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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Spades_Writes on 2025-01-26 21:16:48+00:00.

Our son disappeared from our farm when he had just turned 20. He was a great kid, the light of our lives. One night, something, I still don’t know what, woke me up. Compelled, I found myself peering out the bedroom window, only to see the silhouette of my son walking toward the cornfield on the east side of our property. I dashed downstairs, flashlight in hand, but by the time I got outside, he was gone. He never came back, and nobody ever found him.

My wife was truly never herself again after his disappearance. Night after night, I’d find her outside, staring at the swaying stalks of corn under the moonlight, calling out in her nightgown, “Carson! Come on son! Dinner is ready!” Her voice, filled with a mix of hope and despair, tore at my heart. We both lost part of ourselves that day he disappeared. She’d spend hours in his room, setting an extra plate at dinner, unable to accept he was gone. It was tough, she never really healed.

Seven years later, our already fragile world was shattered again when she was diagnosed with lung cancer, stage four, despite never having smoked a single cigarette in her life. Our farm’s earnings were meager, barely enough to get by, let alone cover the exorbitant costs of cancer treatment. I did whatever odd jobs I could, selling produce, offering labor, trying every natural remedy we could think of. But nothing was enough.

On our last night together, as she lay in our bed and I sat by her side, we talked under the glow of the moonlight shining through our open window. We reminisced about how we met and the love we shared, managing to laugh in between her strained coughs. Then, her voice hoarse and fragile, she asked me, “Can you promise me something before I go?”

I tried to brush her off, insisting she wasn’t going anywhere, but she cut me off, “My love, we both know it’s time.” A single tear rolled down her cheek. With all the strength I could muster, I held back my own tears.

“Our son, our baby boy, please find him. He’s still out there. I can feel it. Please, John, find our boy.” That night, as we held each other tightly, the dam holding back my grief finally broke.

The next morning, she was gone. I spread her ashes around our property, a place that once held our dreams and now just echoed with our sorrows. She had spoken of our son often, which had led to many heated, tearful arguments at the dinner table. We never understood why he had left that night, why he had vanished into the cornfield.

As memories haunted me, I stared out over the fields, whipped by the wind, recalling the endless days and years of searching. Abigail had always insisted I keep looking, but eventually, even those efforts dwindled to nothing. Frustration and loss had worn us both down, but now, alone, I was a shell of a man driven by a dying wife's last wish.

Determined, I packed food and supplies, not knowing how long I would be out there. The vast ocean of corn seemed endless and unknowable, we never even knew who owned the land. The local police had been no help, they didn't care much about an adult who seemingly walked away of his own accord. That didn't sit right with me. I was set on searching as thoroughly as I could for my wife's peace and maybe, just maybe, to find what remained of our son.

With my pack slung over my shoulders, I ventured out to the wall of corn. I paused at its edge, taking in the sight and the overwhelming sense of history that hung in the air. Pushing through the dense rows, I followed an old, rough path, one I had trodden many times before, yet never fully conquered by nature. I wasn't expecting to find anything, after all, why would anything turn up now after all these years?

Checking my compass, I kept track of my direction, determined not to become another victim lost to the vast fields. Hours passed with no sign of anything until, quite unexpectedly, a path, a wide, cement path that I had never noticed before, revealed itself between the rows. I had walked past it initially, lost in thought, but something about it made me stop and turn back. The wind whistled around me as I stood, frozen, staring down the smooth, inviting yet ominous path that lay ahead.

After spending countless hours in these fields, I had never encountered anything like this. I paused, contemplating the significance of this new path that stretched ominously into the distance. It was a smooth concrete surface, incongruously cutting through the cornfield, leading to unknown realms. As I ventured down the concrete path, it felt as if I had stepped into another world. The sky above contrasted sharply with the field, a vivid blue set against the endless golden rows of corn, each stalk gently swaying in a breeze that seemed to whisper secrets of the unknown. My mind churned with memories of my son, his subtle discontent growing like weeds among our conversations about the farm's struggles. Maybe he longed for something more, a life less tethered to the soil.

