I learned a terrible secret and now I can't go on

Author’s Note: This is my personal love letter to r/nosleep lol. I tried to insert as many references to the tropes found in so many of these horror stories that strive for believability. The beginning especially was highly inspired by the dramatically read youtube videos I used to watch as a kid. I definitely cut it a bit short bc it was almost 10 pages, so towards the end it might feel a but rushed, but maybe sometime I’ll expand and post it to the subreddit myself.

          If you are reading this, I’m already gone. I’ve been haunted every day and night since it happened. Sleep would be my only relief if the nightmares didn’t leave me sweating, my heart beating out of control. I can’t take much more of this. All I think about is what my life was before it took over. I had dreams, aspirations; I was excited for the future instead of filled with this debilitating dread. I can’t in good conscience let this die with me, so I have decided to record everything, in as much detail as I possibly can. 
          Apologies in advance, dear reader, for the contents of this story is incredibly disturbing. Perhaps it would be best to see this as just the ravings of a madman. It would make it a lot easier. The truth is too much for a regular person to be able to process, so I don’t blame you whatsoever.
          When I went into work that day, I was in a bad mood. My girlfriend had dumped me over text. Same old it’s not you, it’s me bullshit. To me it just sounded like “I cheated on you and don’t want to have to admit it, so I’m gonna act like I’ve had a sudden change of heart.” One of my boys saw her at the bar, kissing some douchebag. Anyway, I felt like shit, looked like shit, and my manager asked a couple times if I’d like to just go home.
          I didn’t wanna go back there and wallow in self pity. It was bad enough she’d done that to me, no way I was gonna let it take over while she’s taking some other dude--- 
Sorry about that, I need to focus, but it’s so much easier to think about my old problems. So trivial. So human. I’d rather have felt that way ten times over. 
          I was scanning items over and over, fully playing the cashier NPC part. 
          “Did you find everything ok?”
          “Glad to hear that.”
          “Alrighty your total is $46.87.”
          “Would you like to donate 50 cents to kids with terminal brain cancer?”
          “No? Alright then.”
          “Cash or card.”
          “Don’t forget your receipt!”
          “Have a great day!”
          Over and over and over. Fuck this job.
          Every once in a while I glanced at the time at the bottom right of my screen. I continued my robotic exchanges, my brain only hearing muffled sounds whenever someone spoke before spitting out the next scripted line. 
          I leaned against the wall outside the back door.
          My coworker, Rhonda, was opening up a half empty box of cigarettes.
          “You look like you need one of these. Here.” She lit the end and turned the filter to face me.
          “Fuck it. Thanks.” I took it between my fingers and inhaled. It burned the back of my throat and I felt the smoke fill my lungs before I let out a cloud.
         The sky was clear that night. No stars. 
          Rhonda headed back in and I stood in solitude, letting the nicotine numb me for a bit. For a moment, I felt nothing.
          Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a black SUV with dark tinted windows. It pulled around behind the store and parked a few hundred feet from me. 
          I puffed and watched the engine shut off and driver’s side door slowly open. Then, a heeled black leather boot stepped onto the pavement in a smooth, graceful movement, connected to a slender, pale leg. She stepped out in one fluid motion. I was immediately entranced. My cigarette butt burned down to my fingers.
FUCK. 
          I dropped it on the ground, crunching it out with my heel while I blew on my painful fingertips.
          She had a dark cherry red bob and large-rimmed sunglasses that took up half her face. Her lips were thin and pale. Her body was sharp and angular, a tight leather jacket zipped to her throat and charcoal gray pencil skirt that emphasized her sharp hip bones and ended just below her knees.
          She walked directly toward me. My sunken in eyes fixated on each step.
          “You.” She said in a thick German accent. “Joshua Peters.” She pointed to my name tag that read Hi! My name is Josh.
          “Uhhh yeah that’s me.”
          “You come with me.”
          “I’m scheduled for another half hour. Can you wait? I can’t get fired again.”
          “Now.” Her voice was firm.
          “Look, lady, I can’t just walk out. Can I at least go let Rhonda, my manager, know?”
          She reached into a pocket that seemed to appear out of nowhere on the side of her jacket and pulled out a shiny black pistol. 
          “You. Car. Now.”
          “Alright, shit, no need to point that at me. Do I at least get shotgun?”
          “No. You sit in back.”
          I drew my lips into a straight line.
          “Alright.”
          I got in the backseat and from there, my memory abruptly stops. I blacked out and woke up in a white room. It smelled sterile. Like bleach. I felt a cool breeze and looked down. I was wearing a hospital gown. On my wrist was a simple plastic hospital bracelet. 
          My stomach grumbled and my tongue felt dry. Where the hell was I.
          Before I could even get up, the door opened and a man in a white lab coat walked in.
          “You’re awake.” He said with a smile before looking down and making notes on a clipboard.                     

