Lights Out

0:00I'm John Grills from Creepy, and I listen to the Be Afraid podcast network. Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. It shows up in the smallest moments. You bite your tongue instead of escalating. You put your phone down instead of firing off that text. You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most. Nobody applaud those moments, but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like, and that's exactly what growth therapy is here for. Grow is therapy that works, covered by insurance. Sessions average $21 with insurance, and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments, you just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality licensed therapists across the US, offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity or availability, and you

1:01can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average. See if you could pay as little as $0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com slash a cast. That's growtherapy.com slash a cast. Growtherapy.com slash a cast. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. During Lowe's pro savings days, save more on the products you count on to get the job done right. Get a free two pack of DeWalt 20 volt max XR 8 amp hour batteries when you buy a selects DeWalt 20 volt max power tool. Plus, save up to 35% on select major appliances. The right products, the right deals, ready when you need them. Our best lineup is here at Lowe's. I'm Jake Stauk, co-founder and CEO of Serval. We built Serval to automate the IT work that slows companies down.

2:03Onboarding, password resets, access to applications, my laptop stopped working, while employees wait for help their real work is put on hold. IT desperately wants to automate this work, and that's why they need Serval. You just tell Serval what you want to automate in plain English, and it's built. No drag and drop workflows, no expensive consultants. Employees get unblocked and IT teams go from drowning in tickets to building what actually matters. With Serval IT becomes the AI engine powering the entire company. This is a new way to run IT. We guarantee you'll automate 50% of all tickets, and we'll prove it to you in a free four-week pilot. Go to Serval.com slash tickets. That's S-E-R-V-A-L dot com slash tickets.

3:15Serving creepypastors and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened, or simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. Hey everyone. Looks like there were some more five-year or more Patreon members that I still osamad thanks to, so please join me in thanking, I'm dad and still listening, Miguel Alvarado, Kimberly Cooper, Darling, and Dan De Leon. To see how you can support the show and get rewarded for it, please check out the donation here at patreon.com slash creepypastors. First up, a grieving man mourning the death of his beloved dog discovers that something monstrous is stalking him through the darkness, forcing him to confront more than just its presence.

4:15From right or ridge, Jolove, creepypastors, lights out. When the lights go out, so does the surety of my surroundings. I assume that I'm still in my living room, but for a moment there's no way to know for sure. I focus on my other senses. There are smells like my living room. The faint smell of urine still lingers. I've gotten used to that smell. Tomorrow will be gone. With both hands I reach out into the darkness. That feels like my curtain and my wall. I'm reminded of something I once heard from a documentary about deep sea creatures. Testimated that a third of the animals on Earth have never seen sunlight. The fish and crustaceans at the bottom of the ocean live their entire lives in the dark. They don't stop swimming just because they can't see. So I start to walk. After two steps, my shins slams into the coffee table.

5:17Right where it bit me or burned me or whatever it did. I'm unnerved by the sound of my own gasp as it bounces off walls that could be sheet rock or limestone. My hand reaches into my pocket to take out my phone and turn on the flashlight to prove to myself that this is still my house and not some hollow cave. But I stop myself. No light whatsoever. I can't even risk using the screen. I shuffle forward blindly, thinking that I'm probably walking through urine. Then I remember. And for a couple of minutes my eyes adjust to the darkness. I walk into the kitchen. Out of habit I reach over and flip the switch on the wall. Shit. My eyes squint at the sudden brightness on my retinas. My fingers are still stuck to the plate of the light switch. But in my hysteria I can't seem to get them to swipe down and turn it off.

6:18I faint buzzing noises in the room. It could be the vibration of the bulbs overhead or it could be the surreal flutter of that wicked creature as it moves between realms. I look down. There it is. Spreads thin across the linoleum. The shape of me. Imitating my frozen posture. For a moment to their watch it, it only exists as my shadow. A dark, flat, indistinct version of myself. And I wonder if my mind made the whole thing up. And then, just as the pain in my leg surges, it had swivels to face me. The palms rest on the floor and press the body up. And now it stands in front of me. A faceless, silent silhouette. It lunges at me. My hands slide down, catching the switch just before the figure reaches me. Safe darkness is here again.

7:20I'm left alone to catch my breath as my eyes readjusts in the framework of the kitchen solely forms around me. Alone. Actually, alone. For the first time in 17 years. I sit on the floor, my back leaning against the cabinets. I remember a boy scouts camping trip from when I was 12 years old. Our sculpt master let us on a hike through the forest in the middle of the night with no flashlights. In the beginning, I walked gingerly, tripping over roots, stretching my arms out in front of me to feel for branches. But by the end of the walk, I could see every loose twig on the ground. It takes almost an hour for the human eye to achieve night vision. I wait until I can see details of the room that were previously invisible. The grope between the tiles, the buttons on the microwave. By the time I stand up. I have a plan.

8:21The first thing I do is go into the garage, open the circuit box and turn off the main breaker. Now I can be sure I won't turn the lights on again. Then I walk to the living room, down the hall, through the bedroom and into the bathroom. I fell the bathtub with blankets and pillows. I go back to the kitchen. I grab a few bottles of water from the fridge and a box of protein bars from the pantry and bring them into the bathroom. Back to the kitchen one more time for aluminum foil. To the living room closet for two rolls of duct tape. Back to the bathroom. Close the door. I tape the cracks above and below the door. Then add a few layers all around the frame for good measure. There's a small window in the corner above the bathtub. I cover it with several coats of foil and duct tape. I kick off my shoes and drop into my makeshift bathtub bed and hit the back of my head on the nozzle on the way down. Pain radiates from my skull and I remember the strength of that mystical hand as it

9:22yanked on my hair. I gently run my fingers over the back of my head and find a tender swollen bump. Now all I have to do is wait. I reach for my pocket again, wanting to check the time but decide against it. I close my eyes and the darkness gets darker. My shin still smarts from the otherworldly wound eating away at my skin. I save for the pain. Most of me is glad this is happening. It feels like justice. Why should I get to be happy when my best friend is dead? Especially since I was the one who made the call. When I shift my weight, my back pocket lets out a high pitch squeal. I reach back and pull out a crinkly piece of plush. My fingers trace the outlines of two pointed ears, then a snout, then a soft flat midsection

10:23with four bubbles in a row, like oversized shirt buttons. I squeeze one and it squeaks again. This is Fred the Fox. He was Lexi's favorite toy. Right now Fred the Fox is wondering where his friend is gone. I'm wondering where she is too. I know where her body is. The inoplastic bag curled up on the shelf with her refrigerator. She hasn't even been cremated yet. But where's my Lexi? Where is the essence of her? I wanted to die just so I can find out. The last time I saw her was when I gently placed her in the trunk of Elliot's car. Elliot's childhood friend who I recently reconnected with after more than ten years.

