The Piper
This is my suicide note. I know it's morbid but it’s the truth, like everything else in this recording. I’m sorry in advance to anyone who finds my body. I didn’t mean to make such a mess. I need release…I need a release from this fucking hell. Even as I write this…he’s looking for me…TOYING with me. I’m his prey. I don’t want to but…I suppose it’s my own damn fault. I escaped him once and I should have just left well enough alone, run, hide, but no, I had to look for answers, answers that should have never have been unearthed. I’m not recording this as a cry for help or for pity, no, by no means do I want pity from anyone who finds this. I just implore you to notice all the warning signs. He can’t be stopped…I found that out the hard. But please, whoever finds this just please…please, PLEASE notice the signs. It happened like any other day. I can’t say I lived in the suburbs or anything like that. I lived in the city, proof that he no place is safe. I was nine when my life changed forever. At school, there was talk amongst my classmates about everyone’s new friend, Piper. I wanted a new friend too and asked everyone about where to find this friend.
“Then you have to go to the park!” said Penny, this girl who was my friend at the time. She was an adorable African American girl with large brown eyes. Her hair was almost always in two neat ponytails, “Come on! Piper is going to be there today!”
“Really?”
“Yeah! That’s his favorite place!” I was so excited to follow them all after school. Who wouldn’t? After school, I told my mom where I was going. She didn’t mind and said she would be back to pick me up around five. The park was close to school so we all went there together as a group, ten of us all together. When we reached the entrance, everyone ran to someone sitting at the table. He looked up and smiled at his fans. He was wearing a black cloak and a very friendly smile. He wore sunglasses and his hair was tucked away into a sun hat. It was one of those closed mouth smiles. I smiled back. He looked friendly enough.
“Hello children,” he said a friendly deep voice.
“Hi Piper!” said Penny. He pats her head fondly.
“Let’s play!” everyone started to cry, “Please Piper! Play with us!” Piper…danced with us, he sang with us, he laughed and told jokes. I was having a lot of fun with this strange adult. Soon we were tugging at his cloak for more tricks and fun. He obliged and soon we were running and frolicking like…well…children. Then that was when it happened. From his cloak, he took out a black pipe or something. I remembered him putting it to his lips and everything from that point on became a blur. I remember feeling so…happy. It was most euphoric feeling I’ve ever felt. We weren’t in the park anymore. Instead I was in a place of fields of grass, blue skies; trees and bushes filled with treats of all kinds! Trees of candy bars, ice cream that didn’t seem to melt and it was all ours. The feeling became stronger and stronger as I heard my friends laugh and giggle. Penny took hold of my hand. She pointed to a castle in clearing. I grinned. I always wanted to live in a castle!
“We’re almost there! I can’t wait! Can you?”
“Me neither! Wait up!” another thing…I would never forget were the voices. Sweet voices, the sounds of these voice beckoned us…promising us happiness and fun and love. I didn’t care by this point. I needed to be near those voices.
“Come my dears, we’ll love you, keep you, stay with us forever,” I was aching now. Aching and yearning to be with those comforting voices. Then by fate, something happened. I remembered falling. I fell over something and skid my knee. The pain shook me of my, what I know now, trance. I got up and looked around. I-I wasn’t in the park anymore. It was nothing more than I can describe but hell. The lakes of blue water were a dirty, muddy, lake with something red streaked inside. The chocolate bars in the trees were limbs, human limbs. The woods were dank, with the smell of death in the air. The fresh air was a thick fog that made it hard for anyone to see. I looked up. The trees blocked out the sunlight. I started shaking, not because I was cold. It was because I was terrified, petrified. I saw a strange looking cavern that was a hollowed out side of a hill. I realized that was what that “castle” was supposed to be. I looked around. I knew that Piper would probably be able to save us. He was our friend after all. I was wrong, dead wrong. I looked around and saw a frightening figure dancing and dancing like a madman around a group of near exhausted children. I got closer up and was finally able to see him…the Piper in his true form. He was dressed all in black, with long black hair that hung listlessly to his shoulders. He was pale, ghostly pale. He would have looked normal, almost human in fact if there weren’t three things that said otherwise. His eyes were black, no not the pupils his eyes were all black, the pupils and sclera were both black. He also had claws, long black sharp claws. When he stopped piping, he looked at the children he had in his grasp with sadistic approval. He smiled. I froze. He had razor sharp teeth. It was almost like looking at a shark only difference was sharks did not smile like this. He danced happily and tauntingly with my friends, who were all still under his spell. I grabbed Penny’s hand. I looked at her eyes. Her brown eyes looked soulless, like they weren’t alive. I knew for a fact that she was alive but her body was starting to get colder and colder. I shook her.
