields crimes against humanity.
As you may already know, the large hadron collider was the first machine capable of synthesizing the particle known as the Higgs-Boson. The machine is a particle accelerator built in a 27-kilometer loop. It uses a state of perpetual vacuum and temperature colder than that of outer space to accelerate particles to 99 percent the speed of light. These particles collide with one another, creating spectacular outbursts of radiation and results which are believed to be similar to that of the big bang on a much smaller scale. It is also through this process that the infamous Higgs-Boson can be synthesized.
Some call it the ‘God Particle’, but many physicists are not fond of the omnipotent moniker. It is in a way suitable though, as it is ubiquitous and can spontaneously manifest or dematerialize through processes which are not yet entirely understood. It is a sort of bridge between matter and antimatter. The entity that binds the ethereal with the corporeal. It is the place between light and dark, hard to define, as once light ends shadow begins and vice versa. The exact moment of intersection is difficult to pinpoint, but there is a definitive moment, and that moment is the Higgs-Boson.
It was once thought that matter could only exist in one place at a time, however the particle slit test of our progenitors proved otherwise. A particle accelerator was used to eject electrons between one of two microscopic slits. They naturally assumed the electrons would pass through either slit A or slit B, and when directly observed their premise was corroborated.
However, when an imprint background was installed to bypass direct observation, they noticed a peculiar detail. The electrons produced what is known as a wave, or interference pattern on the imprint like ripples in a pond. This meant that the electrons were interfering with themselves while simultaneously passing through both and neither of the slits. It was at first thought to be a false-negative and outright impossibility, but thousands of repeated experiments all reached the same conclusion. There was denying it anymore. Matter can exist in more than one place at a time, and reality is altered simply by perceiving it.
The world of particle physics is a strange one, and one which we have only just begun to glimpse the majesty of. At times it may even require us to suspend our own limited human understanding of things, to contemplate things beyond our minds comprehension. It was this idea which was the tabernacle of all the group was trying to achieve. To unravel the mysteries of the subatomic universe, and better understand reality itself.
The group was funded magnificently, and state of the art equipment was provided from lavish donors from all around the world. My contemporaries and I began to study the processes again from square one. This consisted primarily of monitoring the nature of particles and testing the same process over and over ad nauseum. Progress was slow, and many failures were soon under our belts, but you can’t build a house without chopping down a few trees.
It took years to decode part of the formula, but eventually we learned that the behavior of these particles could be predicted under certain pretenses. They could also, to a certain extent, be directed. Programmed to inhabit separate locations at the same time, giving them the perceived ability to exist in two places at once. In reality though, it was more akin to a transfer of locale via microscopic slits in the Higgs-Boson. We realized it was not a matter of travelling to, but instead travelling through. Through the fabric of space itself.
With electrical stimuli and coordinate based geo-synchronization, one could manipulate these particles to transfer locations faster than the blink of an eye. The machine used was primitive compared to later iterations, but it’s true potential was not lost on us for a moment.
Time went on, and the technique was further refined, most readily in the distance particles were able to be transposed. It started as only a few nanometers, but eventually we could transfer particles several feet. It was through this process that blueprints for an entirely new type of machine were first devised. It was to be a machine unlike any before it. Instead of electrical stimuli sent through circuits and wires, it was transferred directly from one location to another. Wireless energy transposed through space. This greatly improved computing capabilities and allowed the machine to act and calculate much quicker than anything ever seen before.
Initial ideals for the machine were skeptical at best, but as time went on the real significance of its potential became apparent. When combined with a suitable processor and digital interface, it soon began decoding encryption and translating mathematic cipher in a fraction of the time of anything seen before it. It didn’t stop there, though.
With a binary converter, it wasn’t long before human physiology itself was soon able to be deciphered and converted into convenient little anagrams and simplistic formulas. This soon gave the machine the ability to replicate human tissue and organs from fetal stem cells. When given raw biomass it could manufacture a duplicate heart or lung. One which was genetically indistinguishable from that of the donor’s DNA.
On one occasion, the machine even managed to regrow the arm of an amputee war veteran. Most of us thought it couldn’t possibly work, that the nerve endings on the man’s arms would be unable to be resuscitated after so long. But after seventeen hours in surgery, when I saw the vet move his new fingers for the first time after transplant and cell resuscitation, I knew we had discovered something special.
Diseases became able to be observed on a molecular level and eradicated before gestation. A virus or bacterial strain could be genetically reprogrammed to attack and destroy itself rather than the host. HPV, AIDS, the black death, the common cold, strep throat, gonorrhea, none of them stood a snowball’s chance in hell against the unrivalled power of the machine.
