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Filipe Silva
Dark stories, lost videos, haunted stars… New nightmares every day.
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#scary #helpmemakethismakesense #horrorstories #theothersideofmakebelieve #theothersideofmakebelieve #horror #giveusourstolenmoneyback #giveusourstolenmoneyback #dothingsyoudontwanttodo #facts #butifyoucloseyoureyes
Transcript
00:00It started as a joke, a little quirk in our otherwise perfectly normal family life.
00:04We were the Henderson's mom, dad, my older sister Maya, and me Leo.
00:08Every evening at 6 o'clock sharp, we'd gather in the dining room.
00:11The aroma of mom's cooking would fill the air,
00:13a comforting blend of spices and warmth that always made the old house feel like a home.
00:18Our dining table was a heavy, dark oak thing,
00:20a family heirloom surrounded by five matching chairs, four of us, five chairs.
00:25The fifth one, tucked neatly at the head of the table opposite dad, was always empty.
00:28The first time it happened, none of us really noticed.
00:31Or if we did, we didn't mention it.
00:34After dinner, as we were clearing the plates, mom paused.
00:37That's odd, she said, nudging the empty chair with her foot.
00:39It was pulled back from the table, just an inch or two,
00:42as if someone had been sitting there and had just pushed back to stand up.
00:45Dad chuckled, probably just settled on the floorboards.
00:48He pushed it back in, the wooden leg scraping softly against the polished floor,
00:52and we thought nothing more of it.
00:54But the next night, it happened again.
00:56Same chair, same slight distance from the table.
00:58This time, Maya pointed it out.
01:00Hey, the ghost is back, she teased, a smirk playing on her lips.
01:04I laughed, picturing a see-through person politely excusing themselves from our dinner of spaghetti
01:09and meatballs.
01:10The name stuck from then on.
01:11It was our ghost guest.
01:13Did our guest enjoy the lasagna?
01:14Dad would ask with a wink, make sure to leave a seat for Casper.
01:17Mom would quip as we set the table.
01:19It was a silly, harmless family gag.
01:22The chair's slight displacement became a familiar part of our routine,
01:25a little mystery that added a touch of whimsy to our evenings.
01:28We'd find it pulled out, we'd push it back in.
01:31Day after day, for weeks it was the same.
01:33A tiny, predictable movement.
01:34It never moved more than a couple of inches.
01:36It was almost polite.
01:37We'd gotten so used to it that we stopped commenting on it.
01:40Pushing the chair back in was as routine as loading the dishwasher.
01:43The joke had run its course, and the ghost guest had become just another silent member of the family.
01:48The house was old, full of creaks and groans.
01:50We reasoned it away as settling foundations, uneven floors, a draft we couldn't find.
01:55We were a family of rational people after all.
01:57There was always a logical explanation.
01:59Then, things began to change.
02:01The shift was subtle at first.
02:03The chair started moving a little further back each night.
02:05Not just an inch or two, but a good half foot.
02:08It was no longer a polite pushback, it was a definite separation from the table.
02:12The sight of it sitting there, isolated, started to feel less whimsical and more intentional.
02:16The jokes stopped, and unspoken tension began to creep into our dinner times.
02:20We'd all glance at the chair, then at each other, a silent question in our eyes.
02:24Dad would push it back in with more force each night, the scraping sound louder, more grating.
02:29One evening, we heard it.
02:31We were all in the living room watching a movie.
02:33A loud, drawn-out asterisk scroll app, asterisk echoed from the dining room.
02:37It was unmistakable.
02:38We all froze.
02:39Dad muted the TV.
02:41The silence that followed was heavy, thick with a new kind of fear.
02:44He walked slowly to the dining room, the rest of us trailing behind him like a line of
02:48ducklings.
02:49There it was.
02:50The empty chair was now almost a yard away from the table, sitting starkly in the middle
02:54of the walkway.
02:55It looked defiant.
02:56Okay, this isn't funny anymore, Mom said, her voice tight.
03:00Who's doing this?
03:01She looked at Maya, then at me.
03:03We both shook our heads, our eyes wide.
03:05We were just as scared as she was.
03:07We weren't a family for pranks.
03:09Not like this.
03:10Dad inspected the floor, checked for drafts, ran his hand along the chair's legs.
03:14He found nothing.
03:15No strings.
03:16No tilted floorboards.
03:18Nothing.
03:18He pushed the chair back, the sound echoing in the silent house.
03:22That night, none of us slept well.
03:24Every creak of the old house sounded like a footstep.
03:26Every whisper of the wind sounded like a breath.
