About a year ago I was living with a buddy, I'll call him Seth, in an old apartment complex. We both were fresh out of college and figured we'd save some money and room up together. The place didn't look rundown or anything but it definitely had that old 70s look to it. The wallpaper looked like it hadn't been change since that decade and everything had that tint of yellow on it making it feel like the apartment had passed its prime long ago. The doors were flimsy but the walls looked pretty sturdy. It was cheap and we didn't really care how it looked because it wasn't a permanent thing, we just needed a place to live so without much investigating we took it and signed the lease.
It was maybe a week later that we found some old audio cassette tapes, you know the type that held only audio, stashed in a shoebox in one of the overhead compartments in Seth's closet. They looked pretty old like they had been there a while. I was real curious to hear what songs were on them because that's what people usually put on them. Perhaps they belonged to the person who lived here before us I thought. Whatever the case I wanted to hear some vintage old school music. However, neither one of us had a stereo that played cassette tapes but I found one at Goodwill for a buck. We set the tapes aside for a few days and finally sat down to listen to them on the weekend over some drinks. We were going to make it into a drinking game and see how many songs we could recognize.
When we started playing the tapes, it wasn't music that flooded the speakers but instead weird ritualistic chants in a language I didn't understand. At first I thought it was a recording of someone's religious worship for church or something but it sounded way more sinister than that. Seth and I just stared wide eyed at the stereo for a few moments trying to comprehend what we were listening to and finally we broke the tension by nervously giggling. What the hell were we listening to? It was just one man's voice reciting what sounded like religious chants of worship. The voice was low and deep and had intent and purpose. It didn't sound like someone was just reciting something written but instead like there was a reason for every word. Instead of turning it off right away we let it play for a while with neither one of us admitting it was kind of creeping us out.
I nervously laughed it off and made myself a drink. Seth on the other hand seemed more interested by it than I did. He stared at the stereo intently listening as if trying to figure out the purpose of this man's chant. "What if the guy who lived here before us left these? That's some creepy shit. What is he even saying?" he asked. I couldn't answer any of those questions I just knew that this man's voice was starting to get under my skin. I was about to turn it off when Seth recognized a phrase; quid pro quo. I also recognized it, it meant something for something. This guy was speaking Latin, a dead language. Why would anyone be chanting in Latin? Seth had taken a Latin language course as an elective his senior year so now his curiosity had really been peaked. Having barely passed that class however, he couldn't really understand anything this man was saying. I on the other hand didn't want to hear anymore of it and turned it off. Seth seemed upset I did that, he was still very curious what the meaning of those tapes were and what the man was saying. I didn't care either way what this guy's intent was because I had reached my limit of creepiness for one night. I told Seth we should probably get rid of the tapes but he insisted on keeping them. In that one listen Seth's curiosity had become an urge he couldn't ignore.
A week later I come home from work and could hear that creepy old man's voice from the tapes emanating from the living room. I slowly walk toward the source and turn the corner to see Seth sitting on the couch intently listening with his head tilted back on the head rest. I asked him what he was doing and why was he listening to those awful tapes again. He told me he's been trying to translate them. I told him I couldn't care less what that man was saying and wanted those tapes gone. He just laughed at me and mocked me by saying I was acting like a scared little girl. He sat me down on the couch and showed me a pad of paper with weird words scribbled on them. They were Latin words and he had written their meanings next to them. He pointed to two in particular. He said, "look at these two words, they keep popping up in the recordings. Infensus and solvo, they mean hostile and release. This guy says it more than once. Seems important don't you think?" I didn't really care I thought. I told him those tapes were bad news and if we kept messing with them it was going to lead nowhere but with him wasting a huge amount of his time. Seth just avoided my opinion and began telling me that he believed that the man on the tapes was trying to speak with spirits, maybe hostile ones, and tried to exchange something for them to come to him perhaps for his soul because Seth had also heard the word 'animus' on the tapes which meant soul.
I didn't know what to say but I was getting thoroughly freaked out and told Seth that we should just get rid of these tapes especially if someone is literally trying to sell their soul to evil spirits and that whoever is on these tapes might come back looking for them. I really just wanted Seth to forget about them but he couldn't let it go, his curiosity had taken over and was really putting a strain on me.
A few weeks pass and it appeared as if Seth had pulled back a bit on his curiosity with those tapes and figuring out its message. I was a little relieved I hadn't had to hear anymore about those terrible cassette tapes but then one night I was woken up by that man's voice from the tapes chanting something and abruptly as I had heard it, it was gone. I got up and headed over to Seth's room to see if he was awake and I could see light coming from out of the bottom of his door. I knock but he doesn't answer. I knock again a little harder and Seth finally opens the door. "I'm sorry did I wake you up?" he said. I looked passed him and could see he had headphones jacked into the stereo and I could see he had the tapes playing. He had accidentally pulled the headphone jack out blaring the man's voice out of the speakers. I realized in that moment that Seth hadn't given up on these tapes at all but had been listening to them probably every night. I asked him what he was doing but he just diverted my question and began telling me more about his deciphered message but I didn't want to hear any of it and went back to bed annoyed. That night I had a dream that ominous detached eyes were staring at me in my room from the ceiling. I didn't get much sleep that night.