It could even reprogram human DNA to desired proportions, eliminating extra chromosomes and restoring neural pathways to reverse entropic cognitive illness like Dementia and Parkinson’s. Even pre-birth conditions like cerebral palsy and microcephaly were in the process of being all but eradicated.
It wasn’t just organic material either. The machine could take a block of carbon and alter its isotopes to create carbon-14 and elicit radioactivity. This proved interesting for further power possibilities as the machine demonstrated potential of creating its own fuel source, but there was another more pertinent discovery.
By changing the number of protons or neutrons in the atomic nucleus, the given element’s atomic weight was altered, thereby turning it into another element altogether. The machine held the power to change the very building blocks of the universe itself. It could turn copper into gold, bromine into iodine.
I think it was then that we first realized the scope of what it was that we had created. The applications for the machine seemed endless. It could write books, clone living organisms and alter the very elements beneath our feet. It was the philosopher’s stone, the holy grail and the all-seeing eye in one convenient little package. The Deus ex Machina. The world’s very first quantum computer was born.
One important distinction I would like to make, despite the rumors; the quantum computer was not in fact an AI. It had computing power which was eons beyond that of a normal computer, and the ability to perform almost any task given to it provided the necessary accommodations were implemented. For this reason, it was not allowed to make decisions for itself. Many in the group were justifiably nervous at the prospect of an artificial intelligence somehow gaining sentience and going rampant with the power of quantum manipulation.
We really had no idea where our experimentation would lead us, and so the decision was made early on, to prevent it from thinking on its own and going all Skynet on us. The computer was a beast of burden, happily doing any task given to it, but it was us that held the reins.
That was when the bureaucratic troubles first began. A lot of donors for the project, and even a few of my fellow team members had their own ideas on how to best utilize the machine. Every nation involved wanted it for themselves and had their own vision on how best to implement it’s capabilities.
Several members of the coalition ended up leaving the project or being outright dismissed, promising to return with a battalion of lawyers at their back. One man was even caught attempting to smuggle data from the lab, and detained to await prosecution. The reigning project overseer was also relieved of duty. In his place; Dr. Henryk Lundgren assumed the role of director of operations.
Dr. Lundgren is a dear friend, and a brilliant mind. That’s what makes his fate lie so heavily on my heart. It’s a tragedy what befell him, but I won’t act as though he wasn’t responsible for stoking the flames.
Lundgren managed to settle the group down and unite a divided faction of researchers who all held their own agendas. He made the executive decision to keep the computer in the hands of the international team and continue to study it for continued data analysis and eventual replication. All those who didn’t abide were dismissed or removed physically as the need arose.
Lundgren had toiled for years on development of the machine’s virtual capabilities, and decided it best to invest more heavily into it. It took months of development, but soon, a fully-functional Sims-esque program was up and running. The simulation was modeled to be an exact carbon copy of our own world and held all the coordinating pieces within it. All the people, animals and nations. Augmented control apparatuses were then developed to allow us the ability to view the computer’s creation firsthand.
The simulation it created was so visceral, that none could even perceive that they were in a simulation at all. Test subjects were exposed to their own loved ones within the program and could not distinguish them from their real-life counterparts. I even took it for a spin a few times. I was hooked up to the monitor via a neural cortex interface, and had my mind rendered into the simulation.
I awoke to the sights of sunlight peeking through my blinds, and the sounds of cars outside. Around me on the walls were posters of Harry Potter, JoJo and the X-files among countless others. I recognized immediately where I was. It was my childhood home, an apartment complex in Sacramento. The simulation was so detailed, that even my old raggedy-Ann doll with the missing eye was there.
My parents were both there and acted in accordance to how they would behave in real life. My dad even made new corny jokes in a fashion that suited his personality. It wasn’t a memory though, it was an entirely new scenario, concocted by my mind and the quantum simulation.
My parents are both deceased in the real world and getting to spend time with them again was… indescribable. Even if they were just simulations, the experience was profoundly cathartic for me. I ended up leaving the simulation in tears, overwhelmed by the experience and the ability to speak with my parents once again. It even made dealing with their absence a little easier in the real world. After all, I could now speak to them any time I wanted. I found myself never wanting to leave the matrix.
Dr. Lundgren subsequently questioned me about my experience, and I was all too happy to relay the things I had seen. He listened intently, with simple occasional nods and one-word responses. His grey face wore a smile, and cheeks dimpled in delight, but his eyes were far from the present, and worried.
