Other times, shadows will move on those walls, shadows cast by 
nobody present in the room. The wavering firelight will blur their 
outlines, make them hard to pick out, and some observers may 
believe them to be a trick of the light. Watch closely, though, and 
you will see that the shadows resemble hunched figures, perhaps 
with small horns, and maybe a hint of a stubby tail behind them. 


These figures will gravitate toward the shadows of those who are 
taking shelter in the cave. They may appear to stand over their 
sleeping forms. They may appear to be holding weapons, like 
spears or rough axes. 


Often, a lone traveller sheltering in the cave will never be seen or 
heard from again. Their fate will remain unknown. 


However, those travelling in a group will be woken by screams in the 
night. They will look for the source of the screams and find that one 
of their number is missing, their bedroll empty. If they happen to look 
at just the right place on the wall, they may see the wavering 
shadows of figures who are not present in the room, or at least not 
visible. 


The fire will be low and red, so the shadows dim and soft-edged, but 
it will appear that a struggling form is being speared and clubbed by 
multiple assailants, and then dragged away, out of the circle of 
firelight. 

The screams will fade slowly, seeming to sink into the rocks 
themselves. 


And is that a new cave painting on the wall the next morning? Surely 
not - the ochre it is painted in is just as old and dry as all the rest. 
No, no, that picture of a man being gutted by horned figures must 
have always been there. 


Clouds 


Looking at clouds from the ground is a rather absorbing experience. 
The educated human mind sees the majestic plumes of white as 
mere wisps of crystallised water vapour and dust particles in the 
higher atmosphere, but deep inside, there remains an early spark of 
curiosity and wonder, such as displayed by advanced apes and very 
small children. This spark does not see wisps of vapour and 
complex crystalline formations, but birds and beasts and faces, 
carriages and palaces, entire mountains and fortresses on the move 
across the azure-blue sky. 


From above, this feeling only grows. As one rides in a rickety metal 
tube ten thousand metres above the ground, soaring into the sky, 
the educated human mind gives way to the childlike blossom of 
wonder. Below you, a sea of clouds wave and ripple to the shores of 
a distant land, and vague shapes of arcane gods drift past the triple- 
paned glass, where you are safe and pressurised and sound. And 
all the while, undefined smoky cumulonimboid beings watch from 
afar, their anvil-shaped tops spiralling yet higher into space. 


This was what | told my seatmate on the two o'clock flight to 
Sydney, as | rolled up the windows and marveled at the view. The 
flight had so far been uneventful, with the only amusement being 
Greg's unfortunate incident at check-in, so any distraction from the 
plain sterile interior of the plane was very welcome to me. Greg, 
however, did not share my enthusiasm and appreciation of such 
natural wonders, and merely grunted in reply before taking a long 
sip of God knows what he managed to smuggle onto the plane. 


Soon, even the clouds failed to entertain me and | slid the shutter 
down just as the plane made a left swerve over the Pacific, catching 
the glaring sunlight between panes of glass. From then on | resorted 
to browsing the in-flight magazine, fiddling with the remote, and 
staring at my hands to pass the time. Time drew on, nothing of note 
happened, and | fell asleep nodding on the tray table. 


It was Greg who woke me up when the trouble started. "Hey. Hey, 
man," he whispered, lightly slapping me awake. "Up, up, up. Captain 
said something about bad turbulence, so tray table, remote, window 
shades, all of them up. And wipe your mouth." 


| sat up blearily, swiping a hand across my chin. "How long's it 
been?" 


"West Coast time reads seven twenty-three, so that'd make it about 
four hours. | think we crossed the date line or something, it's still 
bright out there." 


| returned my seat to the upright position and took a peek out of the 
window. Sure enough, orange half-light streamed in through the 
crack. "I don't think that's how the date line works, Greg." Still, the 
long daylight hours were odd. | made a mental note to look it up 
once we reached solid land and an internet connection. 


Greg obviously was not lying, for as | stowed the table and remote, 
the plane began to shake. | drew up the window shades to a grandly 
terrifying sight: the majestic white sea was now black and choppy, 
swirling and churning in silent twists and twirls. The sun still shone, 
but it was blazing through a gap in the top of a sparking dark cloud, 
too close to the wingtip for comfort. The wind must have been 
extraordinary, because the cloud did not drift aimlessly, but kept 
close pace with the wingtip. For a moment my imagination took over, 
and the sun shone like a red ominous eye, blazing amidst black 
tentacles of vapor and lightning, reaching out towards the plane like 
a predator out of the abyss. 


