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I'm a horror writer so the following is unofficial and in place only for my own future reference.
'''Real Life Nightmare Fuel'''
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder: Real Life Nightmare Fuel]]
You're probably thinking that after reading about all that NightmareFuel, you're safe from it because you don't live in Fiction Land, right? ''[[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou Wrong!]]''
'''Note:''' This page is ''not'' for those easily scared by books or movies. If you happen to be one of those people, please go [[http://www.givesmehope.com/ here]] instead. Thank you and have a nice day.
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[[/folder]]
[[folder: Other]]
* [[http://www2.rwu.edu/studentlife/studentservices/counselingcenter/sexualassault/rapemyths.htm According to a survey]], 33% of college aged men would commit rape if they could get away with it, and 25% of those surveyed believed that rape was acceptable if "the woman asks the man out; or the man pays for the date; or the woman goes back to the man's room after the date."
* The Westboro Baptist Church. It's an honest to [[spoiler:not their]] God group of [[MisanthropeSupreme misanthrope supremes]] who imagine ''the nigh-entirety of humanity'' in HELL. And that's not even getting into Fred Phelps, who'd probably be one of the most terrifying supervillains ever in a comic book universe.
** For an example of how frightening these people are [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBV2hnPxESw check out this "parody" of "We Are The World"]]. It's either {{High Octane Nightmare Fuel}} or {{Narm}}, but what makes this so scary is that they are [[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer actually serious]].
*** The "church" in question is a very small group with a very high profile, which is itself rather disturbing. They are not recognized as a valid church by any other religious organization anywhere in the world. Canada, which has very strong laws on both religious freedom and hate speech, refuses to allow Fred Phelps across the border.
* The [[EmergencyBroadcast Emergency Alert System]] test sequences.
** I used to hide under the coffee table when those came on TV. *shiver*
** I try to block them out on numerous occasions.
** The new ones aren't any better, either: instead of the sine-wave test tone, now it's that awful buzzing and the very, very badly synthesized voice reading the "This is a test of the Emergency Alert System" message.
** In addition to being afraid of Emergency Broadcast System tests, I was very afraid of the multicolored-bars TV "test pattern" thing that would display whenever a TV station was having broadcast issues. It's not the actual test pattern that was scary, it was the loud high-pitched beeping that accompanied it.
** The horrid "three beeps" severe weather alerts played on local TV, complete with a massive, bright red, flashing "TORNADO WARNING - TAKE COVER IMMEDIATELY" message across the bottom of the screen. To be yanked from Sesame Street into Howling Winds of Death once or twice a month in the summer is very unpleasant. Perhaps that is the whole point.
* Whatever your local name for the old Civil Defence air-raid sirens is - hurricane siren, disaster siren, tornado siren, etc. Imagine standing on the front porch as a little kid during a particularly severe thunderstorm, in which the sky turned green, the wind abruptly quit and the whole world went dead silent for about five seconds - and then the sirens fired up. This is used in the SilentHill series to great effect.
* Factology believes, according to Wikipedia, "some aborted [[FetusTerrible fetuses]] survive their abortion to live in the sewers, where they are being gathered and organized [[TakeOverTheWorld to take over the world]]."
* To all those in college - you think your roommate is bad? Read [[http://www.wyseguys.com/shittyroomate.asp this possibly true story]], and you will be glad the worst thing your roommate does is snore.
** Half of the student body at [=DigiPen=] has one-upped that guy (up through The Black Time) in one way or another (except without the drugs).
** More roommate horror [[http://gawker.com/roommate-horror-stories/ here]]. Worst one is the woman who walked in on her college roommate having sex doggy-style with her ''biological father''. The [[http://gawker.com/5879703/these-are-the-worlds-worst-roommate-stories?comment=46476429#comments winner]] was actually someone who ''killed and skinned a squirrel'' and left it on her housemate's bed.
*** The former also contains a bit of FridgeHorror, as several readers have noted that the roommate's poor hygiene and behavioral problems match the symptoms of sexual abuse. Even the person who submitted the story admits that if she had made the connection at the time, she would have reported what she had seen.
* Have you ever heard someone die? 9-1-1 calls which end tragically...
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxLlwsC5hWs Here's one]]. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox3gmJvQAA0 And here's another]]. The former has a HellIsThatNoise sound made from the woman's screams at the beginning, and the latter has a VERY EFFECTIVE ScareChord.
* Memorial or Post-Mortem Photography: A "mostly" extinct practice where family members photograph themselves and their dead in such positions, (like opening the eyes, moving the mouth, setting the body correctly, and dressing it up) to make their relatives look 'almost' like they're still alive. [[http://www.paulfrecker.com/collections.cfm?=library&typeID=1&ShowStart=81&ShowEnd=88&myPage=11 Most of these photos are babies!!]]
** Apparently, it's still a common practice nowadays that when a baby passes away, one of the nurses cleans the body, dresses it up, and wraps it in a blanket for the parents to hold and take a picture with. One sad advantage of doing this with a deceased child is that the baby is no longer covered in tubes and needles to keep it alive, so it appears as it couldn't in life. And it seems rather gruesome, yes, but it seems many people need that picture, that memory, to help them through the grieving process. It's almost as if to show themselves that their baby was alive and real, even if it couldn't stay that way for very long.
* [[http://www.nowilaymedowntosleep.org/ This site]]. Think of it this way, most of those babies are stillborn. The parents NEVER would have gotten a single picture if it weren't for those. They used to be tossed in the trash. Now the parents get to hold their precious child. Much like when you hold a dying friend...
* Cracked has done it again: [[http://www.cracked.com/article_17379_6-real-islands-way-more-terrifying-than-one-on-lost.html 6 Real, Terrifying Islands.]] One features a snake population of around five ''per square meter''. Another has the charred bones from 160,000 plague victims ''still'' wash up on the shores. And those are near the bottom of the list.
* [[http://www.themorningstarr.co.uk/2009/07/17/baby-eaten-by-rats/ "Baby Eaten By Rats"]]. [[http://www.themorningstarr.co.uk/2009/07/26/autopsy-reveals-rats-did-kill-baby/ She wasn't dead when they started.]]
* Ladies and gentlemen, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_in_the_Box_(Philadelphia) Boy in the Box]], a cold case from the 1950's where the body of a small boy was found in a box in the woods. The worst part? They still to this day haven't caught the person who did it.
* [[http://cakeheadlovesevil.wordpress.com/2009/04/18/island-of-the-dolls The Island of the Dolls]] in Mexico.
* In 2003, a man named Hitoshi Nikaidoh walked inside an elevator and had his shoulders pinned by the elevator doors due to faulty wiring. Despite struggling to pull himself inside, the elevator kept ascending until the ceiling sliced off most of his head. His left ear, lower lip, teeth and jaw were still attached to his body, which fell to the bottom of the elevator shaft, as the elevator continued moving upward. A surgery resident, who was in the elevator at the time, witnessed the gruesome spectacle and spent more than an hour trapped in the elevator with Hitoshi's head.
* Cracked again! This article for the [[http://www.cracked.com/article_18381_the-5-creepiest-unexplained-broadcasts.html 5 Creepiest Unexplained Broadcasts]]
* "Chat", "That's Life" and similar magazines sold at supermarket checkouts. In the words of Charlie Brooker, they look at first glance like they're full of word searches and knitting patterns. In reality they're full of the kind of BodyHorror and {{Gorn}} that rotten.com is built on, alongside more mundane adult fears, with the odd "kids say the funniest things" feature for added MoodWhiplash goodness.
** For those who have no idea of what these magazines are...well, [[http://www.storieswanted.com/userimages/HPThatslife.jpg here's]] [[http://www.letssubscribe.com/images/products/7781.jpg for]] [[http://img.dooyoo.co.uk/GB_EN/orig/0/6/3/6/1/636108.jpg reference]]. ''"Life! Death! Prizes!"'' Actual tagline.
*** And the attractive woman on the cover? She won't be seen in the magazine, has no bearing on any articles whatsoever. Eye candy to get you into the back of the van, as it were.
** African tabloid examples take this [[BeyondTheImpossible up to eleven]], and even more frightening is that even MORE people take them as the truth than [[DeepSouth in the US!]] [[http://redpepper.co.ug/welcome/ The Red Pepper]] is the most notorious. The engrish and hilarious slang seems charming (referring recently to one outed minister as the "notorious bum driller"), until you see how many articles are about [[BuryYourGays outing and advocating the murder of local notable gays]] among other things. Never has the term 'frighteningly funny' been so apt. You know Adebesi from Oz? Not only is that the paper's target demographic but that's ALSO THEIR REPORTING TEAM. That's right, as amusing as this paper might seem, it regularly gets families murdered by local religious fanatics.
* Disused refrigerators with rotten stuff still in them, as seen on YouTube. Some have been sitting around for 20 years or more.
** Speaking of that, there have been many cases of dead people going unnoticed for a decade or more. There's actually an article on snopes.com, if you're brave enough to look it up.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWdgAMYjYSs The max headroom Pirating Incident]]. Not the act itself, but the fact that to this day, no one really has the foggiest idea what was going on, who he was or why he was doing it.
** There is also the fact that the man who did it is still at large... he could be anywhere, he could even be on this website.
* The Church of the Innocents in Paris has an... unusual history. It was one of the first churches in France that allowed actual burials (6th century) and became the largest and most popular cemetery by the 13th century. By the 15th century it was so crowded that the residents of older graves (many were in mass graves by this point) had to be moved to ossuaries. When the Black Death hit, newer corpses had to be moved into the ossuaries, leaving behind fatty residues in the dirt. By the late 17th century the cemetery was essentially a mass of greasy residue that could no longer decompose. Oh yes: a pile of leftovers from thousands of human corpses that could ''no longer decay''. And that's not the worst part- in 1780 the wall of a cellar bordering the cemetery collapsed under the weight of the whole mess. One can only hope that no one was in the cellar at the time, or there'd be an unpleasant combination of the primal fears of drowning and necrophobia. Oh, and it was this incident that led to the creation of the famous Catacombs of Paris.
* Train engineers who are forced to watch as their trains mow down anyone unlucky enough to get themselves on the tracks (in this case a young teen who, while listening to her iPod, was killed by a deadly silent Amtrak train while on her trek to school). Because freight trains going 60 mph take about a mile to stop before the emergency brake is applied, the train engineers are forced to watch it happen. When they go through post-traumatic stress counselling, the one thing they talk about is that they see the people's eyes right before they hit them. A lot of those engineers don't return to work.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF7488WHcok Robert the doll]] If you thought regular old dolls were creepy, how about a haunted one?
* Cracked once again aims to keep us all up at night. Here are the [[http://www.cracked.com/article_18459_the-5-creepiest-unsolved-crimes-nobody-can-explain.html 5 Creepiest Unsolved Crimes Nobody Can Explain.]]
* Walking around a ''pitch-black'' room with only a flashlight, fearing and believing that there is something or someone that will be standing in or pass in front of your flashlight beam.
* [[http://www.carhire.org/blog/scariest-airport-runways Matekane Air Strip in Lesotho (Number 13 on list)]] is built on the side of a mountain, on a patch of horizontal real estate too small to accommodate a standard-length runway. How do they manage to get up to speed for takeoff, you ask? They use the [[{{Discworld}} Granny Weatherwax]] method, which is to say ''[[PrimalFear they throw the plane off a cliff]]''.
* Roadkill. Especially the real gory, mutilated sort, [[ItGotWorse even better]] when baking in the sun for a few days, or when the guts have partially burst out and been scattered around the carcass. Who needs a gory horror movie or video game when there's plenty of gruesome carnage right along your local road, perhaps on the commute to work or school.
** And the fact that sometimes ''you can no longer tell what it was before it was killed'' is unsettling.
* Stay up until the wee hours of the morning (say, about 1:00 - 2:00 in the morning), in a room with very little light in it, and read as many missing persons' cases from [[http://www.charleyproject.org/ this site]] as possible. Start with the earliest ones. 1945 should be good. Also, while you're at it, go to [[http://www.doenetwork.org/ this other website]] and peruse their "Unidentified Victims" index. Start off with the first entry there, the Caledonia Jane Doe discovered in 1979. Pleasant dreams.
** The forum [[http://www.websleuths.com/ websleuths]]; notably the "unidentified" pages.
* It's common for schools to hold assemblies which provide kids with safety and emergency information. In the U.S., some schools have taken a "scared straight" approach to this. Famously, one school had chosen a few students to be absent all on the same day. On that day, with the selected kids nowhere in sight, the staff announced an accident that killed those children. Predictably, some of the students found this to be extremely traumatic and needed psychological care after the caper was revealed. Furthermore, some schools have held assemblies in which students are cast as fire, accident or other victims while their classmates are ushered around the scenes by teachers describing the terrible situations being portrayed. The latter usually occurs with some fore-knowledge on the part of the students so that they know it's fake, but these assemblies are prone to extremity in the young actors' make-up.
** There was a school that hired an actor to run into a school and start "shooting" a fake gun (sounded real) between classes. Think only school was stupid enough to do it? Of course you're wrong!
** Winnipeg, Manitoba did the same thing in 1942, calling it ''If Day''. "Nazis" (citizens in costume) took over Winnipeg, "arresting" the mayor and premier and turning one section of the city into a concentration camp. They also went around beating people up. They would go into schools and ask for the Jewish students to stand up, then they would take them away. For someone who wasn't in on it, especially the schoolkids, that would be absolutely terrifying. It was a ploy to try to get people involved in the war effort.
* Bullying. The thoughts of how many AdultsAreUseless - Do you guys know what it's like to have been beaten up, or see someone else beaten up, only to tell an adult because someone is ''literally'' in danger, only to be told off or [[CassandraTruth not believed]]? The adults could literally just turn their head ''two centimeters'' to the right and see a kid with paint splattered all over him and a black eye, yet they don't see anything. And just imagine how many target(s) in western countries are being bullied for whatever reason, only for adults to ''encourage'' it with their own inaction?
** Let's not forget the disproportionate retribution. The minute the victim has had enough and decides to stand up to the bully, sometimes violently, the victim is the one that gets the severe punishment despite being the one that was pushed around in the first place.
** The climatic moment of DangerousMinds is based on cases such as these.
* Burglars. The thought of creepy FacelessGoons walking around your house and stealing things at random doesn't terrify you at all?
* The {{GIFT}}. To sum up several quotes from the quotes section, coarse people won't say what they ''really'' think to your face - because they aren't free from consequences, meaning they're within punching or kicking range. They may act nice to you in real life, but they have an image to maintain. They may not say something like "BarackObama deserves to be institutionalized" or "All of Israel should just be nuked" if you asked them in real life, but on the internet, of course they'd say that - that's what they ''really'' think. And you know what is even scarier? Imagining what'd happen if, even ''if'' you could attach a face to someone, what if this was like ''RealLife''? People would probably just murder children so they wouldn't have a threat to their power, steal ''everything'', just go on a shooting spree with a complete disregard for who they're killing, and just flat-out bastardy cranked UpToEleven.
--> '''OscarWilde:''' "Give a man a mask, and he will tell you the truth."
** {{Troll}}s and cyberbullies in general. Picture this, an adult troll who uses the internet as a personal haven for their inner bastardry intentionally harasses someone, that someone being a teenager with low-self esteem that he doesn't know, by teasing him, calling him names, and ''encouraging'' him to commit suicide. ''[[DudeNotFunny All the while thinking that this is funny]]!''
*** Here's [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2036935/Natasha-MacBryde-death-Facebook-internet-troll-Sean-Duffy-jailed.html?ito=feeds-newsxml an example]] that fits the exact description above. You might take some consolation in the fact that this man was arrested, however. Seems people are becoming more willing to prosecute the internet version of threats/harassment/etc.
*** Milder, but still disturbing and proceeding from the same mentality, are griefers, people who play online games for the sole purpose of disrupting other people's games. They derive enjoyment from ruining other people's fun, and cannot be reasoned with because no normal appeal, whether to compassion or self-interest, will work. They have no compassion for other players, and are already getting exactly what they want.
* Check out [[http://photographybytainatimar.blogspot.com/2010/05/world-famous-photography-throughout.html these]] well-known photographs. Now, read the stories behind the pictures; in many of these cases, the photographer gazed upon unmitigated human suffering and '''''did absolutely nothing to help'''''. All for the sake of capturing "the perfect photograph". Welcome to the world of photojournalism.
** The sad thing about the Omayra Sanchez photograph was that nothing could ''be'' done. The girl was trapped in that water for ''three days'' before she died, because it would be impossible to free her without amputating her legs, which would have made her bleed to death. A water pump was sent to the village... which arrived broken. Basically, the reporters stayed with her so she wouldn't die alone, as most of her family members were already dead.
** Having read the above, imagine YOU are a photographer dealing with such things. That link shows a photograph by [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Carter Kevin Carter]]. Carter was haunted by nightmares and visions of death after he took that picture of the starving girl being stalked by the vulture. He was also heavily criticized by people who didn't understand how little he could have intervened. Eventually, Carter took his own life.
* You don't have to be a vegetarian, vegan, or even value animal life very much to be outraged or disgusted at [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBbYUdvGWk0 this]]. What kind of things the animals have to go through in slaughterhouses is bad enough, actually imagining yourself as one of these animals is probably one of the most terrifying and depressing thing that you can think of.
** You are now imagining you are an animal in a slaughterhouse.... In Australia. Next to a forest of stinging trees. Likely the leases for the land were ridiculously cheap because of their 'neighbors.' Not only is a man-made travesty dicking with you, but a NATURAL one the turns your body to FIRE every time there's a slight breeze. For those that don't know, [[http://www.blueswami.com/stinging_trees.html read this link]] and then [[TearJerker think of what those poor, poor cows went through]] before they get anywhere NEAR a blade.
* Tar Pits. Getting stuck in them is one of the worst ways to die. Unlike quicksand which sucks you in, death by tar pit is slow. The only way you can die is if you starve (humans can survive for about two weeks without food), dehydration (lack of water), or if you somehow commit suicide. Thankfully, if you have a cell phone you could call for help, unlike the poor wild animals that became trapped thousands of years ago. Those animals either starved, became dehydrated, or were killed by a predator. Hundreds of skeletons have been found in the La Brea Tar Pits in California.
* Working in a [[SteelMill steel mill]]. There are a thousand ways to die in one - and they are all nasty. [[EverythingTryingToKillYou White-hot bubbling molten metal, fiery furnaces, electric arcs, poisonous gases, eerie (and certainly dangerous) machinery, heavy objects falling from great heights, horrible noise -- you name it]].
** The book Ganz Unten ("Lowest of the Low") by Günther Wallraff describes first-hand accounts on working in one. He describes of the working conditions of Turkish immigrant workers in the post-WWII West German steel industry. [[LavaPit One of the workers stumbled at work and fell in the blast furnace]]. What makes it FridgeHorror is that you realize it is ''West'' Germany. How about working in an ''East'' German [[NightmarishFactory hell factory]]...?
*** There was an accident in a chemical plant in Leuna, Eastern Germany. About a dozen workers were cooked to death by superheated steam when a door fell shut behind them.
*** An episode of ''UnsolvedMysteries'' had the story of Dave Bocks, a nuclear power plant worker who disappeared mysteriously. One day, his car keys and some bone fragments were found in one of the plant's furnaces. Worse, it was concluded that ''somebody threw him in there''.
** An unfortunate individual was locked in some oven-thing over a weekend. When the next work day rolled around, the oven was automatically turned on.
** It doesn't even need to be a traditionally-scary type of factory like a steel mill. There was a case of two workers in an [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1443939.stm innocuous bread factory]], who were sent inside an oven to do some maintenance work. They were sent in on a conveyer belt, like the loaves. It was switched off, but no one had ensured it had actually ''cooled down''- and there was no way to reverse the conveyer.
* Think 9/11 was bad when you were just sitting there watching the attacks on TV? In some places, '''the power went out.''' Of course, it had nothing to do with terrorists, but you can bet more than a few people were thinking they were all going to die.
* Mines. Not the explosive kind, the underground ones. Claustrophobic, dark, potentially filled with spiders, and could collapse if not safe. You'd need to worry about the ground crushing you against the ceiling in a landslide than about the roof collapsing. Needless to say, [[AndIMustScream surviving that would be less desirable than dying.]] Crawling along in the dark, bones probably broken, exit probably shut... that's the stuff HighOctaneNightmareFuel is made of... if you could move at all.
** Don't forget how many of them have portions that are [[KillItWithFire CONSTANTLY ON FIRE]] to boot.
* Radio signals. Find a weird spike producing noises that'll haunt your nightmares for years to come? Well good luck finding what in the name of Jimmi Hendrix was making it, unless you've got some good equipment. And who knows? [[spoiler: It may not even be from Earth.]]
* When you put in earphones while listening to music, you'll find you'll be hearing back vocals and certain instruments (that you couldn't hear before) [[ScareChord in one ear.]] One song that abuses this is "the Greatest Show Unearthed" by [[CreatureFeature Creature Feature.]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ9hkRsN5Yg&feature=autoplay&list=WL3E5D31E6C59460E9&index=1&playnext=14 Remember, it only works with earphones.]]
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cosmonauts Lost Cosmonauts]] theory. Yuri Gargarin was not the first man in space. He was the first to ''[[GoneHorriblyWrong come]] [[SuicideMission back]] [[{{Unperson}} alive]]''....
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident Dyatlov Pass incident.]] Nine hikers in the Ural mountains left their camp for no apparent reason and were later found dead. While this isn't that creepy on its own, five of the hikers had a variety of weird injuries (one was ''missing her tongue''), and four had elevated levels of radiation on their clothing. And no one knows what happened because no one who was present survived. We're probably better off not knowing the whole story.
* While looking up pictures of the Franklin Expedition, you might find a mugshot of one of the dead explorers they dug up from Beechy Island named John Torrington. Go look him up. You have been warned.
* [[BuriedAlive Premature burial.]] It's [[http://www.snopes.com/horrors/gruesome/buried.asp real]], it's been happening as long as humans have walked this planet, and in some parts of the world it ''still happens''.
** More to the point, buried alive after being presumed DEAD, not by a landslide or anything natural like that. Read up on what started the idea of vampires or their forebearers strigoi existing some time...
* Halloween can be SeriousBusiness for [[http://i.imgur.com/UCErT.jpg some people]]. Although, for [[NightmareFetishist some]] that picture qualifies as a [[MomentOfAwesome Crowning Moment of Awesome]].
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl9y3SIPt7o This video of abuse captured on tape]] is disturbing enough in it's own right. But there are a few things special to this case that make it pure HighOctaneNightmareFuel:
** 1. Her father, being a judge, was a well respected member of the community, therefore [[CassandraTruth no one would believe]] this girl as to what kind of a person he really is behind closed doors. [[FridgeHorror It makes you wonder what other well respected people are really like.]] [[ParanoiaFuel Including those you know (or think you know).]]
** 2. [[{{GIFT}} The comments.]] There are many who see nothing wrong with what he did to her and some even applauding him. Others claiming that they recieved [[ItGotWorse worse than that,]] while still thinking that it did them good. [[http://www.theblaze.com/stories/extremely-disturbing-video-claims-to-show-texas-judge-savagely-whipping-daughter-with-belt/ here]] is an example of one of the articles and the comments. Some of these people even go as far to blame this girl for the abuse she suffered through, [[InsaneTrollLogic claiming that she set him up just to provoke a beating and was faking her cries.]] The fact that people can see obvious abuse and still find ways to blame the victim is absolutely horrifying.
** 3. He was a family law judge who dealt with child abuse cases of all things. He had denounced the testimonies of children, claiming they were fantasizers, [[HarsherInHindsight no we know why.]]
** 4. The daughter in question had cerebral palsy and almost all sources on the abuse scandal don't bother to mention it and/or gloss over it. Given the examples of people who ''[[OffingTheOffspring murdered]]'' [[OffingTheOffspring their disabled children]] and have had people defend their actions, it's pretty much safe to say that somehow, the abuse of a disabled person matters less than that of a nondisabled person in the exact same situation in they eyes of the writers of the sources that omitted this fact.
* They have [[CureYourGays straight camps]]. Places people are sent, told their way of live is wrong, and taught how to lie about who they are so they are accepted by society. Parents actually send their children to these places for being curious.
** What happened to institutionalized GLBT individuals in years past. That's not FridgeHorror, that is HighOctaneNightmareFuel of the highest order and seriously [[UsefulNotes/{{Trigger}} triggering]] to many people -- but think of how many people were sent to these things, not ''just'' out of their parents and caretakers' bigotry, but because ''that was the reigning medical opinion''. It wasn't just a bunch of fundamentalist nuts turning over their gay, transgender and gender-nonconforming kids so they could expect grandkids. These people were scared... and they thought they were doing the right thing. Their pastors, their doctors and teachers and trusted family friends thought they were doing the right thing too. Subjecting their children and loved ones to ''hellish'' treatment to "fix" them, turning them over into the hands of people who would beat them, rape them, starve them and mistreat them until they were "[[CameBackWrong well]]" or [[BuryYourGays dead]] or [[AndIMustScream physically compromised]] -- [[HeroicBSOD most certainly traumatized]] -- [[FateWorseThanDeath for life]]. To make them normal. Safe, healthy, sane, good. Someone you loved might have done that to you.
* Book banning controversies. Sounds geeky in text but they can get freakin' ''brutal''. For example there was this giant controversy in Panama City about a book (I think it was ''I Am the Cheese'') that people wanted removed from the shelves. When a group of teachers and an IntrepidReporter tried to defend the book, how do they get repaid? By receiving threatening phonecalls, death threats, letterbombs, and one of them almost getting her house burned down. Worse still, [[TheFundamentalist the people contending this book]] ''[[CassandraTruth accused them of lying, or even doing these horrible things to themselves to gain sympathy]]''. And to think, all of this trouble is over a ''book''. Thank God the author of the book set the record straight or [[FridgeHorror who knows what could have happened]]...
** These accusations of lying are textbook example of denialism. Imagine that kind of logic: Jews are evil, The Holocaust did not happen and they deserved it anwyay... you know the drill.
* Spontaneous Human Combustion. Imagine one minute you're enjoying life, then out of the freaking blue you're engulfed in a burning fire without warning and will likely burn to death without even knowing what hit you.
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAMfCG6nn1w ADHD friendly example]].
* Not as horrifying as some things here but... [[http://i.imgur.com/dcEI5.jpg]] this. A girl in a wheelchair is STABBED by a "friend". With a FORK.
* You know TheExorcismOfEmilyRose was loosely based on a true story, right? [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr-IdHU3A5M Here is ACTUAL AUDIO of the exorcism session it was based on]]. Just don't make the mistake of watching it before bed or while suffering emotional problems...
* Cracked are really good at these! Most commenters agree that of [[http://www.cracked.com/article_19705_the-5-most-spectacular-landscapes-earth-that-murder-you.html The 5 Most Spectacular Landscapes on Earth (That Murder You)]], the creepiest one is #3, the Bolton Strid. You'll never see forest streams the same way again.
* Do a Google Image search on "trypophobia." You know what? Don't. You've probably had enough NightmareFuel for one day.
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You've done it! You've made it through all these pages of mind-numbing horror. What more can be said? As you go about your day and try not to break down, try to remember to do one thing: [[LifeOfBrian Always look on the bright side of life...]]
[[SweetDreamsFuel But you all probably need]] [[Heartwarming/RealLife these links.]] [[http://www.cuteroulette.com And this one for good measure.]]
[[/folder]]
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[[folder: RLNF Accidents and General Body Horror]]
* The Nikki Catsouras case. How would you like to lose any loved one, never mind your own child, and then two weeks later recieve an email from a complete stranger with a picture showing [[AdultFear YOUR OWN CHILD'S MANGLED REMAINS??]] Worse, the photos were leaked by members of the ''California Highway Patrol.''
* Gore websites. While they will not be linked here due to FamilyFriendly policy, they feature violent and painful deaths and injuries, often to cater to people's fetishes.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_ulcer Jungle Rot]], otherwise known as a Tropical Ulcer. An infected scratch in the jungle, and your entire body starts to erode.
* There's a ton of outer space horrors that come in mind. Two more notable are pressurization failure (e.g., a hole in your space suit) and life support failure.
* In ''AmericasBestDanceCrew'', the crew the Ringmasters. They were already grotesque to begin with, their gimmick being unsightly flexibility, but their challenge during Britney Spears week was to create the illusion of gigantic performers. So what did they do? They wore hoodies and somehow came up with [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ringmasters.JPG these monstrosities.]] Or perhaps [[http://www.mtv.com/videos/americas-best-dance-crew-season-3-ep-3-britney-challenge/1603283/playlist.jhtml seeing them in motion will have a stronger effect]] (the fifth section, about 30 minutes in)? (And by the way, their song was "[[CircusOfFear Circus]]."
* Charla Nash. The victim of a chimpanzee attack. [[SchmuckBait Good god, ]]'''''[[SchmuckBait do not ]]'''''[[SchmuckBait look up photos from Google of her face from her appearance on Oprah. As a matter of fact, it's not advisable that you look up any article about her appearance on Oprah, considering that that article might inadvertently have photos of her face]]. Absolutely horrifying. The lady's arms were ''literally'' ripped and pulled off, her eyes, eyelids as well as her lips... she looks almost like Pale Man from ''PansLabyrinth'', except more horrifying in that she actually has a huge, bloody hole in the middle of her face.
* The "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin#Diving_bell_accident Byford Dolphin diving bell accident]]". Just the description about what happened to the bodies (including [[spoiler:gas bubbles [[EyeScream forming in the eye tissue]]]]) is enough to cause shivers. Sure, the victims probably died instantly and painlessly, but can you imagine having to clean up or autopsy one of these corpses? The people in charge of that must have been scarred for life.
** Subsequent investigation by forensic pathologists determined that diver D4, being exposed to the highest pressure gradient, exploded with violence due to the rapid and massive expansion of internal gases. All of his thoracic and abdominal organs, and even his thoracic spine, were ejected, as were all his limbs. [...] Chunks of his body were found scattered about the rig.
* There was a story about a girl in India whose hair was caught in a machine which ended up separating her face from her head. They then showed you both the girl with her musculature exposed, and [[http://health.discovery.com/centers/plasticsurgery/facetransplant/gallery/face2_h.jpg the face, in two pieces, resting on the plastic bag the girl's mother brought it in.]]
* William Harvey. A very important 17th century scientist, who made his biological discoveries in horrifying ways. Some of his highlights include performing unanaesthetised dissections on live animals, and draining all of the blood from most of a person's vessels into one vein, making that one vein swell up like a balloon.
* You want to teach kids not to smoke cigarettes? Have them visit with someone who's had a laryngectomy.
* Spontaneous Human Combustion. It's highly unsettling to think that one day you could burn to death from the inside out for ''no apparent reason'', with nothing left but a big black spot, a pile of burnt oily mess and bone, and maybe a leg or two sticking out. Crematoria use furnaces of up to 1000°C to burn human bodies - but in cases of SHC, only materials above and next to what's left of you will be burned. Images of victims' charred remains can be found, but having a few gallons of BrainBleach handy would be highly advisable if you plan to search for them. There are more than enough [[http://anomalyinfo.com/articles/sa00013.php?page=SHC examples]] that have ''no explanation whatsoever.''
* At the time, [[TheCaligula Nero]]'s use of Christians as gladiator bait didn't catch much attention in Rome. That wasn't particularly unusual, and they were convenient scapegoats for the Great Fire. What ''did'' catch attention was the extreme cruelty of [[http://www.oriensjournal.com/11edit.html the spectacle he made of it]], including the "innovative" use of their living bodies as candles to provide light for it.
* Fires in general, nightclub fires in particular, like [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIetpe_KAJU&feature=related the Station Night Club,]] Happy Land, or Coconut Grove. The notion of burning is scary enough, the notion of dying of smoke inhalation is scary enough .... but the thing that gets you is how ''fast'' it all happens. The smoke buildup [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxiOXZ55hbc&feature=related in this video]] goes from "minor" to "completely consuming the room" in a minute and a half. In that time, the people in the crowd go from oblivious - to mildly concerned - to complete, involuntary all-consuming panic, behaving like stampeding animals, as the vast majority of them succumb to the smoke.
* Being in a DUI crash and that [[http://web.archive.org/web/20030201093613/www.austin360.com/aas/specialreports/jacqui this]] can easily happen to anyone is pure NightmareFuel.
* A car rammed into a carrier truck at a red light, causing a bunch of incredibly corrosive acid to spill out and wash across tarmac for twenty meters or so. (This was probably back in the 80s or something because of the truck's poor protection.) Anyway, some spilled over the woman in the car, and she started screaming. The truck driver leaned out of his window and began to scream as loudly as possible "Get back, get the fuck back!" (This was only partly necessary, as most people had run to a safer area when they saw the tarmac start to bubble.) So one onlooker started shouting "Why is nobody going to help her?!" The rest of the bystanders tried to reassure the onlooker, but she broke free and started to run across the acid to the woman in the car. Within a few seconds, it had eaten through the soles of her shoes and then her feet. The woman fell over from the pain, face-first into the acid. Then she started to roll around in agony, after which point she passed out.
* A whole host of birth defects:
** Anencephaly: literally no or very little brain matter.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetus_in_fetu fetus in fetu]]'', a medical condition where a developing fetus envelops his/her identical twin - and the enveloped twin develops inside as a parasite! Naturally, being a television documentary, it was complete with pictures of the removed twin, which looked like a shrunken head with a proportioned body.
** ConjoinedTwins. Being physically attached to your sibling in one of a dozen different ways. You could be attached by just a little flap of skin, or share an entire body from the neck down. And if they don't die soon after being born, many are usually subjected to surgical separation where, more often then not one or both, will die.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy Lobotomies.]] The first lobotomies were lengthy, costly operations that were as precise as possible for the 1930s. Then Walter Freeman found the ice-picks in his freezer, remembered the bone behind our eyes is quite thin, hammered a couple into someone's head and jiggled them about a bit to get pretty much the same effect. The goal of these operations was to get people out of mental institutions - not necessarily well, just well ''enough''...at first. As lobotomies first became popular then were progressively considered barbaric operations, Walter Freeman felt the pressure to prove they were indeed a medical breakthrough. An operation once reserved for an absolute last resort in the treatment of severe mental illness was eventually performed on unruly children. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Dully Meet one.]] The history of lobotomies fuels more nightmares than the thought of the actual operation, since it's a prime example of how humanity sucks in many, many areas and how few of those we keep an eye on to this day. Freeman used to perform lobotomies with a showman's attitude, sometimes shoving in two ice picks at once. He even accidentally killed a man by briefly leaving the ice picks in while he went looking for a camera. The inventor ''won the Nobel Prize for Medicine''.
** Poor Rosemary Kennedy had the misfortune of being the "slow one" in a family full of ambitious, gifted children (experts think she had an IQ of around 90). The pressure of trying to measure up to her more sophisticated siblings caused her to act out and ultimately her parents ended up having a doctor perform brain surgery on her at the age of 23 to curb her mood swings. He succeeded...in reducing her mind to that of a literal infant, a state she remained in until she died at the age of 86. One wonders if the Kennedy family would have been a lot happier if Papa Joe hadn't been so hellbent on creating his own dynasty.
---> ''We went through the top of the head, I think she was awake. She had a mild tranquilizer. I made a surgical incision in the brain through the skull. It was near the front. It was on both sides. "We just made a small incision, no more than an inch." The instrument Dr. Watts used looked like a butter knife. He swung it up and down to cut brain tissue. "We put an instrument inside," he said. As Dr. Watts cut, Dr. Freeman put questions to Rosemary. For example, he asked her to recite the Lord's Prayer or sing "God Bless America" or count backwards. ... "We made an estimate on how far to cut based on how she responded." ... When she began to become incoherent, they stopped.''
** One of the things that make it really frightening is how the media whitewash lobotomies to a state of numb mindlessness. If only. Imagine being able to remember caring, feeling, thinking as you do now, and then that just... stops, but the rest of you knows it and keeps on going.
** In fact, most of what passed for cutting-edge psychiatric treatment until very recently is more than a little terrifying. Someone behaving badly? Brain surgery time! Lobotomies are one of the best examples, but the entire medical profession prior to the last fifty years or so is pretty creepy. As for the pharmacological industry before the FDA - just don't go there.
* Dentists. Or anything tooth-related. due to the immense amount of nerves and pain-related receptors.
* Oral surgery in general (wisdom teeth, root canals) is horrifying. Even perfectly normal, ostensibly non-horrifying procedures can be incredibly painful, like tooth removal and getting braces. The feeling of a dentist grabbing your tooth and jerking it back and forth until it comes out is incredibly creepy even when you've had a lot of anaesthetic and can't feel any pain. The mouth is also one of the worst-feeling areas when subjected to local anaesthetic, for some reason. Just recovering from something and having to put up with a big numb rubbery mouth, and the drooling you end up subconsciously doing sometimes.
* The two books published about [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_farm the Body Farm]]. Mixed in with the fascinating descriptions and applications of forensic science is a high dose of {{Body Horror}} as you learn in excruciating detail exactly what happens to a human body after death. But the worst parts by far are all the descriptions the horrible ways real people have died in certain cases. (No photos are included; you won't need them.) Especially the explosion at the illegal fireworks operation. ''Her brain fell out''...
** StephenFry was "lucky" enough to be granted access to it during his documentary on the US. As a special bonus he claims ''to have never seen a dead body before'' and his tour guide admits she has gotten into the habit of [[{{Bones}} figuring out what people's skulls look like]] under their skin.
* Anesthesia awareness. You wake up during surgery, but you can't communicate. Happens to 20,000 people a year.
* Faces Of Meth - what methamphetamine abuse and its consequences (hallucinations, poverty, poor nutrition, poisoning from the chemicals in the drug) do to people's appearance over time.
* Tapeworms. The bad part about pork tape worms isn't the aspect of living in your small intestine stealing your nutrients... but actually the fact that if you eat their eggs instead of their immature form they can circulate throughout your body and implant themselves on whatever random tissue they land on. Unfortunately they often decide to land on brain tissue and can cause permanent brain damage.
** ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea_worms Guinea worms]].'' Parasitic disease in general.
* Abortion. Pro-life, pro-choice, doesn't matter, the basic concept is still ''sucking the baby/mass of cells/what have you out of the uterus with a giant vacuum.''
* What would happen to you if you were exposed into the vacuum of space without space gear. You will wish that one and a half minute of remaining life were much, much shorter. In the absence of atmospheric pressure, water will spontaneously convert into vapor, which would cause the moisture in a victim's mouth and eyes to quickly boil away. The same effect would cause water in the muscles and soft tissues of the body to evaporate, prompting some parts of the body to swell to twice their usual size after a few moments. In the absence of air pressure the gas exchange of the lungs works in reverse, dumping oxygen out of the blood and accelerating the oxygen-starved state known as hypoxia. After about ten seconds a victim will experience loss of vision and impaired judgment, and the cooling effect of evaporation will lower the temperature in the victim's mouth and nose to near-freezing. Unconsciousness and convulsions would follow several seconds later, and a blue discoloration of the skin called cyanosis would become evident. At this point the victim would be floating in a blue, bloated, unresponsive stupor, but their brain would remain undamaged and their heart would continue to beat. Without intervention in those first ninety seconds, the blood pressure would fall sufficiently that the blood itself would begin to boil, and the heart would stop beating. As a side bonus, with no bacteria present, your frozen, non-decomposing body will drift off into space for millions or perhaps billions of years if left untouched.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_decapitation Internal decapitation]]. It's [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin pretty much what its name would imply]], and it's ''the very definition'' of this trope.
* There's this video floating around on the Internet, a public service announcement made by a Middle Eastern country where two men jump off a bridge into water. The bridge isn't too high (about 20-30 feet). One of the men makes it. The other? He slips at the last second only to have his face smash against the corner of a concrete pier at the bottom. The later show him in the emergency room, [[spoiler: with his face split open and still alive]].
* Elevator FailsafeFailure. Example: that Japanese guy who got his head ripped off by a elevator with faulty sensors. And the other passenger was trapped in the car with the severed head for an hour. Or in Italy, June 2009: during a heavy rainstorm, an old woman rode her elevator down to her cellar. Too bad the cellar was flooded. The elevator stopped when it touched the water, then the flood got worse, and worse, and worse...she drowned in there. In Brazil, all elevators have warnings "before entering through the elevator doors, please check that the elevator car is on the current floor",
* Ectopic pregnancy. The fertilized egg doesn't make it to the uterus and starts growing "inside" the fallopian tube. The [[http://www.bodiestheexhibition.com/ Bodies Exhibition]] had the plasticized, dissected reproductive organs of a woman who had died from an ectopic pregnancy, complete with a little walnut-sized fetus thing still in the fallopian tube. In a rare few cases of ectopic pregnancy, the zygote will actually ''fall out'' of the fallopian tube and attach itself to a random spot in the abdominal cavity... usually an organ. Said organ will proceed to suffer severe damage as the placenta grows -- and the placenta is much more likely to grow to a larger size than it would in a normal ectopic pregnancy, thanks to not being stuck inside a non-elastic tube. Some of these pregnancies have actually lasted to full term. Incidentally, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cord_%26_Placenta.jpg this]] is what a placenta looks like at nine months. Sweet dreams, ladies.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_cutting Female genital mutilation]], or FGM.
** Genital mutilation in general
* ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stick_shaker The eerie sound of the stick shaker can be heard in the black box recording on the doomed ice-covered Air Florida flight 90 that stalled and crashed into the Potomac river near Washington DC in 1982.]]''[[http://www.airdisaster.com/download2/af90.shtml that recording]]. Oh, and [[ItGotWorse if that's not bad enough]], one can actually hear the plane's explosive impact, too.
** This still pales in comparison to [[http://www.airdisaster.com/download2/jal123.shtml the JAL-123 recording]]. The constant beeping, the desperate shouts of the crew, the ground proximity warning system ("Pull up!... Pull up!... Pull up!"), the sound of two impacts... it's 55 seconds of pure despair. "We're going down, Larry(?)"..."I KNOW!", preceding the BOOM, is more jarring than the sound of the stick shaker.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_585 United Airlines Flight 585]]. Suddenly and without warning, the aircraft rolled to the right and began to pitch downward, nose first. Nine seconds later, they crashed into Widefield Park at 4g. There were no survivors. And it all happened in nine seconds. The cockpit transcript from those nine seconds can be found in the [[http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/2001/AAR0101.pdf aircraft accident report]], on pages 177-178, and it is chilling. [[YourMileageMayVary Your mileage may vary]] as to whether it's more or less chilling to read the normal conversations that make up most of the transcript, knowing what's going to happen at the end. The worst part is, this happened while the plane was on its ''final approach to the runway''. Just a minute or two longer and they would've been fine. Imagine you're the captain or co-pilot, on a normal domestic flight from Denver to Colorado Springs. You're on your final approach to the runway. Imagine the mounting anticipation and sense of relief you would feel, knowing you'll be on the ground again in a few short minutes. Maybe you'll grab a coffee. Then you can check into a hotel and finally relax. And then suddenly you're hurtling towards the ground with nine seconds to live. Nine seconds of pure terror, of screaming and swearing as you try desperately to regain control.
** A similar thing happened to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USAir_Flight_427 USAir Flight 427]] three-and-a-half years later. Once again, no survivors. Except that this time, there were 132 onboard instead of 25, and the uncontrolled descent lasted ''twenty-eight seconds''.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUhGVpP8hCwThe 911 call from the Twin Towers]] ''as they collapsed.'' Being trapped on a top floor and slowly suffocating while calling 911 and basically being told '''they can't do anything''' to save you. Not to mention having the tower go down while you're inside it. Not to mention how the person on the other end must have felt, having to listen to those men beg for help and '''listen to them die.''' The entire thing is beyond horrifying.
* Amniocentesis. A long needle is inserted into a pregnant woman's belly, through the wall of her uterus to draw out a sample of amniotic fluid. (This can be dangerous to the fetus if it is stuck by the needle accidentally; may lead to miscarriage.) The idea is to get fetal cells to test for genetic diseases and disorders. (Thus usually done for older moms, or moms who have a high-risk of problems. An alternative exists, but it isn't much better (it can still cause miscarriage, and it's still scary), where a tube is inserted through the vagina and cervix and a small chunk of placenta is taken.
* Pelvic exams and the horrifying TurnedUpToEleven pelvic exam known as a colposcopy. (Usually done in cases where the woman has had two consecutive abnormal Pap smears, or when she's been raped (and they have reason to believe she sustained more serious internal injuries during the attack). That one may involve biopsies and weird tests involving iodine. Kind of like a vaginal alien probe, but not by aliens.
* ECRP. Hoo boy. This is ''really'' simplifying here, but if some or all of the 4 bile ducts in the liver are blocked, they go in and ''drill through'' the blocked ducts to unblock them in an attempt to salvage liver function. It's very painful, and they can't put the patient out completely because his/her cooperation is needed. It can cause internal bleeding, infection, and pancreatitis as well. (Which is why it's no longer done as a diagnostic procedure as it formerly was; it's too dangerous for that. It's only used for therapeutic purposes.)
* Pancreatitis itself. Imagine the worst pain you can ever imagine traveling through the upper abdomen and shooting its way to the back. Imagine living life feeling extremely nauseated and dehydrated all at once, so that one has to live by an extremely restricted diet AND try to get as much water as necessary without throwing up the water one has consumed. Now imagine trying to live as normal a life as one can with such a disorder ravaging one's body, including going so far as to be permanently fed via IV if that's what it takes to keep the "writhing on the floor of your bathroom or bedroom while curled up in a ball"-level pain away.
* The end results of a human gas turbine ingestion accident. It pretty much defines the ChunkySalsaRule. For those who have more intestinal fortitude, read on. [[spoiler: Imagine, if you will, the inner nacelle of an aircraft engine, and massive fan within. Now spread a chunky paste of redness about eight inches around the front and back of the fan, glued to the nacelle. Scatter some bits and pieces up to a hundred feet behind the engine for added effect. Now realise that that chunky red mess was a ''person''.]]
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectal_prolapse Rectal prolapse.]] This is also featured from ChuckPalahniuk's creepypasta ''Guts''. Cracked's description really takes the cake(spoiler'd because it ''will'' keep you up at night): [[spoiler: It is a weakening of the ligaments that hold your intestines together, and in the worst case scenario, your intestine comes loose and hangs out your anus.]] Possibly the worst thing is that you don't have to do anything particularly dangerous or extreme to have this happen. All you have to do is what many people consider to be normal procedure in this situation.
* Günther Wallraff describes in his book ''Ganz Unten'' ("Lowest of the Low") a horrific case in a West German steel mill where a Turkish immigrant steelworker had stumbled at work in a steel mill and fallen in a blast furnace. His body had been incinerated completely - the kinsfolks were presented a symbolical piece of metal containing
* Historical torture:
** Crucifixion. They tied or nailed your hands and feet that way so that you had to stand up to able to breathe. Once you lost the energy to stand, you would collapse, at which point you couldn't breathe and had to pull yourself up to breathe again and collapse then you'd collapse again and again and again ... a proper crucifixion could take three days to kill someone.
** A medieval French favorite is quartering. Tie four horses to each limb of the victim's body, then whip the horses. For an added bonus, the torturers would give the victim a last drink so they could watch the liquid pour out of their exposed entrails. Not to be confused with the even more horrifying English punishment known as drawing and quartering, where the condemned is dragged across the filthy, bumpy, trash-strewn roads to the place of execution by a horse, he is hanged but cut down while still alive, his "privy member" [[GroinAttack is cut off]], his belly is slit open and he is forced to watch as they pull out his intestines and burn them in front of his face, and then they hack off his head, cut his body into four quarters, and distribute them among various places where he performed treasonous or seditious acts.
