1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:09,000 This story is called, I soup ate a word, doc. 2 00:00:09,000 --> 00:00:14,000 By Big Koala 5718. 3 00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:31,000 I soup ate a word, doc. I couldn't make sense of it. 4 00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:36,000 The letter had been slipped underneath my door in an unmarked brown paper envelope. 5 00:00:36,000 --> 00:00:50,000 I had no idea who it was from or what it meant. Inside the envelope, in blue crayon, the message was haphazardly scrawled across an unsophisticated sheet of colored card. 6 00:00:50,000 --> 00:01:02,000 It possessed a curiously infantile quality and exuded an eerie feeling that took hold of me and only grew stronger as I read and reread the letter. 7 00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:15,000 As I sat there turning it over in my mind, my phone rang, freeing me from my trance. It was an unregistered number. I hesitated for a moment before answering. 8 00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:18,000 Hello? I said. 9 00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:24,000 I soup ate a word, doc. 10 00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:39,000 I whispered the voice on the other end. Those very same words that had been encircling my thoughts since they were slit underneath my door frame were now being spoken aloud, down a telephone line and directly into my ear. 11 00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:43,000 Who is this? I asked. 12 00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:47,000 What do you mean? What do you want from me? 13 00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:52,000 But there was no reply. Only static. 14 00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:54,000 You called me again. 15 00:01:54,000 --> 00:02:01,000 I said and hung up, putting my phone down in do not disturb mode for good measure. 16 00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:07,000 In all likelihood, it was probably just some brat playing elaborate games. 17 00:02:07,000 --> 00:02:13,000 However, to quell my thoughts, I began to research the phrase. 18 00:02:13,000 --> 00:02:17,000 Of course, all my searches came up blank. 19 00:02:17,000 --> 00:02:22,000 There seemed to be no connection or meaning behind the words at all. 20 00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:25,000 It was complete nonsense. 21 00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:32,000 I pushed it away into the back of my mind and returned to work. 22 00:02:32,000 --> 00:02:35,000 Days and weeks passed me by. 23 00:02:35,000 --> 00:02:45,000 And all the while I received ever increasing quantities of letters and phone calls, all with the exact same phrase. 24 00:02:45,000 --> 00:02:49,000 Even after changing my number, the calls persisted relentlessly. 25 00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:55,000 I assumed ain't a word, dog. 26 00:02:55,000 --> 00:03:06,000 What I assumed had begun as a childish and silly prank had turned into a plainly purposive and distressing harassment. 27 00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:16,000 I couldn't bear it any longer, and so I asked around and was put in touch with a well-regarded private investigator. 28 00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:23,000 He arrived at my apartment one month past the initiation of my torment. 29 00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:34,000 In advance of his arrival, I'd collected all the letters and records of the phone calls, and we discussed the incidents at length together. 30 00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:43,000 It gave me his assurance that everything would be fine, just fine, that he would get to the bottom of all this. 31 00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:47,000 He confessed that he was a little bemused by my situation. 32 00:03:47,000 --> 00:03:55,000 I suppose that private investigators usually dealt with extramarital affairs and that sort of thing. 33 00:03:55,000 --> 00:04:02,000 Nevertheless, he agreed to fully commit to my case, to the full extent of his abilities, and went away, 34 00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:06,000 promising to update me if he uncovered any information. 35 00:04:06,000 --> 00:04:10,000 A week or so later he called at my apartment again. 36 00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:12,000 He was very apologetic. 37 00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:18,000 He had been unable to uncover any reason or sense behind the messages. 