The Midnight Game

A scary story/tall tale based off the time a friend and I played the Midnight Game

Like most things, I had heard about the Midnight Game on the internet. It was on page five of a “real” scary story forum on Reddit. After reading all the rules and all the warnings, I decided that my best friend, Liz, and I just had to try this. There was no way it was actually real, so it would just be a bit of harm-free scary fun, like watching a horror movie. Oh, how wrong I was, how wrong I was. Not everything on the internet is true, but that doesn’t mean everything is a lie.   

    The rules of the game are quite simple. You write your full name on a piece of paper, and mark the paper with at least one drop of your blood. Then you turn all of the lights out in your house; all of them. You then go outside your front door and place your signed paper in front of it with a lit candle on top. You then knock on the door twenty-two times, with the twenty second being at the stroke of midnight. Then you open the door, blow out your candle, close the door, and then relight your candle. You have just invited the Midnight Man into your house. The objective of this game is to avoid the Midnight Man until 3:33 am. If the Midnight Man is to catch you, he will make you hallucinate your biggest fear until 3:33. You can tell the Midnight Man is near you if your candle goes out. You have ten seconds to relight it and continue the game. If you don’t relight your candle in ten seconds, you can surround yourself in a circle of salt. That’s how I found myself sitting in Liz’s living room, staring at the most hideous creature I had ever seen, but lets start at the beginning.

    Liz’s parents were out of town for a few days, so I was staying at her house to keep her company. We didn’t have enough money or friends to throw a crazy house party, so instead we celebrated our freedom by eating all the food in the house and messing around with the dead. We called spirits with a Ouija board, tried to summon Bloody Mary, stared at ourselves in dark mirrors; pretty much every spooky thing imaginable. The Midnight Game was going to be our last hurrah before her parents came home the next night. We spent all day preparing for the game. We put blankets over all her electronics and appliances so the blinking, blue lights wouldn’t ruin our game. We went to the store and bought huge, round candles so the wax wouldn’t drip all over the house. Our only concern about the games was, how were we to get our blood? We finally decided we were just gonna have to suck it up and cut our fingers with a razor, or get the other person to do it. After what felt like days the clock finally rang 11:45; it was time to get ready for the Midnight Game. Liz and I grabbed our candles and put salt shakers in our pockets. We were determined to win this game. Stepping out of her front door, we put pieces of paper on her “Home Sweet Home” mat, and began to sign our names. Now came the hard part. We both grabbed razors and with our eyes closed, we cut our fingers, not too big or too deep, basically the same size as a paper cut. Oddly enough, this didn’t hurt at all, there wasn’t even a slight sting. Liz and I just looked and each other and shrugged; guess we were worried for nothing. We both then reached out and let a drop of blood fall onto the paper. Both drops hit the paper with a splash and soaked through, and eventually the blood disappeared all together. Our papers were perfectly clean. Liz and I looked at each other and began to freak out. That shouldn’t have been possible, and we began to think, maybe this game wasn’t so harmless after. It was too late to back out now, and, with determination in our eyes, we both lit our candles and placed them on top of our papers. It was now 11:59 and the time had come to invite the Midnight Man into the house. Liz began to knock: one, two, three. Each knock sounded louder than last, and the final one on the stroke of midnight rang throughout the entire neighborhood, possibly even further. Liz and I held our breaths, grabbed our candles, blew them out, and walked into her house. With a loud bang, Liz’s door was slammed shut without either of us touching it. We both quickly lit our candles and grabbed each others hand. This didn’t feel like a game anymore, and we were starting to freak out. Liz’s house was pitch black with a dull glow from the moon. We could barely see anything outside of the glow of our candles. We began to wonder around her house trying to stay away from the basement, whose door we had accidentally left open. Liz’s basement is more like a crawl space. It is all cement and not homey at all, and it has a slight dusty smell. Our only sense of what time it was, was an old clock on the living room mantle that rang every hour and half hour. After wandering around for about twenty minutes, Liz and I heard a rustle coming from the upstairs. Now we knew the whole point of the game was to avoid the Midnight Man, but we thought this was just a hoax and our curiosity got the best of us. As we walked up the steps the air around us kept getting colder and colder, until Liz and I were shivering, and this was in the middle of July! This was when we began to question whether this was the worst idea we had ever had, or was it the worst idea we had ever had. We felt drawn to Liz’s bedroom and began to wander over there, our hands clutching our candles and each other. We could see our breath at this point, and we were shaking uncontrollably. After turning the corner and entering Liz’s bedroom, we were face to face with the Midnight Man. At first we didn’t see him, because he was a dark shadow, and the whole room was pitch black. Until we noticed that he was darker than the rest of the room; it was almost like he was sucking whatever light was in the room into his body, like a humanoid black hole. His head, or what I imagined was his head, was tilted against the ceiling, and his arms were dragging along the floor. Liz and I just stared at him, completely frozen in fear. This is when he smiled at us, his teeth long and sharp. The brightness of his fangs was an unsettling contrast with the complete darkness of his body. Liz and I screamed and ran out of the room, and into her living room.    

     This continued for what felt like hours. We would run into a room, only to feel a breath on our necks, the cold in the air, and witness our candles flicker with the presence of the Midnight Man. We would then turn around, and be face to face with that hideous, gruesome smile. Everytime our candles went out we quickly relit them. Once we realized this wasn't just a game for fun, this was a game for our lives, we became even more determined to beat the Midnight Man. We would not let him catch us. Liz was more determined than me, I admit though. I was scared out of my mind, and I only wanted this to end. Technically, if you end up stuck in a salt ring, that's considered losing the game, because you really didn't escape the Midnight Man;  you just blocked him from reaching you. Liz wanted to win by the rules, and refused to make a circle of salt. She handed me another salt shaker, and told me to circle myself in the living room, by the ringing clock, so I could let her know when it was 3:33. Her candle flickered in her eyes, and she took off.     

    I made the ring of salt around me, and sat with my head between my legs. I refused to look up, for fear that I would be face to face with that hideous smile. Suddenly I felt a presence in the room, and someone began to shake me. I slowly raised up my head, only to be met face to face with.... Liz. She looked absolutely frantic, her big eyes bulging with excitement. Oh god, that's the look she gets when she has an idea; this cannot be good. After much head movement and waving of arms, Liz got her idea across to me, we were going to destroy the Midnight Man. We knew salt kept the Midnight Man at bay, and so did the light of our candles, so we reasoned that if we poured salt on him, and lit him on fire, he'd vanish. Maybe it wasn't our best plan, but it was better than waiting. I slowly and cautiously stepped out of my ring of salt, and grabbed the can of salt from Liz's pantry. Liz and I wandered around her house in search of the Midnight Man, but we couldn't find him anywhere. Suddenly, we heard a loud crash coming from below us; he was in the basement. Liz and I held our breaths and stared at each other. The basement was the scariest place in Liz's house, actually in all of Ohio. It was dank and smelled of dust and lost spirits. The walls were gray slabs of concrete that somehow gave off the feeling that they were closing in on you. Everytime I walked into that basement, I felt like I would never leave, like it would eat me alive, and this time was no different. Standing in the corner was the Midnight Man, darker than ever. His gruesome grin grew on his face until his fangs hit the floor. Liz and I took deep breathes, and with fire in our eyes, we rushed the Midnight Man and doused him in salt. The Midnight Man wailed and screamed for what felt like years, until he finally vanished in a puff of black smoke that left us choking. Liz and I looked at each other in astonishment. We had done it, we had defeated the Midnight Man. 

That night Liz and I had the worst nightmares of our lives, filled with black smoke and moving, gray walls.