Vanishing Paint

The Midnight Article "Vanishing Paint" was written by u/jonip16 and posted to r/MidnightPaper.

The text of the post and Article was as follows:

Where do I begin? It's been a strange couple of days! First, let me share that at midnight, I actually received my first Midnight Paper! It showed up on my doorstep! There were three slow careful knocks on my front door and after many minutes of deliberation, and surprising myself, I went over to the front door, peered through the peephole, and actually unlocked it! l then looked outside and found the paper leaning up against the side of my doorstep; all black with white print, like a backwards newspaper... I almost missed seeing it! I could hardly believe it! I've been hoping for one since I started reading other people's interesting accounts on Reddit! I find each one of these stories so fascinating. I've always wanted to be a writer and I have written some stories over the many years I've been alive, but I've never shared my stories with anyone outside of my family. I've been so fearful of letting other people in. Just when I thought getting this newspaper was the weirdest thing that could happen to me, the next thing topped it! It blew my mind! When I opened this already strange newspaper, there was the usual one article in it. After reading it, my first thought was how did this get into this newspaper? My mind could not believe it! Were my eyes tricking me? There in front of me, was one of MY stories laid out on the page in white letters ... one of my innocent stories, but with an ending that was absolutely horrible!  I'll update you with what the article said, after I calm down and stop shaking. Right now I'm sitting in my chair trying to gather my thoughts, because I'm scared and all I can think of is how and why???

Ok, I'm ready to continue... Remember, at the beginning of this post I told you I like to write? Well, in order for me to explain the weird couple of days I've had, I need to tell you about one of my original stories. I wrote about a fun time I had with my mom many years ago. I remember it as a great time and I still laugh when I think about it. I was around 8 years old and my mom decided to paint our small bathroom/powder room inside our 2-story townhouse. She didn't know too much about paint, so she bought cans of aerosol spray paint in a couple of different colors. She told me to wait in the kitchen and she would come out when she was done. Time went by and she came walking out, eyes bloodshot (from the aerosol paint fumes?) with shiny glitters of paint in her hair. She was excited (high?) and told me she was almost done and in a couple minutes she would call for me to come in and look at the "new and improved" bathroom. A few minutes went by, and I heard her yell to me, "Okay, I'm all done, come see our beautiful bathroom!" I still chuckle remembering what I saw l when I looked inside the bathroom. Shiny gold and silver flecks all over the walls and all over my mom's clothes and platinum blonde hair. She blended in so well you could hardly see her. I remember giggling with her and shaking my head, not knowing what to say to her; it looked pretty bad. It didn't take her long to get a friend to come by and paint over the spray painted mess with plain white latex paint. I can still remember seeing flecks of gold and silver peeking through the white paint, some years later, and smiling from the memory. It was so special to me and that's why I wrote about it. It's still a great memory of my mom and that bathroom, both now long gone. My mom passed away in 1999 and the townhouse was torn down shortly after that.

Okay, so, now I'll tell you what I saw when I opened up the Midnight Paper. I think you will see why I am so shaken up. When I cut the string that was holding the paper closed, I immediately saw the one article that was inside. It was written in a bold white ink (or chalk?) that almost glistened next to the very, VERY black paper.

Here's what it said:

**VANISHING PAINT**

Last night police were sent out to a townhouse in Bourbonnais, Illinois. The woman who called 911, was a neighbor of the small, young 8-year-old girl she found crying outside of her own front door. Standing outside the townhouse, she woman explained to the two police officers who arrived, what she knew so far: She was outside in the shared courtyard getting the mail, when she heard her 8-year-old neighbor crying. She ran over to her and tried to console her by asking the little girl to slowly tell her what had happened. The crying little girl kept repeating over and over, "I can't find my mommy!" She then asked the little girl to explain what happened before she got there. The little girl said that she and her mom had decided to paint the downstairs bathroom. Her mom told her to wait in the kitchen and she would call to her when she was done. A while later her mom called out to her, "Okay, I'm all done, come see our beautiful bathroom!" She said she then got up and quickly ran over to the bathroom, but there was nobody there; her mom was gone! She ran upstairs looking all over and when she stopped to catch her breath, she heard the words again, "Okay, I'm all done, come look at our beautiful bathroom!" She ran back downstairs and into the bathroom and again nobody was there. The neighbor then told the two policeman that she and the little girl went inside to find her mom. She told them she was a close friend of the mom and little girl. She mentioned that the little girl's father (and the mom's husband) had recently died, so she had been over many times to help them through their grief. She then continued relaying the rest of what had happened to the two cops. When she and the girl first opened the door and walked inside, it was very quiet. As they went further inside, and got closer to the bathroom that's when they both heard her mom's voice and the words, "Okay, I'm all done, come see our beautiful bathroom!" They quickly ran to the bathroom! But, once again, nobody was there! They went upstairs and looked everywhere. "That's when I called 911," the neighbor said to the two officers.They we're all standing outside the townhouse. The two police officers had her wait outside with the little girl and they entered the townhouse. It was very quiet, but as they got closer to the bathroom, the words got louder, "Okay, I'm all done, come see our beautiful bathroom!" That was 6 months ago. The little girl is now staying with her older sister. The police are doing as much as they can to investigate this missing person's case, but so far there's nothing new to report.

That's where the article ended! I put the paper down on a table and noticed it was flaking away; seeming to disintegrate right in front of me!

This article about a missing person has really frightened me! I am stunned! It can't be real! The story that I wrote was part of my childhood history, but this story... I don't know what this is. What a tragic and horrible ending! What also really scares me is that this incident in the Midnight Paper, took place in my childhood home. A home that is no longer there. I just called a family friend in Illinois and they told me that the whole group of townhouses is gone and it definitely was torn down many years ago to make room for a new subdivision of single-family homes! So, I am sitting here in shock! I certainly didn't expect to read something like this; a story that mirrored my own life in such a disturbing way! Now, I'm not so sure that I want to receive another Midnight Paper ever again! But, if another one does show up I will let you know...