As I reflected on our last conversations, his vague statements about knowing how to fix 'this,' his discontent now as looming as the surrounding cornstalks, the path abruptly cut through my thoughts. There, at the edge, a rusted truck was half-buried in the earth, its brown body weathered and forgotten, a single headlight gazing vacantly skyward like a lost eye. It felt like a relic from another time, oddly out of place, whispering secrets of roads long abandoned.

I continued, each step echoing on the concrete, pulling me deeper into the labyrinth of my thoughts and the path before me. Oddities appeared with each turn, a traffic light swung from a wire above, its colors flickering wildly in the wind as if signaling caution at the unknown. I stopped, peering up, trying to trace its origin, but the dense corn formed a green wall, obscuring my view and deepening the mystery of this path.

The oddities kept getting weirder. There was just this pale blue door, standing all by itself in the field, its frame swaying a bit in the wind with nothing holding it up. It looked like it could be a gateway to someplace else, standing there like a sentinel over a threshold I wasn't sure I wanted to cross. "What the fuck?" I blurted out, feeling more unnerved by each bizarre thing leading me deeper into this strange place.

Compelled by a mixture of fear and determination, I pressed on. The possibility that my son, Carson, had traversed this same surreal landscape fueled my steps. The path twisted unexpectedly, turning sharply and revealing more displaced fragments of reality, a streetlight in the distance, children’s bicycles half-buried in the ground, their frames twisted and tires sunk into the earth as if swallowed by the very land they were discarded on. Nearby, a lone playground slide stood, isolated, with no children to laugh down its slick surface, a silent sentinel in the chaos.

It seemed as if a tornado had wreaked havoc here, scattering objects haphazardly like a child dumping toys out of a box. Yet, there was an unsettling undertone to the chaos. Among the debris, a dog's nose protruded from the ground, its fur fluttering in the breeze, a grim and bizarre sight. This scene appeared as if some monstrous force had playfully but darkly rearranged the landscape into a nightmarish display.

The path twisted in wild, impossible ways, taking me through a landscape that seemed to ignore all the usual rules of nature. With each step, I felt like I was moving deeper into a realm disconnected from any reality I knew. The sun had turned a deep crimson, bathing everything in a sinister, blood-red glow. Under this eerie light, I came across a human foot sticking out of the ground. Its nails were overgrown, and its skin was grimy and pale, like something dragged out of a grave.

Panic clawed at my sanity as I tried to backtrack, only to find that each turn looped me back to the grisly sight of the foot. My surroundings became a maze, my mind as disoriented as the path I trod. I circled, desperation mounting until the landscape itself seemed to react to my turmoil. The ground began to tremble, first a subtle vibration then a violent shaking that knocked me to my knees.

"THIS IS ALL A DREAM! WAKE UP, WAKE UP!" I screamed, my voice lost amid the cacophony of the earth's rage. As I questioned whether my cries were aloud or trapped in the confines of my mind, a vine-like appendage shot out from the newly formed chasm. It wrapped around my leg with an unyielding grip, pulling me down into the abyss with terrifying force.

As I was dragged into darkness, the ground abruptly halted my descent. The impact knocked the wind out of me, and I landed on something wet and slimy, resembling a slick, organic carpet rather than solid earth. Disoriented, I lay there in pitch-black silence, trying to regain my senses and breathe through the pain. Then, a voice echoed around me—deep and resonant, vibrating through the ground. "The path… the path opened to you," it intoned, each word a slow, deliberate rumble that seemed to translate ancient, forgotten meanings rather than mere words.

The oppressive darkness seemed to tighten around me, the enigmatic entity’s grip on my leg growing colder and more formidable. Panic set my heartbeat racing as I managed to choke out, "What are you! What do you want from me!"

The voice that answered seemed to rise from the depths of the earth itself, deep and resonant. "I am something ancient, older than the stone and the dirt...

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