** Scalping. Which, by the way, was not done by Native American tribes but ''to'' them by US soldiers.
** One Native American tribe favored burying a man up to his neck, covering his head with honey, and waiting for the ants to come.
** A basic one but still painful: [[BurnTheWitch burning at the stake]].
** "Carving the blood eagle," a particularly {{squick}}tastic Viking method of killing which consisted of cutting and breaking the victim's ribs so they resembled bird wings, pulling out the lungs, and then salting the wounds that were left behind to make death ''even more painful than it already was.''
** Edward II was thought to be gay, and this was back in the 1300s when homosexuality was a sin. A group of nobles killed him by anally raping him with a hot iron rod.
* Then there are the more humane ways forms of execution... except when they go wrong.
** Beheaded with a an axe that isn't sharp. Sometimes it took as many as fifty blows.
** Just ask Catherine Howard.
** Same with a dull guillotine. Imagine hearing the sound of it falling, feeling the pain, and then hearing "[[ItGotWorse Pull it back up and try again]]."
** Lethal injection every so often goes wrong, and you are quite aware of the pain but you can't scream or move.
** To help with the electric chair, they would put a sponge on the victim's forehead. The sponge is meant to be placed under the electrode cap to help conduct the current and ensure a quick death in the chair. StephenKing's ''TheGreenMile'' has a particularly horrific and nasty scene that was based on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_chair#First_executions the very first execution by electric chair]], where said sponge wasn't used.
** Hanging, if done wrong, does not snap your neck -- you suffocate. You have to drop the victim at least fifteen feet or so for a quick death. This is particularly common with people attempting to commit suicide. There's also the exact opposite problem. The mathematics for performing a proper long drop is fairly simple, but occasionally back in the day they would mess up. If the rope is too long, the person will be decapitated [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KetchumDecapitated.jpg like this fellow by the name of Tom Ketchum]]. They forgot to recalculate his weight after he gained weight while in prison. After the botched hanging of Eva Dugan, Arizona switched to the "more humane" method of execution by gas chamber.
* From an old radio announcement: ''"This is the sound of a train hitting a person: ...chugga-chugga, chugga-chugga, chugga-CHUGGA, CHUGGA-CHUGGA, CHUGGA-CHUGGA, CHUGGA-CHUGGA, CHUGGA-chugga, chugga-chugga, chugga-chugga..."''
* JohnFKennedy's assassination. It was the same as any other headshot, really, but it happened in BROAD DAYLIGHT in front of many, many people, ''children'' included. And don't even get us started on the ''autopsy''...
* A test pilot who bailed out of a plane at supersonic speed in the '50s; his entire body inflated to ''twice its size'', his eyeballs swelled to the size of Major League baseballs, and ''six feet of his lower intestine protruded out''-yet he somehow survived.
* The [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Yfd_7jrnMk gruesome]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM6v-43-1PU effects]] of the Russian heroin substitute 'Krokodil' called so because the users skin and flesh turns green and becomes horribly gangrenous, before it rots off revealing fresh bone without any blood. It is made from codeine extracted from codeine medication and mixed with cleaning solvents, which is why the average lifespan of the user is less than a year. How someone could not take themselves to hospital the moment they started feeling decomposition in their limbs is amazing, but [[BodyHorror how any human could even survive that level of injury without succumbing to sepsis or shock is incredible.]]
* [[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001355 Hypokalemic Periodic Paralysis Disorder]]. It doesn't sound too bad, but YOU try waking up one morning not being able to move your arms or legs without feeling like you're tearing the muscles from the bone or not having the ability to grip anything (thus leading to an inability to button your own pants) because your blood potassium levels have dropped. Even more horrifying is that while the condition is genetic, the effects are activated by something as simple as eating too much pizza the night before.
* Hydrofluoric acid accidents. Even chemistry geeks are deathly scared of that stuff, as it not only eats through pretty much anything (including glass), but causes severe tissue necrosis. It also etches bones, and slows or stops the victim's heart through rapid loss of blood calcium. Direct skin contact with even a small amount is usually fatal. And it doesn't react well with flesh, so you don't have any obvious acid burns to tip you off that you got some on you. Just an unpleasant itching or tingling.
* Let's talk about a few suicide methods that aren't as painless or reliable as most people think.
** Overdosing on medication. As simple as going to sleep? Haha, yeah right. More like hours of projectile vomiting once your stomach starts to reject the medication, and a host of other horrifying symptoms (which ones you experience depends on the medication you took) including but not limited to: Loud ringing in the ears (very common, and much more distressing than you might think), temporary deafness, temporary blindness, seizures, intense burning or itching of the skin, severe stomach pain, GI bleeding, hallucinations, paranoia, panic attacks, loss of muscle control, loss of bowel and bladder control, hyperventilating, fast or slow heartbeat (both of which you can feel), difficulty breathing, coma and, of course, death (rarely). At the hospital, you'll be forced to drink liquid charcoal, a nasty concoction that tastes like you're drinking mud (complete with gritty bits -- ever ate a sandwich at the beach, and accidentally got sand in it?), and usually makes you vomit even more. [=ODing=] is rarely fatal, but can cause permanent damage to the organs and brain. You might also have your stomach pumped, depending on what you took and how much, or how long ago.
** Tylenol, a common method of OD, is particularly nasty. The person feels icky for a few hours after taking it, but shows no major symptoms at first. The person may start to feel better later in the day, believing that they're going to be okay and failing to seek medical treatment. Big, BIG mistake. 24 to 48 hours later, liver failure begins to set in. The nausea returns, cranked UpToEleven, as well as INTENSE pain. No, really, the pain is utterly horrible, as in you feel as though your liver is expanding due to being stuffed full of shards of glass. Ever had gall stones? If so, it's like that, but even worse. Your skin turns yellow, and toxins build up throughout your body, which brings about all kinds of painful symptoms. If you wind up needing a liver transplant, you might be rejected by the donor committee due to being suicidal.
** Aspirin, another common one, makes you very nauseated; causes very, very loud ringing in the ears, and makes them feel as if they're stuffed with cotton; feeling disconnected with reality, which is disturbing; in extreme cases, bleeding in the GI tract due to ''eating away at the inside of the stomach''; seizures; a very fast heart beat; hyperventilating, as your body attempts to expel excess carbon dioxide in the blood; low blood sugar; potential edema (swelling) in the brain; and a host of other symptoms.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSRI SSRIs]] are near impossible to OD on. Fatally, that is. Instead what happens is that your brain goes nuts from the overdose of serotonin, which is not as pleasant as it sounds. Some of the symptoms include profuse vomiting, diarrhea, hallucinations, rapid heartbeat, shivering, sweating, tremors, and coma. In short, you probably won't die, but you'll feel like you are--and probably wish you had for a few days.
** Gunshot to the head. Even pointblank, to the forehead, temple or [[AteHisGun in the mouth]], [[TisOnlyABulletInTheBrain these are survivable]]. Sure, brain-damage is likely, but that doesn't automatically kill a person. A large number of people who attempt suicide via gun accidentally blow off part of their face, but manage to live. One may end up drowning in their own blood because they've destroyed their nasal cavity -- hardly an easy death. Since the body is almost guaranteed to flinch by reflex in response to the gun going off, there's a very good chance that one will miss the brain entirely. Or they might hit it, but only in an area that affects higher reasoning, leaving them alive, but paralyzed, mentally challenged, or both. Yes, yes, ''[[RealityIsUnrealistic you don't even need the seat of your soul and personality to live.]]'' See also one of the most famous cases of surviving this kind of brain trauma, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage Phineas Gage]]. If you use a certain kind of gun/ammo with bullets that aren't strong enough to penetrate the skull, you can have the bullet hit the back of your skull and bounce off, ricocheting around your brain and slicing it up. Likewise, gunshots to other parts of the body often miss the organ being aimed for, leaving the person to bleed to death or disabled. Those who aim for the heart may miss and hit the lungs instead, for instance. This effectively causes a person to drown in their own blood.
** Cutting the wrists. Definitely not as easy as sliding a knife across your arm. To even be effective, a person has to hack their way down through tendons and muscle to reach the artery, which takes time. NOT painless, NOT quick and scary as hell. Even if one successfully cuts open the artery and does all the things people do to prevent clotting, they're probably not going to die (even if they're not found by anyone after they pass out). It will, however, leave an enormous scar down the arm, as well as permanent nerve damage and less flexibility in the skin, leading to a constant feeling of 'tightness' in the arm.
** Hanging. This can certainly kill a person, but not always painlessly. Suicide victims rarely succeed in breaking their own neck, which would cause an instant death. Instead, they hang there, slowly asphyxiating. The pain is excessive (imagine your entire body being held up by a noose around your neck), not to mention the sheer panic one experiences -- survival instinct kicks in automatically, even if the person really does want to kill their self, as they hang there and die. Plus, if they're rescued before they die, brain damage is a very likely possibility. Oh, the corpse of a hanging victim is not very nice to look at, what with the bloated face, the tongue sticking out, the burst capillaries in the eyes and the blood pooling in their legs and forearms.
** Drowning. Panicking under water is not a fun way to die, and inhaling water is painful.
** To sum it all up:
---> ''Razors pain you;
---> Rivers are damp;
---> Acids stain you;
---> And drugs cause cramp.
---> Guns aren't lawful;
---> Nooses give;
---> Gas smells awful;
---> You might as well live.''
----> -- Dorothy Parker
* A recent psychological study indicates that the idea that deals the worst response (from a handful given to test subjects) is [[spoiler: Pointy objects being pushed through the smallest holes in the body, namely the [[FreudWasRight nipples]]]] Try to think about that and NOT get chills.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlequin_fetus Harlequin fetuses]]. Just...''ick''.
* Seeing your own bones or blood after an injury.
* [[http://sometimes-interesting.com/2011/06/29/over-200-dead-bodies-on-mount-everest/ There are over 200 dead bodies littering Mt. Everest.]] Above a certain point, it is unsafe to bring them down, so they are pretty much left to waste away.
* The physical effects of bulimic and anorexic behavior.
[[/folder]]
----
[[folder: RLNF Animals]]
[[quoteright:345:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/angler_fish.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:345:Hey kids, remember that [[NightmareFuel scary part]] in FindingNemo? Well, fish like that are really out there. And this one ain't the worst of it...]]
->[[http://www.cracked.com/funny-5588-hybrid-animals/ "Apparently, Nature evolved humans so that she would have something to scream at all of her other creations."]]\\
-- ''{{Cracked}}''
-> "DAMN, NATURE! YOU SCARY!"
-->--''{{Family Guy}}''
Some animals just make anything better. Others, [[NightmareFuel make anything scary]].
TV tropes would like to remind you that the animals listed are just that: animals, not horrible monsters that should be [[KillItWithFire killed with fire]]. They are also not really after your blood. Except for the blood sucking ones.
Note to All Tropers: Enough with the side conversations on this page, take it to the discussion boards. And make sure your entry isn't already here before you add: there's already a lot of bugs, for instance.
See also EverythingsWorseWithBears. [[EverythingsWorseWithBees And bees]]. [[EverythingsEvenWorseWithSharks And sharks]].
----
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder: Extinct]]
* TwoWords: ''[[TyrannosaurusRex Tyrannosaurus rex'']]. To put it bluntly, we're talking about an animal that was 36-42 feet long, 11 feet tall, weighed 6 tons, and had razor-sharp serrated teeth that could grow to the size of a banana. Oh, and it gets even better. The jaws of a T-rex were strong enough to crush bone and are considered one of the strongest sets of jaws known to ever exist in the animal kingdom (Only the prehistoric fish, Dunkleosteus, had a stronger bite). Be thankful it's extinct.
** ''T. Rex'' definitely was a badass. But it was hardly alone in being NightmareFuel. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Largesttheropods.svg See this chart?]] Yeah, I'm glad those thing's aren't around anymore.
** [[ItGotWorse It gets worse.]] There's now evidence that suggests that T.rex could run fast. So, now you got a 42 ft long, 6 ton predator that may have been able to run up to 20 mph and had bone-crushing jaws.
** [[RuleOfThree It gets even worse.]] There's evidence that Tyrannosaurus Rexes ''hunted in packs''. [[ZergRush Sending the faster juveniles up ahead]] to herd the prey into the jaws of the adults.
*** [[JurassicPark Mustgofastermustgofastermustgofaster...]]
** [[OverlyLongGag It gets worse.]] Paleontologists think they could grow even ''larger'' than 42 feet. There could be [[BeyondTheImpossible a 50 foot specimen buried out there, or even a 60 foot!]]
* ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalania Everyone, meet Megalania]]'', the gigantic prehistoric cousin of the Komodo Dragon. Again, be thankful its extinct
** There have been reports of a komodo dragon like lizard in the Indonesian islands, but 2 or 3 times it's size. It's now a cryptozoological animal.
* There once lived a prehistoric crocodile known as ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinosuchus Deinosuchus]]'' (the name itself means "terrible crocodile") that was estimated to have been 30 to 50 feet long and weighed up to nine tons, with a bite force [[UpToEleven even greater than T. rex]], which ate ''dinosaurs''. Have fun swimming, kids.
** Similarly: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcosuchus Sarcosuchus]], [[FanNickname a.k.a.]] "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Supercroc]]." This time, you can't even take solace in the off-chance the size might be overestimated, because some very complete skeletons have been found.
* What about ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkleosteus Dunkleosteus]]''? This big fish had a bite force of over 8,000 pounds per inch (greater than TyrannosaurusRex!) on the tip of its teeth[[hottip:*:Technically, they're extensions of the jaws, not teeth.]]. The worst part? Its hunting tactic was to open its mouth so quickly as to suck in prey moving in due to the pressure change - so you would be sucked into a gape that could chop pretty much anything in half and you wouldn't be able to escape.
** It doesn't help that it looks roughly like a [[StarWars Rancor]] crossed with a gigantic piranha.
* Marsupial lions. Ice Age Australia's answer to the Sabre-tooth cats. The biggest, Thylacoleo, was about the size of a large cougar, and could disembowel prey with its claws, and deigned to rip off limbs in favour of [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/07/sci_nat_enl_1169658723/html/1.stm snipping them off with its teeth]]. It also apparently dropped from trees onto its prey. Even scarier, it ''may still exist.''
** So wait, drop bears actually existed?
** At least they look somewhat cute and cuddly, being cats, still. They aren't as lethal, but having a coconut crab do a paradrop on your head is pretty freakish. Especially if it whacks you with said coconut before hand.
*** They're not cats. A better comparison would be giant killer wombats (or maybe even ''[[KillerRabbit koalas]]'') with sickle clawed thumbs. Yes, that's right, marsupial lions come from the "herbivore" side of the marsupial family tree.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastric-brooding_frog Gastric-brooding Frogs.]] ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. [[{{Squick}} Ew]].
** They've been gone for a while, actually... we drove them to extinction back in the eighties. At least all you easily-disgusted folks can rejoice now.
*** Except the Pharmaceutical Industry, who, realising that young frog's ability to suppress the digestive fluids of its parent could've yielded potentially life-saving drugs, are not exactly rejoicing. They're offering big bucks to anyone who can capture a live one, which it doesn't look like is gonna happen.
*** Unless of course, zombie frogs.
* Mosasaurs. Enormous, carnivorous, aquatic lizards that hunt in packs. Fortunately, they're extinct now, but they were seriously scary.
** It doesn't help that one mosasaur fossil was found with the remains of [[BigEater a shark, a seabird, a bony fish and another mosasaur the size of an alligator]] in its stomach area.
* ''{{Megalodon}}''. Prehistoric shark with a mouth a grown man could stand up in. Extrapolating from its fossilized jaws, paleontologists have estimated it to be around 50 to 60 feet long. A creature that big would probably eat ''adult whales''. And if that wasn't scary enough, if it was anything like its smaller modern cousin, the Great White Shark, it could ''breach like a whale''. Imagine, if you will, a shark the size of a Greyhound bus taking to the air with a whale in its mouth. Sweet dreams....
** [[{{Jaws}} We're gonna need a bigger boat.]]
** It's called a polaris breach, for those interested. Great whites aren't the only creature in the sea to do it, but are certainly the most deadly. The last run of Shark Week on the DiscoveryChannel showcased what seal nightmares are made of.
** Of course, the proper NightmareRetardant for that would be the [[SoBadItsGood not-so-classic]] JohnBarrowman flick ''Shark Attack 3: Megalodon''. Then you will never be able to hear that creature's name without giggling.
** Speaking of sharks breaching the surface [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skYRZ_-RXtk&feature=related]]
** One of the nature channels has recently been airing trailers suggesting that ''Megalodon'' might actually still be out there. Think about ''that'' for a while.
*** The book "Meg" by Steve Alten is about exactly that. But, in that it escapes and proceeds to rape the oceanic world. With its teeth.
** How big were these? They made the fearsome Great White Shark look tiny. They made the [[GentleGiant not-so-fearsome]] (but massive) ''Whale Shark'' look tiny.
*** Here's a [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Megalodon_scale1.png chart]] for comparison. The green one is a great white. The red one is ''conservative'' estimate for a megalodon.
** You know how museums have that tendency to put animal jaws on the floor and basically go, "Hey, guys, look how easily this thing could eat you?" Well, this one had freaking ''Megalodon'' jaws. Looking into a pair of jaws that are about half your size again is...disconcerting to say the least.
*** Think about it that way: A great white will have a bony meal out of you. For that thing? ''You're a pretzel.'
** Speaking of large sea animals, scientists have recently found the skull of a large whale similar to the sperm whale about sixty feet long with tusk-like teeth about fourteen inches long. They were thought to have eaten other whales and the fangs would've ripped out huge chunks of the unfortunate victims. Their given name? ''[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Leviathan]] [[Literature/MobyDick melvillei]]''.
*** It also lived alongside ''Megalodon''. Two giant ocean predators with mouths bristling with teeth, one a lone ambush assassin and the other a pack-hunting determinater. And evidence shows ''Megalodon'' and ''Leviathan'' preyed on each other.
** Speaking of EverythingsEvenWorseWithSharks, meet ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicoprion Helicoprion]]'' and ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edestus Edestus]]''. Those ''jaws''...
* Dromaeosaurs (better known as "Raptors" to your average person...Ya know, like ''Velociraptor'', ''Utahraptor'', ''Deinonychus'', etc.) are quite terrifying when one thinks about it. Sure, a good number of species are small, but they also have razor-sharp claws and teeth, a pair of huge scythe-like talons on their hind feet, and its been theorized that several species were highly intelligent social predators.
** Try most. At the very least ''Deinonychus'', the bugger who inspired the monstrous raptors of Jurassic Park, hunted in packs. And while many people consider dinosaurs to be less bad ass with feathers, well, there is a little something called Wing-Assisted-Incline-Flight or something. Quails use it. It allows them to run up straight inclines. Ladies and gentlemen, we have [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot Spider-Raptor]].
*** There isn't any conclusive evidence of them ''hunting'' in groups ''per se''. A group of "raptors" scavenging or mobbing (as opposed to the coordinated group hunting we see in canids) is [[ScienceMarchesOn just as if not more likely]]. But when it comes down to being ripped apart by a dozen [[FeatheredFiend feathered fiends]] the unfortunate prey item probably doesn't care about the difference.
*** Speaking of extinct, feathery deathbringers, let me introduce you to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phorusrhacidae the Terror Birds]]. Basically like a [[FinalFantasy Chocobo]] except they actually existed. And could probably rip apart anything they damn well wanted to, including ''horses''.
**** Jesus, that thing looks like a devil dodo (doesn't seem to be any direct relation, though). And one subfamily is named ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanis Titanis]]'', because of how big it was.
*** Here's a flying menace for you. Meet the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wm7FqZVirI=text Haast's Eagle]]. This raptor was large and powerful enough to take down moas with ease. And it existed when humans started settling in New Zealand. It was a bird DESIGNED TO KILL PEOPLE.
*** [[ItGotWorse It gets worse. Much worse.]] Recent studies suggest that ''Sinornithosaurus millenii'', a small dromaeosaur that lived in Asia, was venomous. That's right, not only were "Raptors" intelligent, fast, and had razor-sharp claws...but now they're poisonous. OhCrap...
**** It's said that the evidence is weak on that one, so you don't ''really'' have to worry about venomous "raptors". Yet. And, fortunately they weren't as intelligent as [[JurassicPark some movies]] show; they couldn't have held a candle in the intelligence department to nearly all modern birds. Also, there were in fact many, many other dinosaurs (including the comparatively much larger ''[[TyrannosaurusRex Tyrannosaurus rex]]'') that were ''better'' adapted for running than the dromaeosaurids. Chances are they could still run faster than ''you'', however. And any cassowary will tell you that you don't have to be the most intelligent birdbrain to be scary... Not to mention, dromaeosaurids may have been good at climbing trees.
**** They may have vomited [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellet_(ornithology) food pellets]] like owls, which is either NightmareRetardant or NauseaFuel.
**** ItGotWorse: Some of them (or at least [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahonavis this one]]) could ''fly''. You ''better'' run.
**** Oh yes, and they got big. Look at [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Utahraptor_scale.png this size chart]] for ''Utahraptor''. The green is a ''conservative'' estimate of its size.
**** Try Megaraptor. Utahraptor has nothing on these things. Go find a ruler. That is the space between the sickle claw's tip and where it connects to the toe.
* Sea Scorpions. Can you imagine an amphibious scorpion the size of a crocodile? I can't without getting the willies.
* Entelodonts. Take a wild boar or a javelina, and give it steroids. A lot of steroids. Enough to make it the size of a bull or rhinoceros. Now, strip off most of its fur, and change its teeth from that of an omnivore into things designed to shear and tear flesh. And take away most of its omnivorous tendencies. Pure carnivore baby. Not to mention that they were the first animals to develop the traditional artiodactyl-style hoof, which made them incredibly fast. Oh yeah, and they ate rhinos on a regular basis.
* Holy shit, ''Andrewsarchus''. [[http://ssjgarfield.deviantart.com/art/Andrewsarchus-62918294 Just....Andrewsarchus]]. It's hard to believe this beast belonged to a family closely related to even-toed artiodactyls (think deer, sheep, and cattle), since its gigantic head alone was over three feet long and it was the largest carnivorous land mammal that walked the Earth. This page from the manga "Eden no Ori" [[http://www.mangafox.com/manga/eden_no_ori/v01/c003/12.html sums up its size quite nicely]].
* ''[[http://www.flickr.com/photos/markwitton/2465048793/in/set-72057594082038974/ Hatzegopteryx]]'' may not look physically terrifying, but once [[FridgeHorror you realise some things]] you would be thankful things like that are extinct. First of all, it was basically like a giant stork in habits, catching prey with the beak. In Hatzegi's case, a beak longer than the jaws of the largest theropod dinosaurs (aka T. rex had a shorter snout). And that pterosaurs was taller than a giraffe. Considering birds like herons can swallow things as proportionally big as rabbits, and since reptilian (including avian) esophagi are very tough (turkeys can swallow blades and not suffer ill effects), Hatzegopteryx could easily grab a person with the jaws, swallow him/her alive and you wouldn't even be able to fight back, only to find your doom at the digestive juices.
* [[http://www.nunoxei.com/images/Tasmanian_tiger.gif The Tasmanian Tiger]], which can distend its jaws far beyond the capabilities of those of any animal other than a snake. I am considering a campaign to Tasmania to make sure that there aren't any more alive, because they could apparently swim...
** Apparently, thanks to advancements in technology, it could be possible to bring the species back. They're attempting this now. You're welcome.
* The Permian Extinction. The worst extinction event in the history of earth. The closest life ever came to ceasing to exist all together. Over 90% of all species on earth vanished. It gets even more disturbing when you hear the details. Of all the dozens groups of reptiles, only a handful survived. Synapsids: aka, “mammal-like reptiles”. The missing link between mammals and reptiles. These creatures basically ruled the earth, very diverse. Both tiny creatures, and mega fauna rivaling the dinosaurs and mammals after them. The only ones who survived where tiny burrowing creatures who eventually became mammals. Anapsids: There used to be 100s of different kinds of armored reptiles roaming around. Only the turtles survived. Archosaurs: The common ancestor of birds, dinosaurs, crocodilians, and pterosaurs. Before the extinction they where tiny scavengers. Afterwards they exploded from lack of completion. Lepidosauria: The Ancestors of lizards and snakes. Sphenodontia: The Ancestors of modern tuataras. Of all the Amphibians that evolved since they first left the ocean, only the Lissamphibia survived. Crocodilians where only able to become crocodilians because the giant Croc-like Amphibians died out. Reptilomorphs aka, “reptile-like amphibians.” The missing link, and the most successful group of amphibians at the time, Where completely wiped out. Trilobites: some of the oldest and most successful ocean life at the time. More successful than fish. Completely wiped out. Insects didn’t make it out okay either. All six-winged insects vanished. Their cousins, the non-insect Hexapods vanished, except the wood lice. Fossil evidence shows that for almost a million years after the extinction, the most common form of life on earth was ''fungus''. The icing on the cake? Unlike the Dinosaurs and the massive impact Crater, scientists have '''''NO CLUE''''' what caused it, or if it could ever happen again. There is not a shread of evidence of anything that could have caused it on earth, leading some to theorize it was a local supernova, but the truth is we have no idea.
** The current most likely theory is that all the landmasses coming together caused widespread "desertification", quite literally turning vast amounts of what was previously rainforest and swampland into arid, nasty environments few creatures could adapt to. The oceans weren't safe, either; with only one landmass, currents settled and the oceans stagnated. Almost every ocean-going creature ''suffocated'' due to lack of oxygen. Other theories include a flood basalt, which is basically a supervolcanic eruption that lasts centuries. There's no word to describe just how insanly nightmarish a flood basalt eruption is. First the name. It causes a litteral flood of basaltic rock over the area it happens. Next how it occurs. Triggered by the massive tectonic stress brought about by a single landmass subducting ocean plates on all sides, a massive chunk of the earth's crust crumbles off and falls into the mantle. This forces the magma upwards to the surface. How big is it? Well the largest volacano on earth today is the size of Hawaii's large island. The Permian flood basalt, the Siberian traps are the size of the continental United States. And the eruption lasted for 100s, if not 1000s of years nonstop. What happens after it's done? Aside from the aformentioned flood of basalt, imagine all that volcanic gas. Now imagine that gas is methane, one of the most potent green house gases that occur on earth. Now imagine not only the sun's heat, but the volcanic heat trapped in the atmosphere at the same time. The allways popular "huge asteroid" is another theory, as is [[ApocalypseWow a local supernova]]. My favorite theory is that the single landmass and single ocean caused the planet to become tidally locked, meaning one side always facing the sun, one side always facing away. The kicker? The numbers don't really add up in any model.
*** [[WildMassGuessing Or it could be]] [[TakeAThirdOption ALL]] [[NoKillLikeOverkill of them]].
*** It was obviously [[MassEffect The Reapers]].
* Of course some of the creatures that the Permian Extinction got rid of where pretty scary.
** Mammal like reptiles? Here's an image for you. Picture a creature with neither fur nor scales, the jaw of a crocodile with the teeth of a saber-cat. Now imagine it's the size of rhino, and has fully upright legs built for running. Ladies and gentlemen, [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Inostrancevia_4DB.jpg meet the Gorgonopsids!]]
** Reptile like amphibians? You're probably thinking "Come on! What's a frog gonna do?" [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prionosuchus this guy ain't no frog!]]
** Of course some of the Archosaurs that replaced them were scary too. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postosuchus meet Postosuchus.]] Best described as a fully upright 15 foot long land crocodile.
* The [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes Titanoboa]]. A snake that grew up to 15 meters in length and, come on, it's called the ''[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Titan]]''oboa! So, it's kind of like taking your average boa constrictor or anaconda, whatever, and drilling it up to eleven. Be thankful it no longer exists.
* During the Carboniferous era, we had ''Meganeura'', a dragonfly the size of an eagle and ''Arthropluera'', a millepede that's 6 feet long. SIX FEET LONG!
* Wow, I'm surprised no one's mentioned ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinosaurus Spinosaurus]]'' yet! Take a crocodile, give it plenty of steroids, give it a six-foot high sail on its back and put it on two legs. Scared yet? Here's something for you. See [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Largesttheropods.svg this chart]]? ''Spinosaurus'' is red. ''TyrannosaurusRex'' is ''the purple one''.
** Luckily, Spinosaurus has it's fair share of NightmareRetardant. Spinosaurus primarily ate fish, so T.rex would probably kill one most of the time, if they were to fight. It wasn't a super predator like it's often portrayed as.
** That said, it is also thought to have taken down medium sized prey as well. So that means it would probably be eating grisly bears if it were still alive. Not to mention this fish it ate could very well have been ''sharks''.
*** it dies if you make it ''[[WeaksauceWeakness roll over]]'' [[EpicFail since of said fin]] being evolution's crowning [[IdiotBall]]
* Of course! How could [[{{Tropers/Spinosegnosaurus77}} I]] forget ''Deinocheirus''? Its eight-foot long arm and hand bones were found in 1970 (the creature's name means "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast terrible hand]]"). Nothing else from the creature has been found yet, and those arms have been a mystery ever since. If it's any help, their owner would have to be ''tyrannosaur-sized at the very least.'' [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Deinocheirus_hands.jpg Have a look]] and make up your own mind about the creature.
* [[http://dinosaurs.wikia.com/wiki/Therizinosaurus Therizinosaurus]]. On the one hand, it was an herbivore and probably wouldn't see you as food. On the other hand...It had 3 ''foot'' long claws on its hands which it used to defend itself agaisnt predators.
* ''Carnotaurus''. The name means "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast meat-eating bull]]". [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Carnotaurus_DB_2.jpg Here's a picture]]. The tiny arms acting as NightmareRetardant for you? Okay, let me fix that; while the bite force of the ''Carnotaurus'' was believed to be less than that of ''Allosarurus'', it's been theorized that they made up for that by beating their upper jaws against their prey like a ''[[PrecisionFStrike fucking]] [[AxCrazy hatchet]]''.
* Large ceratopsians like ''Triceratops'' and ''Styracosaurus''. We usually don't think of them as scary due to being [[HerbivoresAreFriendly herbivores]], however, an adult could gore a tyrannosaur to death with those giant horns, let alone a human. Also, ceratopsians may [[http://www.flickr.com/photos/markwitton/522293984 have been omnivores]], not herbivores.
* ''Stegosaurus''. A dinosaur the size of an elephant with a built-in medieval flail and a brain so small it probably indiscriminately whacked anything that crossed it's path. But as bad as ''Stegosaurus'' was, it has nothing on the pure demonic nightmare fuel that is ''[[http://www.kentrosaurus.org/nova_phot042.jpg Kentrosaurus]]''.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Living]]
* Ladies and gentlemen, [[http://www.wolaver.org/animals/Hatchetfish.jpg the hatchet fish.]]
** This fish makes '''the Exorcist''' look like a puppy.
*** [[TheExorcist Max von Sydow?]]
** I take your hatchet fish and raise it with [[http://iliketowastemytime.com/sites/default/files/viperfish_deadly_deep_predator2.jpg the viper fish]]. '''SWEET JESUS, WHY DOES THAT THING EXIST?!'''
** I see your viper fish (and wish I didn't) and raise you a [[http://www.petsfoto.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Fangtooth-Fish2.jpg fangtooth]]. It's just a mouth with fins.
** [[OverlyLongGag I see all of your fish]] and raise you a [[http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lhpzj1cH5m1qgduswo1_500.jpg snaggletooth]]. It looks like it dines on souls.
* You will never be able to look at a lizard the same way after my bio teacher showed us this.
** Warning: Not for the faint of heart! [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0ThAWmEk7U Monitor]]
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jppNHoksheY Here's another one for good measure]]
** Ugh, you can hear it screaming from within its gullet!
** If anything stotats would better quality [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWIW-MDZa_8 in that department.]]
* This [[http://www.ilovemyjournal.com/media/1/SamUgliestDogLulu_sm.jpg dog]].
** That dog died a few years go. It was blind for quite some time; the joke was that it got its sight back, looked in a mirror and dropped dead of shock.
** To be clear, the dog was voted "Ugliest Dog In The World." Before its death, it was a 15-year-old Chinese hairless crested. Its eyes are white becaus it's blind.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjRSlnJ1rA4 Goblin sharks]] have protrusible jaws. Creepy!
** a bit less terrifying: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdJRb7lVoGc&feature=related
* Earthworms and parasitic tapeworms (and hookworms). I can't even look at them prior to screaming and running away.
** Why are Earthworms scary? Appearances maybe, but they're one of the best creatures out there, helping fertilize soil and such. It even has a digestive system, and respiratory system and circulatory system. It's a pretty humane creature. Tapeworms on the other hand are horrifiying, trying to suck out your nutrients without giving anything back and worst of all, it can [[BodyHorror GROW 8 METERS LONG IN YOUR VERY OWN BODY!! HOLY!!]]
** Ascaris worms (you know, the ones in your intestines that looked like slimy living pasta, and can actually accumulate as a bolus to be an [[EldritchAbomination eldritch perversion]] against the Holy FlyingSpaghettiMonster, and whose eggs are ''fucking microscopic'')
*** It's even worse with the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracunculiasis Guinea Worm]]. Seriously, this worm is really a NightmareFuel, every major health organization vowed to push it to extinction.
**** You see the Guinea worm is native to Africa, the ecosystem that humans evolved in. As such they prey exclusively on humans, and where thus introduced to other places by traveling with (read inside) humans. The reason Africa's such a [[DeathWorld nasty place]] is because it's humanity's natural habitat, and thus creatures evolved there with humans in mind, where as other continents are nicer because we're invasive species in those environments. While this has led to some good things (the honey guide bird evolved symbiotic behavior with humans, it leads us to the beehive, we get the honey, they get the larva), mostly it just amounts to creatures that can kill us. In other words, it's what environmentalists are asking for when they say humans should "live in harmony with nature". Just keep that in mind.
*** The fact that many people don't know that there's a worm living inside them makes them extremely scary. Parasitic worms were voted the #1 Most Extreme Horror in ''TheMostExtreme'' series.
* Three Words: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dermatobia_hominis Human Botfly Larvae]]. Disturbing and literally sickening to see one being removed: true. Now try ''not'' imagining hearing chewing inside your head if you ever discover one embedded in your scalp.
* Yuck, what a thick, puffy tongue this fish has... Wait, it's got ''beady little eyes!'' [[http://www.entomologia.org/bugs_in_the_news/Cymothoa_exigua.jpg picture OHMYGODTHATSNOTATONGUE!]]
*** Sounds like some sicko's LiteralMinded parody of [[LordOfTheRings Grima Wormtongue]].
*** It may or may not help the [[BodyHorror OHGODOHGOD]] factor to note that the isopod doesn't actually make life any more difficult for the fish. Because it sits where the tongue was, the fish can still eat just fine. Still, Jesus ''God'' is it creepy.
** And then there's [[http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7927 this]] little guy... "Let's go swimming. I insist."
** Also, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoids#Insects real-life]] [[{{Aliens}} Xenomorphs]]. Sweet dreams!
** Think about it this way. On the wiki page, it listed fictional parasitic insects, including little old Uroborus and Las Plagas. Imagine what would happen if these guys evolved a little. You have a stomach ache...is it just bad food, or did an enemy dose you with a little...Uroborus.
** Well, you'd certainly know if you started growing tentacles yeck... those Uroboros tentacles are all slimey and deadly (goddamn Wesker)
* Certain species of snake. Also certain members of the spider order such as Tarantula, black widow, and the trapdoor spider.
** Don't worry; be [[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5199409/British-scientists-study-Hawaiian-happy-face-spider.html happy]]!
** What's just as frightening is their venom, and more specifically, what that venom can do to a person. Some kinds, if they don't kill you, [[BodyHorror cause the skin around the bite to rot]], [[AndIMustScream paralyze and slowly suffocate you]] or (depending on the nature of the neurotoxin) cause seizures, make your blood congeal in your veins... So kids, if you see a snake in your yard, ''stay the fuck away from it, and for the love of Christ, DON'T PICK IT UP!''
** Did someone say [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySXCdcnKBgg trapdoor spider?]] (Not safe for arachnophobes)
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikz7x5NRM2c here]] is a video of an island full of snakes. "one snake for every pace you walk". It doesn't help that they are some of the most venemous snakes in the world.
** Back to the subject of snakes, even if you're not scared of them, [[http://www.diamondreptile.com/pricelist.htm#venomous how easy it is to buy and own some of the most venomous ones in the world should be enough to skeeve you out.]]
* Scorpions.
* Back to spiders - some of them are social, weaving common webs of many spiders. How many can they be? Anelosimus Eximius, for instance, bands into colonies of up to 50 000 spiders. I'll let that sink in.
* Think about the things that [[EverythingsBetterWithPenguins penguins]] have to go through when they expect a chick. The mother goes out to find food, leaving the fathers behind to look after the egg and keep it warm, ''or else the egg will crack and the contents will become frozen solid, [[TearJerker killing the baby]].''
** To make matters worse, while the mother penguin looks for food, they are at risk of being eaten by predators such as leopard seals. Sometimes it's not just the mother that gets eaten, but her unborn chick, too! Scared yet?
* Some creatures that live in the ocean. The king of them all is the great white shark with its SlasherSmile and vicious nature. Then there's piranhas that can ''render any living creature- even a cow to a skeleton within seconds'' (Although they can only do this when practically starved to death) They're still fierce scavengers though. Then there's the anglerfish.
** How about the [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1322118/Jeremy-Wades-goliath-tigerfish-British-fisherman-grapples-giant-piranha.html goliath tigerfish]]? Take a piranha and scale it up to 5 feet long.
** Great whites hunt like freaking serial killers, according to some recent studies. This just makes them even more terrifying.
*** Here's something. Recently, off the eastern coast of Australia (where else?), fishermen pulled a 3 metre (10 foot) great white shark onboard their boat. That's a good size, as great whites go, but the shark was dead, so that wasn't a problem. What was a problem was that the shark had been BITTEN CLEAN IN HALF BY SOMETHING TWICE AS LARGE. And this is just near a very popular swimming beach. Just have a think about that for a bit. Who wants to go swimming?
** On the subject of "Some creatures that live in the ocean," witness [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloop this]] article from TheOtherWiki. "The source of the sound remains unknown...it matches the audio profile of a living creature but there is no known animal that could have produced the sound...If the sound did come from an animal, it would reportedly have to be several times the size of the largest known animal on Earth, the Blue Whale." Real-life Cloverfield monster, anyone? Gaaahhhh. [[CaptainBlacksoul I]] am getting creeped out just posting this.
*** Just for reasons of balance, this from the same wiki: "An oft repeated claim is that it matches the audio profile of a living creature though this view is primarily held by cryptozoologists and is not popular among mainstream scientists."
*** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloop#Analysis This is no longer true]]. A current look at the article actually has several cited references to an NOAA marine oceanographer saying that it is likely animal in nature...
*** What gets me is that where the sound was located is very close to where the city of [[CthulhuMythos R'lyeh]] is supposed to be located.
*** The file that's usually played is the sped up one. Just try listening to it [[http://www.bloopwatch.org/bloop_realtime.wav slowed down to realtime]]. (Large File.)
* The things that go on inside you. Also, "Beauty is skin deep" is a horrible lie if you use a microscope.
* The [[OrificeInvasion Candiru]]. According to the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candiru page on them]] in ThatOtherWiki, Candiru hunt other fish by sensing the urea coming from a fish's gills. The opened urethra during urination is big enough for a candiru to get inside. It can be easily avoided by wearing a bathing suit while in the river. Or by not swimming and urinating in Amazon river at the same time.
** What about its relative, the Candiru-Acù? Victims are eaten alive, from the inside out, by up to 100 of the fish. And by 'eaten alive', I mean 'completely hollowed out'.
* Have fun reading the Cracked article of [[http://www.cracked.com/article_15816_5-most-horrifying-bugs-in-world.html The 5 Most Horrifying Bugs in the World]].
** The giant bees attacking the normal bees was pretty much just DemonicSpider vs GoddamnBats.
* Cracked articles, eh? Then we just have to mention [[http://www.cracked.com/article_17579_7-terrifying-giant-versions-disgusting-critters.html 7 Terrifying Giant Versions of Disgusting Critters]].
* Cracked articles just [[http://www.cracked.com/article/125_13-real-animals-lifted-directly-out-your-nightmares.html add 13 creatures to nightmare]]...
* Some wasps are particularly evil. Known as parasitoid wasps, they will find a live caterpillar, temporarily paralyze it, lay eggs inside the body, and allow them to hatch. The larvae will then take control of the caterpillar by devouring unnecessary organs, modifying its glands, and directly manipulating its nervous system. The host is ordered to do nothing but eat and eat until it's ten times the size of a normal caterpillar. After a set amount of time, the larvae mature and then burrow their way out of the still living animal in order to infect new hosts with their own eggs. The caterpillar has been so infected by the wasp's hormones that even as it's dying it's forced to weave the wasps a cocoon and attack any predators who threaten them. If that won't give you cold sweats, nothing will.
*** Yep, parasitic wasps inspired ''Film/{{Alien}}''. Strange but true. Even Darwin was freaked out by them, saying, [[GodIsEvil 'I'm not quite sure I can believe in a benevolent God after studying the life-cycle of this creature.']]
*** [[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/05/photogalleries/in-the-womb-animal-pictures/photo3.html Video!]]
*** The TEETH! Holy shit on a stick, the TEETH! And how did they film on the inside of the poor caterpillar!? UGH!
*** Oh, but it gets better! People all over the world ''breed'' these little bastards on special farms and send them out to specially destroy caterpillars that eat timber. That's right. We're endorsing these parasitic monstrosities and having them take out creatures whose only crime was feeding themselves. [[HumansAreBastards Do I even need to say it?]]
**** I think [[Manga/{{Bleach}} Szayel]] was based with the parasitic wasp in mind.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_cockroach_wasp Meet the Emerald Wasp.]] It doesn't just knock out a cockroach and put an egg on it; it chemically lobotomizes the roach, remote controls it to its nest, rips off its feelers, and then lays an egg on it.
** Yellowjackets: Other wasps only eat insects. Yellowjackets [[ExtremeOmnivore eat everything]]! If you ever got buzzed during a barbecue, it was probably them. And you were probably right to freak out; they have ''the'' HairTriggerTemper of the insect world. Not as bad as Africanized killer bees, but they make up for it by being EVERYWHERE. They are the most common species of wasp in the world. And, possibly, the most intelligent. The freakiest thing? As I mentioned before, they buzz barbecues, because THEY EAT MEAT. They are CARRION EATERS. And unlike ''other'' scavengers, being so small, the lack of meat on our bones compared to other animals does not deter them. I read somewhere that there's a certain cycle of insects that appear when a body is dumped in the wilderness. Guess which ones show up to ''[[ToServeMan consume thy flesh]]''!
* Yep, hornets in Australia too. Helicopter gunships of the insect world, and their reproductive strategy is straight out of ''{{Aliens}}''. Even the most diehard arachnophile would be [[{{Squick}} squicked]] watching a hornet drag a full-size huntsman spider into its burrow. [[NightmareFuel Alive, paralysed and impregnated with hornet eggs.]]
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_giant_hornet Asian Giant Hornet.]] It can outrun you. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L54exo8JTUs&feature=related 30 of these can eradicate an entire hive of 30,000 bees.]] ''It has flesh-dissolving venom''. Quoted from Cracked:
--->"It's the size of your thumb and it can spray flesh-melting poison. We really wish we were making that up for, you know, dramatic effect because goddamn, what a terrible thing a three-inch acid-shooting hornet would be, you know? Oh, hey, did we mention it shoots it into your eyes? Or that the poison also has a pheromone cocktail in it that'll call every hornet in the hive to come over and sting you until you are no longer alive? Think you can outrun it? It can fly 50 miles in a day. It'd be nice to say something reassuring at this point, like "Don't worry, they only live on top of really tall mountains where nobody wants to live," but no, they live all over the goddamned place, including outside Tokyo. Forty people die like that every year, each of them horribly".
*** If you're afraid of the Asian giant hornet, just think about these little guys: I present [[http://homepage3.nifty.com/jhb/english/hyoushi.jpg Apis cerana japonica]], the Japanese honeybee. Almost cute, isn't it? Asian giant hornets can decimate colonies of European honeybees with ease even though they are outnumbered hundreds of times over, but Japanese honeybees have an interesting defense: they swarm over the invading hornets, to the point where the hornet can't even move, and vibrate their flight muscles, which causes the temperature in the center of this dog- er, ''beepile'', to pass 47 degress Celsius. The honeybees can endure this heat, the hornet cannot. They are essentially roasted alive. It's a [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome CMoA]] for the Japanese honeybees, and a NightmareFuel death for the hornets.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepsis_wasp Pepsis Wasp, aka Tarantula Hawk]], so called because ''it eats tarantulas''. Not only that, its sting, while not that hazardous, is so painful, all you can do is lie down and '''''scream'''''.
* The stag beetle is so-named for the large, antler-like mandibles possessed by the males of many species. It [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stag_beetle easily qualifies as nightmare fuel]] for the same reason. Worse, they're big, some around four inches long. They usually don't harm people, though.
** In Japan, they're even collected and kept as pets. If you're not used to insects larger than the size of your thumb, you should stay away. YMMV though.
* An even more horrifying creature with comparatively large jaws is the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antlion antlion]]--if you're an ant, since they're not very big. Adults are relatively unremarkable, dragonfly-like insects, but the young are lethal predators that dig pits in the sand, waiting at bottom of the pit to eat whatever insects fall in with their big jaws. If God wanted to write a horror story and market it towards arthropods, I can think of few better ideas.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solifugae Solifugids, also known as camel spiders, though they aren't spiders.]] Do I even need to explain this? Possibly the most traumatizing, monstrous arachnids ever, which, given what we know about arachnids in general, says a lot.
** Want to know something creepier? While they generally don't attack humans, they use hair as nesting materials, so one of the things they do to sleeping humans is creep up on them and snip off locks of hair like some demented stalker...
* The goddamn Surinam toad. It's an amphibian that embeds its eggs in its back... and eventually, its young ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCayq56wHSA rip themselves fully-formed from their mother's skin]]''. Yeah, it's perfectly natural, but just the ''thought'' of it happening to a human being...
* Komodo Dragons. Though they have both venom and septic saliva, they [[ScienceMarchesOn are not believed to play an important role in predation]] and the idea that they will deliberately envenomate/infect their prey and wait for it to die arose from skepticism from scientists at the turn of the century towards the idea that [[ReptilesAreAbhorrent a mere reptile could dominate an entire ecosystem]]. The truth is a lot less convoluted. The Komodo Dragon is a cunning ambush hunter that takes down prey with good old fashioned brute force; they're basically land-crocodiles. Though Komodo Dragons have jaw muscles weaker than a housecat's, their teeth are razor sharp and their neck muscles are enormously powerful, allowing them to easily dispatch prey with slashing bites that cause the victim to die from blood-loss and shock within seconds. Smaller prey (such as deer and wild boar) are swept off their feet by a blow from the dragon's [[WhipItGood whiplike tail]], and then seized, instantly killed via thrashing, and are often swallowed whole. To contend with larger prey, such as Water Buffalo, the Dragon will bring the animal down by lascerating its achilles tendon so it can't run away, and then disembowel it. The animal is eaten while it's still alive.
** Komodo Dragons have also been known to harass pregnant deer, startling them into aborting their unborn offspring. The Dragon can then help itself to a meal of [[NauseaFuel placenta and tender fetal-meat.]]
