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Hi listeners, it's Vanessa. Before today's episode, I want to take a brief moment to tell you about a show from Crime House's sister studio, Rewind that I know you'll love. It's called Government that Doesn't Suck, hosted by Professors Lindsay Cormack and Greg Jackson from History that Doesn't Suck. Ever wonder how the weather forecast on your phone is so accurate? Or how your mail still gets across the country for less than a dollar? Or who actually built the highway you drove on this morning? Each episode tells the surpr of an American institution that you'll never look at the same way again. Listen to and follow Government that Doesn't Suck every other Monday on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or watch video episodes on YouTube.
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This is crime house.
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A man scratches at a wall with his bare fingernails until there's nothing left of them. A forest grows inside a house and something invisible crawls up his arms. A little girl in white stands in a room with no doors, and when you look at her long enough, you start to see what she really is. And at the end, a number on a door that was never supposed to be there. Today, I'm taking you into one of the most beloved and deeply unsettling haunted house, creepypast Internet has ever produced, and one that you can't escape. Welcome to Twisted A Crime House Original. I'm Heidi Wong. Every week I'll take you deep into humanity's darkest stories and the creepiest corners of the Internet. If you've ever had a haunted moment or a twisted tale of your own, I want to hear about it. Drop it in the comments. The creepier the better. Crime House exists because of listeners like you want to support Twisted Tales and get episodes a day early and ad free. Subscribe to Crime House Plus. To join, go to crimehouseplus.com or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, tap try free at the top of the Twisted Tales show page. We're also on YouTube with full video episodes. Just search and subscribe to Twisted Tales with Heidi Wong so you can watch the horror come to life. Today I'm getting into the creepypasta called no End House. It seems simple. Nine rooms, $500. Make it to the end. Nobody ever has. Let's find out why and whether getting out of the no End House is really the same thing as being free.
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no End House was written by a guy named Brian Russell. It was first posted sometime around 2010 or 2011 before gaining traction on creepypasta sites and horror subreddits. It aged remarkably well, the reason being that it's not really about a haunted house at all. It's about a system, one that uses you against yourself. In fact, it got so popular it was actually turned into a TV show on the Syfy Channel. What's so smart about the setup is how it builds up dread. It starts so casually that you know something bad is coming. And it does. Let me introduce you to David Williams. He's the narrator of this story, and he's careful to establish something right from the start. He's not a drug addict. He doesn't have a history of psychosis. He went to college, he moved into a small apartment, and he lived a pretty ordinary life. He wants you to know this before he tells you what happened to him. He wants you to know that what he experienced was real. On the other hand, his college friend Peter Terry was a heroin addict. He was the kind of person who drops in and out of your life without warning, and you've learned to not take it that personally. So when Peter disappeared from their online messenger for about five weeks with zero explanation, David didn't panic. He assumed Peter had just stopped caring. Then one night, Peter logged back on, and before David could even say hello, a message David, man, we need to talk. That was when Peter told him about the no END House. The rules were simple. The house was located four miles outside the city. It was a regular looking building. Nothing you'd clock as strange driving past. Inside, it had nine rooms. Make it to the end of all nine and management would give you $500. It seemed like a fun gimmick, except Peter said no one had ever actually made it, including him. He wouldn't say why, though. Peter just said it was too much for anyone, that it was unnatural. But David wasn't buying it. He figured it couldn't be that bad. So he told Peter that he would go check it out the following night. Sure enough, the house looked totally normal from the outside. But still, David couldn't help but feel like there was something wrong with it as he approached it. This is how he describes it, and I think he captures something that we've all felt at some point. He didn't see anything physically wrong. It was more like a premonition, like a sixth sense that something's not right. That full body chill that arrives before you can explain it. That's what hit David walking towards the front door. But he didn't listen to that feeling. And when he went