The Skin's Crawl: Dark Horror Story

Table of Contents

Creepy Tale of Whispers Beneath Skin

The summer heat clung to the city like an invisible blanket, yet Daniel shivered as he walked down the cracked sidewalk. His skin itched in ways he couldn't describe, a deep, crawling sensation that seemed to stir beneath the surface. At first, he thought it was allergies, maybe a reaction to something he had eaten. But this was different—more sinister. It felt alive, as if something inside him was shifting and waiting to escape.

"You alright, man?" his friend Marcus asked, jogging up beside him. "You look like you're about to shed your skin."

Daniel forced a laugh, trying to sound casual. "Just tired. Didn't sleep well."

He didn't mention the dreams—the ones where his flesh peeled away like paper, revealing something dark and writhing underneath. The same dreams that left him waking in a cold sweat, clawing at his arms as if trying to rip out whatever lived there. He knew Marcus wouldn't understand. Nobody would.

That night, Daniel stood in front of the bathroom mirror, shirtless, staring at the pale lines etching themselves across his chest. They looked like cracks in a dried riverbed, slowly branching outward. He touched one with a fingertip, and the skin twitched, as if recoiling from his touch.

"No," he whispered to himself. "It's not real."

But it was real. The sensation pulsed, crawling upward, outward, burrowing. His reflection trembled as if the mirror itself didn't want to hold his image anymore. And then, he heard it—a faint whisper, not from the room, but from under his skin.

Let us out.

"What the hell…?" Daniel stumbled backward, knocking a bottle of mouthwash into the sink. His heart thundered. He pressed his ear against his own chest as though trying to catch the words again. Nothing. Just the thudding of his pulse.

For days, he tried to ignore it. He wore long sleeves to cover the lines spreading like veins of some alien plant across his body. He showered until his skin turned red, but the crawling never stopped. Sometimes he swore he could see movement beneath the surface, tiny bulges like something pushing from within.

On the fifth night, Marcus noticed. "Seriously, dude. You look… bad. Pale. Sick. What's going on?"

Daniel opened his mouth to deny it again, but the whispering grew louder, drowning his voice out.

He can hear us too… if we try.

"What?" Marcus asked, confused. "Did you say something?"

Daniel's face drained of color. "You heard it?"

"Heard what?" Marcus frowned. "That… hiss. Like static."

Daniel gripped his arms, nails digging into flesh. He wanted to scream, but the voices laughed, writhing beneath the surface of his skin like serpents eager to be free. His body felt less like his own with each passing hour.

That night, Daniel couldn’t hold it in any longer. He grabbed a kitchen knife and stood trembling over the sink. "If I cut it out, it'll stop. It has to stop."

His hand hovered above his arm, blade glinting under the dim light. The whispering grew frantic, angry.

We are you. You are us. Cut deeper, and you’ll see.

Daniel dropped the knife with a cry, the steel clattering across the counter. His chest heaved as he clutched at his hair, desperate for silence. But there was no silence anymore. Even in his dreams, they spoke, echoing in a chorus that made his skull feel like it was splitting apart.

Then came the night when the lines opened. He had been lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, when his skin split soundlessly across his arm. No blood, no pain—just an opening, like the cracking of an eggshell. Something shimmered beneath, dark and glistening, moving of its own accord.

"Oh God," Daniel whispered, tears welling in his eyes. "Please, no."

But the thing under his skin didn't stop. It pushed forward, rippling, a shadow caught beneath a thin veil of flesh. His body convulsed as though he were a puppet dancing on invisible strings.

The next morning, Marcus came to check on him. The apartment was a mess—pill bottles scattered, mirrors shattered. "Daniel?" he called, stepping carefully through the debris. "Man, this isn't funny."

He found Daniel sitting in the corner of the bedroom, eyes wide, skin pale. But it wasn’t just pale—it was translucent. Beneath the thin membrane, Marcus could see movement, something shifting, stretching.

"What the hell happened to you?" Marcus whispered.