We held a meeting with all staff members sometime after. Lundgren stood and paced in front of the group, silent and mind swirling in thought. When he did finally speak, he held our undivided attention. He walked through all that our little group had managed to accomplish, and all the things we had learned on our journey. All the miracles unraveled and translated into digital coding, and all the advancements made. It was not a triumphant voice however, it was somber, as if none of it truly mattered. He then first proposed his new theory.
Here we were, with an entire simulated universe at the tips of our fingers. A digital reality created and maintained by a machine we had built. A simulation which was so authentic, that none could tell it apart from reality itself. And if we had the power to create that, how did we know that our own universe was not the result of the same process? How did we know our reality was not in fact a simulation?
An unnerving silence befell the rest of the group as Lundgren concluded his epiphany. All in attendance seemed to silently contemplate the idea, with a noticeably nervous aura now lingering. There wasn’t much said after that, but there didn’t need to be. We had an entirely new goal.
Upon returning for work the following day, I immediately noticed that several of our colleagues had abandoned the project without so much as a ‘goodbye’. Only 7 of us remained, among which was the prestigious Henryk Lundgren. He was changed though, his upbeat optimism and inquisitive attitude reverted to an impatient gibbering wreck of a man. He became hostile to prolonged questioning, and I could see the idea gnaw on his mind as he walked the tightrope between madness and genius. At times he even appeared on the verge of psychosis. He would ramble and talk to himself, and pretty much stopped leaving the laboratory altogether.
We set our sights on a new task; to dismantle and test the hypothesis of Lundgren. To develop an ability to break through the boundaries of our suspected simulation and pier beyond our own reality to glimpse whatever may lie on the other side. Nothing else seemed to matter anymore by that point.
Life may be accidental, consciousness too, hell even complex organisms like human beings the result of genetic evolution and a bit of luck. However, simulation is not accidental. It requires an immense amount of dedication, programming and logistics. Not to mention, power and maintenance.
The ability to synthesize digital worlds is not something learned or accomplished by accident. It takes time, resources and brainpower to even attempt it, and even then, it’s no guarantee. The one concept that was off the table immediately, was that the theorized simulation was the result of natural phenomenon or random cosmic alignment. If Lundgren’s hypothesis was correct, and our universe was indeed a simulation, then someone or something had to be pulling the strings behind the veil.
Powerful as the quantum computer was, even it did not have the ability to glimpse directly into higher dimensions. As stated before, it took commands only from us, and could only perform tasks which we could coherently articulate to it. We realized rather early that directly viewing outside the boundaries of the universe was likely not possible. The only option was to send a message.
Through remedial experimentation and dozens of ponderous sleepless nights, we finally had a breakthrough. Our reality is based on laws. Laws of motion, laws of attraction, laws of physics. These laws cannot be broken accidently, but with quantum technology, they can be manipulated. Many believe that intelligent extra-terrestrials were first alerted to humanity when the atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ours was essentially the same idea. Demonstrating that we had the capability to toil with the quantum world in hopes of eliciting a response from a higher being. If we could ‘break’ or ‘bend’ one of these laws of reality, then perhaps the orchestrator would be compelled to respond.
One of the earlier discoveries we had made was that of the concept of reverse time. Time is a measurement of something that occurs, and without anything to observe, time is meaningless. The concept only makes sense when in the presence of matter. The two concepts of space and time are coterminous, like light and dark or hot and cold; one does not exist without the other. Where there is space there is time, and where there is time there must be space. The opposite of matter is not nothing, but anti-matter. A true nothingness or void of anything substantial does not exist. It cannot exist based upon the nature of existence itself. Anti-matter is the invisible material which operates unseen and fills all the gaps which matter does not. All of it held together by the Higgs-Boson.
If an opposite of matter exists, then an opposite of time must as well. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and all reactions must remain proportional to force exerted. By utilizing the quantum computer, we had the ability to send protons back in time, sort of. We could make them exist where they once had not before they existed there, by using dark energy matrices and particle superpositioning to make them exist in two places at once.
The discovery had actually been made some time earlier, but never officially tested. It was restricted and marked as unbroachable, as many of our patrons were rightfully concerned by the prospect of unintentionally altering the past. Doing so could create a butterfly effect and wreak havoc upon the present. We were told vehemently that the reverse-time experimentation was forbidden, but now we had a legitimate reason to take interest.
