When I was a child, I got lost in the woods while playing hide and seek with some cousins. We roamed through the woods for a few hours. The fog rolled in as the day gave way to dusk. It grew chilly. Every sound was amplified: the cracking of tree branches, the rustling of leaves. It was enormously creepy. I have never forgotten it. I tend to prefer staying in civilization, as you can imagine. The woods––and nature itself––can stay right where it is!
After Redditor Edgardhb asked the online community, "What is THE most terrifying experience you've ever had?" people told us about their experiences.
Warning: Some sensitive material ahead.
"I eventually heard some noise..."
I got trapped somewhere no one ever visits, and my phone was out of reach.
I work at an a major airport as IT Tech.
This summer I was working deep down within the airport. Basement level -7, basically only used for pipes and cabling. Ive only ever seen one other person down there, which has just been made even worse with COVID, I never see anyone down there now. Normally we'd work in pairs, but again, because of the virus, that wasnt allowed, and we where told to make sure our phones where always charged.
I was working within an IT Cabinet and bending down a lot, and so I didn't want to drop and smash my phone, so I put it on a nearby table. Whilst I was working part of the cabinet collapsed and pinned one of my arms, It was extremely heavy, and I couldn't move my arm at all, nor could I reach my phone. I knew no-one within my company knew where I was working, so I just sat and shouted for a bit, and was also trying anything to reach my phone, but it was just out of reach, after a while I just lost hope. It felt like I'd been down there for days, Lost in my own thoughts about how surely they'd be searching the airport by now, and what they'd do if they discovered my body. How my family would react, what would be on the news. All that stuff.
I eventually heard some noise in the distance and started shouting/screaming a bit. Eventually heard someone running, and god damn, I was never so relieved too see someones face, He passed me my phone and I called my manager, within minutes my own team and multiple security guards had rushed to me, and they managed to deconstruct the cabinet and get me free. It had been 8 hours but it felt like eternity.
No serious injuries, just some pretty bad bruising. The person who found me told me he was an engineer who'd been called out to fix a broken elevator. God knows what would've happened if that elevator hadn't broken.
"We both go into our bathroom..."
I was 7 months pregnant with our first child and not sleeping well at night. I was laying in bed, trying to find a comfortable position when I hear something that sounds like glasses tinkling together. I give my husband a shove and tell him what I heard. He grunts that it's probably one of our cats, rolls over and continues snoring. I still lay there. Then I hear mens voices. My heart felt like it stopped.
I shove my husband hard and whisper that I hear people talking. He begrudgingly gets up. I tell him to get the gun just in case. He waves me off and heads to our bedroom door. I see his hand pause on the handle and the he locks our door and runs to his bedside table, getting the gun and telling me to call 911 because he hears guys in our house.
We both go into our bathroom, shut the door. I'm in the closet calling 911 and he's halfway in the closet doorway and halfway crouching behind our dresser with the gun pointed at the door. We are both shaking. I tell the 911 operator what is going on and out address. They say police are in route.
While waiting, both my husband and I have the same thought. Earlier in the day I had been on his computer (he's a gamer and has several monitors) working on lesson plans for when I went on my maternity leave on one monitor and watching the show Supernatural on the other. When my husband got home from work, I just paused the show and hung out with him.
So now we are hiding in the closet with a gun and wondering if one of our cats jumped on the desk and accidentally stepped on the keyboard and unpaused it. I tell the 911 operator all of this and my husband decides to go listen at the door again. He comes back saying it's silent and we are like what are the chances that a cat upsized the video and then paused it again.
The 911 operator says police have arrived, put out gun away and meet them at the front door. As soon as we leave the bedroom we see my giant mainecoon cat straight up laying across the keyboard like a fat little @sshole.
Yep. We got the crap scared out of us and Five cop cars showed up at our house because my cat unpaused the computer. My husband now refers to that night and the Night of the Naked Gun.
"I was almost abducted..."
