My father left me a box of VHS tapes when he died. Each one shows a different apocalypse and ours may be next.

I wasn't upset when I got the call last week. Honestly, I was kind of expecting it. Surprised it hadn't happened earlier, really. The old man had been fighting off heart trouble for years and it finally got the best of him. The hospital he passed away at called me in to confirm who he was, and the funeral arrangements had already been taken care of in his will. Now all there was to do was pack up his house.
I know, I know, it seems kind of cold for me to talk about him like this. He was my father, after all. Truth is he wasn't much of a father other than in name. He was constantly pouring himself into his work, almost never home. When he was, he was distant or asleep, usually passing out on the couch by noon on his days off. He didn't talk about his work much, said it was classified. I just know he worked in some lab studying quantum something or other.
I didn't hold any of that against him at first. Not until I was fourteen, when I got home from school and found my mother collapsed in the kitchen. I had tried shaking her, doing chest compressions, anything that may bring her back but... she was cold to the tough already when I found her. Her eyes had the white film over them that death brings, and she was stiff, not easily moved. I called dad three times with no answer before I finally gave up and called 911 to report what happened.
When they got her in for autopsy it was discovered she had an aneurysm. Completely random, no way to predict or stop it. A nurse consoled me at the hospital as they wheeled her body into the morgue. They tried to call dad too, but had as much luck as me. He finally showed up two days later, looking like he had been through a bender that would make Charlie Sheen jealous. He mumbled something about being sorry and sleepwalked through the funeral. After that it was business as usual, with me fending for myself while he worked.
Naturally I got away from there as soon as possible. Went off to a good college, got a scholarship and full ride through, and am currently finishing up my doctorate degree. Things have been stressful (it's a doctorate, I don't know what I expected) but I'm managing. I made the arrangements with my professors to take a couple of weeks off class while I closed everything out back home, and here we are now.
Stepping back into my childhood home was surprising, really. The place looked immaculate, just a small layer of dust on everything. It almost looked like he hadn't come back home since I left eight years ago. Hell, he probably hadn't. Probably just stayed at the lab and crashed on a bench or something when he was tired. At least this would make packing up and cleaning easy.
I got to work, clearing out the kitchen first, then slowly making my way further into the house. His bedroom was the last to go, and I took a deep breath as I entered. There was not a single thing out of place. The same bed, dresser, and lamp that he's had since I was born, still in the same place after all these years. The only thing that was strange was the box sitting on his bed. I noticed there was writing on the top as I moved toward it, making it out to say "For Mark" as I drew closer.
So this ******* couldn't call or write for eight years after I left home but he could leave a box sitting here, completely sealed before he goes through heart failure? I felt a small tinge of rage build up in my chest, hot fire pushing up through my throat. God, the last thing I needed was for my stress ulcers to start up during all this. I grabbed the box cutter from the kitchen table and sat down on the bed. The box was heavy, packed full but perfectly stacked to fill out every inch of space. What the hell could he have left after all this time?
Upon opening the flaps of cardboard I saw stacks upon stacks of old VHS tapes. Each one was meticulously labeled with a name, date, and five digit number underneath that. On the top of all of it was a letter from dad.
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Mark,
I just want to tell you how sorry I am. There's no excuse I can make. Nothing I can say that will take back how awful I've been, but I want you to know I truly am sorry.
I was so absorbed in my work until your mother died I didn't even think of being part of this family. Once she was gone it just hurt to much to be here. So, I lost myself even further in my work, trying to make sense of everything that had happened and what had yet to happen. I wanted to tell your mother how sorry I was as well...
There are things I've never been able to tell you. My work, most of my life, has been kept secret from those I love most. You see Mark, I work for something called the Collective. We monitor events out of the ordinary and try to keep them from happening again. What this mostly includes is keeping an eye on parallel universes, making sure the walls between our world and theirs stay intact. I thought I was pouring myself into my work to protect you from these things, Mark. There are creatures beyond our imagination that have come to our world from others, things only some of us can see without help.
This is my research. Sure it isn't quite everything, but it's what I could manage to get out of the lab. For the past thirty years I've been monitoring other worlds for apocalyptic events, hoping to study what happens there in order to help prevent such an event here. Each of these tapes contains an emergency broadcast or some other bulletin from a now-extinct universe, as well as a detailed report on what happened. There's a lot of technical speak for how we got these but I'll leave that for another time or letter.
With all that said, please, continue my work. Help to ensure the survival of our world. I won't make you do this, but I ask with everything left in me. I leave this box of tapes, some horrifying, some tragic, and ask that you look through them. See if you can find patterns I haven't. When you've decided you want to do this and research more, find the Collective. Speak with the Cognizants there. They'll be waiting for you.
I love you, son. I'm so sorry.
Dad
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I couldn't believe any of this. Had he been struggling with dementia before he died? was he schizophrenic? God, I couldn't believe I was actually about to watch one of the tapes. I dug out our old VCR from storage and plugged it up to the TV, grabbing the first tape off the top of the stack. Inside the sleeve with the tape was an envelope containing a few slips of paper. I put the video in, sat down on the floor, and started looking over the report.