It took some convincing on our end, but eventually we were successful when we promised to unveil the greatest discovery yet. The parameters were set within the computer and the lab was prepped for the operation. A single seed of dianthus caryophyllus was placed in a transparent reinforced container in the center of the room. The specimen was placed on damp resin paper, and several little green tendrils had sprouted from its shell.
The idea was to reverse the symbiotic metabolism of the test subject and cause it to rapidly revert to a zygote state. The seed would be directed to perform it’s life cycle backwards, thereby contradicting the natural forward flow of life and time.
The parameters were finished, and Lundgren stood by the machine. He glanced to each of us individually with a sullen demeanor and nervous twinkle in his eye. He looked to me last and I nodded. Lundgren took a deep breath, adjusted his glasses, and flipped the switch.
Immediately the tendrils within the seed began to retract. They disappeared within the shell soon after, and the seed shrunk until the point in which it was no longer visible. The computer alerted us that the task had been completed, and silence descended upon the crew.
We stayed that way for several seconds until a commotion from the computer drew our attention. An array of flickering lights and sirens began to wail like banshees, indicating an error of some sort. Suddenly, the seed reappeared and began to grow at an impossible rate. A mass of wriggling green tendrils erupted from the shell and pressed firmly against the case within seconds. It swelled within and the chamber violently ruptured a moment later sending shards of glass catapulting throughout the room. I managed to duck away just in time, but others in the group were not so lucky.
One man, Reginald Diabek, was struck with a shard in the neck. The piece cut a gash across his throat, causing a thick crimson to spill forth from his gullet. He collapsed to the ground, as others began to rush to his aid. Before we could reach him, the engorged serpentine appendages of the seed ensnared him, slithering around his neck and abdomen. Diabek gurgled and terror filled his eyes as the green pythonic roots began to constrict him.
I watched, at a loss for words, as Diabek’s wound sealed. His grey hair turned to a dark brown. The wrinkles on his forehead and bags below his eyes dissolved into his skin in a matter of seconds. The blackheads and liver-spots on his cheeks soon followed suit. All of us watched, stupefied as the process continued onward and Diabek appeared to age backwards.
Diabek had to have been nearly sixty years old, but in a matter of moments he appeared as though he was a young man in his early thirties. He then went young adult, then juvenile, then teenager. Diabek screamed in terror as his voice cracked from a gruff, raspy tone to a high-pitched pre-pubescent shriek. His body shrunk in his clothes and his extremities retracted within his coat. By the time we had reached him, he was gone.
We didn’t have time to gawk, as our stupor was interrupted by the computer blaring a warning siren, and a flickering plethora of lights designated an external problem of some sort. The display was a failsafe designed to protect the computer from malicious outside sources. Most of us thought the firewalls of the quantum computer were enough to prevent any attempted breach, but apparently, we were wrong.
One of my colleagues scrambled to the kill switch. He was poised to throw it, when he was halted by a sudden shout from Lundgren. Lundgren stood, eyes wide as dinner plates and mouth agape as he stared at the main monitor of the computer. The warning display had ceased, and only a single screen remained active. Upon it was displayed a single loading bar, with approximately twenty percent of it being filled in. This indicated only one thing, something was being downloaded.
We immediately surmised that it must be a virus or other malware of some sort. A prospect once thought impossible based on the security measures of the computer, and yet the download persevered. All attempts made to restrict the download and halt its progress proved futile.
We exchanged nervous glances with one another, torn on whether to pull the plug and save our creation from hostile insurgence, or allow it to continue to whatever ends. The call was eventually made by the investors outside the room, who had since been notified of the development. They demanded power be cut, and the machine be saved. The computer represented a colossal investment, and the costs to repair or replace it if any damage were to ensue was not something taken lightly.
Begrudgingly, Lundgren followed orders and commanded shutdown protocol. It was done straight away, but the machine did not power down. It continued, impossibly, and without a direct power source sustaining it.
Panic began to erupt from the lab, and power to the entire facility was ordered to be cut from the mainframe. It was done within seconds, and the room fell into darkness. The only light that remained was that of the main monitor as the download reached the halfway mark. The computer groaned and whirred under enormous duress as hundreds of fans shot to life to attempt to cool the leviathan machine.
We stood back, unable to make heads or tails of the development. There was simply no possible way the machine should’ve remained active, and yet it was. It continued to fill up the progress bar, powered by the fuel of some unknown outside source. With no other viable solutions at hand barring physical destruction of the computer itself, we could do nothing but await the culmination.
The download finished several minutes later, and the room fell into pitch black. We deliberated for a moment, before deciding our only recourse was to power up the computer once again. The mysterious file weighed in at an impressive 100,000 terabytes, enough to fill hundreds of normal hard drives, but just another drop in the ocean for the quantum computer. Once full mobility was achieved, a single never before seen prompt filled the screen.
