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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Everblack_Deathmask on 2026-05-30 21:54:03+00:00.

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I never had the best relationship with my mom growing up. When people hear that, they usually assume she must have done something horrible, but the truth is a lot more complicated than that. She’s not a bad person per se, but rather a victim of circumstance that didn’t know how to ask for help.

My father walked out on us when I was just ten years old. I don’t remember him leaving. One day he was there, then the next he was gone without a trace. If there was a note or an explanation of some kind, my mom never told me. All that was left behind according to her was an insurmountable debt, and the uncertainty of raising a child all alone.

That kind of pressure is enough to cripple anyone mentally and physically. Unfortunately, my mom was no different. In the years following my dad’s departure, my mom found creative ways to remind me that I would amount to nothing like he did. In her drunken stupors, she would hurl insults at me and blame me for her life going down the drain.

When I turned eighteen, I wasted no time packing up the few possessions that I had and getting out of dodge. For the next eight years, we didn’t reconcile or speak to one another. But all of that changed when my phone lit up with her name last month.

I almost declined the call. After all, what exactly did we have to talk about? I wasn’t exactly in the mood to deal with whatever baggage she had, but a morbid curiosity got the best of me.

“What do you want?” I answered.

“Is that how you answer the phone these days?”

“For you it is.”  Years of pent-up bitterness poured out of me. “Lose my number. I have nothing to say to you.”

“Wait,” it sounded like she was choking up. “I’m sorry for everything Jordan. I was such a terrible mother. You deserved better.”

The silence that followed was not only awkward but deserved. How exactly was I supposed to respond to that? Yes, I deserved better treatment, and she could have been better herself, but now that I was older, I understood why she was the way she was.

After I had spent an uncomfortable amount of time listening to her cry, I spoke up.

“Listen, mom. I don’t want to talk about this right now. I’m busy.”

“When can we talk about it? Is there ever going to be a good time to talk?”

“Not really.” I admitted with a sigh. “Work keeps me pretty busy these days. I have my own life to live.”

“I understand.” She sniffed. “Listen kiddo, I don’t have much time left. Cancer is a bitch and it’s taking its toll on me physically. I need your help with downsizing. The house is so full these days. Can you please come by and help me move some things out of the house? I can’t reach the basement anymore.”

I hesitated. Why did she want my help?

“Couldn’t you hire some movers or something?”

“I could, but I want to talk to you. About everything. I’ll even pay you.”

I rolled my eyes at the proposition. “How much?”

“How does five hundred dollars sound?”

Five hundred dollars was five hundred dollars. That’s money that I couldn’t turn down. Especially with how dire my financial situation was proving to be despite all the hours I was putting in at my job.

“Okay…I’ll help.” I caved. “When do you need me to come over?”

“Great! Thank you so much! I appreciate the help.” I could hear the relief in her voice. “Come by whenever you have a day off. I don’t want you to overwork yourself.”

We exchanged goodbyes and then I hung up the phone.

A few days later, I was driving toward a house that I swore I’d never step foot in again.

When I pulled into the driveway, I knew immediately that something was off.

The grass on the lawn was well above knee height, and the weeds climbing the siding were nearly vines. Yellowed and frayed envelopes overflowed the mailbox. It looked like one more piece of mail would have made it explode.

It was odd that the property had been seemingly pushed to the wayside. If she had been able to call me, then surely she could have contacted a neighbor or someone else who could assist her with these things, right?

I couldn’t help but feel a little guilty. Had it been a mistake to keep her out of my life while her health deteriorated?

I grabbed as much of the mail as I could fit into my arms, and crossed the jungle that was the front lawn towards the front steps. The steps were an uneven, cracked mess, and I nearly busted my head when I tripped on the second to last stair. Thankfully, I was able to use the railing to catch my balance, but the mail scattered everywhere across the front porch area.

I rang the doorbell and began picking up the mail. Despite it taking me a considerable amount of time to gather the mail, nobody had answered the door. Weird. I rang the doorbell again. I waited a few minutes, but there was still no answer. My eyes wandered toward one of the windows and noticed that the curtains were drawn.