11:24He also happens to be a vet. He offered to euthanize my best friend at cost. I opened my front door and he stepped inside and before I knew it I was distracting Lexi with chocolate chips while he jammed a needle into her back. The sedative worked quicker than he said it would. I turned my head for a moment and when I looked back, she had dropped onto her belly. I held her for the second injection and the third and the fourth. It kept saying that it would just take one more that all dogs are different. That she would stop breathing at any moment. That she wasn't in any pain. That she was asleep. But it felt like she knew exactly what she was fighting against. Then her vision was good enough. I think she would have looked at me right in my eye.

12:26I'd fall over a little belly persisting through five shots. Her muscles and heart were quite strong and suddenly it seemed premature and all I could think was what have I done? I looked at Elliot and thought, what if you allowed me to do? Why was her life in my hands when you're the one with a doctorate? And then she went still and his hand was on my shoulder and he was telling me that she was gone and her tongue, that little tongue that you could never manage to keep in her mouth, was turning blue and I wondered if she would have wanted one more day. One more walk. Was this what was best for her? But I just killed her because I was sick of cleaning up piss every morning.

13:32And then I cried. I cried harder than I have in 17 years and eight months. I cried like every tear was a token that you would take with her into the afterlife. Like my tears were airline points redeemable on a flight to the cosmos. You deserve to sit first class Lex. I hated myself for sending her away. I haven't said these words out loud because usually I would say them galaxy. Anyone else would immediately try to console me. They would say that Lexi was blind and senile and that I should forgive myself. She wasn't herself anymore, they would say. But that would be easy for them to say. They weren't the ones who decided to stick her with her needle. I was.

14:34As she fell asleep on my lap, it was me who Lexi thought didn't want her anymore. Besides she sure looked like herself today. She looked like herself when we went for a walk this morning and she raised her tiny head every time the wind blew, letting the soft air sift through her scraggly brown beard. When I held her tiny still formed this afternoon, she still looked like my dog. A small and soft is a child stuffed animal with the left ear that bent at its midpoint. The ear will always remind me of the photo of baby Lexi taking days after we brought her home. At the time, both ears bent like that. One of them would eventually lift into a point as she grew into an adult and her little bantier would be the only characteristic that she would bring with her with a puppy hood.

15:36If it weren't for that ear, you would never gas at the puppy and that picture was the same dog that died today. This photo was posted from a desktop computer because I was in middle school and wasn't allowed to have Facebook on my phone. No, on Lexi's last day, I have a 401k and I can't eat a slice of pizza without getting heartburn. She has been with me every day for most of my life, eating when I eat, sleeping when I sleep. It only makes sense that I would die when she dies. Elliott stayed with me for a while, then stood up and asked if I wanted to be the one to carry her out. I stood in the driveway, my cheek stinging with tears, and watched him pay her for her last car ride.

16:38When I came back in, the sun had almost fully set and the house was dark. I walked to Lexi's empty bed, picked up Fred the fox and put him in my back pocket. I flipped late switches as I moved throughout the house, first the hallway, then the bedroom. The place seemed too silent without the sound of Lexi's nail sliding over the floor. Wherever I went, she'd always follow closely on my heels, chasing my shadow. Now without her, the place was unbearably empty. But something else was following me. It felt like the anticipatory tension you get when you suddenly feel a presence behind you, a breath on the back of your neck that makes your hair stand up. Except that when I turned around and saw nothing but empty space, the feeling remained.

17:39As if the presence was so close behind me that it could turn when I turned, then step when I stout, and always stand my back and onto my side. I figured it was just Lexi. Either my mind was stuck on the memory of her, or her soul was haunting me. I sat at the end of the bed and bent over to take off my shoes. As I sat up, a strange feeling came over me. And both the space around me was wrong. I felt like I'd been dropped into a virtual reality that was a near identical rendering of my house. I'm not quite an exact duplicate. Like there were one too many atoms of oxygen in the fabricated atmosphere. Looking to my left, I saw my shadow. It sat perfectly mimicking my posture. But it was doing just that. It wasn't just my shape cast over the mattress.

18:43It was a creature. A creature with its own breath and its own thoughts. And the creature was doing its best to hide from me. I found the source of the strange feeling that it had overcome me a moment earlier. I bent over to remove my shoes, and the silhouette had bent over with me. And when I'd straightened, it had been just an instant late in following. My eyes must have lingered on my shadow for a few seconds too long, because it quickly realized that it had been made. The nose, the back triangle that jutted out from the head exactly as mine did, and it turned. Then disappeared as the thing looked at me. Of course I couldn't see it looking at me. Judged solely by the shape of the head, it could have just as easily turned away from me. But somehow I knew that it was looking at me. And it knew that I knew.

19:46And that shared knowledge was as good as I contact. The head fell back and the jaw unlatched as if the thing was screaming, but the room remained silent. The dark shape rocked back and forth as if trying to build the momentum to stand. As it did it began to flicker, disappearing from microsecond and then reanimating at a position slightly more erect. It flickered in and out over the mattress as I watched. My breath caught my stomach. And the speed of the flickering synchronized with my pounding heart. As it stood, it filled the space before me, becoming more tangible and three-dimensional. By the time the monster stood, it seemed as if it should have had a shadow of its own. Terrified I tried to stand and back but let the same time. Instead I tripped over the bed frame and fell hard on my back.

