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A Memory



Estimated reading time — 3 minutes

When thinking back to my earliest memories, nothing is concrete. A string of hazy images come to mind like random snapshots out of time, each one associated with certain feelings and emotions. They are imbued with a mystical dreamlike quality, a gift born of childhood naivety. The magic of every Christmas when Santa was still real, for example, is an experience of pure joy that is lost with maturity.

Many of these snapshots are impossible to place in any sort of context. They’re just…there, sunken in the crevices of the brain without rhyme or reason: playing with my dad’s beard in a wood-paneled room, him smiling down at me – comforting. Or discovering a long row of marching ants in someone’s wooded backyard, all by myself – exciting. Some of them don’t even seem real in hindsight. Did I actually fall from that tree by the lake, only to land on my feet without a scratch? Was it really a dream?

I don’t think so. Sure, I have memories of distant dreams, but there is a clear distinction between the dreams and reality of my past. I don’t know how I can tell, I just can. And for this reason one memory has always troubled me. The experience was so surreal, and yet certain details stand out with marked clarity.

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I’m not exactly sure when it happened. I couldn’t have been older than five or six. My brother and I were sleeping in our bunk bed. Because he was older, he got the top bunk. I had just woken up, but it was still nighttime. Something felt different. I remember seeing and smelling the rain, but not hearing any. The window was open and it was very cold in the room. Why was the window open? The curtains were gently flapping but there was no breeze. The quiet was so intense it buzzed through my ears. I’d been lying on my side, with one arm dangling off the edge of the bed. Gradually I became aware that it was warmer near the floor. I felt some kind of heated breeze gently strike my hand, coming and going in short bursts. Finally I recognized it as someone’s breathing.

Then the woman slid out from under my bed. The nightlight showed that she had long blondish hair and wore a white nightgown, and in the dimness I thought it was my mother. I wasn’t at all scared. It’s funny how a child’s mind works. [i]What’s mommy doing under the bed? Must be getting something, or checking for monsters.[/i] I was too tired to say anything and remained motionless, watching. The woman was on her back, but her face stayed in the shadows. She rolled over and crawled on all fours to the far end of the bed, then glided up the ladder to the top bunk. Her every movement was silky smooth and completely silent. She reminded me of a white ribbon dancing in the wind. I closed my eyes and fell back to sleep.

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I also remember my brother telling me about a weird dream the next morning. He’d dreamt of a woman who lived “under the floor” and came out at night to play in the rain. When her clothes got soaked, she went back inside and would whisper things to anyone who was sleeping. It became a recurring dream for him until our family moved out of that house.

Strange, what the brain chooses to remember.

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Credit: Alapanamo

This story was submitted to Creepypasta.com by a fellow reader. To submit your own creepypasta tale for consideration and publication to this site, visit our submissions page today.

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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.

109 thoughts on “A Memory”

  1. -_Sarah_Smiles_-

    This was interesting to read, and thrilling, too. “Living under the floor” was better than saying “Living under the bed.” Good choice of words, alapanamo!

  2. Nice writing but was a bad story.the format was good but you could of added like the woman was a paranormal creature or the woman trys to take the kid

  3. serenawitchwriter

    this kind of reminds me of an old memory I have. I can’t remember how old I was, probably on the older side of five or six, but I had gotten up to go to the bathroom when I saw a woman in the hall. she wore a long white dress and had long black hair and she was so pale, even her hair, it was like she was made out of smoke. except for her eyes. her eyes were glowing red like lights. there was no pupil or white of her eyes, they were just red… I don’t remember the rest of that night but my mom soon after cleansed the house of spirits. (we’re wiccan.) years later in an unrelated conversation my friend described what I saw as a jin, a spirit of his religion.

  4. I freaked a little when she crawled on all fours and went up the ladder. Jeez, and being BREATHED on from underneath the bed? Gah.

  5. I wish this was a book or a film, I want there to be more :(
    Really good, it’s creepy which is right for this website, I think the creepiest thing for me was the way she moved, she crawled on all fours, she glides up the ladder, that is such a creepy thing to imagine. well written

  6. Delicious pasta. It doesn’t try to be creepy so in the end that’s what kinda makes it creepy, if that makes sense. When the writer is talking about the air being warm and realizing it was someone breathing under his bed, I got chills.

  7. your writing is terrible. you couldn’t even pretend to know what you were talking about. it made absolutely no sense at all it was undeveloped and an unpleasant read overall.

  8. Exceptional. Extremely creepy because it leaves with no idea of what this woman was doing, and it strayed from the usual creepypastas.

