Morbid Morsals. Season 2. Episode 7. Smarty-Pants

2:30 SPEAKER_03: This episode contains mature language and adult situations.

2:36 SPEAKER_03: Listener discretion is at Hello, my friend.

2:45 SPEAKER_04: And how is it that you stumble into my calves, F I am ancient?

2:55 SPEAKER_04: I am fell.

3:05 SPEAKER_04: I am the shadow dwell.

3:17 SPEAKER_04: I've been here for years and collecting stories.

3:22 SPEAKER_04: I will tell you the tales.

3:27 SPEAKER_04: Short stories of horror.

3:31 SPEAKER_04: Tiny tales of the creeping.

3:36 SPEAKER_04: I will assure you by the end you'll be screaming with madness.

3:43 SPEAKER_04: Morbid Morsels is a new chapter of terror.

3:50 SPEAKER_04: A shorter tale of madness.

3:53 SPEAKER_04: To let's just say carry your tremendous suffering over to the longer, fuller episodes.

4:06 SPEAKER_04: Your torment endless suffering has helped me go stronger.

4:14 SPEAKER_04: To reunite my brothers once again to open the portal from here, the nether realm to your.

4:24 SPEAKER_04: To release darkness and chaos upon all mankind.

4:31 SPEAKER_04: We have grown stronger by passing these tales of madness on to you.

4:41 SPEAKER_04: Not only will we feast on your souls, but we will unleash hell on earth.

4:50 SPEAKER_04: We'll be seeking new, unfortunate souls to torment, new chapters of fear, tales of the unbelievable, and more skin to the episodes.

5:08 SPEAKER_04: Remember, your dark thoughts lead you to me.

5:14 SPEAKER_04: I won't have to find you.

5:17 SPEAKER_04: It will be you that seeks me out.

6:10 SPEAKER_00: Always seen pushing his mop and humming to himself.

6:14 SPEAKER_00: The kids loved to make jokes at his expense, mocking his slow mannerisms and his old patched-up uniform.

6:22 SPEAKER_00: It was easy to laugh at Floyd because he never fought back.

6:26 SPEAKER_00: He just offered a simple smile, never seeming to mind.

6:29 SPEAKER_00: The truth was he didn't mind.

6:32 SPEAKER_00: Floyd liked the quiet, the solitude, and his time outside, especially at night when he could smoke under the stars and let his thoughts drift.

6:44 SPEAKER_00: One chilly October evening, after the school emptied out and his work was done, Floyd went to his usual spot by the loading dock.

6:54 SPEAKER_00: Lighting up a cigarette, he exhaled and glanced up, scanning the familiar sky.

7:00 SPEAKER_00: But tonight, something was different.

7:03 SPEAKER_00: A bright light appeared, far too big and close to be a star.

7:07 SPEAKER_00: It was strange.

7:09 SPEAKER_00: White, pulsing, like it was breathing.

7:13 SPEAKER_00: As he watched, it began to move faster and closer until it filled his vision with blinding brightness.

7:19 SPEAKER_00: He barely registered the strange hum vibrating through his bones before he was knocked backward.

7:25 SPEAKER_00: The world faded to black.

7:28 SPEAKER_00: Floyd woke up on the cold concrete, his cigarette still smoldering nearby.

7:35 SPEAKER_00: Dazed, he looked around, but the sky was empty again, with no trace of the light.

7:41 SPEAKER_00: Brushing himself off, he chalked it up to one too many late nights and trudged home, dismissing the whole thing as an odd dream.

7:53 SPEAKER_00: The next morning Floyd noticed something strange.

7:57 SPEAKER_00: As he walked into the building, a snippet of Spanish conversation caught his ear, and to his surprise, he understood every word.

8:07 SPEAKER_00: He had never learned Spanish.

8:09 SPEAKER_00: Heck.

8:10 SPEAKER_00: He barely passed English in high school.