inside, it seemed like he was freaking out for nothing. The lobby was like any business, decorated for spooky season. Like someone had run out to spirit Halloween and grabbed a few things to put up. But nobody was inside. Instead, David spotted a cardboard sign where the front desk workers should have been. It read room one. This way. Eight more to follow. Reach the end and YOU will win. David couldn't help but chuckle. He thought he was about to get the easiest 500 bucks of his life. Room one was a Walmart clearance aisle brought to life animatronic zombies with that stuttery, glitchy growl they make when you walk past. Fake spider webs, sheet ghosts dangling from the ceiling. David walked right through without a second thought. Room two wasn't much better. A fog machine spewing smoke across the floor and a mechanical bat doing slow circles overhead on a wire. Somewhere, a Halloween soundtrack from a 99 cent store played on a loop through a PA system. David stepped over some toy rats and reached for the doorknob to Room three. And his heart dropped. He didn't want to open that door, not in a this is mildly spooky way. It was a feeling that he couldn't explain. A wave of dread so powerful that for a moment he couldn't think at all. But he was able to shake it off, turn the knob, then opened the door. Room three looked normal. There Weren't any decorations at all. Just a wood paneled floor with a single chair in the middle. There was a lamp in the corner, casting long shadows against the walls. That was the problem. Shadows, plural. And not just the chair's shadow. There were others, pooling across the floor and climbing the walls where there was nothing to cast them. David was scared. Like actually legitimately scared. For the first time since he walked in, he tried to open the door he'd come through. It was locked from the other side. He stood there telling himself it was mechanical. Maybe an automatic lock, a system to keep him moving forward. Nothing sinister. He turned back to the room. The extra shadows were gone. Just the chairs now. David wondered if he was seeing things. He used to have hallucinations as a kid, like when he was extra tired or just waking up. So he wrote it off as his imagination acting up on him. He started making his way to the other side of the room. And when he got to the halfway point, he looked down and noticed his shadow wasn't there. David was so scared he didn't even have time to scream. He just ran as fast as he could and threw himself through the door on the other side without stopping to think. Room four was darkness. It wasn't just that the lights were off. This was total, all encompassing darkness. When that door closed behind him, it was like the light had been sucked out and put into room three. David held his hand directly in front of his face. He couldn't see it. Not an outline. Not even the feeling that it was there. He couldn't hear anything either. You know how in a truly soundproof room you can still hear yourself? Your breath, your movements. Just the sound of being alive. David couldn't hear any of that. He started moving towards the dark somewhere ahead of him. Eventually, there had to be a door. He moved slowly. The feeling of his heartbeat the only thing confirming that he was still a person inside a body. Then the hum started. It was low and distant at first, but even that same small sound cut through the dark like a knife. David spun around, straining to see. But the darkness was hiding whatever was making that sound. And David knew it was there. It was getting closer. David was terrified. Not that he was going to die, but of whatever the alternative was. And then the hum grew louder. Closer. The lights flashed. And for a second he saw it. Nothing. Just pure, blank nothingness. There was no other way to describe it. Then the room went dark again and the hum became a screech. David screamed and started running until he made it to the door. He grabbed the handle and stumbled through. He was in room five and the horrors were only beginning. Okay, let's talk about the shadows first, especially David's shadow, or the lack of it. Of all of the rooms in the early part of the story, the one detail that stayed with me the most, I think, is because of what shadows actually represent to us. A shadow is proof that you exist. It's light confirming your presence in the physical world. The moment that David looks down and his shadow is gone, the house isn't just scaring him, it's taking something from him. It's saying you are less real here than you think you are. And Room four is where the story starts doing something really sophisticated. The darkness isn't just atmospheric, it gets into your senses. And what David describes that inability to hear himself being alive is actually a documented phenomenon. In genuine absolute silence, your nervous system starts to malfunction. People report hallucinations. They hear their own heartbeat as something external, something threatening. Then there's the hum. Mild spoiler alert. It will be making a reappearance and and it's just getting started.