Maybe a month passes and Seth became a hermit, never coming out of his room, we hardly talk, I don't ever see him eat. He basically became a stranger to me but I figured as long as he kept paying his rent I didn't care, I would out last the lease and move out. One day when Seth had no choice but to go to work I decided I would clean the apartment. At first I didn't want to go into Seth's room since his door was closed but after I had cleaned the living room and walked by it again, it was open. I took a peak into the room and it was a mess. There were hundreds of papers scattered all over the floor with notes scribbled on them. I kept seeing the phrase "did he realize it?" written on the sheets of paper. He had more notes tacked on the walls and post it notes all around his computer and desk. He had become obsessed with these tapes and it was freaking me out. Later that night when he came back from work I confronted him about it. He said it was none of my business what he did on his own time. He was right, he could do whatever he wanted with his own time but I couldn't help but feel eerily uncomfortable with him researching those tapes but he didn't really care anymore what I thought.
After our confrontation a few days later I wake up in the middle of the night with that eerie feeling that someone is watching me. I looked to my bedroom door which was closed and saw a figure of a shadowy person standing there in the corner. At first I thought it was Seth and called out to him but got no response. I immediately got annoyed and raised my voice, "Seth man, you're being really creepy, get the hell out!" Again no answer. I was angry now and yelled "Seth! Get Out!" That's when Seth replied from the other room. My eyes bulged and widened with cold fear and my stomach sank to the ground. I yelled for Seth to come into my room that there was someone in here. He rushed over and opened the door and the dark figure disappeared. I didn't know if my eyes were playing tricks on me or what but I knew that something didn't feel right. Seth had a worried look on his face as well but didn't say why that night.
A few days later, I came home to the front door broken into. The door handle and lock were completely busted open. I walked into the apartment very slowly and looked around and see Seth standing in the hallway looking around at the floor. I asked him what happened as if wasn't obvious omeone had trashed the place. Our things were thrown everywhere, our dishes were broken, the furniture was turned over but nothing was missing. Nothing except the tapes. Seth knew it because that's what he had been looking for when I got home. He hadn't even called the police yet he was so intent on finding those tapes. I was about to call the authorities when Seth looked at me with a fear in his face I had never seen before. There was a dread creeping from behind his eyes and I knew something else was wrong.
He finally came clean about something he did. His face no longer could hide the lies of how deep he had gone with these tapes. He told me he had recorded the tapes to his computer to convert them to mp3s and catalog them. But once he got them on his computer they weren't the same audio anymore. It was violent sounds, dreadful noises that were chaotic and horrifying. It was sounds on top of sounds with horrible hidden screams in the background from, he said, monsters. I looked at him curiously, had he really lost it? Monsters? He didn't know how else to describe it, it was pure chaos and that's not all. He also told me that something had been released from the tapes when he recorded them. He said when he was listening to those chaotic sounds back on his computer a small window popped onscreen in the center, just black like a DOS window. Then two digitized eyes opened and looked at Seth. He said he was consumed by pure fear in that moment and jumped away from the computer but the eyes would follow him around the room. Then after a few moments the eyes looked down at the tapes and they morphed into a smile and the window closed. I felt knots of dread forming in my throat. I didn't know what to do. Was it true? I couldn't believe it. Then Seth showed me the audio. At first I was hesitant to hear it but finally gave in and he played it back for me. It was as horrible as Seth had described, pure chaos. He tried to delete them but to no avail, he even formatted his hard drive but they were still there. We couldn't get rid of them but as time passed neither one of us wanted to anymore.
Slowly the madness from this new audio crept into my every thought and is consuming me still. I can't unhear the chaos that I listened to. Seth had become docile and lifeless. Fear it seemed had conquered his mind and there was nothing anyone could do for him. He sat most days blank face staring at the ceiling. I on the other hand am trying to battle for my sanity. Everyday is an epic struggle to not hear the audio but I slowly find myself going to the computer and playing it back. Its the only way I can satisfy that urge, like an itch you can't scratch. I keep playing it and playing it. The more I listen to it the more I realize it has chosen me. I wish it hadn't but I have no choice anymore, if your soul is ripe for the taking it will consume you. I fear I am damned, I have fought with myself to share this audio but it has spread itself no matter and my mind is too weak. I can't deny the urges anymore. Its all I feel and the chaos is all I hear. I have to share the Chaos.
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