8:12 SPEAKER_00: Yet, he not only understood, but could speak it fluently.

8:17 SPEAKER_00: The surprise deepened as the day went on.

8:20 SPEAKER_00: Floyd found himself recognizing patterns in mathematical equations, recalling scientific concepts, and even fixing a broken boiler by rattling off complex engineering principles.

8:34 SPEAKER_00: It was like his mind had opened and he could absorb and retain everything in his environment.

8:41 SPEAKER_00: Word spread quickly about Floyd, the janitor who could now recite entire encyclopedias by memory, solve complex physics equations, and even debate philosophy with the teachers.

8:52 SPEAKER_00: He became a phenomenon.

8:54 SPEAKER_00: People wanted to understand what had happened to this quiet janitor, who overnight had transformed into the smartest man alive.

9:03 SPEAKER_00: News outlets, scientists, and professors came, all baffled by his newfound abilities.

9:09 SPEAKER_00: Months went by, and Floyd's fame grew.

9:15 SPEAKER_00: He appeared on talk shows where he answered questions in languages he'd never heard, explained theories that left experts speechless, and analyzed art, history, and science with an unparalleled depth.

9:30 SPEAKER_00: But even with all this knowledge, Floyd felt strangely empty, as though something important was missing.

9:36 SPEAKER_00: One year after that first encounter, Floyd found himself on a late-night drive home from yet another television appearance.

9:44 SPEAKER_00: The roads were dark and empty, and as he approached a lonely stretch, he saw it.

9:51 SPEAKER_00: The light hanging over the road, just as it had that fateful night.

9:56 SPEAKER_00: His heart pounded, a mixture of fear and strange familiarity.

10:01 SPEAKER_00: The light moved closer, his car's headlights flickered, and the radio turned to static.

10:07 SPEAKER_00: Before he could react, it enveloped him.

10:10 SPEAKER_00: In that moment, a flood of images and thoughts rushed through Floyd's mind.

10:15 SPEAKER_00: He saw worlds beyond imagining.

10:18 SPEAKER_00: Alien landscapes, creatures speaking in languages he somehow understood.

10:23 SPEAKER_00: Memories of the past year poured from him, unwinding in streams of information, as if he were a recorder, playing back everything he had experienced, learned, and known.

10:35 SPEAKER_00: The aliens had been watching, using him to absorb humanity's knowledge, collecting data through his mind.

10:43 SPEAKER_00: And now their experiment was over.

10:46 SPEAKER_00: The light faded, and Floyd found himself alone in the dark, his mind quiet and empty.

10:53 SPEAKER_00: He felt hollow, as though something had been torn from his soul.

10:59 SPEAKER_00: Driving home in a fog, he couldn't recall the equations, the languages, or the knowledge.

11:06 SPEAKER_00: By the time he parked outside his apartment, it was all gone.

11:11 SPEAKER_00: The next morning Floyd returned to Ridgway High.

11:14 SPEAKER_00: He was greeted with the usual laughs, the whispers, and the kids making jokes at his expense.

11:19 SPEAKER_00: The teachers glanced at him, muttering about the janitor who once seemed like a genius, but now seemed like the old, simple man they remembered.

11:29 SPEAKER_00: As the days passed, Floyd sometimes found himself staring at the night sky, searching for a flicker of that strange light, feeling an odd sense of loss he couldn't quite explain.

11:40 SPEAKER_00: The world had moved on, and so had he, though he couldn't shake the sense that, for a brief time, he had been something more than the quiet janitor everyone thought they knew.

11:51 SPEAKER_00: But in the end, it was all just a memory that slipped through his fingers like stardust, lost in the vast silence of the universe.

13:39 SPEAKER_04: Your dark thoughts always lead you to me.

13:45 SPEAKER_02: So, my friends, until next time, I look forward to tasting your fear.

14:52 SPEAKER_01: Hi, I'm Troy Birch, creator and producer of the short horror story audio podcast Into the Abyss.

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