“Unknown file type. Do you wish to execute the file?” All attempts made to bypass the prompt failed. We quickly used a separate program on another screen to trace the file’s origin, but to no avail.
Now, there is no hiding from a quantum computer behind a proxy or VPN. It uses algorithm-based process combined with ping response speed to determine probable origin up to an accuracy of 99.999%. We’re talking response time measured in millionths of a second, but for a quantum computer, it’s like the ABC’s. Sure, it gets it wrong once in every million attempts, point being it always has a guess. This time however, we received a new message.
“Unable to determine file origin.” Lundgren took a step back and pondered the situation and wiped the beads of glistening sweat from his brow. With nothing else at our disposal, he realized there was only one option left. And so, he gave one last command.
“Open it.”
The computer began to render the file, the process taking several minutes to complete. It was entirely in binary code, and eventually translated to a single message. Upon completion, two words in a white font sat silently amidst a black background.
I never thought two simple words could have such lasting effects on my psyche. Those two words that have made me question everything I thought I ever knew. The computer fizzled out moments later and shut down. All of us just kind of left after that.
I returned home, overwhelmed by the events and left with a mystic sense of terror instilled deep in my stomach. The following morning, I was called by one of the investors. He informed me, that someone had broken into the lab late the previous night and sabotaged the operation. The lab was lit ablaze and soon reduced to a smoldering pile of ash, and the quantum computer was damaged beyond repair. Whoever had done it, possessed a security card and seemed to know the exact process required to dismantle the automatic sprinkler system.
Police held a single suspect in custody. A man who appeared as a neurotic mess in the center of a maniacal nervous breakdown. He was tried and convicted some time later and declared clinically insane. He was ordained to a mental health facility in northern Sweden, and it is there that he remains to this day. That man’s name? Henryk Lundgren.
I’ve never been able to properly assess just what it was that happened that day. The event has left me shaken and confused in more ways than I could possibly list. I don’t suppose I’ll ever be whole again, I just can’t be.
I know the truth, the reason for our meager existence. We had reached out far beyond, and something had answered our call. Whether or not it was truly what we would call ‘god’, I can’t say. But I will say, after what I saw happen to Diabek, and what became of Lundgren, I can’t think of a better word for it. I think god is something we never could’ve imagined. It holds us all within the palm of it’s hand, and with a simple flick of the wrist, we would cease to be. There is no love, there is no salvation, there is only that which lies beyond the margins of reality. That which we have no possible hope in understanding.
One thing is also certain; it is watching us, and it does not want us meddling in that which we have no business seeing. We are set amidst an ocean of infinite black seas, and it was not meant for us to travel far. That final message could not have been clearer, and anytime I find myself drifting, I remember those two simple words relayed by the quantum computer in its last moments of life.
“TURN BACK.”
CREDIT: Zacharius Frost
The post When Science Found God appeared first on Creepypasta.
Source:
SCARY STORIES
Creepy Pasta
Posted in Creepy Pasta and tagged Real Poltergeist Facts 'Real Ghost Pictures' Supernatural Noices 'Real Ghost Stories' Paranormal encounter by cnkguy with no comments yet.
My Neighbor’s Dog Has a Zipper
14 Aug, 2018
My Neighbor’s Dog Has a Zipper
At first, I didn’t think anything of it. My neighbor would stop to chat with me, leash in hand, and I would catch glimpses of the metal slider dangling from its belly. I assumed it was wearing a piece of pet clothing, or that perhaps it was the byproduct of some awkward veterinarian procedure, but the more we chatted and the more I saw this mystery zipper, the more I realized it was out of the ordinary; clearly imbedded in the dog’s skin. It drew my attention every time we engaged in small talk, until finally one day, I decided to ask about it.
“Say, what is that zipper for on the little guy’s belly, anyway?”
“Oh, that? It’s a long story, I wouldn’t want to bore you.”
“I’ve got nothing but time.”
I wondered if she could see the beads of sweat forming above my brow.
“Really it’s nothing, just a safety measure.”
And that was it. She pretty much laughed it off, granting me little in the way of an explanation. Thinking back, her responses were downright vague and deflective. She could see how curious I was, so why not just tell me? And what exactly did she mean by “safety measure”?