“Penny! Penny! Wake up! Penny!” she blinked and then she looked at me, waking up.
“Wh-Where are we?!”
“I don’t know!” before we could make a move, a shadow loomed over us. In an instant, Penny was grabbed. She screamed as the Piper held her by her collar. I watched in horror as he drove his claws into his chest. To this day I could still hear the skin and bone snap when he did it. He then pulled out Penny’s little heart. I stared. The heart was glowing in an eerie but warm bright light. The light came out of the heart and into the many jars that was in his cloak. He looked at me. He STARED at me. I was too frightened to move but soon my legs and brain connected and I ran. I ran away as fast as I could. I didn’t know what he had in store for me but after what he did to Penny…I didn’t want to find out. I could see light, a faint glimmer of light and ran towards it. Then something snagged my arm and hoisted me up into the air. The Piper, that’s the only name I can give him, stared at me. He had a large toothy smile on his face. His eyes were smiling as well, as though he loved the idea that I was in complete fear. I couldn’t take it. I just wanted him to finish me, anything for this nightmare to be over. He chuckled deeply and dropped me. I didn’t take the time to consider why, I just ran again. However, as I reached light, I…I heard his voice.
“Not yet…” I cried and flagged down as many adults I could in the area, telling them what had happened. I told them about the Piper in the woods and the kids. The police were called. They asked me to guide them to the area. I was like fuck that, even as a child but it was for the greater good. To this day, I wish I hadn’t. In the area, there were mutilated bodies everywhere. Penny’s was at the entrance but some children were in trees, bloody limbs were all over the place, blood was everywhere, some of the children’s feet wore down to stubs, from dancing. Many died from exhaustion, from dancing to death. I was immediately taken home. That entire day was a blur. I just wanted to forget about it. My family decided to move. I was so scared and had so many nightmares that they thought it was for the best. Once I moved, I thought that it was the end. However, it was only the beginning. The Piper plagued my nightmares every day. Soon I was too scared to sleep and on the verge of a mental breakdown. I was thrown to therapy and specialists but no one could stop the nightmares. Then another thing started happening…where the Piper grabbed me…it made a mark. It was a deep black mark that looked like vines embedded under my skin like veins. They cause me constant pain, especially when I KNOW he’s there, they throb and grow. At night on random nights, I could alone in the house when things became dark and there a sudden chill then a deep chuckle and a singsong tone,
“Not…yet!” then all at once, it stopped. Everything, nightmares, dreams, chills, my arm… I sighed in relief. I was so happy to finally be normal. When I was in my twenties, the town decided to have a memorial about the day. I wasn’t about to go anywhere near that place again. After a lot of urgings and counseling, my therapist thought it would be a good way to give myself closure. I didn’t want closure, I just didn’t want to remember it ever again.
“Then how about you have some exposure to what you’re afraid of,” my therapist suggested, “That way your anxiety will be decreased as soon as you enter town,”
“How in the hell do I do that?! Look at mutilated bodies and gory shit?!”
“No, your key area is fear of the unknown, maybe, just maybe if you familiarize yourself with abductions and why children are victims, it’ll be less frightening to you,” after the session I started seriously thinking about changing therapists but she was right. Maybe if I researched the Piper, I could find some way to combat him or protect myself better against him if I needed to. So then began my journey. I should have just said no and left but I love doing research, I was in college as a History major, and I had the unnatural impulse to dig. I started my research on the internet. I typed in “The Piper” and immediately the Piped Piper of Hamelin came up. Now that I thought about it, the stories were eerily similar. Children were taken away by an unknown man but the Pied Piper in the story was a benevolent being, right? I’ve always thought that but as I read the story closely, it wasn’t the case. The original story always stated that he piped the mice away to the river to drown. That was a red flag there. In many versions, he came back to the town in pied clothing but in blue. When the town refused to pay, he left and showed up the next day in red, the story and pictures always emphasized red. He then played a song and the children danced. They danced and danced and were soon following the piper into woods never to be seen again. The nicer versions, the children came back when the town begged and paid the piper his money. In almost all the stories, two children couldn’t go because one was lame and the other was deaf. The lame child…he cried and begged because the music the Piper played was a song so sweet and haunting that he felt as though his heart would burst from joy. But one story…this story was what stuck with me. This story reported that one child escaped the woods after a mysterious abduction. He was never the same again, shouting and screaming about wanting to be that “beautiful place” with chocolate rivers and cookie trees. They poor thing went mad, mad at the idea that he would be able to reach that unattainable place. Another report told of a girl that was found in the middle of the wood sobbing and laughing at the same time. She had soulless eyes like Penny’s and was muttering things like, “Come here…we’ll take care of you…we love you….come back to us…” she died a few days later with the same eerie smile on her face. I had to stop my research from time to time. My arm started killing me. Ironically the same place that the Piper marked me. It would ache and throb so much that I couldn't even lift it, let alone type my findings, so I started recording everything from then on. Nothing was going to stop me.