20:46The shape stepped toward me and swiped at my face. I raised my hand block the blow and its cold fingers grazed my forearm. I stood and ran down the hallway through the living room and out the front door. As I let down the stairs of the perch, I thought I should turn back and close the door. Lexi could get out and run into the street. Then I remembered. Reaching the end of the driveway I corneed onto the sidewalk. I felt a thing on every edge of me. I saw it. Two-dimensional once more, gliding over the grass to my right. I passed the street light and watched the flash ahead of me, then fall to my side and behind me. I had looked down and saw the squares of cement zippinies my feet like a treadmill. It was just like walking Lexi but much, much faster. When I got to the strip mall at the end of the block, I broke right and headed for the

21:47barkness of the alleyway. Once I entered the blackness, I felt the presence of the thing banish. I stopped and put my arms over my head to catch my breath. I had never been so happy to be without sight. The dark was concentrated at the end of the alley and I walked toward it. The dumpsters that lined the walls were blocks of obsidian within the night, like black holes sprinkled throughout the universe. I wondered if this was what Lexi had seen toward the end. When the cataracts had rendered her almost completely blind, she paced around the living room while I slept. Suddenly, crisp white light burst out from behind me. A floodlight hung halfway up the wall. The dumpsters became forest green and the ground beneath my feet shone with moisture. A dense, stark black shape stretched over the pavement in front of me. Its hands reached forward and grasped invisible ledges on either side of its torso.

22:52It pressed itself up, flickering into existence, and stood even with my eye line. I turned and ran but my right leg was quickly swept out from under me and I slammed into the brightly lit asphalt. I rolled over onto my back. On my pocket, fried the fox let out a muffled, farcical squeak. I looked down, the arms of the monster were wrapped tightly around my ankle. Its hand reached beneath my pant leg and its touch was so cold that it burned. The shape of its head was floating toward me. The chin was so prominent, the cheek so sunken that I could tell the face was expressionless. I closed my eyes, thinking maybe I don't need darkness, maybe as long as I can't see it, it doesn't exist. But the stinging burn continued to crawl up my leg and I felt its cavernous eyes on me. Still as I felt it nearing me, I squeezed my eyes shut to afraid to watch what would

23:55happen next. Then the inside of my eyelids turned from red to black. My touch was accreted vanished, leaving a dull, throbbing burn. I opened my eyes and found more blackness. The motion sensing light had turned off. It took me several moments to realize that I wasn't dying. I ran my hands over myself and was surprised by my body and neck. I brushed carefully over the wound on my leg and it ached sharply. Sling slowly so as to remain undetected by the light's sensors, I slipped my phone out of my pocket and brought it to my face. The screen blasted me with light and I covered most of the display with one hand while the other swiped down and lower the brightness. Dread came over me as L.A. still, expecting to feel the creature's touch at any moment. I held the phone above my head as I turned slowly, peaking onto the corner of my eye until

24:58I could see the pavement beneath me. There was a faintest of shadows. A round chin, a nose that poked out triangularily. My disheveled hair shook as I trembled. Turning back to my phone, I opened my messages and tapped on the first conversation I saw. L.A. I typed one word, lowercase. Help. The space behind the back of my head was no longer empty. I could almost hear the air leave, pushed to the side by something corporeal and intrusive. I felt a creature's firm grip on the back of my hair and my head slammed into the pavement. My eyes squeezed shut as I winsed, but I felt the screen of the phone bounce gently against my thumb. I pressed the button on the side and the screen went black. The grass on my hair disappeared. I returned my phone to my pocket and rolled over and at my stomach.

26:02For about five minutes had they perfectly still in the dark, hearing the occasional woosh of tires on the street. The sound of screying animals seemed to surround me. The more I listened, the more present they were. My mind scrambled through ideas of what to do next. I felt it all, I felt the heavy weight of grief on my organs. I lingered on the notion of drifting to sleep on a grimy pavement until sunrise, allowing the incubus to swallow me in my sleep. Finally, I found a resolved move. I deep inhale, the controlled exhale, as I leapt to my feet and ran for the mouth of the alley. The light flashed on after I took my first step and felt the thing chasing me once more. This time I ran with my eyes straight ahead, only looking at the ground and my periphery. I reached the house, leapt under the porch and slipped inside, closing the door behind me. I grabbed the tall lamp in the corner of the living room and ran with it, yanking its

27:05cord from the outlet. I stopped at the kitchen door and turned off the light. As I turned the head for the hallway, I found the thing crawling over the heart with like a spider. I darted around it. It swung on an arm and barely missed me. Dropping the lamp with a crash, I swiped at the switch in the hallway and then ran to the bedroom door, reaching inside and flipping the switch. The house was almost entirely dark, but not quite. The orange glow of the street lights filled the window in the bedroom. The silhouette, barely visible now, skittered down the hall toward me. I ran into the bedroom and yanked the curtains closed, losing the monster in the darkness. The window in the living room was larger than the one in the bedroom and closer to the street light. The creature reappeared as an amorphous shape, glided over the floor behind me. As I ran to the window, I felt the things gripped by my ankle. I fell forward but caught myself on the arm of the sofa. Ooz and fingers spilled out my leg, merging with my skin.

28:11The mass of the dark body pressed heavily on my back. I shivered as I felt the rush of whatever it is that it breathes, not air, certainly. Maybe radiation or light raised themselves. Whatever spews from its mouth ran over my ears as if it was trying to whisper something to me. I reached for the curtain nearest me and yanked a closed, the room grew darker. The weight of the thin lightened, but it remained draped over me. There was a freezing blanket of dull pain that permeated every inch of exposed skin. I felt my muscles weaken and the scalding burn of my leg dug deeper, searching for bone. I flung myself toward the other end of the couch and leaned over the back cushion. In the near darkness, I felt the fabric of the curtain in my hand. A clung to it, hoping the rod could support my weight and slid it over the brightness of the window.

29:11Once again, the creature was gone. The malignant wound on my leg twingeed, but I didn't allow myself to sit. My eyes were on the wall to my right. A sliver of amber light was leaking out from the side of the curtain, illuminating the sleeve of a jacket that hung from the hook mounted there. I pressed the edges of the curtain into the wall and the light disappeared. I scooted the couch across the hardwood, so it pinned to the curtain flush with the frame of the window. Making a slow 360 degree turn, I scanned their room for the most innocuous of light sources. A straight glare, a digital clock, the glowing switch of a power cord. There was nothing. I have been in darkness ever since. Here I lay in my dingy bath bed. Every time I adjust my position, my hand finds a spot of slime or gunk. But still, I'm beginning to get tired.