As unfruitful as our conversation was, I didn’t press the matter any further. Days, weeks, months went by. I would occasionally see the dog’s strange cosmetic feature, but I brushed it off every time, knowing it would only haunt me if I dwelled on it. Still, the thought itched in the back of my mind. It wasn’t until a few months had passed that I would finally have the nerve to scratch it.
I was pulling up weeds along my fence when I looked over at my neighbor’s place, noticing the dog lying on the back porch. A stray cat wandered by, as often happened in our neighborhood. Without so much as a warning growl or malicious stance, the dog trotted over to the cat and scarfed it down, the sound of sharp teeth colliding with bone. The cat screeched in agony until it was no more. In a minute flat, its entire body was devoured. I was in shock.
The cat’s cries alerted my neighbor to the situation. She raced outside, grabbed the dog by the collar, and pulled him into the house. Through the sliding door, it was tough to make out, but I swear she unzipped him and reached inside, seemingly adjusting one of his organs. He didn’t flinch, not even a bit. After pulling her arm out, the dog dropped to the floor, dead as a doornail, from the looks of it. She then carried him outside and placed him back on the porch, arranging him into a sleeping position before getting in her car and leaving for the day.
This five-minute span of visual information was unlike anything I’d ever witnessed. Words like gruesome, strange, and horrific are too tame to describe what I saw. I was appalled beyond measure.
After the shock wore off, I hopped the fence and approached the dog’s carcass. I felt its neck; cold to the touch, no pulse. I looked to its underside, and there it was. That god-forsaken zipper in all of its mysterious glory. I felt kind of bad for the dog dying, but I had to know what that damned thing was there for. I needed an explanation for not only the dog’s, but my neighbor’s odd behavior just moments ago.
I slowly unzipped the dog’s belly, placating my curiosity with the satisfying sound of metal sliding across metal. I spread each side of the opening with my hands and peered in, divulging the animal’s inner workings. What I saw was absolutely dumbfounding.
My neighbor’s dog was… animatronic. There was wiring, gears, a tank where its stomach should have been; the whole nine yards. It didn’t make any sense, but there it was, staring me back from behind the zipper.
After scurrying back home in shock, I decided that my best course of action would be to call Animal Control. I could tell them my neighbor’s dog trespassed on my lawn and was attacking the neighborhood cats. They would show up, examine the robotic carcass, and then go from there. I knew there wasn’t a protocol for that sort of thing, but I assumed they could take care of things and contact the appropriate people, whether it be the police, the government, or The National Enquirer. As long as this weird predicament was taken care of, I could sleep easy, knowing that my neighbor’s strange robot dog wasn’t going around eating whatever it pleased.
Simple, right? Nope. Far from it.
Animal Control took a while to get there. By the time they arrived, my neighbor had come home and disposed of the evidence, hiding the dog somewhere in her home. The Animal Control officer apologized for the misunderstanding and left, leaving my neighbor on her front porch, glaring in my direction. It appeared privacy meant nothing to the local authorities. Just my luck.
The days that followed were… different. My neighbor’s dog had sprung to life, re-activated by its master, no doubt. They would walk their usual path around the cul-de-sac, but would not stop for small talk. I knew her dirty little secret, after all. I was no longer a friendly neighbor to be conversed with, oh no. I was an enemy; a danger to this woman’s unusual way of life. Even if I meant no harm to her or her strange choice of pet, she didn’t seem to see it that way. She continued to give me the cold shoulder for about a month and a half before finally speaking with me again on one of her daily strolls.
“Hey there!”
“Hello. Everything alright?”
“Just peachy. I’m having a cookout on Saturday at noon. You’re more than welcome to come.”
Strange. We weren’t on speaking terms for over a month, and now I was suddenly invited over? Maybe this was her extending an olive branch my way; her way of saying, “No hard feelings.”
“Yeah, sure. I can make it. Sounds like a good time.”
“Great! I’ll add you to the list.”
As she walked away, I felt the need to apologize, even if her dog was a weird, cat-eating robot.
“Hey, about that Animal Control call. I just wanted to say-“
“Don’t worry about it. Water under the bridge. See you Saturday!”
She hurried off home, and that was that. Problem solved.
Or so I thought.
The night before the cookout, I couldn’t sleep. I kept hearing what sounded like footsteps creeping around the perimeter of my house. Every time I got up to investigate, the sound ceased, and the coast appeared to be clear. It was either a prank at my expense, a burglar taking their sweet time to pull the trigger, or ghosts roaming around in the night. Either way, it left me anxious, making sleep a distant dream, just out of my reach.
