Tuesday, March 31st, 2015 | I only go shopping at night The cashier swipes my items across the scanner as I stare at the floor. I find it easiest to get through my anxiety by avoiding eye contact with other people. That’s why I only go shopping at night fewer people to avoid. “Did you find everything okay?” she asks casually. “Mm-hmm,” I mumble to the floor. Her voice sounds nice. Pleasant. Curiosity wins over and I glance up. The cashier’s head is completely caved in on the left side. Probably a car accident. I snap my gaze back down towards the floor. After I pay she gives back my change in a hand so mangled I’m surprised it can hold anything at all. Thanking her, I grab my bags and turn towards the exit. Immediately I see a man looking through magazines at the store front. The skin on his face and hands is the consistency of a hot dog that fell into a campfire. Burn victim. I rush out the door as fast as I can. In my car I finally catch my breath as I lean my forehead on the steering wheel. Eventually I look up and see my familiar reflection in the rear-view mirror: my head is blown open in the back. Gunshot victim. Why did I ever wish for the power to see how people die? Credit to reddit user resistance1984

r/shortscarystories 4 yr. ago MintClicker Moments before the tragedy At 3, she jumped off the bed. At 7, she unbuckled her seat belt. At 12, she went to a sleepover at a friend's house. At 17, she finally received her driver's license. At 26, she said yes. At 30, she went into labor. At 39, she had one last hurrah. At 46, she signed the papers to make it final. At 55, he was diagnosed and had no one to share the news with. At 61, she celebrated her remission with a night out. At 22, she looked at herself in the mirror. At 87, surrounded by her family and friends, she smiled. There are moments before every tragedy, quick flashes of boredom or happiness, of the expected and unexpected. These moments I see. The little girl jumping off her parents bed and into an unresponsive final state. Another girl attending her first sleepover, excited and giddy, only to succumb to an unknowing fatal nut allergy. The young woman whose proposal near the shoreline was poorly thought-out, never allowing her to live to see her marriage. The older woman who finally divorced the man she came to loathe, and for that man to not take the finality of it all with dignity or peace. The man whose diagnosis was terminal. The woman whose 40th birthday ended in heartache and disaster. The girl whose last glimpse in the mirror was of herself, relieved, then raising the pistol to her temple. These moments, as innocuous as they seem, are the final looks to life before tragedy ultimately hits. And I watch them. I have to. It's my responsibility to take you all from this realm to the next. It's my duty. And I am sorry; I truly am. Because now? At this moment, they read the final sentences of a story. Some bored. Some happy. Some expecting this ending; some not. And I watch as they read these last words, fully oblivious as they are, that this, this is their moment.