Description:

"Vanishing Paint" is an Object-Type Oddity. It appears to be a kind of interior paint that, when used by a person, has the abnormal quality of making that person disappear.

Process:

The Article describes that a widowed mother had decided to paint one of the bathrooms in her home. It can be surmised that she purchased an unspecified number of cans of interior paint to accomplish this. As one gallon of paint is enough to cover 400 square feet, it is likely that the woman only purchased one can of the unusual paint. It is recommended that, when painting the interior of a room, two coats of paint are used, with around 24 hours in between them to allow for the first coat to fully dry. Thus, it is likely that the woman purchased the can of paint and laid down the first coat in the same day, then finished applying the second coat the next day. This time period might b a crucial point in allowing the paint to take hold of a room and for its abnormal qualities to come into effect.

Once the second coat of paint was finished, the woman called out to her daughter, asking her to step into the bathroom and see how it looked. Her exact words were, "Okay, I'm all done, come see our beautiful bathroom!"

Upon entering the bathroom, however, the woman's 8-year-old daughter found that the room appeared to be empty. Her mother was nowhere in sight. The girl then exited the bathroom and began looking for her mother around the house, only to hear her mother's voice coming from the bathroom, saying the exact same phrase as before: "okay, I'm all done, come see our beautiful bathroom!"

The girl entered the bathroom once again and, once again, found it to be completely empty. The girl, fraught with fear and panic, rushed over to her neighbors' to ask for help in finding her mother. The neighbor accompanied the girl back to the girl's house. Together, they began searching for the girl's mother, only to hear the same phrase coming from the bathroom: "okay, I'm all done, come see our beautiful bathroom!"

The neighbor and the girl entered the bathroom yet again with the same result...the bathroom was completely empty. Or so it seemed.

The police were called and, upon searching the premises, the two responding officers heard the same words once again: "okay, I'm all done, come see our beautiful bathroom!" They then checked the bathroom, but could see no evidence of anyone being present.

At the time that the Article was written, six months had passed and no trace of the woman was found.

Upon analyzing the series of events that transpired on that fateful day, there is enough evidence to get a hint of what happened. The woman, after completing the second coat of paint, called out to her daughter with the words "okay, I'm all done, come see our beautiful bathroom!" Shortly after this, the woman vanished. It is clear that she vanished while standing inside the bathroom, as her daughter, and all subsequent witnesses, heard her voice coming from inside the freshly-painted room.

Theories:

If the house, or more specifically the bathroom, was a Location-Type Oddity, then the woman or her daughter would have vanished before the woman decided to paint her bathroom. It is also easy to surmise that, given the fact that the bathroom in question was painted before the woman decided to repaint it, that the walls of the bathroom are not Object-Type Oddities that react a certain way when they are painted.

With all the other possible culprits ruled out, the only explanation remaining is that the paint itself was an Object-Type Oddity.

Upon finishing the second coat of paint, the woman called out, and subsequently vanished. The woman's whereabouts after vanishing are entirely unknown. Indeed, there are too many possibilities to count: the Vanishing Paint may have disintegrated the woman, the Paint may have acted as a portal that transported her into another dimension, the Paint may have pulled her into the wall somehow, the Paint may have come alive and consumed her without leaving a trace...

What we do know are two facts: 1. The woman vanished upon completing the second coat of paint. 2. The Vanishing Paint possesses the ability to somehow "record" and repeat the a vanished person's last words.

Why exactly the Vanishing Paint repeats a vanished individual's last words is a mystery. We know, from the Article, that multiple people entered the bathroom after the woman's disappearance, with none of them vanishing as well. Indeed, the woman's daughter actually entered the bathroom alone and didn't vanish. This fact refutes the possibility that the Vanishing Paint only targets people who enter a painted room alone.

So why does the Paint only make one person vanish? It is possible that, given the fact that the mother in the Article had painted the bathroom alone, she had somehow absorbed some of the paint herself. The woman would have been covered in flecks of paint, would have been inhaling the fumes released by the drying paint, and would have been in the presence of the painted room for hours on end. Any of these factors may have been enough to allow the paint to take her. If the woman was covered in paint, for example, the fact that it was on her may have been all that was necessary for the painted walls to pull her in somehow. Thus, having some of the Vanishing Paint on one's body and stepping into a room with wet Vanishing Paint on the walls may be the required process to be taken and "disappeared" by the Vanishing Paint.

Origins:

The origins of the Vanishing Paint are a complete mystery. However, given the fact that the woman would have had to have bought the paint at a store (most likely a hardware store) it can be surmised that the Vanishing Paint was actually present on shelves and on sale. It can also be surmised, then, that the Vanishing Paint appears, to an unsuspecting shopper, to look like a completely normal can of interior paint. If the can possessed strange markings, for example, or was not labeled with a brand name, color, and directions, then the woman would have most likely not purchased it.

It may be possible that the Vanishing Paint assumes some kind of disguise, camouflaging itself to appear to be an inconspicuous can of paint so that it may be purchased. The reason behind the manufacturers of the Paint wanting it to be purchased, or the Paint itself wanting to be purchased, is unknown. It is also unknown how many cans of Vanishing Paint exist in the world, camouflaged and looking like harmless cans of regular paint, just waiting to be purchased and used.

Whether the Paint even has a manufacturer at all is also a mystery, as it may simply come into existence through unknown means and place itself in positions where it will be purchased, all without the help of human companies or human employees.