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Odysseus is still lost war hero, liar, survivor, and the man at the heart of one of history's greatest stories. I'm Tristan Hughes, and all of this month on the Ancients, I'm going to be sailing through Homer's treacherous world of monsters, witchcraft and tempestuous gods, exploring the real archaeology and history beneath the myths. From Troy to Ithaca, this is Odysseus like you've never heard him before. Join us on the Ancients from History Hit Listen now and subscribe on your favorite podcast player.
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room five was a forest. David fell through the door and landed on his back, looking up at trees. Like actual trees reaching up to a high ceiling, the room stretched out so far David couldn't see the other end of it. David figured he had to be somewhere in the middle of the house. He didn't think it looked this big from the outside, but maybe there was more of it than he could see. He wasn't too worried about that right now, though. He just felt this sense of relief that he'd left whatever evil he'd encountered back in room four behind. And as David started walking through the room, he could hear bugs buzzing and birds chirping. But he couldn't see any of them. It didn't seem like the sounds were coming through his speaker either. It was honestly pretty unsettling. And the room went on way longer than it should have. The canopy blocked his view of the ceiling. The trees blocked the walls. If it wasn't for that same wood paneled floor that was in the rest of the house. He would have sworn that he was outside side. Then, after walking for a bit, he felt something land on his arm. David figured it was a mosquito. He shook it off and kept walking. A second later he felt 10 more. He could feel them crawling on his arms, his legs, his face. He tried to shake them off, but they wouldn't stop. Then David looked down and he couldn't see them. He could hear the mosquitoes flying around him. He could feel their stings. But they were completely invisible. David dropped to the ground and rolled around. But the feeling wouldn't go away. All he could do was crawl forwards, hoping to see the door at the end of the room. He crawled like that for what felt like hours, tormented by the invisible bugs, until finally he made it to the door of room six. David grabbed the nearest tree for support and staggered to his feet. And then the hum returned. It was deeper now, coming from beyond the door. David could feel it in his body, like when you stand next to an amp at a concert. As the hum got louder, the feeling of the bugs started to fade. And the moment David put his hand on the doorknob, the feeling disappeared completely. David stood there trying to figure out what to do next. He really didn't want to see what was in the next room. But he also knew that if he let go of the knob, the bugs would come back. And he didn't think he could make it back to room four and escape. The hum was even louder now. So he did the only thing that he could. He turned the knob and entered room six. And it was hell. I'm not talking about fire and brimstone. In fact, Room six looked like room three. The same chair, the same lamp, and the shadows were correct this time. It seemed like a quiet, ordinary room. Except the door David had come through was gone. Not locked, gone. The wall was smooth and uninterrupted, like the door had never existed. David turned and looked for the exit. The door that should lead to room seven. But that door was missing too. The room had four walls and no doors. He was sealed inside. David's reaction was visceral. He started scratching at the wall, desperately trying to claw his way out. He knew the door was there, behind the wall. It had to be. David couldn't stop himself. His nails filed down to the skin, pressed against the wood. He sank to his knees and kept going. The scratching was the only sound in the room until someone asked, Are you alright? David spun around. And there in the Middle of room six was a little girl. She was wearing a white dress that went down to her ankles. She had long blonde hair, blue eyes and pale skin. She seemed totally normal. But she was the most frightening thing David had ever seen in his life. Here's how he describes what happened next. When David looked at the girl, he also saw something else. In the same space at the same time. A figure the size and shape of a large man, but covered in hair. He was naked, with a ram's head and the snout of a wolf where the face should have been. And he had hooves instead of toes. He wasn't the devil, David is careful to say that. But in that moment, it may as well have been. The girl and the figure occupied the same point in the room. Same space, different dimension, but both completely visible. When David saw the girl, he saw the entity. When he saw the entity, he saw the girl. They were the same thing, showing him two faces at once. And it knew his name. David, you should have listened. He heard the girl say it. He felt the creature say it. They repeated that phrase over and over again. David, you should have listened. And it was driving him insane. He dropped to the floor, wanting it