This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Acceptable_Tie_9988 on 2025-01-29 20:19:36+00:00.

These are, to my knowledge, the last words of my best friend, Nathan. 

Nathan had grown up in an extremely religious household, and dedicated his life and career to focus on the study of the Bible and books related to it. I can remember in high school he’d constantly invite me to church or to Bible studies. This drive towards God carried over into his college career as well, picking a theology major and later pursuing a master’s degree in divinity.

I want to make a note of something I had always found interesting about Nathan’s interests. I feel that many people, in the context of religion, focus on either the afterlife or whatever moral code that religion teaches. Nathan’s obvious obsession, however, was with the origins- the ancient stories, the forgotten lore buried beneath centuries of doctrine. At a certain point, he became fixated on the Book of Enoch.

After that, Nathan became a bit scary to be around. He would ramble to me like a mad man about fallen angels, watchers as he called them, and their children. He became obsessed with the ancient world, scouring maps of the supposed locations of Biblical stories- Mesopotamia, Mount Hermon, the ruins of Baalbek- muttering about how these stories weren’t just allegories, but recordings of real historical events. His apartment became cluttered with books, maps, and scribbled pieces of paper filled with otherworldly figures and diagrams. He barely slept, barely ate, and his eyes were always filled with this wide, frantic look. As if he had an understanding of something that no one else did.

We stayed close up until after college, when he told me that the Lord was calling him to serve overseas. 7 years went by and I never heard from him. Not one letter, email, or even postcard, until yesterday.

I got an email from a name I didn’t recognize. Surprised at how this clear scam email hadn’t been sent to my spam folder, I opened it out of curiosity. A single file was attached with the message, “Don’t come.”  Against my better judgment, I opened the file to find images of notes, the handwriting of which I recognized.

It was Nathan’s. Also included were a series of images. At first, these were of vast deserts, of tents, and of strangers who I assume were Nathan’s friends or associates. I counted 4 men and 2 women, not including Nathan. The images honestly seemed happy at first, like someone’s vacation gallery.

The last few images broke this happy trend. I won’t upload them as reddit would surely ban me, but I can describe them to you. First was the mouth of a cave in the wall of a mountain. Next was a black tunnel, lit only by the headlights of the group. I could make out bizarre carvings and symbols on the walls. The third was of a large, room-like cavern. All of the members of Nathan’s group were facing the same way, and I could make out a shape in the blackness. The fourth image was blurry, clearly taken while moving, but I could see the body, face and arms of a woman, one of Nathan’s friends. She was only half way in the frame, positioned horizontally as if she were laying down. But she was far too high up to have been jumping or diving for cover. The last 2 photos turned my stomach, and I needed to take a break to vomit before I looked on. 

They were clearer than the last image. The first of the two were of the same cavern but from a different angle. Nathan was hiding from something behind a large stone. The floor was now soaked in puddles of crimson blood. Across the room, another man who I recognized from Nathan’s group was also hiding. In between them, I counted 4 broken, mangled bodies on the floor of the cave-3 of the men and one of the women lay twisted and shattered against the stone and rock.

One was sitting with his back against the wall of the cave, held in place by the motorcycle-sized slab of stone that had crushed his head and upper torso. I could only identify him by his shoes, which I had seen in the earlier images. Another man had been bisected along his stomach, only his top half was in frame. The woman was on the floor, her limbs bent and splintered at impossible angles, resembling a mosquito that had been hit by a fly swatter. Of the last man in the photo, only part of his head remained. It was now without a jaw, but even through the camera I could see the fear that had been in his eyes before he died.

The last image was from the same position as the one before it. But now, the man across the room had abandoned his hiding spot, laying now on the floor, hands out in front of him as if begging for mercy from the figure in front of him. I could only see one massive, hairy leg connected to an equally large foot. Its nails were yellow and long but, other than its sheer size, it was unmistakably human. The final thing I noticed in the image was barely noticeable in the corner of the frame; a finger the length of a full grown man, angled as if the rest of the hand were reaching for Nathan.

I closed the file and once again saw what I now understood to be the final words of my best friend, “Don’t come.”