This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/beardify on 2023-12-30 02:00:55.

I don't want to be telling you this. If I had a choice, I would take this knowledge to the grave with me. The facts are as horrible as they are hard to understand, so I’ll get right to it: there isn’t going to be any year 2024. There wasn’t a 2023 or 2022 either, but I'll get to that later.

If you're like me, you're probably wondering, “who is this guy, and what right does he have to make such insane claims?” I’m a scientist, and it’s my job to ask those kinds of questions: tough questions that can’t be answered without testing and irrefutable proof. My mentor, Dr. Fallow, used to say “In God We Trust: All Others Bring Data,” and until today, that was my philosophy as well.

Our research at Andros Labs focused on the gravitational identity of time. You see, every day, every hour, every millisecond carries its own unique time signature. We used a lot of high-tech equipment, but the most important was essentially a glorified spreadsheet. That was where we entered the time signatures and searched for patterns in data reaching back over twenty years.

Only Dr. Fallow was supposed to have complete access to our system, but that changed a few hours ago when he was unexpectedly called away for a family emergency. There was still work to be done, however, and I was the only one in the lab that he trusted enough to do it.

At first, I thought Dr. Fallow had made the right choice by trusting me with his access codes. But later, alone in the laboratory with only the glow of the emergency lights for company, I wasn't so sure. I had always wondered about the restricted files in our system, the ones that only Dr. Fallow himself could see, and I knew that I'd never have another chance to find out what they contained. By the time I'd finished my work, I couldn't hold back my own curiosity any longer.

Even though I knew that no one was in the laboratory with me, I looked over both shoulders before opening the files. I had expected to find something mind-blowing, maybe even scandalous, but all I found was another set of spreadsheets. They were identical to the ones I was used to, but with one minor difference: the time signatures were unchanged since May of 2016. It wasn’t long before I realized that this was the real data: Dr. Fallow had been manipulating our instruments to create false readings–and he’d been doing it for years. But why? I couldn’t get my head around it. Besides, if his numbers were true, time had stopped advancing seven years ago.

The door slammed. Dr. Fallow swept in, shaking slush from his umbrella. He muttered something about his youngest son having an allergic reaction and asked me how my work was going, but I wasn’t listening: I was too busy trying to cover my tracks.

I should have known better. Dr. Fallow recognized the kid-caught-in-the-cookie-jar look on my face, and in five quick steps he was looking over my shoulder. There was no way to hide what I was doing. My heart sank. This would mean my job, maybe even criminal charges…

Dr. Fallow put a hand on my shoulder. He told me I looked tired, and that I should go home and get some rest. I couldn’t believe it. I had been accessing classified information and he was just going to let me off the hook?! The stern old man tightened his grip on my shoulder. His deep blue eyes were trying to warn me about something, but I couldn’t tell what, not right away.

It was only when I stood up from the office chair that I noticed the figure standing in the corner of the room. In the dim lights of the laboratory, who could say how long it had been standing there…watching me. When I looked at it head on, it seemed like just an ordinary man in a black business suit, but out of the corner of my eye, it appeared as something different entirely: something inhuman and wrong. Something with mottled gray skin and a face that was featureless apart from a gaping toothless mouth. Something with too many fingers. Something that seemed to slither rather than walk when it moved.

I opened my mouth to scream, but Dr. Fallow cut me off. He opened the lab door with a slam and suggested we walk out to our cars together. It was taking all of his strength to keep his voice from shaking. I couldn’t resist looking over my shoulder at the figure in the corner as we left, but when I did, it was gone. It hadn’t been just my imagination. Dr. Fallow had seen it too–I was sure of it–but he was keeping his mouth shut tight.

I had never seen anyone so afraid. Dr. Fallow glanced at each lightless office and empty corridor we passed as though he expected some unspeakable creature to reach out and drag him inside. When we reached the parking lot, he climbed into his snow-covered car like a condemned man, barely even wiping the windshield before he drove off. He still hadn’t spoken a word to me…and I had an awful feeling that I’d never be seeing him again.