  9. It was indeed very eerie… but in a way I didn’t find that it totally freaked-me-out-and-now-im-gonna-be-scared-of-strange-women-under-my-bed. Perhaps because neither of the children seemed frightened… she was just dancing and whispering stories…

    Very good pasta.

  10. Liked this quite a bit, but the “Strange, what the mind chooses to remember” wasn’t reeaally related to the story. Yes, I know it was, in the obvious part, but hopefully you know what I mean.

  11. When I read the bit about his arm dangling off the bed, and the person underneath, that creeped me out, cause I am on my bed, reading this, and my arm was danging off the bed….

  12. What is all this crap about the story “not being scary”??
    When I was little I shared a bunk bet with my brother. I’m 16 and this story still makes me want to leave the lights on when I go to bed…
    …Or and Zoopa: She doesn’t fuck you, she just whispers sweet nothings into your ear while you sleep! Duh! Did you not read the story?? Geeze!

  13. I really like this. I agree that the closing line is kind of an anticlimax, and I think you could bring a little more punch to the fact that your brother remembers the same dream, but I love the surreal sense of silence. The image of the curtains flapping without breeze, and the rain falling without sound, sets our mind up perfectly to imagine the woman rolling silently across the floor. It’s not a complete story, it’s just a very, very potent image and that’s great.

    I would lose the “mommy” line, I think it’s too cute and breaks the tension.

  14. Great! Now how am I supposed to go to sleep knowing that something could possibly be lurking beneath my bed?? DX

  15. It wasn’t really scary…
    Actually, it was relaxed and almost comforting.
    It was still written perfect.
    10/10

  16. Hey does anyone remember that one show called Candle Cove? It was so creepy and funny! That one episode with the screaming girl was one of my favorites.

  17. I like how you used childhood innocence to twist this creepy pasta into something more than just surreal. I think everyone\’s had that fear of something living under there bed at one point in their lives. Nicely written. The ribbon bit was a chilling touch. I had to stop reading and re-collect my thoughts. :)

  18. damn… i read it once & thought “that’s it?” but as i read it a second time it sent like 30 chills down my back cause tht is a fear in most if not all people’s minds weather they admit it or not. very well done.

  19. If it’s true that our species is alone in the universe, then I’d have to say the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little

    Sent from my iPad 4G

  20. I like it when the paranormal seem to be an innocent and non-dangerous being. It makes the stories kind of cute yet they make you think.

  21. Wow, really beautifully written. Wasn’t really scary, but creeped me out as soon as I read that the ghost chick crawled out of the bed. That right there made me think of the movie The Grudge, but the fact that she really didn’t do anything to the kids made the pasta a bit bland.
    9/10

  22. Holy fucking shit, no WHO WAS X yet!? Dear alapanamo, you have just achieved something thought to be impossible.

    Quite good creepypasta. Nice and untraditional. It was a wonderful surprise not having to roll my eyes at some stupid punchline like “AND SHE’S COMING TO GET YOU NOW BECAUSE YOU READ THIS” or something like that.

    10/10 for originality!

  23. bob the body builder

    it was a mediocre story at best. ‘i remember my brother telling me about having wet dreams of getting jiggy everynight with the woman who lived under the floor, who by the way just came back frm the supernatural wet t-shirt contest’, i just made the story 30x more entertaining.

    @bloody
    dude if you can type you can call 911, it’d be 27th street, and if its a cat then why be afraid? just stuff it in a microwave

  24. Not creepy for me, but rather… soothing, I guess. I’ve never been afraid of the darkness and I love the rain. This story reminded me of my own memories of being a kid in a small house just off the highway and loving the sound of rain on the roof and cars driving through it at night.

    So, uh, anyway, not creepy but very well-written. I enjoyed it.

  25. Very nice, somewhat similar in theme and subject matter to “That Night in the Mirror” though much better executed.

    I find the writing is the strongest aspect as it perfectly manages to capture the whimsical eeriness those half remembered events of childhood. It has an almost dreamlike tone to it and that eerie calm that permeates those rainy summer nights is almost palpable.

    Excellent execution, you other writers should take some notes here.

  26. I wouldn’t call this one creepy so much as haunting, beautifully written and unique, I demand more from this writer.

  27. Bricks. Were. Shat.

    This one is creepier than most of the recent pastas because it doesn’t TRY to be creepy. All these kids complaining it’s not horrific/shocking enough obviously missed the point.

  28. I agree with eidolon. I also think it would have been a more effective story if it had begun with the 4th paragraph. The rest was just unneccesary information.

  29. I ended up feeling a tad disappointed by this pasta, though that may be only because it reminded me of a childhood memory of my own. Except instead of a lady coming out from under the bed it was a duck sitting in a chair. So my disappointment is really more my fault than anyone else’s.

    well written, fresh, interesting… delicious pasta!

