So I don't know if this belongs here as Creepypasta. It doesn't feel or sound like something terrifying but living through it, haunted by the spontaneous supernatural makes me uneasy. It's like too much of a good thing.
This isn't going to start out as "I don't have much time!" Or "Let me explain from my childhood of 1996 where I was dared to swallow a earthworm..."
You're not interested. I know. But I will start off with my dad telling me something, a story from the country prairie.
My dad is a man that you don't see often. He's from the farm like a good ol' country boy. Religious, conservative, a gun nut, but extraordinary brave. He once had a shotgun pointed at his chest and he just laughed.
He used to drag me and my older siblings to every haunted house, spookfest, and abandoned "spectral" places constantly. He never got scared at anything. I guess, ultimately, I get my bravery from him.
There was one thing though. He used to talk about these "Pockets" to great length. He would say that on Earth, there are these "pockets of Heaven" that come and go, sometimes so fast people don't even notice. It was very easy to stumble upon these "pockets" and be walking on a plane or realm of Heaven and feel this sort of... peace. Of course, searching for them is damn near impossible, he claimed. You'll never find them, just... walk into them by accident at the most unexpected time.
They don't discriminate either. You could be happy as ever, waltzing into a pocket. You could be holding a gun to your head or a true blue asshole who just laid a guy off for being a minute late. You could even be murdering or raping someone and enter this plane of Heaven during such an act.
Yet, my father was afraid. His eyes were cast. You could open the wrong door, he quietly said, and you would totally be unprepared for what's on the other side.
Imagine, if you will, you accidentally go into a pocket and there's judgment on the other side, or justice and you just murdered your spouse. Remember what I said earlier? They happen to everyone.
What if you find God? What's his first impression of you if he sees you stumble into his realm with only your underwear on? Or maybe you've been running for so long that you forget why you're running and the cries of "No! Stop hurting me!" seem like a distant dream.
Some people might be lucky (or unfortunate) to only find these maybe once in a lifetime.
As my dad says, staring into space, some of us are haunted by these Pockets. We keep falling into them. We keep wondering when the next one will be. We can't seem to get away.
Haunted by Paradise. Can you imagine how that's terrible? So, you see my dilemma, right? Heaven finding someone constantly cannot be Creepypasta!
I found a Pocket. Well, The first one. I was leaving the apartment for work, like I always do. I stepped out, locked the door, and turned around.
The landscape had changed. Everything whited out until only what looked like sketch drawings remained. Just outlines. The field beyond me was nothing but a void of landscape lines. It was so bright. Lord, was it bright.
I thought immediately it was a seizure. I never had one in my life but it had to be, right? I tried to reach out but this overwhelmed contentment flooded me. I couldn't move. My body felt so relaxed, it wanted to melt into the floor.
Silence. No sound, smell, or touch. Quiet peace. The sky stretched above me and felt like an emptiness.
As quickly as it came, it went. Color, detail, everything bled back into the sketch lines like a watercolor painting. Suddenly, I was back again.
I called into work and went back inside. I told my sister later that evening what happened. We both theorized that maybe my body just wasn't expecting sunlight and overreacted, so I left it alone. Weird stuff happens with human bodies constantly.
A month later, I'm at work. I'm stacking a box and right as I put it on the shelf, the shelf goes static. When I say static, I mean like TV static. A physical shelf had crackling lines and loud screeches before me. I flinched, dropping the box on my foot.
Another seizure, surely. My brain felt like it stopped. Everything disappeared into this clusterfuck of whiteness and sketchlines but this time, there was more detail. Buzzing lines physically rearranging themselves before me and a cosmos of color burst forth.
It washed the whole room. At this point, I only thought I had died.
This lasted a minute before reality came back. I requested to leave immediately and I have never went back.
True to form, I diagnosed myself as having epilepsy attacks. "What else does that?" I kept telling myself. Had I developed sensitivity to light?
I went to my dad for money to see a doctor. When I explained why, he furrowed his brow into worry.
"You've been in the Pockets." He stated softly.
"Dad. Stop joking." I rolled my eyes, "This is serious."
"They're not going to let you go. They'll find you." He increased in tone, a frantic state of being, "They're going to keep you there forever."
"Dad." I firmly said, "I'm not going to be scared by a story. Knock it off now or I'm asking Mom for money."
"Pray." Was all he said. Out of anger, I stormed out of the house and got into my car with every intention to drive off. I wish now, I had stayed longer.
Because when I turned out the ignition, my vision whited out once more, but instead of soft and cartoonish lines, a face was two inches away from my face.
I tried to scream but contentment washed over me. Peace. I Relaxed my body so much that I could run away. I just prayed to God it wasn't hungry.
To describe this creature is difficult. It had weird, long, feathery scales but the scales molted off. A Curved mouth like a lion, but pointy like a hawk. It had big giant eyes, like some anime artist had way too much creative license, but they were not cute. They were empty. The eyeballs were completely clear so I could see all the way to the back of the skull. Only the pupils were colored in a color I could not describe because I had never seen it before.
We stared for a minute before everything bled back in. I was on Earth again.
I just started screaming. Peace had wrecked my nerves and pulled out my hair.
This was real and I knew there was nothing I could do. Just pray. Pray the door I open will not be the wrong one. I won't do anything now, really. I won't watch porn, drink, smoke drugs or even drive, not that I did half those things in life. You would think that this would end with, "Oh. I reexamined my life and now I only do good things so I improved my life and the world around me."
Remember. I said these Pockets do not discriminate on basis of good and evil. They've come more frequently. Longer, even. I've seen same sketch landscapes. Whiteness. Other times, I've seen Paradiso creatures, that horrify me if I had the capacity.
I've asked my dad how I could avoid this. He tells me that he's been stalked by these too in his life. He wonders the same I do everyday: when will I open the wrong door?
So, as we wait for a doom that may or may not come, I have gathered some... conclusions for any of those concerned.
If you find a Pocket and have no desire to return, and you just so happen to find a creature, you might be able to ask it if you could stay. Certainly, it could oblige. If you're good, you'd wind up there in sixty years anyway, and it might appreciate you skipping all of the red tape that death has with it. Maybe so many disappearances of the world come from that.
Is there Pockets of Hell, you wonder? I have too, actually. I guess it's possible. I've never seen it and neither has Dad.
Good deeds do attract their attention, especially giving back large amounts of money to the original owner. I noticed they happen more when I do that but my father disagrees. He says the act of money just draws attention, whether or not you give it back.
You cannot bring anyone into the Pocket with you, I'm sure. So all you Romeos and Juliets wanting to run away together, sorry. I haven't been able to do this, and I once handcuffed myself to my sister for a day.
I suppose, in a way, it is possible to commit heinous acts your entire life and find a Pocket of Heaven where you could skip judgment entirely. You could beat the system, getting through a backdoor into eternal happiness. But I don't suggest it. Do you think Heaven would just let you slide?
After all, you could open the wrong door.
I wish someone could tell me I am crazy or I am having epileptic seizures. It would be a relief on me. My dad and I are dwindling down on the doors, you see, longer and longer we spend now in each Pocket.
If you find a ritual to enter them, let me know. Maybe you can save us from this dread by finding the way out. I'd appreciate it.
Oh, by the way. If you see God before we do, tell him I'm sorry I don't want to stay in his Heaven forever just yet, but I will try to knock before I enter his door.