This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/WorldAwayTweedy on 2026-05-21 14:05:40+00:00.

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PART ONE

“Follow the leader,” it said.

Then it turned yet again and disappeared down the hall.

“Shit,” said Trevor, grabbing Liz’s hand before quickly moving up the steps. Mikey and I ascended just behind, keeping pace.

“I’m assuming when it says leader, it means itself right?”

“Yes, Mikey, obviously,” I responded.

By the time we reached the top, the visitor was already near the far end of the hall, the last of the overhead lights flickering from black to white as it passed.

We gave chase, doing our best to close the distance as it slowed and turned into the master bedroom.

Right behind now. Trevor and Liz reached the doorway first and—

Abruptly stopped.

“Woah,” he said.

“What? Why aren’t you going?”

Trevor stepped aside, pulling Liz with him.

I shot them both a confused look, then peered into the room.

Complete darkness. No floors, no ceiling, no walls. The room felt like the opening to a void—or a black hole. It was connected to our hallway, sure. Where we were was still concrete, three-dimensional, fully here. But as I looked on, I was only a foot away from what I could best describe as a locational aberration.

The single, solitary deviation from complete darkness was the sight of the robed entity, trudging along through the expanse, like a gravekeeper holding a lantern.

“Yep. Fuck that shit,” said Mikey.

I inhaled. A tough inhale. “But what happens if we lose him? And we can’t find him again?”

“Isn’t that… maybe what we want to happen?” asked Trevor.

“Right after it said ‘follow the leader’? I’m not sure about that.”

Trevor paused. Glanced over all of us. “Do we all really want to cross this threshold?”

I thought about it. I had no clue, honestly. But I was certainly afraid that the pain would start again—and not stop, this time.

“We go,” said Liz, cutting through the quiet. “It said follow the leader so… we go.” She then, very carefully, leaned her foot forward as if dipping her toe into the deep end. “Hold onto me,” she said to Trevor, who wrapped his arms around her as her leg crossed the doorframe and entered into the spatial nothing that the visitor was seemingly walking on.

And her foot settled on it. And she sighed a breath of relief. Trevor held on as she brought her other leg forward.

“Follow the leader,” she said, more confidently, detaching and striding forward now.

Mikey took in the miracle. “Fuck,” he said—then, as if psyching himself up before second-guessing could intrude, he forced himself across the barrier next.

Against every instinct in my body, I stepped into the strangeness as well. I looked back—Trevor was still stalled in the hallway.

“Trev,” I said.

“What… is this?” he asked.

“We’ll figure that out later, but we need to go.” I extended my hand, which after a bit of hesitation, he took.

And then we all, not quite in a line, not quite as a pair of duos, but rather a squeezed collective, shuffled along in the void.

For all of the strangeness and horrors of the late evening, there came with it the slightest, smallest feeling of awe. Wonder. Something in me I’d long wanted to satiate finally being addressed, albeit in the most horrible of circumstances.

The idea that there might be something more to all this. Something we might not completely understand.

That perhaps everything isn’t as linear—as closed—as life presents it to be.

We kept moving, eyes fixed on the creature—a healthy, but not impossible, distance ahead.

We mirrored its pace.

“Do you think it’s gonna take us to hell?” asked Mikey.

“I’m not sure if that’s this thing’s M.O.,” answered Trevor.

“Fucking… insane,” said Liz, under her breath.

On we went.

One footfall after another, after another, after another…

It took me a few seconds to realize Mikey had suddenly stopped walking with us. The remaining cohort—Liz and Trevor—continued on. I stalled for just a second. Looked back.

He was just standing there. Distracted by… something?

“Mikey,” I shouted. It didn’t seem to catch his attention.

I walked back towards him. As I reached him, I heard Trevor’s voice call from ahead:

“What are you guys doing?!”

“It’s Mikey,” I responded, “I don’t know what he—”

And suddenly, he started walking off the beaten path. In a new direction.

“Mikey!” I called again, tailing him, turning my head back to see Liz and Trevor, looking absolutely thrown.

“I don’t know what he’s fucking doing!” I called back to them—“but hold the path!”

And as Mikey broke off into a full-on run, I charged behind, praying I wasn’t signing my death warrant.