* Crocodiles. Damn ''crocodiles''. Nightmarish appearance, fast, invisible in a foot of muddy water. Many varieties consider humans to be prey. They can [[PrimalFear drag you under the water]] in about two second and eat you. They are ''intelligent'' and can learn human routines. They will wait a week to get a bite of you. ''Those eyes!''
** It gets ''even better''. Crocodiles are capable of moving twice their body length in a single second. It's not uncommon to hear tales of someone being taken so quickly that you could double-take and miss it. In fact, one story where a famous American model got eaten was unusual because ''they actually had the chance to see it coming''.
** Don't think it can get any worse? Well, [[ItGotWorse it just did.]] Meet [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_%28crocodile%29 Gustave]], a 22 ft long 2,000 pound Nile Crocodile who is notorious for killing and eating over 300 people.
*** Oh, and did we mention? [[ThisIsSparta He's! Still!]] '''[[ThisIsSparta ALIVE!]]''' That's right, Gustave is still lurking in Africa waiting for his next victim.
*** There's also the fact that his body is ridden with scars from bullet wounds. Three on his side and one ''on his head''. Not only is he a giant killer crocodile, he's an ''unstoppable'' giant killer crocodile.
*** The "most recent" sighting was back in 2008. If that was the most recent, how are we to know he hasn't been spotted since? Has he been killing his witnesses, and no one's noticed?
* The [[http://www.laweekly.com/2008-07-31/news/rathouse-of-the-palisades/ Palisades Rathouse]] might qualify as nightmare fuel. Incidentally it also provides two examples of the CrazyCatLady trope who have obsessed over a different animal...
** [[http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,685045,00.html The Mülheim Cobra house!]] OK, just one cobra, but they literally teared apart the innards of the house, and ''still'' couldn't find the damn snake. Volunteers for one night in there please raise their hands!
* The [[http://www.livt.net/Clt/Ani/Cho/Mam/Ivr/ivr011.jpg solenodon]], a relative of the mole and shrew, [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Hispaniola_solenodon.jpg can be quite creepy]] or [[http://photos-513.ll.facebook.com/photos-ll-sf2p/v193/223/46/693786513/n693786513_654583_4434.jpg unsettling]]. That is, until you see the [[http://jay.kusnetz.net/pics4ext/almiqui.jpg cuban]] [[http://pikaia.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/solenodon_cubanus.jpg variety]]. Should I add that all solenodons have a poisonous bite?
* Sea urchins. Just ... motherfarking ''sea urchins''. They are living, breathing balls of spines which live on the ocean floor. Many of them live close to the shore and it's hard to see underwater, so inevitably some unlucky beachgoers will end up stepping on one. This results in a badly injured foot and a visit to the hospital.
** Hey, just imagine if some wacky mad scientists gave them brains...and a hatred of humanity! TRIBBLES OF DOOOOOOOOOOM. Though honestly death-by-urchin can very easily also extend into ridiculous Narm.
** It gets worse. Because sea urchin spines are made of calcite, they snap easily because of the alignment of the calcite crystals, leaving part of it wedged in your open wound. The best way to deal with it? ''Push the spine right into your body''. The calcite will dissolve in your bloodstream and the wound will heal normally. Have fun, kids.
*** The way this is usually accomplished is by breaking off the parts of the spines that are still outside the skin and crushing the parts that are embedded with something blunt and sturdy (a rock works fine if there's nothing else to hand) to break them up and drive them a bit deeper. It's painful, but not completely horrific. However, the ocean [[CaptainObvious being full of living stuff]] as it is, these kind of injuries do have a tendency to get infected. A good way to counteract that is by sterilizing the injury somehow.
* Jaguars. They're both awesome and freaky because they kill their prey by ''biting through its skull''. Their jaws are powerful enough to crack open a glyptodon's skull. And for those of you who don't know paleontology, glyptodonts are essentially mammalian versions of a panzer tank. Google it and see. Do '''NOT''' tick off kitty!
* Big Cats, fierce predators with strong jaws, razor-sharp claws, huge strength (a tiger could knock you unconcius with one swipe of it's paw), super speed and stealth (if a big cat stalked you in a remote area, you wouldn't see it until it was too late). Some big cats have been known to kill buffaloes, rhinos, hippos, pythons, crocodiles, wolves and even bears. To make things worse, big cat attacks are on the rise.
* Allow me to introduce you to the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldt_Squid Dosidicus gigas]]: the Humboldt squid, growing up to seven feet long and, alone among the invertebrates, ''hunting prey in packs of as many as 1200 individuals''. Their tentacles are lined with ''teeth'', they feed on each other when wounded or frenzied, they are ''highly'' aggressive against unfamiliar objects, they attack humans on a regular basis, and their natural habitat ranges from the Tierra del Fuego to coastal California ''and spreading north''. And you thought it was safe to go back in the water...
** Ocean acidification seems to be killing them off, though.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_squid Colossal Squid]]. They have GIANT HOOKS on their tentacles, which they can rotate 180 degrees. And they are up to 46 feet long.
** Cephalopods in general. As awesome as I think they are, they are also damn creepy. They're smart. Really, really smart for invertebrates. Most intelligent creatures are birds and mammals, which are pretty similar to us in terms of body structure and biology. But cephalopods are completely alien. The thought of something like that being as smart as a dog is strange. If they would be sapient, what would they think? Most likely [[BlueAndOrangeMorality we couldn't comprehend it at all]]. To think modern culture can pervert such beings.....
*** [[ItGotWorse Fun fact!]] Cephalopods have one large central brain in their head... plus one smaller brain for '''each of it's arms.''' So that's 9 brains for an octopus, 11 for a squid. The (now extinct) ammonites had 12 arms, meaning 13 brains. And then there's the eyes...
*** Weird fact about cephalopods: cuttlefish are exellent at blending into their environment by changing their colours to match their background. The thing is, they're also colourblind. How the hell do they know what colour they should change to?
*** Cuttlefish in general are chalk full of RuleOfCool. The flamboyant cuttlefish has very poorly developed fins/whatever. So instead of swimming it uses them to -walk- on the ocean floor. The broad club cuttlefish meanwhile will use it's color changing ability to visually stun/hypnotize uncooperative prey. Though octopi generally get the better known as being intelligent, cuttlefish are
'''Real Life Nightmare Fuel'''
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder: Real Life Nightmare Fuel]]
You're probably thinking that after reading about all that NightmareFuel, you're safe from it because you don't live in Fiction Land, right? ''[[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou Wrong!]]''
'''Note:''' This page is ''not'' for those easily scared by books or movies. If you happen to be one of those people, please go [[http://www.givesmehope.com/ here]] instead. Thank you and have a nice day.
----
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Other]]
* [[http://www2.rwu.edu/studentlife/studentservices/counselingcenter/sexualassault/rapemyths.htm According to a survey]], 33% of college aged men would commit rape if they could get away with it, and 25% of those surveyed believed that rape was acceptable if "the woman asks the man out; or the man pays for the date; or the woman goes back to the man's room after the date."
* The Westboro Baptist Church. It's an honest to [[spoiler:not their]] God group of [[MisanthropeSupreme misanthrope supremes]] who imagine ''the nigh-entirety of humanity'' in HELL. And that's not even getting into Fred Phelps, who'd probably be one of the most terrifying supervillains ever in a comic book universe.
** For an example of how frightening these people are [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBV2hnPxESw check out this "parody" of "We Are The World"]]. It's either {{High Octane Nightmare Fuel}} or {{Narm}}, but what makes this so scary is that they are [[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer actually serious]].
*** The "church" in question is a very small group with a very high profile, which is itself rather disturbing. They are not recognized as a valid church by any other religious organization anywhere in the world. Canada, which has very strong laws on both religious freedom and hate speech, refuses to allow Fred Phelps across the border.
* The [[EmergencyBroadcast Emergency Alert System]] test sequences.
** I used to hide under the coffee table when those came on TV. *shiver*
** I try to block them out on numerous occasions.
** The new ones aren't any better, either: instead of the sine-wave test tone, now it's that awful buzzing and the very, very badly synthesized voice reading the "This is a test of the Emergency Alert System" message.
** In addition to being afraid of Emergency Broadcast System tests, I was very afraid of the multicolored-bars TV "test pattern" thing that would display whenever a TV station was having broadcast issues. It's not the actual test pattern that was scary, it was the loud high-pitched beeping that accompanied it.
** The horrid "three beeps" severe weather alerts played on local TV, complete with a massive, bright red, flashing "TORNADO WARNING - TAKE COVER IMMEDIATELY" message across the bottom of the screen. To be yanked from Sesame Street into Howling Winds of Death once or twice a month in the summer is very unpleasant. Perhaps that is the whole point.
* Whatever your local name for the old Civil Defence air-raid sirens is - hurricane siren, disaster siren, tornado siren, etc. Imagine standing on the front porch as a little kid during a particularly severe thunderstorm, in which the sky turned green, the wind abruptly quit and the whole world went dead silent for about five seconds - and then the sirens fired up. This is used in the SilentHill series to great effect.
* Factology believes, according to Wikipedia, "some aborted [[FetusTerrible fetuses]] survive their abortion to live in the sewers, where they are being gathered and organized [[TakeOverTheWorld to take over the world]]."
* To all those in college - you think your roommate is bad? Read [[http://www.wyseguys.com/shittyroomate.asp this possibly true story]], and you will be glad the worst thing your roommate does is snore.
** Half of the student body at [=DigiPen=] has one-upped that guy (up through The Black Time) in one way or another (except without the drugs).
** More roommate horror [[http://gawker.com/roommate-horror-stories/ here]]. Worst one is the woman who walked in on her college roommate having sex doggy-style with her ''biological father''. The [[http://gawker.com/5879703/these-are-the-worlds-worst-roommate-stories?comment=46476429#comments winner]] was actually someone who ''killed and skinned a squirrel'' and left it on her housemate's bed.
*** The former also contains a bit of FridgeHorror, as several readers have noted that the roommate's poor hygiene and behavioral problems match the symptoms of sexual abuse. Even the person who submitted the story admits that if she had made the connection at the time, she would have reported what she had seen.
* Have you ever heard someone die? 9-1-1 calls which end tragically...
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxLlwsC5hWs Here's one]]. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox3gmJvQAA0 And here's another]]. The former has a HellIsThatNoise sound made from the woman's screams at the beginning, and the latter has a VERY EFFECTIVE ScareChord.
* Memorial or Post-Mortem Photography: A "mostly" extinct practice where family members photograph themselves and their dead in such positions, (like opening the eyes, moving the mouth, setting the body correctly, and dressing it up) to make their relatives look 'almost' like they're still alive. [[http://www.paulfrecker.com/collections.cfm?=library&typeID=1&ShowStart=81&ShowEnd=88&myPage=11 Most of these photos are babies!!]]
** Apparently, it's still a common practice nowadays that when a baby passes away, one of the nurses cleans the body, dresses it up, and wraps it in a blanket for the parents to hold and take a picture with. One sad advantage of doing this with a deceased child is that the baby is no longer covered in tubes and needles to keep it alive, so it appears as it couldn't in life. And it seems rather gruesome, yes, but it seems many people need that picture, that memory, to help them through the grieving process. It's almost as if to show themselves that their baby was alive and real, even if it couldn't stay that way for very long.
* [[http://www.nowilaymedowntosleep.org/ This site]]. Think of it this way, most of those babies are stillborn. The parents NEVER would have gotten a single picture if it weren't for those. They used to be tossed in the trash. Now the parents get to hold their precious child. Much like when you hold a dying friend...
* Cracked has done it again: [[http://www.cracked.com/article_17379_6-real-islands-way-more-terrifying-than-one-on-lost.html 6 Real, Terrifying Islands.]] One features a snake population of around five ''per square meter''. Another has the charred bones from 160,000 plague victims ''still'' wash up on the shores. And those are near the bottom of the list.
* [[http://www.themorningstarr.co.uk/2009/07/17/baby-eaten-by-rats/ "Baby Eaten By Rats"]]. [[http://www.themorningstarr.co.uk/2009/07/26/autopsy-reveals-rats-did-kill-baby/ She wasn't dead when they started.]]
* Ladies and gentlemen, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_in_the_Box_(Philadelphia) Boy in the Box]], a cold case from the 1950's where the body of a small boy was found in a box in the woods. The worst part? They still to this day haven't caught the person who did it.
* [[http://cakeheadlovesevil.wordpress.com/2009/04/18/island-of-the-dolls The Island of the Dolls]] in Mexico.
* In 2003, a man named Hitoshi Nikaidoh walked inside an elevator and had his shoulders pinned by the elevator doors due to faulty wiring. Despite struggling to pull himself inside, the elevator kept ascending until the ceiling sliced off most of his head. His left ear, lower lip, teeth and jaw were still attached to his body, which fell to the bottom of the elevator shaft, as the elevator continued moving upward. A surgery resident, who was in the elevator at the time, witnessed the gruesome spectacle and spent more than an hour trapped in the elevator with Hitoshi's head.
* Cracked again! This article for the [[http://www.cracked.com/article_18381_the-5-creepiest-unexplained-broadcasts.html 5 Creepiest Unexplained Broadcasts]]
* "Chat", "That's Life" and similar magazines sold at supermarket checkouts. In the words of Charlie Brooker, they look at first glance like they're full of word searches and knitting patterns. In reality they're full of the kind of BodyHorror and {{Gorn}} that rotten.com is built on, alongside more mundane adult fears, with the odd "kids say the funniest things" feature for added MoodWhiplash goodness.
** For those who have no idea of what these magazines are...well, [[http://www.storieswanted.com/userimages/HPThatslife.jpg here's]] [[http://www.letssubscribe.com/images/products/7781.jpg for]] [[http://img.dooyoo.co.uk/GB_EN/orig/0/6/3/6/1/636108.jpg reference]]. ''"Life! Death! Prizes!"'' Actual tagline.
*** And the attractive woman on the cover? She won't be seen in the magazine, has no bearing on any articles whatsoever. Eye candy to get you into the back of the van, as it were.
** African tabloid examples take this [[BeyondTheImpossible up to eleven]], and even more frightening is that even MORE people take them as the truth than [[DeepSouth in the US!]] [[http://redpepper.co.ug/welcome/ The Red Pepper]] is the most notorious. The engrish and hilarious slang seems charming (referring recently to one outed minister as the "notorious bum driller"), until you see how many articles are about [[BuryYourGays outing and advocating the murder of local notable gays]] among other things. Never has the term 'frighteningly funny' been so apt. You know Adebesi from Oz? Not only is that the paper's target demographic but that's ALSO THEIR REPORTING TEAM. That's right, as amusing as this paper might seem, it regularly gets families murdered by local religious fanatics.
* Disused refrigerators with rotten stuff still in them, as seen on YouTube. Some have been sitting around for 20 years or more.
** Speaking of that, there have been many cases of dead people going unnoticed for a decade or more. There's actually an article on snopes.com, if you're brave enough to look it up.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWdgAMYjYSs The max headroom Pirating Incident]]. Not the act itself, but the fact that to this day, no one really has the foggiest idea what was going on, who he was or why he was doing it.
** There is also the fact that the man who did it is still at large... he could be anywhere, he could even be on this website.
* The Church of the Innocents in Paris has an... unusual history. It was one of the first churches in France that allowed actual burials (6th century) and became the largest and most popular cemetery by the 13th century. By the 15th century it was so crowded that the residents of older graves (many were in mass graves by this point) had to be moved to ossuaries. When the Black Death hit, newer corpses had to be moved into the ossuaries, leaving behind fatty residues in the dirt. By the late 17th century the cemetery was essentially a mass of greasy residue that could no longer decompose. Oh yes: a pile of leftovers from thousands of human corpses that could ''no longer decay''. And that's not the worst part- in 1780 the wall of a cellar bordering the cemetery collapsed under the weight of the whole mess. One can only hope that no one was in the cellar at the time, or there'd be an unpleasant combination of the primal fears of drowning and necrophobia. Oh, and it was this incident that led to the creation of the famous Catacombs of Paris.
* Train engineers who are forced to watch as their trains mow down anyone unlucky enough to get themselves on the tracks (in this case a young teen who, while listening to her iPod, was killed by a deadly silent Amtrak train while on her trek to school). Because freight trains going 60 mph take about a mile to stop before the emergency brake is applied, the train engineers are forced to watch it happen. When they go through post-traumatic stress counselling, the one thing they talk about is that they see the people's eyes right before they hit them. A lot of those engineers don't return to work.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF7488WHcok Robert the doll]] If you thought regular old dolls were creepy, how about a haunted one?
* Cracked once again aims to keep us all up at night. Here are the [[http://www.cracked.com/article_18459_the-5-creepiest-unsolved-crimes-nobody-can-explain.html 5 Creepiest Unsolved Crimes Nobody Can Explain.]]
* Walking around a ''pitch-black'' room with only a flashlight, fearing and believing that there is something or someone that will be standing in or pass in front of your flashlight beam.
* [[http://www.carhire.org/blog/scariest-airport-runways Matekane Air Strip in Lesotho (Number 13 on list)]] is built on the side of a mountain, on a patch of horizontal real estate too small to accommodate a standard-length runway. How do they manage to get up to speed for takeoff, you ask? They use the [[{{Discworld}} Granny Weatherwax]] method, which is to say ''[[PrimalFear they throw the plane off a cliff]]''.
* Roadkill. Especially the real gory, mutilated sort, [[ItGotWorse even better]] when baking in the sun for a few days, or when the guts have partially burst out and been scattered around the carcass. Who needs a gory horror movie or video game when there's plenty of gruesome carnage right along your local road, perhaps on the commute to work or school.
** And the fact that sometimes ''you can no longer tell what it was before it was killed'' is unsettling.
* Stay up until the wee hours of the morning (say, about 1:00 - 2:00 in the morning), in a room with very little light in it, and read as many missing persons' cases from [[http://www.charleyproject.org/ this site]] as possible. Start with the earliest ones. 1945 should be good. Also, while you're at it, go to [[http://www.doenetwork.org/ this other website]] and peruse their "Unidentified Victims" index. Start off with the first entry there, the Caledonia Jane Doe discovered in 1979. Pleasant dreams.
** The forum [[http://www.websleuths.com/ websleuths]]; notably the "unidentified" pages.
* It's common for schools to hold assemblies which provide kids with safety and emergency information. In the U.S., some schools have taken a "scared straight" approach to this. Famously, one school had chosen a few students to be absent all on the same day. On that day, with the selected kids nowhere in sight, the staff announced an accident that killed those children. Predictably, some of the students found this to be extremely traumatic and needed psychological care after the caper was revealed. Furthermore, some schools have held assemblies in which students are cast as fire, accident or other victims while their classmates are ushered around the scenes by teachers describing the terrible situations being portrayed. The latter usually occurs with some fore-knowledge on the part of the students so that they know it's fake, but these assemblies are prone to extremity in the young actors' make-up.
** There was a school that hired an actor to run into a school and start "shooting" a fake gun (sounded real) between classes. Think only school was stupid enough to do it? Of course you're wrong!
** Winnipeg, Manitoba did the same thing in 1942, calling it ''If Day''. "Nazis" (citizens in costume) took over Winnipeg, "arresting" the mayor and premier and turning one section of the city into a concentration camp. They also went around beating people up. They would go into schools and ask for the Jewish students to stand up, then they would take them away. For someone who wasn't in on it, especially the schoolkids, that would be absolutely terrifying. It was a ploy to try to get people involved in the war effort.
* Bullying. The thoughts of how many AdultsAreUseless - Do you guys know what it's like to have been beaten up, or see someone else beaten up, only to tell an adult because someone is ''literally'' in danger, only to be told off or [[CassandraTruth not believed]]? The adults could literally just turn their head ''two centimeters'' to the right and see a kid with paint splattered all over him and a black eye, yet they don't see anything. And just imagine how many target(s) in western countries are being bullied for whatever reason, only for adults to ''encourage'' it with their own inaction?
** Let's not forget the disproportionate retribution. The minute the victim has had enough and decides to stand up to the bully, sometimes violently, the victim is the one that gets the severe punishment despite being the one that was pushed around in the first place.
** The climatic moment of DangerousMinds is based on cases such as these.
* Burglars. The thought of creepy FacelessGoons walking around your house and stealing things at random doesn't terrify you at all?
* The {{GIFT}}. To sum up several quotes from the quotes section, coarse people won't say what they ''really'' think to your face - because they aren't free from consequences, meaning they're within punching or kicking range. They may act nice to you in real life, but they have an image to maintain. They may not say something like "BarackObama deserves to be institutionalized" or "All of Israel should just be nuked" if you asked them in real life, but on the internet, of course they'd say that - that's what they ''really'' think. And you know what is even scarier? Imagining what'd happen if, even ''if'' you could attach a face to someone, what if this was like ''RealLife''? People would probably just murder children so they wouldn't have a threat to their power, steal ''everything'', just go on a shooting spree with a complete disregard for who they're killing, and just flat-out bastardy cranked UpToEleven.
--> '''OscarWilde:''' "Give a man a mask, and he will tell you the truth."
** {{Troll}}s and cyberbullies in general. Picture this, an adult troll who uses the internet as a personal haven for their inner bastardry intentionally harasses someone, that someone being a teenager with low-self esteem that he doesn't know, by teasing him, calling him names, and ''encouraging'' him to commit suicide. ''[[DudeNotFunny All the while thinking that this is funny]]!''
*** Here's [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2036935/Natasha-MacBryde-death-Facebook-internet-troll-Sean-Duffy-jailed.html?ito=feeds-newsxml an example]] that fits the exact description above. You might take some consolation in the fact that this man was arrested, however. Seems people are becoming more willing to prosecute the internet version of threats/harassment/etc.
*** Milder, but still disturbing and proceeding from the same mentality, are griefers, people who play online games for the sole purpose of disrupting other people's games. They derive enjoyment from ruining other people's fun, and cannot be reasoned with because no normal appeal, whether to compassion or self-interest, will work. They have no compassion for other players, and are already getting exactly what they want.
* Check out [[http://photographybytainatimar.blogspot.com/2010/05/world-famous-photography-throughout.html these]] well-known photographs. Now, read the stories behind the pictures; in many of these cases, the photographer gazed upon unmitigated human suffering and '''''did absolutely nothing to help'''''. All for the sake of capturing "the perfect photograph". Welcome to the world of photojournalism.
** The sad thing about the Omayra Sanchez photograph was that nothing could ''be'' done. The girl was trapped in that water for ''three days'' before she died, because it would be impossible to free her without amputating her legs, which would have made her bleed to death. A water pump was sent to the village... which arrived broken. Basically, the reporters stayed with her so she wouldn't die alone, as most of her family members were already dead.
** Having read the above, imagine YOU are a photographer dealing with such things. That link shows a photograph by [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Carter Kevin Carter]]. Carter was haunted by nightmares and visions of death after he took that picture of the starving girl being stalked by the vulture. He was also heavily criticized by people who didn't understand how little he could have intervened. Eventually, Carter took his own life.
* You don't have to be a vegetarian, vegan, or even value animal life very much to be outraged or disgusted at [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBbYUdvGWk0 this]]. What kind of things the animals have to go through in slaughterhouses is bad enough, actually imagining yourself as one of these animals is probably one of the most terrifying and depressing thing that you can think of.
** You are now imagining you are an animal in a slaughterhouse.... In Australia. Next to a forest of stinging trees. Likely the leases for the land were ridiculously cheap because of their 'neighbors.' Not only is a man-made travesty dicking with you, but a NATURAL one the turns your body to FIRE every time there's a slight breeze. For those that don't know, [[http://www.blueswami.com/stinging_trees.html read this link]] and then [[TearJerker think of what those poor, poor cows went through]] before they get anywhere NEAR a blade.
* Tar Pits. Getting stuck in them is one of the worst ways to die. Unlike quicksand which sucks you in, death by tar pit is slow. The only way you can die is if you starve (humans can survive for about two weeks without food), dehydration (lack of water), or if you somehow commit suicide. Thankfully, if you have a cell phone you could call for help, unlike the poor wild animals that became trapped thousands of years ago. Those animals either starved, became dehydrated, or were killed by a predator. Hundreds of skeletons have been found in the La Brea Tar Pits in California.
* Working in a [[SteelMill steel mill]]. There are a thousand ways to die in one - and they are all nasty. [[EverythingTryingToKillYou White-hot bubbling molten metal, fiery furnaces, electric arcs, poisonous gases, eerie (and certainly dangerous) machinery, heavy objects falling from great heights, horrible noise -- you name it]].
** The book Ganz Unten ("Lowest of the Low") by Günther Wallraff describes first-hand accounts on working in one. He describes of the working conditions of Turkish immigrant workers in the post-WWII West German steel industry. [[LavaPit One of the workers stumbled at work and fell in the blast furnace]]. What makes it FridgeHorror is that you realize it is ''West'' Germany. How about working in an ''East'' German [[NightmarishFactory hell factory]]...?
*** There was an accident in a chemical plant in Leuna, Eastern Germany. About a dozen workers were cooked to death by superheated steam when a door fell shut behind them.
*** An episode of ''UnsolvedMysteries'' had the story of Dave Bocks, a nuclear power plant worker who disappeared mysteriously. One day, his car keys and some bone fragments were found in one of the plant's furnaces. Worse, it was concluded that ''somebody threw him in there''.
** An unfortunate individual was locked in some oven-thing over a weekend. When the next work day rolled around, the oven was automatically turned on.
** It doesn't even need to be a traditionally-scary type of factory like a steel mill. There was a case of two workers in an [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1443939.stm innocuous bread factory]], who were sent inside an oven to do some maintenance work. They were sent in on a conveyer belt, like the loaves. It was switched off, but no one had ensured it had actually ''cooled down''- and there was no way to reverse the conveyer.
* Think 9/11 was bad when you were just sitting there watching the attacks on TV? In some places, '''the power went out.''' Of course, it had nothing to do with terrorists, but you can bet more than a few people were thinking they were all going to die.
* Mines. Not the explosive kind, the underground ones. Claustrophobic, dark, potentially filled with spiders, and could collapse if not safe. You'd need to worry about the ground crushing you against the ceiling in a landslide than about the roof collapsing. Needless to say, [[AndIMustScream surviving that would be less desirable than dying.]] Crawling along in the dark, bones probably broken, exit probably shut... that's the stuff HighOctaneNightmareFuel is made of... if you could move at all.
** Don't forget how many of them have portions that are [[KillItWithFire CONSTANTLY ON FIRE]] to boot.
* Radio signals. Find a weird spike producing noises that'll haunt your nightmares for years to come? Well good luck finding what in the name of Jimmi Hendrix was making it, unless you've got some good equipment. And who knows? [[spoiler: It may not even be from Earth.]]
* When you put in earphones while listening to music, you'll find you'll be hearing back vocals and certain instruments (that you couldn't hear before) [[ScareChord in one ear.]] One song that abuses this is "the Greatest Show Unearthed" by [[CreatureFeature Creature Feature.]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ9hkRsN5Yg&feature=autoplay&list=WL3E5D31E6C59460E9&index=1&playnext=14 Remember, it only works with earphones.]]
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cosmonauts Lost Cosmonauts]] theory. Yuri Gargarin was not the first man in space. He was the first to ''[[GoneHorriblyWrong come]] [[SuicideMission back]] [[{{Unperson}} alive]]''....
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident Dyatlov Pass incident.]] Nine hikers in the Ural mountains left their camp for no apparent reason and were later found dead. While this isn't that creepy on its own, five of the hikers had a variety of weird injuries (one was ''missing her tongue''), and four had elevated levels of radiation on their clothing. And no one knows what happened because no one who was present survived. We're probably better off not knowing the whole story.
* While looking up pictures of the Franklin Expedition, you might find a mugshot of one of the dead explorers they dug up from Beechy Island named John Torrington. Go look him up. You have been warned.
* [[BuriedAlive Premature burial.]] It's [[http://www.snopes.com/horrors/gruesome/buried.asp real]], it's been happening as long as humans have walked this planet, and in some parts of the world it ''still happens''.
** More to the point, buried alive after being presumed DEAD, not by a landslide or anything natural like that. Read up on what started the idea of vampires or their forebearers strigoi existing some time...
* Halloween can be SeriousBusiness for [[http://i.imgur.com/UCErT.jpg some people]]. Although, for [[NightmareFetishist some]] that picture qualifies as a [[MomentOfAwesome Crowning Moment of Awesome]].
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl9y3SIPt7o This video of abuse captured on tape]] is disturbing enough in it's own right. But there are a few things special to this case that make it pure HighOctaneNightmareFuel:
** 1. Her father, being a judge, was a well respected member of the community, therefore [[CassandraTruth no one would believe]] this girl as to what kind of a person he really is behind closed doors. [[FridgeHorror It makes you wonder what other well respected people are really like.]] [[ParanoiaFuel Including those you know (or think you know).]]
** 2. [[{{GIFT}} The comments.]] There are many who see nothing wrong with what he did to her and some even applauding him. Others claiming that they recieved [[ItGotWorse worse than that,]] while still thinking that it did them good. [[http://www.theblaze.com/stories/extremely-disturbing-video-claims-to-show-texas-judge-savagely-whipping-daughter-with-belt/ here]] is an example of one of the articles and the comments. Some of these people even go as far to blame this girl for the abuse she suffered through, [[InsaneTrollLogic claiming that she set him up just to provoke a beating and was faking her cries.]] The fact that people can see obvious abuse and still find ways to blame the victim is absolutely horrifying.
** 3. He was a family law judge who dealt with child abuse cases of all things. He had denounced the testimonies of children, claiming they were fantasizers, [[HarsherInHindsight no we know why.]]
** 4. The daughter in question had cerebral palsy and almost all sources on the abuse scandal don't bother to mention it and/or gloss over it. Given the examples of people who ''[[OffingTheOffspring murdered]]'' [[OffingTheOffspring their disabled children]] and have had people defend their actions, it's pretty much safe to say that somehow, the abuse of a disabled person matters less than that of a nondisabled person in the exact same situation in they eyes of the writers of the sources that omitted this fact.
* They have [[CureYourGays straight camps]]. Places people are sent, told their way of live is wrong, and taught how to lie about who they are so they are accepted by society. Parents actually send their children to these places for being curious.
** What happened to institutionalized GLBT individuals in years past. That's not FridgeHorror, that is HighOctaneNightmareFuel of the highest order and seriously [[UsefulNotes/{{Trigger}} triggering]] to many people -- but think of how many people were sent to these things, not ''just'' out of their parents and caretakers' bigotry, but because ''that was the reigning medical opinion''. It wasn't just a bunch of fundamentalist nuts turning over their gay, transgender and gender-nonconforming kids so they could expect grandkids. These people were scared... and they thought they were doing the right thing. Their pastors, their doctors and teachers and trusted family friends thought they were doing the right thing too. Subjecting their children and loved ones to ''hellish'' treatment to "fix" them, turning them over into the hands of people who would beat them, rape them, starve them and mistreat them until they were "[[CameBackWrong well]]" or [[BuryYourGays dead]] or [[AndIMustScream physically compromised]] -- [[HeroicBSOD most certainly traumatized]] -- [[FateWorseThanDeath for life]]. To make them normal. Safe, healthy, sane, good. Someone you loved might have done that to you.
* Book banning controversies. Sounds geeky in text but they can get freakin' ''brutal''. For example there was this giant controversy in Panama City about a book (I think it was ''I Am the Cheese'') that people wanted removed from the shelves. When a group of teachers and an IntrepidReporter tried to defend the book, how do they get repaid? By receiving threatening phonecalls, death threats, letterbombs, and one of them almost getting her house burned down. Worse still, [[TheFundamentalist the people contending this book]] ''[[CassandraTruth accused them of lying, or even doing these horrible things to themselves to gain sympathy]]''. And to think, all of this trouble is over a ''book''. Thank God the author of the book set the record straight or [[FridgeHorror who knows what could have happened]]...
** These accusations of lying are textbook example of denialism. Imagine that kind of logic: Jews are evil, The Holocaust did not happen and they deserved it anwyay... you know the drill.
* Spontaneous Human Combustion. Imagine one minute you're enjoying life, then out of the freaking blue you're engulfed in a burning fire without warning and will likely burn to death without even knowing what hit you.
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAMfCG6nn1w ADHD friendly example]].
* Not as horrifying as some things here but... [[http://i.imgur.com/dcEI5.jpg]] this. A girl in a wheelchair is STABBED by a "friend". With a FORK.
* You know TheExorcismOfEmilyRose was loosely based on a true story, right? [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr-IdHU3A5M Here is ACTUAL AUDIO of the exorcism session it was based on]]. Just don't make the mistake of watching it before bed or while suffering emotional problems...
* Cracked are really good at these! Most commenters agree that of [[http://www.cracked.com/article_19705_the-5-most-spectacular-landscapes-earth-that-murder-you.html The 5 Most Spectacular Landscapes on Earth (That Murder You)]], the creepiest one is #3, the Bolton Strid. You'll never see forest streams the same way again.
* Do a Google Image search on "trypophobia." You know what? Don't. You've probably had enough NightmareFuel for one day.
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You've done it! You've made it through all these pages of mind-numbing horror. What more can be said? As you go about your day and try not to break down, try to remember to do one thing: [[LifeOfBrian Always look on the bright side of life...]]
[[SweetDreamsFuel But you all probably need]] [[Heartwarming/RealLife these links.]] [[http://www.cuteroulette.com And this one for good measure.]]
[[/folder]]
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[[folder: RLNF Accidents and General Body Horror]]
* The Nikki Catsouras case. How would you like to lose any loved one, never mind your own child, and then two weeks later recieve an email from a complete stranger with a picture showing [[AdultFear YOUR OWN CHILD'S MANGLED REMAINS??]] Worse, the photos were leaked by members of the ''California Highway Patrol.''
* Gore websites. While they will not be linked here due to FamilyFriendly policy, they feature violent and painful deaths and injuries, often to cater to people's fetishes.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_ulcer Jungle Rot]], otherwise known as a Tropical Ulcer. An infected scratch in the jungle, and your entire body starts to erode.
* There's a ton of outer space horrors that come in mind. Two more notable are pressurization failure (e.g., a hole in your space suit) and life support failure.
* In ''AmericasBestDanceCrew'', the crew the Ringmasters. They were already grotesque to begin with, their gimmick being unsightly flexibility, but their challenge during Britney Spears week was to create the illusion of gigantic performers. So what did they do? They wore hoodies and somehow came up with [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ringmasters.JPG these monstrosities.]] Or perhaps [[http://www.mtv.com/videos/americas-best-dance-crew-season-3-ep-3-britney-challenge/1603283/playlist.jhtml seeing them in motion will have a stronger effect]] (the fifth section, about 30 minutes in)? (And by the way, their song was "[[CircusOfFear Circus]]."
* Charla Nash. The victim of a chimpanzee attack. [[SchmuckBait Good god, ]]'''''[[SchmuckBait do not ]]'''''[[SchmuckBait look up photos from Google of her face from her appearance on Oprah. As a matter of fact, it's not advisable that you look up any article about her appearance on Oprah, considering that that article might inadvertently have photos of her face]]. Absolutely horrifying. The lady's arms were ''literally'' ripped and pulled off, her eyes, eyelids as well as her lips... she looks almost like Pale Man from ''PansLabyrinth'', except more horrifying in that she actually has a huge, bloody hole in the middle of her face.
* The "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin#Diving_bell_accident Byford Dolphin diving bell accident]]". Just the description about what happened to the bodies (including [[spoiler:gas bubbles [[EyeScream forming in the eye tissue]]]]) is enough to cause shivers. Sure, the victims probably died instantly and painlessly, but can you imagine having to clean up or autopsy one of these corpses? The people in charge of that must have been scarred for life.
** Subsequent investigation by forensic pathologists determined that diver D4, being exposed to the highest pressure gradient, exploded with violence due to the rapid and massive expansion of internal gases. All of his thoracic and abdominal organs, and even his thoracic spine, were ejected, as were all his limbs. [...] Chunks of his body were found scattered about the rig.
* There was a story about a girl in India whose hair was caught in a machine which ended up separating her face from her head. They then showed you both the girl with her musculature exposed, and [[http://health.discovery.com/centers/plasticsurgery/facetransplant/gallery/face2_h.jpg the face, in two pieces, resting on the plastic bag the girl's mother brought it in.]]
* William Harvey. A very important 17th century scientist, who made his biological discoveries in horrifying ways. Some of his highlights include performing unanaesthetised dissections on live animals, and draining all of the blood from most of a person's vessels into one vein, making that one vein swell up like a balloon.
* You want to teach kids not to smoke cigarettes? Have them visit with someone who's had a laryngectomy.
* Spontaneous Human Combustion. It's highly unsettling to think that one day you could burn to death from the inside out for ''no apparent reason'', with nothing left but a big black spot, a pile of burnt oily mess and bone, and maybe a leg or two sticking out. Crematoria use furnaces of up to 1000°C to burn human bodies - but in cases of SHC, only materials above and next to what's left of you will be burned. Images of victims' charred remains can be found, but having a few gallons of BrainBleach handy would be highly advisable if you plan to search for them. There are more than enough [[http://anomalyinfo.com/articles/sa00013.php?page=SHC examples]] that have ''no explanation whatsoever.''
* At the time, [[TheCaligula Nero]]'s use of Christians as gladiator bait didn't catch much attention in Rome. That wasn't particularly unusual, and they were convenient scapegoats for the Great Fire. What ''did'' catch attention was the extreme cruelty of [[http://www.oriensjournal.com/11edit.html the spectacle he made of it]], including the "innovative" use of their living bodies as candles to provide light for it.
* Fires in general, nightclub fires in particular, like [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIetpe_KAJU&feature=related the Station Night Club,]] Happy Land, or Coconut Grove. The notion of burning is scary enough, the notion of dying of smoke inhalation is scary enough .... but the thing that gets you is how ''fast'' it all happens. The smoke buildup [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxiOXZ55hbc&feature=related in this video]] goes from "minor" to "completely consuming the room" in a minute and a half. In that time, the people in the crowd go from oblivious - to mildly concerned - to complete, involuntary all-consuming panic, behaving like stampeding animals, as the vast majority of them succumb to the smoke.
* Being in a DUI crash and that [[http://web.archive.org/web/20030201093613/www.austin360.com/aas/specialreports/jacqui this]] can easily happen to anyone is pure NightmareFuel.
* A car rammed into a carrier truck at a red light, causing a bunch of incredibly corrosive acid to spill out and wash across tarmac for twenty meters or so. (This was probably back in the 80s or something because of the truck's poor protection.) Anyway, some spilled over the woman in the car, and she started screaming. The truck driver leaned out of his window and began to scream as loudly as possible "Get back, get the fuck back!" (This was only partly necessary, as most people had run to a safer area when they saw the tarmac start to bubble.) So one onlooker started shouting "Why is nobody going to help her?!" The rest of the bystanders tried to reassure the onlooker, but she broke free and started to run across the acid to the woman in the car. Within a few seconds, it had eaten through the soles of her shoes and then her feet. The woman fell over from the pain, face-first into the acid. Then she started to roll around in agony, after which point she passed out.
* A whole host of birth defects:
** Anencephaly: literally no or very little brain matter.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetus_in_fetu fetus in fetu]]'', a medical condition where a developing fetus envelops his/her identical twin - and the enveloped twin develops inside as a parasite! Naturally, being a television documentary, it was complete with pictures of the removed twin, which looked like a shrunken head with a proportioned body.
** ConjoinedTwins. Being physically attached to your sibling in one of a dozen different ways. You could be attached by just a little flap of skin, or share an entire body from the neck down. And if they don't die soon after being born, many are usually subjected to surgical separation where, more often then not one or both, will die.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy Lobotomies.]] The first lobotomies were lengthy, costly operations that were as precise as possible for the 1930s. Then Walter Freeman found the ice-picks in his freezer, remembered the bone behind our eyes is quite thin, hammered a couple into someone's head and jiggled them about a bit to get pretty much the same effect. The goal of these operations was to get people out of mental institutions - not necessarily well, just well ''enough''...at first. As lobotomies first became popular then were progressively considered barbaric operations, Walter Freeman felt the pressure to prove they were indeed a medical breakthrough. An operation once reserved for an absolute last resort in the treatment of severe mental illness was eventually performed on unruly children. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Dully Meet one.]] The history of lobotomies fuels more nightmares than the thought of the actual operation, since it's a prime example of how humanity sucks in many, many areas and how few of those we keep an eye on to this day. Freeman used to perform lobotomies with a showman's attitude, sometimes shoving in two ice picks at once. He even accidentally killed a man by briefly leaving the ice picks in while he went looking for a camera. The inventor ''won the Nobel Prize for Medicine''.
** Poor Rosemary Kennedy had the misfortune of being the "slow one" in a family full of ambitious, gifted children (experts think she had an IQ of around 90). The pressure of trying to measure up to her more sophisticated siblings caused her to act out and ultimately her parents ended up having a doctor perform brain surgery on her at the age of 23 to curb her mood swings. He succeeded...in reducing her mind to that of a literal infant, a state she remained in until she died at the age of 86. One wonders if the Kennedy family would have been a lot happier if Papa Joe hadn't been so hellbent on creating his own dynasty.
---> ''We went through the top of the head, I think she was awake. She had a mild tranquilizer. I made a surgical incision in the brain through the skull. It was near the front. It was on both sides. "We just made a small incision, no more than an inch." The instrument Dr. Watts used looked like a butter knife. He swung it up and down to cut brain tissue. "We put an instrument inside," he said. As Dr. Watts cut, Dr. Freeman put questions to Rosemary. For example, he asked her to recite the Lord's Prayer or sing "God Bless America" or count backwards. ... "We made an estimate on how far to cut based on how she responded." ... When she began to become incoherent, they stopped.''
** One of the things that make it really frightening is how the media whitewash lobotomies to a state of numb mindlessness. If only. Imagine being able to remember caring, feeling, thinking as you do now, and then that just... stops, but the rest of you knows it and keeps on going.
** In fact, most of what passed for cutting-edge psychiatric treatment until very recently is more than a little terrifying. Someone behaving badly? Brain surgery time! Lobotomies are one of the best examples, but the entire medical profession prior to the last fifty years or so is pretty creepy. As for the pharmacological industry before the FDA - just don't go there.
* Dentists. Or anything tooth-related. due to the immense amount of nerves and pain-related receptors.
* Oral surgery in general (wisdom teeth, root canals) is horrifying. Even perfectly normal, ostensibly non-horrifying procedures can be incredibly painful, like tooth removal and getting braces. The feeling of a dentist grabbing your tooth and jerking it back and forth until it comes out is incredibly creepy even when you've had a lot of anaesthetic and can't feel any pain. The mouth is also one of the worst-feeling areas when subjected to local anaesthetic, for some reason. Just recovering from something and having to put up with a big numb rubbery mouth, and the drooling you end up subconsciously doing sometimes.
* The two books published about [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_farm the Body Farm]]. Mixed in with the fascinating descriptions and applications of forensic science is a high dose of {{Body Horror}} as you learn in excruciating detail exactly what happens to a human body after death. But the worst parts by far are all the descriptions the horrible ways real people have died in certain cases. (No photos are included; you won't need them.) Especially the explosion at the illegal fireworks operation. ''Her brain fell out''...
** StephenFry was "lucky" enough to be granted access to it during his documentary on the US. As a special bonus he claims ''to have never seen a dead body before'' and his tour guide admits she has gotten into the habit of [[{{Bones}} figuring out what people's skulls look like]] under their skin.
* Anesthesia awareness. You wake up during surgery, but you can't communicate. Happens to 20,000 people a year.
* Faces Of Meth - what methamphetamine abuse and its consequences (hallucinations, poverty, poor nutrition, poisoning from the chemicals in the drug) do to people's appearance over time.
* Tapeworms. The bad part about pork tape worms isn't the aspect of living in your small intestine stealing your nutrients... but actually the fact that if you eat their eggs instead of their immature form they can circulate throughout your body and implant themselves on whatever random tissue they land on. Unfortunately they often decide to land on brain tissue and can cause permanent brain damage.
** ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea_worms Guinea worms]].'' Parasitic disease in general.
* Abortion. Pro-life, pro-choice, doesn't matter, the basic concept is still ''sucking the baby/mass of cells/what have you out of the uterus with a giant vacuum.''
* What would happen to you if you were exposed into the vacuum of space without space gear. You will wish that one and a half minute of remaining life were much, much shorter. In the absence of atmospheric pressure, water will spontaneously convert into vapor, which would cause the moisture in a victim's mouth and eyes to quickly boil away. The same effect would cause water in the muscles and soft tissues of the body to evaporate, prompting some parts of the body to swell to twice their usual size after a few moments. In the absence of air pressure the gas exchange of the lungs works in reverse, dumping oxygen out of the blood and accelerating the oxygen-starved state known as hypoxia. After about ten seconds a victim will experience loss of vision and impaired judgment, and the cooling effect of evaporation will lower the temperature in the victim's mouth and nose to near-freezing. Unconsciousness and convulsions would follow several seconds later, and a blue discoloration of the skin called cyanosis would become evident. At this point the victim would be floating in a blue, bloated, unresponsive stupor, but their brain would remain undamaged and their heart would continue to beat. Without intervention in those first ninety seconds, the blood pressure would fall sufficiently that the blood itself would begin to boil, and the heart would stop beating. As a side bonus, with no bacteria present, your frozen, non-decomposing body will drift off into space for millions or perhaps billions of years if left untouched.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_decapitation Internal decapitation]]. It's [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin pretty much what its name would imply]], and it's ''the very definition'' of this trope.
* There's this video floating around on the Internet, a public service announcement made by a Middle Eastern country where two men jump off a bridge into water. The bridge isn't too high (about 20-30 feet). One of the men makes it. The other? He slips at the last second only to have his face smash against the corner of a concrete pier at the bottom. The later show him in the emergency room, [[spoiler: with his face split open and still alive]].
* Elevator FailsafeFailure. Example: that Japanese guy who got his head ripped off by a elevator with faulty sensors. And the other passenger was trapped in the car with the severed head for an hour. Or in Italy, June 2009: during a heavy rainstorm, an old woman rode her elevator down to her cellar. Too bad the cellar was flooded. The elevator stopped when it touched the water, then the flood got worse, and worse, and worse...she drowned in there. In Brazil, all elevators have warnings "before entering through the elevator doors, please check that the elevator car is on the current floor",
* Ectopic pregnancy. The fertilized egg doesn't make it to the uterus and starts growing "inside" the fallopian tube. The [[http://www.bodiestheexhibition.com/ Bodies Exhibition]] had the plasticized, dissected reproductive organs of a woman who had died from an ectopic pregnancy, complete with a little walnut-sized fetus thing still in the fallopian tube. In a rare few cases of ectopic pregnancy, the zygote will actually ''fall out'' of the fallopian tube and attach itself to a random spot in the abdominal cavity... usually an organ. Said organ will proceed to suffer severe damage as the placenta grows -- and the placenta is much more likely to grow to a larger size than it would in a normal ectopic pregnancy, thanks to not being stuck inside a non-elastic tube. Some of these pregnancies have actually lasted to full term. Incidentally, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cord_%26_Placenta.jpg this]] is what a placenta looks like at nine months. Sweet dreams, ladies.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_cutting Female genital mutilation]], or FGM.
** Genital mutilation in general
* ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stick_shaker The eerie sound of the stick shaker can be heard in the black box recording on the doomed ice-covered Air Florida flight 90 that stalled and crashed into the Potomac river near Washington DC in 1982.]]''[[http://www.airdisaster.com/download2/af90.shtml that recording]]. Oh, and [[ItGotWorse if that's not bad enough]], one can actually hear the plane's explosive impact, too.