30:16There's something relaxing about being tucked away in a small space surrounded by complete darkness. The only thing left to do is hope that someone will find me. I have enough food and water for a few days. When I don't show up to work, they'll dig up my emergency contact information and call my mom. When I don't hear her calls, she'll come check on me. There's a chance I'll be dead by then. Turned rotten by whatever it is that's currently eating away at my leg. Eventually I'll either be found or I will die. Until then, I live like the fish that's at the bottom of the sea. The ones who have never seen their shadows. I can still feel Lexi's fur on my wrist, where she rested her head for the last time. Her jaw slackened when her heart finally conceded to the drug and she drooled all over my

31:16sweatpants. Seventeen years evaporated before my eyes. For a moment I thought I might wake up from a dream and be 13 again, living in a western town. But I didn't. I was still here, but she was gone. Lights out. Sleep slowly overtakes me and I'm reminded of moments with her. Not of her whining in the night or staring blankly at the wall. I remember her bath time when she ran wild circles in the living room, drying her damp ears on the carpet and un-sitting properly at my feet, waiting for me to brush her hair. Lexi digging through a pile of squeaky toys, looking for Fred the Fox. Lexi crawled up on the couch next to me, fast asleep, leaning her tiny frame against my

32:17hip. After the first time today, instead of thinking of her pain, wondering what went through her head in her final moments, whether she was a piece or thought I betrayed her. Instead of speculating on the nebulus afterlife of dog spirit, I soak in the warmth of every good day we had together. That picture hurt useless smile. I thank her for chasing away my shadow for a whole these years. A sudden burst of grief squeezes my abdomen and the tears start once more. I remember what Elliot said this afternoon, when I was having doubts, considering calling it off. He said that shoes confused and in pain and in a moment her pain would be gone, but it would have to go somewhere. It would be transferred to me in the form of sorrow and guilt, and it would be agonizing.

33:24I had an opportunity to take her pain. I'll take this pain from you, Lexi. I'll take it from you seven days a week. When I wake up there's no way of knowing how long I've slept. If the tape over the window in the door does its job, I will not know when the sun rises. I pull my phone out of my pocket and stop myself just before I bring it to my face. I reach out in place at on the counter, careful not to turn the screen on. Outside cars was by on the street, creating a some niferous soundtrack. I close my eyes and listen. Then I hear another noise. Suddenly a revelation enters my mind. My mind which to this point has only been half awake but is now alert and focused.

34:24I didn't wake up on my own. I was stirred awake by a sound. Maybe it was the sound that I hear now. Something like foot steps at the far end of the house. Here's another sound, the sound of a curtain rod striking hardwood, after being ripped from its anchors. Rattling the rest in front of a brightly lit window. A window that is like a portal to a world where the moon never rises. The footsteps are in the hallway now. I imagine the creature walking tall, having just deceived darkness. It opens doors as it walks, entering the second bedroom to search beneath the bed and tear the blinds off the windows. Back in the hallway it heads for my bedroom door. Every step heavier and more real. I hear my bedroom door swing open. It walks through the window to pull open the curtains.

35:26The foot steps are louder. It puts steady. Although it knows I'm cornered, it doesn't gain speed. The doorknob squeaks. My eyes are so well adjusted to the darkness that I can see it turn. The door begins to budge but stops abruptly as the tape around the frame catches it. On the other side, something presses harder, measuring its force. The silent air fills with crinkles and snaps as the tape slowly gives way. The first splinters of light cut through the adhesive. The door swings open with a loud ripping sound. The thing that opened it is unmistakably human. He takes up about three quarters of the door frame. The top of his head is balled in, but I'll always recognize his face. To me, he looks exactly the same as he did when Lexi was a puppy.

36:27Elliott steps into the doorway and asks if I'm okay. He holds his phone out in front of him with the back facing me, shooting from it as a blinding beam of white LED light. I climb out of the tub and reach for the phone, but I'm too late. I can feel a third presence in the room with us. Elliott's eyes move to the wall behind me. A vast circle of light is painted on the cream-colored ceramic above the tub. At the center of the circle is a shadow, but not my shadow. This is a deep, floating absence of light, with wild-to-find edges in the shape of a bell. A buzzing sound emits from it, like that of a dying fluorescent light, and compared to the silence that filled the room seconds ago, it is deafening in my ears. It disappears, leaving nothing but pure light in its wake, and then reappears.

37:31It planks in and out, slowly at first, in and out, in and out. Gradually it picks up speed, in and out, in and out, in and out, in and out. The endowed's rapid flicker is barely detectable. Curved horns grow out from the top of it. Slender, claw-like hands sprout from either side, followed by a long cloak. Two holes of light appear at the center of its head, with black dots in their centers, eyes and pupils staring directly at me. The shadow lifts its light and lands a heavy black boot in the tub. It stands before me, as tall as the ceiling. Behind me, Aliah says, what the fuck?

38:34The creature, holding me with its eyes, steps out of the bathtub and places a hand on my shoulder. It's freezing fingers burn me through my shirt. It up legs. I'm right behind you. During Lowes Pro Savings Days, My Lowes Pro rewards members can save up to 20% when they buy more job-site materials. Save 20% when you buy 30 or more select bats and rolls of fiberglass insulation. 24 more cartons or pales of joint compound, tape and bead. Or when you spend $200 or more on free and painting and job-site essentials, members give more at Lowes. Value if you $9.25, while supplies last. Selection bears by location. Program subject to terms and conditions. Sealows.com slash terms for details. Subject to change. Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. It shows up in the smallest moments.

39:34You bite your tongue instead of escalating. You put your phone down, instead of firing off that text. You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most. It really applauds those moments, but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like, and that's exactly what growth therapy is here for. Grow is therapy that works, covered by insurance. Sessions average $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments, you just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality licensed therapists across the US, offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity or availability, and you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average. See if you could pay as little as $0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com slash a cast.

40:35That's growtherapy.com slash a cast. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. I'm Jake Stauk, co-founder and CEO of Surveil. We built Surveil to automate the IT work that slows companies down. Onboarding, password resets, access to applications, my laptop stopped working, while employees wait for help their real work is put on hold. IT desperately wants to automate this work, and that's why they need Surveil. Just tell Surveil what you want to automate in plain English, and it's built. No drag and drop workflows, no expensive consultants. Employees get unblocked, and IT teams go from drowning in tickets to building what actually matters. With Surveil IT becomes the AI engine powering the entire company. This is a new way to run IT. We guarantee you'll automate 50% of all tickets, and we'll prove it to you in a free four-week pilot. Go to Surveil.com slash tickets.