to all end. But he could only just say, stare straight ahead as the girl creature stared down at him. And then on the floor in front of him, scurrying across the wood panels, he saw one of the little battery powered toy rats from room 2. The house was toying with him. It had been ever since David walked through the front door. But something about that toy rat pulled David back from the brink. From his position on the floor, he scanned the walls, searching for an opening. The demon continued to taunt him as David hauled himself up. He turned to face the wall where he'd been clawing. And he saw, scratched deep into the wood by his own hands, in his own madness, a large rectangle. And in the center of it, a seven. He had clawed a door into the wall. David placed both palms flat against it. The entity was at his back, screaming into his mind that he was never leaving. That Room six was his home now. That he would stay here alive and never die. And never leave. He pushed, he screamed. And then silence. He turned. Room 6 was just a room again. A chair, a lamp. And in front of him, a regular door with a large seven painted on it. He turned the handle and walk through it. Room 7 was outside. Not outside like the fake forest in room five. He was actually legitimately outside of the house. His car was right there in the parking lot. David fell to his knees in the grass and wanted to cry and couldn't. He was too wrung out, too hollow. He didn't care about the $500. He just wanted to get out of there. David managed to get to his car. He went home and went straight to his room. His cat Baskerville was asleep on his bed upstairs. But when David reached out to pet him, Baskerville hissed and swiped at his hand. He'd never done that before. But David figured, whatever. He's old cats do weird stuff all the time. So David hopped in the shower and headed downstairs to make himself some food. When he got to the family room, his parents were there, their bodies lying on the floor. And heads up. This next part is pretty, pretty gruesome. They were naked, covered in blood. Their bodies had been dismembered with their limbs placed next to them and their heads on top of their chests. And the most disturbing thing, they were smiling at him. It seems like David has pushed through his lowest moment and come out on the other side. He thinks that he's safe and he's home. But then there's that beat with the cat and you know for sure that something's wrong. And then there's the detail about his parents. The mutilated bodies were horrifying enough, but what really sells it is the smile. I love a creepy smile in a horror movie, you guys. In a story full of darkness and shrieking and invisible bugs and cosmic demons. That detail is the one that gets under my skin the most. And David isn't out of the woods yet.
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David realized that he was still in the house. Not his house, the no end house. The smiling figures on the floor can confirmed it. They couldn't be his parents, not really. They were close enough that his body didn't care about the distinction. David broke into tears. He threw up. Beyond the bodies, he saw it. The door to room 8. The numbers scrawled in blood. And the only way to get to it was to get past his dead, mutilated parents. But David couldn't move. He stood there, rooted in place. His parents smiling faces tearing into his mind. Then the hum returned. It was lower than it had ever been. So loud it shook the walls of his family home. So physical he felt it in his teeth and it compelled him forward. With every step that David took, he wanted to end his life. It was unbearable. He walked between the bodies. The dismembered hands crawled towards his face, feet. They started to open their mouths just as he reached the door. And before they could say anything, David lunged through it. Sitting in the chair in room eight was him. David Williams. He walked closer. He had to make sure this wasn't just someone who looked like him. Not someone wearing a hyper realistic mask. This was David. His height, his face, his hair, his clothes, his voice. Rocking back and forth in a chair with his legs pulled up, weeping. He said, please, please don't do it. Please don't hurt me. David stood there staring at himself and asked the obvious question. Who are you? You're going to hurt me. The other David sobbed. If you want to leave, you're going to hurt me. David started to argue, started to tell his doppelganger to calm down, that they could figure this out together. That he wasn't going to hurt anyone. Then he noticed the small red patch embroidered on the other David's shirt. The number nine. David understood immediately. He checked under the chair. There was a knife with a small tag attached to it. To David from management. He stood there for a long time. He thought about his friend Peter Terry. He wondered if he sat in this room across from himself. If he made his choice or refused it. What either answer meant. David thought about everything the house had done to him. The shadows and the silence and the bugs and the girl and the hum and the smiling faces. He thought about making it to Room nine. To making it all end. He took the