** This still pales in comparison to [[http://www.airdisaster.com/download2/jal123.shtml the JAL-123 recording]]. The constant beeping, the desperate shouts of the crew, the ground proximity warning system ("Pull up!... Pull up!... Pull up!"), the sound of two impacts... it's 55 seconds of pure despair. "We're going down, Larry(?)"..."I KNOW!", preceding the BOOM, is more jarring than the sound of the stick shaker.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_585 United Airlines Flight 585]]. Suddenly and without warning, the aircraft rolled to the right and began to pitch downward, nose first. Nine seconds later, they crashed into Widefield Park at 4g. There were no survivors. And it all happened in nine seconds. The cockpit transcript from those nine seconds can be found in the [[http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/2001/AAR0101.pdf aircraft accident report]], on pages 177-178, and it is chilling. [[YourMileageMayVary Your mileage may vary]] as to whether it's more or less chilling to read the normal conversations that make up most of the transcript, knowing what's going to happen at the end. The worst part is, this happened while the plane was on its ''final approach to the runway''. Just a minute or two longer and they would've been fine. Imagine you're the captain or co-pilot, on a normal domestic flight from Denver to Colorado Springs. You're on your final approach to the runway. Imagine the mounting anticipation and sense of relief you would feel, knowing you'll be on the ground again in a few short minutes. Maybe you'll grab a coffee. Then you can check into a hotel and finally relax. And then suddenly you're hurtling towards the ground with nine seconds to live. Nine seconds of pure terror, of screaming and swearing as you try desperately to regain control.
** A similar thing happened to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USAir_Flight_427 USAir Flight 427]] three-and-a-half years later. Once again, no survivors. Except that this time, there were 132 onboard instead of 25, and the uncontrolled descent lasted ''twenty-eight seconds''.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUhGVpP8hCwThe 911 call from the Twin Towers]] ''as they collapsed.'' Being trapped on a top floor and slowly suffocating while calling 911 and basically being told '''they can't do anything''' to save you. Not to mention having the tower go down while you're inside it. Not to mention how the person on the other end must have felt, having to listen to those men beg for help and '''listen to them die.''' The entire thing is beyond horrifying.
* Amniocentesis. A long needle is inserted into a pregnant woman's belly, through the wall of her uterus to draw out a sample of amniotic fluid. (This can be dangerous to the fetus if it is stuck by the needle accidentally; may lead to miscarriage.) The idea is to get fetal cells to test for genetic diseases and disorders. (Thus usually done for older moms, or moms who have a high-risk of problems. An alternative exists, but it isn't much better (it can still cause miscarriage, and it's still scary), where a tube is inserted through the vagina and cervix and a small chunk of placenta is taken.
* Pelvic exams and the horrifying TurnedUpToEleven pelvic exam known as a colposcopy. (Usually done in cases where the woman has had two consecutive abnormal Pap smears, or when she's been raped (and they have reason to believe she sustained more serious internal injuries during the attack). That one may involve biopsies and weird tests involving iodine. Kind of like a vaginal alien probe, but not by aliens.
* ECRP. Hoo boy. This is ''really'' simplifying here, but if some or all of the 4 bile ducts in the liver are blocked, they go in and ''drill through'' the blocked ducts to unblock them in an attempt to salvage liver function. It's very painful, and they can't put the patient out completely because his/her cooperation is needed. It can cause internal bleeding, infection, and pancreatitis as well. (Which is why it's no longer done as a diagnostic procedure as it formerly was; it's too dangerous for that. It's only used for therapeutic purposes.)
* Pancreatitis itself. Imagine the worst pain you can ever imagine traveling through the upper abdomen and shooting its way to the back. Imagine living life feeling extremely nauseated and dehydrated all at once, so that one has to live by an extremely restricted diet AND try to get as much water as necessary without throwing up the water one has consumed. Now imagine trying to live as normal a life as one can with such a disorder ravaging one's body, including going so far as to be permanently fed via IV if that's what it takes to keep the "writhing on the floor of your bathroom or bedroom while curled up in a ball"-level pain away.
* The end results of a human gas turbine ingestion accident. It pretty much defines the ChunkySalsaRule. For those who have more intestinal fortitude, read on. [[spoiler: Imagine, if you will, the inner nacelle of an aircraft engine, and massive fan within. Now spread a chunky paste of redness about eight inches around the front and back of the fan, glued to the nacelle. Scatter some bits and pieces up to a hundred feet behind the engine for added effect. Now realise that that chunky red mess was a ''person''.]]
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectal_prolapse Rectal prolapse.]] This is also featured from ChuckPalahniuk's creepypasta ''Guts''. Cracked's description really takes the cake(spoiler'd because it ''will'' keep you up at night): [[spoiler: It is a weakening of the ligaments that hold your intestines together, and in the worst case scenario, your intestine comes loose and hangs out your anus.]] Possibly the worst thing is that you don't have to do anything particularly dangerous or extreme to have this happen. All you have to do is what many people consider to be normal procedure in this situation.
* Günther Wallraff describes in his book ''Ganz Unten'' ("Lowest of the Low") a horrific case in a West German steel mill where a Turkish immigrant steelworker had stumbled at work in a steel mill and fallen in a blast furnace. His body had been incinerated completely - the kinsfolks were presented a symbolical piece of metal containing
* Historical torture:
** Crucifixion. They tied or nailed your hands and feet that way so that you had to stand up to able to breathe. Once you lost the energy to stand, you would collapse, at which point you couldn't breathe and had to pull yourself up to breathe again and collapse then you'd collapse again and again and again ... a proper crucifixion could take three days to kill someone.
** A medieval French favorite is quartering. Tie four horses to each limb of the victim's body, then whip the horses. For an added bonus, the torturers would give the victim a last drink so they could watch the liquid pour out of their exposed entrails. Not to be confused with the even more horrifying English punishment known as drawing and quartering, where the condemned is dragged across the filthy, bumpy, trash-strewn roads to the place of execution by a horse, he is hanged but cut down while still alive, his "privy member" [[GroinAttack is cut off]], his belly is slit open and he is forced to watch as they pull out his intestines and burn them in front of his face, and then they hack off his head, cut his body into four quarters, and distribute them among various places where he performed treasonous or seditious acts.
** Scalping. Which, by the way, was not done by Native American tribes but ''to'' them by US soldiers.
** One Native American tribe favored burying a man up to his neck, covering his head with honey, and waiting for the ants to come.
** A basic one but still painful: [[BurnTheWitch burning at the stake]].
** "Carving the blood eagle," a particularly {{squick}}tastic Viking method of killing which consisted of cutting and breaking the victim's ribs so they resembled bird wings, pulling out the lungs, and then salting the wounds that were left behind to make death ''even more painful than it already was.''
** Edward II was thought to be gay, and this was back in the 1300s when homosexuality was a sin. A group of nobles killed him by anally raping him with a hot iron rod.
* Then there are the more humane ways forms of execution... except when they go wrong.
** Beheaded with a an axe that isn't sharp. Sometimes it took as many as fifty blows.
** Just ask Catherine Howard.
** Same with a dull guillotine. Imagine hearing the sound of it falling, feeling the pain, and then hearing "[[ItGotWorse Pull it back up and try again]]."
** Lethal injection every so often goes wrong, and you are quite aware of the pain but you can't scream or move.
** To help with the electric chair, they would put a sponge on the victim's forehead. The sponge is meant to be placed under the electrode cap to help conduct the current and ensure a quick death in the chair. StephenKing's ''TheGreenMile'' has a particularly horrific and nasty scene that was based on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_chair#First_executions the very first execution by electric chair]], where said sponge wasn't used.
** Hanging, if done wrong, does not snap your neck -- you suffocate. You have to drop the victim at least fifteen feet or so for a quick death. This is particularly common with people attempting to commit suicide. There's also the exact opposite problem. The mathematics for performing a proper long drop is fairly simple, but occasionally back in the day they would mess up. If the rope is too long, the person will be decapitated [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KetchumDecapitated.jpg like this fellow by the name of Tom Ketchum]]. They forgot to recalculate his weight after he gained weight while in prison. After the botched hanging of Eva Dugan, Arizona switched to the "more humane" method of execution by gas chamber.
* From an old radio announcement: ''"This is the sound of a train hitting a person: ...chugga-chugga, chugga-chugga, chugga-CHUGGA, CHUGGA-CHUGGA, CHUGGA-CHUGGA, CHUGGA-CHUGGA, CHUGGA-chugga, chugga-chugga, chugga-chugga..."''
* JohnFKennedy's assassination. It was the same as any other headshot, really, but it happened in BROAD DAYLIGHT in front of many, many people, ''children'' included. And don't even get us started on the ''autopsy''...
* A test pilot who bailed out of a plane at supersonic speed in the '50s; his entire body inflated to ''twice its size'', his eyeballs swelled to the size of Major League baseballs, and ''six feet of his lower intestine protruded out''-yet he somehow survived.
* The [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Yfd_7jrnMk gruesome]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM6v-43-1PU effects]] of the Russian heroin substitute 'Krokodil' called so because the users skin and flesh turns green and becomes horribly gangrenous, before it rots off revealing fresh bone without any blood. It is made from codeine extracted from codeine medication and mixed with cleaning solvents, which is why the average lifespan of the user is less than a year. How someone could not take themselves to hospital the moment they started feeling decomposition in their limbs is amazing, but [[BodyHorror how any human could even survive that level of injury without succumbing to sepsis or shock is incredible.]]
* [[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001355 Hypokalemic Periodic Paralysis Disorder]]. It doesn't sound too bad, but YOU try waking up one morning not being able to move your arms or legs without feeling like you're tearing the muscles from the bone or not having the ability to grip anything (thus leading to an inability to button your own pants) because your blood potassium levels have dropped. Even more horrifying is that while the condition is genetic, the effects are activated by something as simple as eating too much pizza the night before.
* Hydrofluoric acid accidents. Even chemistry geeks are deathly scared of that stuff, as it not only eats through pretty much anything (including glass), but causes severe tissue necrosis. It also etches bones, and slows or stops the victim's heart through rapid loss of blood calcium. Direct skin contact with even a small amount is usually fatal. And it doesn't react well with flesh, so you don't have any obvious acid burns to tip you off that you got some on you. Just an unpleasant itching or tingling.
* Let's talk about a few suicide methods that aren't as painless or reliable as most people think.
** Overdosing on medication. As simple as going to sleep? Haha, yeah right. More like hours of projectile vomiting once your stomach starts to reject the medication, and a host of other horrifying symptoms (which ones you experience depends on the medication you took) including but not limited to: Loud ringing in the ears (very common, and much more distressing than you might think), temporary deafness, temporary blindness, seizures, intense burning or itching of the skin, severe stomach pain, GI bleeding, hallucinations, paranoia, panic attacks, loss of muscle control, loss of bowel and bladder control, hyperventilating, fast or slow heartbeat (both of which you can feel), difficulty breathing, coma and, of course, death (rarely). At the hospital, you'll be forced to drink liquid charcoal, a nasty concoction that tastes like you're drinking mud (complete with gritty bits -- ever ate a sandwich at the beach, and accidentally got sand in it?), and usually makes you vomit even more. [=ODing=] is rarely fatal, but can cause permanent damage to the organs and brain. You might also have your stomach pumped, depending on what you took and how much, or how long ago.
** Tylenol, a common method of OD, is particularly nasty. The person feels icky for a few hours after taking it, but shows no major symptoms at first. The person may start to feel better later in the day, believing that they're going to be okay and failing to seek medical treatment. Big, BIG mistake. 24 to 48 hours later, liver failure begins to set in. The nausea returns, cranked UpToEleven, as well as INTENSE pain. No, really, the pain is utterly horrible, as in you feel as though your liver is expanding due to being stuffed full of shards of glass. Ever had gall stones? If so, it's like that, but even worse. Your skin turns yellow, and toxins build up throughout your body, which brings about all kinds of painful symptoms. If you wind up needing a liver transplant, you might be rejected by the donor committee due to being suicidal.
** Aspirin, another common one, makes you very nauseated; causes very, very loud ringing in the ears, and makes them feel as if they're stuffed with cotton; feeling disconnected with reality, which is disturbing; in extreme cases, bleeding in the GI tract due to ''eating away at the inside of the stomach''; seizures; a very fast heart beat; hyperventilating, as your body attempts to expel excess carbon dioxide in the blood; low blood sugar; potential edema (swelling) in the brain; and a host of other symptoms.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSRI SSRIs]] are near impossible to OD on. Fatally, that is. Instead what happens is that your brain goes nuts from the overdose of serotonin, which is not as pleasant as it sounds. Some of the symptoms include profuse vomiting, diarrhea, hallucinations, rapid heartbeat, shivering, sweating, tremors, and coma. In short, you probably won't die, but you'll feel like you are--and probably wish you had for a few days.
** Gunshot to the head. Even pointblank, to the forehead, temple or [[AteHisGun in the mouth]], [[TisOnlyABulletInTheBrain these are survivable]]. Sure, brain-damage is likely, but that doesn't automatically kill a person. A large number of people who attempt suicide via gun accidentally blow off part of their face, but manage to live. One may end up drowning in their own blood because they've destroyed their nasal cavity -- hardly an easy death. Since the body is almost guaranteed to flinch by reflex in response to the gun going off, there's a very good chance that one will miss the brain entirely. Or they might hit it, but only in an area that affects higher reasoning, leaving them alive, but paralyzed, mentally challenged, or both. Yes, yes, ''[[RealityIsUnrealistic you don't even need the seat of your soul and personality to live.]]'' See also one of the most famous cases of surviving this kind of brain trauma, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage Phineas Gage]]. If you use a certain kind of gun/ammo with bullets that aren't strong enough to penetrate the skull, you can have the bullet hit the back of your skull and bounce off, ricocheting around your brain and slicing it up. Likewise, gunshots to other parts of the body often miss the organ being aimed for, leaving the person to bleed to death or disabled. Those who aim for the heart may miss and hit the lungs instead, for instance. This effectively causes a person to drown in their own blood.
** Cutting the wrists. Definitely not as easy as sliding a knife across your arm. To even be effective, a person has to hack their way down through tendons and muscle to reach the artery, which takes time. NOT painless, NOT quick and scary as hell. Even if one successfully cuts open the artery and does all the things people do to prevent clotting, they're probably not going to die (even if they're not found by anyone after they pass out). It will, however, leave an enormous scar down the arm, as well as permanent nerve damage and less flexibility in the skin, leading to a constant feeling of 'tightness' in the arm.
** Hanging. This can certainly kill a person, but not always painlessly. Suicide victims rarely succeed in breaking their own neck, which would cause an instant death. Instead, they hang there, slowly asphyxiating. The pain is excessive (imagine your entire body being held up by a noose around your neck), not to mention the sheer panic one experiences -- survival instinct kicks in automatically, even if the person really does want to kill their self, as they hang there and die. Plus, if they're rescued before they die, brain damage is a very likely possibility. Oh, the corpse of a hanging victim is not very nice to look at, what with the bloated face, the tongue sticking out, the burst capillaries in the eyes and the blood pooling in their legs and forearms.
** Drowning. Panicking under water is not a fun way to die, and inhaling water is painful.
** To sum it all up:
---> ''Razors pain you;
---> Rivers are damp;
---> Acids stain you;
---> And drugs cause cramp.
---> Guns aren't lawful;
---> Nooses give;
---> Gas smells awful;
---> You might as well live.''
----> -- Dorothy Parker
* A recent psychological study indicates that the idea that deals the worst response (from a handful given to test subjects) is [[spoiler: Pointy objects being pushed through the smallest holes in the body, namely the [[FreudWasRight nipples]]]] Try to think about that and NOT get chills.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlequin_fetus Harlequin fetuses]]. Just...''ick''.
* Seeing your own bones or blood after an injury.
* [[http://sometimes-interesting.com/2011/06/29/over-200-dead-bodies-on-mount-everest/ There are over 200 dead bodies littering Mt. Everest.]] Above a certain point, it is unsafe to bring them down, so they are pretty much left to waste away.
* The physical effects of bulimic and anorexic behavior.
[[/folder]]
----
[[folder: RLNF Animals]]
[[quoteright:345:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/angler_fish.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:345:Hey kids, remember that [[NightmareFuel scary part]] in FindingNemo? Well, fish like that are really out there. And this one ain't the worst of it...]]
->[[http://www.cracked.com/funny-5588-hybrid-animals/ "Apparently, Nature evolved humans so that she would have something to scream at all of her other creations."]]\\
-- ''{{Cracked}}''
-> "DAMN, NATURE! YOU SCARY!"
-->--''{{Family Guy}}''
Some animals just make anything better. Others, [[NightmareFuel make anything scary]].
TV tropes would like to remind you that the animals listed are just that: animals, not horrible monsters that should be [[KillItWithFire killed with fire]]. They are also not really after your blood. Except for the blood sucking ones.
Note to All Tropers: Enough with the side conversations on this page, take it to the discussion boards. And make sure your entry isn't already here before you add: there's already a lot of bugs, for instance.
See also EverythingsWorseWithBears. [[EverythingsWorseWithBees And bees]]. [[EverythingsEvenWorseWithSharks And sharks]].
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[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder: Extinct]]
* TwoWords: ''[[TyrannosaurusRex Tyrannosaurus rex'']]. To put it bluntly, we're talking about an animal that was 36-42 feet long, 11 feet tall, weighed 6 tons, and had razor-sharp serrated teeth that could grow to the size of a banana. Oh, and it gets even better. The jaws of a T-rex were strong enough to crush bone and are considered one of the strongest sets of jaws known to ever exist in the animal kingdom (Only the prehistoric fish, Dunkleosteus, had a stronger bite). Be thankful it's extinct.
** ''T. Rex'' definitely was a badass. But it was hardly alone in being NightmareFuel. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Largesttheropods.svg See this chart?]] Yeah, I'm glad those thing's aren't around anymore.
** [[ItGotWorse It gets worse.]] There's now evidence that suggests that T.rex could run fast. So, now you got a 42 ft long, 6 ton predator that may have been able to run up to 20 mph and had bone-crushing jaws.
** [[RuleOfThree It gets even worse.]] There's evidence that Tyrannosaurus Rexes ''hunted in packs''. [[ZergRush Sending the faster juveniles up ahead]] to herd the prey into the jaws of the adults.
*** [[JurassicPark Mustgofastermustgofastermustgofaster...]]
** [[OverlyLongGag It gets worse.]] Paleontologists think they could grow even ''larger'' than 42 feet. There could be [[BeyondTheImpossible a 50 foot specimen buried out there, or even a 60 foot!]]
* ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalania Everyone, meet Megalania]]'', the gigantic prehistoric cousin of the Komodo Dragon. Again, be thankful its extinct
** There have been reports of a komodo dragon like lizard in the Indonesian islands, but 2 or 3 times it's size. It's now a cryptozoological animal.
* There once lived a prehistoric crocodile known as ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinosuchus Deinosuchus]]'' (the name itself means "terrible crocodile") that was estimated to have been 30 to 50 feet long and weighed up to nine tons, with a bite force [[UpToEleven even greater than T. rex]], which ate ''dinosaurs''. Have fun swimming, kids.
** Similarly: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcosuchus Sarcosuchus]], [[FanNickname a.k.a.]] "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Supercroc]]." This time, you can't even take solace in the off-chance the size might be overestimated, because some very complete skeletons have been found.
* What about ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkleosteus Dunkleosteus]]''? This big fish had a bite force of over 8,000 pounds per inch (greater than TyrannosaurusRex!) on the tip of its teeth[[hottip:*:Technically, they're extensions of the jaws, not teeth.]]. The worst part? Its hunting tactic was to open its mouth so quickly as to suck in prey moving in due to the pressure change - so you would be sucked into a gape that could chop pretty much anything in half and you wouldn't be able to escape.
** It doesn't help that it looks roughly like a [[StarWars Rancor]] crossed with a gigantic piranha.
* Marsupial lions. Ice Age Australia's answer to the Sabre-tooth cats. The biggest, Thylacoleo, was about the size of a large cougar, and could disembowel prey with its claws, and deigned to rip off limbs in favour of [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/07/sci_nat_enl_1169658723/html/1.stm snipping them off with its teeth]]. It also apparently dropped from trees onto its prey. Even scarier, it ''may still exist.''
** So wait, drop bears actually existed?
** At least they look somewhat cute and cuddly, being cats, still. They aren't as lethal, but having a coconut crab do a paradrop on your head is pretty freakish. Especially if it whacks you with said coconut before hand.
*** They're not cats. A better comparison would be giant killer wombats (or maybe even ''[[KillerRabbit koalas]]'') with sickle clawed thumbs. Yes, that's right, marsupial lions come from the "herbivore" side of the marsupial family tree.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastric-brooding_frog Gastric-brooding Frogs.]] ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. [[{{Squick}} Ew]].
** They've been gone for a while, actually... we drove them to extinction back in the eighties. At least all you easily-disgusted folks can rejoice now.
*** Except the Pharmaceutical Industry, who, realising that young frog's ability to suppress the digestive fluids of its parent could've yielded potentially life-saving drugs, are not exactly rejoicing. They're offering big bucks to anyone who can capture a live one, which it doesn't look like is gonna happen.
*** Unless of course, zombie frogs.
* Mosasaurs. Enormous, carnivorous, aquatic lizards that hunt in packs. Fortunately, they're extinct now, but they were seriously scary.
** It doesn't help that one mosasaur fossil was found with the remains of [[BigEater a shark, a seabird, a bony fish and another mosasaur the size of an alligator]] in its stomach area.
* ''{{Megalodon}}''. Prehistoric shark with a mouth a grown man could stand up in. Extrapolating from its fossilized jaws, paleontologists have estimated it to be around 50 to 60 feet long. A creature that big would probably eat ''adult whales''. And if that wasn't scary enough, if it was anything like its smaller modern cousin, the Great White Shark, it could ''breach like a whale''. Imagine, if you will, a shark the size of a Greyhound bus taking to the air with a whale in its mouth. Sweet dreams....
** [[{{Jaws}} We're gonna need a bigger boat.]]
** It's called a polaris breach, for those interested. Great whites aren't the only creature in the sea to do it, but are certainly the most deadly. The last run of Shark Week on the DiscoveryChannel showcased what seal nightmares are made of.
** Of course, the proper NightmareRetardant for that would be the [[SoBadItsGood not-so-classic]] JohnBarrowman flick ''Shark Attack 3: Megalodon''. Then you will never be able to hear that creature's name without giggling.
** Speaking of sharks breaching the surface [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skYRZ_-RXtk&feature=related]]
** One of the nature channels has recently been airing trailers suggesting that ''Megalodon'' might actually still be out there. Think about ''that'' for a while.
*** The book "Meg" by Steve Alten is about exactly that. But, in that it escapes and proceeds to rape the oceanic world. With its teeth.
** How big were these? They made the fearsome Great White Shark look tiny. They made the [[GentleGiant not-so-fearsome]] (but massive) ''Whale Shark'' look tiny.
*** Here's a [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Megalodon_scale1.png chart]] for comparison. The green one is a great white. The red one is ''conservative'' estimate for a megalodon.
** You know how museums have that tendency to put animal jaws on the floor and basically go, "Hey, guys, look how easily this thing could eat you?" Well, this one had freaking ''Megalodon'' jaws. Looking into a pair of jaws that are about half your size again is...disconcerting to say the least.
*** Think about it that way: A great white will have a bony meal out of you. For that thing? ''You're a pretzel.'
** Speaking of large sea animals, scientists have recently found the skull of a large whale similar to the sperm whale about sixty feet long with tusk-like teeth about fourteen inches long. They were thought to have eaten other whales and the fangs would've ripped out huge chunks of the unfortunate victims. Their given name? ''[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Leviathan]] [[Literature/MobyDick melvillei]]''.
*** It also lived alongside ''Megalodon''. Two giant ocean predators with mouths bristling with teeth, one a lone ambush assassin and the other a pack-hunting determinater. And evidence shows ''Megalodon'' and ''Leviathan'' preyed on each other.
** Speaking of EverythingsEvenWorseWithSharks, meet ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicoprion Helicoprion]]'' and ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edestus Edestus]]''. Those ''jaws''...
* Dromaeosaurs (better known as "Raptors" to your average person...Ya know, like ''Velociraptor'', ''Utahraptor'', ''Deinonychus'', etc.) are quite terrifying when one thinks about it. Sure, a good number of species are small, but they also have razor-sharp claws and teeth, a pair of huge scythe-like talons on their hind feet, and its been theorized that several species were highly intelligent social predators.
** Try most. At the very least ''Deinonychus'', the bugger who inspired the monstrous raptors of Jurassic Park, hunted in packs. And while many people consider dinosaurs to be less bad ass with feathers, well, there is a little something called Wing-Assisted-Incline-Flight or something. Quails use it. It allows them to run up straight inclines. Ladies and gentlemen, we have [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot Spider-Raptor]].
*** There isn't any conclusive evidence of them ''hunting'' in groups ''per se''. A group of "raptors" scavenging or mobbing (as opposed to the coordinated group hunting we see in canids) is [[ScienceMarchesOn just as if not more likely]]. But when it comes down to being ripped apart by a dozen [[FeatheredFiend feathered fiends]] the unfortunate prey item probably doesn't care about the difference.
*** Speaking of extinct, feathery deathbringers, let me introduce you to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phorusrhacidae the Terror Birds]]. Basically like a [[FinalFantasy Chocobo]] except they actually existed. And could probably rip apart anything they damn well wanted to, including ''horses''.
**** Jesus, that thing looks like a devil dodo (doesn't seem to be any direct relation, though). And one subfamily is named ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanis Titanis]]'', because of how big it was.
*** Here's a flying menace for you. Meet the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wm7FqZVirI=text Haast's Eagle]]. This raptor was large and powerful enough to take down moas with ease. And it existed when humans started settling in New Zealand. It was a bird DESIGNED TO KILL PEOPLE.
*** [[ItGotWorse It gets worse. Much worse.]] Recent studies suggest that ''Sinornithosaurus millenii'', a small dromaeosaur that lived in Asia, was venomous. That's right, not only were "Raptors" intelligent, fast, and had razor-sharp claws...but now they're poisonous. OhCrap...
**** It's said that the evidence is weak on that one, so you don't ''really'' have to worry about venomous "raptors". Yet. And, fortunately they weren't as intelligent as [[JurassicPark some movies]] show; they couldn't have held a candle in the intelligence department to nearly all modern birds. Also, there were in fact many, many other dinosaurs (including the comparatively much larger ''[[TyrannosaurusRex Tyrannosaurus rex]]'') that were ''better'' adapted for running than the dromaeosaurids. Chances are they could still run faster than ''you'', however. And any cassowary will tell you that you don't have to be the most intelligent birdbrain to be scary... Not to mention, dromaeosaurids may have been good at climbing trees.
**** They may have vomited [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellet_(ornithology) food pellets]] like owls, which is either NightmareRetardant or NauseaFuel.
**** ItGotWorse: Some of them (or at least [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahonavis this one]]) could ''fly''. You ''better'' run.
**** Oh yes, and they got big. Look at [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Utahraptor_scale.png this size chart]] for ''Utahraptor''. The green is a ''conservative'' estimate of its size.
**** Try Megaraptor. Utahraptor has nothing on these things. Go find a ruler. That is the space between the sickle claw's tip and where it connects to the toe.
* Sea Scorpions. Can you imagine an amphibious scorpion the size of a crocodile? I can't without getting the willies.
* Entelodonts. Take a wild boar or a javelina, and give it steroids. A lot of steroids. Enough to make it the size of a bull or rhinoceros. Now, strip off most of its fur, and change its teeth from that of an omnivore into things designed to shear and tear flesh. And take away most of its omnivorous tendencies. Pure carnivore baby. Not to mention that they were the first animals to develop the traditional artiodactyl-style hoof, which made them incredibly fast. Oh yeah, and they ate rhinos on a regular basis.
* Holy shit, ''Andrewsarchus''. [[http://ssjgarfield.deviantart.com/art/Andrewsarchus-62918294 Just....Andrewsarchus]]. It's hard to believe this beast belonged to a family closely related to even-toed artiodactyls (think deer, sheep, and cattle), since its gigantic head alone was over three feet long and it was the largest carnivorous land mammal that walked the Earth. This page from the manga "Eden no Ori" [[http://www.mangafox.com/manga/eden_no_ori/v01/c003/12.html sums up its size quite nicely]].
* ''[[http://www.flickr.com/photos/markwitton/2465048793/in/set-72057594082038974/ Hatzegopteryx]]'' may not look physically terrifying, but once [[FridgeHorror you realise some things]] you would be thankful things like that are extinct. First of all, it was basically like a giant stork in habits, catching prey with the beak. In Hatzegi's case, a beak longer than the jaws of the largest theropod dinosaurs (aka T. rex had a shorter snout). And that pterosaurs was taller than a giraffe. Considering birds like herons can swallow things as proportionally big as rabbits, and since reptilian (including avian) esophagi are very tough (turkeys can swallow blades and not suffer ill effects), Hatzegopteryx could easily grab a person with the jaws, swallow him/her alive and you wouldn't even be able to fight back, only to find your doom at the digestive juices.
* [[http://www.nunoxei.com/images/Tasmanian_tiger.gif The Tasmanian Tiger]], which can distend its jaws far beyond the capabilities of those of any animal other than a snake. I am considering a campaign to Tasmania to make sure that there aren't any more alive, because they could apparently swim...
** Apparently, thanks to advancements in technology, it could be possible to bring the species back. They're attempting this now. You're welcome.
* The Permian Extinction. The worst extinction event in the history of earth. The closest life ever came to ceasing to exist all together. Over 90% of all species on earth vanished. It gets even more disturbing when you hear the details. Of all the dozens groups of reptiles, only a handful survived. Synapsids: aka, “mammal-like reptiles”. The missing link between mammals and reptiles. These creatures basically ruled the earth, very diverse. Both tiny creatures, and mega fauna rivaling the dinosaurs and mammals after them. The only ones who survived where tiny burrowing creatures who eventually became mammals. Anapsids: There used to be 100s of different kinds of armored reptiles roaming around. Only the turtles survived. Archosaurs: The common ancestor of birds, dinosaurs, crocodilians, and pterosaurs. Before the extinction they where tiny scavengers. Afterwards they exploded from lack of completion. Lepidosauria: The Ancestors of lizards and snakes. Sphenodontia: The Ancestors of modern tuataras. Of all the Amphibians that evolved since they first left the ocean, only the Lissamphibia survived. Crocodilians where only able to become crocodilians because the giant Croc-like Amphibians died out. Reptilomorphs aka, “reptile-like amphibians.” The missing link, and the most successful group of amphibians at the time, Where completely wiped out. Trilobites: some of the oldest and most successful ocean life at the time. More successful than fish. Completely wiped out. Insects didn’t make it out okay either. All six-winged insects vanished. Their cousins, the non-insect Hexapods vanished, except the wood lice. Fossil evidence shows that for almost a million years after the extinction, the most common form of life on earth was ''fungus''. The icing on the cake? Unlike the Dinosaurs and the massive impact Crater, scientists have '''''NO CLUE''''' what caused it, or if it could ever happen again. There is not a shread of evidence of anything that could have caused it on earth, leading some to theorize it was a local supernova, but the truth is we have no idea.
** The current most likely theory is that all the landmasses coming together caused widespread "desertification", quite literally turning vast amounts of what was previously rainforest and swampland into arid, nasty environments few creatures could adapt to. The oceans weren't safe, either; with only one landmass, currents settled and the oceans stagnated. Almost every ocean-going creature ''suffocated'' due to lack of oxygen. Other theories include a flood basalt, which is basically a supervolcanic eruption that lasts centuries. There's no word to describe just how insanly nightmarish a flood basalt eruption is. First the name. It causes a litteral flood of basaltic rock over the area it happens. Next how it occurs. Triggered by the massive tectonic stress brought about by a single landmass subducting ocean plates on all sides, a massive chunk of the earth's crust crumbles off and falls into the mantle. This forces the magma upwards to the surface. How big is it? Well the largest volacano on earth today is the size of Hawaii's large island. The Permian flood basalt, the Siberian traps are the size of the continental United States. And the eruption lasted for 100s, if not 1000s of years nonstop. What happens after it's done? Aside from the aformentioned flood of basalt, imagine all that volcanic gas. Now imagine that gas is methane, one of the most potent green house gases that occur on earth. Now imagine not only the sun's heat, but the volcanic heat trapped in the atmosphere at the same time. The allways popular "huge asteroid" is another theory, as is [[ApocalypseWow a local supernova]]. My favorite theory is that the single landmass and single ocean caused the planet to become tidally locked, meaning one side always facing the sun, one side always facing away. The kicker? The numbers don't really add up in any model.
*** [[WildMassGuessing Or it could be]] [[TakeAThirdOption ALL]] [[NoKillLikeOverkill of them]].
*** It was obviously [[MassEffect The Reapers]].
* Of course some of the creatures that the Permian Extinction got rid of where pretty scary.
** Mammal like reptiles? Here's an image for you. Picture a creature with neither fur nor scales, the jaw of a crocodile with the teeth of a saber-cat. Now imagine it's the size of rhino, and has fully upright legs built for running. Ladies and gentlemen, [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Inostrancevia_4DB.jpg meet the Gorgonopsids!]]
** Reptile like amphibians? You're probably thinking "Come on! What's a frog gonna do?" [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prionosuchus this guy ain't no frog!]]
** Of course some of the Archosaurs that replaced them were scary too. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postosuchus meet Postosuchus.]] Best described as a fully upright 15 foot long land crocodile.
* The [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes Titanoboa]]. A snake that grew up to 15 meters in length and, come on, it's called the ''[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Titan]]''oboa! So, it's kind of like taking your average boa constrictor or anaconda, whatever, and drilling it up to eleven. Be thankful it no longer exists.
* During the Carboniferous era, we had ''Meganeura'', a dragonfly the size of an eagle and ''Arthropluera'', a millepede that's 6 feet long. SIX FEET LONG!
* Wow, I'm surprised no one's mentioned ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinosaurus Spinosaurus]]'' yet! Take a crocodile, give it plenty of steroids, give it a six-foot high sail on its back and put it on two legs. Scared yet? Here's something for you. See [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Largesttheropods.svg this chart]]? ''Spinosaurus'' is red. ''TyrannosaurusRex'' is ''the purple one''.
** Luckily, Spinosaurus has it's fair share of NightmareRetardant. Spinosaurus primarily ate fish, so T.rex would probably kill one most of the time, if they were to fight. It wasn't a super predator like it's often portrayed as.
** That said, it is also thought to have taken down medium sized prey as well. So that means it would probably be eating grisly bears if it were still alive. Not to mention this fish it ate could very well have been ''sharks''.
*** it dies if you make it ''[[WeaksauceWeakness roll over]]'' [[EpicFail since of said fin]] being evolution's crowning [[IdiotBall]]
* Of course! How could [[{{Tropers/Spinosegnosaurus77}} I]] forget ''Deinocheirus''? Its eight-foot long arm and hand bones were found in 1970 (the creature's name means "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast terrible hand]]"). Nothing else from the creature has been found yet, and those arms have been a mystery ever since. If it's any help, their owner would have to be ''tyrannosaur-sized at the very least.'' [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Deinocheirus_hands.jpg Have a look]] and make up your own mind about the creature.
* [[http://dinosaurs.wikia.com/wiki/Therizinosaurus Therizinosaurus]]. On the one hand, it was an herbivore and probably wouldn't see you as food. On the other hand...It had 3 ''foot'' long claws on its hands which it used to defend itself agaisnt predators.
* ''Carnotaurus''. The name means "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast meat-eating bull]]". [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Carnotaurus_DB_2.jpg Here's a picture]]. The tiny arms acting as NightmareRetardant for you? Okay, let me fix that; while the bite force of the ''Carnotaurus'' was believed to be less than that of ''Allosarurus'', it's been theorized that they made up for that by beating their upper jaws against their prey like a ''[[PrecisionFStrike fucking]] [[AxCrazy hatchet]]''.
* Large ceratopsians like ''Triceratops'' and ''Styracosaurus''. We usually don't think of them as scary due to being [[HerbivoresAreFriendly herbivores]], however, an adult could gore a tyrannosaur to death with those giant horns, let alone a human. Also, ceratopsians may [[http://www.flickr.com/photos/markwitton/522293984 have been omnivores]], not herbivores.
* ''Stegosaurus''. A dinosaur the size of an elephant with a built-in medieval flail and a brain so small it probably indiscriminately whacked anything that crossed it's path. But as bad as ''Stegosaurus'' was, it has nothing on the pure demonic nightmare fuel that is ''[[http://www.kentrosaurus.org/nova_phot042.jpg Kentrosaurus]]''.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Living]]
* Ladies and gentlemen, [[http://www.wolaver.org/animals/Hatchetfish.jpg the hatchet fish.]]
** This fish makes '''the Exorcist''' look like a puppy.
*** [[TheExorcist Max von Sydow?]]
** I take your hatchet fish and raise it with [[http://iliketowastemytime.com/sites/default/files/viperfish_deadly_deep_predator2.jpg the viper fish]]. '''SWEET JESUS, WHY DOES THAT THING EXIST?!'''
** I see your viper fish (and wish I didn't) and raise you a [[http://www.petsfoto.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Fangtooth-Fish2.jpg fangtooth]]. It's just a mouth with fins.
** [[OverlyLongGag I see all of your fish]] and raise you a [[http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lhpzj1cH5m1qgduswo1_500.jpg snaggletooth]]. It looks like it dines on souls.
* You will never be able to look at a lizard the same way after my bio teacher showed us this.
** Warning: Not for the faint of heart! [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0ThAWmEk7U Monitor]]
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jppNHoksheY Here's another one for good measure]]
** Ugh, you can hear it screaming from within its gullet!
** If anything stotats would better quality [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWIW-MDZa_8 in that department.]]
* This [[http://www.ilovemyjournal.com/media/1/SamUgliestDogLulu_sm.jpg dog]].
** That dog died a few years go. It was blind for quite some time; the joke was that it got its sight back, looked in a mirror and dropped dead of shock.
** To be clear, the dog was voted "Ugliest Dog In The World." Before its death, it was a 15-year-old Chinese hairless crested. Its eyes are white becaus it's blind.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjRSlnJ1rA4 Goblin sharks]] have protrusible jaws. Creepy!
** a bit less terrifying: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdJRb7lVoGc&feature=related
* Earthworms and parasitic tapeworms (and hookworms). I can't even look at them prior to screaming and running away.
** Why are Earthworms scary? Appearances maybe, but they're one of the best creatures out there, helping fertilize soil and such. It even has a digestive system, and respiratory system and circulatory system. It's a pretty humane creature. Tapeworms on the other hand are horrifiying, trying to suck out your nutrients without giving anything back and worst of all, it can [[BodyHorror GROW 8 METERS LONG IN YOUR VERY OWN BODY!! HOLY!!]]
** Ascaris worms (you know, the ones in your intestines that looked like slimy living pasta, and can actually accumulate as a bolus to be an [[EldritchAbomination eldritch perversion]] against the Holy FlyingSpaghettiMonster, and whose eggs are ''fucking microscopic'')
*** It's even worse with the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracunculiasis Guinea Worm]]. Seriously, this worm is really a NightmareFuel, every major health organization vowed to push it to extinction.
**** You see the Guinea worm is native to Africa, the ecosystem that humans evolved in. As such they prey exclusively on humans, and where thus introduced to other places by traveling with (read inside) humans. The reason Africa's such a [[DeathWorld nasty place]] is because it's humanity's natural habitat, and thus creatures evolved there with humans in mind, where as other continents are nicer because we're invasive species in those environments. While this has led to some good things (the honey guide bird evolved symbiotic behavior with humans, it leads us to the beehive, we get the honey, they get the larva), mostly it just amounts to creatures that can kill us. In other words, it's what environmentalists are asking for when they say humans should "live in harmony with nature". Just keep that in mind.
*** The fact that many people don't know that there's a worm living inside them makes them extremely scary. Parasitic worms were voted the #1 Most Extreme Horror in ''TheMostExtreme'' series.
* Three Words: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dermatobia_hominis Human Botfly Larvae]]. Disturbing and literally sickening to see one being removed: true. Now try ''not'' imagining hearing chewing inside your head if you ever discover one embedded in your scalp.
* Yuck, what a thick, puffy tongue this fish has... Wait, it's got ''beady little eyes!'' [[http://www.entomologia.org/bugs_in_the_news/Cymothoa_exigua.jpg picture OHMYGODTHATSNOTATONGUE!]]
*** Sounds like some sicko's LiteralMinded parody of [[LordOfTheRings Grima Wormtongue]].
*** It may or may not help the [[BodyHorror OHGODOHGOD]] factor to note that the isopod doesn't actually make life any more difficult for the fish. Because it sits where the tongue was, the fish can still eat just fine. Still, Jesus ''God'' is it creepy.
** And then there's [[http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7927 this]] little guy... "Let's go swimming. I insist."
** Also, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoids#Insects real-life]] [[{{Aliens}} Xenomorphs]]. Sweet dreams!
** Think about it this way. On the wiki page, it listed fictional parasitic insects, including little old Uroborus and Las Plagas. Imagine what would happen if these guys evolved a little. You have a stomach ache...is it just bad food, or did an enemy dose you with a little...Uroborus.
** Well, you'd certainly know if you started growing tentacles yeck... those Uroboros tentacles are all slimey and deadly (goddamn Wesker)
* Certain species of snake. Also certain members of the spider order such as Tarantula, black widow, and the trapdoor spider.
** Don't worry; be [[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5199409/British-scientists-study-Hawaiian-happy-face-spider.html happy]]!
** What's just as frightening is their venom, and more specifically, what that venom can do to a person. Some kinds, if they don't kill you, [[BodyHorror cause the skin around the bite to rot]], [[AndIMustScream paralyze and slowly suffocate you]] or (depending on the nature of the neurotoxin) cause seizures, make your blood congeal in your veins... So kids, if you see a snake in your yard, ''stay the fuck away from it, and for the love of Christ, DON'T PICK IT UP!''
** Did someone say [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySXCdcnKBgg trapdoor spider?]] (Not safe for arachnophobes)
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikz7x5NRM2c here]] is a video of an island full of snakes. "one snake for every pace you walk". It doesn't help that they are some of the most venemous snakes in the world.
** Back to the subject of snakes, even if you're not scared of them, [[http://www.diamondreptile.com/pricelist.htm#venomous how easy it is to buy and own some of the most venomous ones in the world should be enough to skeeve you out.]]
* Scorpions.
* Back to spiders - some of them are social, weaving common webs of many spiders. How many can they be? Anelosimus Eximius, for instance, bands into colonies of up to 50 000 spiders. I'll let that sink in.
* Think about the things that [[EverythingsBetterWithPenguins penguins]] have to go through when they expect a chick. The mother goes out to find food, leaving the fathers behind to look after the egg and keep it warm, ''or else the egg will crack and the contents will become frozen solid, [[TearJerker killing the baby]].''
** To make matters worse, while the mother penguin looks for food, they are at risk of being eaten by predators such as leopard seals. Sometimes it's not just the mother that gets eaten, but her unborn chick, too! Scared yet?
* Some creatures that live in the ocean. The king of them all is the great white shark with its SlasherSmile and vicious nature. Then there's piranhas that can ''render any living creature- even a cow to a skeleton within seconds'' (Although they can only do this when practically starved to death) They're still fierce scavengers though. Then there's the anglerfish.
** How about the [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1322118/Jeremy-Wades-goliath-tigerfish-British-fisherman-grapples-giant-piranha.html goliath tigerfish]]? Take a piranha and scale it up to 5 feet long.
** Great whites hunt like freaking serial killers, according to some recent studies. This just makes them even more terrifying.
*** Here's something. Recently, off the eastern coast of Australia (where else?), fishermen pulled a 3 metre (10 foot) great white shark onboard their boat. That's a good size, as great whites go, but the shark was dead, so that wasn't a problem. What was a problem was that the shark had been BITTEN CLEAN IN HALF BY SOMETHING TWICE AS LARGE. And this is just near a very popular swimming beach. Just have a think about that for a bit. Who wants to go swimming?
** On the subject of "Some creatures that live in the ocean," witness [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloop this]] article from TheOtherWiki. "The source of the sound remains unknown...it matches the audio profile of a living creature but there is no known animal that could have produced the sound...If the sound did come from an animal, it would reportedly have to be several times the size of the largest known animal on Earth, the Blue Whale." Real-life Cloverfield monster, anyone? Gaaahhhh. [[CaptainBlacksoul I]] am getting creeped out just posting this.
*** Just for reasons of balance, this from the same wiki: "An oft repeated claim is that it matches the audio profile of a living creature though this view is primarily held by cryptozoologists and is not popular among mainstream scientists."
*** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloop#Analysis This is no longer true]]. A current look at the article actually has several cited references to an NOAA marine oceanographer saying that it is likely animal in nature...
*** What gets me is that where the sound was located is very close to where the city of [[CthulhuMythos R'lyeh]] is supposed to be located.
*** The file that's usually played is the sped up one. Just try listening to it [[http://www.bloopwatch.org/bloop_realtime.wav slowed down to realtime]]. (Large File.)
* The things that go on inside you. Also, "Beauty is skin deep" is a horrible lie if you use a microscope.
* The [[OrificeInvasion Candiru]]. According to the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candiru page on them]] in ThatOtherWiki, Candiru hunt other fish by sensing the urea coming from a fish's gills. The opened urethra during urination is big enough for a candiru to get inside. It can be easily avoided by wearing a bathing suit while in the river. Or by not swimming and urinating in Amazon river at the same time.
** What about its relative, the Candiru-Acù? Victims are eaten alive, from the inside out, by up to 100 of the fish. And by 'eaten alive', I mean 'completely hollowed out'.
* Have fun reading the Cracked article of [[http://www.cracked.com/article_15816_5-most-horrifying-bugs-in-world.html The 5 Most Horrifying Bugs in the World]].
** The giant bees attacking the normal bees was pretty much just DemonicSpider vs GoddamnBats.
* Cracked articles, eh? Then we just have to mention [[http://www.cracked.com/article_17579_7-terrifying-giant-versions-disgusting-critters.html 7 Terrifying Giant Versions of Disgusting Critters]].
* Cracked articles just [[http://www.cracked.com/article/125_13-real-animals-lifted-directly-out-your-nightmares.html add 13 creatures to nightmare]]...
* Some wasps are particularly evil. Known as parasitoid wasps, they will find a live caterpillar, temporarily paralyze it, lay eggs inside the body, and allow them to hatch. The larvae will then take control of the caterpillar by devouring unnecessary organs, modifying its glands, and directly manipulating its nervous system. The host is ordered to do nothing but eat and eat until it's ten times the size of a normal caterpillar. After a set amount of time, the larvae mature and then burrow their way out of the still living animal in order to infect new hosts with their own eggs. The caterpillar has been so infected by the wasp's hormones that even as it's dying it's forced to weave the wasps a cocoon and attack any predators who threaten them. If that won't give you cold sweats, nothing will.
*** Yep, parasitic wasps inspired ''Film/{{Alien}}''. Strange but true. Even Darwin was freaked out by them, saying, [[GodIsEvil 'I'm not quite sure I can believe in a benevolent God after studying the life-cycle of this creature.']]
*** [[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/05/photogalleries/in-the-womb-animal-pictures/photo3.html Video!]]