41:38That's S-E-R-V-A-L dot com slash tickets. Next, a badly injured concert musician recovering in her boyfriend's home begins encountering a terrifying entity on the stairs, eventually realizing the identity of the ghost. From writer Jimmy Ferrer and narrated by Megan McDuffy, creepy presents, Crush. Concerts are a special place. You can let loose, forget your worries, and just vibe. Goosebumps peaking is a cord of music hits you just right. You close your eyes, and a shiver runs through your body, hair on your arms, and neck's standing taught. A drag-free for ya if you so choose, brought to you by symphony of sound. Shame how many people lose themselves in these moments so deeply that their abandoned inhibitions make them lose track of their surroundings.

42:40Awful events arising out of the chaos. You would think that active shooter events would be the deadliest at concerts or festivals, but that simply isn't true. In moments where large crowds lose control, something as simple as movement can be devastating. When a gathering gets crowded enough, a dense sea of people shoulder to shoulder, people are pressed against one another and swept up in the motion of the crowd, unable to resist the flow. It's called a crowd-crush. Think of it as a frightening cascade of flesh and force. When the movement within a dense crowd becomes uncontrollable, throwing people around with a band and mass times velocity resulting in force compounding hundreds thousands of times, the result is a pressure and force so massive, so fast that it's impossible to react, no way to avoid the chain of destruction. People are smashed together so hard and so fast that the immense pressure can cause them to be crushed instantly, choked to death while still on their feet.

43:42Dead before you even hit the ground. For example, the Las Vegas mass shooting in 2017 had a death toll of 60. The soul Halloween Crush in 2022 claimed 159 lives. There are thousands of deaths like this that have been documented even in just the span of the last 10 years. I never thought it could happen to me. I had been on the music scene for years and had gained a healthy following. I'd done some collabs with great artists and even started getting invited to do shows alongside bigger names. I was invited to a larger music festival and decided to do something special. My fans had planned something nice for me to celebrate how I blew up so I wanted to give back. I was going to set up my gear in the crowd. This would let my fans rock out with me up close and personal. A risk for any artist, but I wanted to do it. I was amazed at the turnout, people shoulder to shoulder as far as the eye could see. I was mid-set and the crowd was bouncing, dancing and singing along.

44:46It reached a flow state where I became the music, lost in the moment, giving back every ounce of energy the crowd was giving me. It was when people started coming from the other stages and converging towards me that it all went wrong. I noticed all too late that the crowd seemed to move more like a wave than a gathering of people gone or the individual moments. Now it was a unified mass of flesh and blood crashing together into a singular point. Me, I was told by doctors that the only reason I wasn't instantly crushed to death was that my keyboard set up in front of me gave my body somewhere to go, and that didn't save my hips and ribs, though. My hips were crushed in four places, and I couldn't walk. I had broken every rib on my right side because of how my torso was compressed by the crowd. So it hurt to breathe. A good part of my collarbone and shoulder girdle on my left side was also torn up. I was grateful I'd survived.

45:47Others were not so lucky. I would be wheelchair bound for a bit as I would need to go through physical therapy for a while before I could walk again. At least I could still sing. It wasn't the most comfortable experience. The pain was intense, but I wasn't giving it my passion no matter the cost. At the time I chose to stay with my boyfriend instead of being home by myself and struggling for the sake of struggling. I had a sweet dog named Blue, an Australian cattle dog who couldn't help but bark at every single solitary human being that visited, casually past the house, delivered the mail, existed, and so on. He wasn't dangerous. More like he was a smoke alarm for the presence of others. It was useful, especially in my injured state, giving me more time to get to the door as he'd start barking before people even got to the driveway. The house was split in three levels, basement, first floor, second floor. That left me essentially stranded on the first floor of the home as going up and down stairs was a no-go.

46:47This meant I ate, slept, showered, all within 50 feet or so. My boyfriend tried bringing me upstairs once, but when he tried to lift me, my ribs screamed with a stabbing, burning pain. I wanted to scream, but my body gave a deep involuntary gasp that gave my boyfriend the cue to put me down immediately. Sleep was a struggle. No matter what position I lay in, I was in some sort of shooting pain. I've always been a side-sleeper, but the extreme pain I felt lying on either side made it impossible. I'd also like to sleep face down, but putting my weight on my ribs was also a no-go. All I could do was lie uncomfortably on my back and stare at the ceiling, hoping I'd pass out from exhaustion. Days passed like this, leaving me delirious, which ironically was fantastic for my creativity. I found myself recording ideas, night after night instead of sleeping, but with the fantastic ideas the delusions brought me. Anxiety followed.

47:48I started seeing movement in the corner of my eyes. It was small blurs of motion at first, but then manifested as shadows. I'd begun to learn to ignore these. I knew in my insomnia-driven state that these were obviously hallucinations, just visual artifacts of sleep deprivation. That was, until one night where it was just blue and I. My boyfriend had to leave for a few days for work. I assured him that I'd be okay. I asked him to leave the dog as a pre-doorbell doorbell, he understood. It was 2 a.m. and I was mid-recording session when I started to drift off. The way I was set up I had my back to the doorway with the staircase leading upstairs on the other side. My eyelids felt heavy, my head started to nod. Suddenly I heard blue growling. It was deep, aggressive. Nothing I'd ever heard him do before. I could hear him in the doorway, sounded like he was growling up the steps. As I covered before, he doesn't just make noise for the sake of it. He reacts to people specifically.

48:50Shivers shot through my body when my brain solved the equation. Someone was in the house. My body froze up stiff. I could not gather the courage took all blue to me or turn and look. I could not fight off an intruder if push came to shove. I had always been small, thin, but broken as I was, I would put up even less of a fight. This burned through my mind if what could happen to me. Stummages had crawled at my throat as I held my breath. I had already beat death once. The chance of escaping death's clutches twice was far outside of the lock I typically had. Even worse. What if they decided not to kill me? To do much, much worse. Blue's growl became deeper. Got her all. My only mental reprieve was that I did not hear any footsteps. Were they just standing there at the top of the steps looking down? Did they know I was here? What I could do was run scenarios in my head. I heard the dog start to bark and my heart poked even harder.

