Written by Jonathan Wojcik
NIGHTMARE MENAGERIE 2019, PART V
Guest Art by Skincoats!It's currently a new year and even whole new decade, we're working on the creepypasta cookoff a bit later than usual and "Halloween" for me is technically "over," but there's at least one more Nightmare round to share!
ANGLERMOUTH
Posted by Promestein:
" This was months ago. After lying awake for hours, I fell asleep in the morning and dreamed of a Godzilla movie. Not a new one, no, but an old one, from the 1980's, starring a (then) brand new Kaiju, the Anglermouth. I watched it in the basement of my house with a group of people, but I don't remember who any of them were now. This movie had very strong horror elements for a Godzilla movie, and revolved around this alien being that landed on Earth.
This creature, the Anglermouth - though it was more often called the Scutigera or the [word I cannot remember] louse - was a Kaiju sized humanoid, grey-black in coloration, and its body was mesh-patterned. All except its face, which had a large, eye-shaped, black hole in the pattern - this resembled a mouth at a glance, but it was actually perfectly smooth, with no openings whatsoever. However, the Anglermouth could actually grow a mouth, causing the entire "hole" to extend from its head, growing teeth and bright yellow eyes that shone in the darkness of the "hole". Its head was also disproportionately large. While it was humanoid, it skittered around on a series of centipede-like legs that extended from its back much more than it walked around normally, often climbing up walls and buildings. Its fingers were very, very long.
I'm led to believe the Anglermouth was some sort of Kaiju-sized parasite, which led to its louse name. While it was primarily Kaiju-sized, sometimes it was much smaller, small enough to have scenes that could be constrained to the inside of a single building while it remained much larger than a human. In the movie, it was established that, because of its alien body, which would've had completely different molecular biology, it could not properly eat or digest anything on Earth, despite its best efforts. I'm pretty positive that this was what was ultimately used to kill it.
Near the end of the dream, one of the group discovered the truth behind the Anglermouth movie, however. It was not the original form of this Godzilla film; it was a heavily edited and Americanized version that attempted to capitalize on the horror genre in the 80's. The original Anglermouth was a more traditional Kaiju, resembling Shin Godzilla in its frantic, wide-eyed expressions, but much more horrible by virtue of being extremely fleshy, like a big slab of awful mammal meat. This Kaiju could grow a long, serpentine head from its crotch, which had the same horrible wide blue eyes and a mouth filled with teeth. I'm going to assume the Anglermouth could grow a similar crotch-head, but with more character-appropriate glowing yellow eyes. "
" This was months ago. After lying awake for hours, I fell asleep in the morning and dreamed of a Godzilla movie. Not a new one, no, but an old one, from the 1980's, starring a (then) brand new Kaiju, the Anglermouth. I watched it in the basement of my house with a group of people, but I don't remember who any of them were now. This movie had very strong horror elements for a Godzilla movie, and revolved around this alien being that landed on Earth.
This creature, the Anglermouth - though it was more often called the Scutigera or the [word I cannot remember] louse - was a Kaiju sized humanoid, grey-black in coloration, and its body was mesh-patterned. All except its face, which had a large, eye-shaped, black hole in the pattern - this resembled a mouth at a glance, but it was actually perfectly smooth, with no openings whatsoever. However, the Anglermouth could actually grow a mouth, causing the entire "hole" to extend from its head, growing teeth and bright yellow eyes that shone in the darkness of the "hole". Its head was also disproportionately large. While it was humanoid, it skittered around on a series of centipede-like legs that extended from its back much more than it walked around normally, often climbing up walls and buildings. Its fingers were very, very long.
I'm led to believe the Anglermouth was some sort of Kaiju-sized parasite, which led to its louse name. While it was primarily Kaiju-sized, sometimes it was much smaller, small enough to have scenes that could be constrained to the inside of a single building while it remained much larger than a human. In the movie, it was established that, because of its alien body, which would've had completely different molecular biology, it could not properly eat or digest anything on Earth, despite its best efforts. I'm pretty positive that this was what was ultimately used to kill it.