*** The TEETH! Holy shit on a stick, the TEETH! And how did they film on the inside of the poor caterpillar!? UGH!
*** Oh, but it gets better! People all over the world ''breed'' these little bastards on special farms and send them out to specially destroy caterpillars that eat timber. That's right. We're endorsing these parasitic monstrosities and having them take out creatures whose only crime was feeding themselves. [[HumansAreBastards Do I even need to say it?]]
**** I think [[Manga/{{Bleach}} Szayel]] was based with the parasitic wasp in mind.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_cockroach_wasp Meet the Emerald Wasp.]] It doesn't just knock out a cockroach and put an egg on it; it chemically lobotomizes the roach, remote controls it to its nest, rips off its feelers, and then lays an egg on it.
** Yellowjackets: Other wasps only eat insects. Yellowjackets [[ExtremeOmnivore eat everything]]! If you ever got buzzed during a barbecue, it was probably them. And you were probably right to freak out; they have ''the'' HairTriggerTemper of the insect world. Not as bad as Africanized killer bees, but they make up for it by being EVERYWHERE. They are the most common species of wasp in the world. And, possibly, the most intelligent. The freakiest thing? As I mentioned before, they buzz barbecues, because THEY EAT MEAT. They are CARRION EATERS. And unlike ''other'' scavengers, being so small, the lack of meat on our bones compared to other animals does not deter them. I read somewhere that there's a certain cycle of insects that appear when a body is dumped in the wilderness. Guess which ones show up to ''[[ToServeMan consume thy flesh]]''!
* Yep, hornets in Australia too. Helicopter gunships of the insect world, and their reproductive strategy is straight out of ''{{Aliens}}''. Even the most diehard arachnophile would be [[{{Squick}} squicked]] watching a hornet drag a full-size huntsman spider into its burrow. [[NightmareFuel Alive, paralysed and impregnated with hornet eggs.]]
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_giant_hornet Asian Giant Hornet.]] It can outrun you. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L54exo8JTUs&feature=related 30 of these can eradicate an entire hive of 30,000 bees.]] ''It has flesh-dissolving venom''. Quoted from Cracked:
--->"It's the size of your thumb and it can spray flesh-melting poison. We really wish we were making that up for, you know, dramatic effect because goddamn, what a terrible thing a three-inch acid-shooting hornet would be, you know? Oh, hey, did we mention it shoots it into your eyes? Or that the poison also has a pheromone cocktail in it that'll call every hornet in the hive to come over and sting you until you are no longer alive? Think you can outrun it? It can fly 50 miles in a day. It'd be nice to say something reassuring at this point, like "Don't worry, they only live on top of really tall mountains where nobody wants to live," but no, they live all over the goddamned place, including outside Tokyo. Forty people die like that every year, each of them horribly".
*** If you're afraid of the Asian giant hornet, just think about these little guys: I present [[http://homepage3.nifty.com/jhb/english/hyoushi.jpg Apis cerana japonica]], the Japanese honeybee. Almost cute, isn't it? Asian giant hornets can decimate colonies of European honeybees with ease even though they are outnumbered hundreds of times over, but Japanese honeybees have an interesting defense: they swarm over the invading hornets, to the point where the hornet can't even move, and vibrate their flight muscles, which causes the temperature in the center of this dog- er, ''beepile'', to pass 47 degress Celsius. The honeybees can endure this heat, the hornet cannot. They are essentially roasted alive. It's a [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome CMoA]] for the Japanese honeybees, and a NightmareFuel death for the hornets.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepsis_wasp Pepsis Wasp, aka Tarantula Hawk]], so called because ''it eats tarantulas''. Not only that, its sting, while not that hazardous, is so painful, all you can do is lie down and '''''scream'''''.
* The stag beetle is so-named for the large, antler-like mandibles possessed by the males of many species. It [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stag_beetle easily qualifies as nightmare fuel]] for the same reason. Worse, they're big, some around four inches long. They usually don't harm people, though.
** In Japan, they're even collected and kept as pets. If you're not used to insects larger than the size of your thumb, you should stay away. YMMV though.
* An even more horrifying creature with comparatively large jaws is the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antlion antlion]]--if you're an ant, since they're not very big. Adults are relatively unremarkable, dragonfly-like insects, but the young are lethal predators that dig pits in the sand, waiting at bottom of the pit to eat whatever insects fall in with their big jaws. If God wanted to write a horror story and market it towards arthropods, I can think of few better ideas.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solifugae Solifugids, also known as camel spiders, though they aren't spiders.]] Do I even need to explain this? Possibly the most traumatizing, monstrous arachnids ever, which, given what we know about arachnids in general, says a lot.
** Want to know something creepier? While they generally don't attack humans, they use hair as nesting materials, so one of the things they do to sleeping humans is creep up on them and snip off locks of hair like some demented stalker...
* The goddamn Surinam toad. It's an amphibian that embeds its eggs in its back... and eventually, its young ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCayq56wHSA rip themselves fully-formed from their mother's skin]]''. Yeah, it's perfectly natural, but just the ''thought'' of it happening to a human being...
* Komodo Dragons. Though they have both venom and septic saliva, they [[ScienceMarchesOn are not believed to play an important role in predation]] and the idea that they will deliberately envenomate/infect their prey and wait for it to die arose from skepticism from scientists at the turn of the century towards the idea that [[ReptilesAreAbhorrent a mere reptile could dominate an entire ecosystem]]. The truth is a lot less convoluted. The Komodo Dragon is a cunning ambush hunter that takes down prey with good old fashioned brute force; they're basically land-crocodiles. Though Komodo Dragons have jaw muscles weaker than a housecat's, their teeth are razor sharp and their neck muscles are enormously powerful, allowing them to easily dispatch prey with slashing bites that cause the victim to die from blood-loss and shock within seconds. Smaller prey (such as deer and wild boar) are swept off their feet by a blow from the dragon's [[WhipItGood whiplike tail]], and then seized, instantly killed via thrashing, and are often swallowed whole. To contend with larger prey, such as Water Buffalo, the Dragon will bring the animal down by lascerating its achilles tendon so it can't run away, and then disembowel it. The animal is eaten while it's still alive.
** Komodo Dragons have also been known to harass pregnant deer, startling them into aborting their unborn offspring. The Dragon can then help itself to a meal of [[NauseaFuel placenta and tender fetal-meat.]]
* Crocodiles. Damn ''crocodiles''. Nightmarish appearance, fast, invisible in a foot of muddy water. Many varieties consider humans to be prey. They can [[PrimalFear drag you under the water]] in about two second and eat you. They are ''intelligent'' and can learn human routines. They will wait a week to get a bite of you. ''Those eyes!''
** It gets ''even better''. Crocodiles are capable of moving twice their body length in a single second. It's not uncommon to hear tales of someone being taken so quickly that you could double-take and miss it. In fact, one story where a famous American model got eaten was unusual because ''they actually had the chance to see it coming''.
** Don't think it can get any worse? Well, [[ItGotWorse it just did.]] Meet [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_%28crocodile%29 Gustave]], a 22 ft long 2,000 pound Nile Crocodile who is notorious for killing and eating over 300 people.
*** Oh, and did we mention? [[ThisIsSparta He's! Still!]] '''[[ThisIsSparta ALIVE!]]''' That's right, Gustave is still lurking in Africa waiting for his next victim.
*** There's also the fact that his body is ridden with scars from bullet wounds. Three on his side and one ''on his head''. Not only is he a giant killer crocodile, he's an ''unstoppable'' giant killer crocodile.
*** The "most recent" sighting was back in 2008. If that was the most recent, how are we to know he hasn't been spotted since? Has he been killing his witnesses, and no one's noticed?
* The [[http://www.laweekly.com/2008-07-31/news/rathouse-of-the-palisades/ Palisades Rathouse]] might qualify as nightmare fuel. Incidentally it also provides two examples of the CrazyCatLady trope who have obsessed over a different animal...
** [[http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,685045,00.html The Mülheim Cobra house!]] OK, just one cobra, but they literally teared apart the innards of the house, and ''still'' couldn't find the damn snake. Volunteers for one night in there please raise their hands!
* The [[http://www.livt.net/Clt/Ani/Cho/Mam/Ivr/ivr011.jpg solenodon]], a relative of the mole and shrew, [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Hispaniola_solenodon.jpg can be quite creepy]] or [[http://photos-513.ll.facebook.com/photos-ll-sf2p/v193/223/46/693786513/n693786513_654583_4434.jpg unsettling]]. That is, until you see the [[http://jay.kusnetz.net/pics4ext/almiqui.jpg cuban]] [[http://pikaia.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/solenodon_cubanus.jpg variety]]. Should I add that all solenodons have a poisonous bite?
* Sea urchins. Just ... motherfarking ''sea urchins''. They are living, breathing balls of spines which live on the ocean floor. Many of them live close to the shore and it's hard to see underwater, so inevitably some unlucky beachgoers will end up stepping on one. This results in a badly injured foot and a visit to the hospital.
** Hey, just imagine if some wacky mad scientists gave them brains...and a hatred of humanity! TRIBBLES OF DOOOOOOOOOOM. Though honestly death-by-urchin can very easily also extend into ridiculous Narm.
** It gets worse. Because sea urchin spines are made of calcite, they snap easily because of the alignment of the calcite crystals, leaving part of it wedged in your open wound. The best way to deal with it? ''Push the spine right into your body''. The calcite will dissolve in your bloodstream and the wound will heal normally. Have fun, kids.
*** The way this is usually accomplished is by breaking off the parts of the spines that are still outside the skin and crushing the parts that are embedded with something blunt and sturdy (a rock works fine if there's nothing else to hand) to break them up and drive them a bit deeper. It's painful, but not completely horrific. However, the ocean [[CaptainObvious being full of living stuff]] as it is, these kind of injuries do have a tendency to get infected. A good way to counteract that is by sterilizing the injury somehow.
* Jaguars. They're both awesome and freaky because they kill their prey by ''biting through its skull''. Their jaws are powerful enough to crack open a glyptodon's skull. And for those of you who don't know paleontology, glyptodonts are essentially mammalian versions of a panzer tank. Google it and see. Do '''NOT''' tick off kitty!
* Big Cats, fierce predators with strong jaws, razor-sharp claws, huge strength (a tiger could knock you unconcius with one swipe of it's paw), super speed and stealth (if a big cat stalked you in a remote area, you wouldn't see it until it was too late). Some big cats have been known to kill buffaloes, rhinos, hippos, pythons, crocodiles, wolves and even bears. To make things worse, big cat attacks are on the rise.
* Allow me to introduce you to the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldt_Squid Dosidicus gigas]]: the Humboldt squid, growing up to seven feet long and, alone among the invertebrates, ''hunting prey in packs of as many as 1200 individuals''. Their tentacles are lined with ''teeth'', they feed on each other when wounded or frenzied, they are ''highly'' aggressive against unfamiliar objects, they attack humans on a regular basis, and their natural habitat ranges from the Tierra del Fuego to coastal California ''and spreading north''. And you thought it was safe to go back in the water...
** Ocean acidification seems to be killing them off, though.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_squid Colossal Squid]]. They have GIANT HOOKS on their tentacles, which they can rotate 180 degrees. And they are up to 46 feet long.
** Cephalopods in general. As awesome as I think they are, they are also damn creepy. They're smart. Really, really smart for invertebrates. Most intelligent creatures are birds and mammals, which are pretty similar to us in terms of body structure and biology. But cephalopods are completely alien. The thought of something like that being as smart as a dog is strange. If they would be sapient, what would they think? Most likely [[BlueAndOrangeMorality we couldn't comprehend it at all]]. To think modern culture can pervert such beings.....
*** [[ItGotWorse Fun fact!]] Cephalopods have one large central brain in their head... plus one smaller brain for '''each of it's arms.''' So that's 9 brains for an octopus, 11 for a squid. The (now extinct) ammonites had 12 arms, meaning 13 brains. And then there's the eyes...
*** Weird fact about cephalopods: cuttlefish are exellent at blending into their environment by changing their colours to match their background. The thing is, they're also colourblind. How the hell do they know what colour they should change to?
*** Cuttlefish in general are chalk full of RuleOfCool. The flamboyant cuttlefish has very poorly developed fins/whatever. So instead of swimming it uses them to -walk- on the ocean floor. The broad club cuttlefish meanwhile will use it's color changing ability to visually stun/hypnotize uncooperative prey. Though octopi generally get the better known as being intelligent, cuttlefish are
to:
I'm a horror writer so the following is unofficial and in place only for my own future reference.
'''Real Life Nightmare Fuel'''
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder: Real Life Nightmare Fuel]]
You're probably thinking that after reading about all that NightmareFuel, you're safe from it because you don't live in Fiction Land, right? ''[[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou Wrong!]]''
'''Note:''' This page is ''not'' for those easily scared by books or movies. If you happen to be one of those people, please go [[http://www.givesmehope.com/ here]] instead. Thank you and have a nice day.
----
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Other]]
* [[http://www2.rwu.edu/studentlife/studentservices/counselingcenter/sexualassault/rapemyths.htm According to a survey]], 33% of college aged men would commit rape if they could get away with it, and 25% of those surveyed believed that rape was acceptable if "the woman asks the man out; or the man pays for the date; or the woman goes back to the man's room after the date."
* The Westboro Baptist Church. It's an honest to [[spoiler:not their]] God group of [[MisanthropeSupreme misanthrope supremes]] who imagine ''the nigh-entirety of humanity'' in HELL. And that's not even getting into Fred Phelps, who'd probably be one of the most terrifying supervillains ever in a comic book universe.
** For an example of how frightening these people are [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBV2hnPxESw check out this "parody" of "We Are The World"]]. It's either {{High Octane Nightmare Fuel}} or {{Narm}}, but what makes this so scary is that they are [[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer actually serious]].
*** The "church" in question is a very small group with a very high profile, which is itself rather disturbing. They are not recognized as a valid church by any other religious organization anywhere in the world. Canada, which has very strong laws on both religious freedom and hate speech, refuses to allow Fred Phelps across the border.
* The [[EmergencyBroadcast Emergency Alert System]] test sequences.
** I used to hide under the coffee table when those came on TV. *shiver*
** I try to block them out on numerous occasions.
** The new ones aren't any better, either: instead of the sine-wave test tone, now it's that awful buzzing and the very, very badly synthesized voice reading the "This is a test of the Emergency Alert System" message.
** In addition to being afraid of Emergency Broadcast System tests, I was very afraid of the multicolored-bars TV "test pattern" thing that would display whenever a TV station was having broadcast issues. It's not the actual test pattern that was scary, it was the loud high-pitched beeping that accompanied it.
** The horrid "three beeps" severe weather alerts played on local TV, complete with a massive, bright red, flashing "TORNADO WARNING - TAKE COVER IMMEDIATELY" message across the bottom of the screen. To be yanked from Sesame Street into Howling Winds of Death once or twice a month in the summer is very unpleasant. Perhaps that is the whole point.
* Whatever your local name for the old Civil Defence air-raid sirens is - hurricane siren, disaster siren, tornado siren, etc. Imagine standing on the front porch as a little kid during a particularly severe thunderstorm, in which the sky turned green, the wind abruptly quit and the whole world went dead silent for about five seconds - and then the sirens fired up. This is used in the SilentHill series to great effect.
* Factology believes, according to Wikipedia, "some aborted [[FetusTerrible fetuses]] survive their abortion to live in the sewers, where they are being gathered and organized [[TakeOverTheWorld to take over the world]]."
* To all those in college - you think your roommate is bad? Read [[http://www.wyseguys.com/shittyroomate.asp this possibly true story]], and you will be glad the worst thing your roommate does is snore.
** Half of the student body at [=DigiPen=] has one-upped that guy (up through The Black Time) in one way or another (except without the drugs).
** More roommate horror [[http://gawker.com/roommate-horror-stories/ here]]. Worst one is the woman who walked in on her college roommate having sex doggy-style with her ''biological father''. The [[http://gawker.com/5879703/these-are-the-worlds-worst-roommate-stories?comment=46476429#comments winner]] was actually someone who ''killed and skinned a squirrel'' and left it on her housemate's bed.
*** The former also contains a bit of FridgeHorror, as several readers have noted that the roommate's poor hygiene and behavioral problems match the symptoms of sexual abuse. Even the person who submitted the story admits that if she had made the connection at the time, she would have reported what she had seen.
* Have you ever heard someone die? 9-1-1 calls which end tragically...
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxLlwsC5hWs Here's one]]. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox3gmJvQAA0 And here's another]]. The former has a HellIsThatNoise sound made from the woman's screams at the beginning, and the latter has a VERY EFFECTIVE ScareChord.
* Memorial or Post-Mortem Photography: A "mostly" extinct practice where family members photograph themselves and their dead in such positions, (like opening the eyes, moving the mouth, setting the body correctly, and dressing it up) to make their relatives look 'almost' like they're still alive. [[http://www.paulfrecker.com/collections.cfm?=library&typeID=1&ShowStart=81&ShowEnd=88&myPage=11 Most of these photos are babies!!]]
** Apparently, it's still a common practice nowadays that when a baby passes away, one of the nurses cleans the body, dresses it up, and wraps it in a blanket for the parents to hold and take a picture with. One sad advantage of doing this with a deceased child is that the baby is no longer covered in tubes and needles to keep it alive, so it appears as it couldn't in life. And it seems rather gruesome, yes, but it seems many people need that picture, that memory, to help them through the grieving process. It's almost as if to show themselves that their baby was alive and real, even if it couldn't stay that way for very long.
* [[http://www.nowilaymedowntosleep.org/ This site]]. Think of it this way, most of those babies are stillborn. The parents NEVER would have gotten a single picture if it weren't for those. They used to be tossed in the trash. Now the parents get to hold their precious child. Much like when you hold a dying friend...
* Cracked has done it again: [[http://www.cracked.com/article_17379_6-real-islands-way-more-terrifying-than-one-on-lost.html 6 Real, Terrifying Islands.]] One features a snake population of around five ''per square meter''. Another has the charred bones from 160,000 plague victims ''still'' wash up on the shores. And those are near the bottom of the list.
* [[http://www.themorningstarr.co.uk/2009/07/17/baby-eaten-by-rats/ "Baby Eaten By Rats"]]. [[http://www.themorningstarr.co.uk/2009/07/26/autopsy-reveals-rats-did-kill-baby/ She wasn't dead when they started.]]
* Ladies and gentlemen, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_in_the_Box_(Philadelphia) Boy in the Box]], a cold case from the 1950's where the body of a small boy was found in a box in the woods. The worst part? They still to this day haven't caught the person who did it.
* [[http://cakeheadlovesevil.wordpress.com/2009/04/18/island-of-the-dolls The Island of the Dolls]] in Mexico.
* In 2003, a man named Hitoshi Nikaidoh walked inside an elevator and had his shoulders pinned by the elevator doors due to faulty wiring. Despite struggling to pull himself inside, the elevator kept ascending until the ceiling sliced off most of his head. His left ear, lower lip, teeth and jaw were still attached to his body, which fell to the bottom of the elevator shaft, as the elevator continued moving upward. A surgery resident, who was in the elevator at the time, witnessed the gruesome spectacle and spent more than an hour trapped in the elevator with Hitoshi's head.
* Cracked again! This article for the [[http://www.cracked.com/article_18381_the-5-creepiest-unexplained-broadcasts.html 5 Creepiest Unexplained Broadcasts]]
* "Chat", "That's Life" and similar magazines sold at supermarket checkouts. In the words of Charlie Brooker, they look at first glance like they're full of word searches and knitting patterns. In reality they're full of the kind of BodyHorror and {{Gorn}} that rotten.com is built on, alongside more mundane adult fears, with the odd "kids say the funniest things" feature for added MoodWhiplash goodness.
** For those who have no idea of what these magazines are...well, [[http://www.storieswanted.com/userimages/HPThatslife.jpg here's]] [[http://www.letssubscribe.com/images/products/7781.jpg for]] [[http://img.dooyoo.co.uk/GB_EN/orig/0/6/3/6/1/636108.jpg reference]]. ''"Life! Death! Prizes!"'' Actual tagline.
*** And the attractive woman on the cover? She won't be seen in the magazine, has no bearing on any articles whatsoever. Eye candy to get you into the back of the van, as it were.
** African tabloid examples take this [[BeyondTheImpossible up to eleven]], and even more frightening is that even MORE people take them as the truth than [[DeepSouth in the US!]] [[http://redpepper.co.ug/welcome/ The Red Pepper]] is the most notorious. The engrish and hilarious slang seems charming (referring recently to one outed minister as the "notorious bum driller"), until you see how many articles are about [[BuryYourGays outing and advocating the murder of local notable gays]] among other things. Never has the term 'frighteningly funny' been so apt. You know Adebesi from Oz? Not only is that the paper's target demographic but that's ALSO THEIR REPORTING TEAM. That's right, as amusing as this paper might seem, it regularly gets families murdered by local religious fanatics.
* Disused refrigerators with rotten stuff still in them, as seen on YouTube. Some have been sitting around for 20 years or more.
** Speaking of that, there have been many cases of dead people going unnoticed for a decade or more. There's actually an article on snopes.com, if you're brave enough to look it up.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWdgAMYjYSs The max headroom Pirating Incident]]. Not the act itself, but the fact that to this day, no one really has the foggiest idea what was going on, who he was or why he was doing it.
** There is also the fact that the man who did it is still at large... he could be anywhere, he could even be on this website.
* The Church of the Innocents in Paris has an... unusual history. It was one of the first churches in France that allowed actual burials (6th century) and became the largest and most popular cemetery by the 13th century. By the 15th century it was so crowded that the residents of older graves (many were in mass graves by this point) had to be moved to ossuaries. When the Black Death hit, newer corpses had to be moved into the ossuaries, leaving behind fatty residues in the dirt. By the late 17th century the cemetery was essentially a mass of greasy residue that could no longer decompose. Oh yes: a pile of leftovers from thousands of human corpses that could ''no longer decay''. And that's not the worst part- in 1780 the wall of a cellar bordering the cemetery collapsed under the weight of the whole mess. One can only hope that no one was in the cellar at the time, or there'd be an unpleasant combination of the primal fears of drowning and necrophobia. Oh, and it was this incident that led to the creation of the famous Catacombs of Paris.
* Train engineers who are forced to watch as their trains mow down anyone unlucky enough to get themselves on the tracks (in this case a young teen who, while listening to her iPod, was killed by a deadly silent Amtrak train while on her trek to school). Because freight trains going 60 mph take about a mile to stop before the emergency brake is applied, the train engineers are forced to watch it happen. When they go through post-traumatic stress counselling, the one thing they talk about is that they see the people's eyes right before they hit them. A lot of those engineers don't return to work.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF7488WHcok Robert the doll]] If you thought regular old dolls were creepy, how about a haunted one?
* Cracked once again aims to keep us all up at night. Here are the [[http://www.cracked.com/article_18459_the-5-creepiest-unsolved-crimes-nobody-can-explain.html 5 Creepiest Unsolved Crimes Nobody Can Explain.]]
* Walking around a ''pitch-black'' room with only a flashlight, fearing and believing that there is something or someone that will be standing in or pass in front of your flashlight beam.
* [[http://www.carhire.org/blog/scariest-airport-runways Matekane Air Strip in Lesotho (Number 13 on list)]] is built on the side of a mountain, on a patch of horizontal real estate too small to accommodate a standard-length runway. How do they manage to get up to speed for takeoff, you ask? They use the [[{{Discworld}} Granny Weatherwax]] method, which is to say ''[[PrimalFear they throw the plane off a cliff]]''.
* Roadkill. Especially the real gory, mutilated sort, [[ItGotWorse even better]] when baking in the sun for a few days, or when the guts have partially burst out and been scattered around the carcass. Who needs a gory horror movie or video game when there's plenty of gruesome carnage right along your local road, perhaps on the commute to work or school.
** And the fact that sometimes ''you can no longer tell what it was before it was killed'' is unsettling.
* Stay up until the wee hours of the morning (say, about 1:00 - 2:00 in the morning), in a room with very little light in it, and read as many missing persons' cases from [[http://www.charleyproject.org/ this site]] as possible. Start with the earliest ones. 1945 should be good. Also, while you're at it, go to [[http://www.doenetwork.org/ this other website]] and peruse their "Unidentified Victims" index. Start off with the first entry there, the Caledonia Jane Doe discovered in 1979. Pleasant dreams.
** The forum [[http://www.websleuths.com/ websleuths]]; notably the "unidentified" pages.
* It's common for schools to hold assemblies which provide kids with safety and emergency information. In the U.S., some schools have taken a "scared straight" approach to this. Famously, one school had chosen a few students to be absent all on the same day. On that day, with the selected kids nowhere in sight, the staff announced an accident that killed those children. Predictably, some of the students found this to be extremely traumatic and needed psychological care after the caper was revealed. Furthermore, some schools have held assemblies in which students are cast as fire, accident or other victims while their classmates are ushered around the scenes by teachers describing the terrible situations being portrayed. The latter usually occurs with some fore-knowledge on the part of the students so that they know it's fake, but these assemblies are prone to extremity in the young actors' make-up.
** There was a school that hired an actor to run into a school and start "shooting" a fake gun (sounded real) between classes. Think only school was stupid enough to do it? Of course you're wrong!
** Winnipeg, Manitoba did the same thing in 1942, calling it ''If Day''. "Nazis" (citizens in costume) took over Winnipeg, "arresting" the mayor and premier and turning one section of the city into a concentration camp. They also went around beating people up. They would go into schools and ask for the Jewish students to stand up, then they would take them away. For someone who wasn't in on it, especially the schoolkids, that would be absolutely terrifying. It was a ploy to try to get people involved in the war effort.
* Bullying. The thoughts of how many AdultsAreUseless - Do you guys know what it's like to have been beaten up, or see someone else beaten up, only to tell an adult because someone is ''literally'' in danger, only to be told off or [[CassandraTruth not believed]]? The adults could literally just turn their head ''two centimeters'' to the right and see a kid with paint splattered all over him and a black eye, yet they don't see anything. And just imagine how many target(s) in western countries are being bullied for whatever reason, only for adults to ''encourage'' it with their own inaction?
** Let's not forget the disproportionate retribution. The minute the victim has had enough and decides to stand up to the bully, sometimes violently, the victim is the one that gets the severe punishment despite being the one that was pushed around in the first place.
** The climatic moment of DangerousMinds is based on cases such as these.
* Burglars. The thought of creepy FacelessGoons walking around your house and stealing things at random doesn't terrify you at all?
* The {{GIFT}}. To sum up several quotes from the quotes section, coarse people won't say what they ''really'' think to your face - because they aren't free from consequences, meaning they're within punching or kicking range. They may act nice to you in real life, but they have an image to maintain. They may not say something like "BarackObama deserves to be institutionalized" or "All of Israel should just be nuked" if you asked them in real life, but on the internet, of course they'd say that - that's what they ''really'' think. And you know what is even scarier? Imagining what'd happen if, even ''if'' you could attach a face to someone, what if this was like ''RealLife''? People would probably just murder children so they wouldn't have a threat to their power, steal ''everything'', just go on a shooting spree with a complete disregard for who they're killing, and just flat-out bastardy cranked UpToEleven.
--> '''OscarWilde:''' "Give a man a mask, and he will tell you the truth."
** {{Troll}}s and cyberbullies in general. Picture this, an adult troll who uses the internet as a personal haven for their inner bastardry intentionally harasses someone, that someone being a teenager with low-self esteem that he doesn't know, by teasing him, calling him names, and ''encouraging'' him to commit suicide. ''[[DudeNotFunny All the while thinking that this is funny]]!''
*** Here's [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2036935/Natasha-MacBryde-death-Facebook-internet-troll-Sean-Duffy-jailed.html?ito=feeds-newsxml an example]] that fits the exact description above. You might take some consolation in the fact that this man was arrested, however. Seems people are becoming more willing to prosecute the internet version of threats/harassment/etc.
*** Milder, but still disturbing and proceeding from the same mentality, are griefers, people who play online games for the sole purpose of disrupting other people's games. They derive enjoyment from ruining other people's fun, and cannot be reasoned with because no normal appeal, whether to compassion or self-interest, will work. They have no compassion for other players, and are already getting exactly what they want.
* Check out [[http://photographybytainatimar.blogspot.com/2010/05/world-famous-photography-throughout.html these]] well-known photographs. Now, read the stories behind the pictures; in many of these cases, the photographer gazed upon unmitigated human suffering and '''''did absolutely nothing to help'''''. All for the sake of capturing "the perfect photograph". Welcome to the world of photojournalism.
** The sad thing about the Omayra Sanchez photograph was that nothing could ''be'' done. The girl was trapped in that water for ''three days'' before she died, because it would be impossible to free her without amputating her legs, which would have made her bleed to death. A water pump was sent to the village... which arrived broken. Basically, the reporters stayed with her so she wouldn't die alone, as most of her family members were already dead.
** Having read the above, imagine YOU are a photographer dealing with such things. That link shows a photograph by [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Carter Kevin Carter]]. Carter was haunted by nightmares and visions of death after he took that picture of the starving girl being stalked by the vulture. He was also heavily criticized by people who didn't understand how little he could have intervened. Eventually, Carter took his own life.
* You don't have to be a vegetarian, vegan, or even value animal life very much to be outraged or disgusted at [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBbYUdvGWk0 this]]. What kind of things the animals have to go through in slaughterhouses is bad enough, actually imagining yourself as one of these animals is probably one of the most terrifying and depressing thing that you can think of.
** You are now imagining you are an animal in a slaughterhouse.... In Australia. Next to a forest of stinging trees. Likely the leases for the land were ridiculously cheap because of their 'neighbors.' Not only is a man-made travesty dicking with you, but a NATURAL one the turns your body to FIRE every time there's a slight breeze. For those that don't know, [[http://www.blueswami.com/stinging_trees.html read this link]] and then [[TearJerker think of what those poor, poor cows went through]] before they get anywhere NEAR a blade.
* Tar Pits. Getting stuck in them is one of the worst ways to die. Unlike quicksand which sucks you in, death by tar pit is slow. The only way you can die is if you starve (humans can survive for about two weeks without food), dehydration (lack of water), or if you somehow commit suicide. Thankfully, if you have a cell phone you could call for help, unlike the poor wild animals that became trapped thousands of years ago. Those animals either starved, became dehydrated, or were killed by a predator. Hundreds of skeletons have been found in the La Brea Tar Pits in California.
* Working in a [[SteelMill steel mill]]. There are a thousand ways to die in one - and they are all nasty. [[EverythingTryingToKillYou White-hot bubbling molten metal, fiery furnaces, electric arcs, poisonous gases, eerie (and certainly dangerous) machinery, heavy objects falling from great heights, horrible noise -- you name it]].
** The book Ganz Unten ("Lowest of the Low") by Günther Wallraff describes first-hand accounts on working in one. He describes of the working conditions of Turkish immigrant workers in the post-WWII West German steel industry. [[LavaPit One of the workers stumbled at work and fell in the blast furnace]]. What makes it FridgeHorror is that you realize it is ''West'' Germany. How about working in an ''East'' German [[NightmarishFactory hell factory]]...?
*** There was an accident in a chemical plant in Leuna, Eastern Germany. About a dozen workers were cooked to death by superheated steam when a door fell shut behind them.
*** An episode of ''UnsolvedMysteries'' had the story of Dave Bocks, a nuclear power plant worker who disappeared mysteriously. One day, his car keys and some bone fragments were found in one of the plant's furnaces. Worse, it was concluded that ''somebody threw him in there''.
** An unfortunate individual was locked in some oven-thing over a weekend. When the next work day rolled around, the oven was automatically turned on.
** It doesn't even need to be a traditionally-scary type of factory like a steel mill. There was a case of two workers in an [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1443939.stm innocuous bread factory]], who were sent inside an oven to do some maintenance work. They were sent in on a conveyer belt, like the loaves. It was switched off, but no one had ensured it had actually ''cooled down''- and there was no way to reverse the conveyer.
* Think 9/11 was bad when you were just sitting there watching the attacks on TV? In some places, '''the power went out.''' Of course, it had nothing to do with terrorists, but you can bet more than a few people were thinking they were all going to die.
* Mines. Not the explosive kind, the underground ones. Claustrophobic, dark, potentially filled with spiders, and could collapse if not safe. You'd need to worry about the ground crushing you against the ceiling in a landslide than about the roof collapsing. Needless to say, [[AndIMustScream surviving that would be less desirable than dying.]] Crawling along in the dark, bones probably broken, exit probably shut... that's the stuff HighOctaneNightmareFuel is made of... if you could move at all.
** Don't forget how many of them have portions that are [[KillItWithFire CONSTANTLY ON FIRE]] to boot.
* Radio signals. Find a weird spike producing noises that'll haunt your nightmares for years to come? Well good luck finding what in the name of Jimmi Hendrix was making it, unless you've got some good equipment. And who knows? [[spoiler: It may not even be from Earth.]]
* When you put in earphones while listening to music, you'll find you'll be hearing back vocals and certain instruments (that you couldn't hear before) [[ScareChord in one ear.]] One song that abuses this is "the Greatest Show Unearthed" by [[CreatureFeature Creature Feature.]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ9hkRsN5Yg&feature=autoplay&list=WL3E5D31E6C59460E9&index=1&playnext=14 Remember, it only works with earphones.]]
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cosmonauts Lost Cosmonauts]] theory. Yuri Gargarin was not the first man in space. He was the first to ''[[GoneHorriblyWrong come]] [[SuicideMission back]] [[{{Unperson}} alive]]''....
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident Dyatlov Pass incident.]] Nine hikers in the Ural mountains left their camp for no apparent reason and were later found dead. While this isn't that creepy on its own, five of the hikers had a variety of weird injuries (one was ''missing her tongue''), and four had elevated levels of radiation on their clothing. And no one knows what happened because no one who was present survived. We're probably better off not knowing the whole story.
* While looking up pictures of the Franklin Expedition, you might find a mugshot of one of the dead explorers they dug up from Beechy Island named John Torrington. Go look him up. You have been warned.
* [[BuriedAlive Premature burial.]] It's [[http://www.snopes.com/horrors/gruesome/buried.asp real]], it's been happening as long as humans have walked this planet, and in some parts of the world it ''still happens''.
** More to the point, buried alive after being presumed DEAD, not by a landslide or anything natural like that. Read up on what started the idea of vampires or their forebearers strigoi existing some time...
* Halloween can be SeriousBusiness for [[http://i.imgur.com/UCErT.jpg some people]]. Although, for [[NightmareFetishist some]] that picture qualifies as a [[MomentOfAwesome Crowning Moment of Awesome]].
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl9y3SIPt7o This video of abuse captured on tape]] is disturbing enough in it's own right. But there are a few things special to this case that make it pure HighOctaneNightmareFuel:
** 1. Her father, being a judge, was a well respected member of the community, therefore [[CassandraTruth no one would believe]] this girl as to what kind of a person he really is behind closed doors. [[FridgeHorror It makes you wonder what other well respected people are really like.]] [[ParanoiaFuel Including those you know (or think you know).]]
** 2. [[{{GIFT}} The comments.]] There are many who see nothing wrong with what he did to her and some even applauding him. Others claiming that they recieved [[ItGotWorse worse than that,]] while still thinking that it did them good. [[http://www.theblaze.com/stories/extremely-disturbing-video-claims-to-show-texas-judge-savagely-whipping-daughter-with-belt/ here]] is an example of one of the articles and the comments. Some of these people even go as far to blame this girl for the abuse she suffered through, [[InsaneTrollLogic claiming that she set him up just to provoke a beating and was faking her cries.]] The fact that people can see obvious abuse and still find ways to blame the victim is absolutely horrifying.
** 3. He was a family law judge who dealt with child abuse cases of all things. He had denounced the testimonies of children, claiming they were fantasizers, [[HarsherInHindsight no we know why.]]
** 4. The daughter in question had cerebral palsy and almost all sources on the abuse scandal don't bother to mention it and/or gloss over it. Given the examples of people who ''[[OffingTheOffspring murdered]]'' [[OffingTheOffspring their disabled children]] and have had people defend their actions, it's pretty much safe to say that somehow, the abuse of a disabled person matters less than that of a nondisabled person in the exact same situation in they eyes of the writers of the sources that omitted this fact.
* They have [[CureYourGays straight camps]]. Places people are sent, told their way of live is wrong, and taught how to lie about who they are so they are accepted by society. Parents actually send their children to these places for being curious.
** What happened to institutionalized GLBT individuals in years past. That's not FridgeHorror, that is HighOctaneNightmareFuel of the highest order and seriously [[UsefulNotes/{{Trigger}} triggering]] to many people -- but think of how many people were sent to these things, not ''just'' out of their parents and caretakers' bigotry, but because ''that was the reigning medical opinion''. It wasn't just a bunch of fundamentalist nuts turning over their gay, transgender and gender-nonconforming kids so they could expect grandkids. These people were scared... and they thought they were doing the right thing. Their pastors, their doctors and teachers and trusted family friends thought they were doing the right thing too. Subjecting their children and loved ones to ''hellish'' treatment to "fix" them, turning them over into the hands of people who would beat them, rape them, starve them and mistreat them until they were "[[CameBackWrong well]]" or [[BuryYourGays dead]] or [[AndIMustScream physically compromised]] -- [[HeroicBSOD most certainly traumatized]] -- [[FateWorseThanDeath for life]]. To make them normal. Safe, healthy, sane, good. Someone you loved might have done that to you.
* Book banning controversies. Sounds geeky in text but they can get freakin' ''brutal''. For example there was this giant controversy in Panama City about a book (I think it was ''I Am the Cheese'') that people wanted removed from the shelves. When a group of teachers and an IntrepidReporter tried to defend the book, how do they get repaid? By receiving threatening phonecalls, death threats, letterbombs, and one of them almost getting her house burned down. Worse still, [[TheFundamentalist the people contending this book]] ''[[CassandraTruth accused them of lying, or even doing these horrible things to themselves to gain sympathy]]''. And to think, all of this trouble is over a ''book''. Thank God the author of the book set the record straight or [[FridgeHorror who knows what could have happened]]...
** These accusations of lying are textbook example of denialism. Imagine that kind of logic: Jews are evil, The Holocaust did not happen and they deserved it anwyay... you know the drill.
* Spontaneous Human Combustion. Imagine one minute you're enjoying life, then out of the freaking blue you're engulfed in a burning fire without warning and will likely burn to death without even knowing what hit you.
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAMfCG6nn1w ADHD friendly example]].
* Not as horrifying as some things here but... [[http://i.imgur.com/dcEI5.jpg]] this. A girl in a wheelchair is STABBED by a "friend". With a FORK.
* You know TheExorcismOfEmilyRose was loosely based on a true story, right? [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr-IdHU3A5M Here is ACTUAL AUDIO of the exorcism session it was based on]]. Just don't make the mistake of watching it before bed or while suffering emotional problems...
* Cracked are really good at these! Most commenters agree that of [[http://www.cracked.com/article_19705_the-5-most-spectacular-landscapes-earth-that-murder-you.html The 5 Most Spectacular Landscapes on Earth (That Murder You)]], the creepiest one is #3, the Bolton Strid. You'll never see forest streams the same way again.
* Do a Google Image search on "trypophobia." You know what? Don't. You've probably had enough NightmareFuel for one day.
-----
You've done it! You've made it through all these pages of mind-numbing horror. What more can be said? As you go about your day and try not to break down, try to remember to do one thing: [[LifeOfBrian Always look on the bright side of life...]]
[[SweetDreamsFuel But you all probably need]] [[Heartwarming/RealLife these links.]] [[http://www.cuteroulette.com And this one for good measure.]]
[[/folder]]
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[[folder: RLNF Accidents and General Body Horror]]
* The Nikki Catsouras case. How would you like to lose any loved one, never mind your own child, and then two weeks later recieve an email from a complete stranger with a picture showing [[AdultFear YOUR OWN CHILD'S MANGLED REMAINS??]] Worse, the photos were leaked by members of the ''California Highway Patrol.''
* Gore websites. While they will not be linked here due to FamilyFriendly policy, they feature violent and painful deaths and injuries, often to cater to people's fetishes.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_ulcer Jungle Rot]], otherwise known as a Tropical Ulcer. An infected scratch in the jungle, and your entire body starts to erode.
* There's a ton of outer space horrors that come in mind. Two more notable are pressurization failure (e.g., a hole in your space suit) and life support failure.
* In ''AmericasBestDanceCrew'', the crew the Ringmasters. They were already grotesque to begin with, their gimmick being unsightly flexibility, but their challenge during Britney Spears week was to create the illusion of gigantic performers. So what did they do? They wore hoodies and somehow came up with [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ringmasters.JPG these monstrosities.]] Or perhaps [[http://www.mtv.com/videos/americas-best-dance-crew-season-3-ep-3-britney-challenge/1603283/playlist.jhtml seeing them in motion will have a stronger effect]] (the fifth section, about 30 minutes in)? (And by the way, their song was "[[CircusOfFear Circus]]."
* Charla Nash. The victim of a chimpanzee attack. [[SchmuckBait Good god, ]]'''''[[SchmuckBait do not ]]'''''[[SchmuckBait look up photos from Google of her face from her appearance on Oprah. As a matter of fact, it's not advisable that you look up any article about her appearance on Oprah, considering that that article might inadvertently have photos of her face]]. Absolutely horrifying. The lady's arms were ''literally'' ripped and pulled off, her eyes, eyelids as well as her lips... she looks almost like Pale Man from ''PansLabyrinth'', except more horrifying in that she actually has a huge, bloody hole in the middle of her face.
* The "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin#Diving_bell_accident Byford Dolphin diving bell accident]]". Just the description about what happened to the bodies (including [[spoiler:gas bubbles [[EyeScream forming in the eye tissue]]]]) is enough to cause shivers. Sure, the victims probably died instantly and painlessly, but can you imagine having to clean up or autopsy one of these corpses? The people in charge of that must have been scarred for life.
** Subsequent investigation by forensic pathologists determined that diver D4, being exposed to the highest pressure gradient, exploded with violence due to the rapid and massive expansion of internal gases. All of his thoracic and abdominal organs, and even his thoracic spine, were ejected, as were all his limbs. [...] Chunks of his body were found scattered about the rig.
* There was a story about a girl in India whose hair was caught in a machine which ended up separating her face from her head. They then showed you both the girl with her musculature exposed, and [[http://health.discovery.com/centers/plasticsurgery/facetransplant/gallery/face2_h.jpg the face, in two pieces, resting on the plastic bag the girl's mother brought it in.]]
* William Harvey. A very important 17th century scientist, who made his biological discoveries in horrifying ways. Some of his highlights include performing unanaesthetised dissections on live animals, and draining all of the blood from most of a person's vessels into one vein, making that one vein swell up like a balloon.
* You want to teach kids not to smoke cigarettes? Have them visit with someone who's had a laryngectomy.
* Spontaneous Human Combustion. It's highly unsettling to think that one day you could burn to death from the inside out for ''no apparent reason'', with nothing left but a big black spot, a pile of burnt oily mess and bone, and maybe a leg or two sticking out. Crematoria use furnaces of up to 1000°C to burn human bodies - but in cases of SHC, only materials above and next to what's left of you will be burned. Images of victims' charred remains can be found, but having a few gallons of BrainBleach handy would be highly advisable if you plan to search for them. There are more than enough [[http://anomalyinfo.com/articles/sa00013.php?page=SHC examples]] that have ''no explanation whatsoever.''
* At the time, [[TheCaligula Nero]]'s use of Christians as gladiator bait didn't catch much attention in Rome. That wasn't particularly unusual, and they were convenient scapegoats for the Great Fire. What ''did'' catch attention was the extreme cruelty of [[http://www.oriensjournal.com/11edit.html the spectacle he made of it]], including the "innovative" use of their living bodies as candles to provide light for it.
* Fires in general, nightclub fires in particular, like [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIetpe_KAJU&feature=related the Station Night Club,]] Happy Land, or Coconut Grove. The notion of burning is scary enough, the notion of dying of smoke inhalation is scary enough .... but the thing that gets you is how ''fast'' it all happens. The smoke buildup [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxiOXZ55hbc&feature=related in this video]] goes from "minor" to "completely consuming the room" in a minute and a half. In that time, the people in the crowd go from oblivious - to mildly concerned - to complete, involuntary all-consuming panic, behaving like stampeding animals, as the vast majority of them succumb to the smoke.
* Being in a DUI crash and that [[http://web.archive.org/web/20030201093613/www.austin360.com/aas/specialreports/jacqui this]] can easily happen to anyone is pure NightmareFuel.
* A car rammed into a carrier truck at a red light, causing a bunch of incredibly corrosive acid to spill out and wash across tarmac for twenty meters or so. (This was probably back in the 80s or something because of the truck's poor protection.) Anyway, some spilled over the woman in the car, and she started screaming. The truck driver leaned out of his window and began to scream as loudly as possible "Get back, get the fuck back!" (This was only partly necessary, as most people had run to a safer area when they saw the tarmac start to bubble.) So one onlooker started shouting "Why is nobody going to help her?!" The rest of the bystanders tried to reassure the onlooker, but she broke free and started to run across the acid to the woman in the car. Within a few seconds, it had eaten through the soles of her shoes and then her feet. The woman fell over from the pain, face-first into the acid. Then she started to roll around in agony, after which point she passed out.
* A whole host of birth defects:
** Anencephaly: literally no or very little brain matter.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetus_in_fetu fetus in fetu]]'', a medical condition where a developing fetus envelops his/her identical twin - and the enveloped twin develops inside as a parasite! Naturally, being a television documentary, it was complete with pictures of the removed twin, which looked like a shrunken head with a proportioned body.
** ConjoinedTwins. Being physically attached to your sibling in one of a dozen different ways. You could be attached by just a little flap of skin, or share an entire body from the neck down. And if they don't die soon after being born, many are usually subjected to surgical separation where, more often then not one or both, will die.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy Lobotomies.]] The first lobotomies were lengthy, costly operations that were as precise as possible for the 1930s. Then Walter Freeman found the ice-picks in his freezer, remembered the bone behind our eyes is quite thin, hammered a couple into someone's head and jiggled them about a bit to get pretty much the same effect. The goal of these operations was to get people out of mental institutions - not necessarily well, just well ''enough''...at first. As lobotomies first became popular then were progressively considered barbaric operations, Walter Freeman felt the pressure to prove they were indeed a medical breakthrough. An operation once reserved for an absolute last resort in the treatment of severe mental illness was eventually performed on unruly children. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Dully Meet one.]] The history of lobotomies fuels more nightmares than the thought of the actual operation, since it's a prime example of how humanity sucks in many, many areas and how few of those we keep an eye on to this day. Freeman used to perform lobotomies with a showman's attitude, sometimes shoving in two ice picks at once. He even accidentally killed a man by briefly leaving the ice picks in while he went looking for a camera. The inventor ''won the Nobel Prize for Medicine''.
** Poor Rosemary Kennedy had the misfortune of being the "slow one" in a family full of ambitious, gifted children (experts think she had an IQ of around 90). The pressure of trying to measure up to her more sophisticated siblings caused her to act out and ultimately her parents ended up having a doctor perform brain surgery on her at the age of 23 to curb her mood swings. He succeeded...in reducing her mind to that of a literal infant, a state she remained in until she died at the age of 86. One wonders if the Kennedy family would have been a lot happier if Papa Joe hadn't been so hellbent on creating his own dynasty.