  30. Wow! This one sends shivers down my spine. I don’t know why, exactly, but there’s something creepy about the woman (or rather, something that looks like a woman) crawling out from under the bed. 9/10.

  31. Awesome writing.
    It creeped me out just because the thought of something silently gliding around the room while I sleep terrifies me.
    And Mair, now I’m remembering things like that, and having a scarefest. Sweeet.
    I remember being younger and hearing noises around the room, assuming it was my dog.

  32. I really liked this story.

    It gave me a creepy vibe because of the real affect it had on me. It is a story that could really happen today in society, and just the sheer real-ness of it gave me chills.

    Very good and beautifully written. 9/10

  33. Nothing to do with the story – I miss when this site had pretty much daily updates. Now I can sometimes check it every day for weeks with nothing new. :c

  34. This pasta seems…”undercooked.” There’s nothing creepy about it and, even though the writing itself is good, it is kind of boring.

  35. I really liked this, I found it genuinely creepy.
    Less “Herp derp and then john was a demon” and more preying on the human psyche.

  36. Wasn’t really creepy at all but definitely was a good read. To me, the first three paragraphs are gold. A perfect setup. However, the last three were a let down. I was expecting a huge jolt and then it turned out to be a fizzle. Grade A writing and pacing though. 4/5 I would like to see more.

  37. This was beautifully written. I can see some people hating on it for not “going anywhere” or culminating in anything horrific, but that’s exactly what makes this believable. It feels like someone telling a reasonable personal story of something strange, which used to be the purpose of the best pastas.

  38. Genericboardname

    Like others mentioned, I like the writing and the plot but there’s something about this pasta that just makes it feel sort of…bland. I can’t really put my finger on it though. Nice try anyway.

  39. i agree with nev. this is creepy, an ending that describes what the thing looks like and how it went around killing everybody is disgusting at best. just because nobody dies doesn’t make it less creepy. kinda reminds me of that story where the guy gets stuck in a tomb/cellar for a night and wakes up with bloody hand prints on his face, but that one was more sweet.

  40. I dunnno what exactly it was about this pasta but it chilled me right through. Not incredibly creepy in itself but just the thought of it scares me. It makes me think of the fractured memories I have of my childhood. Things like waking up and feeling something on my bed and assuming it was just mommy or my little brother laying down with me….

  41. I loved the way it started out, as a vague childhood memory that couldn’t possibly be real… or could it? but I would have preferred it to go in a direction that was a bit more ambiguous, and a bit less self-contained. This is somewhat creepy, but it’s totally harmless as it’s safely sequestered in the past, with no repercussions to the current day. There’s no real sense of danger once the woman actually emerges, making her introduction somewhat anticlimactic.

    Secondly, as well written as it is, you do lose some willing suspension of disbelief due to how casually the speaker treats the incident, and especially his or her brother’s independent verification of it, both at the present and, we assume, at the time it happened during his or her childhood. “Strange what the brain chooses to remember” would be an ending better suited for a story concerning a vivid memory of losing a sock one day, or hearing a squirrel fart, not witnessing some ghost-woman emerge from under the bed and move in an otherworldly way towards your sleeping brother. I would have preferred it to end something like “I always thought of it as a wonderfully spooky example of the vividness of childhood imagination, until my brother confessed to me that as a child he used to have night terrors of a woman in white who lived under the floor, who would wrap herself around him and whisper in his ear that…”

  42. Sir Nigel Niggelton the third

    umm…serial rapist of imaginary rain? im confused, no more please. im throwin this pasta in the trash

  43. I love the lack of stereotypes with this pasta. It’s definitely one that you have to think and feel out the fear of it. Small parts of it seemed choppy, like sentences could be combined to sound more artistic, but I adored a lot of the imagery.

  44. Definitely creepy. It leaves you wondering what this weird woman did in the night, and my mind came up with some odd stuff.

    I just can’t help but raise a brow at how long this could happen before anyone noticed…

  45. Damn, should have statyed there til after puberty… a blonde under your bed that comes out to play… Yeaya!

  46. I have to agree with nev. This pasta didn’t try to go overthetop creepy with the generic “Oh my god she looked so horrific!!” It just described an event that seems possible, but unexplainable at the same time. Also, fantastic writing.

    9/10

  47. I enjoyed this pasta, it was very well written, very descriptive, and its good to see a writer that understands that paranormal does not mean malevolence.

    The true heart of the story lies in almost casual nature of what we remember, and what we choose not to based on our percieved reality as we get older, and how we dismiss certain things as dreams that may have been real.