38 00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:27,000 There was no precedent for this behavior, and he could find no graphological hallmarks of ownership on the letters. 39 00:04:27,000 --> 00:04:36,000 However, he declared to me that there was, in his words, a flower in the desert from the phone records. 40 00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:44,000 He was able to determine the likely origin of the calls, a derelict house on the outskirts of town. 41 00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:50,000 I thanked him for his time, paid him for his services, and returned to my thoughts. 42 00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:55,000 I simply couldn't comprehend why any of this was happening. 43 00:04:55,000 --> 00:05:00,000 And what on earth had all had to do with some disused house? 44 00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:03,000 To me, it didn't seem like a flower. 45 00:05:03,000 --> 00:05:13,000 It just seemed to be another sour note in the repetitive and disorienting melody that had been plaguing me for the last month and a half. 46 00:05:13,000 --> 00:05:21,000 Perhaps if I went there myself, I thought, then I could begin to understand. 47 00:05:21,000 --> 00:05:28,000 So I took the car out and drove to the edge of town, parking outside the house. 48 00:05:28,000 --> 00:05:34,000 As soon as I stepped out, I was hit with an intolerable disquiet. 49 00:05:34,000 --> 00:05:39,000 The house stood there, alone and forlorn. 50 00:05:39,000 --> 00:05:50,000 The final residents on a demolished street, the rest of the neighborhood, cleared, presumably to make way for a new development. 51 00:05:50,000 --> 00:06:03,000 In front of the derelict house was the last remaining garden of the neighborhood, sparse and dry, home only to bindweed and creeping thistles. 52 00:06:03,000 --> 00:06:11,000 The paint on the exterior walls were tagged with spray paint and chipped away, revealing the crumbling brickwork. 53 00:06:11,000 --> 00:06:20,000 All the windows long shattered and loose off their hinges, creaking and banging softly against their frames. 54 00:06:20,000 --> 00:06:29,000 As I stepped into the porch, the rotted floorboards groaned as if they desired to break under my cautious weight. 55 00:06:29,000 --> 00:06:40,000 The walls inside were buckling and peeling, and with each step I dislodged plaster and dust from the ceiling which came tumbling down in crumbling clumps. 56 00:06:40,000 --> 00:06:51,000 As I moved further through the building, I caught glimpses of other rooms, with their musty aged furniture and shattered picture frames coated in dust. 57 00:06:51,000 --> 00:06:55,000 This house belonged only to time now. 58 00:06:55,000 --> 00:06:59,000 I searched the building and found nothing but cobwebs. 59 00:06:59,000 --> 00:07:05,000 Then I noticed a door underneath the stairs to the basement. 60 00:07:05,000 --> 00:07:14,000 I twisted the grimy handle. The basement itself was dark and I could see very little, so I turned on my phone torch. 61 00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:18,000 I took great care stepping down onto the staircase. 62 00:07:18,000 --> 00:07:22,000 Again I'd found the wooden planks rotten and unstable. 63 00:07:22,000 --> 00:07:32,000 As I arrived at the bottom of the stairs, there, attached into the wall, was the phrase that had tormented me so. 64 00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:37,000 I soup, ate a word, dog. 65 00:07:37,000 --> 00:07:46,000 I abandoned all my attempts to comprehend the words, now accepting them as the obscure and sinister presence they had become. 66 00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:53,000 Standing there, consumed by that cryptic manifestation, I heard a dragging sound. 67 00:07:53,000 --> 00:08:06,000 Turning, I found myself confronted by the umbra of a figure. It was something like a young child, but her form was distorted. 68 00:08:06,000 --> 00:08:14,000 She had long, boneless arms and was poised on top of two stubby, spindled legs. 69 00:08:14,000 --> 00:08:23,000 She lumbered toward me, half falling, half walking. She whispered those senseless words. 70 00:08:23,000 --> 00:08:28,000 This creature surely was the source of my persecution. 71 00:08:28,000 --> 00:08:32,000 I soup, ate a word, dog. 72 00:08:32,000 --> 00:08:39,000 She whispered again, emphasizing each word with terrible and peculiar inflections. 73 00:08:39,000 --> 00:08:45,000 There was no mistaking it. The voice from the phone calls belonged to her. 74 00:08:45,000 --> 00:08:55,000 This was the pernicious being that had tormented me so, sending me those senseless letters and making those relentless phone calls. 