Near the end of the dream, one of the group discovered the truth behind the Anglermouth movie, however. It was not the original form of this Godzilla film; it was a heavily edited and Americanized version that attempted to capitalize on the horror genre in the 80's. The original Anglermouth was a more traditional Kaiju, resembling Shin Godzilla in its frantic, wide-eyed expressions, but much more horrible by virtue of being extremely fleshy, like a big slab of awful mammal meat. This Kaiju could grow a long, serpentine head from its crotch, which had the same horrible wide blue eyes and a mouth filled with teeth. I'm going to assume the Anglermouth could grow a similar crotch-head, but with more character-appropriate glowing yellow eyes. "
This monster has multiple forms that all sound fascinating, though the "wire mesh" mode is the most intriguing for its seemingly artificial features. This dream works so well as one of those "lost media" creepypastas, too!
WILLOWBURR
Posted by Blythe:
"I had this went I was like seven. So, the dream started like a cinematic view of some futuristic train going through a jungle. This lasted for a moment before the field of view expanded as it came out into open air. The rails below it towered above a jungle underneath and headed toward some giant circular building. Think of it as a giant futuristic circus tent that also towered above the jungle on stilts. There were people going around and stuff like a normal amusement park. But, I can't remember how I got this information, but I somehow learned that there was an immortality field that protected everyone from dying. This dream was before that Rick and Morty episode, but whatever. Just to mention, I was like a camera in a movie this entire time and didn't really have a body. Well, that was until I was some hotel person that went to check on someone in their room. Went in, found a person dead with their eyes plucked out. Oh, wow, body horror. Didn't really bother much but it did whoever's eyes I was looking through.
The girl turned around and ran and then suddenly I jumped bodies. I was a detective looking at the scene. Police stuff, whatevs, not important. Go to my room to sleep, which had a balcony and a sliding glass door looking out to the jungle below. I turned over to look at the clock, which read one in the morning, then turned back towards the balcony. There, I saw two blue dots that glowed. They were tinier than the head of a pin, but it was still noticeable. Turned back over because I didn't want to look at them. I turned back over and the eyes were slightly larger. That wasn't the worst part, though. Long spindly hands with fingers about a foot long pressed against the glass. They were blue and veiny like a person that had been suffocated. The fingers had long talons on the end of them that scratched the glass as it forced the door open. By this time, I was sitting up in bed. As the eyes came into the light, the head it belonged to was finally visible. It was of a bird, but its skin was tight like the giant bird skull grew from a human face, making the skin thin. You could see veins pulse down the beak (which had skin covering it instead of just a normal beak).
The eyes had a film in the socket that looked like a rag soaked in oil. There were tiny blue dots that never moved and always looked forward. I was against my door since it wouldn't open as the birdman thing stood up. It was hunchback and had a human torso. It was old and wrinkly and had blue skin that sagged. It had long legs shaped like a deer's, but the hooves weren't normal. They were turned to the point where the two tips of the hooves stabbed into the ground. The two points we're also overgrown to the point where they were wide and long enough to actually support the being. Its arms were extremely long and skinny and had the same unnatural tightness and a blue tint to its skin. The room was drained of color and the only color that survived was the eyes of the birdman thing. It came towards me very slowly. Its legs popped and the "hooves" stabbed into the ground. Its face came towards mine and stayed there. I could notice at this time that there were veins that throbbed along its crow-like beak. It opened its mouth and that was when I woke up. After this, I decided to write something on Wattpad about it. I decided to call the birdman the WillowBurr. "
"I had this went I was like seven. So, the dream started like a cinematic view of some futuristic train going through a jungle. This lasted for a moment before the field of view expanded as it came out into open air. The rails below it towered above a jungle underneath and headed toward some giant circular building. Think of it as a giant futuristic circus tent that also towered above the jungle on stilts. There were people going around and stuff like a normal amusement park. But, I can't remember how I got this information, but I somehow learned that there was an immortality field that protected everyone from dying. This dream was before that Rick and Morty episode, but whatever. Just to mention, I was like a camera in a movie this entire time and didn't really have a body. Well, that was until I was some hotel person that went to check on someone in their room. Went in, found a person dead with their eyes plucked out. Oh, wow, body horror. Didn't really bother much but it did whoever's eyes I was looking through.