03:29The activity escalated.
03:30We started hearing noises during the day.
03:32A faint scraping from the dining room when we were all upstairs.
03:35A single, sharp rap on the table as if someone were knocking for attention.
03:38The atmosphere in the house grew colder, not just in temperature, but in feeling.
03:42The cozy warmth was gone, replaced by a constant, prickling sense of being watched.
03:47Dinner became a tense affair.
03:49We'd eat quickly, our eyes darting towards the empty chair, which now sat a little further
03:53away each evening, as if it were losing patience.
03:55One night, Maya swore she saw it move.
03:58We were halfway through dinner when her fork clattered onto her plate.
04:00It moved, she whispered, her face pale.
04:03I saw it.
04:03It just slid.
04:04We'd all been looking at our food.
04:06We stared at the chair.
04:07It was in its usual pullback position, but the image of it sliding on its own, silently,
04:11was terrifying.
04:13Dad tried to be the voice of reason.
04:15Maya, it's just your imagination getting the better of you.
04:18But his voice lacked conviction.
04:19He was scared too.
04:20We all were.
04:21The fear was a living thing in the house now.
04:23Mom started talking about having the house blessed.
04:26Dad, ever the skeptic, was starting to consider it.
04:28I started avoiding the dining room altogether.
04:30Eating my breakfast in the kitchen.
04:32Standing up.
04:33The room felt wrong.
04:34The empty chair dominated the space.
04:36A silent, brooding presence that promised something awful.
04:39It was no longer a guest.
04:40It was an intruder.
04:42Then came the last night.
04:43The night everything broke.
04:44A storm was raging outside, rain lashing against the windows and wind howling like a wounded
04:49animal.
04:49The power had flickered a few times, making us all jumpy.
04:52We were having dinner.
04:53A forced, silent meal.
04:55The tension was so thick you could taste it, more potent than mom's beef stew.
04:59The empty chair sat a good five feet from the table, a sentinel in the shadows cast by the
05:03flickering lights.
05:04We were all trying to ignore it, trying to pretend this was a normal family dinner on
05:08a stormy night.
05:09And then it happened.
05:10Without any warning, a sound ripped through the dining room that was louder than the storm
05:13outside.
05:14It was a violent, screeching, splintering sound.
05:18We all screamed.
05:18The empty chair didn't just slide back.
05:21It was thrown.
05:21It flew backwards, as if kicked by an invisible powerful force, and crashed into the wall
05:26with a deafening bang.
05:27It hit with such violence that a chunk of plaster exploded from the wall and the chair's
05:31back leg snapped with a sharp crack.
05:33We were frozen in our seats, staring in pure terror.
05:36For a moment, there was only the sound of our own ragged breaths and the drumming of
05:40the rain.
05:41The chair lay on its side, broken, defeated.
05:43And in the dead silence of the room, a new sound began.
05:47It was a whisper, a low, guttural sound that seemed to come from the very spot where the
05:50chair had been sitting.
05:51It was indistinct at first, a cold murmur on the air.
05:54Then, it grew clearer, coalescing into a single, horrifying word that seemed to echo
05:59in our very bones.
06:00Mine.
06:00The lights went out, plunged into absolute darkness, broken only by the occasional flash
06:05of lightning.
06:06The terror was absolute.
06:07Mom was sobbing.
06:08Maya was screaming my name.
06:10I felt dad's hand grab my arm in the dark, pulling me close.
06:13The whisper was gone, but its presence lingered, a chilling promise in the blackness.
06:17We didn't wait.
06:18We stumbled over each other, blindly clawing our way out of the dining room, out of the
06:22house, and into the storm.
06:24We ran.
06:25We left everything behind the warm stew, the family photos on the wall, the life we had
06:29built there.
06:29We never went back.
06:31Not for clothes.
06:32Not for heirlooms.
06:33Not for anything.
06:34The house was sold as ease.
06:35The new owners presumably unaware of the dinner guest who had claimed a seat at the table.
06:40Sometimes I wonder about them.
06:42I wonder if they gather for dinner at that heavy oak table, and if they notice the one
06:45empty chair that always seems to be just a little out of place.
06:49We never talk about what happened.
06:50The memory is a wound that we don't dare to touch.
06:53But every night, when I sit down to eat, I can't help but glance at the empty chairs
06:57in the room, and I always, always make sure they're pushed in, tightly.
07:01Thank you so much for listening to my story.
07:02If you felt that chill run down your spine, hit that like button and subscribe for more
07:07Tales from the Shadows.
07:08Stay safe, and always check your chairs.
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