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Special



Estimated reading time — 5 minutes

I awake, as always, to the click and whir of a thousand hidden cameras, and the rising glow of the ambient lights. Over the next 30 minutes, the curtains on my bedroom will slowly part, gliding on mechanized tracks, and the yellow sunlight of dawn will stream into the wide circular room. Like all mornings, I entertain for the briefest moments the thought of hurling myself at the windows and plunging the half mile to the ground. I hold on to the little fantasy of wind and sky and falling for as long as it will remain, dreaming of those magnificent moments of freedom and choice.

Even if I were not a coward, there are a thousand unseen barriers and safe guards. I can not see them, but several parents are doubtlessly just outside the door, and would be between me and the window before I could leave the bed. I allow the dream of freedom to evaporate for another morning.

The woman next to me, I can not recall her name, shifts and rolls to embrace me. I wrap my arms around her and return the affection, but there is no love in it. She is young and soft, skin still stretched taut over her athletic and perfect frame. I know that in my youth I would have been buzzing with anticipation and lust simply seeing her, but now I can only take solace in the momentary ghost of affection and emotion. Her skin is warm, and her fine and downy body hair is smoother than the silk of the sheets. I draw an abstract of pleasure from this closeness, feeling something akin to happiness when our bellies synchronize in breathing, pressed close as they rise and fall in an alternating rhythm. Her breath is hot and damp on my chin and neck. It only takes me a few moments to tire of her, and I swung my legs to the edge of the bed.

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The black marble of the walls and floor of my bedroom are heated to my exact preference, so I walk, naked, into the large bathroom. Like every morning, I try not to focus on the near-silent buzzing of small servos and motors as each of the cameras pivots to keep me in view at all time. They must be completely autonomous, but it amuses me to think of a thousand uniformed parents tediously tracking my every move, 16 hours a day. They would be madder than I by now.

The routine begins; not identical every morning, but a tiny repertoire of ordered tasks combined in a slightly different order than the day before. Shave. Shower. Preen. Pose. Smile. Evacuate. Masturbate.

By altering my routines with feckless reorganization, it gives the impression of variance where there is none. The parents tell me that this is just one of the reasons my channel is still so popular, despite being functionally identical to my father’s and his father’s before us. I have a flair for fakery, for lying. It makes them proud. It makes me hollow.

I can choose what want to do for the rest of the day, from an approved list; another beautiful facade of freedom. I can hold court over a hundred gladiators and command them to break each other apart. I can paint on a canvas a hundred feet tall. I can inhale hallucinogens and stumble through the thousand-acre wildlife preserve on the outer decks of the Tower. I can copulate with my choice of limitless young women, or men. I can beat a child until his skull caves in. It is of course, a limited form of choice. I cannot go back to bed and weep. I can never say “Stop”. I cannot leave the Tower.

I am at my most honest, I believe, in the 8 hours of broadcast solitude each night, locked in the blacked out bedroom of silk and marble with whatever woman has caught my fancy. These are the times that I can admit, in my solitude and self reflection, that I would never be able to exist outside the Tower. I know nothing about the outside, and the parents and my concubines can only tell me of the millions of people that love me. I don’t know how a real person lives. I only know my world.

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I spend the day in the museum, aimlessly wandering through ancient paintings and statues before practicing horseback riding on one of the open air decks. I do this partially because I told the parents I would be in the harem all day, and it amuses me to think of them struggling to adapt the programming, and the wasted resources.

When I am done for the day, I retire to a balcony with a drink. The jagged spires of the horizon look like teeth as they swallow the sun, and I can feel the cold, familiar knot in my guts, that unease and dread at the crawling passage of time.

I’ve been as careful as I could not to conceive, but that can never last. I have no illusions about this. Sooner or later, I will have a son. Doubtless the parents are already weaning me off the contraceptives in my meals. I grow ill at the thought, and stand to complete my nightly ritual.

I descend the elevator through the vast interior space of the Tower, towards the lower levels. The parents love this portion of my night, such a wonder flair for the dramatic, they say. I do it because it keeps me sane.

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The guards below are like the parents, only their uniforms are different. They smile at me with genuine love and affection and allow me to pass the viewing chamber.

My father, a man I never met, is laying on a soiled mattress bed, in a sterile metal chamber.

They only love you for so long.

He stirs slightly, but I know he cannot see me; his eyes are now lidless, each orb a milky ball of scar tissue. His mouth is lipless and his dry and bleeding gums encase only a few shattered teeth. His ears are gone, the skin pulled tight around them and sewn shut with black cord.

His limbs each terminated in a raw stump when I first was allowed to see him, now they are completely gone. I’ve watched them break, bend and vanish in slow bites over the years, but they are simply scars around his gaunt torso now. There are deep, fresh gouges in his gut. Every time I think he simply cannot endure more, he astounds me by continuing to live.

When my time on the channel ends each night, his begins. The Tower goes deep underground, and that is my father’s world, a nightmare mirror of my own. For the last few months they have taken to opening him up to take away ragged chips of his organs. Since they took his tongue and lips, he has no shame about gibbering and wailing wordlessly.