I was almost abducted by a weird man in a playground when I was 6. While my mother was out buying some meal, a strange man proposed me to go to his car by giving me a chocolate and told me I would get more of those if I followed him. Fortunately, a woman I do not know actually saved me and told the man she was my mom and threatened him to spray gas with her pepper spray on his eyes and call the police if he did not leave. He walked away and I never heard of him.
When I was older, around 10 to 12, my mom told me the story and it actually frightened me. I never could have seen and thanked that woman who saved me.
"I was living there..."
Being chased by a man with a gun through the streets of El Salvador. I was living there as a 20-year-old volunteer at the time and it was pitch black, pouring rain, and there was no one around. It was terrifying.
"Was on the 71st floor..."
Was on the 71st floor of One World Trade Center when it was bombed in February, 1993. Took me four hours to get out and I was covered in soot. Three times that day thought I was going to die.
"I immediately started sprinting..."
I was walking home late at night and a van started tailing me. I was on my home street so I didn't run in case I was being paranoid. Then the van stopped a guy got out and the one in the diver seat yelled "Get her!"
I immediately started sprinting to my house. The guy got back in the van and they drove beside me till I got to the front door and then drove off.
I think they were just two guys thinking it'd be fun to give someone a scare. Still though, I was pretty freaked out.
On the more psychological side, finding out my mom had breast cancer, and dealing with the fact that I would have to live without her.
"About a month ago..."
This may not be terrifying to some people but it was to me.
About a month ago, I was bringing the trash cans up from the end of the driveway, and my dog was with me. He was a miniature pinscher that we rescued from the shelter when he was a puppy. In the 12 years we had him, I'd never seen him go into the road. We had a power pole near the end of the driveway, and if I went past that to get the mail or whatever, he'd sit at the power pole and wait for me. For whatever reason, on this night, he didn't.
So I grab the trash cans and start pulling them, and a car passes by. They hit the brakes, I hear something thud, and then they absolutely floor it.
It was dark outside, so I didn't exactly realize what happened. At first I was like "That dude just hit an armadillo," and "there's no way he hit Roscoe". But I couldn't see Roscoe at the power pole so I turned my phone light on and walked into the road.
And there was my little buddy.
It was so unreal, picking my dog up out of the middle of the road while he's just pouring blood and teeth and twitching like crazy. I carried him to the ditch and held him while I called my parents and (quite hysterically) told them Roscoe had been run over.
I guess it isn't quite terrifying as much as it is traumatizing, but I have had constant nightmares about it since then. I hope that he felt me there and felt my love, and I hope my hysterical crying didn't scare him. He died in my arms, and I carried him up the driveway and wrapped him in a towel (after putting my other two dogs in the house) and I just sat in the yard with him and cried and rocked him.
Another of our dogs passed away a few weeks later. It's been a long month.
"I had a stalker..."
I had a stalker that would call me a lot, never answered after the first couple calls and started leaving threatening voicemails. Kept seeing the same car near my apartment and sometimes when i would go somewhere else like a friends house. Always had the headlights off never saw the face of the person because the windows were tinted. Got woken up around 2am to someone banging on the back door for a good 10 minutes. Didn't look out my window didn't move a muscle but I was glad I had the door locked that night I sometimes forget to. Incidents stopped after that but started having intense agorophobia again because of it. Living as a trans person in the rural midwest was terrible im glad I left and never looked back.
"We made it to the basement..."
There was a tornado that passed about a mile from my house back in April. Now, I am a tornado hardy Midwesterner, normally it would not be that big of a deal. But my husband was at work that night. My daughter woke me up to the sirens at about 11, and I turned on the tv to see how bad it really was. When I saw it really was close we ran out into the hallway and called for my son. As we stood at the top of the landing the power went out. That, for me , was the more terrifying part of the night. It was like a movie.
We made it to the basement and rode it out, no problem. But that moment at the top of the stairs still gives me nightmares.
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