Through the P.A, the captain reminded us to keep calm and strap 
down. Overhead and underfoot, aluminum plating and stray luggage 
hummed and shook. The on-screen flight information showed 
discouraging numbers— altitude, 13 000 metres. Airspeed, 900 km/ 
h. Headwind, 110 km/h. 


Hold on a moment. If the cloud was following the plane, then how in 
God's blue sky was it drifting against a hurricane-force wind? 


This thought coincided with an equally dreadful noise: like pebbles in 
a hubcap, but coarser, and louder, enveloping the entire titanium 


frame of the plane until even the blast of the engines was drowned 
out in this surreal static. The cloud now had swelled to a frightfully 
enormous size, with angry electric whips flashing all around the 
aircraft. The sun was barely visible, merely a spot of red haze 
amidst swirling, sparking black. The plane was suddenly lifted up, 
up, up, and the PA system exploded in a screeching whine. Greg 
was pressed against the front seat, hands cupping his head, while | 
clung to the armrest, hunched almost double. Several someones 
screamed. There was a cry of thunder, and the entire plane was 
flung like a mere toy, reeling from an unseen impact. Then another 
scream, this time from the seat in front of me. 


| turned to look at the thin, manicured finger madly pressed against 
the window, following the contour of flesh towards the 3-layered 
pane of glass ("Vacuum-sealed Grade Diamond A", proclaimed the 
dealer's mark), dragging my gaze out to the unknown air beyond. 
There was something inside me that protested not to look, never to 
look, but it was too late and my eyes were firmly planted on a thing 
outside the plane. At first | saw nothing. Then a little switch went on 
in my mind, and everything snapped into place. 


Some thing was plastered against the glass, milky and flaccid, the 
complexion of an engorged slug. Lining it was a good number of 
suckers, pressed hungrily against the window and pulsating to the 
tune of an alien heartbeat. Looking closer, the suckers were teethed, 
and terrifyingly so, for those were far too sharp, and far too many. 
Then the thing at the window shivered, and the numerous teeth 
clawed against the glass like hungry cats, and the screaming started 
up again, this time from my own throat. | scrambled away from the 
window, pressing my body as far in as possible, and slammed the 
window shutter down with a snap. Around me, panic and terror took 
hold as the plane groaned and compressed under the chattering 
static sound. Greg was crying. 


The next part remains hazy in my memory. | remember a mighty 
crack running along aisle 32, as pressurised air whistled out and 
scores of pulsating, cloudy things hissed into the fuselage, 
innumerable little mouths clattering and snapping. | remember 
passengers being picked out of seats like grapes, as the slippery 
things coiled and chewed around them. The section | was in began 


to fall, tumbling out of the terrible gnashing cloud, and | caught a 
glimpse of the body behind the thing:, half-smoke, half-flesh, 
grotesquely inflated with unknown wispy gas. And the eyes, large 
and horrible and human, peering through the dark mists, intently 
examining its prey. Then | fell further, through the cloudy sea and 
into a blue, shattered sky. 


| think | might have somehow undone my seatbelt, for all of a 
sudden | was falling alone, down towards the foaming ocean. The 
impact with the water left me unconscious, and the next thing | 
remember is sitting up in a bed, back in a brace and leg in a splint. 
They told me it was a true miracle that | was found by a lone fishing 
vessel, delirious and babbling about living clouds and toothed 
tentacles. It was in the hospital that | started having nightmares, and 
occasionally wake up screaming from a terror in a dreamscaped 
sky. 


There were no other survivors, nor bodies recovered. Much of the 
wreckage was carried away by the current, but a sizable fragment 
washed up on a Fijian shore several weeks after the incident. The 
part which made me throw up in my newspaper was the picture, 
showing a line of small holes neatly punched along the metal. Tooth 
marks. 


| keep myself indoors if | can help it, and my roommate brings me 
groceries every week. She hasn't heard the full story of the attack in 
the skies and the thing in the clouds, and neither will anyone else, 
with the exception being several weary fishermen in the middle of 
the Pacific. This manuscript will remain sealed until my time of 
death, which | believe will be upon me soon and swiftly. Until then, | 
shall take my pills, say my prayers to whatever God that remains up 
there, and keep well away from the windows. 


There was a thunderstorm directly overhead since yesterday 
morning, and it hasn't cleared up yet. 


action was either unnoticed or ignored. The infected 
person is watched from the doorway as it hobbles 
around the home and stops at each of the other visible 
infected organisms. However it appears to ignore the 
one under the table which, while not immobile, does not 
leave that area. What this creature was before infection 
is unclear. 