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I have no love for this man, no pity for this thing. I can barely feel pity for myself.

But he is my mirror, my portrait of the future. The people that love me now will grow weary, and will fall in love with my inevitable son. Later, these same people will delight in watching my slow and surgical dismantlement, for eight hours every night.

The mechanical arm on the ceiling descends, lopping a hook through the harness around my father’s broken body, and carries him into the next room to prep him for the show. He begins to shriek, a ululating cry of helpless terror, and thrashes in the machine’s embrace, but it cradles him almost gently as it takes him from my view, and into someone else’s.

I look away. Return to my room. Lie motionless and empty in the dark.

The channel changes.


CREDIT: Josef K. / Cameron Suey

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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.

90 thoughts on “Special”

  1. It’s a jacked up version of “The Truman Show”. Good quick read, but needed way more. Not enough depth. Trust your instincts, and let your obvious creativity flow man. So many viable options with this piece. You could have chosen many different avenues, and “ran” with it.

  2. Wow. I really want this to be a full length novel! It’s an incredibly fascinating concept that could have soooo much depth. Really well written, mate. Definitely one of my favorites.

  3. Tezmara
    January 6, 2009
    I think that it was very well written
    Though maybe not as a creepypasta.
    It works well as a short story, it’s very emotional and it’s creates pity for that line of protagonists

    I agree with Tezmara. X)

    I liked reading this story, but not as a CreepyPasta. Tezmara pretty much summed up what I would have said, so I won’t re-explain.

    I rate this story 6/10, but not as a CreepyPasta. I rate this as a nice little short story. X)

  4. FasterpussyTkat

    This is by far my favorite pasta. So well written, I can just imagine how fucking horrific this would be to have to live like that, knowing what your end will be by actually seeing it in your own father!

  5. My god. This was so disturbing, awesome, and painful. I can’t imaging doing anything but sobbing uncontrollably in fear and pain over what would happen to me.

  6. Excellent, but as usual with Josef K.’s stories the ending leaves me hungering for more, for a book, for more plot.

  7. @ Rock Solid.
    Most likely because he doesn’t want to reproduce. When he has a son, he will become a father. And therefor, be in the same state as his father, being mutilated for the “parents” amusement for 8 hours each night.

  8. Of course he knows what it is and is forbidden from leaving. Yet if he wants to end his life, why doesn’t he at least make an attempt to escape or some other out of place action? Would they only restrain or sedate him if he tried?

    What awaits him sounds like a perfect metaphor for what the media often does to celebrities: build them up only to tear them down.

  9. Once again, Josef K, you have written a fantastic story. It needs no more added to it, and those who say it does are ignorant fools who could not tell a good story if it ripped their eyes out of their sockets, forced them up their rear, and shot them in the stomach twice with a shotgun.

    Fear the Darkness

    -Nex

  10. Harold,Oakdale Gravedigger

    I imagined a good ending to this:

    He tries to get away,and get away with relative ease.
    Then he find companions,friends and even a true love.
    Then the last part will be like a director saying:

    “Ok,guys,we recorded enough,nice season finale,time to bring him back in and substitute the old man”

    Sure,better writen,but would be so awesome

  11. The best pasta I’ve come across so far, almost the only one that left me with some emotion. I can hardly even call it pasta, it’s more of a parable. Imaginative, epic, and philosophical too. In my opinion it carries an ethical message: someone who has power, wealth, very high status, etc., should always be ready to face the gruesome consequences of it, the responsibility or just, well… bad luck. Even if he doesn’t do anything wrong, he has to live with this awareness of the danger such great power brings. It’s like this power is something of a sin by default, that’s why the posessor of it by default deserves punishment. If you can smash a child’s head at will, you should be prepared to have your head smashed as well.
    It made me think of all the rulers executed during revolutions, or the dictators who didn’t die a peaceful death either.

  12. Title went really really well with the story.
    Josef K. writes some of the most amazing stories I have read thus far. Descriptive, creative, and bright.

    The ending was left dangling in my opinion. It was like the story was crying to be a bit longer, to have a more solid closing. Otherwise, it was insanely good -nom nom nom-

  13. Most of you guys who are comparing this to the Truman Show are missing a key difference between the two: Truman didn’t know his life was being filmed (at first) and the character in this story is completely aware of it.

  14. Wow.
    Amazing,really…one of the best pasta’s I’ve read.
    Not so much creepy or scary,but it really makes you think…and you can almost sympathize with the characters.
    Well written and emotionally enthralling are the best ways I can describe it.

  15. holy god…
    That is some piece of literature right there. That’s probably one of the best stories I’ve ever read. It also depicts some of my greatest fears. I don’t know how else to describe it.

    simply put – fucking amazing

  16. Now, this one is very cool pasta.
    Long as hell, and not exactly scary, but a bit creepy. And metaphoric.

    Think of it as the “star cycle”. Society — the parents — chose an idol. It’s spoiled and cared for a limited amount of time, when a new idol is born. The older one is rejected and rpudiated by society and finally forgotten, left to live on his own, fated to sure disgrace…

    Then again, I’m reading too much into it. Could spawn some nice story, that’s true.

