Advertisement
Please wait...

One Hour



Estimated reading time — 4 minutes

Today was perfectly normal to begin with, nothing out of the ordinary at all. The same old droning of daytime television and cars, the occasional bird just loud enough in the backyard to make itself heard over the top of the sounds that surround most any town based home. However, as the day progressed a steady silence has fallen. But it’s not a normal silence. Not by any stretch of the imagination. If it weren’t for the now overwhelmingly loud taps of my keyboard I’d think I was literally deaf.

It started around noon today, when the cars began to sound muffled as they went past. At first I passed it off as just being quieter engines- I’m certainly not a genius when it comes to cars so I couldn’t tell you a thing about them except colour. Shrugging this off I’d carried on watching the television until my usual programmes were done, at which point I turned it off as usual.

Nothing.

All sound. Gone. It was as if when I hit the power button on my remote I’d hit mute on the entire world. No wind, no birds, no people, no cars, nothing. I can’t even hear the hum of my fridge any more, or even that ringing that everyone gets when locked in the normal silence that comes with a night. I know though, that it wasn’t the television at all, though it may as well have been. You see, through my programmes things had gradually stopped. First the cars, then the wind, followed by the birds chirping less and less until all birdsong came to a halt, then the people in the distance, and my electronics, until finally the TV screen was black too refusing to allow itself to be turned back on.

I’ve never heard a silence like this before. I think what made it worse was that it wasn’t just a lack of sound, but a lack of movement, as if the entire world had been put on pause. Finding the silence too much you see, I’d wanted to get towards the sound again, and I was in need of a few groceries at any rate so I’d grabbed my wallet and my coat and left. By the time I’d reached the end of my street though, something stopped me. As if there was an invisible barrier of unbreakable cotton walling. I just couldn’t go any further. I wanted to, but I couldn’t get my feet to move any further, and so I stopped, listening for anything, anything at all, just a single sign that I wasn’t alone in this world.

It was to no avail though. Even the other houses of my street were silent. Out of curiosity and desperation by now I’d begun to pause at each gate as I made my way back towards my house in defeat, looking through windows to see movement, or to see people, but there was nothing, as if all houses had been abandoned.

In that single moment though, I thought that both my prayers and my nightmares had come true when I turned only to be greeted with the chest of a stranger.

“Ah, I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you coming” I’d said in a quick, panicked voice, stepping back to gain distance between us. It was then that it occurred to me that he was a little too tall, even by stretched standards. I myself stand at 6 and a half feet tall, so for my head to only reach midway up his chest, you can imagine the height I speak of.

Advertisements

He didn’t talk though. Not even an audible breath. He just stood there, staring down at me. At first glance aside from his height there was nothing odd about this man. Nothing odd at all, but when you’re locked in silence, staring at a stranger, you tend to notice just the smallest of things, like the way his eyes didn’t seem to hold that spark of life that a living being’s did, or how his hair almost seemed to be made of tiny threads of silk rather than actually being hair, or how his suit was covered in little patches of dirt and dried stains of a darker shade than the near-black of the cotton.
I could swear to you here and now that I’d been looking at this man for hours in our silence and believe it myself, but that wouldn’t be possible. You see, at that moment as I’d noticed the texture of his skin seemed more like a soft leather than real skin he’d stepped aside, not even casting another glance to me, walking off down the street, boot-clad feet leaving not even the faintest of sounds in their wake. I stared after him until he’d left the corner of my street.

Advertisements

I could have screamed. Oh how I wanted to scream. Something about that man had left me with a tangled lump in my throat, left me trembling, and oh so alone. It wasn’t until he’d gone that I realized just how terrified I’d been. I’ve never been so scared in my life, and I pray that I never will be again.

I’m typing this now to get out a message. I’m hoping that somehow you can believe me.

Advertisements

If you ever find yourself in the same silence as I described to you, don’t move. Sit there. Stay where you are. Don’t even blink if you can help it. I don’t know what that man did to me, but I can feel it now, something pulling at my mind, this.. this horrible.. tug. As if my mind is about to be swallowed whole by the sounds as they’re coming back now. I hear my clock ticking again. Just an hour. The same as when I first glanced it. Just an hour.
I hear them. The breeze against the sycamore in my backyard, the birds in the distance, whispers of engines from miles away. One by one they’re coming back. They’re so loud… So loud..

I want the silence.

Credit To – Raven F

Please wait...

Copyright Statement: Unless explicitly stated, all stories published on Creepypasta.com are the property of (and under copyright to) their respective authors, and may not be narrated or performed under any circumstance.

11 thoughts on “One Hour”

  1. i was kind of confused in the beginning… but i think i understand now…i dunno what to think of this.. i mean i loved this pasta but its just kinda confusing…

  2. I actually enjoyed this. Possibly because it reminds me of how it would feel if you went deaf. How terrifying it would be, especially for someone like me, someone who focuses on sound and not sight. Once, I had become very ill, while walking I suddenly went blind, my eyes were wide open, I could feel that, and my lights were on but everything was black. I became dizzy and terrified, I fell over the back of the couch and passed out. I woke up vomiting and then I was able to see. It was one of the scariest thing I’ve ever dealt with, I think losing my hearing would be way worse.

    I think this is why it hit me so hard. I can relate in a way to that strange in between feeling. How lost one feels with one of their senses gone, even if just for a little while. I enjoyed this thoroughly, including the ending.

    Very good work.

  3. This pasta’s premise was singular: the world completely paused and soundless, the main character left to an uncertain fate with an inhuman thing. The possibilities are endless; unfortunately, IMO this pasta failed to elaborate any of its aspects.

    First, the setting. I think the key with these phenomena-pastas is establishing how strange (or uncannily unchanged) things are. The piece needs to capture the extraordinary circumstances in which the characters are caught up in, and in doing so set an elaborate, unique stage for the plot. The authors, in short, need to set up the rules.

    The narrative IMO failed to elaborate much on the silence and pause. The plot seemed wan to notice it, not sparing much in the way of descriptions or little observations implying a petrified (or disappearing) world. Did things hang in mid-air? Failing that, what other things disappeared? There was a lot of potential for ominous weirdness that was largely unplumbed; because of this, the setting seemed more like a stunt than anything deeply realized.

    However, I liked that the author chose to gradually wind things down rather than switching them off abruptly; this afforded some brief scenes of uncanny.

    The protagonist seemed awfully nonchalant about everything. IMO part of the worldbuilding is the character’s reactions to the sudden changes; the piece shied away from describing the emotions, the protagonist seemed to suffer only a mild listlessness. She also lacked personality, and thus was less sympathetic when the monster caught up with her.

    As with the setting, the monster was underdeveloped. I enjoyed the descriptions, not so subtly hinting at its inhuman nature; if anything, the piece could have gone all-out and made him a plausible threat. He could have been the eye of the storm, stalking her noiselessly through ‘busy’ streets, setting up a siege with a silent adversary. Instead, the piece seemed merely content to show him, letting him walk by with only an afterthought.

    Finally, I felt a conspicuous lack of conflict. Just when things picked up with the monster encounter and an invisible wall, the pasta ended abruptly. The narrative, having propped things up, didn’t go through with its conflict. The protagonist didn’t to encounter any real threats, and the last minute mind-sucking seemed tacked on. IMO, the narrative was content to give only a very brief stroll in a potentially very interesting world.

    Overall, good premise marred by lack of elaboration and development. 5.9/10

  4. Ahhhh, such potential. Alas, though the ending truly sucked. I was really getting into it and then, YUCK!!! Oh well.

Leave a Reply to TimberWolf Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top