“Mikey, pull your fucking shit together—”

I reached him, just barely, catching him on the shoulder with my hand. But when I felt him, something was off. He felt cold. Vacant. Lifeless.

Stopped in place now, I pulled ahead to catch his expression:

Empty eyes, with a tranquil smile on his face.

The words, which he was only whispering now, still characteristically him:

“That’s crazy,” he said, “you guys are gonna give me all this for free?”

I looked around us. There was nothing except for abyss.

“I mean, of course,” he continued, as if I was only privy to his half of the conversation, “How could I say no to that?”

“Mikey, I don’t know who the fuck you’re talking to, but it’s a mirage, you need to—”

I tried to pull him away—he held his ground. I tried again, and this time he reacted—almost instinctively—with a full-on shove that knocked me back.

I lifted myself up from the invisible floor, and watched as he disappeared even further off into the veil. Into a never-ending direction.

“Mikey, what the fuck…”

I settled on my feet. I was all alone.

A part of me wanted to retrace the whole evening—every step I’d ever taken to get to this point. This stupid impulse I’d shared with my friends, and their going along with it—likely more for my benefit than their own. They were being supportive, after all. They were trying to help.

I wanted to wallow in all of it—the cost of these decisions—but the truth was, my own disappearance into nothingness was now looming, and so I turned my head, searched all around me, and tried to spot the faintest distant dot of what might’ve been the visitor.

I couldn’t see anything.

“No, no, fuck—” I started, but hearing my own desperation wasn’t helping to self-soothe. I tried to remember which way I’d come from.

Nothingness in every direction. Gloom in every direction. And self-doubt now flooding me.

In an instant—I closed my eyes. I tried to access something. An internal compass. A thought. An idea. Anything.

I heard—far off—

People talking. Calling. Shouting.

Was it for me?

Keeping lids glued shut, I Marco-Polo’d myself towards the noise, taking steps both hot and cold.

The conversation grew ever-so-slightly louder. I drew myself towards it, chasing the invisible line of audio.

Two voices. Murmurs I couldn’t quite make—

Turning into, as clarity came to the entities, with eyes open again—

Someone trying to pull someone else.

“Trev, I don’t know what’s coming over you, but we have to go—”

“Just… just wait.”

“What are you talking about? We can’t wait anymore!”

And suddenly, they were in front of me, loud and visible, and much as I wanted to hug them—even Liz, at the promise of escape—the situation didn’t seem like one where they were calling for me. Nor one that was going well by any definition of the word.

I glanced further ahead to see the visitor, far off, slipping further and further away—

And now Trevor, trying to step off on his own path.

“Trev,” I called. He looked over for a second, then started on his new route. Liz tried to pull him away again, successfully halting him for another moment.

I moved closer. “Listen, I don’t know what’s happening in your body right now, but Mikey just lost his fucking mind back there, and I can’t lose you too,” I said.

“You lost Mikey,” Liz said, not as a question but almost as a reconciliation. I saw her expression fade to something dark.

Trev tried to make off again. Liz held on with all of her strength. “Trev, come on–” I started.

“Girls,” he turned emphatically. “I appreciate it, I honestly really do, but—” he let out a laugh—it felt relaxed, almost bewildered, “there’s a whole stadium of people waiting for me to perform. You know I’ve been working so hard at this. So many years. You can’t honestly expect me to turn down my big break, can you?” He shifted again, this time with determined movement.

Liz lunged, secured him again. “Trevor, respectfully, you need to get your fucking shit in your order—”

He grabbed her, threw her hard to the ground. “I don’t even… know who you are,” he said, his voice collapsing into a scattering of whispers. He turned and headed off into the blur without another look.

I lowered my gaze to Liz, in her stupor, eyes welling up. “What… what the fuck even is tonight, what is—”

I bent down and interrupted. “Keep your eyes on him.” I pointed to the anomaly far off in the distance. “*Know the direction, and don’t lose sight of it—*I’ll get Trevor and come back to you. Even if I have to give him a concussion first.”

I got up and headed for my oldest friend.

And felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Liz, just trust me—”

I glanced back.

It wasn’t her. Of course it wasn’t. I knew it before I...

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