From what I remember, my mom had always been one to let sunlight in, especially when we would deep clean the house on Sundays. So, why were the curtains drawn in the middle of the day?

Thinking that maybe she had forgotten the time and dozed off, I set the mail down and called her phone. The persistent ringing echoed from the depths of the house. I listened to her phone ring over and over again, but all my calls went unanswered.

Growing more concerned, I pounded on the door and called out to her repeatedly.

Nothing.

Realizing I wasn’t getting anywhere, I ventured toward the side of the house. Unlike the front window, the view through the side windows weren’t blocked by curtains, but by clutter. From where I stood on the lawn, I could see piles of various items ranging from boxes and newspapers to decades-old furniture and garbage.

My heart broke at the sight.

“Jesus, mom. What happened to you?” I muttered, hopping over the rusted, chain-link fence into her backyard. I walked up the stairs to the patio and immediately got chills at what I saw.

The back door was cracked open a couple of inches wide.

I approached it, and was greeted by a horrendous smell that invaded my nostrils. I audibly gagged and pulled my shirt over my nose to shield it from the malodorous household. Gripping the door with one hand, I shoved the mountain of junk obstructing my path with the other. It took a number of attempts, but eventually, it all toppled onto the floor. The gap had widened enough for me to squeeze through.

I sidled my way through, my body pressing against more junk as I forced my way inside. The way my feet squelched beneath me made it feel like I was stepping through a field of rotted pumpkins. I had to hold my breath. Even with using my shirt as a make-shift mask, the smell was overwhelming. Years of accumulating mold and spoiled food had transformed my childhood home into a place more akin to a landfill than a home.

“Mom?”

My voice traveled through the house, but there was still no indication that anybody was home. How could she live like this? The more I wandered through the house, the more bewildered I became. It was hard enough to navigate where I was in the labyrinth of seemingly endless garbage, but the sights were even harder to stomach.

In the living room where my mom had on numerous occasions screamed at me for ruining her life sat pillars of miscellaneous magazines and newspapers that extended to the ceiling like Jenga towers. In addition to molded food and other debris, broken glass from no longer operable lamps were scattered across the floor. What made me most nauseous though wasn’t the narrow pathways from all the junk or even the couple pounds of hamburger meat infested with flies that was in the kitchen sink, it was the spiderwebs.

They were everywhere.

I hate spiders. Ever since I was a child, they’ve terrified me. One of my earliest memories was finding a spider on the bathroom floor and having to have my mom kill it with a newspaper. So, when I saw the webs go from tiny, membranous piles in corners, to being complete, thick tapestries draped across entire pieces of furniture, I nearly left right then and there. But I couldn’t leave my mom alone to fend for herself in this dump.

“Hey, mom? I’m here!”

My cracking voice was accompanied by the sound of something skittering on the ceiling. My attention drew upward, and I saw spiders crawling slowly amidst the cracks and exposed beams. Trembling, I moved out from my place in the kitchen to the stairway.

Ascending the stairs was not the same effortless task it had been growing up. In fact, it was incredibly difficult. The slippery plastic bags and the random cardboard boxes that adorned nearly every individual step made climbing the stairs feel like an obstacle course from Hell.

After minutes of cautiously choosing my steps wisely, I made it to the top of the stairs.

To the left of me was the door to my mom’s room. It was exactly how I remembered it, seemingly untouched by time or filth. I grabbed the doorknob, and turned it slowly. I pushed the door open, its hinges creaking as it revealed a sight I wasn’t expecting.

The room was clean.

It wasn’t spotless, but it was cleaner than the previous areas of the house I had been in. But that wasn’t what grabbed my attention. On the other side of the room, sitting in a recliner, was my mom. Buried beneath layers of dust was her figure sitting idly in a reclining chair by the window.

“Mom? What’s going on?”

I crossed the room toward her. The closer I got, the more frail she became. When I nudged her shoulder, I t...

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