---> ''We went through the top of the head, I think she was awake. She had a mild tranquilizer. I made a surgical incision in the brain through the skull. It was near the front. It was on both sides. "We just made a small incision, no more than an inch." The instrument Dr. Watts used looked like a butter knife. He swung it up and down to cut brain tissue. "We put an instrument inside," he said. As Dr. Watts cut, Dr. Freeman put questions to Rosemary. For example, he asked her to recite the Lord's Prayer or sing "God Bless America" or count backwards. ... "We made an estimate on how far to cut based on how she responded." ... When she began to become incoherent, they stopped.''
** One of the things that make it really frightening is how the media whitewash lobotomies to a state of numb mindlessness. If only. Imagine being able to remember caring, feeling, thinking as you do now, and then that just... stops, but the rest of you knows it and keeps on going.
** In fact, most of what passed for cutting-edge psychiatric treatment until very recently is more than a little terrifying. Someone behaving badly? Brain surgery time! Lobotomies are one of the best examples, but the entire medical profession prior to the last fifty years or so is pretty creepy. As for the pharmacological industry before the FDA - just don't go there.
* Dentists. Or anything tooth-related. due to the immense amount of nerves and pain-related receptors.
* Oral surgery in general (wisdom teeth, root canals) is horrifying. Even perfectly normal, ostensibly non-horrifying procedures can be incredibly painful, like tooth removal and getting braces. The feeling of a dentist grabbing your tooth and jerking it back and forth until it comes out is incredibly creepy even when you've had a lot of anaesthetic and can't feel any pain. The mouth is also one of the worst-feeling areas when subjected to local anaesthetic, for some reason. Just recovering from something and having to put up with a big numb rubbery mouth, and the drooling you end up subconsciously doing sometimes.
* The two books published about [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_farm the Body Farm]]. Mixed in with the fascinating descriptions and applications of forensic science is a high dose of {{Body Horror}} as you learn in excruciating detail exactly what happens to a human body after death. But the worst parts by far are all the descriptions the horrible ways real people have died in certain cases. (No photos are included; you won't need them.) Especially the explosion at the illegal fireworks operation. ''Her brain fell out''...
** StephenFry was "lucky" enough to be granted access to it during his documentary on the US. As a special bonus he claims ''to have never seen a dead body before'' and his tour guide admits she has gotten into the habit of [[{{Bones}} figuring out what people's skulls look like]] under their skin.
* Anesthesia awareness. You wake up during surgery, but you can't communicate. Happens to 20,000 people a year.
* Faces Of Meth - what methamphetamine abuse and its consequences (hallucinations, poverty, poor nutrition, poisoning from the chemicals in the drug) do to people's appearance over time.
* Tapeworms. The bad part about pork tape worms isn't the aspect of living in your small intestine stealing your nutrients... but actually the fact that if you eat their eggs instead of their immature form they can circulate throughout your body and implant themselves on whatever random tissue they land on. Unfortunately they often decide to land on brain tissue and can cause permanent brain damage.
** ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea_worms Guinea worms]].'' Parasitic disease in general.
* Abortion. Pro-life, pro-choice, doesn't matter, the basic concept is still ''sucking the baby/mass of cells/what have you out of the uterus with a giant vacuum.''
* What would happen to you if you were exposed into the vacuum of space without space gear. You will wish that one and a half minute of remaining life were much, much shorter. In the absence of atmospheric pressure, water will spontaneously convert into vapor, which would cause the moisture in a victim's mouth and eyes to quickly boil away. The same effect would cause water in the muscles and soft tissues of the body to evaporate, prompting some parts of the body to swell to twice their usual size after a few moments. In the absence of air pressure the gas exchange of the lungs works in reverse, dumping oxygen out of the blood and accelerating the oxygen-starved state known as hypoxia. After about ten seconds a victim will experience loss of vision and impaired judgment, and the cooling effect of evaporation will lower the temperature in the victim's mouth and nose to near-freezing. Unconsciousness and convulsions would follow several seconds later, and a blue discoloration of the skin called cyanosis would become evident. At this point the victim would be floating in a blue, bloated, unresponsive stupor, but their brain would remain undamaged and their heart would continue to beat. Without intervention in those first ninety seconds, the blood pressure would fall sufficiently that the blood itself would begin to boil, and the heart would stop beating. As a side bonus, with no bacteria present, your frozen, non-decomposing body will drift off into space for millions or perhaps billions of years if left untouched.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_decapitation Internal decapitation]]. It's [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin pretty much what its name would imply]], and it's ''the very definition'' of this trope.
* There's this video floating around on the Internet, a public service announcement made by a Middle Eastern country where two men jump off a bridge into water. The bridge isn't too high (about 20-30 feet). One of the men makes it. The other? He slips at the last second only to have his face smash against the corner of a concrete pier at the bottom. The later show him in the emergency room, [[spoiler: with his face split open and still alive]].
* Elevator FailsafeFailure. Example: that Japanese guy who got his head ripped off by a elevator with faulty sensors. And the other passenger was trapped in the car with the severed head for an hour. Or in Italy, June 2009: during a heavy rainstorm, an old woman rode her elevator down to her cellar. Too bad the cellar was flooded. The elevator stopped when it touched the water, then the flood got worse, and worse, and worse...she drowned in there. In Brazil, all elevators have warnings "before entering through the elevator doors, please check that the elevator car is on the current floor",
* Ectopic pregnancy. The fertilized egg doesn't make it to the uterus and starts growing "inside" the fallopian tube. The [[http://www.bodiestheexhibition.com/ Bodies Exhibition]] had the plasticized, dissected reproductive organs of a woman who had died from an ectopic pregnancy, complete with a little walnut-sized fetus thing still in the fallopian tube. In a rare few cases of ectopic pregnancy, the zygote will actually ''fall out'' of the fallopian tube and attach itself to a random spot in the abdominal cavity... usually an organ. Said organ will proceed to suffer severe damage as the placenta grows -- and the placenta is much more likely to grow to a larger size than it would in a normal ectopic pregnancy, thanks to not being stuck inside a non-elastic tube. Some of these pregnancies have actually lasted to full term. Incidentally, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cord_%26_Placenta.jpg this]] is what a placenta looks like at nine months. Sweet dreams, ladies.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_cutting Female genital mutilation]], or FGM.
** Genital mutilation in general
* ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stick_shaker The eerie sound of the stick shaker can be heard in the black box recording on the doomed ice-covered Air Florida flight 90 that stalled and crashed into the Potomac river near Washington DC in 1982.]]''[[http://www.airdisaster.com/download2/af90.shtml that recording]]. Oh, and [[ItGotWorse if that's not bad enough]], one can actually hear the plane's explosive impact, too.
** This still pales in comparison to [[http://www.airdisaster.com/download2/jal123.shtml the JAL-123 recording]]. The constant beeping, the desperate shouts of the crew, the ground proximity warning system ("Pull up!... Pull up!... Pull up!"), the sound of two impacts... it's 55 seconds of pure despair. "We're going down, Larry(?)"..."I KNOW!", preceding the BOOM, is more jarring than the sound of the stick shaker.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_585 United Airlines Flight 585]]. Suddenly and without warning, the aircraft rolled to the right and began to pitch downward, nose first. Nine seconds later, they crashed into Widefield Park at 4g. There were no survivors. And it all happened in nine seconds. The cockpit transcript from those nine seconds can be found in the [[http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/2001/AAR0101.pdf aircraft accident report]], on pages 177-178, and it is chilling. [[YourMileageMayVary Your mileage may vary]] as to whether it's more or less chilling to read the normal conversations that make up most of the transcript, knowing what's going to happen at the end. The worst part is, this happened while the plane was on its ''final approach to the runway''. Just a minute or two longer and they would've been fine. Imagine you're the captain or co-pilot, on a normal domestic flight from Denver to Colorado Springs. You're on your final approach to the runway. Imagine the mounting anticipation and sense of relief you would feel, knowing you'll be on the ground again in a few short minutes. Maybe you'll grab a coffee. Then you can check into a hotel and finally relax. And then suddenly you're hurtling towards the ground with nine seconds to live. Nine seconds of pure terror, of screaming and swearing as you try desperately to regain control.
** A similar thing happened to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USAir_Flight_427 USAir Flight 427]] three-and-a-half years later. Once again, no survivors. Except that this time, there were 132 onboard instead of 25, and the uncontrolled descent lasted ''twenty-eight seconds''.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUhGVpP8hCwThe 911 call from the Twin Towers]] ''as they collapsed.'' Being trapped on a top floor and slowly suffocating while calling 911 and basically being told '''they can't do anything''' to save you. Not to mention having the tower go down while you're inside it. Not to mention how the person on the other end must have felt, having to listen to those men beg for help and '''listen to them die.''' The entire thing is beyond horrifying.
* Amniocentesis. A long needle is inserted into a pregnant woman's belly, through the wall of her uterus to draw out a sample of amniotic fluid. (This can be dangerous to the fetus if it is stuck by the needle accidentally; may lead to miscarriage.) The idea is to get fetal cells to test for genetic diseases and disorders. (Thus usually done for older moms, or moms who have a high-risk of problems. An alternative exists, but it isn't much better (it can still cause miscarriage, and it's still scary), where a tube is inserted through the vagina and cervix and a small chunk of placenta is taken.
* Pelvic exams and the horrifying TurnedUpToEleven pelvic exam known as a colposcopy. (Usually done in cases where the woman has had two consecutive abnormal Pap smears, or when she's been raped (and they have reason to believe she sustained more serious internal injuries during the attack). That one may involve biopsies and weird tests involving iodine. Kind of like a vaginal alien probe, but not by aliens.
* ECRP. Hoo boy. This is ''really'' simplifying here, but if some or all of the 4 bile ducts in the liver are blocked, they go in and ''drill through'' the blocked ducts to unblock them in an attempt to salvage liver function. It's very painful, and they can't put the patient out completely because his/her cooperation is needed. It can cause internal bleeding, infection, and pancreatitis as well. (Which is why it's no longer done as a diagnostic procedure as it formerly was; it's too dangerous for that. It's only used for therapeutic purposes.)
* Pancreatitis itself. Imagine the worst pain you can ever imagine traveling through the upper abdomen and shooting its way to the back. Imagine living life feeling extremely nauseated and dehydrated all at once, so that one has to live by an extremely restricted diet AND try to get as much water as necessary without throwing up the water one has consumed. Now imagine trying to live as normal a life as one can with such a disorder ravaging one's body, including going so far as to be permanently fed via IV if that's what it takes to keep the "writhing on the floor of your bathroom or bedroom while curled up in a ball"-level pain away.
* The end results of a human gas turbine ingestion accident. It pretty much defines the ChunkySalsaRule. For those who have more intestinal fortitude, read on. [[spoiler: Imagine, if you will, the inner nacelle of an aircraft engine, and massive fan within. Now spread a chunky paste of redness about eight inches around the front and back of the fan, glued to the nacelle. Scatter some bits and pieces up to a hundred feet behind the engine for added effect. Now realise that that chunky red mess was a ''person''.]]
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectal_prolapse Rectal prolapse.]] This is also featured from ChuckPalahniuk's creepypasta ''Guts''. Cracked's description really takes the cake(spoiler'd because it ''will'' keep you up at night): [[spoiler: It is a weakening of the ligaments that hold your intestines together, and in the worst case scenario, your intestine comes loose and hangs out your anus.]] Possibly the worst thing is that you don't have to do anything particularly dangerous or extreme to have this happen. All you have to do is what many people consider to be normal procedure in this situation.
* Günther Wallraff describes in his book ''Ganz Unten'' ("Lowest of the Low") a horrific case in a West German steel mill where a Turkish immigrant steelworker had stumbled at work in a steel mill and fallen in a blast furnace. His body had been incinerated completely - the kinsfolks were presented a symbolical piece of metal containing
* Historical torture:
** Crucifixion. They tied or nailed your hands and feet that way so that you had to stand up to able to breathe. Once you lost the energy to stand, you would collapse, at which point you couldn't breathe and had to pull yourself up to breathe again and collapse then you'd collapse again and again and again ... a proper crucifixion could take three days to kill someone.
** A medieval French favorite is quartering. Tie four horses to each limb of the victim's body, then whip the horses. For an added bonus, the torturers would give the victim a last drink so they could watch the liquid pour out of their exposed entrails. Not to be confused with the even more horrifying English punishment known as drawing and quartering, where the condemned is dragged across the filthy, bumpy, trash-strewn roads to the place of execution by a horse, he is hanged but cut down while still alive, his "privy member" [[GroinAttack is cut off]], his belly is slit open and he is forced to watch as they pull out his intestines and burn them in front of his face, and then they hack off his head, cut his body into four quarters, and distribute them among various places where he performed treasonous or seditious acts.
** Scalping. Which, by the way, was not done by Native American tribes but ''to'' them by US soldiers.
** One Native American tribe favored burying a man up to his neck, covering his head with honey, and waiting for the ants to come.
** A basic one but still painful: [[BurnTheWitch burning at the stake]].
** "Carving the blood eagle," a particularly {{squick}}tastic Viking method of killing which consisted of cutting and breaking the victim's ribs so they resembled bird wings, pulling out the lungs, and then salting the wounds that were left behind to make death ''even more painful than it already was.''
** Edward II was thought to be gay, and this was back in the 1300s when homosexuality was a sin. A group of nobles killed him by anally raping him with a hot iron rod.
* Then there are the more humane ways forms of execution... except when they go wrong.
** Beheaded with a an axe that isn't sharp. Sometimes it took as many as fifty blows.
** Just ask Catherine Howard.
** Same with a dull guillotine. Imagine hearing the sound of it falling, feeling the pain, and then hearing "[[ItGotWorse Pull it back up and try again]]."
** Lethal injection every so often goes wrong, and you are quite aware of the pain but you can't scream or move.
** To help with the electric chair, they would put a sponge on the victim's forehead. The sponge is meant to be placed under the electrode cap to help conduct the current and ensure a quick death in the chair. StephenKing's ''TheGreenMile'' has a particularly horrific and nasty scene that was based on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_chair#First_executions the very first execution by electric chair]], where said sponge wasn't used.
** Hanging, if done wrong, does not snap your neck -- you suffocate. You have to drop the victim at least fifteen feet or so for a quick death. This is particularly common with people attempting to commit suicide. There's also the exact opposite problem. The mathematics for performing a proper long drop is fairly simple, but occasionally back in the day they would mess up. If the rope is too long, the person will be decapitated [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KetchumDecapitated.jpg like this fellow by the name of Tom Ketchum]]. They forgot to recalculate his weight after he gained weight while in prison. After the botched hanging of Eva Dugan, Arizona switched to the "more humane" method of execution by gas chamber.
* From an old radio announcement: ''"This is the sound of a train hitting a person: ...chugga-chugga, chugga-chugga, chugga-CHUGGA, CHUGGA-CHUGGA, CHUGGA-CHUGGA, CHUGGA-CHUGGA, CHUGGA-chugga, chugga-chugga, chugga-chugga..."''
* JohnFKennedy's assassination. It was the same as any other headshot, really, but it happened in BROAD DAYLIGHT in front of many, many people, ''children'' included. And don't even get us started on the ''autopsy''...
* A test pilot who bailed out of a plane at supersonic speed in the '50s; his entire body inflated to ''twice its size'', his eyeballs swelled to the size of Major League baseballs, and ''six feet of his lower intestine protruded out''-yet he somehow survived.
* The [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Yfd_7jrnMk gruesome]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM6v-43-1PU effects]] of the Russian heroin substitute 'Krokodil' called so because the users skin and flesh turns green and becomes horribly gangrenous, before it rots off revealing fresh bone without any blood. It is made from codeine extracted from codeine medication and mixed with cleaning solvents, which is why the average lifespan of the user is less than a year. How someone could not take themselves to hospital the moment they started feeling decomposition in their limbs is amazing, but [[BodyHorror how any human could even survive that level of injury without succumbing to sepsis or shock is incredible.]]
* [[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001355 Hypokalemic Periodic Paralysis Disorder]]. It doesn't sound too bad, but YOU try waking up one morning not being able to move your arms or legs without feeling like you're tearing the muscles from the bone or not having the ability to grip anything (thus leading to an inability to button your own pants) because your blood potassium levels have dropped. Even more horrifying is that while the condition is genetic, the effects are activated by something as simple as eating too much pizza the night before.
* Hydrofluoric acid accidents. Even chemistry geeks are deathly scared of that stuff, as it not only eats through pretty much anything (including glass), but causes severe tissue necrosis. It also etches bones, and slows or stops the victim's heart through rapid loss of blood calcium. Direct skin contact with even a small amount is usually fatal. And it doesn't react well with flesh, so you don't have any obvious acid burns to tip you off that you got some on you. Just an unpleasant itching or tingling.
* Let's talk about a few suicide methods that aren't as painless or reliable as most people think.
** Overdosing on medication. As simple as going to sleep? Haha, yeah right. More like hours of projectile vomiting once your stomach starts to reject the medication, and a host of other horrifying symptoms (which ones you experience depends on the medication you took) including but not limited to: Loud ringing in the ears (very common, and much more distressing than you might think), temporary deafness, temporary blindness, seizures, intense burning or itching of the skin, severe stomach pain, GI bleeding, hallucinations, paranoia, panic attacks, loss of muscle control, loss of bowel and bladder control, hyperventilating, fast or slow heartbeat (both of which you can feel), difficulty breathing, coma and, of course, death (rarely). At the hospital, you'll be forced to drink liquid charcoal, a nasty concoction that tastes like you're drinking mud (complete with gritty bits -- ever ate a sandwich at the beach, and accidentally got sand in it?), and usually makes you vomit even more. [=ODing=] is rarely fatal, but can cause permanent damage to the organs and brain. You might also have your stomach pumped, depending on what you took and how much, or how long ago.
** Tylenol, a common method of OD, is particularly nasty. The person feels icky for a few hours after taking it, but shows no major symptoms at first. The person may start to feel better later in the day, believing that they're going to be okay and failing to seek medical treatment. Big, BIG mistake. 24 to 48 hours later, liver failure begins to set in. The nausea returns, cranked UpToEleven, as well as INTENSE pain. No, really, the pain is utterly horrible, as in you feel as though your liver is expanding due to being stuffed full of shards of glass. Ever had gall stones? If so, it's like that, but even worse. Your skin turns yellow, and toxins build up throughout your body, which brings about all kinds of painful symptoms. If you wind up needing a liver transplant, you might be rejected by the donor committee due to being suicidal.
** Aspirin, another common one, makes you very nauseated; causes very, very loud ringing in the ears, and makes them feel as if they're stuffed with cotton; feeling disconnected with reality, which is disturbing; in extreme cases, bleeding in the GI tract due to ''eating away at the inside of the stomach''; seizures; a very fast heart beat; hyperventilating, as your body attempts to expel excess carbon dioxide in the blood; low blood sugar; potential edema (swelling) in the brain; and a host of other symptoms.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSRI SSRIs]] are near impossible to OD on. Fatally, that is. Instead what happens is that your brain goes nuts from the overdose of serotonin, which is not as pleasant as it sounds. Some of the symptoms include profuse vomiting, diarrhea, hallucinations, rapid heartbeat, shivering, sweating, tremors, and coma. In short, you probably won't die, but you'll feel like you are--and probably wish you had for a few days.
** Gunshot to the head. Even pointblank, to the forehead, temple or [[AteHisGun in the mouth]], [[TisOnlyABulletInTheBrain these are survivable]]. Sure, brain-damage is likely, but that doesn't automatically kill a person. A large number of people who attempt suicide via gun accidentally blow off part of their face, but manage to live. One may end up drowning in their own blood because they've destroyed their nasal cavity -- hardly an easy death. Since the body is almost guaranteed to flinch by reflex in response to the gun going off, there's a very good chance that one will miss the brain entirely. Or they might hit it, but only in an area that affects higher reasoning, leaving them alive, but paralyzed, mentally challenged, or both. Yes, yes, ''[[RealityIsUnrealistic you don't even need the seat of your soul and personality to live.]]'' See also one of the most famous cases of surviving this kind of brain trauma, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage Phineas Gage]]. If you use a certain kind of gun/ammo with bullets that aren't strong enough to penetrate the skull, you can have the bullet hit the back of your skull and bounce off, ricocheting around your brain and slicing it up. Likewise, gunshots to other parts of the body often miss the organ being aimed for, leaving the person to bleed to death or disabled. Those who aim for the heart may miss and hit the lungs instead, for instance. This effectively causes a person to drown in their own blood.
** Cutting the wrists. Definitely not as easy as sliding a knife across your arm. To even be effective, a person has to hack their way down through tendons and muscle to reach the artery, which takes time. NOT painless, NOT quick and scary as hell. Even if one successfully cuts open the artery and does all the things people do to prevent clotting, they're probably not going to die (even if they're not found by anyone after they pass out). It will, however, leave an enormous scar down the arm, as well as permanent nerve damage and less flexibility in the skin, leading to a constant feeling of 'tightness' in the arm.
** Hanging. This can certainly kill a person, but not always painlessly. Suicide victims rarely succeed in breaking their own neck, which would cause an instant death. Instead, they hang there, slowly asphyxiating. The pain is excessive (imagine your entire body being held up by a noose around your neck), not to mention the sheer panic one experiences -- survival instinct kicks in automatically, even if the person really does want to kill their self, as they hang there and die. Plus, if they're rescued before they die, brain damage is a very likely possibility. Oh, the corpse of a hanging victim is not very nice to look at, what with the bloated face, the tongue sticking out, the burst capillaries in the eyes and the blood pooling in their legs and forearms.
** Drowning. Panicking under water is not a fun way to die, and inhaling water is painful.
** To sum it all up:
---> ''Razors pain you;
---> Rivers are damp;
---> Acids stain you;
---> And drugs cause cramp.
---> Guns aren't lawful;
---> Nooses give;
---> Gas smells awful;
---> You might as well live.''
----> -- Dorothy Parker
* A recent psychological study indicates that the idea that deals the worst response (from a handful given to test subjects) is [[spoiler: Pointy objects being pushed through the smallest holes in the body, namely the [[FreudWasRight nipples]]]] Try to think about that and NOT get chills.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlequin_fetus Harlequin fetuses]]. Just...''ick''.
* Seeing your own bones or blood after an injury.
* [[http://sometimes-interesting.com/2011/06/29/over-200-dead-bodies-on-mount-everest/ There are over 200 dead bodies littering Mt. Everest.]] Above a certain point, it is unsafe to bring them down, so they are pretty much left to waste away.
* The physical effects of bulimic and anorexic behavior.
[[/folder]]
----
[[folder: RLNF Animals]]
[[quoteright:345:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/angler_fish.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:345:Hey kids, remember that [[NightmareFuel scary part]] in FindingNemo? Well, fish like that are really out there. And this one ain't the worst of it...]]
->[[http://www.cracked.com/funny-5588-hybrid-animals/ "Apparently, Nature evolved humans so that she would have something to scream at all of her other creations."]]\\
-- ''{{Cracked}}''
-> "DAMN, NATURE! YOU SCARY!"
-->--''{{Family Guy}}''
Some animals just make anything better. Others, [[NightmareFuel make anything scary]].
TV tropes would like to remind you that the animals listed are just that: animals, not horrible monsters that should be [[KillItWithFire killed with fire]]. They are also not really after your blood. Except for the blood sucking ones.
Note to All Tropers: Enough with the side conversations on this page, take it to the discussion boards. And make sure your entry isn't already here before you add: there's already a lot of bugs, for instance.
See also EverythingsWorseWithBears. [[EverythingsWorseWithBees And bees]]. [[EverythingsEvenWorseWithSharks And sharks]].
----
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder: Extinct]]
* TwoWords: ''[[TyrannosaurusRex Tyrannosaurus rex'']]. To put it bluntly, we're talking about an animal that was 36-42 feet long, 11 feet tall, weighed 6 tons, and had razor-sharp serrated teeth that could grow to the size of a banana. Oh, and it gets even better. The jaws of a T-rex were strong enough to crush bone and are considered one of the strongest sets of jaws known to ever exist in the animal kingdom (Only the prehistoric fish, Dunkleosteus, had a stronger bite). Be thankful it's extinct.
** ''T. Rex'' definitely was a badass. But it was hardly alone in being NightmareFuel. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Largesttheropods.svg See this chart?]] Yeah, I'm glad those thing's aren't around anymore.
** [[ItGotWorse It gets worse.]] There's now evidence that suggests that T.rex could run fast. So, now you got a 42 ft long, 6 ton predator that may have been able to run up to 20 mph and had bone-crushing jaws.
** [[RuleOfThree It gets even worse.]] There's evidence that Tyrannosaurus Rexes ''hunted in packs''. [[ZergRush Sending the faster juveniles up ahead]] to herd the prey into the jaws of the adults.
*** [[JurassicPark Mustgofastermustgofastermustgofaster...]]
** [[OverlyLongGag It gets worse.]] Paleontologists think they could grow even ''larger'' than 42 feet. There could be [[BeyondTheImpossible a 50 foot specimen buried out there, or even a 60 foot!]]
* ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalania Everyone, meet Megalania]]'', the gigantic prehistoric cousin of the Komodo Dragon. Again, be thankful its extinct
** There have been reports of a komodo dragon like lizard in the Indonesian islands, but 2 or 3 times it's size. It's now a cryptozoological animal.
* There once lived a prehistoric crocodile known as ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinosuchus Deinosuchus]]'' (the name itself means "terrible crocodile") that was estimated to have been 30 to 50 feet long and weighed up to nine tons, with a bite force [[UpToEleven even greater than T. rex]], which ate ''dinosaurs''. Have fun swimming, kids.
** Similarly: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcosuchus Sarcosuchus]], [[FanNickname a.k.a.]] "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Supercroc]]." This time, you can't even take solace in the off-chance the size might be overestimated, because some very complete skeletons have been found.
* What about ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkleosteus Dunkleosteus]]''? This big fish had a bite force of over 8,000 pounds per inch (greater than TyrannosaurusRex!) on the tip of its teeth[[hottip:*:Technically, they're extensions of the jaws, not teeth.]]. The worst part? Its hunting tactic was to open its mouth so quickly as to suck in prey moving in due to the pressure change - so you would be sucked into a gape that could chop pretty much anything in half and you wouldn't be able to escape.
** It doesn't help that it looks roughly like a [[StarWars Rancor]] crossed with a gigantic piranha.
* Marsupial lions. Ice Age Australia's answer to the Sabre-tooth cats. The biggest, Thylacoleo, was about the size of a large cougar, and could disembowel prey with its claws, and deigned to rip off limbs in favour of [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/07/sci_nat_enl_1169658723/html/1.stm snipping them off with its teeth]]. It also apparently dropped from trees onto its prey. Even scarier, it ''may still exist.''
** So wait, drop bears actually existed?
** At least they look somewhat cute and cuddly, being cats, still. They aren't as lethal, but having a coconut crab do a paradrop on your head is pretty freakish. Especially if it whacks you with said coconut before hand.
*** They're not cats. A better comparison would be giant killer wombats (or maybe even ''[[KillerRabbit koalas]]'') with sickle clawed thumbs. Yes, that's right, marsupial lions come from the "herbivore" side of the marsupial family tree.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastric-brooding_frog Gastric-brooding Frogs.]] ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. [[{{Squick}} Ew]].
** They've been gone for a while, actually... we drove them to extinction back in the eighties. At least all you easily-disgusted folks can rejoice now.
*** Except the Pharmaceutical Industry, who, realising that young frog's ability to suppress the digestive fluids of its parent could've yielded potentially life-saving drugs, are not exactly rejoicing. They're offering big bucks to anyone who can capture a live one, which it doesn't look like is gonna happen.
*** Unless of course, zombie frogs.
* Mosasaurs. Enormous, carnivorous, aquatic lizards that hunt in packs. Fortunately, they're extinct now, but they were seriously scary.
** It doesn't help that one mosasaur fossil was found with the remains of [[BigEater a shark, a seabird, a bony fish and another mosasaur the size of an alligator]] in its stomach area.
* ''{{Megalodon}}''. Prehistoric shark with a mouth a grown man could stand up in. Extrapolating from its fossilized jaws, paleontologists have estimated it to be around 50 to 60 feet long. A creature that big would probably eat ''adult whales''. And if that wasn't scary enough, if it was anything like its smaller modern cousin, the Great White Shark, it could ''breach like a whale''. Imagine, if you will, a shark the size of a Greyhound bus taking to the air with a whale in its mouth. Sweet dreams....
** [[{{Jaws}} We're gonna need a bigger boat.]]
** It's called a polaris breach, for those interested. Great whites aren't the only creature in the sea to do it, but are certainly the most deadly. The last run of Shark Week on the DiscoveryChannel showcased what seal nightmares are made of.
** Of course, the proper NightmareRetardant for that would be the [[SoBadItsGood not-so-classic]] JohnBarrowman flick ''Shark Attack 3: Megalodon''. Then you will never be able to hear that creature's name without giggling.
** Speaking of sharks breaching the surface [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skYRZ_-RXtk&feature=related]]
** One of the nature channels has recently been airing trailers suggesting that ''Megalodon'' might actually still be out there. Think about ''that'' for a while.
*** The book "Meg" by Steve Alten is about exactly that. But, in that it escapes and proceeds to rape the oceanic world. With its teeth.
** How big were these? They made the fearsome Great White Shark look tiny. They made the [[GentleGiant not-so-fearsome]] (but massive) ''Whale Shark'' look tiny.
*** Here's a [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Megalodon_scale1.png chart]] for comparison. The green one is a great white. The red one is ''conservative'' estimate for a megalodon.
** You know how museums have that tendency to put animal jaws on the floor and basically go, "Hey, guys, look how easily this thing could eat you?" Well, this one had freaking ''Megalodon'' jaws. Looking into a pair of jaws that are about half your size again is...disconcerting to say the least.
*** Think about it that way: A great white will have a bony meal out of you. For that thing? ''You're a pretzel.'
** Speaking of large sea animals, scientists have recently found the skull of a large whale similar to the sperm whale about sixty feet long with tusk-like teeth about fourteen inches long. They were thought to have eaten other whales and the fangs would've ripped out huge chunks of the unfortunate victims. Their given name? ''[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Leviathan]] [[Literature/MobyDick melvillei]]''.
*** It also lived alongside ''Megalodon''. Two giant ocean predators with mouths bristling with teeth, one a lone ambush assassin and the other a pack-hunting determinater. And evidence shows ''Megalodon'' and ''Leviathan'' preyed on each other.
** Speaking of EverythingsEvenWorseWithSharks, meet ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicoprion Helicoprion]]'' and ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edestus Edestus]]''. Those ''jaws''...
* Dromaeosaurs (better known as "Raptors" to your average person...Ya know, like ''Velociraptor'', ''Utahraptor'', ''Deinonychus'', etc.) are quite terrifying when one thinks about it. Sure, a good number of species are small, but they also have razor-sharp claws and teeth, a pair of huge scythe-like talons on their hind feet, and its been theorized that several species were highly intelligent social predators.
** Try most. At the very least ''Deinonychus'', the bugger who inspired the monstrous raptors of Jurassic Park, hunted in packs. And while many people consider dinosaurs to be less bad ass with feathers, well, there is a little something called Wing-Assisted-Incline-Flight or something. Quails use it. It allows them to run up straight inclines. Ladies and gentlemen, we have [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot Spider-Raptor]].
*** There isn't any conclusive evidence of them ''hunting'' in groups ''per se''. A group of "raptors" scavenging or mobbing (as opposed to the coordinated group hunting we see in canids) is [[ScienceMarchesOn just as if not more likely]]. But when it comes down to being ripped apart by a dozen [[FeatheredFiend feathered fiends]] the unfortunate prey item probably doesn't care about the difference.
*** Speaking of extinct, feathery deathbringers, let me introduce you to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phorusrhacidae the Terror Birds]]. Basically like a [[FinalFantasy Chocobo]] except they actually existed. And could probably rip apart anything they damn well wanted to, including ''horses''.
**** Jesus, that thing looks like a devil dodo (doesn't seem to be any direct relation, though). And one subfamily is named ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanis Titanis]]'', because of how big it was.
*** Here's a flying menace for you. Meet the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wm7FqZVirI=text Haast's Eagle]]. This raptor was large and powerful enough to take down moas with ease. And it existed when humans started settling in New Zealand. It was a bird DESIGNED TO KILL PEOPLE.
*** [[ItGotWorse It gets worse. Much worse.]] Recent studies suggest that ''Sinornithosaurus millenii'', a small dromaeosaur that lived in Asia, was venomous. That's right, not only were "Raptors" intelligent, fast, and had razor-sharp claws...but now they're poisonous. OhCrap...
**** It's said that the evidence is weak on that one, so you don't ''really'' have to worry about venomous "raptors". Yet. And, fortunately they weren't as intelligent as [[JurassicPark some movies]] show; they couldn't have held a candle in the intelligence department to nearly all modern birds. Also, there were in fact many, many other dinosaurs (including the comparatively much larger ''[[TyrannosaurusRex Tyrannosaurus rex]]'') that were ''better'' adapted for running than the dromaeosaurids. Chances are they could still run faster than ''you'', however. And any cassowary will tell you that you don't have to be the most intelligent birdbrain to be scary... Not to mention, dromaeosaurids may have been good at climbing trees.
**** They may have vomited [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellet_(ornithology) food pellets]] like owls, which is either NightmareRetardant or NauseaFuel.
**** ItGotWorse: Some of them (or at least [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahonavis this one]]) could ''fly''. You ''better'' run.
**** Oh yes, and they got big. Look at [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Utahraptor_scale.png this size chart]] for ''Utahraptor''. The green is a ''conservative'' estimate of its size.
**** Try Megaraptor. Utahraptor has nothing on these things. Go find a ruler. That is the space between the sickle claw's tip and where it connects to the toe.
* Sea Scorpions. Can you imagine an amphibious scorpion the size of a crocodile? I can't without getting the willies.
* Entelodonts. Take a wild boar or a javelina, and give it steroids. A lot of steroids. Enough to make it the size of a bull or rhinoceros. Now, strip off most of its fur, and change its teeth from that of an omnivore into things designed to shear and tear flesh. And take away most of its omnivorous tendencies. Pure carnivore baby. Not to mention that they were the first animals to develop the traditional artiodactyl-style hoof, which made them incredibly fast. Oh yeah, and they ate rhinos on a regular basis.
* Holy shit, ''Andrewsarchus''. [[http://ssjgarfield.deviantart.com/art/Andrewsarchus-62918294 Just....Andrewsarchus]]. It's hard to believe this beast belonged to a family closely related to even-toed artiodactyls (think deer, sheep, and cattle), since its gigantic head alone was over three feet long and it was the largest carnivorous land mammal that walked the Earth. This page from the manga "Eden no Ori" [[http://www.mangafox.com/manga/eden_no_ori/v01/c003/12.html sums up its size quite nicely]].
* ''[[http://www.flickr.com/photos/markwitton/2465048793/in/set-72057594082038974/ Hatzegopteryx]]'' may not look physically terrifying, but once [[FridgeHorror you realise some things]] you would be thankful things like that are extinct. First of all, it was basically like a giant stork in habits, catching prey with the beak. In Hatzegi's case, a beak longer than the jaws of the largest theropod dinosaurs (aka T. rex had a shorter snout). And that pterosaurs was taller than a giraffe. Considering birds like herons can swallow things as proportionally big as rabbits, and since reptilian (including avian) esophagi are very tough (turkeys can swallow blades and not suffer ill effects), Hatzegopteryx could easily grab a person with the jaws, swallow him/her alive and you wouldn't even be able to fight back, only to find your doom at the digestive juices.
* [[http://www.nunoxei.com/images/Tasmanian_tiger.gif The Tasmanian Tiger]], which can distend its jaws far beyond the capabilities of those of any animal other than a snake. I am considering a campaign to Tasmania to make sure that there aren't any more alive, because they could apparently swim...
** Apparently, thanks to advancements in technology, it could be possible to bring the species back. They're attempting this now. You're welcome.
* The Permian Extinction. The worst extinction event in the history of earth. The closest life ever came to ceasing to exist all together. Over 90% of all species on earth vanished. It gets even more disturbing when you hear the details. Of all the dozens groups of reptiles, only a handful survived. Synapsids: aka, “mammal-like reptiles”. The missing link between mammals and reptiles. These creatures basically ruled the earth, very diverse. Both tiny creatures, and mega fauna rivaling the dinosaurs and mammals after them. The only ones who survived where tiny burrowing creatures who eventually became mammals. Anapsids: There used to be 100s of different kinds of armored reptiles roaming around. Only the turtles survived. Archosaurs: The common ancestor of birds, dinosaurs, crocodilians, and pterosaurs. Before the extinction they where tiny scavengers. Afterwards they exploded from lack of completion. Lepidosauria: The Ancestors of lizards and snakes. Sphenodontia: The Ancestors of modern tuataras. Of all the Amphibians that evolved since they first left the ocean, only the Lissamphibia survived. Crocodilians where only able to become crocodilians because the giant Croc-like Amphibians died out. Reptilomorphs aka, “reptile-like amphibians.” The missing link, and the most successful group of amphibians at the time, Where completely wiped out. Trilobites: some of the oldest and most successful ocean life at the time. More successful than fish. Completely wiped out. Insects didn’t make it out okay either. All six-winged insects vanished. Their cousins, the non-insect Hexapods vanished, except the wood lice. Fossil evidence shows that for almost a million years after the extinction, the most common form of life on earth was ''fungus''. The icing on the cake? Unlike the Dinosaurs and the massive impact Crater, scientists have '''''NO CLUE''''' what caused it, or if it could ever happen again. There is not a shread of evidence of anything that could have caused it on earth, leading some to theorize it was a local supernova, but the truth is we have no idea.
** The current most likely theory is that all the landmasses coming together caused widespread "desertification", quite literally turning vast amounts of what was previously rainforest and swampland into arid, nasty environments few creatures could adapt to. The oceans weren't safe, either; with only one landmass, currents settled and the oceans stagnated. Almost every ocean-going creature ''suffocated'' due to lack of oxygen. Other theories include a flood basalt, which is basically a supervolcanic eruption that lasts centuries. There's no word to describe just how insanly nightmarish a flood basalt eruption is. First the name. It causes a litteral flood of basaltic rock over the area it happens. Next how it occurs. Triggered by the massive tectonic stress brought about by a single landmass subducting ocean plates on all sides, a massive chunk of the earth's crust crumbles off and falls into the mantle. This forces the magma upwards to the surface. How big is it? Well the largest volacano on earth today is the size of Hawaii's large island. The Permian flood basalt, the Siberian traps are the size of the continental United States. And the eruption lasted for 100s, if not 1000s of years nonstop. What happens after it's done? Aside from the aformentioned flood of basalt, imagine all that volcanic gas. Now imagine that gas is methane, one of the most potent green house gases that occur on earth. Now imagine not only the sun's heat, but the volcanic heat trapped in the atmosphere at the same time. The allways popular "huge asteroid" is another theory, as is [[ApocalypseWow a local supernova]]. My favorite theory is that the single landmass and single ocean caused the planet to become tidally locked, meaning one side always facing the sun, one side always facing away. The kicker? The numbers don't really add up in any model.
*** [[WildMassGuessing Or it could be]] [[TakeAThirdOption ALL]] [[NoKillLikeOverkill of them]].
*** It was obviously [[MassEffect The Reapers]].
* Of course some of the creatures that the Permian Extinction got rid of where pretty scary.
** Mammal like reptiles? Here's an image for you. Picture a creature with neither fur nor scales, the jaw of a crocodile with the teeth of a saber-cat. Now imagine it's the size of rhino, and has fully upright legs built for running. Ladies and gentlemen, [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Inostrancevia_4DB.jpg meet the Gorgonopsids!]]
** Reptile like amphibians? You're probably thinking "Come on! What's a frog gonna do?" [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prionosuchus this guy ain't no frog!]]
** Of course some of the Archosaurs that replaced them were scary too. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postosuchus meet Postosuchus.]] Best described as a fully upright 15 foot long land crocodile.
* The [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes Titanoboa]]. A snake that grew up to 15 meters in length and, come on, it's called the ''[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Titan]]''oboa! So, it's kind of like taking your average boa constrictor or anaconda, whatever, and drilling it up to eleven. Be thankful it no longer exists.
* During the Carboniferous era, we had ''Meganeura'', a dragonfly the size of an eagle and ''Arthropluera'', a millepede that's 6 feet long. SIX FEET LONG!
* Wow, I'm surprised no one's mentioned ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinosaurus Spinosaurus]]'' yet! Take a crocodile, give it plenty of steroids, give it a six-foot high sail on its back and put it on two legs. Scared yet? Here's something for you. See [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Largesttheropods.svg this chart]]? ''Spinosaurus'' is red. ''TyrannosaurusRex'' is ''the purple one''.
** Luckily, Spinosaurus has it's fair share of NightmareRetardant. Spinosaurus primarily ate fish, so T.rex would probably kill one most of the time, if they were to fight. It wasn't a super predator like it's often portrayed as.
** That said, it is also thought to have taken down medium sized prey as well. So that means it would probably be eating grisly bears if it were still alive. Not to mention this fish it ate could very well have been ''sharks''.
*** it dies if you make it ''[[WeaksauceWeakness roll over]]'' [[EpicFail since of said fin]] being evolution's crowning [[IdiotBall]]
* Of course! How could [[{{Tropers/Spinosegnosaurus77}} I]] forget ''Deinocheirus''? Its eight-foot long arm and hand bones were found in 1970 (the creature's name means "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast terrible hand]]"). Nothing else from the creature has been found yet, and those arms have been a mystery ever since. If it's any help, their owner would have to be ''tyrannosaur-sized at the very least.'' [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Deinocheirus_hands.jpg Have a look]] and make up your own mind about the creature.
* [[http://dinosaurs.wikia.com/wiki/Therizinosaurus Therizinosaurus]]. On the one hand, it was an herbivore and probably wouldn't see you as food. On the other hand...It had 3 ''foot'' long claws on its hands which it used to defend itself agaisnt predators.
* ''Carnotaurus''. The name means "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast meat-eating bull]]". [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Carnotaurus_DB_2.jpg Here's a picture]]. The tiny arms acting as NightmareRetardant for you? Okay, let me fix that; while the bite force of the ''Carnotaurus'' was believed to be less than that of ''Allosarurus'', it's been theorized that they made up for that by beating their upper jaws against their prey like a ''[[PrecisionFStrike fucking]] [[AxCrazy hatchet]]''.
* Large ceratopsians like ''Triceratops'' and ''Styracosaurus''. We usually don't think of them as scary due to being [[HerbivoresAreFriendly herbivores]], however, an adult could gore a tyrannosaur to death with those giant horns, let alone a human. Also, ceratopsians may [[http://www.flickr.com/photos/markwitton/522293984 have been omnivores]], not herbivores.
* ''Stegosaurus''. A dinosaur the size of an elephant with a built-in medieval flail and a brain so small it probably indiscriminately whacked anything that crossed it's path. But as bad as ''Stegosaurus'' was, it has nothing on the pure demonic nightmare fuel that is ''[[http://www.kentrosaurus.org/nova_phot042.jpg Kentrosaurus]]''.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Living]]
* Ladies and gentlemen, [[http://www.wolaver.org/animals/Hatchetfish.jpg the hatchet fish.]]
** This fish makes '''the Exorcist''' look like a puppy.
*** [[TheExorcist Max von Sydow?]]
** I take your hatchet fish and raise it with [[http://iliketowastemytime.com/sites/default/files/viperfish_deadly_deep_predator2.jpg the viper fish]]. '''SWEET JESUS, WHY DOES THAT THING EXIST?!'''
** I see your viper fish (and wish I didn't) and raise you a [[http://www.petsfoto.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Fangtooth-Fish2.jpg fangtooth]]. It's just a mouth with fins.
** [[OverlyLongGag I see all of your fish]] and raise you a [[http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lhpzj1cH5m1qgduswo1_500.jpg snaggletooth]]. It looks like it dines on souls.
* You will never be able to look at a lizard the same way after my bio teacher showed us this.
** Warning: Not for the faint of heart! [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0ThAWmEk7U Monitor]]
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jppNHoksheY Here's another one for good measure]]
** Ugh, you can hear it screaming from within its gullet!
** If anything stotats would better quality [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWIW-MDZa_8 in that department.]]
* This [[http://www.ilovemyjournal.com/media/1/SamUgliestDogLulu_sm.jpg dog]].
** That dog died a few years go. It was blind for quite some time; the joke was that it got its sight back, looked in a mirror and dropped dead of shock.
** To be clear, the dog was voted "Ugliest Dog In The World." Before its death, it was a 15-year-old Chinese hairless crested. Its eyes are white becaus it's blind.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjRSlnJ1rA4 Goblin sharks]] have protrusible jaws. Creepy!
** a bit less terrifying: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdJRb7lVoGc&feature=related
* Earthworms and parasitic tapeworms (and hookworms). I can't even look at them prior to screaming and running away.
** Why are Earthworms scary? Appearances maybe, but they're one of the best creatures out there, helping fertilize soil and such. It even has a digestive system, and respiratory system and circulatory system. It's a pretty humane creature. Tapeworms on the other hand are horrifiying, trying to suck out your nutrients without giving anything back and worst of all, it can [[BodyHorror GROW 8 METERS LONG IN YOUR VERY OWN BODY!! HOLY!!]]
** Ascaris worms (you know, the ones in your intestines that looked like slimy living pasta, and can actually accumulate as a bolus to be an [[EldritchAbomination eldritch perversion]] against the Holy FlyingSpaghettiMonster, and whose eggs are ''fucking microscopic'')
*** It's even worse with the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracunculiasis Guinea Worm]]. Seriously, this worm is really a NightmareFuel, every major health organization vowed to push it to extinction.
**** You see the Guinea worm is native to Africa, the ecosystem that humans evolved in. As such they prey exclusively on humans, and where thus introduced to other places by traveling with (read inside) humans. The reason Africa's such a [[DeathWorld nasty place]] is because it's humanity's natural habitat, and thus creatures evolved there with humans in mind, where as other continents are nicer because we're invasive species in those environments. While this has led to some good things (the honey guide bird evolved symbiotic behavior with humans, it leads us to the beehive, we get the honey, they get the larva), mostly it just amounts to creatures that can kill us. In other words, it's what environmentalists are asking for when they say humans should "live in harmony with nature". Just keep that in mind.
*** The fact that many people don't know that there's a worm living inside them makes them extremely scary. Parasitic worms were voted the #1 Most Extreme Horror in ''TheMostExtreme'' series.
* Three Words: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dermatobia_hominis Human Botfly Larvae]]. Disturbing and literally sickening to see one being removed: true. Now try ''not'' imagining hearing chewing inside your head if you ever discover one embedded in your scalp.
* Yuck, what a thick, puffy tongue this fish has... Wait, it's got ''beady little eyes!'' [[http://www.entomologia.org/bugs_in_the_news/Cymothoa_exigua.jpg picture OHMYGODTHATSNOTATONGUE!]]
*** Sounds like some sicko's LiteralMinded parody of [[LordOfTheRings Grima Wormtongue]].
*** It may or may not help the [[BodyHorror OHGODOHGOD]] factor to note that the isopod doesn't actually make life any more difficult for the fish. Because it sits where the tongue was, the fish can still eat just fine. Still, Jesus ''God'' is it creepy.
** And then there's [[http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7927 this]] little guy... "Let's go swimming. I insist."
** Also, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoids#Insects real-life]] [[{{Aliens}} Xenomorphs]]. Sweet dreams!
** Think about it this way. On the wiki page, it listed fictional parasitic insects, including little old Uroborus and Las Plagas. Imagine what would happen if these guys evolved a little. You have a stomach ache...is it just bad food, or did an enemy dose you with a little...Uroborus.