During a particularly loud set of footsteps, I raced downstairs, just in time to catch four glowing dots peering in through my living room window. This was enough to make my neck hairs stand upright. Though terrified, I wasted no time grabbing a ball bat and storming out my front door to greet the would-be intruders. I may be old, but I can still kick some ass when needed, especially when it involves crossing my property line.
To my astonishment, my yard was empty. I covered every side of the house, only to find no one – not a soul in sight in any direction I looked. I don’t care how fast you can sprint, NOBODY could have made it out of eyeshot in such a short period of time, even in those low-light conditions. Baffled, and even more anxious than before, I locked up every last door and window in my home before crawling under the covers like a frightened child, scared of the mystery figures lurking in the shadows.
The footsteps dissipated over the course of the night, and as the sun came up over the horizon, so to did my fear. My waking nightmare had ended, but not before putting a weary, sleep-deprived frame of mind in its place. In a sluggish slur of movement, I grudgingly made my way to my neighbor’s house around noon, ready as I would ever be for the neighborhood get-together.
Oddly enough, there were no cars in the driveway, aside from her own. I wondered if I got the date wrong, but after knocking on the door, she greeted me with a smile and rushed me into the house. We exchanged pleasantries, and she sat me down at a bar stool in the kitchen. After a few moments of awkward silence, I mustered up the courage to ask about the elephant in the room.
“So… where is everybody?”
“You’re already here, silly.”
I tilted my head, puzzled.
“What about everyone else?”
“There is no one else. You’re the only person I invited.”
All at once the pieces clicked into place. I felt stupid for not realizing it sooner. Her sudden kindness, the noises the night before. There was no cookout. There was never any cookout. I was in the middle of a trap, lured in largely due to my own idiocy. I should have guessed that something sinister was going on the moment I unzipped that dog.
“So, what happens now?” I asked.
“You’ll see. Just sit tight.”
I quickly jumped up from my chair and turned towards the door. With inhuman speed, she bolted in front of me, a large kitchen knife in hand.
“Not so fast.”
I stood, still as stone, intimidated by her fluid motions and firm stance.
“We need to talk.”
“About what?”
I knew exactly what.
“Don’t play dumb with me.”
And that’s when I noticed it. On her chest, peaking through the top of her blouse. I would have missed it had the sunlight coming through the window not danced across its metal.
She had a zipper too.
Stricken to my core with fear, my gaze was interrupted by an angry hand gesture.
“My eyes are up here!”
The moments that ensued are a bit fuzzy, but I can only guess that I was knocked out or chloroformed, as I awoke strapped to a chair in a new room. Given the staircase, I assumed I was in her basement, though this realization didn’t help me any. I attempted to break free of my restraints, but it was no use; unless she were to free me herself, I was fastened to that chair for life.
In absence of mobility, I decided to give the place a once-over. The staircase was to my left and a concrete wall to my right, but directly in front of me was a work station, complete with about a dozen computers. This is where my neighbor sat, a USB cord snaking out of her unzipped chest, typing away at a blinding rate. Her motives were still unclear to me.
Though confined to the one view, I was able to turn my neck enough in both directions to form a decent picture of what was behind me. It was a wall of cages, each housing an identical copy of her dog. They didn’t move, even in the slightest, likely just as animatronic as she was. What on God’s green earth had I stumbled into?
Just then, my neighbor ripped the cord from her chest and walked over to me.
“Ahh, good. You’re awake. Did you have a nice nap?”
I refused to reply, looking her up and down in disgust, trying to make out what this thing was that was speaking to me.
“What’s the matter? Dog got your tongue?”
I remained silent, in lieu of her taunting me.
“That’s alright. You just need to listen. Sit tight. I’ll be right back”
She walked over to her work station and grabbed something before reclaiming her spot in front of me.
“I’ve worked too hard in this location to have you screwing things up on me. Then again, it’s my own fault. I was careless. I never should have left my core on the porch like that.”
I assumed she was talking about the dog.
“I want you to look at this.”
She placed the object at eye-level. It was a badge of sorts, upon which was a logo that read “Syntheti-Tech.”
“I’m an android. I work for a large company, moving from location to location, gathering specific information that is crucial to our initiative. You can’t know anything beyond that. Hell, you already know far too much.”
I hadn’t noticed it at first, but she seemed to keep playing with her zipper.
“God, I am so sick of this fucking meat suit.”
Before my very eyes, she removed her clothing and unzipped herself down to the groin. In the most unnatural way possible, she slid out of her own skin, revealing to me her true form. She was nothing but a pile of electronics, pieced together in a human shape. It was a strange sight, nauseating in every sense of the word. The way she moved and spoke while like this was downright sickening.