Another term that came up was being spirited away or Kamikakushi or literately "hidden by god". It was a Japanese term that was used for any child or adult for that matter, mysteriously taken away or disappearing and some cases dying. Back in Japan, children were found at temples, sleeping, some were never recovered. I dug deeper and found the most recently recorded abduction was about thirty years ago. The last child that was found was a woman by the name of Nao Fujisawa and she was found in a temple, her chest was scarred as though someone was trying to rip through her chest. She said she heard very strange music and followed it. There she found saw a man in a black kimono, with razor sharp teeth, and black, black eyes. He had five other children with him. He beckoned her and she was too frightened. Before she could run he grabbed her and tried to take heart from her chest but she was a fighter. She wiggled and screamed prompting him to drop her. She ran towards a nearby temple. He stopped at the steps and looked at her. She said he smiled at her before saying ”Mada”loosely translated “Not yet”. This scared me shitless. He wasn’t only after me. I decided to track the woman down. With luck and I do mean luck, she was living in the states. I was thrilled. I needed some more information, some more closure, ANYTHING! She was listened in an address book and I talked to her over the phone. The following…is the exchange between us.
Me: Thank you for meeting with me.
Fujisawa: [nervously] Please sit. Have some tea. [sipping sounds are heard] You don’t mind if I smoke do you?
Me: Of course not! Please…any information would be great.
Fujisawa: I’ll give you all of the information I can but…I’m begging you to stop this digging, please. After this don’t go any further.
Me: Why?
Fujisawa: Because you have no idea what you’re dealing with. I was just like you a few years ago. After that day…that day I escaped…I had nightmares, constant nightmares. We moved away from the area into the city he followed me. I know he did! It became so much that when my father was moving to America, I was thrilled, thinking I would never see him again but…you can’t escape him. You can NEVER escape him. He’s everywhere, constantly plaguing children and others.
Me: Others? He goes after other people?
Fujisawa: He doesn’t discriminate. He’s a hunter; he feeds on anything that moves. Women, children, men, anyone is fair game as long as he gets what he wants.
Me: Surely...not always!
Fujisawa: People don't simply disappear without a trace as if they never existed, it's him, he takes them. The Roanoke Colony? That was him. He sneaked in, picked off the children and then the rest one by one. The Lyon Sisters, that was him too... [sounds of a sniffle followed by a watery sigh] he lured them outside and into the woods. Flannan Isle as well [a cough followed by the short scrape of a chair dragging back across the floor] it was easy since they were on the island. He made the men turn on each other filling them with distrust and then took them away for his own. [shuddering sound] Jimmy Hoffa was also a victim. It was the only time someone had the gall to summon the Piper to get rid of that man... whoever it was must have really hated him. No one in their right mind should EVER make a deal with him.
Me: It...it can't be!
Fujisawa: He goes by many names but it’s always the same man and the same description. Anyone who escapes eventually becomes his. You and I are on borrowed time.
Me: Wh-What?!
Fujisawa: There’s many other all over the world. Germany, England, France, Canada, Iceland, Norway, Sudan, Iraq, he’s-he’s everywhere! Very few have escaped him and those who do…they die. None lived passed thirty.
Me: You-You’re shitting me!”
Fujisawa: That’s why I decided to meet you today. In the next couple of weeks, it’ll mark my twenty ninth birthday but it’ll mark the day where I first met that…monster! Listen, he’s been hunting you since you escaped. He stops when you’re at your breaking point, he feeds off it, he savors it, then he lets you go and you’re in a false sense of security and you let your guard down and it starts happening again but worst. He plagues your nightmares, you see him everywhere, when you feel a sudden chill or feel a presence behind you, it’s him. However…he’s been getting more and more clever throughout the years. [sounds of paper rustling]
Me: What’s this?
Fujisawa: Look at it.
Me: He was the Pied Piper…Pinocchio?