49:52The blood rushing through my body amplified all of the pain I was experiencing. I wanted to scream, cry, call for help, but I did nothing. Of every night this could have happened. Why this one? All the stars aligned to possibly make this the worst night of my life. I imagined a man running down the stairs. I would hear the dog yelping in pain and silence, then heavy fast footsteps running into the room and I'd feel a hand on my shoulder before feeling a sharp pain in my neck. Imagine gunshots. I imagined being strangled, violated, tortured. That's all I could do for a long time. Imagine. I reached down and tried to slowly turn my wheelchair when it gave out a gopher seeking squeak. The first noise I had made and it would certainly have been loud enough for the invader to hear. Blue finally redirected his attention to the front door and jumped to my chair when I heard a knock at the front door. I wish I hadn't because the pain was so wretched that I started to cry.

50:54I wailed myself over to the door and looked through the glass panes on the side to see that it was my boyfriend's neighbor, Daniel. A kind old man, but still built like a lumberjack even at his advanced age. My open the door and Daniel immediately looked concerned, asking if I was okay. He gave him a brief summary of my injuries, the incident, and then the dog's behavior that night. He asked if I'd like him to check around the house for me, asked if it would put me at ease. I gratefully accepted. I was calm until I heard him going up the steps. I called out to him and emphasized that upstairs is exactly where the dog was barking towards. I heard him walking about, but I sat so still, like waiting for a bomb to go off that never came. Well, I didn't find nothing, he said, matter of factly. I let out the breath I'd held the whole time. He was up there. He thanked him and breathed a sigh of relief. He asked if I wanted to stay with him and his wife for the night. I wanted to say yes, but I didn't want to impose.

51:56I hardly knew them myself and didn't want to make that type of impression. It was one more day before my boyfriend came back, so I wanted to tough it out. I'd survived, too, traumatizing experiences and a short span of time. It had to be the end of it, right? I didn't sleep that night. My adrenaline had boosted my wakefulness into overdrive. I found myself flinching at noises and then chastising myself for being so jumpy. Not only was it not helping me calm down, it was also putting me in pretty severe pain. I was happy the next day, when after nightfall I started nodding off again. I was able to get myself onto the couch this time. I successfully set up my pillow and wrapped myself in a soft fuzzy blanket. It threw on the TV for some background noise and hoped that I'd drift off, waking up to a friendly face in the morning. I slipped into sleep without knowing it. My woke to barking. I looked over at the digital clock by the TV that had turned itself off. The white numbers, two a.m. shown at me.

52:56The first assumption was that maybe the neighbor was checking in again, or maybe the dog had been barking for a while before I woke up. Pushed myself up and noticed the dog wasn't barking at the door. He was barking at the stairs. I pulled myself into the wheelchair and grabbed the chef's knife I'd left by my side in case. I slowly rolled towards the dog, the squeaking wheels betraying any stealth I'd tried to have. The dog moved forward, upper body on the steps, growling and barking with a viciousness I'd never seen. When I was finally able to turn the corner, I flipped on the light switch. To my dismay, the lights did not turn on. The stairs were so much darker than any time before. When my eyes adjusted, I was struck with terror. I couldn't make sense of what I was seeing. The shadow was that of a man that much was obvious. Their neck, though, was so long. If they stood six feet tall normally, his neck alone would make him close to seven feet. I fell back trying to roll away from the stairs and fell out of my chair, my chest hitting

53:57the ground, my broken ribs screaming. I screamed hysterically as I pulled myself toward the front door. Whatever it was, I was desperate to get away. I looked back to see that it had not moved. Its fate looked as if they were floating. The thing slowly cramed its head towards me. I could not see its features in the darkness, but I was sure that it was staring right at me. Suddenly, I felt as though my whole body was being squeezed, the feeling of being crushed happening all over again, much slower and more agonizing than the first time. My body succumbed to the pain and I fell unconscious. I was woken by the pain of being lifted back into my chair. My boyfriend had come back home and found me on the floor, completely knocked out. He asked what happened and I didn't bother lying. I told him everything that happened in the two days he was gone. I noticed his lips thinning when I mentioned the entity. Stop explaining immediately and made him explain. He told me that ten years ago his grandfather had hung himself above the steps and wasn't

55:03found for days. My grandmother was on a trip with her friends at the time. His neck was stretched exactly as I had described. His feet were hanging, just shy of a step. I said that his grandfather was a miserable man, hated animals, and had an overall horrendous reputation of being violent, which is why he didn't question his grandmother's relief after his death. She did say that she wanted to move frequently and never went near the stairs. She actually ended up staying on the first floor until she moved into a retirement community and left the house to his parents. She owed me a photo of his grandmother when she was young and I looked a lot like she did back then. I asked about the time as it happened at 2am both times. He has attently told me that the medical examiner determined he did indeed hang himself at approximately 2am. I went back to the hospital and they told me that I had likely exacerbated my injuries in the fall, but I knew the truth.

56:03I felt those dead eyes on me. I felt my body being crushed by the entity that saw me as a similar act of a masculine life, the woman who happily abandoned her abuser and death. He saw in me one more chance to gain control. With everything he had, he reached out and held me in his grasp, crushing me, hoping that I would never escape his clutches. Me list to say when I was discharged from the hospital, I opted to go back to my own home and stay by myself after that. What's the worst that could happen? During Lowe's pro savings days, my Lowe's pro rewards members can save up to 20% when they buy more job-site materials. Save 20% when you buy 30 or more select bats and rolls of fiberglass insulation. 24 more cartons or pales of joint compound tape and bead. Or when you spend $200 or more on free and painting and job site essentials, members give more at Lowe's. Value if you're 195, while supplies last.