“I can’t say anymore, but I want you to know that our work is necessary. If you were to speak these truths to the world above, you would be jeopardizing everything we’ve accomplished. You have to submit to our intentions and see that they are just.”
I didn’t know what to make of this. I simply looked away, wishing not to see her grotesque, animatronic face any longer. Unfortunately for me, she grabbed it and forced it in her direction anyway, the feeling of cold metal enveloping my jaw.
“You need to PROMISE to me that you will submit. You are not to tell anyone of any of this. Do you understand?”
I nodded in agreement, but only because I wanted her hand off of my face. Luckily, she let go and backed away.
“Good. You know, we’re not so bad when you get to know us. In a sense, we’re just like you.”
Internally, I scoffed at the thought of this. I was nothing like her, and not just because of her appearance; I was never one to go around kidnapping my neighbors, holding them captive in my basement. It just wasn’t my cup of tea.
“Well, this is it. I’ll need you to take over from here. Don’t make the same mistake I did, lest you regret it for the rest of your life.”
This was the last thing she said to me, though I had no idea what any of it meant. I must have been knocked unconscious again, because the next thing I remember was waking up on her basement floor, no longer bound by my restraints. For one reason or another, she didn’t kill me. I was a free man.
Without warning, a group of trained operatives burst through the basement door and raced down to help me up.
“Are you alright?”
“Yes. I’m fine. What’s going on?”
I noticed a few of the men walk on opposite sides of the room to gather evidence. One guy ripped open a cage, grabbed one of the dogs, and unzipped him, revealing it to be nothing but a hollow carcass.
“They’re empty, sir. A collection of shells.”
“Just as I suspected. No matter. Load them into the truck with the hard-drives. Hopefully she didn’t wipe them before she left.”
I must have looked completely bewildered, because the gentleman grabbed me by the shoulders and looked me straight in the eye.
“Everything’s fine now. We’ve been on this woman’s tail for a long time. We may not have captured her, but this is still a big win. And it’s all thanks to you.”
I was still confused, but more so relieved that it was all over.
“Are you sure you’re alright? Don’t need a ride to the hospital?”
I shook my head, not wishing to be poked and prodded after what I’d endured. I didn’t trust doctors much anyway. I just wanted to go home.
“Okay. Let me walk you to your house.”
I agreed, and we were off. I couldn’t wait to get inside and put the whole ordeal behind me. That was the plan, anyway.
Whatever government officials they were, the entire crew picked the place clean and left my neighborhood within a couple of hours. That night I received a call from them for a statement regarding the situation. I obliged and asked some questions myself. Though the information was privileged, I guilted them into giving up some details, claiming I needed some “peace of mind” so I could sleep at night. The fact that I was just a ‘frail, old man’ helped too.
It would seem my neighbor was a high-ranking disciple in an android cult hell-bent on infiltrating various government agencies. They were currently in the process of recruiting new members to aid in their cause. That’s all I was told, which was more than I thought I’d get. This was enough to placate my curiosity and keep me from dwelling on the events as they unfolded. I thanked the man on the other end and hung up, content with my findings.
After ending the call, I heard a knock at my front door. I didn’t usually get visitors that late at night, but I suspected it would be one of my neighbors, asking about the sting operation that just took place next door. I opened the door, and to my surprise, there was no person there to greet me. No. Not a person. Instead, there was a dog, identical to my neighbor’s. Before I could process its arrival, it trotted inside and sat on the floor. A voice then emanated from its collar.
“Shut the door.”
I did as the dog said, baffled and afraid.
“Hello. I am SERIAL #724234. I will be your core companion on your journey of fulfillment. True adventure awaits. Would you like to begin your first task?”
I didn’t know how to respond or what in God’s name was happening, but it was at this point that I felt an itch running up the length of my torso. It was subtle at first but grew to the point that I had to reach down my shirt and scratch at it. That’s when I felt a familiar metal caress my fingers. It took a moment for it to sink in, but I knew exactly what I was feeling.
It was a zipper.
CREDIT: Christopher Maxim
(Click HERE to check out Christopher Maxim’s latest book, How To Exit Your Body and Other Strange Tales)
The post My Neighbor’s Dog Has a Zipper appeared first on Creepypasta.
Source:
SCARY STORIES
Creepy Pasta
Posted in Creepy Pasta and tagged Real Poltergeist Facts 'Real Ghost Pictures' Supernatural Noices 'Real Ghost Stories' Paranormal encounter by cnkguy with no comments yet.