After lapping the table and repeating this procedure three 
times the primary infected person, known as ‘Alpha’ 
henceforward, stops at the bedridden infected, known as 
‘Beta’, and proceeds to assault it with furious punches. 
Beta is unable to leave the bed for unknown reasons but 
is not completely immobile as it flails its arms in 
response to the beatings delivered by Alpha. After 
several sustained minutes of this beating a piercing 
sound explodes from the area around Beta who then 
proceeds to project a cloud of unknown matter into the 
air from its chest cavity. Alpha lingers in the cloud as it 
floats in the air around them, slowly descending to the 
ground. The unknown life form on the table aside Beta 
begins to twitch in an apparent seizure, and Alpha then 
laps the room twice more, stopping again at each 
infected organism but still ignoring the one under the 
table, as well as Beta now. 


After these two laps Alpha seats itself at the table and 
reaches out to position the three plates atop it as if 
setting a dinner set. After the plates are positioned the 
facial tendrils extending from Alpha wiggle up and start 
to coil on one of the plates before tearing apart and 
separating. This is repeated at each plate. The image 
attached to SCP-610's primary file is a still image of this 
occurrence. 


After each plate is filled with Alpha’'s flesh it leaves the 
table and approaches Herbie, which is moved from 
Alpha's path. Alpha leaves the home but Herbie's 
camera remains focused on the table. After several 
minutes a group comprised of six to seven infected enter 


Cold 


This story is actually 100% true. I've switched names around for 
privacy's sake, but | assure you that every bit of this is real. Not the 
normal sub-reality of most “real world” creepypasta, but actual not- 
shitting-you real. It's tempting to plump it up a bit for more of a 
punch, but | don't think that's fair. | may add a bit to the descriptions 
here and there, but the narrative remains unchanged. 


My oldest daughter is actually my wife's, from a previous 
relationship. I've been in her life since she was less then a year old, 
however, and if you ask her or me, I'm her daddy. Anyway, she goes 
to visit her biological dad Eddie every other weekend. We normally 
go to her grandparent's house (Eddie's parents) to drop her off, and 
sometimes end up sitting and talking for a bit with them while we 
wait for my daughter to get ready to go, or if Eddie is running late. 


Eddie's dad is Paul, and is an...interesting man. A Viet-Nam vet, 
he's a big bear of a man, and seems to have a similar personality to 
a rather large dog. One who looks like he'd rip your face off, but has 
a heart of pure marshmallow cream. He also, apparently, has a very 
healthy fascination with the paranormal, as we discovered during 
one of our little conversations. 


It was shortly after “White Noise” had come out on video, which we 
had recently seen, and we had drifted to the topic of EVP (Electronic 
Voice Phenomenon) in general. The idea of recording the voices of 
the departed on tape was both fascinating and rather creepy, and 
seemed easy enough to try. Paul was silent, but listened intently as 
we talked, and nodded along as his wife stepped in to tell us about a 
road past a haunted house. Supposedly, you could hear the sound 
of a dragging shovel if you parked on the road around dusk, the 
same shovel that the former farmer had used to decapitate his 
family before hanging himself. As soon as she finished, Paul spoke 
up, saying “Let me show you something...” 


He went to collect a small cassette tape player, and put it on the 


coffee table. He smiled, then said that, many years ago, his mom 
had become very sick. Paul said his brother Bill had been trying to 
take care of her, but eventually hospice had to be called in as she 
continued to decline. When she passed, both brothers were 
devastated, but set about the morbid task of laying her to rest as 
best they could. The funeral was suitably gloomy, with rain and 
gathering storm clouds, and the little hillside plot looked obscenely 
lonely under the dark clouds. The mourners left cold, muddy, and 
even more depressed. 


The storm hit hard that night, pushing trees and knocking out power 
for a good portion of the area, Paul's house included. They spent a 
candle lit night listening to the wind howl and the rain claw at the 
windows. In the morning, Paul woke to his now-restored phone 
ringing. Bill was on the other end, sounding very worked up, and told 
him he needed to get over to his house right now. Paul asked what 
was wrong, but Bill just said it'd be easier if he just came. He 
dressed quickly and set out, sidling around trees, downed power 
lines, and work crews. 


Bill was waiting on his front porch. He quickly pulled Paul inside, 
asking if he'd gotten any calls last night. Paul said no, that a tree 
had taken out all his lines, and they'd just gotten service back that 
morning. Bill said that, after the funeral, he'd driven around for a 
while, just clearing his head, or trying too. When the weather turned 
especially bad, he'd headed for home. As he'd gotten out in the 
driveway, he'd heard his phone ringing inside. Bill ran in, just in time 
to hear the beep of the answering machine as it finished taking a 
message. Before he'd been able to take off his soaking coat and 
shoes, the power had died, and he'd been unable to check his 
messages until that morning. As soon as he'd listened, he'd called 
Paul.