** Well, you'd certainly know if you started growing tentacles yeck... those Uroboros tentacles are all slimey and deadly (goddamn Wesker)
* Certain species of snake. Also certain members of the spider order such as Tarantula, black widow, and the trapdoor spider.
** Don't worry; be [[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5199409/British-scientists-study-Hawaiian-happy-face-spider.html happy]]!
** What's just as frightening is their venom, and more specifically, what that venom can do to a person. Some kinds, if they don't kill you, [[BodyHorror cause the skin around the bite to rot]], [[AndIMustScream paralyze and slowly suffocate you]] or (depending on the nature of the neurotoxin) cause seizures, make your blood congeal in your veins... So kids, if you see a snake in your yard, ''stay the fuck away from it, and for the love of Christ, DON'T PICK IT UP!''
** Did someone say [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySXCdcnKBgg trapdoor spider?]] (Not safe for arachnophobes)
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikz7x5NRM2c here]] is a video of an island full of snakes. "one snake for every pace you walk". It doesn't help that they are some of the most venemous snakes in the world.
** Back to the subject of snakes, even if you're not scared of them, [[http://www.diamondreptile.com/pricelist.htm#venomous how easy it is to buy and own some of the most venomous ones in the world should be enough to skeeve you out.]]
* Scorpions.
* Back to spiders - some of them are social, weaving common webs of many spiders. How many can they be? Anelosimus Eximius, for instance, bands into colonies of up to 50 000 spiders. I'll let that sink in.
* Think about the things that [[EverythingsBetterWithPenguins penguins]] have to go through when they expect a chick. The mother goes out to find food, leaving the fathers behind to look after the egg and keep it warm, ''or else the egg will crack and the contents will become frozen solid, [[TearJerker killing the baby]].''
** To make matters worse, while the mother penguin looks for food, they are at risk of being eaten by predators such as leopard seals. Sometimes it's not just the mother that gets eaten, but her unborn chick, too! Scared yet?
* Some creatures that live in the ocean. The king of them all is the great white shark with its SlasherSmile and vicious nature. Then there's piranhas that can ''render any living creature- even a cow to a skeleton within seconds'' (Although they can only do this when practically starved to death) They're still fierce scavengers though. Then there's the anglerfish.
** How about the [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1322118/Jeremy-Wades-goliath-tigerfish-British-fisherman-grapples-giant-piranha.html goliath tigerfish]]? Take a piranha and scale it up to 5 feet long.
** Great whites hunt like freaking serial killers, according to some recent studies. This just makes them even more terrifying.
*** Here's something. Recently, off the eastern coast of Australia (where else?), fishermen pulled a 3 metre (10 foot) great white shark onboard their boat. That's a good size, as great whites go, but the shark was dead, so that wasn't a problem. What was a problem was that the shark had been BITTEN CLEAN IN HALF BY SOMETHING TWICE AS LARGE. And this is just near a very popular swimming beach. Just have a think about that for a bit. Who wants to go swimming?
** On the subject of "Some creatures that live in the ocean," witness [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloop this]] article from TheOtherWiki. "The source of the sound remains unknown...it matches the audio profile of a living creature but there is no known animal that could have produced the sound...If the sound did come from an animal, it would reportedly have to be several times the size of the largest known animal on Earth, the Blue Whale." Real-life Cloverfield monster, anyone? Gaaahhhh. [[CaptainBlacksoul I]] am getting creeped out just posting this.
*** Just for reasons of balance, this from the same wiki: "An oft repeated claim is that it matches the audio profile of a living creature though this view is primarily held by cryptozoologists and is not popular among mainstream scientists."
*** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloop#Analysis This is no longer true]]. A current look at the article actually has several cited references to an NOAA marine oceanographer saying that it is likely animal in nature...
*** What gets me is that where the sound was located is very close to where the city of [[CthulhuMythos R'lyeh]] is supposed to be located.
*** The file that's usually played is the sped up one. Just try listening to it [[http://www.bloopwatch.org/bloop_realtime.wav slowed down to realtime]]. (Large File.)
* The things that go on inside you. Also, "Beauty is skin deep" is a horrible lie if you use a microscope.
* The [[OrificeInvasion Candiru]]. According to the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candiru page on them]] in ThatOtherWiki, Candiru hunt other fish by sensing the urea coming from a fish's gills. The opened urethra during urination is big enough for a candiru to get inside. It can be easily avoided by wearing a bathing suit while in the river. Or by not swimming and urinating in Amazon river at the same time.
** What about its relative, the Candiru-Acù? Victims are eaten alive, from the inside out, by up to 100 of the fish. And by 'eaten alive', I mean 'completely hollowed out'.
* Have fun reading the Cracked article of [[http://www.cracked.com/article_15816_5-most-horrifying-bugs-in-world.html The 5 Most Horrifying Bugs in the World]].
** The giant bees attacking the normal bees was pretty much just DemonicSpider vs GoddamnBats.
* Cracked articles, eh? Then we just have to mention [[http://www.cracked.com/article_17579_7-terrifying-giant-versions-disgusting-critters.html 7 Terrifying Giant Versions of Disgusting Critters]].
* Cracked articles just [[http://www.cracked.com/article/125_13-real-animals-lifted-directly-out-your-nightmares.html add 13 creatures to nightmare]]...
* Some wasps are particularly evil. Known as parasitoid wasps, they will find a live caterpillar, temporarily paralyze it, lay eggs inside the body, and allow them to hatch. The larvae will then take control of the caterpillar by devouring unnecessary organs, modifying its glands, and directly manipulating its nervous system. The host is ordered to do nothing but eat and eat until it's ten times the size of a normal caterpillar. After a set amount of time, the larvae mature and then burrow their way out of the still living animal in order to infect new hosts with their own eggs. The caterpillar has been so infected by the wasp's hormones that even as it's dying it's forced to weave the wasps a cocoon and attack any predators who threaten them. If that won't give you cold sweats, nothing will.
*** Yep, parasitic wasps inspired ''Film/{{Alien}}''. Strange but true. Even Darwin was freaked out by them, saying, [[GodIsEvil 'I'm not quite sure I can believe in a benevolent God after studying the life-cycle of this creature.']]
*** [[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/05/photogalleries/in-the-womb-animal-pictures/photo3.html Video!]]
*** The TEETH! Holy shit on a stick, the TEETH! And how did they film on the inside of the poor caterpillar!? UGH!
*** Oh, but it gets better! People all over the world ''breed'' these little bastards on special farms and send them out to specially destroy caterpillars that eat timber. That's right. We're endorsing these parasitic monstrosities and having them take out creatures whose only crime was feeding themselves. [[HumansAreBastards Do I even need to say it?]]
**** I think [[Manga/{{Bleach}} Szayel]] was based with the parasitic wasp in mind.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_cockroach_wasp Meet the Emerald Wasp.]] It doesn't just knock out a cockroach and put an egg on it; it chemically lobotomizes the roach, remote controls it to its nest, rips off its feelers, and then lays an egg on it.
** Yellowjackets: Other wasps only eat insects. Yellowjackets [[ExtremeOmnivore eat everything]]! If you ever got buzzed during a barbecue, it was probably them. And you were probably right to freak out; they have ''the'' HairTriggerTemper of the insect world. Not as bad as Africanized killer bees, but they make up for it by being EVERYWHERE. They are the most common species of wasp in the world. And, possibly, the most intelligent. The freakiest thing? As I mentioned before, they buzz barbecues, because THEY EAT MEAT. They are CARRION EATERS. And unlike ''other'' scavengers, being so small, the lack of meat on our bones compared to other animals does not deter them. I read somewhere that there's a certain cycle of insects that appear when a body is dumped in the wilderness. Guess which ones show up to ''[[ToServeMan consume thy flesh]]''!
* Yep, hornets in Australia too. Helicopter gunships of the insect world, and their reproductive strategy is straight out of ''{{Aliens}}''. Even the most diehard arachnophile would be [[{{Squick}} squicked]] watching a hornet drag a full-size huntsman spider into its burrow. [[NightmareFuel Alive, paralysed and impregnated with hornet eggs.]]
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_giant_hornet Asian Giant Hornet.]] It can outrun you. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L54exo8JTUs&feature=related 30 of these can eradicate an entire hive of 30,000 bees.]] ''It has flesh-dissolving venom''. Quoted from Cracked:
--->"It's the size of your thumb and it can spray flesh-melting poison. We really wish we were making that up for, you know, dramatic effect because goddamn, what a terrible thing a three-inch acid-shooting hornet would be, you know? Oh, hey, did we mention it shoots it into your eyes? Or that the poison also has a pheromone cocktail in it that'll call every hornet in the hive to come over and sting you until you are no longer alive? Think you can outrun it? It can fly 50 miles in a day. It'd be nice to say something reassuring at this point, like "Don't worry, they only live on top of really tall mountains where nobody wants to live," but no, they live all over the goddamned place, including outside Tokyo. Forty people die like that every year, each of them horribly".
*** If you're afraid of the Asian giant hornet, just think about these little guys: I present [[http://homepage3.nifty.com/jhb/english/hyoushi.jpg Apis cerana japonica]], the Japanese honeybee. Almost cute, isn't it? Asian giant hornets can decimate colonies of European honeybees with ease even though they are outnumbered hundreds of times over, but Japanese honeybees have an interesting defense: they swarm over the invading hornets, to the point where the hornet can't even move, and vibrate their flight muscles, which causes the temperature in the center of this dog- er, ''beepile'', to pass 47 degress Celsius. The honeybees can endure this heat, the hornet cannot. They are essentially roasted alive. It's a [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome CMoA]] for the Japanese honeybees, and a NightmareFuel death for the hornets.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepsis_wasp Pepsis Wasp, aka Tarantula Hawk]], so called because ''it eats tarantulas''. Not only that, its sting, while not that hazardous, is so painful, all you can do is lie down and '''''scream'''''.
* The stag beetle is so-named for the large, antler-like mandibles possessed by the males of many species. It [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stag_beetle easily qualifies as nightmare fuel]] for the same reason. Worse, they're big, some around four inches long. They usually don't harm people, though.
** In Japan, they're even collected and kept as pets. If you're not used to insects larger than the size of your thumb, you should stay away. YMMV though.
* An even more horrifying creature with comparatively large jaws is the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antlion antlion]]--if you're an ant, since they're not very big. Adults are relatively unremarkable, dragonfly-like insects, but the young are lethal predators that dig pits in the sand, waiting at bottom of the pit to eat whatever insects fall in with their big jaws. If God wanted to write a horror story and market it towards arthropods, I can think of few better ideas.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solifugae Solifugids, also known as camel spiders, though they aren't spiders.]] Do I even need to explain this? Possibly the most traumatizing, monstrous arachnids ever, which, given what we know about arachnids in general, says a lot.
** Want to know something creepier? While they generally don't attack humans, they use hair as nesting materials, so one of the things they do to sleeping humans is creep up on them and snip off locks of hair like some demented stalker...
* The goddamn Surinam toad. It's an amphibian that embeds its eggs in its back... and eventually, its young ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCayq56wHSA rip themselves fully-formed from their mother's skin]]''. Yeah, it's perfectly natural, but just the ''thought'' of it happening to a human being...
* Komodo Dragons. Though they have both venom and septic saliva, they [[ScienceMarchesOn are not believed to play an important role in predation]] and the idea that they will deliberately envenomate/infect their prey and wait for it to die arose from skepticism from scientists at the turn of the century towards the idea that [[ReptilesAreAbhorrent a mere reptile could dominate an entire ecosystem]]. The truth is a lot less convoluted. The Komodo Dragon is a cunning ambush hunter that takes down prey with good old fashioned brute force; they're basically land-crocodiles. Though Komodo Dragons have jaw muscles weaker than a housecat's, their teeth are razor sharp and their neck muscles are enormously powerful, allowing them to easily dispatch prey with slashing bites that cause the victim to die from blood-loss and shock within seconds. Smaller prey (such as deer and wild boar) are swept off their feet by a blow from the dragon's [[WhipItGood whiplike tail]], and then seized, instantly killed via thrashing, and are often swallowed whole. To contend with larger prey, such as Water Buffalo, the Dragon will bring the animal down by lascerating its achilles tendon so it can't run away, and then disembowel it. The animal is eaten while it's still alive.
** Komodo Dragons have also been known to harass pregnant deer, startling them into aborting their unborn offspring. The Dragon can then help itself to a meal of [[NauseaFuel placenta and tender fetal-meat.]]
* Crocodiles. Damn ''crocodiles''. Nightmarish appearance, fast, invisible in a foot of muddy water. Many varieties consider humans to be prey. They can [[PrimalFear drag you under the water]] in about two second and eat you. They are ''intelligent'' and can learn human routines. They will wait a week to get a bite of you. ''Those eyes!''
** It gets ''even better''. Crocodiles are capable of moving twice their body length in a single second. It's not uncommon to hear tales of someone being taken so quickly that you could double-take and miss it. In fact, one story where a famous American model got eaten was unusual because ''they actually had the chance to see it coming''.
** Don't think it can get any worse? Well, [[ItGotWorse it just did.]] Meet [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_%28crocodile%29 Gustave]], a 22 ft long 2,000 pound Nile Crocodile who is notorious for killing and eating over 300 people.
*** Oh, and did we mention? [[ThisIsSparta He's! Still!]] '''[[ThisIsSparta ALIVE!]]''' That's right, Gustave is still lurking in Africa waiting for his next victim.
*** There's also the fact that his body is ridden with scars from bullet wounds. Three on his side and one ''on his head''. Not only is he a giant killer crocodile, he's an ''unstoppable'' giant killer crocodile.
*** The "most recent" sighting was back in 2008. If that was the most recent, how are we to know he hasn't been spotted since? Has he been killing his witnesses, and no one's noticed?
* The [[http://www.laweekly.com/2008-07-31/news/rathouse-of-the-palisades/ Palisades Rathouse]] might qualify as nightmare fuel. Incidentally it also provides two examples of the CrazyCatLady trope who have obsessed over a different animal...
** [[http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,685045,00.html The Mülheim Cobra house!]] OK, just one cobra, but they literally teared apart the innards of the house, and ''still'' couldn't find the damn snake. Volunteers for one night in there please raise their hands!
* The [[http://www.livt.net/Clt/Ani/Cho/Mam/Ivr/ivr011.jpg solenodon]], a relative of the mole and shrew, [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Hispaniola_solenodon.jpg can be quite creepy]] or [[http://photos-513.ll.facebook.com/photos-ll-sf2p/v193/223/46/693786513/n693786513_654583_4434.jpg unsettling]]. That is, until you see the [[http://jay.kusnetz.net/pics4ext/almiqui.jpg cuban]] [[http://pikaia.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/solenodon_cubanus.jpg variety]]. Should I add that all solenodons have a poisonous bite?
* Sea urchins. Just ... motherfarking ''sea urchins''. They are living, breathing balls of spines which live on the ocean floor. Many of them live close to the shore and it's hard to see underwater, so inevitably some unlucky beachgoers will end up stepping on one. This results in a badly injured foot and a visit to the hospital.
** Hey, just imagine if some wacky mad scientists gave them brains...and a hatred of humanity! TRIBBLES OF DOOOOOOOOOOM. Though honestly death-by-urchin can very easily also extend into ridiculous Narm.
** It gets worse. Because sea urchin spines are made of calcite, they snap easily because of the alignment of the calcite crystals, leaving part of it wedged in your open wound. The best way to deal with it? ''Push the spine right into your body''. The calcite will dissolve in your bloodstream and the wound will heal normally. Have fun, kids.
*** The way this is usually accomplished is by breaking off the parts of the spines that are still outside the skin and crushing the parts that are embedded with something blunt and sturdy (a rock works fine if there's nothing else to hand) to break them up and drive them a bit deeper. It's painful, but not completely horrific. However, the ocean [[CaptainObvious being full of living stuff]] as it is, these kind of injuries do have a tendency to get infected. A good way to counteract that is by sterilizing the injury somehow.
* Jaguars. They're both awesome and freaky because they kill their prey by ''biting through its skull''. Their jaws are powerful enough to crack open a glyptodon's skull. And for those of you who don't know paleontology, glyptodonts are essentially mammalian versions of a panzer tank. Google it and see. Do '''NOT''' tick off kitty!
* Big Cats, fierce predators with strong jaws, razor-sharp claws, huge strength (a tiger could knock you unconcius with one swipe of it's paw), super speed and stealth (if a big cat stalked you in a remote area, you wouldn't see it until it was too late). Some big cats have been known to kill buffaloes, rhinos, hippos, pythons, crocodiles, wolves and even bears. To make things worse, big cat attacks are on the rise.
* Allow me to introduce you to the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldt_Squid Dosidicus gigas]]: the Humboldt squid, growing up to seven feet long and, alone among the invertebrates, ''hunting prey in packs of as many as 1200 individuals''. Their tentacles are lined with ''teeth'', they feed on each other when wounded or frenzied, they are ''highly'' aggressive against unfamiliar objects, they attack humans on a regular basis, and their natural habitat ranges from the Tierra del Fuego to coastal California ''and spreading north''. And you thought it was safe to go back in the water...
** Ocean acidification seems to be killing them off, though.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_squid Colossal Squid]]. They have GIANT HOOKS on their tentacles, which they can rotate 180 degrees. And they are up to 46 feet long.
** Cephalopods in general. As awesome as I think they are, they are also damn creepy. They're smart. Really, really smart for invertebrates. Most intelligent creatures are birds and mammals, which are pretty similar to us in terms of body structure and biology. But cephalopods are completely alien. The thought of something like that being as smart as a dog is strange. If they would be sapient, what would they think? Most likely [[BlueAndOrangeMorality we couldn't comprehend it at all]]. To think modern culture can pervert such beings.....
*** [[ItGotWorse Fun fact!]] Cephalopods have one large central brain in their head... plus one smaller brain for '''each of it's arms.''' So that's 9 brains for an octopus, 11 for a squid. The (now extinct) ammonites had 12 arms, meaning 13 brains. And then there's the eyes...
*** Weird fact about cephalopods: cuttlefish are exellent at blending into their environment by changing their colours to match their background. The thing is, they're also colourblind. How the hell do they know what colour they should change to?
*** Cuttlefish in general are chalk full of RuleOfCool. The flamboyant cuttlefish has very poorly developed fins/whatever. So instead of swimming it uses them to -walk- on the ocean floor. The broad club cuttlefish meanwhile will use it's color changing ability to visually stun/hypnotize uncooperative prey. Though octopi generally get the better known as being intelligent, cuttlefish arereference.
'''Real Life Nightmare Fuel'''
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder: Real Life Nightmare Fuel]]
You're probably thinking that after reading about all that NightmareFuel, you're safe from it because you don't live in Fiction Land, right? ''[[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou Wrong!]]''
'''Note:''' This page is ''not'' for those easily scared by books or movies. If you happen to be one of those people, please go [[http://www.givesmehope.com/ here]] instead. Thank you and have a nice day.
----
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Other]]
* [[http://www2.rwu.edu/studentlife/studentservices/counselingcenter/sexualassault/rapemyths.htm According to a survey]], 33% of college aged men would commit rape if they could get away with it, and 25% of those surveyed believed that rape was acceptable if "the woman asks the man out; or the man pays for the date; or the woman goes back to the man's room after the date."
* The Westboro Baptist Church. It's an honest to [[spoiler:not their]] God group of [[MisanthropeSupreme misanthrope supremes]] who imagine ''the nigh-entirety of humanity'' in HELL. And that's not even getting into Fred Phelps, who'd probably be one of the most terrifying supervillains ever in a comic book universe.
** For an example of how frightening these people are [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBV2hnPxESw check out this "parody" of "We Are The World"]]. It's either {{High Octane Nightmare Fuel}} or {{Narm}}, but what makes this so scary is that they are [[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer actually serious]].
*** The "church" in question is a very small group with a very high profile, which is itself rather disturbing. They are not recognized as a valid church by any other religious organization anywhere in the world. Canada, which has very strong laws on both religious freedom and hate speech, refuses to allow Fred Phelps across the border.
* The [[EmergencyBroadcast Emergency Alert System]] test sequences.
** I used to hide under the coffee table when those came on TV. *shiver*
** I try to block them out on numerous occasions.
** The new ones aren't any better, either: instead of the sine-wave test tone, now it's that awful buzzing and the very, very badly synthesized voice reading the "This is a test of the Emergency Alert System" message.
** In addition to being afraid of Emergency Broadcast System tests, I was very afraid of the multicolored-bars TV "test pattern" thing that would display whenever a TV station was having broadcast issues. It's not the actual test pattern that was scary, it was the loud high-pitched beeping that accompanied it.
** The horrid "three beeps" severe weather alerts played on local TV, complete with a massive, bright red, flashing "TORNADO WARNING - TAKE COVER IMMEDIATELY" message across the bottom of the screen. To be yanked from Sesame Street into Howling Winds of Death once or twice a month in the summer is very unpleasant. Perhaps that is the whole point.
* Whatever your local name for the old Civil Defence air-raid sirens is - hurricane siren, disaster siren, tornado siren, etc. Imagine standing on the front porch as a little kid during a particularly severe thunderstorm, in which the sky turned green, the wind abruptly quit and the whole world went dead silent for about five seconds - and then the sirens fired up. This is used in the SilentHill series to great effect.
* Factology believes, according to Wikipedia, "some aborted [[FetusTerrible fetuses]] survive their abortion to live in the sewers, where they are being gathered and organized [[TakeOverTheWorld to take over the world]]."
* To all those in college - you think your roommate is bad? Read [[http://www.wyseguys.com/shittyroomate.asp this possibly true story]], and you will be glad the worst thing your roommate does is snore.
** Half of the student body at [=DigiPen=] has one-upped that guy (up through The Black Time) in one way or another (except without the drugs).
** More roommate horror [[http://gawker.com/roommate-horror-stories/ here]]. Worst one is the woman who walked in on her college roommate having sex doggy-style with her ''biological father''. The [[http://gawker.com/5879703/these-are-the-worlds-worst-roommate-stories?comment=46476429#comments winner]] was actually someone who ''killed and skinned a squirrel'' and left it on her housemate's bed.
*** The former also contains a bit of FridgeHorror, as several readers have noted that the roommate's poor hygiene and behavioral problems match the symptoms of sexual abuse. Even the person who submitted the story admits that if she had made the connection at the time, she would have reported what she had seen.
* Have you ever heard someone die? 9-1-1 calls which end tragically...
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxLlwsC5hWs Here's one]]. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox3gmJvQAA0 And here's another]]. The former has a HellIsThatNoise sound made from the woman's screams at the beginning, and the latter has a VERY EFFECTIVE ScareChord.
* Memorial or Post-Mortem Photography: A "mostly" extinct practice where family members photograph themselves and their dead in such positions, (like opening the eyes, moving the mouth, setting the body correctly, and dressing it up) to make their relatives look 'almost' like they're still alive. [[http://www.paulfrecker.com/collections.cfm?=library&typeID=1&ShowStart=81&ShowEnd=88&myPage=11 Most of these photos are babies!!]]
** Apparently, it's still a common practice nowadays that when a baby passes away, one of the nurses cleans the body, dresses it up, and wraps it in a blanket for the parents to hold and take a picture with. One sad advantage of doing this with a deceased child is that the baby is no longer covered in tubes and needles to keep it alive, so it appears as it couldn't in life. And it seems rather gruesome, yes, but it seems many people need that picture, that memory, to help them through the grieving process. It's almost as if to show themselves that their baby was alive and real, even if it couldn't stay that way for very long.
* [[http://www.nowilaymedowntosleep.org/ This site]]. Think of it this way, most of those babies are stillborn. The parents NEVER would have gotten a single picture if it weren't for those. They used to be tossed in the trash. Now the parents get to hold their precious child. Much like when you hold a dying friend...
* Cracked has done it again: [[http://www.cracked.com/article_17379_6-real-islands-way-more-terrifying-than-one-on-lost.html 6 Real, Terrifying Islands.]] One features a snake population of around five ''per square meter''. Another has the charred bones from 160,000 plague victims ''still'' wash up on the shores. And those are near the bottom of the list.
* [[http://www.themorningstarr.co.uk/2009/07/17/baby-eaten-by-rats/ "Baby Eaten By Rats"]]. [[http://www.themorningstarr.co.uk/2009/07/26/autopsy-reveals-rats-did-kill-baby/ She wasn't dead when they started.]]
* Ladies and gentlemen, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_in_the_Box_(Philadelphia) Boy in the Box]], a cold case from the 1950's where the body of a small boy was found in a box in the woods. The worst part? They still to this day haven't caught the person who did it.
* [[http://cakeheadlovesevil.wordpress.com/2009/04/18/island-of-the-dolls The Island of the Dolls]] in Mexico.
* In 2003, a man named Hitoshi Nikaidoh walked inside an elevator and had his shoulders pinned by the elevator doors due to faulty wiring. Despite struggling to pull himself inside, the elevator kept ascending until the ceiling sliced off most of his head. His left ear, lower lip, teeth and jaw were still attached to his body, which fell to the bottom of the elevator shaft, as the elevator continued moving upward. A surgery resident, who was in the elevator at the time, witnessed the gruesome spectacle and spent more than an hour trapped in the elevator with Hitoshi's head.
* Cracked again! This article for the [[http://www.cracked.com/article_18381_the-5-creepiest-unexplained-broadcasts.html 5 Creepiest Unexplained Broadcasts]]
* "Chat", "That's Life" and similar magazines sold at supermarket checkouts. In the words of Charlie Brooker, they look at first glance like they're full of word searches and knitting patterns. In reality they're full of the kind of BodyHorror and {{Gorn}} that rotten.com is built on, alongside more mundane adult fears, with the odd "kids say the funniest things" feature for added MoodWhiplash goodness.
** For those who have no idea of what these magazines are...well, [[http://www.storieswanted.com/userimages/HPThatslife.jpg here's]] [[http://www.letssubscribe.com/images/products/7781.jpg for]] [[http://img.dooyoo.co.uk/GB_EN/orig/0/6/3/6/1/636108.jpg reference]]. ''"Life! Death! Prizes!"'' Actual tagline.
*** And the attractive woman on the cover? She won't be seen in the magazine, has no bearing on any articles whatsoever. Eye candy to get you into the back of the van, as it were.
** African tabloid examples take this [[BeyondTheImpossible up to eleven]], and even more frightening is that even MORE people take them as the truth than [[DeepSouth in the US!]] [[http://redpepper.co.ug/welcome/ The Red Pepper]] is the most notorious. The engrish and hilarious slang seems charming (referring recently to one outed minister as the "notorious bum driller"), until you see how many articles are about [[BuryYourGays outing and advocating the murder of local notable gays]] among other things. Never has the term 'frighteningly funny' been so apt. You know Adebesi from Oz? Not only is that the paper's target demographic but that's ALSO THEIR REPORTING TEAM. That's right, as amusing as this paper might seem, it regularly gets families murdered by local religious fanatics.
* Disused refrigerators with rotten stuff still in them, as seen on YouTube. Some have been sitting around for 20 years or more.
** Speaking of that, there have been many cases of dead people going unnoticed for a decade or more. There's actually an article on snopes.com, if you're brave enough to look it up.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWdgAMYjYSs The max headroom Pirating Incident]]. Not the act itself, but the fact that to this day, no one really has the foggiest idea what was going on, who he was or why he was doing it.
** There is also the fact that the man who did it is still at large... he could be anywhere, he could even be on this website.
* The Church of the Innocents in Paris has an... unusual history. It was one of the first churches in France that allowed actual burials (6th century) and became the largest and most popular cemetery by the 13th century. By the 15th century it was so crowded that the residents of older graves (many were in mass graves by this point) had to be moved to ossuaries. When the Black Death hit, newer corpses had to be moved into the ossuaries, leaving behind fatty residues in the dirt. By the late 17th century the cemetery was essentially a mass of greasy residue that could no longer decompose. Oh yes: a pile of leftovers from thousands of human corpses that could ''no longer decay''. And that's not the worst part- in 1780 the wall of a cellar bordering the cemetery collapsed under the weight of the whole mess. One can only hope that no one was in the cellar at the time, or there'd be an unpleasant combination of the primal fears of drowning and necrophobia. Oh, and it was this incident that led to the creation of the famous Catacombs of Paris.
* Train engineers who are forced to watch as their trains mow down anyone unlucky enough to get themselves on the tracks (in this case a young teen who, while listening to her iPod, was killed by a deadly silent Amtrak train while on her trek to school). Because freight trains going 60 mph take about a mile to stop before the emergency brake is applied, the train engineers are forced to watch it happen. When they go through post-traumatic stress counselling, the one thing they talk about is that they see the people's eyes right before they hit them. A lot of those engineers don't return to work.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF7488WHcok Robert the doll]] If you thought regular old dolls were creepy, how about a haunted one?
* Cracked once again aims to keep us all up at night. Here are the [[http://www.cracked.com/article_18459_the-5-creepiest-unsolved-crimes-nobody-can-explain.html 5 Creepiest Unsolved Crimes Nobody Can Explain.]]
* Walking around a ''pitch-black'' room with only a flashlight, fearing and believing that there is something or someone that will be standing in or pass in front of your flashlight beam.
* [[http://www.carhire.org/blog/scariest-airport-runways Matekane Air Strip in Lesotho (Number 13 on list)]] is built on the side of a mountain, on a patch of horizontal real estate too small to accommodate a standard-length runway. How do they manage to get up to speed for takeoff, you ask? They use the [[{{Discworld}} Granny Weatherwax]] method, which is to say ''[[PrimalFear they throw the plane off a cliff]]''.
* Roadkill. Especially the real gory, mutilated sort, [[ItGotWorse even better]] when baking in the sun for a few days, or when the guts have partially burst out and been scattered around the carcass. Who needs a gory horror movie or video game when there's plenty of gruesome carnage right along your local road, perhaps on the commute to work or school.
** And the fact that sometimes ''you can no longer tell what it was before it was killed'' is unsettling.
* Stay up until the wee hours of the morning (say, about 1:00 - 2:00 in the morning), in a room with very little light in it, and read as many missing persons' cases from [[http://www.charleyproject.org/ this site]] as possible. Start with the earliest ones. 1945 should be good. Also, while you're at it, go to [[http://www.doenetwork.org/ this other website]] and peruse their "Unidentified Victims" index. Start off with the first entry there, the Caledonia Jane Doe discovered in 1979. Pleasant dreams.
** The forum [[http://www.websleuths.com/ websleuths]]; notably the "unidentified" pages.
* It's common for schools to hold assemblies which provide kids with safety and emergency information. In the U.S., some schools have taken a "scared straight" approach to this. Famously, one school had chosen a few students to be absent all on the same day. On that day, with the selected kids nowhere in sight, the staff announced an accident that killed those children. Predictably, some of the students found this to be extremely traumatic and needed psychological care after the caper was revealed. Furthermore, some schools have held assemblies in which students are cast as fire, accident or other victims while their classmates are ushered around the scenes by teachers describing the terrible situations being portrayed. The latter usually occurs with some fore-knowledge on the part of the students so that they know it's fake, but these assemblies are prone to extremity in the young actors' make-up.
** There was a school that hired an actor to run into a school and start "shooting" a fake gun (sounded real) between classes. Think only school was stupid enough to do it? Of course you're wrong!
** Winnipeg, Manitoba did the same thing in 1942, calling it ''If Day''. "Nazis" (citizens in costume) took over Winnipeg, "arresting" the mayor and premier and turning one section of the city into a concentration camp. They also went around beating people up. They would go into schools and ask for the Jewish students to stand up, then they would take them away. For someone who wasn't in on it, especially the schoolkids, that would be absolutely terrifying. It was a ploy to try to get people involved in the war effort.
* Bullying. The thoughts of how many AdultsAreUseless - Do you guys know what it's like to have been beaten up, or see someone else beaten up, only to tell an adult because someone is ''literally'' in danger, only to be told off or [[CassandraTruth not believed]]? The adults could literally just turn their head ''two centimeters'' to the right and see a kid with paint splattered all over him and a black eye, yet they don't see anything. And just imagine how many target(s) in western countries are being bullied for whatever reason, only for adults to ''encourage'' it with their own inaction?
** Let's not forget the disproportionate retribution. The minute the victim has had enough and decides to stand up to the bully, sometimes violently, the victim is the one that gets the severe punishment despite being the one that was pushed around in the first place.
** The climatic moment of DangerousMinds is based on cases such as these.
* Burglars. The thought of creepy FacelessGoons walking around your house and stealing things at random doesn't terrify you at all?
* The {{GIFT}}. To sum up several quotes from the quotes section, coarse people won't say what they ''really'' think to your face - because they aren't free from consequences, meaning they're within punching or kicking range. They may act nice to you in real life, but they have an image to maintain. They may not say something like "BarackObama deserves to be institutionalized" or "All of Israel should just be nuked" if you asked them in real life, but on the internet, of course they'd say that - that's what they ''really'' think. And you know what is even scarier? Imagining what'd happen if, even ''if'' you could attach a face to someone, what if this was like ''RealLife''? People would probably just murder children so they wouldn't have a threat to their power, steal ''everything'', just go on a shooting spree with a complete disregard for who they're killing, and just flat-out bastardy cranked UpToEleven.
--> '''OscarWilde:''' "Give a man a mask, and he will tell you the truth."
** {{Troll}}s and cyberbullies in general. Picture this, an adult troll who uses the internet as a personal haven for their inner bastardry intentionally harasses someone, that someone being a teenager with low-self esteem that he doesn't know, by teasing him, calling him names, and ''encouraging'' him to commit suicide. ''[[DudeNotFunny All the while thinking that this is funny]]!''
*** Here's [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2036935/Natasha-MacBryde-death-Facebook-internet-troll-Sean-Duffy-jailed.html?ito=feeds-newsxml an example]] that fits the exact description above. You might take some consolation in the fact that this man was arrested, however. Seems people are becoming more willing to prosecute the internet version of threats/harassment/etc.
*** Milder, but still disturbing and proceeding from the same mentality, are griefers, people who play online games for the sole purpose of disrupting other people's games. They derive enjoyment from ruining other people's fun, and cannot be reasoned with because no normal appeal, whether to compassion or self-interest, will work. They have no compassion for other players, and are already getting exactly what they want.
* Check out [[http://photographybytainatimar.blogspot.com/2010/05/world-famous-photography-throughout.html these]] well-known photographs. Now, read the stories behind the pictures; in many of these cases, the photographer gazed upon unmitigated human suffering and '''''did absolutely nothing to help'''''. All for the sake of capturing "the perfect photograph". Welcome to the world of photojournalism.
** The sad thing about the Omayra Sanchez photograph was that nothing could ''be'' done. The girl was trapped in that water for ''three days'' before she died, because it would be impossible to free her without amputating her legs, which would have made her bleed to death. A water pump was sent to the village... which arrived broken. Basically, the reporters stayed with her so she wouldn't die alone, as most of her family members were already dead.
** Having read the above, imagine YOU are a photographer dealing with such things. That link shows a photograph by [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Carter Kevin Carter]]. Carter was haunted by nightmares and visions of death after he took that picture of the starving girl being stalked by the vulture. He was also heavily criticized by people who didn't understand how little he could have intervened. Eventually, Carter took his own life.
* You don't have to be a vegetarian, vegan, or even value animal life very much to be outraged or disgusted at [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBbYUdvGWk0 this]]. What kind of things the animals have to go through in slaughterhouses is bad enough, actually imagining yourself as one of these animals is probably one of the most terrifying and depressing thing that you can think of.
** You are now imagining you are an animal in a slaughterhouse.... In Australia. Next to a forest of stinging trees. Likely the leases for the land were ridiculously cheap because of their 'neighbors.' Not only is a man-made travesty dicking with you, but a NATURAL one the turns your body to FIRE every time there's a slight breeze. For those that don't know, [[http://www.blueswami.com/stinging_trees.html read this link]] and then [[TearJerker think of what those poor, poor cows went through]] before they get anywhere NEAR a blade.
* Tar Pits. Getting stuck in them is one of the worst ways to die. Unlike quicksand which sucks you in, death by tar pit is slow. The only way you can die is if you starve (humans can survive for about two weeks without food), dehydration (lack of water), or if you somehow commit suicide. Thankfully, if you have a cell phone you could call for help, unlike the poor wild animals that became trapped thousands of years ago. Those animals either starved, became dehydrated, or were killed by a predator. Hundreds of skeletons have been found in the La Brea Tar Pits in California.
* Working in a [[SteelMill steel mill]]. There are a thousand ways to die in one - and they are all nasty. [[EverythingTryingToKillYou White-hot bubbling molten metal, fiery furnaces, electric arcs, poisonous gases, eerie (and certainly dangerous) machinery, heavy objects falling from great heights, horrible noise -- you name it]].
** The book Ganz Unten ("Lowest of the Low") by Günther Wallraff describes first-hand accounts on working in one. He describes of the working conditions of Turkish immigrant workers in the post-WWII West German steel industry. [[LavaPit One of the workers stumbled at work and fell in the blast furnace]]. What makes it FridgeHorror is that you realize it is ''West'' Germany. How about working in an ''East'' German [[NightmarishFactory hell factory]]...?
*** There was an accident in a chemical plant in Leuna, Eastern Germany. About a dozen workers were cooked to death by superheated steam when a door fell shut behind them.
*** An episode of ''UnsolvedMysteries'' had the story of Dave Bocks, a nuclear power plant worker who disappeared mysteriously. One day, his car keys and some bone fragments were found in one of the plant's furnaces. Worse, it was concluded that ''somebody threw him in there''.
** An unfortunate individual was locked in some oven-thing over a weekend. When the next work day rolled around, the oven was automatically turned on.
** It doesn't even need to be a traditionally-scary type of factory like a steel mill. There was a case of two workers in an [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1443939.stm innocuous bread factory]], who were sent inside an oven to do some maintenance work. They were sent in on a conveyer belt, like the loaves. It was switched off, but no one had ensured it had actually ''cooled down''- and there was no way to reverse the conveyer.
* Think 9/11 was bad when you were just sitting there watching the attacks on TV? In some places, '''the power went out.''' Of course, it had nothing to do with terrorists, but you can bet more than a few people were thinking they were all going to die.
* Mines. Not the explosive kind, the underground ones. Claustrophobic, dark, potentially filled with spiders, and could collapse if not safe. You'd need to worry about the ground crushing you against the ceiling in a landslide than about the roof collapsing. Needless to say, [[AndIMustScream surviving that would be less desirable than dying.]] Crawling along in the dark, bones probably broken, exit probably shut... that's the stuff HighOctaneNightmareFuel is made of... if you could move at all.
** Don't forget how many of them have portions that are [[KillItWithFire CONSTANTLY ON FIRE]] to boot.
* Radio signals. Find a weird spike producing noises that'll haunt your nightmares for years to come? Well good luck finding what in the name of Jimmi Hendrix was making it, unless you've got some good equipment. And who knows? [[spoiler: It may not even be from Earth.]]
* When you put in earphones while listening to music, you'll find you'll be hearing back vocals and certain instruments (that you couldn't hear before) [[ScareChord in one ear.]] One song that abuses this is "the Greatest Show Unearthed" by [[CreatureFeature Creature Feature.]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ9hkRsN5Yg&feature=autoplay&list=WL3E5D31E6C59460E9&index=1&playnext=14 Remember, it only works with earphones.]]
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cosmonauts Lost Cosmonauts]] theory. Yuri Gargarin was not the first man in space. He was the first to ''[[GoneHorriblyWrong come]] [[SuicideMission back]] [[{{Unperson}} alive]]''....
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident Dyatlov Pass incident.]] Nine hikers in the Ural mountains left their camp for no apparent reason and were later found dead. While this isn't that creepy on its own, five of the hikers had a variety of weird injuries (one was ''missing her tongue''), and four had elevated levels of radiation on their clothing. And no one knows what happened because no one who was present survived. We're probably better off not knowing the whole story.
* While looking up pictures of the Franklin Expedition, you might find a mugshot of one of the dead explorers they dug up from Beechy Island named John Torrington. Go look him up. You have been warned.
* [[BuriedAlive Premature burial.]] It's [[http://www.snopes.com/horrors/gruesome/buried.asp real]], it's been happening as long as humans have walked this planet, and in some parts of the world it ''still happens''.
** More to the point, buried alive after being presumed DEAD, not by a landslide or anything natural like that. Read up on what started the idea of vampires or their forebearers strigoi existing some time...
* Halloween can be SeriousBusiness for [[http://i.imgur.com/UCErT.jpg some people]]. Although, for [[NightmareFetishist some]] that picture qualifies as a [[MomentOfAwesome Crowning Moment of Awesome]].
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl9y3SIPt7o This video of abuse captured on tape]] is disturbing enough in it's own right. But there are a few things special to this case that make it pure HighOctaneNightmareFuel:
** 1. Her father, being a judge, was a well respected member of the community, therefore [[CassandraTruth no one would believe]] this girl as to what kind of a person he really is behind closed doors. [[FridgeHorror It makes you wonder what other well respected people are really like.]] [[ParanoiaFuel Including those you know (or think you know).]]
** 2. [[{{GIFT}} The comments.]] There are many who see nothing wrong with what he did to her and some even applauding him. Others claiming that they recieved [[ItGotWorse worse than that,]] while still thinking that it did them good. [[http://www.theblaze.com/stories/extremely-disturbing-video-claims-to-show-texas-judge-savagely-whipping-daughter-with-belt/ here]] is an example of one of the articles and the comments. Some of these people even go as far to blame this girl for the abuse she suffered through, [[InsaneTrollLogic claiming that she set him up just to provoke a beating and was faking her cries.]] The fact that people can see obvious abuse and still find ways to blame the victim is absolutely horrifying.
** 3. He was a family law judge who dealt with child abuse cases of all things. He had denounced the testimonies of children, claiming they were fantasizers, [[HarsherInHindsight no we know why.]]
** 4. The daughter in question had cerebral palsy and almost all sources on the abuse scandal don't bother to mention it and/or gloss over it. Given the examples of people who ''[[OffingTheOffspring murdered]]'' [[OffingTheOffspring their disabled children]] and have had people defend their actions, it's pretty much safe to say that somehow, the abuse of a disabled person matters less than that of a nondisabled person in the exact same situation in they eyes of the writers of the sources that omitted this fact.
* They have [[CureYourGays straight camps]]. Places people are sent, told their way of live is wrong, and taught how to lie about who they are so they are accepted by society. Parents actually send their children to these places for being curious.
** What happened to institutionalized GLBT individuals in years past. That's not FridgeHorror, that is HighOctaneNightmareFuel of the highest order and seriously [[UsefulNotes/{{Trigger}} triggering]] to many people -- but think of how many people were sent to these things, not ''just'' out of their parents and caretakers' bigotry, but because ''that was the reigning medical opinion''. It wasn't just a bunch of fundamentalist nuts turning over their gay, transgender and gender-nonconforming kids so they could expect grandkids. These people were scared... and they thought they were doing the right thing. Their pastors, their doctors and teachers and trusted family friends thought they were doing the right thing too. Subjecting their children and loved ones to ''hellish'' treatment to "fix" them, turning them over into the hands of people who would beat them, rape them, starve them and mistreat them until they were "[[CameBackWrong well]]" or [[BuryYourGays dead]] or [[AndIMustScream physically compromised]] -- [[HeroicBSOD most certainly traumatized]] -- [[FateWorseThanDeath for life]]. To make them normal. Safe, healthy, sane, good. Someone you loved might have done that to you.
* Book banning controversies. Sounds geeky in text but they can get freakin' ''brutal''. For example there was this giant controversy in Panama City about a book (I think it was ''I Am the Cheese'') that people wanted removed from the shelves. When a group of teachers and an IntrepidReporter tried to defend the book, how do they get repaid? By receiving threatening phonecalls, death threats, letterbombs, and one of them almost getting her house burned down. Worse still, [[TheFundamentalist the people contending this book]] ''[[CassandraTruth accused them of lying, or even doing these horrible things to themselves to gain sympathy]]''. And to think, all of this trouble is over a ''book''. Thank God the author of the book set the record straight or [[FridgeHorror who knows what could have happened]]...
** These accusations of lying are textbook example of denialism. Imagine that kind of logic: Jews are evil, The Holocaust did not happen and they deserved it anwyay... you know the drill.
* Spontaneous Human Combustion. Imagine one minute you're enjoying life, then out of the freaking blue you're engulfed in a burning fire without warning and will likely burn to death without even knowing what hit you.
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAMfCG6nn1w ADHD friendly example]].
* Not as horrifying as some things here but... [[http://i.imgur.com/dcEI5.jpg]] this. A girl in a wheelchair is STABBED by a "friend". With a FORK.
* You know TheExorcismOfEmilyRose was loosely based on a true story, right? [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr-IdHU3A5M Here is ACTUAL AUDIO of the exorcism session it was based on]]. Just don't make the mistake of watching it before bed or while suffering emotional problems...
* Cracked are really good at these! Most commenters agree that of [[http://www.cracked.com/article_19705_the-5-most-spectacular-landscapes-earth-that-murder-you.html The 5 Most Spectacular Landscapes on Earth (That Murder You)]], the creepiest one is #3, the Bolton Strid. You'll never see forest streams the same way again.
* Do a Google Image search on "trypophobia." You know what? Don't. You've probably had enough NightmareFuel for one day.
-----
You've done it! You've made it through all these pages of mind-numbing horror. What more can be said? As you go about your day and try not to break down, try to remember to do one thing: [[LifeOfBrian Always look on the bright side of life...]]
[[SweetDreamsFuel But you all probably need]] [[Heartwarming/RealLife these links.]] [[http://www.cuteroulette.com And this one for good measure.]]
[[/folder]]
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[[folder: RLNF Accidents and General Body Horror]]
* The Nikki Catsouras case. How would you like to lose any loved one, never mind your own child, and then two weeks later recieve an email from a complete stranger with a picture showing [[AdultFear YOUR OWN CHILD'S MANGLED REMAINS??]] Worse, the photos were leaked by members of the ''California Highway Patrol.''
* Gore websites. While they will not be linked here due to FamilyFriendly policy, they feature violent and painful deaths and injuries, often to cater to people's fetishes.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_ulcer Jungle Rot]], otherwise known as a Tropical Ulcer. An infected scratch in the jungle, and your entire body starts to erode.
* There's a ton of outer space horrors that come in mind. Two more notable are pressurization failure (e.g., a hole in your space suit) and life support failure.
* In ''AmericasBestDanceCrew'', the crew the Ringmasters. They were already grotesque to begin with, their gimmick being unsightly flexibility, but their challenge during Britney Spears week was to create the illusion of gigantic performers. So what did they do? They wore hoodies and somehow came up with [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ringmasters.JPG these monstrosities.]] Or perhaps [[http://www.mtv.com/videos/americas-best-dance-crew-season-3-ep-3-britney-challenge/1603283/playlist.jhtml seeing them in motion will have a stronger effect]] (the fifth section, about 30 minutes in)? (And by the way, their song was "[[CircusOfFear Circus]]."
* Charla Nash. The victim of a chimpanzee attack. [[SchmuckBait Good god, ]]'''''[[SchmuckBait do not ]]'''''[[SchmuckBait look up photos from Google of her face from her appearance on Oprah. As a matter of fact, it's not advisable that you look up any article about her appearance on Oprah, considering that that article might inadvertently have photos of her face]]. Absolutely horrifying. The lady's arms were ''literally'' ripped and pulled off, her eyes, eyelids as well as her lips... she looks almost like Pale Man from ''PansLabyrinth'', except more horrifying in that she actually has a huge, bloody hole in the middle of her face.