The girl turned around and ran and then suddenly I jumped bodies. I was a detective looking at the scene. Police stuff, whatevs, not important. Go to my room to sleep, which had a balcony and a sliding glass door looking out to the jungle below. I turned over to look at the clock, which read one in the morning, then turned back towards the balcony. There, I saw two blue dots that glowed. They were tinier than the head of a pin, but it was still noticeable. Turned back over because I didn't want to look at them. I turned back over and the eyes were slightly larger. That wasn't the worst part, though. Long spindly hands with fingers about a foot long pressed against the glass. They were blue and veiny like a person that had been suffocated. The fingers had long talons on the end of them that scratched the glass as it forced the door open. By this time, I was sitting up in bed. As the eyes came into the light, the head it belonged to was finally visible. It was of a bird, but its skin was tight like the giant bird skull grew from a human face, making the skin thin. You could see veins pulse down the beak (which had skin covering it instead of just a normal beak).
The eyes had a film in the socket that looked like a rag soaked in oil. There were tiny blue dots that never moved and always looked forward. I was against my door since it wouldn't open as the birdman thing stood up. It was hunchback and had a human torso. It was old and wrinkly and had blue skin that sagged. It had long legs shaped like a deer's, but the hooves weren't normal. They were turned to the point where the two tips of the hooves stabbed into the ground. The two points we're also overgrown to the point where they were wide and long enough to actually support the being. Its arms were extremely long and skinny and had the same unnatural tightness and a blue tint to its skin. The room was drained of color and the only color that survived was the eyes of the birdman thing. It came towards me very slowly. Its legs popped and the "hooves" stabbed into the ground. Its face came towards mine and stayed there. I could notice at this time that there were veins that throbbed along its crow-like beak. It opened its mouth and that was when I woke up. After this, I decided to write something on Wattpad about it. I decided to call the birdman the WillowBurr. "
This is such an excellent monster all around. The fleshy, squishy, veiny details wrapped around a humanoid, bird-like form are hard to get out of your head, and there are many ways to interpret the eyes looking like "oil soaked rags" but I think Skincoats picked a good one! Love the texture this artwork came out with, too, looking even more surreal than the dream's original description had me picturing.
CRATE KITTY
Posted by Ramblin' Evil Mushroom:
"It starts with me in a dark room in my house alone. I can hear the muffled voices of people shuffling around me, which in my dream logic I understand to be ghosts. Some of them are laughing and whispering to one another about me. I feel one brush past me. I suddenly realize that my eyes are closed which is why I can't see. I try to open them but they're too heavy. Finally, I use my fingers to force my eyes to stay open. I finally can see the room, which I can now see is my then bedroom but there are no ghosts, who have seemingly disappeared and left the place eerily quiet.
The only thing in the room is a small wooden crate that is emitting a soft mewing, like a kitten, from within. I open the lid of the crate and inside is the head of a kitten, meowing. However, the head begins to grow and rise out of the box on a snake-like neck, followed by a huge, scaly, dragon-like body that has patches of kitten fur sloughing off of it's body like a recently shed skin. The beast with a giant kitten head begins to screech like a cat in pain. The sound drones on and slowly increases in volume like a siren. It's both terrifying and kind of silly. For some reason the sound vibrates my bones and paralyzes me. The creature bends down it's long snake neck and bites my shoulder with it's needle-like kitten teeth. My skin begins to slough off and I suddenly wake up. "
"It starts with me in a dark room in my house alone. I can hear the muffled voices of people shuffling around me, which in my dream logic I understand to be ghosts. Some of them are laughing and whispering to one another about me. I feel one brush past me. I suddenly realize that my eyes are closed which is why I can't see. I try to open them but they're too heavy. Finally, I use my fingers to force my eyes to stay open. I finally can see the room, which I can now see is my then bedroom but there are no ghosts, who have seemingly disappeared and left the place eerily quiet.