          “Come with me.”
          “Where am I.”
          “She will answer all of your questions shortly.”
          “Who’s she? The lady with the fuck ass bob?”
          “Gretchen.” He said flatly.
          “Can I at least get some normal clothes. I looked down at my pale gray grippy socks.”
          “No.”
          We neared the end of the hall when he sharply turned into a room, standing by the door until I opened. Gretchen sat behind a desk. In front of it was a small wooden chair. To its right, one of those TV carts they’d use in elementary school and under it, a cardboard file box filled to the brim with VHS tapes with dates written on them.
          The front of the box read Joshua Peters.
          “Sit,” she said in a commanding voice. 
          The man in the lab coat stepped out and the door closed. I heard the click of an automatic lock.
          I sat in the little chair, my knees coming up too high because of how lanky I am. I tried to adjust the gown to make sure she didn't accidentally get to know me more than she probably wanted. Although someone in this place had for sure seen my… parts.
          “Ok so can you explain why you roofied me or something and took me here?”
          “I am Gretchen and I am with the FCPU.”
          I blinked.
          “The Future Criminal Prevention Unit.”
          “The fuck?”
          “It is a confidential Law Enforcement  organization within the United States Justice Department.”
          “You’re not even American.”
          She smiled and her teeth were unnaturally white.
          “No. I am not. I was hired by your government because I invented the technology we use here.”
          “Okay, that’s kinda cool. Girlboss shit, yeah. My bad.”
          “As I was saying, the FCPU uses a device that can record into the future. By setting up my video cameras here, we can film into the future. When we communicate with the future Justice Department through video calling, we can make note of citizens who have committed acts of extreme violence. Then, we track them down and bring them here. In the present.”
          I looked back at the box of tapes and realized all of the dates on them had not happened yet. Some of the years were recent, while others were a decade or two from now. my stomach dropped. Why were there so many. There were at least a dozen.
          “You, Joshua Peters, are a serial killer.”
          “Whoa. I’ve never hurt ANYONE. Whoever is on those tapes, it isn’t me.” 
          She stood and walked to the TV, switching it on, picking up a tape and inserting it. The screen flickered. Then I saw a room. It was dark. Gretchen flipped a light switch and my eyes began to adjust. It was a living room. A large leather couch, wooden coffee table and area rug came into focus. 
          “I’ll do anything.”
          “Please”
          “Don’t hurt me.”
          The sound was strangled, the man’s voice rising in pitch and cracking. He entered the frame backing up, shaking, a growing wet spot visible on his pants as he nearly tripped on the coffee table and pressed his back against the wall.
          Then, I heard it.
          “Say whatever you want.” Then a chuckle. It sounded like… me.
          “Please do you want money? I have money. My trust fund. It has 500k in it. Take that.”
          “I don’t want your daddy’s money.”
          My side profile became visible, what looked like a 3D printed Glock in my hand. 
          “What do you want then?” His body was shaking violently, hands up.
          “Wouldn't you like to know.”
          I jumped in my seat as a loud bang played from the speaker, turning my head away as fast as I could. Then another. And another. I slowly turned my head back and saw the man’s body slump down. The screen was black and white, but I saw the dark pool appearing around his head. I saw myself pull up a black hoodie and exit the frame.
          She held up a remote and the screen went black again. 
          My vision felt blurry. My heart beating uncontrollably, hands and body clammy. I wanted to vomit.
          “I-I wouldn’t do that.”
          “You did. And many times after.”
          She played them one by one. each one worse and more brutal than the last. I played with them like they were mice and I was a cat, ridiculing them before ending their lives. I will spare you most of the details, although they’ve firmly embedded themselves into the ridges of my brain. 
          “Please. I can’t take anymore.” I begged. I’d never felt so sick. She just gave me a blank look before picking up the next tape. This time, I knew exactly where it was taken. My own home. My room.
          I saw so many of the same posters, some new ones. My same bed frame. On his knees, on the floor, was Steven.
          Steven and I have known each other since pre-K. Even before we could really talk, we were drawn to one other. It was funny seeing us around. I was awkward, too tall, and liked being alone. He was magnetic. He dressed neatly, hair always styled back using some pomade, and played on nearly every sports team. It was hard not to like the guy. The ladies loved him, shit even the guys did to, although they wouldn’t say it out loud because then it’d be gay. He was always grinning. I remember how bittersweet it was seeing him for the last time before he went to college while I stayed here, working minimum wage and trying to take some classes through the local community college every now and then.
           Yet, he never made me feel bad about working dead-end jobs or being too much of a low achiever and too broke to go to a real university. He still checked in on me, all the time. Deep down, I care a lot about the guy. We don’t see each other often, but every once in a while during a school break, he’ll shoot me a text asking if I’m free to split a pizza and play some Modern Warfare.
          He’s my friend.
          So why’s he kneeling on my floor looking terrified for his life. There were tears in his eyes and he begged me not to do it. He promised not to tell anyone anything.
          “It’s too late. You know too much. And you’re too much of a rule follower to keep it a secret. I know you. It’d eat you up. Sooner or later, you’d crack. Report me to the police, get me locked up for life.”
          He opened his mouth to respond and BANG. 
          I watched my best friend’s life leave his eyes. At my hands.
          “Why?” I asked Gretchen, my eyes burning with tears as I ran to the wastebasket at the corner of the room to puke again. There was nothing but bile. 
          “See that’s the thing. We’ve been trying to figure that out: why it is you become what you are.” She stared at me intently, her gaze flickering between my eyes and the TV screen. 
          “We have tried so many times to alter your path, prevent your actions. Each time, you do it. Every. Single. Time.”
          “That... can’t be possible.” My throat felt like it was closing up.
          “It seems it’s just in your nature.”
          Those words echoed in my head. 
          “So what happens now.”
          “You stay here. It’s the only way.”
          With that, she took out the final VHS tape from the slot and placed it back in the box. The man in the lab coat re-entered the room.
          “Come with me. To your cell.”
          I followed him there. My mind plagued by the images I had witnessed. 
          
          You see, dear reader. What I can not bear is that all that depravity. That sick violence. I caused it all. Of my free will. Every night I see Steven’s pleading eyes. Begging for his life. The screams. The tears. And then, how I ignored them all. How I committed these unforgivable atrocities against so many human beings. Every waking moment, I am haunted by them. Tonight, I will close my eyes for the last time. It is the only way. The only way to ensure no one is ever hurt by my hands. Maybe in every other reality, but not this one.