75 00:08:55,000 --> 00:09:01,000 But why? What had I done to attract her ire? 76 00:09:01,000 --> 00:09:07,000 Every step she took, she came closer to me, closer to the light. 77 00:09:07,000 --> 00:09:11,000 Her movements were graceless and disconcerting. 78 00:09:11,000 --> 00:09:16,000 In my panic, I'd taken leave of my senses. 79 00:09:16,000 --> 00:09:19,000 I scrambled away and attempted to surmount the staircase. 80 00:09:19,000 --> 00:09:29,000 The wood buckled underneath my indelicate movements, snapping and sending me falling back to the cold basement floor. 81 00:09:29,000 --> 00:09:42,000 She raised one of her live, boneless arms, and with remarkable strength she took hold of my shirt and threw me back to the wall, pounding me against the etched phrase. 82 00:09:42,000 --> 00:09:52,000 She held me there, suspended against the basement wall and whispered into my ear, each syllable colored with erratic emphasis. 83 00:09:52,000 --> 00:09:56,000 I soup, ate a word, dog. 84 00:09:56,000 --> 00:09:59,000 I soup, I soup. 85 00:09:59,000 --> 00:10:09,000 Then she turned and plotted away, all while maintaining her possession of me, keeping me fixed in place. 86 00:10:09,000 --> 00:10:14,000 I whimpered like a dog. There was nothing for me to say. 87 00:10:14,000 --> 00:10:20,000 No reasoning with this creature, and I was no match for her unwieldy force. 88 00:10:20,000 --> 00:10:31,000 She held me there with ease, one arm pinning me mid-air against the wall, all while busying herself with something in the corner of the room. 89 00:10:31,000 --> 00:10:40,000 Eventually, she turned back and began to struggle toward me on her spinning top legs. 90 00:10:40,000 --> 00:10:43,000 She stepped back into the light again. 91 00:10:43,000 --> 00:11:01,000 I saw clearly her shadowy and warped features, her rotten smile, her dark and sunken eyes, and in her spare hands, she held an open can of soup. 92 00:11:01,000 --> 00:11:09,000 She compelled my mouth open, nursing me with the liquid, pouring it down my throat. 93 00:11:09,000 --> 00:11:18,000 I could only swallow or choke, and as I drank the rancid soup, I felt my mind slipping away. 94 00:11:18,000 --> 00:11:22,000 I couldn't speak. I could hardly think. 95 00:11:22,000 --> 00:11:30,000 All I could do was listen to her repeat that damn phrase over and over and over. 96 00:11:30,000 --> 00:11:33,000 I soup, ate a word, dog. 97 00:11:33,000 --> 00:11:37,000 I soup, ate a word, dog. 98 00:11:37,000 --> 00:11:43,000 I soup, ate a word, dog. 99 00:11:43,000 --> 00:11:56,000 The last thing I recall was the child's twilight face, and her sinister smile spreading impossibly wide across it as she whispered, 100 00:11:56,000 --> 00:11:59,000 Welcome to the soup. 101 00:11:59,000 --> 00:12:07,000 I woke up in the hospital room. Several weeks had passed since the day I'd driven to that house. 102 00:12:07,000 --> 00:12:17,000 The doctors told me that I had been found wandering the streets, repeating the same words over and over. 103 00:12:17,000 --> 00:12:29,000 They brought me back to monitor my condition, and upon my arrival, I'd collapsed from exhaustion and fell into a catatonic state. 104 00:12:29,000 --> 00:12:33,000 They had no medical explanation for my affliction. 105 00:12:33,000 --> 00:12:42,000 When I explained to them the circumstances that had brought me here, they agreed to arrange a meeting for me with the police. 106 00:12:42,000 --> 00:12:48,000 They came to visit me at my hospital bed, and we discussed everything. 107 00:12:48,000 --> 00:13:01,000 The harassment, the investigation, and the incident, taking care to leave out any details that might result in my institutionalization. 108 00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:06,000 They too went away promising to uncover the truth. 109 00:13:06,000 --> 00:13:12,000 They too were unable to find any leads on my attacker. 110 00:13:12,000 --> 00:13:22,000 In fact, upon arriving at the supposed scene of the crime, the police found no house at all. 111 00:13:22,000 --> 00:13:28,000 Construction had already begun on the development a few days prior. 112 00:13:28,000 --> 00:13:35,000 The house had been reduced to nothing, and the basement filled with concrete. 113 00:13:35,000 --> 00:13:40,000 I suppose no one else will ever truly know what happened to me. 114 00:13:40,000 --> 00:13:50,000 No one will ever truly understand what I went through, why I had to go through it, or how it even happened. 115 00:13:50,000 --> 00:13:57,000 As for myself, I've been left with only one reasonable explanation. 116 00:13:57,000 --> 00:14:07,000 I'm a soup, ate a word, dog. 117 00:14:27,000 --> 00:14:37,000 I'm a soup, ate a word, dog.