The only thing in the room is a small wooden crate that is emitting a soft mewing, like a kitten, from within. I open the lid of the crate and inside is the head of a kitten, meowing. However, the head begins to grow and rise out of the box on a snake-like neck, followed by a huge, scaly, dragon-like body that has patches of kitten fur sloughing off of it's body like a recently shed skin. The beast with a giant kitten head begins to screech like a cat in pain. The sound drones on and slowly increases in volume like a siren. It's both terrifying and kind of silly. For some reason the sound vibrates my bones and paralyzes me. The creature bends down it's long snake neck and bites my shoulder with it's needle-like kitten teeth. My skin begins to slough off and I suddenly wake up. "
When you hear that a monster is basically a cat in a box, you probably think you're in for a fun time, but Crate Kitty is one of the most traditionally dangerous monsters we've now seen in these entries, the kind of thing that gets written up in an RPG manual as a hazard of treasure-hunting. At least its little face looks adorable while you instantaneously necrotize?
APOCALYPSE GOBLINS
Posted by Aceotaku:
"I had a dream where I don't remember the details too well, What I do remember is that it was about characters trying to survive in a Goblin Apocalypse that ravaged the modern world. The goblins were apparently weak but clever, crafty and numerous. The other detail I remember is that one of the characters, an asshole who I believe tried to trap one of the other characters outside to be killed by goblins, somehow (and I thik at will) transformed into what I distinctly remember was called a hobgoblin in the dream. he was at least 2 or 3 feet taller than a normal human and had a lanky, but muscular light green body. He had massve, clublike arms that reached almost down to his ankles and three spindly fingers on each hand. His large head was round and completely hairless and had very long pointed ears and small, diamond shaped mouth that showed off his gums and small squarish teeth and he had five large black diamond shaped eyes arranged in an upside down V shape. I think he may also have had large green bat wings too. "
"I had a dream where I don't remember the details too well, What I do remember is that it was about characters trying to survive in a Goblin Apocalypse that ravaged the modern world. The goblins were apparently weak but clever, crafty and numerous. The other detail I remember is that one of the characters, an asshole who I believe tried to trap one of the other characters outside to be killed by goblins, somehow (and I thik at will) transformed into what I distinctly remember was called a hobgoblin in the dream. he was at least 2 or 3 feet taller than a normal human and had a lanky, but muscular light green body. He had massve, clublike arms that reached almost down to his ankles and three spindly fingers on each hand. His large head was round and completely hairless and had very long pointed ears and small, diamond shaped mouth that showed off his gums and small squarish teeth and he had five large black diamond shaped eyes arranged in an upside down V shape. I think he may also have had large green bat wings too. "
The details of this design fit so well with "alien encounters" from the 60's and 70's that these "goblins" are almost surely from outer space, but I wonder what the relationship really is between them and the Hobgoblins? Are those a leader caste? The adults? Maybe the goblins created the hobgoblins as more powerful infiltrators in their invasion of the planet.
COW PRISON
Posted by Nobody:
"One time I dreamt that, when you committed a crime, you could get a strange special sentence instead of going to a normal prison.
The place the prisoners got sent to looked like the interior of a dark, massive factory. The "factory" had dirt instead of floor, and it contained several wooden shacks in which the prisoners will stay until their sentence ended. The shacks were incredibly small, dirty, and unkempt. The factory was dark, like night, except for some artificial lights on the ceiling that were always on. The shacks, though roofless, didn't have doors or windows, so the prisoner was completely isolated.
Completely isolated, kind of.