    Creepy Moles last blog post..Longos Dias

  17. This is actually really well done. Creepy in the sense that he’s just accepted his fate. He’s not even going to try and escape…

  18. First of all, ewewewewewewewewewewewEW.
    Secondly, holy cow, that was amazing! I think the hairs in the back of my neck actually stood up.

  19. Delicious. I prefer it without any sort of plot, having him escape would ruin the total nightmare of being watched all your life, then having a slow, painful, death.

  20. You numbnuts. Truman show didn’t invent reality TV or celebrity culture. The only similarity here is having you life filmed 24 hours a day. Otgerwise it’s as different as can be. Also I doubt this is supposed to he realistic, it’s just a parable or fable about the extreme of cult of celebrity. Kee-rist…

  21. Meh. Creepypasta should be CREEPY, dammit! Or, it should at least be lulzy enough in it’s attempts at being creepy that you can lol at it.

    FAIL. Decent story, but it makes a pretty mediocre creepypasta.

  22. Loved it. Would have liked more; it seems more like an introduction to a novel or short story, but good all the same.

  23. I love love love love this one, it was gorgeous. It’s one of the ones I’ll be thinking about for a long time after reading it.

  24. This was actually terrifying. Sad, and terrifying. Plays off one of my deep-seated fears: being contained.

    Another amazing one from Josef K.

  25. I hardcore agree with lolol. I want a book about this dystopian future. It sounds like it could be pretty good.

  26. I loved The Truman Show the first time I saw it. I even loved reading drafts of the script.

    This rings hollow.

  27. I’m not sure I see why it’s so important to the “parents” to make sure only people from the same bloodline are put in The Truman Horror Picture Show and then tortured to death. This seems unnecessarily complicated. If you’re allowed to have random childrens’ heads bashed in, shouldn’t you be able to find one to live in perfect luxury for thirty years?

  28. @The Person Formerly Known as ‘Noneya’

    didnt jagger also say “but if you try, sometimes you get what you need.”

  29. But who was Truman o:

    For serious, this blatantly reminds me of the Truman Show. Albeit a little twisted at the very end…

    Makes you realize that maybe being a famous superstar isn’t all what it’s cracked up to be =X

  30. I think that it was very well written
    Though maybe not as a creepypasta.
    It works well as a short story, it’s very emotional and it’s creates pity for that line of protagonists

  31. Part of me misses the days of actually creepypasta, which tends to be shorter than this. This is a great piece, though.

  32. I the whole thing

    There doesn’t really need to be more story. The whole point is that his “paradise” is a hell/prison, especially seeing what is going to happen to him eventually.

  33. Loved this when I read it at Josef K’s site. It is a total mindfuck to think of being a prisoner like that.

    And @ rock solid – It is because he has been there for so long, and has become so numb to absolutely everything. He knows he is being watched as some sort of entertainment, and the passion for anything he would want has completely faded over time.

    He has been like this since birth, and I would imagine he is probably in his 20’s or 30’s. He has been given everything imaginable except freedom, and has just lost interest in anything and everything – including entertaining the parents and anyone else watching. All he has left is the knowledge that he will once day end up like his father: being tortured for others’ amusement.

    It is a rather bleak outlook, and I agree (with lolol) that it is not quite creepy, but is very depressing, and a little bit unnerving.

  34. The Person Formerly Known as 'Noneya'

    Warning: the following segment is almost entirley composed of cusses.

    What the fuck what the fuck what the what the fucking what what the fuck the fucking fuck fuck whating fuck the what!?!

    I want this to be an actuall story. I want SOMETHING to happen that not only explains the worlds facination of the main character, but also delves into some sort of plot that involves mass goverment/Television conspiracies and possible alien/angel/malevolent spirit invasion. I want the main character to escape and team up with a band of rebels who either are activley trying to stop the TV conspiracy or maybe get sucked into it because of the main character’s involvement.

    But in the words of Mick Jagger, I believe, “You cant always get what you waaant. . .”

  35. Why does he resort to masterbation when theres a hot young bod waiting on his bed who’s obviously ready to take whatever he’s got equiped?

    1. My theory would be that as it was said in the story, when he has a son he would take his fathers place. And knowing what awaits him after the crowd gets bored of him, I would probably do the same thing.

      1. No, he is male. There are male contraceptives, and he said “Like my father, and his father before him”

      2. If the story was about a girl, then she wouldn’t be concerned about having a son when she’s having sex with girls… You missed that obviously.

  36. This isn’t really all that creepy as much as it is emotional. The pity you feel for the father, the jealously over the main character having whatever he desires etc. It would make an excellent Intro. to a story about the protagonist somehow breaking free and making the “parents” suffer for the horrors they do/did to his ancestors somehow. But as it is right now, it seems unfinished, incomplete, thought it does leave me hungry for more.
    By the way, have you ever seen “The Truman Show”?

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