Nationality: Mexican
Primary Language: English
Other language(s): Spanish
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 11/25/2023

Tags: military, war, ptsd

He was a United States Marine Corps veteran in the 1960s, serving his second tour in Vietnam. He was performing recon after a gunfight, making sure that the dead were actually dead. While searching through the piles of bodies, he noticed one of them twitch. They had been awake for days, he thought he might have been hallucinating. Then, He looked closer. The twitching man on the ground was staring right at him. Then he screamed. He screamed and startled all of the Marines and everyone in the area. He startled everyone so bad that nobody knew what to do. In his fear and confusion, my uncle shot him in the head. Silence reclaimed the air.

My uncle lived for more than fifty years after he returned from that deployment. Randomly, with no pattern and no warning, he would hear that scream in his head as if it were happening right in front of him. And he would see the screaming face in his sleep, the terrifying look of a man who knows that he is about to die. He was haunted by this memory for the rest of his life. Even into old age and through horrible sickness, he remembered it until the day he died.

This story was told to me multiple times during my life, most recently in fall of 2019. It was told to myself and my brothers, and to my father before that. I find the story disturbing, knowing that something like that can live with somebody forever. It is very scary to think about, and it makes me feel sorry for my uncle because of how traumatized he was.

Nationality: Mexican
Primary Language: English
Other language(s): Spanish
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 06/03/2023

Tags: wilderness, haunted house, mystery

We were dirtbiking on our usual trails for what must have been the hundredth time that Summer. I was with my usual group of four friends, and after biking for a while, we were bored of the same trails. My friend had the bright idea to try and find the haunted house that they had discovered when they were younger. We were already out in the woods, but this house was very, very far out into the wilderness, past where we knew there were bears and all sorts of other things that we should not mess with. So obviously, we agreed and started to bike there slowly, through the thick brush and trees.

The unexplainable things started on the way there. We were all used to getting thorns from bushes and mosquito bites, but when we got them on that day they hurt extremely bad. The thorns were unbearably painful and we had to walk very slow and plan our routes, almost giving up. In addition to that, the bug bites and stings were so frequent that they were also unbearable, as if they were trying to get us to turn back and go home. And on top of all of this, I have never had seasonal pollen allergies in my whole life, but I got them on that day. My eyes were so swollen that they were almost completely shut, and I felt disgusting. We were all experiencing these things, and we were able to push through them and still find the house despite our impaired vision.

When we got to the house, we understood what the unexplainable warnings were about. We were standing on the outside of the house, looking at the disgusting, run-down walls and caved ceiling. One of my friends said that someone should go to the door and look inside. My other friend, the known daredevil, said that he would do it. He walked about seven steps, and came to a sudden halt. He walked backwards towards us, never taking his eyes off of the house. When he got back to us, he said that he felt an unnaturally cold wind coming directly from the door. This house was uninhabited, there was no air conditioning, and it was 98 degrees outside. We assumed it was a prank, and someone else tried and reported the same thing. Both of the people that tried were wide-eyed and quiet for the rest of the day, as if they had seen a ghost.

Once we got out of the woods, they just wanted to go back home, and the day was over. I will never be able to explain what happened on that day, but I do not want to go back there to look for answers.

This story was experienced and told in June of 2023. It was told by my friend that I was with and myself. It took place in Centreville, Virginia, deep in the woods near Fairfax. The teller of the story and I both think of the story as surreal and unexplainable, and we both have agreed that we will never truly know or understand what happened on that day.