57:05Selection varies by location. Program subject to terms and conditions. Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. It shows up in the smallest moments. You bite your tongue instead of escalating. You put your phone down instead of firing off that text. You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most. Nobody applauds those moments, but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like, and that's exactly what growth therapy is here for. No is therapy that works, covered by insurance. Sessions average $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments, you just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality licensed therapists across the US, offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability, and you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the

58:08national 48-day average. See if you could pay as little as $0 per therapy in seconds at growtharap.com slash a cast. That's growtherap.com slash a cast. Growtherap.com slash a cast. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. I'm Jake Stauk, co-founder and CEO of Surveille. We built Surveille to automate the IT work that slows companies down. Onboarding, password resets, access to applications, my laptop stopped working, while employees wait for help their real work is put on hold. IT desperately wants to automate this work, and that's why they need Surveille. You just tell Surveille what you want to automate in plain English, and it's built. No drag and drop workflows, no expensive consultants. Employees get unblocked and IT teams go from drowning in tickets to building what actually matters. With Surveille IT becomes the AI engine powering the entire company. This is a new way to run IT.

59:11We guarantee you'll automate 50% of all tickets, and we'll prove it to you in a free four-week pilot. Go to Surveille.com slash tickets. That's S-E-R-V-A-L dot com slash tickets. And finally, a worker is tasked with collecting human remains in a dystopian America, where increasingly horrific cadaver removal jobs reveal just how disposable ordinary people have become, from writer Lily Lachance, and narrated by G.E. Hemp in Vansant, creepy presents, cadaver opportunities near you. Welcome to Cadaver, the world's premium cadaver removal opportunity portal. Now that the new Founding Fathers have disbanded all that pesky health services bureaucracy,

1:00:12it's up to the hardworking folks like yourself to help your local community and businesses get rid of human cadavers. Possibly human decomposing remains, maybe human roadkill piling up on the toll highways you can't afford to drive on. And the assorted piles of putrified flesh typically found right outside large warehouses, just beyond the barbed wire fence. Are you ready to make some coin and collect some cadavers? Sure you are, because it's either that or working in the uranium mines. And you know what's good for you, don't you? Don't you? Let note, cadaver opportunities do not constitute a full-time job regardless of how many hours you work. Inquiring about benefits will result in a permanent ban from all future cadaver opportunities. Here are today's opportunities. Opportunity A perforated pile of pesky pro-peace protesters.

1:01:18Some goody-touchy slackers in your area had assembled to protest a job creating safety promoting all American defense contractor. Their hurtful words, loud chance and homemade posters constituted verbal assault on the company's self-aware security system. It decided to exercise its personhood and write to self-defense by testing some of the company's latest and greatest munitions on that mob of mean offenders. The resulting data was invaluable for the country's investors and R&D department. But the pile of putrefying flesh in their parking lot sure is a huge eyesore. And it sure is heck not getting better folks. No sorry. Make sure to bring your own equipment. We recommend tarp, vacuum cleaners and buckets.

1:02:18Just to be safe, don't wear any tie-dye, Birkenstocks or any clothing featuring any slogans or writing. That includes, but is not limited to, hats and visible tattoos. Towers that are concealed by your clothing may be visible to the security system's enhanced vision. So maybe skip this assignment if you have some or any really, pro-peace anti-corporate tattoos on your person. Or don't. The company still has lots of brand new munitions that haven't yet been tested in the field. Payment? $10 per bucket of flesh. It is extremely unlikely given the shrapnel distribution, but any jewelry and credit cards you can dig out of the organic matter are yours to keep. Opportunity

1:03:20Concealed compounds COVID-37 casualties. Yet another local group had tried to strike out on their own and start a new life for themselves in an isolated rural compound. Some people simply can't bring themselves to be grateful for the new founding fathers and their friendly crime fighting robo-dog patrols. Those anti-patriots had decided to live off the grid instead of paying for the latest round of annual vaccines. Which had a very reasonable 25-year repayment plan. And you know what they say, no man is an island, no compound is uncompromised. After a late-night visit from an unmarked and camouflaged delivery drone, the compound's population started dwindling. And now that population is yours to collect.

1:04:20Bring your own disinfectant and make sure to very carefully inspect every last nook, any and hidey hole for cadavers of every size. Those anti-patriots sure were sneaky. We wouldn't put it past them to have died in the least convenient places if only despite whomever moves in next. When the compound's new owners acquire what's left of the compound, they will not appreciate any unpleasant leftovers in their charming, rustic vacation property. Oh, and watch out for traps, tripwires, landmines, and the like. Those anti-patriots were not team players, and in their final moments, they almost certainly decided to make things difficult on good, honest, hardworking cadaver removal specialists such as yourself. Good luck with all that. Payment $25 per cadaver.

1:05:24Bonus. If you act fast, you may still harvest some of the internal organs before necrosis fully sets in. That will give you an exciting entry point into the medical grey market, and we at cadaver LLC applaud your exciting new business venture. If you fail to find any salvageable internal organs, consider cleaning and reselling the intact skeletons to private collectors and or medical schools. Please note that any landmines and or lethal traps you manage to find and disarm will have to be surrendered to the authorities immediately. Carrying such objects on your person will be grounds to immediate execution by your friendly neighborhood Robo Dog Patrol squads. Opportunity Rainbows and Retirement Community New, exciting, and groundbreaking technology always goes through some growing pains.

1:06:28Sometimes honest mistakes happen. Often times it's easier to just quietly patch up those mistakes instead of fixing them outright. To put this in words you may understand, the creators of this new, fully automated retirement community may have, possibly, maybe hypothetically, forgotten that old people tend to die and that their cadavers need to be disposed of. That was a real oopsie daisy. On the upside, the residents who haven't yet died have become too horrified to file any of their annoying quality of life complaints to the company's hotline. Apparently, having the corpse of your next door neighbor wheeled next to you for every meal, bingo game, and mandatory pool aerobics will do that to you. That right there is a fascinating factoid that will almost certainly boost the company's

1:07:35bottom line. In any case, this exciting opportunity could turn into a recurring source of income for you. Please note that after the initial cleanup, weekly visits are likely but not guaranteed to result in more cadavers. Please avoid removing the still breathing but unresponsive patients. Their time will come. Trust us. Please do not attempt to generate more cadavers if you don't find any ready-made ones on your subsequent visits. The facility has excellent surveillance measures. Payment $15 per cadaver Bonus? Help yourself to all the cookies and orange juice in the cafeteria. Also, any jewelry or keepsakes you find on the cadavers are yours to keep as well.

