Invalid Item

This item number is not valid.

Hello friend-os,
         Laurie here.

Before this story starts, I'd just like to address a few issues that I've had in writing and releasing this story.

It all started with a "SCREAMS!!!"  prompt on the first of April; following a great April fools gag by Angus , the prompt was Bats.

Here's a link "No Entries No Winner New Prompts"  .

Time, and time again I tried to pen a scary story, although none seemed frightening enough to enter.

I know that it wasn't the prompt's fault, the prompt is awesome; I could have written about flying rodents(Chiroptera), people using baseball bats/cricket bats to fight off a baddie, someone who's has a few bats loose in the belfry, nobody bats an eyelid, [REDACTED], eccentric old bats, you get it.

My first thought was about an isolated lighthouse infested with killer bats, although that was too predictable.

Next, I conjured up a tale of a missing ex-baseball player turned lunatic, who'd carved one of his championship bats into a cursed cane, again though, too predictable.

Then it hit me, why not write about [REDACTED], it was perfect it was about ██████████, you know the ones.

A little over seven hours it took me to finish up a draft, when I tried to post it though, the body of my work either disappeared or went screwy and the title changed to INVALID ITEM in my portfolio for some reason.

I thought I must have done something wrong, I have only been here for around a month and a half so messing up was a big possibility.

Over and over again, I tried to post my story, yet every time I would get the same result.

██████████ isn't exactly a bad line, is it?

Coincidentally, as I tried to post my tale, I started feeling a strange tightening pain in my stomach, which my doctor said is a nasty viral infection, a few days have passed and the antibiotics he prescribed aren't working.

In my weakened state, I started dreaming about [REDACTED], long, hazy nightmarish dreams in which I'd constantly wake coated in a thick lather of sweat.

While both of these things may seem unimportant, I write of them to try to explain my further hallucinations of ██████████.

Odd men in suits stand outside my paddock's wire fence and stare at my house.

I have caught them a few times now, each one appearing as though he is holding a ██████████; I know how weird that may seem considering the size of them, but that is what I saw.

They just stand there until I look away, at which point they seem to just vanish into thin air; this is why I first believed they were some sort of mental manifestation.

I live on an acreage in the middle of nowhere, after a few days of near drought-breaking rain, my grass had grown higher than my knees, leading me to go out and mow it today, even though I felt as sick as a Sumatran Rat Monkey.

Whilst I was cutting my lawn, I noticed footprints left in the mud outside of my fence.

I can't say for sure if these men in black suits are real or not, although this proves that someone was out there; if they were there, then what did they want?

All of these inexplicable happenings seem to relate to [REDACTED] in one way or another.

I'm starting to feel as though this contest is sending me a little bats crazy.

This madness aside, I'd like to know why someone, or something is censoring me on this site?

I am only writing about ██████████, it's not like I am trying to write about anything illegal.

Can anyone explain this to me?

Perhaps I am being paranoid, this isn't a grand conspiracy, certain gatekeepers aren't trying to silence me by instilling fear and sickness, are they?

No, that would be crazy.

Although tonight has been strange, a bright spotlight keeps passing over the top of my house, almost as if it were attached to a silent helicopter, and something is shaking my carpeted wooden floors in small increments, every few hours.

Probably just my virus-ridden brain feverishly concocting false sensations, right?

On to the story. (Please read it before it is taken down again.)

██████████ of the ██████

███████ in the ████, today ████ ███████ ██ █████████.

[REDACTED]

         ~749 Words