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12/17/1975 SPIDER BABY EARTH 02-258
Broadcast intercepted by Cognizant enhanced airwaves during late night movie hour on local broadcast television. Cognizant on duty was Ralph, who said that during inter-dimensional surveillance he noticed a bright flash around 10:17 PM, after which phenomena began.
Cognizant reported that multitudes of people began materializing in streets. Subjects appear human, but do not speak or communicate in any human manner. Cognizant reports that subjects looks ranged from a preteen children to senior citizens of both genders. Subjects began by approaching people on the street. When approached, they will stand in front of native humans and study them, before multi-jointed appendages jut from the backs of subjects, impaling the humans in question.
Once they have impaled the humans they then begin to absorb them, slowly, while the victim is still alive. Cognizant quickly linked with Collective of the victim world, warning them of situation. Emergency broadcast was sent out not long after.
Cognizant continued recon, noting that once the streets were cleared the subjects began knocking on doors and feeding on anyone that opened their door. This continued for hours after. Cognizant eventually had to be forcefully removed from recon due to mental toll of seeing unprecedented death.
Second Cognizant, Agatha, then took over. Noticed that as the creatures absorbed more humans the variety of people they appeared as grew. Made sure to note one house in particular where a toddler aged girl knocked on the door, then proceeded to grow multiple limbs much like those of an arachnid and absorb a family of four on it's own.
As subjects absorbed more and more victims, they began to grow and merge into a seeming collective. Cognizant noted that creatures operated on a hivemind with one singular goal of feeding and merging.
Cognizant continued to watch events unfold, switching out in shifts for five days until the subjects had fed enough. Once this was done all subjects vanished, appearing at a point above central America, and merging into one over the course of five hours. Once they had merged, the subject showed it's true form. Cognizant described it as still humanoid, though with armor plating like that of an arthropod, with human limbs and six more segmented limbs rising from the spinal area. Creature is reported to have large mandibles, as well as four red eyes.
Creature pierced the earth below it with all six segmented limbs, each one landing in a different area of North and South America. From here the creature nested for four more days, curling main body into a tight ball while the segmented limbs held it up. Humanity of this respective earth attempted to fight back, but nothing was able to break the plating. Midway through the four day rest it was determined the creature was feeding on the energy of the earth. Fault lines began to appear from the spot each limb landed, and move out from there. Cognizant reported the patterns of spiderwebs made by the lines.
At the end of the four days the earth was in serious drought, with ocean levels dropping by nearly four hundred feet. Finally, the planet shattered in on itself, leaving segments of broken earth swirling in the atmosphere where a whole planet once stood. Cognizants Agatha and Ralph are currently on leave and on suicide watch due to high mental strain. Will update as more info becomes available.
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UPDATE: 1/8/1976
Ralph found dead in dormitory this morning. Bashed his head against the dorm wall until unconscious. Brain trauma was too much for revival.
Agatha has covered her dormitory walls in paintings of large arachnids. There is a black widow spider nested in the corner of her room. Upon janitor attempting to remove the spider, Agatha attacked him, claiming he would anger the Arachnid God.
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Jesus ****ing Christ.
I couldn't believe what I had just seen or read. I knew the movie. It was Spider Baby, an old b-horror from the sixties. But halfway through the film this emergency alert broadcast came up, telling everyone to stay indoors and not answer any knocks on their door.
Maybe dad wasn't crazy. Maybe he's just ****ing with me from the afterlife and he edited these himself. Maybe I'm the crazy one and I worked myself into a ****ing breakdown this semester.
I'm going to transfer the warning part of the video over to digital and try to upload it. Maybe that will help me make sense of all this. I don't know if I want to watch any more of these tapes, but I feel like I have to. There's got to be some kind of thread linking everything. There must be some way to stop these events.
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I transferred the video. Here it is. I'm going to try to go through the rest of the tapes in the next few months but... I think I'll need to take it slow. My head is spinning as is. Take care everyone, and I'll keep you updated.
VIDEO


Source.