User blog:ThatPastaGuy/Spotlighted Pasta - Autopilot

5 in the morning seems like the perfect time for Creepypasta, especially when you live in an area with barely any streetlights.

So after spamming the random pasta button a few times this morning, I came across Autopilot. It certainly upped the creepiness factor when I had to immediately get in my car afterward. Thank god its February.

I almost didn't spotlight this one because it's filed in SR, but if you're anything like me and click that random button like there's no tomorrow, there's a chance you may not have come across it. So there's my half-baked excuse for spotlighting it anyway.

Autopilot's definitely one of the more mundane pastas I've read, but it needs to be. The protagonist (can you really call him that?) is, for the most part, just describing a small change in his morning routine. It's when you get to the ending that the plot really gets juicy.

+++BEGINNING OF SPOILERS+++

After finding out that the nursery door had been vandalized, our questionable protagonist, along with us, starts to piece together something terrible. His mind flits between his forgotten phone and a truth he barely wants to know. Both he and the reader find the unfortunate death of his daughter together. When we find out, we're both panicking. The protagonist forgetting his phone has had a butterfly effect resulting in Emily's death. The last line in particular drove this pasta up in my mind.

+++END OF SPOILERS+++

It isn't really the writing of this pasta that I love. Although the writing in this pasta is excellent, and nicely varied from some of the other pastas here in its relative normality.

It also isn't the creepy factor. It's not necessarily a creepy pasta (ha, puns), at least in execution, and it definitely isn't scary.

No, I love this pasta for two main reasons. For one, the impact throughout the story of his forgotten phone spirals into a massive and undesirable end. My habit of losing things aside, that's still an interesting basis for a pasta, and I enjoyed it.

But bigger than that is the realistic feel of it all. Knowing that this can happen (and has happened) is very creepy. It's not creepy in the wording, but rather the thinking afterward. This left me thinking about it during my entire morning commute. The ending really stuck with me for that reason.

This is a kind of pasta that you need to read twice. Once to understand it, and another to see the significance of everything. After reading it, you question where the protagonist is when he's telling the story: my personal idea is he's pleading it in court.

Final Words: Autopilot is a fantastic pasta, and one of my new personal favorites. It may not be the creepiest of stories, but it's simple yet chilling narrative, realistic description, and thought-provoking ending will really stick with you.

Credit goes to Skarjo from Reddit for this amazing pasta.