Fujisawa: The Coachman, he was the Coachman. He created a paradise for boys to lure them away, where according to the original story, they were turned into donkeys. But the author wrote a diary. The boys were all found on an island off Italy, slaughter and some nothing but hallow husks.
Me: [sound of more and more rustling] P-Pokemon?
Fujisawa: Hypno was based on him. The father of one of the children….he heard the song. He told police and a close friend who was one of the game developers heard the song and that was how the theme to Lavender Town was born. A few children…because of the frequencies were taken to the hospital. There…there-there were some reports from nurses telling that some patients were screaming, saying they could see a man with sharp teeth and black eyes trying to make them away from the hospital. Some were begging to go with the man, who promised them paradise.
Me: [rustling and stomping] This-this is fuckin’ insane!
Fujisawa: He marked you didn’t he?
Me: What-What?
Fujisawa: He MARKED YOU DIDN’T HE?!
Me: NO! I-I haven’t been marked…yet stop! Let me go! [ripping sounds and finally crying] It changed…how the holy fuck did it grow so big?!
Fujisawa: [sobbing] I’ve said too much…[ripping sound then screaming] OH MY GOD! It’s huge! I’m next! I’m next! Get out! GET OUT! RUN HIDE! HE KNOWS! HE KNOWS!
That was the end of the recording. Nao…she was found mutilated in her apartment a few days later. Her mark from that day had completely overtaken her arm and chest that they thought it was a tattoo of some sort. The mark…my-my mark had indeed changed. It was another thing I realized. When you time is coming, it grows, it just keeps growing and growing until it signals him. As I’m recording this…I can feel him coming. I know I’m next. When Nao gave me her research, I started having feelings, as though I’m being watched. Every time I walk to my dorm, I can hear footsteps behind me, when I turn, nothing. When I turn on the radio, all I hear is that fuckin’ piping. I can’t take it anymore! I WON’T TAKE IT ANYMORE! Tomorrow marks the day I escape him. I know he will come to end me right then and there. With me, is my research. Please, to whoever finds this…please, please, PLEASE pass it on. That’s all I ask. Now for my final words on the Piper:
He’s as old as time itself. No one has ever escaped him. Few have but it was pure. Dumb. Luck. He loves to hunt. He will MARK his prey. He will stalk, hunt, and then go in for the kill like the sadistic bastard he is. He is everywhere, there’s no escape. He appears to whatever is the most frightening to you. He loves children because they’re easy to take, adults are harder but more…fun to break. That’s the only reason why me and Nao and many other were hunted. He fought back. When you fight, he lets you live, only you hunt you down like an animal, seeing how far he could push you, seeing how far he could make you lose you fuckin’ mind! Please, please, PLEASE warn everyone you know. If your child says they’ve met a new friend, ask them who they are. If a woman from work says she met a handsome man in sunglasses, tell her to make him TAKE THEM OFF! When people go missing, check the wooded area they were last seen. Please, you may be able to save their lives. Don’t go looking for answers. The moment you do, he knows. Once he knows, he has your SCENT! He will hunt you down until you break...y-your nightmares will come to life! NEVER EVER make a deal with him. I don't know how the ritual is done but the price you have to pay is too great! Unless you're the stupidest person alive or really want someone dead DO NOT try and contact him! Please, please look at all of the signs. Tell the world. Protect the children, the weak, hell protect everyone! NO ONE IS SAFE! As for me and Nao…it’s too late. But…unlike Nao, I’m going to die on my own terms. Mom…Dad…I’m sorry I had to do this to you. I-I love you. Penny…I’m sorry. Piper…I hope you rot in hell you son of a bitch! [sounds of a gun clicking ad soft whimpering]
…….BANG!
The body of a well known college student was found today. Students say they were worried about the student for weeks now when they started to act erratically, stopped eating and sleeping, after they were suppose to visit their hometown being the sole survivor of a brutal kidnapping and murder some years back. Witnesses say that they heard a gunshot throughout the apartment that evening. They called the authorities who bust down the door and there they were, dead from a single gunshot wound to the head. Next to the body was only a tape recorder and some notes. However, that’s not the strangest part of the story. Moments later they heard a strange music outside the window of the apartment. They went outside and saw a man dressed all in black wearing sunglasses playing some sort of pipe with what looked like a shadowy figure, that resembled the student, following him down the darkness. When they went to investigate, no one was there but a note was found with the cryptic words:
“All mine”
Police are asking if anyone has any information about the man to please call. You will remain anonymous