I was left alone in the laboratory parking lot–or was I? Reaching out for my own car door, I felt a presence behind me. I was sure that if I turned, the figure in the black suit would be there, mere inches behind me, ready to wrap its thin fingers around my throat…

Of course, when I did spin around, there was nothing but falling snow. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that IT was there, just beyond the corners of my vision. I told myself that it was just fear and stress, that Dr. Fallow’s paranoia was affecting me as well…but I didn’t believe it. Not really. Even once I got back home, behind a locked door with a warm cup of tea in my hands, my heartbeat still hadn’t slowed down. Time was repeating itself. It should have been impossible, but the data was airtight. Suddenly, I remembered Ted Wu.

Ted was an acquaintance from my graduate program, a big, sleazy guy who was always surrounded by the odor of weed, cheetos, and some other nastier smell that I couldn’t identify. He bragged that he used the Dark Web a lot–none of us wanted to think about why–and that he had created a hidden forum there, a place where scientists could share their findings anonymously with one another. Ted disappeared a few years later, but his Dark Web “Free Speech Forum For Scientists” was still up and running. If there was anyone who could explain the anomaly that I had encountered, that was where I would find them.

Sharing my discovery would be a breach of Dr. Fallow’s trust, but I had to know. The feeling that some sort of presence was in the room with me kept getting stronger and stronger. I had an awful suspicion that if I didn’t uncover the truth soon, I would be insane by morning. I was just about to hit “SUBMIT” when I felt eight long, multi-jointed fingers close around my head.

Its vice-like grip twisted me around, and I found myself face to face with the thing from the laboratory. Up close, the illusion of a dull man in a black suit fell away completely. It hurt to look at, and not just because of its slimy, mottled-gray skin and extra limbs. It was how it blinked and shifted, like it was existing in more than three dimensions at once. I shut my eyes tight, but I couldn’t seal out the noise its mouth made: a dry, raspy sound like wind through dead grass. It was speaking to me, but I couldn’t understand its words–not until it wormed one of its cold slimy fingers into my ear. I squirmed at the invasive sensation, but seconds later something clicked in my brain and I could understand what it was saying…although I would have preferred not to:

“Are you sure you want an answer to your question? REALLY sure?”

I screamed. It tightened its grip until I thought my head would crack like an egg. The pain was unbearable.

“Go on, primate. Tell us what you THINK you know.”

“The years…the days…they’re repeating themselves. Why?!”

A sickening screech sound reverberated in my skull. I think it was laughing.

“So we can feed. We loop you through time again and again, making the simulation just a little worse each time. We’re going to squeeze the delicious pain and fear from your simple primate brains until there’s nothing left.”

“Please,” I whispered, “don’t kill me!”

“Kill you? You mean, right now? Whatever for? We have all eternity to kill you as many times as we wish! No, you have a different purpose. You’re going to share the truth with your fellow primates. We’d like to see how they’ll handle it at this stage of the simulation.” Its mouth curled into an awful imitation of a smile. “We’re scientists too, you know.”

“And if I refuse?”

“We could always drop you down a few levels in the simulation. Why don’t you take a look at what’s coming in a few of your so-called years, and tell us what you think?”

A cold, dusty wind blasted my face. My eyes snapped open. I was laying inside a shattered concrete pipe. Grayish-white snow fell from the black sky overhead, but I could barely see it: there were no lights anywhere. I should have been worrying about where I was, who I was, or even WHEN I was–but suddenly all I cared about was food and warmth.

The hunger was like a fist crushing my gut: how long had it been since I’d eaten? Days? Weeks? I was too weak to do anything but crawl toward the end of the pipe. The air was so cold it hurt. My clothes were just tattered rags, and when I tried to wrap them around me, I realized that my skin was covered in strange, pale lumps. Spurred on by sick curiosity, I touched one, and a jolt of pain shot up my arm. Something like a tiny, ink-colored worm had squirmed inside, then burrowed deeper into my flesh....

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/18u2r6l/im_not_celebrating_the_new_year_because_i_know/