The prisoners weren't completely alone, because each one was forced to live with a strange, monstrous animal. The creatures seemed to be related to bovids, like a weird mishmash between a goat, a cow and the like. The creatures were completely hairless, and they looked thin and starving as if a cow skeleton had grown epidermis, with little to no muscle underneath. You could see their skulls through the thin layer of skin, their teeth and some of their bones exposed. They were huge, and their long legs made them freakishly tall.
The bovids were also really, really dumb. They didn't do anything. They just moved around, staring at nothing. They didn't feel happiness, fear, anger or love, and they didn't react no matter what you did to them. The shacks' smallness, combined with the bovid's big size, forced the prisoner to huddle together with their creature. Though creepy, they were the prisoners' only company during their stay, and their "owners" would easily grow attached to them.
That wasn't all there was to the sentence, though. Besides miserable living conditions, it also involved penal labour. The prisoners were here to work. They were here to "make meat" to sell as food in supermarkets. And the only source of meat available was, of course, their bizarre roommates.
Once in a while, the prisoner had to kill and mutilate their creature with a knife, and put the pieces of raw meat in a box that would be taken away after a short time. The bovid didn't feel pain or have a sense of self-preservation, so they didn't object. After that, the prisoner would be given a new creature, so they can kill it again in the future. A lot of prisoners were devastated the first time they had to cut the bovids into pieces, because they saw them as their weird, only friends.
The sentence was criticized for being cruel and inhumane. A lot of the complaints included things such as the prisoners being fed rotten meat and other unhealthy meals. However, it didn't seem as if the government was going to get rid of it soon. "
"One time I dreamt that, when you committed a crime, you could get a strange special sentence instead of going to a normal prison.
The place the prisoners got sent to looked like the interior of a dark, massive factory. The "factory" had dirt instead of floor, and it contained several wooden shacks in which the prisoners will stay until their sentence ended. The shacks were incredibly small, dirty, and unkempt. The factory was dark, like night, except for some artificial lights on the ceiling that were always on. The shacks, though roofless, didn't have doors or windows, so the prisoner was completely isolated.
Completely isolated, kind of.
The prisoners weren't completely alone, because each one was forced to live with a strange, monstrous animal. The creatures seemed to be related to bovids, like a weird mishmash between a goat, a cow and the like. The creatures were completely hairless, and they looked thin and starving as if a cow skeleton had grown epidermis, with little to no muscle underneath. You could see their skulls through the thin layer of skin, their teeth and some of their bones exposed. They were huge, and their long legs made them freakishly tall.
The bovids were also really, really dumb. They didn't do anything. They just moved around, staring at nothing. They didn't feel happiness, fear, anger or love, and they didn't react no matter what you did to them. The shacks' smallness, combined with the bovid's big size, forced the prisoner to huddle together with their creature. Though creepy, they were the prisoners' only company during their stay, and their "owners" would easily grow attached to them.
That wasn't all there was to the sentence, though. Besides miserable living conditions, it also involved penal labour. The prisoners were here to work. They were here to "make meat" to sell as food in supermarkets. And the only source of meat available was, of course, their bizarre roommates.
Once in a while, the prisoner had to kill and mutilate their creature with a knife, and put the pieces of raw meat in a box that would be taken away after a short time. The bovid didn't feel pain or have a sense of self-preservation, so they didn't object. After that, the prisoner would be given a new creature, so they can kill it again in the future. A lot of prisoners were devastated the first time they had to cut the bovids into pieces, because they saw them as their weird, only friends.
The sentence was criticized for being cruel and inhumane. A lot of the complaints included things such as the prisoners being fed rotten meat and other unhealthy meals. However, it didn't seem as if the government was going to get rid of it soon. "
This is one of the most uncomfortable dreams I think that's ever been posted here, and Disqus kept deleting it as spam for some reason. Eventually the original poster also seemed to disappear, their account flagged as "not activated yet." Did they quit Disqus? Did they get deleted for some other reason? I have no idea, but the idea of the Cow Prison and how it works is probably going to stick with me forever. This is a nightmare creature that isn't horrifying for what it does to the dreamer, but for what is done to it, which is a whole different kind of "monster" but a chillingly effective one.
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