    I truly enjoyed this one, not perfect, but very close.

    9/10

  48. I loved it! It’s different than most of the pastas. Num Num in my Tum Tum.

    NOT FIRST!!!! BLAM can you deal with that?!??!?

  49. The brown stain on the wall

    No one died, was disfigured, or ate haunted pizza, so not that creepy. However, the writing was perfect.
    Writing- 10/10
    Creepiness- 3/10 (only because I thought it would end up scary.)
    Overall
    6/10

    Alapanamo, if you make a really scary pasta with writing like this, it would be awesome.

  50. Sounds like a rather beautiful kinda haunting, rather tranquil-sounding in nature. A blonde-haired woman who lived under the floor, and came out at night to play in the rain… When she got wet, she’d return back indoors to whisper things into the ears of sleeping people…

    It actually sounds like some sort of natural entity, like something from Pagan folklore. The White Lady, the Rain Dancer, She Who Whispers To The Sleepers…

  51. “[i]What’s mommy doing under the bed? Must be getting something, or checking for monsters.[/i] ”

    ^That ruined the whole story for me.

  52. Not creepy, I did like it, but I’m not certain it belongs here. It seemed more endearing to me, since she wasn’t threatening at all. Of course, I’d be scared at MY age, but only because I have a logical mind, not that of a child. It’s kind of like that movie Darkness Falls, with the tooth fairy, only not scary. XD;

  53. I really like this one. It wasn’t trying to force “scary” on you; It was legitimately ‘creepy’. Cobwebs on your arm creepy.
    I found at the end my first thought was “oh I don’t like that” because it had an emotional effect. That made me really appreciate it.

  54. The fact that the woman/creature/god knows what was not clearly evil was a nice touch.
    I wonder what she was doing “playing on the rain”.
    Maybe she was just…Having fun.

    Good pasta overall

  55. Mmmmmmmm….excellent pasta….The atmosphere of the story brought up strange memories from my childhood…that I thought were dreams…..10/10…..plz write more…..

  56. I AM THE ONE HIDING UNDER YOUR BED, TEETH GROUND SHARP AND EYES GLOWING RE-

    …No, wait, that doesn’t really work, does it? Whatever.

    I liked this pasta very much for the simple realistic-ness of it. I am tired at the moment so I don’t want to go into detail; But 10/10

  57. Really good read. I was sucked into the story immediately and I have to agree that the fact she wasn’t malevolent actually gave the pasta a new quality, and almost seems like a sequel could easily be written.

  58. Agreeing with everything Nev said.
    Also, beautifully written.
    I’m also glad she was blonde instead of having black hair. Too much of that.

  59. Sometimes a creepy story isn’t by what is written to be ‘dramaticly scary’ but by what is just presented. This wasn’t writen to be ‘creepy’ but a presentation of facts. He wasn’t scared by that woman under the bed, but in ways he should have been.
    The fear comes in later upon review of the details, the silence of the woman, the shadowing of her features, the way he moved… the unreal and frightening mixed together in a complete and utter silence.

  60. thats kinda creepy but not realy scary if this realy happened then thats weird O.O just because i can :)

  61. Creepy, and made creepier by the woman’s apparent lack of malice. Really. If she’d tried to hurt them this wouldn’t’ve been nearly as eerie. Often what you don’t know is spookier.

  62. Hey, this made it on the main site. Good job, OP.

    Liked it on the forums and liked it on here. 10/10

  63. at first, ididn’t think it was creepy enough but the more i thought about it, the more i was glad that it didn’t end with ‘and she turned around and had no face/eyes/a really wide smile/etc’ or ‘in the morning my brother was gone and i was the only one who remembered him.’ the woman doesn’t seem all that malevolent, but certainly no less creepy.

  64. such good writing.. but not very creepy at all. I mean, I loved the writing and the way it completely took me in – I especially love the line “The quiet was so intense it buzzed through my ears.” -. I give it 9/10, a measly 1 point off for weak creepiness

  65. such good writing.. but not very creepy at all. I mean, I loved the writing and the way it completely took me in – I especially love the line “The quiet was so intense it buzzed through my ears.” -. I give it 9/10, a measly 1 point off for weak creepiness

  66. Delta Snowmann

    Excellent pasta. The sheep creepiness of having someone or something crawl out from under your bed is usually your biggest fear from age 6-10.

    And the fact that she moving so silently and both children only think she’s a dream really shows how easily we can use positive excuses for a traumatic event(s).

    Great Pasta, would eat until I was raped my Tony The Tiger

    1. I agree. Well, I agree with all creepy pastas because I just love them. It’s like making your worst nightmares come alive and they become part of you and everyone who reads them!

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