knife. The other David immediately went quiet. He stood up from the chair and looked at David with an expression David couldn't name. Now he said in a voice that was David's voice, but lower, darker. Wrong. I'M going to hurt you. I'm going to hurt you and I'm going to keep you here. David lunged forward. He tackled himself to the floor and looked down into his own face, his own terrified, sobbing face, and felt the hum in his chest. Something inside him snapped. He drove the knife into the patch on the other David's chest and pulled the down. Room nine was nothing. Not darkness like Room four. That had a texture, a presence. The hum, the entity, the sense of something else in there with him. Room 9 had none of that. It was a pure void. David felt himself falling without falling. He lost his senses one by one. Sight, sound, touch, taste, smell. Until he had no confirmation that he existed at all. And into that vacuum came a feeling. It was a deep, suffocating sadness. David thought about his parents faces. He knew it wasn't real, but he'd seen it and that was enough. David floated in the nothing for what felt like days, the grief of what he experienced spreading through him. Then he saw a light. A sliver of it, vertical, at the edge of what might have been a door. David felt the ground under his feet. He took a step. And another. He was at the door. And he walked through it. He was back in the lobby. The same tacky Halloween decorations, the same cardboard sign. David stood in the lobby of the no End House for a long moment and just breathed. Then he found the envelope on the desk with his name on it. And $500 were inside, along with a note. Congratulations. You have made it to the end of no End House. Please accept this prize as a token of great achievement. Yours forever Management. David laughed. He laughed all the way to his car, all the way home. He laughed through the relief, through the release, through the exhaustion of everything the house had put him through. He pulled into the driveway, still laughing. He walked into his front door, still laughing. He opened it and he saw a small number 10 etched into the wood. You guys, this ending is a gut punch and also probably one of my favorite creepypasta endings because it leaves room for a sequel, which we always love, even though it doesn't necessarily need to have a sequel. Just that cliffhanger just draws you in. I feel like it's the best mic drop that it could have given because it's no End House. And it kind of foreshadowed it a little bit with the Yours Forever Management. He's never gonna leave because of course There is room 10. Of course it never ends. It is in the name and that's effective in a simple horror movie way. But I think what the story is actually saying is more specific and more disturbing than that. The house didn't trick David. The $500 are real. The congratulations letter is real. He won. He completed all nine rooms, and the house honored the deal. And then it sent him home with a new room waiting in his front door. Because winning and escaping are not the same thing. What makes the no End House genuinely frightening, more frightening than any individual room, is the architecture underneath it. Look at what the house did. It used his fears. Specifically darkness, insects, losing your sense of self, the people you love the most in the world, his own face. Each room was calibrated to him personally. Whatever management is, whatever the house is, it knew David before he walked through the door, and it tailored the experience accordingly. What made no End House so popular was the escalation of it. The horror built in a way that felt so real it gripped you and you had to keep reading. The house doesn't offer a generic nightmare. It offers your nightmare and in the context of a creepypasta, a story that you're reading alone, usually late at night, usually about a protagonist who feels extremely ordinary and relatable. That's a deeply uncomfortable thing to think about, because you start to wonder, what would my nine rooms look like? David did everything right. He earned his prize and he went home to find that home is now room 10. Because no end House isn't somewhere you go once you've been inside it. Once it knows you, it's somewhere you carry with you. Yours forever, Management. Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of Twisted, a Crime House original. I'd love to hear from you. Have you ever walked into somewhere that felt wrong before you could explain why? A building, a road, A room? Somewhere? Your body said no before your brain caught up. Leave a comment or review wherever you're tuning in. If you want to support Twisted Tales and get episodes a day early and ad free, subscribe to Crime House Plus. To join, go to crimehouseplus.com or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, tap. Try free at the top of the Twisted Tales show page. And be sure to follow Twisted Tales so we can keep building this community together. I'll be back next week with another story guaranteed to keep you up at night. Until then, stay curious and remember, there's no reason to fear the dark unless you try to hide from it.
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