1:08:35If you can extract their titanium hip replacements, those are yours to keep too. Keep that up, my entrepreneurial friend, and you might even pay off your citizenship debt. Wouldn't that be neat? Opportunity Fatal fast food taster fiasco We at Cadaver LLC pride ourselves on being much safer than other gig platforms. Certainly safer than those Uranium mines. That minor work app has nothing on us. We are happy to have you at our disposal for all of our disposal needs. And we hope that you, in turn, appreciate just how fortunate you are to work for us. Have you appreciated your work, give or today? You're always there, employer. Your soul source of income. Your reason for living?

1:09:36Remember your place in the food chain. You bottom-dwelling contractor, you. Here is one fine example. The local branch of yummy yum-yums, a nutrition startup, recently experienced an unfortunate safety incident involving 25 food tasters. Those gig workers ingested a highly experimental compound that wreaked chaos on their digestive tracks and resulted in 100% fatality rate within minutes, which, frankly, was rather impressive, actually. All the other CEOs were so jealous. In the aftermath of that regrettable but nonetheless remarkable incident, yummy yum-yums has decided to become a bio-weapons manufacturer. But in the meanwhile though, they really need somebody to come and clear their conference room of all the rapidly-putrifying cadavers and all their biological excretions.

1:10:43Payment. $20 per cadaver, $2 per every decontaminated square foot of floor, wall, and ceiling. Safety note. Don't eat the cookies. Bonus. These cadavers, internal organs, are no good for anybody and all their clothes are too soiled to resell at third-hand stores. However, please feel free to help yourself to their wallets. We recommend bringing gloves and to the office chairs that will be good as new after some decontamination and or a posturing. Hey, that's yet another new business idea for you. Who loves you? Cadaver LLC? That's who? Opportunity. Former cadaver workers at the remarkably rogue RoboDog factory.

1:11:43There was an unfortunate malware attack at the local robot manufacturer facility. North Korean hackers successfully took over the controls of every RoboDog on the premises and when the CEO refused to pay ransom, the America-hating evildoers programmed the RoboDog to kill on-site, turning the entire facility into a grim warning to their future ransom victims. However, given that the CEO was working remotely from his secret bunker hundreds of miles away, the efficacy of that warning is yet to be determined. Within hours, all the workers and office personnel located inside the factory turned into cadaver LLC opportunities, which lured our valued gig workers onto the premises. Right toward the lurking, hacked, homicidal RoboDogs program to kill on-site.

1:12:49As you might imagine, that generated an even higher cadaver count, attracting yet more gig workers. And well, we're sure even you can see the nature of the problem we have on our hands here. As of right now, there are 471 cadavers on the premises. That presents an amazing opportunity to an enterprising cadaver specialist such as yourself. There is an additional $10,000 bonus if you manage to reach the manual shut-off panel in the factory's sub-basement to deactivate all the RoboDogs through their built-in kill switch. Please note, the deactivation may not be immediate. Please find a good hiding spot until deactivation completes. Please consider adding a beneficiary to your cadaver account settings. And look, sure, some of those more recent cadavers may have been your friends, frenemies,

1:13:55lovers, unrequited crushes, and or relatives. But you are smarter than them. Better. Stronger. Faster. Probably even faster than the RoboDogs. Just imagine how you would spend all that reward money. We at Cadaver LLC salute you and wish you good luck. Good speed, bon chance, and may the wind be ever wayward. Payment $20 per cadaver. Bonus. You may keep all the wallet's jewelry and equipment from the cadavers of those lesser inferior cadaver LLC gig workers. Upgrade your toolkit by turning their losses into your gain. Coresor LLC corporate HQ. The business world is ruthless, competitive, and unforgiving.

1:14:57Frankly, you don't want to get into the big leagues. Remain a good little gig worker, know your place in the world, don't ask any pesky questions, and don't start any trouble. Make solace and comfort in the knowledge that you are reasonably safe, and that your job cannot be outsourced. How we tried. Oh, how we tried. Do not criticize the new founding fathers. Do not try to form a union. Do not flee from the sudden cadaver accumulation that just so happens to occur in the union committee meeting hall. Do not seek out other survivors who, just like you, were too lazy or tardy to make it

1:15:57there on time. And really, is that so much to ask for? You arrived on time to an important meeting? Uh, you have no idea how much that operation cost us. Do not join forces with your fellow survivors to attempt to compete with cadaver LLC. Do not start a rival company with a stupid name like Coresor LLC. Even if you manage to incorporate, then do not accept an unexpected pizza delivery that just happens to have everyone's favorite toppings. Do not act all shocked when the poison kicks in. Do not cry like a little baby, all curled up and vomiting and peeing and defigating all at once as the last of the light fades away. And as the laughter of our CEO, booms through the speakers concealed in the pizza boxes,

1:17:04making it the last thing you ever experienced in your miserable waste of life. Payment. Thirty dollars per cadaver. Don't eat the pizza. Bonus. Everything you can loot. The internal organs and clothes are no longer salvageable, but all their personal possessions, computer equipment, office furniture and copper wiring are yours. Happy looting. For more information on this podcast, including how to submit your own story for consideration, please visit creepypod.com. You can also follow us at Creepypod on social media and YouTube. All stories told on this podcast are done so through creative, common, share-alite licensing or with written consent from the authors.

1:18:05No portion of this podcast may be rebroadcast or otherwise distributed without the express written consent of the Creepypodcast production team and the stories also. I'm Jake Stauk, co-founder and CEO of Serval. We built Serval to automate the IT work that slows companies down, onboarding password

1:19:06resets, access to applications, laptop-stopping, while employees wait for help their real work is put on hold. IT desperately wants to automate this work and that's why they need Serval. You just tell Serval what you want to automate in plain English and it's built. No drag and drop workflows, no expensive consultants. Employees get unblocked and IT teams go from drowning into tickets to building what actually matters. So Serval IT becomes the AI engine powering the entire company. This is a new way to run IT. We guarantee you'll automate 50% of all tickets and we'll prove it to you in a free four-week pilot. Go to Serval.com slash tickets. That's S-E-R-V-A-L dot com slash tickets. The best time to recommit to your gut health goals? Right now. Take charge of your gut with nature made. Our clinically studied ingredients support digestive health.

1:20:07Digestive enzymes break down nutrients, probiotic and prebiotic fiber nourish good gut bacteria and supergreens with probiotics in power daily digestive health. Try the full lineup of gut health support from nature made. The number one pharmacist recommended vitamin and supplement brand. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.