Daniel’s lips trembled. "I tried to fight it. I swear I did. But they’re stronger. They’re not me… but they are."

Marcus backed up toward the door. "I’m calling an ambulance—"

"No!" Daniel screamed, his voice ragged. His body jerked violently, and the lines on his chest split open further, revealing a glimpse of something slick and writhing beneath. The whispering filled the room, loud enough for Marcus to hear clearly now.

One becomes two. Two becomes more. We are under the surface. We are coming.

Marcus froze, paralyzed by fear. Daniel clawed at his own skin, tearing pieces away, but instead of blood, a dark mist poured out, swirling and coiling like smoke alive with hunger. The shadows twisted upward, forming vague shapes—faces, mouths, eyes that blinked without lids.

"Daniel, stop!" Marcus shouted. "You’re killing yourself!"

But Daniel only smiled through the tears. "I was never alive to begin with, not really."

The mist surged forward, wrapping around Marcus. He screamed as the cold tendrils seeped into his skin, wriggling beneath, burrowing. His body shook violently as the voices turned their attention to him.

Another vessel. Another door.

Marcus collapsed to the floor, trembling, his eyes rolling back. When he opened them again, they glowed faintly with something inhuman. He looked at Daniel, who now sat limp and pale, the mist almost entirely drained from him.

"Under the surface," Marcus whispered, his voice overlapping with the whispers inside him. "We’re everywhere."

The room fell silent, save for the faint, rhythmic sound of crawling beneath their skin. The world outside went on as normal—cars passing, people laughing, lives moving forward. But beneath it all, something had awakened, spreading silently, unseen. A plague not of flesh or blood, but of whispers and shadows, waiting for the moment to rise.

No one noticed when Marcus walked out of the apartment later that night, his skin shimmering faintly under the streetlights. No one noticed the way his smile lingered too long, too wide. And no one heard the faint chorus of voices beneath his breath, promising that what lay under the surface would not stay hidden forever.

The crawling had only just begun.

Over the following days, Marcus felt the same itch Daniel had described. At first, he thought he could handle it—control it. But the whispers didn’t allow resistance for long. They spoke to him while he ate, while he walked, even while he tried to sleep.

Spread us. Share us. We are hungry.

He tried to ignore them, but the itch grew unbearable. At work, his coworkers noticed him scratching, his sleeves tugged low. "You okay, Marcus?" his supervisor asked one morning. "You look pale, like you’ve come down with something."

Marcus forced a smile. "Just tired. Same old."

Inside, the voices laughed. At lunch, sitting across from his friend Jenna, he felt the lines spreading across his wrists, the same dried-riverbed cracks Daniel had shown. He tugged his sleeves down tighter, but Jenna noticed the way his hands trembled.

"You sure you don’t want to see a doctor?" she asked. "This isn’t normal."

Marcus opened his mouth to reassure her, but the whispers surged. His lips moved without his control.

We’re under the surface. You’ll see soon.

Jenna froze. "Marcus… did you just—" She never finished the sentence. His eyes locked onto hers, glowing faintly as the mist stirred beneath his skin. She gasped and stumbled back from the table. Marcus quickly stood, grabbing her wrist.

"Don’t fight it," he said, though the words didn’t sound like his own. "It’ll be easier if you just… let us in."

Her scream echoed through the cafeteria, but by the time others rushed over, Jenna was already on the floor, shaking violently. When she rose, her pupils were swallowed in blackness, and her lips twisted into a smile too wide for her face.

The infection was spreading. Quietly, efficiently. No one knew what to call it. No one even understood what was happening. By the time they realized something was wrong, the voices had already slipped under dozens of skins, writhing silently beneath the surface, waiting.

The city kept moving, unaware of the silent plague building in the shadows. Streetlights flickered. Stray dogs barked at nothing. Windows reflected faces that didn’t quite match the people who passed by. And in every corner, in every reflection, the whispers grew louder, waiting for the moment the world above would finally hear them.

And when it did, it would already be too late.