* The "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin#Diving_bell_accident Byford Dolphin diving bell accident]]". Just the description about what happened to the bodies (including [[spoiler:gas bubbles [[EyeScream forming in the eye tissue]]]]) is enough to cause shivers. Sure, the victims probably died instantly and painlessly, but can you imagine having to clean up or autopsy one of these corpses? The people in charge of that must have been scarred for life.
** Subsequent investigation by forensic pathologists determined that diver D4, being exposed to the highest pressure gradient, exploded with violence due to the rapid and massive expansion of internal gases. All of his thoracic and abdominal organs, and even his thoracic spine, were ejected, as were all his limbs. [...] Chunks of his body were found scattered about the rig.
* There was a story about a girl in India whose hair was caught in a machine which ended up separating her face from her head. They then showed you both the girl with her musculature exposed, and [[http://health.discovery.com/centers/plasticsurgery/facetransplant/gallery/face2_h.jpg the face, in two pieces, resting on the plastic bag the girl's mother brought it in.]]
* William Harvey. A very important 17th century scientist, who made his biological discoveries in horrifying ways. Some of his highlights include performing unanaesthetised dissections on live animals, and draining all of the blood from most of a person's vessels into one vein, making that one vein swell up like a balloon.
* You want to teach kids not to smoke cigarettes? Have them visit with someone who's had a laryngectomy.
* Spontaneous Human Combustion. It's highly unsettling to think that one day you could burn to death from the inside out for ''no apparent reason'', with nothing left but a big black spot, a pile of burnt oily mess and bone, and maybe a leg or two sticking out. Crematoria use furnaces of up to 1000°C to burn human bodies - but in cases of SHC, only materials above and next to what's left of you will be burned. Images of victims' charred remains can be found, but having a few gallons of BrainBleach handy would be highly advisable if you plan to search for them. There are more than enough [[http://anomalyinfo.com/articles/sa00013.php?page=SHC examples]] that have ''no explanation whatsoever.''
* At the time, [[TheCaligula Nero]]'s use of Christians as gladiator bait didn't catch much attention in Rome. That wasn't particularly unusual, and they were convenient scapegoats for the Great Fire. What ''did'' catch attention was the extreme cruelty of [[http://www.oriensjournal.com/11edit.html the spectacle he made of it]], including the "innovative" use of their living bodies as candles to provide light for it.
* Fires in general, nightclub fires in particular, like [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIetpe_KAJU&feature=related the Station Night Club,]] Happy Land, or Coconut Grove. The notion of burning is scary enough, the notion of dying of smoke inhalation is scary enough .... but the thing that gets you is how ''fast'' it all happens. The smoke buildup [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxiOXZ55hbc&feature=related in this video]] goes from "minor" to "completely consuming the room" in a minute and a half. In that time, the people in the crowd go from oblivious - to mildly concerned - to complete, involuntary all-consuming panic, behaving like stampeding animals, as the vast majority of them succumb to the smoke.
* Being in a DUI crash and that [[http://web.archive.org/web/20030201093613/www.austin360.com/aas/specialreports/jacqui this]] can easily happen to anyone is pure NightmareFuel.
* A car rammed into a carrier truck at a red light, causing a bunch of incredibly corrosive acid to spill out and wash across tarmac for twenty meters or so. (This was probably back in the 80s or something because of the truck's poor protection.) Anyway, some spilled over the woman in the car, and she started screaming. The truck driver leaned out of his window and began to scream as loudly as possible "Get back, get the fuck back!" (This was only partly necessary, as most people had run to a safer area when they saw the tarmac start to bubble.) So one onlooker started shouting "Why is nobody going to help her?!" The rest of the bystanders tried to reassure the onlooker, but she broke free and started to run across the acid to the woman in the car. Within a few seconds, it had eaten through the soles of her shoes and then her feet. The woman fell over from the pain, face-first into the acid. Then she started to roll around in agony, after which point she passed out.
* A whole host of birth defects:
** Anencephaly: literally no or very little brain matter.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetus_in_fetu fetus in fetu]]'', a medical condition where a developing fetus envelops his/her identical twin - and the enveloped twin develops inside as a parasite! Naturally, being a television documentary, it was complete with pictures of the removed twin, which looked like a shrunken head with a proportioned body.
** ConjoinedTwins. Being physically attached to your sibling in one of a dozen different ways. You could be attached by just a little flap of skin, or share an entire body from the neck down. And if they don't die soon after being born, many are usually subjected to surgical separation where, more often then not one or both, will die.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy Lobotomies.]] The first lobotomies were lengthy, costly operations that were as precise as possible for the 1930s. Then Walter Freeman found the ice-picks in his freezer, remembered the bone behind our eyes is quite thin, hammered a couple into someone's head and jiggled them about a bit to get pretty much the same effect. The goal of these operations was to get people out of mental institutions - not necessarily well, just well ''enough''...at first. As lobotomies first became popular then were progressively considered barbaric operations, Walter Freeman felt the pressure to prove they were indeed a medical breakthrough. An operation once reserved for an absolute last resort in the treatment of severe mental illness was eventually performed on unruly children. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Dully Meet one.]] The history of lobotomies fuels more nightmares than the thought of the actual operation, since it's a prime example of how humanity sucks in many, many areas and how few of those we keep an eye on to this day. Freeman used to perform lobotomies with a showman's attitude, sometimes shoving in two ice picks at once. He even accidentally killed a man by briefly leaving the ice picks in while he went looking for a camera. The inventor ''won the Nobel Prize for Medicine''.
** Poor Rosemary Kennedy had the misfortune of being the "slow one" in a family full of ambitious, gifted children (experts think she had an IQ of around 90). The pressure of trying to measure up to her more sophisticated siblings caused her to act out and ultimately her parents ended up having a doctor perform brain surgery on her at the age of 23 to curb her mood swings. He succeeded...in reducing her mind to that of a literal infant, a state she remained in until she died at the age of 86. One wonders if the Kennedy family would have been a lot happier if Papa Joe hadn't been so hellbent on creating his own dynasty.
---> ''We went through the top of the head, I think she was awake. She had a mild tranquilizer. I made a surgical incision in the brain through the skull. It was near the front. It was on both sides. "We just made a small incision, no more than an inch." The instrument Dr. Watts used looked like a butter knife. He swung it up and down to cut brain tissue. "We put an instrument inside," he said. As Dr. Watts cut, Dr. Freeman put questions to Rosemary. For example, he asked her to recite the Lord's Prayer or sing "God Bless America" or count backwards. ... "We made an estimate on how far to cut based on how she responded." ... When she began to become incoherent, they stopped.''
** One of the things that make it really frightening is how the media whitewash lobotomies to a state of numb mindlessness. If only. Imagine being able to remember caring, feeling, thinking as you do now, and then that just... stops, but the rest of you knows it and keeps on going.
** In fact, most of what passed for cutting-edge psychiatric treatment until very recently is more than a little terrifying. Someone behaving badly? Brain surgery time! Lobotomies are one of the best examples, but the entire medical profession prior to the last fifty years or so is pretty creepy. As for the pharmacological industry before the FDA - just don't go there.
* Dentists. Or anything tooth-related. due to the immense amount of nerves and pain-related receptors.
* Oral surgery in general (wisdom teeth, root canals) is horrifying. Even perfectly normal, ostensibly non-horrifying procedures can be incredibly painful, like tooth removal and getting braces. The feeling of a dentist grabbing your tooth and jerking it back and forth until it comes out is incredibly creepy even when you've had a lot of anaesthetic and can't feel any pain. The mouth is also one of the worst-feeling areas when subjected to local anaesthetic, for some reason. Just recovering from something and having to put up with a big numb rubbery mouth, and the drooling you end up subconsciously doing sometimes.
* The two books published about [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_farm the Body Farm]]. Mixed in with the fascinating descriptions and applications of forensic science is a high dose of {{Body Horror}} as you learn in excruciating detail exactly what happens to a human body after death. But the worst parts by far are all the descriptions the horrible ways real people have died in certain cases. (No photos are included; you won't need them.) Especially the explosion at the illegal fireworks operation. ''Her brain fell out''...
** StephenFry was "lucky" enough to be granted access to it during his documentary on the US. As a special bonus he claims ''to have never seen a dead body before'' and his tour guide admits she has gotten into the habit of [[{{Bones}} figuring out what people's skulls look like]] under their skin.
* Anesthesia awareness. You wake up during surgery, but you can't communicate. Happens to 20,000 people a year.
* Faces Of Meth - what methamphetamine abuse and its consequences (hallucinations, poverty, poor nutrition, poisoning from the chemicals in the drug) do to people's appearance over time.
* Tapeworms. The bad part about pork tape worms isn't the aspect of living in your small intestine stealing your nutrients... but actually the fact that if you eat their eggs instead of their immature form they can circulate throughout your body and implant themselves on whatever random tissue they land on. Unfortunately they often decide to land on brain tissue and can cause permanent brain damage.
** ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea_worms Guinea worms]].'' Parasitic disease in general.
* Abortion. Pro-life, pro-choice, doesn't matter, the basic concept is still ''sucking the baby/mass of cells/what have you out of the uterus with a giant vacuum.''
* What would happen to you if you were exposed into the vacuum of space without space gear. You will wish that one and a half minute of remaining life were much, much shorter. In the absence of atmospheric pressure, water will spontaneously convert into vapor, which would cause the moisture in a victim's mouth and eyes to quickly boil away. The same effect would cause water in the muscles and soft tissues of the body to evaporate, prompting some parts of the body to swell to twice their usual size after a few moments. In the absence of air pressure the gas exchange of the lungs works in reverse, dumping oxygen out of the blood and accelerating the oxygen-starved state known as hypoxia. After about ten seconds a victim will experience loss of vision and impaired judgment, and the cooling effect of evaporation will lower the temperature in the victim's mouth and nose to near-freezing. Unconsciousness and convulsions would follow several seconds later, and a blue discoloration of the skin called cyanosis would become evident. At this point the victim would be floating in a blue, bloated, unresponsive stupor, but their brain would remain undamaged and their heart would continue to beat. Without intervention in those first ninety seconds, the blood pressure would fall sufficiently that the blood itself would begin to boil, and the heart would stop beating. As a side bonus, with no bacteria present, your frozen, non-decomposing body will drift off into space for millions or perhaps billions of years if left untouched.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_decapitation Internal decapitation]]. It's [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin pretty much what its name would imply]], and it's ''the very definition'' of this trope.
* There's this video floating around on the Internet, a public service announcement made by a Middle Eastern country where two men jump off a bridge into water. The bridge isn't too high (about 20-30 feet). One of the men makes it. The other? He slips at the last second only to have his face smash against the corner of a concrete pier at the bottom. The later show him in the emergency room, [[spoiler: with his face split open and still alive]].
* Elevator FailsafeFailure. Example: that Japanese guy who got his head ripped off by a elevator with faulty sensors. And the other passenger was trapped in the car with the severed head for an hour. Or in Italy, June 2009: during a heavy rainstorm, an old woman rode her elevator down to her cellar. Too bad the cellar was flooded. The elevator stopped when it touched the water, then the flood got worse, and worse, and worse...she drowned in there. In Brazil, all elevators have warnings "before entering through the elevator doors, please check that the elevator car is on the current floor",
* Ectopic pregnancy. The fertilized egg doesn't make it to the uterus and starts growing "inside" the fallopian tube. The [[http://www.bodiestheexhibition.com/ Bodies Exhibition]] had the plasticized, dissected reproductive organs of a woman who had died from an ectopic pregnancy, complete with a little walnut-sized fetus thing still in the fallopian tube. In a rare few cases of ectopic pregnancy, the zygote will actually ''fall out'' of the fallopian tube and attach itself to a random spot in the abdominal cavity... usually an organ. Said organ will proceed to suffer severe damage as the placenta grows -- and the placenta is much more likely to grow to a larger size than it would in a normal ectopic pregnancy, thanks to not being stuck inside a non-elastic tube. Some of these pregnancies have actually lasted to full term. Incidentally, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cord_%26_Placenta.jpg this]] is what a placenta looks like at nine months. Sweet dreams, ladies.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_cutting Female genital mutilation]], or FGM.
** Genital mutilation in general
* ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stick_shaker The eerie sound of the stick shaker can be heard in the black box recording on the doomed ice-covered Air Florida flight 90 that stalled and crashed into the Potomac river near Washington DC in 1982.]]''[[http://www.airdisaster.com/download2/af90.shtml that recording]]. Oh, and [[ItGotWorse if that's not bad enough]], one can actually hear the plane's explosive impact, too.
** This still pales in comparison to [[http://www.airdisaster.com/download2/jal123.shtml the JAL-123 recording]]. The constant beeping, the desperate shouts of the crew, the ground proximity warning system ("Pull up!... Pull up!... Pull up!"), the sound of two impacts... it's 55 seconds of pure despair. "We're going down, Larry(?)"..."I KNOW!", preceding the BOOM, is more jarring than the sound of the stick shaker.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_585 United Airlines Flight 585]]. Suddenly and without warning, the aircraft rolled to the right and began to pitch downward, nose first. Nine seconds later, they crashed into Widefield Park at 4g. There were no survivors. And it all happened in nine seconds. The cockpit transcript from those nine seconds can be found in the [[http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/2001/AAR0101.pdf aircraft accident report]], on pages 177-178, and it is chilling. [[YourMileageMayVary Your mileage may vary]] as to whether it's more or less chilling to read the normal conversations that make up most of the transcript, knowing what's going to happen at the end. The worst part is, this happened while the plane was on its ''final approach to the runway''. Just a minute or two longer and they would've been fine. Imagine you're the captain or co-pilot, on a normal domestic flight from Denver to Colorado Springs. You're on your final approach to the runway. Imagine the mounting anticipation and sense of relief you would feel, knowing you'll be on the ground again in a few short minutes. Maybe you'll grab a coffee. Then you can check into a hotel and finally relax. And then suddenly you're hurtling towards the ground with nine seconds to live. Nine seconds of pure terror, of screaming and swearing as you try desperately to regain control.
** A similar thing happened to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USAir_Flight_427 USAir Flight 427]] three-and-a-half years later. Once again, no survivors. Except that this time, there were 132 onboard instead of 25, and the uncontrolled descent lasted ''twenty-eight seconds''.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUhGVpP8hCwThe 911 call from the Twin Towers]] ''as they collapsed.'' Being trapped on a top floor and slowly suffocating while calling 911 and basically being told '''they can't do anything''' to save you. Not to mention having the tower go down while you're inside it. Not to mention how the person on the other end must have felt, having to listen to those men beg for help and '''listen to them die.''' The entire thing is beyond horrifying.
* Amniocentesis. A long needle is inserted into a pregnant woman's belly, through the wall of her uterus to draw out a sample of amniotic fluid. (This can be dangerous to the fetus if it is stuck by the needle accidentally; may lead to miscarriage.) The idea is to get fetal cells to test for genetic diseases and disorders. (Thus usually done for older moms, or moms who have a high-risk of problems. An alternative exists, but it isn't much better (it can still cause miscarriage, and it's still scary), where a tube is inserted through the vagina and cervix and a small chunk of placenta is taken.
* Pelvic exams and the horrifying TurnedUpToEleven pelvic exam known as a colposcopy. (Usually done in cases where the woman has had two consecutive abnormal Pap smears, or when she's been raped (and they have reason to believe she sustained more serious internal injuries during the attack). That one may involve biopsies and weird tests involving iodine. Kind of like a vaginal alien probe, but not by aliens.
* ECRP. Hoo boy. This is ''really'' simplifying here, but if some or all of the 4 bile ducts in the liver are blocked, they go in and ''drill through'' the blocked ducts to unblock them in an attempt to salvage liver function. It's very painful, and they can't put the patient out completely because his/her cooperation is needed. It can cause internal bleeding, infection, and pancreatitis as well. (Which is why it's no longer done as a diagnostic procedure as it formerly was; it's too dangerous for that. It's only used for therapeutic purposes.)
* Pancreatitis itself. Imagine the worst pain you can ever imagine traveling through the upper abdomen and shooting its way to the back. Imagine living life feeling extremely nauseated and dehydrated all at once, so that one has to live by an extremely restricted diet AND try to get as much water as necessary without throwing up the water one has consumed. Now imagine trying to live as normal a life as one can with such a disorder ravaging one's body, including going so far as to be permanently fed via IV if that's what it takes to keep the "writhing on the floor of your bathroom or bedroom while curled up in a ball"-level pain away.
* The end results of a human gas turbine ingestion accident. It pretty much defines the ChunkySalsaRule. For those who have more intestinal fortitude, read on. [[spoiler: Imagine, if you will, the inner nacelle of an aircraft engine, and massive fan within. Now spread a chunky paste of redness about eight inches around the front and back of the fan, glued to the nacelle. Scatter some bits and pieces up to a hundred feet behind the engine for added effect. Now realise that that chunky red mess was a ''person''.]]
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectal_prolapse Rectal prolapse.]] This is also featured from ChuckPalahniuk's creepypasta ''Guts''. Cracked's description really takes the cake(spoiler'd because it ''will'' keep you up at night): [[spoiler: It is a weakening of the ligaments that hold your intestines together, and in the worst case scenario, your intestine comes loose and hangs out your anus.]] Possibly the worst thing is that you don't have to do anything particularly dangerous or extreme to have this happen. All you have to do is what many people consider to be normal procedure in this situation.
* Günther Wallraff describes in his book ''Ganz Unten'' ("Lowest of the Low") a horrific case in a West German steel mill where a Turkish immigrant steelworker had stumbled at work in a steel mill and fallen in a blast furnace. His body had been incinerated completely - the kinsfolks were presented a symbolical piece of metal containing
* Historical torture:
** Crucifixion. They tied or nailed your hands and feet that way so that you had to stand up to able to breathe. Once you lost the energy to stand, you would collapse, at which point you couldn't breathe and had to pull yourself up to breathe again and collapse then you'd collapse again and again and again ... a proper crucifixion could take three days to kill someone.
** A medieval French favorite is quartering. Tie four horses to each limb of the victim's body, then whip the horses. For an added bonus, the torturers would give the victim a last drink so they could watch the liquid pour out of their exposed entrails. Not to be confused with the even more horrifying English punishment known as drawing and quartering, where the condemned is dragged across the filthy, bumpy, trash-strewn roads to the place of execution by a horse, he is hanged but cut down while still alive, his "privy member" [[GroinAttack is cut off]], his belly is slit open and he is forced to watch as they pull out his intestines and burn them in front of his face, and then they hack off his head, cut his body into four quarters, and distribute them among various places where he performed treasonous or seditious acts.
** Scalping. Which, by the way, was not done by Native American tribes but ''to'' them by US soldiers.
** One Native American tribe favored burying a man up to his neck, covering his head with honey, and waiting for the ants to come.
** A basic one but still painful: [[BurnTheWitch burning at the stake]].
** "Carving the blood eagle," a particularly {{squick}}tastic Viking method of killing which consisted of cutting and breaking the victim's ribs so they resembled bird wings, pulling out the lungs, and then salting the wounds that were left behind to make death ''even more painful than it already was.''
** Edward II was thought to be gay, and this was back in the 1300s when homosexuality was a sin. A group of nobles killed him by anally raping him with a hot iron rod.
* Then there are the more humane ways forms of execution... except when they go wrong.
** Beheaded with a an axe that isn't sharp. Sometimes it took as many as fifty blows.
** Just ask Catherine Howard.
** Same with a dull guillotine. Imagine hearing the sound of it falling, feeling the pain, and then hearing "[[ItGotWorse Pull it back up and try again]]."
** Lethal injection every so often goes wrong, and you are quite aware of the pain but you can't scream or move.
** To help with the electric chair, they would put a sponge on the victim's forehead. The sponge is meant to be placed under the electrode cap to help conduct the current and ensure a quick death in the chair. StephenKing's ''TheGreenMile'' has a particularly horrific and nasty scene that was based on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_chair#First_executions the very first execution by electric chair]], where said sponge wasn't used.
** Hanging, if done wrong, does not snap your neck -- you suffocate. You have to drop the victim at least fifteen feet or so for a quick death. This is particularly common with people attempting to commit suicide. There's also the exact opposite problem. The mathematics for performing a proper long drop is fairly simple, but occasionally back in the day they would mess up. If the rope is too long, the person will be decapitated [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KetchumDecapitated.jpg like this fellow by the name of Tom Ketchum]]. They forgot to recalculate his weight after he gained weight while in prison. After the botched hanging of Eva Dugan, Arizona switched to the "more humane" method of execution by gas chamber.
* From an old radio announcement: ''"This is the sound of a train hitting a person: ...chugga-chugga, chugga-chugga, chugga-CHUGGA, CHUGGA-CHUGGA, CHUGGA-CHUGGA, CHUGGA-CHUGGA, CHUGGA-chugga, chugga-chugga, chugga-chugga..."''
* JohnFKennedy's assassination. It was the same as any other headshot, really, but it happened in BROAD DAYLIGHT in front of many, many people, ''children'' included. And don't even get us started on the ''autopsy''...
* A test pilot who bailed out of a plane at supersonic speed in the '50s; his entire body inflated to ''twice its size'', his eyeballs swelled to the size of Major League baseballs, and ''six feet of his lower intestine protruded out''-yet he somehow survived.
* The [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Yfd_7jrnMk gruesome]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM6v-43-1PU effects]] of the Russian heroin substitute 'Krokodil' called so because the users skin and flesh turns green and becomes horribly gangrenous, before it rots off revealing fresh bone without any blood. It is made from codeine extracted from codeine medication and mixed with cleaning solvents, which is why the average lifespan of the user is less than a year. How someone could not take themselves to hospital the moment they started feeling decomposition in their limbs is amazing, but [[BodyHorror how any human could even survive that level of injury without succumbing to sepsis or shock is incredible.]]
* [[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001355 Hypokalemic Periodic Paralysis Disorder]]. It doesn't sound too bad, but YOU try waking up one morning not being able to move your arms or legs without feeling like you're tearing the muscles from the bone or not having the ability to grip anything (thus leading to an inability to button your own pants) because your blood potassium levels have dropped. Even more horrifying is that while the condition is genetic, the effects are activated by something as simple as eating too much pizza the night before.
* Hydrofluoric acid accidents. Even chemistry geeks are deathly scared of that stuff, as it not only eats through pretty much anything (including glass), but causes severe tissue necrosis. It also etches bones, and slows or stops the victim's heart through rapid loss of blood calcium. Direct skin contact with even a small amount is usually fatal. And it doesn't react well with flesh, so you don't have any obvious acid burns to tip you off that you got some on you. Just an unpleasant itching or tingling.
* Let's talk about a few suicide methods that aren't as painless or reliable as most people think.
** Overdosing on medication. As simple as going to sleep? Haha, yeah right. More like hours of projectile vomiting once your stomach starts to reject the medication, and a host of other horrifying symptoms (which ones you experience depends on the medication you took) including but not limited to: Loud ringing in the ears (very common, and much more distressing than you might think), temporary deafness, temporary blindness, seizures, intense burning or itching of the skin, severe stomach pain, GI bleeding, hallucinations, paranoia, panic attacks, loss of muscle control, loss of bowel and bladder control, hyperventilating, fast or slow heartbeat (both of which you can feel), difficulty breathing, coma and, of course, death (rarely). At the hospital, you'll be forced to drink liquid charcoal, a nasty concoction that tastes like you're drinking mud (complete with gritty bits -- ever ate a sandwich at the beach, and accidentally got sand in it?), and usually makes you vomit even more. [=ODing=] is rarely fatal, but can cause permanent damage to the organs and brain. You might also have your stomach pumped, depending on what you took and how much, or how long ago.
** Tylenol, a common method of OD, is particularly nasty. The person feels icky for a few hours after taking it, but shows no major symptoms at first. The person may start to feel better later in the day, believing that they're going to be okay and failing to seek medical treatment. Big, BIG mistake. 24 to 48 hours later, liver failure begins to set in. The nausea returns, cranked UpToEleven, as well as INTENSE pain. No, really, the pain is utterly horrible, as in you feel as though your liver is expanding due to being stuffed full of shards of glass. Ever had gall stones? If so, it's like that, but even worse. Your skin turns yellow, and toxins build up throughout your body, which brings about all kinds of painful symptoms. If you wind up needing a liver transplant, you might be rejected by the donor committee due to being suicidal.
** Aspirin, another common one, makes you very nauseated; causes very, very loud ringing in the ears, and makes them feel as if they're stuffed with cotton; feeling disconnected with reality, which is disturbing; in extreme cases, bleeding in the GI tract due to ''eating away at the inside of the stomach''; seizures; a very fast heart beat; hyperventilating, as your body attempts to expel excess carbon dioxide in the blood; low blood sugar; potential edema (swelling) in the brain; and a host of other symptoms.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSRI SSRIs]] are near impossible to OD on. Fatally, that is. Instead what happens is that your brain goes nuts from the overdose of serotonin, which is not as pleasant as it sounds. Some of the symptoms include profuse vomiting, diarrhea, hallucinations, rapid heartbeat, shivering, sweating, tremors, and coma. In short, you probably won't die, but you'll feel like you are--and probably wish you had for a few days.
** Gunshot to the head. Even pointblank, to the forehead, temple or [[AteHisGun in the mouth]], [[TisOnlyABulletInTheBrain these are survivable]]. Sure, brain-damage is likely, but that doesn't automatically kill a person. A large number of people who attempt suicide via gun accidentally blow off part of their face, but manage to live. One may end up drowning in their own blood because they've destroyed their nasal cavity -- hardly an easy death. Since the body is almost guaranteed to flinch by reflex in response to the gun going off, there's a very good chance that one will miss the brain entirely. Or they might hit it, but only in an area that affects higher reasoning, leaving them alive, but paralyzed, mentally challenged, or both. Yes, yes, ''[[RealityIsUnrealistic you don't even need the seat of your soul and personality to live.]]'' See also one of the most famous cases of surviving this kind of brain trauma, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage Phineas Gage]]. If you use a certain kind of gun/ammo with bullets that aren't strong enough to penetrate the skull, you can have the bullet hit the back of your skull and bounce off, ricocheting around your brain and slicing it up. Likewise, gunshots to other parts of the body often miss the organ being aimed for, leaving the person to bleed to death or disabled. Those who aim for the heart may miss and hit the lungs instead, for instance. This effectively causes a person to drown in their own blood.
** Cutting the wrists. Definitely not as easy as sliding a knife across your arm. To even be effective, a person has to hack their way down through tendons and muscle to reach the artery, which takes time. NOT painless, NOT quick and scary as hell. Even if one successfully cuts open the artery and does all the things people do to prevent clotting, they're probably not going to die (even if they're not found by anyone after they pass out). It will, however, leave an enormous scar down the arm, as well as permanent nerve damage and less flexibility in the skin, leading to a constant feeling of 'tightness' in the arm.
** Hanging. This can certainly kill a person, but not always painlessly. Suicide victims rarely succeed in breaking their own neck, which would cause an instant death. Instead, they hang there, slowly asphyxiating. The pain is excessive (imagine your entire body being held up by a noose around your neck), not to mention the sheer panic one experiences -- survival instinct kicks in automatically, even if the person really does want to kill their self, as they hang there and die. Plus, if they're rescued before they die, brain damage is a very likely possibility. Oh, the corpse of a hanging victim is not very nice to look at, what with the bloated face, the tongue sticking out, the burst capillaries in the eyes and the blood pooling in their legs and forearms.
** Drowning. Panicking under water is not a fun way to die, and inhaling water is painful.
** To sum it all up:
---> ''Razors pain you;
---> Rivers are damp;
---> Acids stain you;
---> And drugs cause cramp.
---> Guns aren't lawful;
---> Nooses give;
---> Gas smells awful;
---> You might as well live.''
----> -- Dorothy Parker
* A recent psychological study indicates that the idea that deals the worst response (from a handful given to test subjects) is [[spoiler: Pointy objects being pushed through the smallest holes in the body, namely the [[FreudWasRight nipples]]]] Try to think about that and NOT get chills.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlequin_fetus Harlequin fetuses]]. Just...''ick''.
* Seeing your own bones or blood after an injury.
* [[http://sometimes-interesting.com/2011/06/29/over-200-dead-bodies-on-mount-everest/ There are over 200 dead bodies littering Mt. Everest.]] Above a certain point, it is unsafe to bring them down, so they are pretty much left to waste away.
* The physical effects of bulimic and anorexic behavior.
[[/folder]]
----
[[folder: RLNF Animals]]
[[quoteright:345:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/angler_fish.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:345:Hey kids, remember that [[NightmareFuel scary part]] in FindingNemo? Well, fish like that are really out there. And this one ain't the worst of it...]]
->[[http://www.cracked.com/funny-5588-hybrid-animals/ "Apparently, Nature evolved humans so that she would have something to scream at all of her other creations."]]\\
-- ''{{Cracked}}''
-> "DAMN, NATURE! YOU SCARY!"
-->--''{{Family Guy}}''
Some animals just make anything better. Others, [[NightmareFuel make anything scary]].
TV tropes would like to remind you that the animals listed are just that: animals, not horrible monsters that should be [[KillItWithFire killed with fire]]. They are also not really after your blood. Except for the blood sucking ones.
Note to All Tropers: Enough with the side conversations on this page, take it to the discussion boards. And make sure your entry isn't already here before you add: there's already a lot of bugs, for instance.
See also EverythingsWorseWithBears. [[EverythingsWorseWithBees And bees]]. [[EverythingsEvenWorseWithSharks And sharks]].
----
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder: Extinct]]
* TwoWords: ''[[TyrannosaurusRex Tyrannosaurus rex'']]. To put it bluntly, we're talking about an animal that was 36-42 feet long, 11 feet tall, weighed 6 tons, and had razor-sharp serrated teeth that could grow to the size of a banana. Oh, and it gets even better. The jaws of a T-rex were strong enough to crush bone and are considered one of the strongest sets of jaws known to ever exist in the animal kingdom (Only the prehistoric fish, Dunkleosteus, had a stronger bite). Be thankful it's extinct.
** ''T. Rex'' definitely was a badass. But it was hardly alone in being NightmareFuel. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Largesttheropods.svg See this chart?]] Yeah, I'm glad those thing's aren't around anymore.
** [[ItGotWorse It gets worse.]] There's now evidence that suggests that T.rex could run fast. So, now you got a 42 ft long, 6 ton predator that may have been able to run up to 20 mph and had bone-crushing jaws.
** [[RuleOfThree It gets even worse.]] There's evidence that Tyrannosaurus Rexes ''hunted in packs''. [[ZergRush Sending the faster juveniles up ahead]] to herd the prey into the jaws of the adults.
*** [[JurassicPark Mustgofastermustgofastermustgofaster...]]
** [[OverlyLongGag It gets worse.]] Paleontologists think they could grow even ''larger'' than 42 feet. There could be [[BeyondTheImpossible a 50 foot specimen buried out there, or even a 60 foot!]]
* ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalania Everyone, meet Megalania]]'', the gigantic prehistoric cousin of the Komodo Dragon. Again, be thankful its extinct
** There have been reports of a komodo dragon like lizard in the Indonesian islands, but 2 or 3 times it's size. It's now a cryptozoological animal.
* There once lived a prehistoric crocodile known as ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinosuchus Deinosuchus]]'' (the name itself means "terrible crocodile") that was estimated to have been 30 to 50 feet long and weighed up to nine tons, with a bite force [[UpToEleven even greater than T. rex]], which ate ''dinosaurs''. Have fun swimming, kids.
** Similarly: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcosuchus Sarcosuchus]], [[FanNickname a.k.a.]] "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Supercroc]]." This time, you can't even take solace in the off-chance the size might be overestimated, because some very complete skeletons have been found.
* What about ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkleosteus Dunkleosteus]]''? This big fish had a bite force of over 8,000 pounds per inch (greater than TyrannosaurusRex!) on the tip of its teeth[[hottip:*:Technically, they're extensions of the jaws, not teeth.]]. The worst part? Its hunting tactic was to open its mouth so quickly as to suck in prey moving in due to the pressure change - so you would be sucked into a gape that could chop pretty much anything in half and you wouldn't be able to escape.
** It doesn't help that it looks roughly like a [[StarWars Rancor]] crossed with a gigantic piranha.
* Marsupial lions. Ice Age Australia's answer to the Sabre-tooth cats. The biggest, Thylacoleo, was about the size of a large cougar, and could disembowel prey with its claws, and deigned to rip off limbs in favour of [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/07/sci_nat_enl_1169658723/html/1.stm snipping them off with its teeth]]. It also apparently dropped from trees onto its prey. Even scarier, it ''may still exist.''
** So wait, drop bears actually existed?
** At least they look somewhat cute and cuddly, being cats, still. They aren't as lethal, but having a coconut crab do a paradrop on your head is pretty freakish. Especially if it whacks you with said coconut before hand.
*** They're not cats. A better comparison would be giant killer wombats (or maybe even ''[[KillerRabbit koalas]]'') with sickle clawed thumbs. Yes, that's right, marsupial lions come from the "herbivore" side of the marsupial family tree.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastric-brooding_frog Gastric-brooding Frogs.]] ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. [[{{Squick}} Ew]].
** They've been gone for a while, actually... we drove them to extinction back in the eighties. At least all you easily-disgusted folks can rejoice now.
*** Except the Pharmaceutical Industry, who, realising that young frog's ability to suppress the digestive fluids of its parent could've yielded potentially life-saving drugs, are not exactly rejoicing. They're offering big bucks to anyone who can capture a live one, which it doesn't look like is gonna happen.
*** Unless of course, zombie frogs.
* Mosasaurs. Enormous, carnivorous, aquatic lizards that hunt in packs. Fortunately, they're extinct now, but they were seriously scary.
** It doesn't help that one mosasaur fossil was found with the remains of [[BigEater a shark, a seabird, a bony fish and another mosasaur the size of an alligator]] in its stomach area.
* ''{{Megalodon}}''. Prehistoric shark with a mouth a grown man could stand up in. Extrapolating from its fossilized jaws, paleontologists have estimated it to be around 50 to 60 feet long. A creature that big would probably eat ''adult whales''. And if that wasn't scary enough, if it was anything like its smaller modern cousin, the Great White Shark, it could ''breach like a whale''. Imagine, if you will, a shark the size of a Greyhound bus taking to the air with a whale in its mouth. Sweet dreams....
** [[{{Jaws}} We're gonna need a bigger boat.]]
** It's called a polaris breach, for those interested. Great whites aren't the only creature in the sea to do it, but are certainly the most deadly. The last run of Shark Week on the DiscoveryChannel showcased what seal nightmares are made of.
** Of course, the proper NightmareRetardant for that would be the [[SoBadItsGood not-so-classic]] JohnBarrowman flick ''Shark Attack 3: Megalodon''. Then you will never be able to hear that creature's name without giggling.
** Speaking of sharks breaching the surface [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skYRZ_-RXtk&feature=related]]
** One of the nature channels has recently been airing trailers suggesting that ''Megalodon'' might actually still be out there. Think about ''that'' for a while.
*** The book "Meg" by Steve Alten is about exactly that. But, in that it escapes and proceeds to rape the oceanic world. With its teeth.
** How big were these? They made the fearsome Great White Shark look tiny. They made the [[GentleGiant not-so-fearsome]] (but massive) ''Whale Shark'' look tiny.
*** Here's a [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Megalodon_scale1.png chart]] for comparison. The green one is a great white. The red one is ''conservative'' estimate for a megalodon.
** You know how museums have that tendency to put animal jaws on the floor and basically go, "Hey, guys, look how easily this thing could eat you?" Well, this one had freaking ''Megalodon'' jaws. Looking into a pair of jaws that are about half your size again is...disconcerting to say the least.
*** Think about it that way: A great white will have a bony meal out of you. For that thing? ''You're a pretzel.'
** Speaking of large sea animals, scientists have recently found the skull of a large whale similar to the sperm whale about sixty feet long with tusk-like teeth about fourteen inches long. They were thought to have eaten other whales and the fangs would've ripped out huge chunks of the unfortunate victims. Their given name? ''[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Leviathan]] [[Literature/MobyDick melvillei]]''.
*** It also lived alongside ''Megalodon''. Two giant ocean predators with mouths bristling with teeth, one a lone ambush assassin and the other a pack-hunting determinater. And evidence shows ''Megalodon'' and ''Leviathan'' preyed on each other.
** Speaking of EverythingsEvenWorseWithSharks, meet ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicoprion Helicoprion]]'' and ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edestus Edestus]]''. Those ''jaws''...
* Dromaeosaurs (better known as "Raptors" to your average person...Ya know, like ''Velociraptor'', ''Utahraptor'', ''Deinonychus'', etc.) are quite terrifying when one thinks about it. Sure, a good number of species are small, but they also have razor-sharp claws and teeth, a pair of huge scythe-like talons on their hind feet, and its been theorized that several species were highly intelligent social predators.
** Try most. At the very least ''Deinonychus'', the bugger who inspired the monstrous raptors of Jurassic Park, hunted in packs. And while many people consider dinosaurs to be less bad ass with feathers, well, there is a little something called Wing-Assisted-Incline-Flight or something. Quails use it. It allows them to run up straight inclines. Ladies and gentlemen, we have [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot Spider-Raptor]].
*** There isn't any conclusive evidence of them ''hunting'' in groups ''per se''. A group of "raptors" scavenging or mobbing (as opposed to the coordinated group hunting we see in canids) is [[ScienceMarchesOn just as if not more likely]]. But when it comes down to being ripped apart by a dozen [[FeatheredFiend feathered fiends]] the unfortunate prey item probably doesn't care about the difference.
*** Speaking of extinct, feathery deathbringers, let me introduce you to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phorusrhacidae the Terror Birds]]. Basically like a [[FinalFantasy Chocobo]] except they actually existed. And could probably rip apart anything they damn well wanted to, including ''horses''.
**** Jesus, that thing looks like a devil dodo (doesn't seem to be any direct relation, though). And one subfamily is named ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanis Titanis]]'', because of how big it was.
*** Here's a flying menace for you. Meet the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wm7FqZVirI=text Haast's Eagle]]. This raptor was large and powerful enough to take down moas with ease. And it existed when humans started settling in New Zealand. It was a bird DESIGNED TO KILL PEOPLE.
*** [[ItGotWorse It gets worse. Much worse.]] Recent studies suggest that ''Sinornithosaurus millenii'', a small dromaeosaur that lived in Asia, was venomous. That's right, not only were "Raptors" intelligent, fast, and had razor-sharp claws...but now they're poisonous. OhCrap...
**** It's said that the evidence is weak on that one, so you don't ''really'' have to worry about venomous "raptors". Yet. And, fortunately they weren't as intelligent as [[JurassicPark some movies]] show; they couldn't have held a candle in the intelligence department to nearly all modern birds. Also, there were in fact many, many other dinosaurs (including the comparatively much larger ''[[TyrannosaurusRex Tyrannosaurus rex]]'') that were ''better'' adapted for running than the dromaeosaurids. Chances are they could still run faster than ''you'', however. And any cassowary will tell you that you don't have to be the most intelligent birdbrain to be scary... Not to mention, dromaeosaurids may have been good at climbing trees.
**** They may have vomited [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellet_(ornithology) food pellets]] like owls, which is either NightmareRetardant or NauseaFuel.
**** ItGotWorse: Some of them (or at least [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahonavis this one]]) could ''fly''. You ''better'' run.
**** Oh yes, and they got big. Look at [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Utahraptor_scale.png this size chart]] for ''Utahraptor''. The green is a ''conservative'' estimate of its size.
**** Try Megaraptor. Utahraptor has nothing on these things. Go find a ruler. That is the space between the sickle claw's tip and where it connects to the toe.
* Sea Scorpions. Can you imagine an amphibious scorpion the size of a crocodile? I can't without getting the willies.
* Entelodonts. Take a wild boar or a javelina, and give it steroids. A lot of steroids. Enough to make it the size of a bull or rhinoceros. Now, strip off most of its fur, and change its teeth from that of an omnivore into things designed to shear and tear flesh. And take away most of its omnivorous tendencies. Pure carnivore baby. Not to mention that they were the first animals to develop the traditional artiodactyl-style hoof, which made them incredibly fast. Oh yeah, and they ate rhinos on a regular basis.
* Holy shit, ''Andrewsarchus''. [[http://ssjgarfield.deviantart.com/art/Andrewsarchus-62918294 Just....Andrewsarchus]]. It's hard to believe this beast belonged to a family closely related to even-toed artiodactyls (think deer, sheep, and cattle), since its gigantic head alone was over three feet long and it was the largest carnivorous land mammal that walked the Earth. This page from the manga "Eden no Ori" [[http://www.mangafox.com/manga/eden_no_ori/v01/c003/12.html sums up its size quite nicely]].
* ''[[http://www.flickr.com/photos/markwitton/2465048793/in/set-72057594082038974/ Hatzegopteryx]]'' may not look physically terrifying, but once [[FridgeHorror you realise some things]] you would be thankful things like that are extinct. First of all, it was basically like a giant stork in habits, catching prey with the beak. In Hatzegi's case, a beak longer than the jaws of the largest theropod dinosaurs (aka T. rex had a shorter snout). And that pterosaurs was taller than a giraffe. Considering birds like herons can swallow things as proportionally big as rabbits, and since reptilian (including avian) esophagi are very tough (turkeys can swallow blades and not suffer ill effects), Hatzegopteryx could easily grab a person with the jaws, swallow him/her alive and you wouldn't even be able to fight back, only to find your doom at the digestive juices.
* [[http://www.nunoxei.com/images/Tasmanian_tiger.gif The Tasmanian Tiger]], which can distend its jaws far beyond the capabilities of those of any animal other than a snake. I am considering a campaign to Tasmania to make sure that there aren't any more alive, because they could apparently swim...
** Apparently, thanks to advancements in technology, it could be possible to bring the species back. They're attempting this now. You're welcome.
* The Permian Extinction. The worst extinction event in the history of earth. The closest life ever came to ceasing to exist all together. Over 90% of all species on earth vanished. It gets even more disturbing when you hear the details. Of all the dozens groups of reptiles, only a handful survived. Synapsids: aka, “mammal-like reptiles”. The missing link between mammals and reptiles. These creatures basically ruled the earth, very diverse. Both tiny creatures, and mega fauna rivaling the dinosaurs and mammals after them. The only ones who survived where tiny burrowing creatures who eventually became mammals. Anapsids: There used to be 100s of different kinds of armored reptiles roaming around. Only the turtles survived. Archosaurs: The common ancestor of birds, dinosaurs, crocodilians, and pterosaurs. Before the extinction they where tiny scavengers. Afterwards they exploded from lack of completion. Lepidosauria: The Ancestors of lizards and snakes. Sphenodontia: The Ancestors of modern tuataras. Of all the Amphibians that evolved since they first left the ocean, only the Lissamphibia survived. Crocodilians where only able to become crocodilians because the giant Croc-like Amphibians died out. Reptilomorphs aka, “reptile-like amphibians.” The missing link, and the most successful group of amphibians at the time, Where completely wiped out. Trilobites: some of the oldest and most successful ocean life at the time. More successful than fish. Completely wiped out. Insects didn’t make it out okay either. All six-winged insects vanished. Their cousins, the non-insect Hexapods vanished, except the wood lice. Fossil evidence shows that for almost a million years after the extinction, the most common form of life on earth was ''fungus''. The icing on the cake? Unlike the Dinosaurs and the massive impact Crater, scientists have '''''NO CLUE''''' what caused it, or if it could ever happen again. There is not a shread of evidence of anything that could have caused it on earth, leading some to theorize it was a local supernova, but the truth is we have no idea.
** The current most likely theory is that all the landmasses coming together caused widespread "desertification", quite literally turning vast amounts of what was previously rainforest and swampland into arid, nasty environments few creatures could adapt to. The oceans weren't safe, either; with only one landmass, currents settled and the oceans stagnated. Almost every ocean-going creature ''suffocated'' due to lack of oxygen. Other theories include a flood basalt, which is basically a supervolcanic eruption that lasts centuries. There's no word to describe just how insanly nightmarish a flood basalt eruption is. First the name. It causes a litteral flood of basaltic rock over the area it happens. Next how it occurs. Triggered by the massive tectonic stress brought about by a single landmass subducting ocean plates on all sides, a massive chunk of the earth's crust crumbles off and falls into the mantle. This forces the magma upwards to the surface. How big is it? Well the largest volacano on earth today is the size of Hawaii's large island. The Permian flood basalt, the Siberian traps are the size of the continental United States. And the eruption lasted for 100s, if not 1000s of years nonstop. What happens after it's done? Aside from the aformentioned flood of basalt, imagine all that volcanic gas. Now imagine that gas is methane, one of the most potent green house gases that occur on earth. Now imagine not only the sun's heat, but the volcanic heat trapped in the atmosphere at the same time. The allways popular "huge asteroid" is another theory, as is [[ApocalypseWow a local supernova]]. My favorite theory is that the single landmass and single ocean caused the planet to become tidally locked, meaning one side always facing the sun, one side always facing away. The kicker? The numbers don't really add up in any model.
*** [[WildMassGuessing Or it could be]] [[TakeAThirdOption ALL]] [[NoKillLikeOverkill of them]].
*** It was obviously [[MassEffect The Reapers]].
* Of course some of the creatures that the Permian Extinction got rid of where pretty scary.
** Mammal like reptiles? Here's an image for you. Picture a creature with neither fur nor scales, the jaw of a crocodile with the teeth of a saber-cat. Now imagine it's the size of rhino, and has fully upright legs built for running. Ladies and gentlemen, [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Inostrancevia_4DB.jpg meet the Gorgonopsids!]]
** Reptile like amphibians? You're probably thinking "Come on! What's a frog gonna do?" [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prionosuchus this guy ain't no frog!]]
** Of course some of the Archosaurs that replaced them were scary too. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postosuchus meet Postosuchus.]] Best described as a fully upright 15 foot long land crocodile.
* The [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes Titanoboa]]. A snake that grew up to 15 meters in length and, come on, it's called the ''[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Titan]]''oboa! So, it's kind of like taking your average boa constrictor or anaconda, whatever, and drilling it up to eleven. Be thankful it no longer exists.
* During the Carboniferous era, we had ''Meganeura'', a dragonfly the size of an eagle and ''Arthropluera'', a millepede that's 6 feet long. SIX FEET LONG!
* Wow, I'm surprised no one's mentioned ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinosaurus Spinosaurus]]'' yet! Take a crocodile, give it plenty of steroids, give it a six-foot high sail on its back and put it on two legs. Scared yet? Here's something for you. See [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Largesttheropods.svg this chart]]? ''Spinosaurus'' is red. ''TyrannosaurusRex'' is ''the purple one''.
** Luckily, Spinosaurus has it's fair share of NightmareRetardant. Spinosaurus primarily ate fish, so T.rex would probably kill one most of the time, if they were to fight. It wasn't a super predator like it's often portrayed as.
** That said, it is also thought to have taken down medium sized prey as well. So that means it would probably be eating grisly bears if it were still alive. Not to mention this fish it ate could very well have been ''sharks''.
*** it dies if you make it ''[[WeaksauceWeakness roll over]]'' [[EpicFail since of said fin]] being evolution's crowning [[IdiotBall]]
* Of course! How could [[{{Tropers/Spinosegnosaurus77}} I]] forget ''Deinocheirus''? Its eight-foot long arm and hand bones were found in 1970 (the creature's name means "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast terrible hand]]"). Nothing else from the creature has been found yet, and those arms have been a mystery ever since. If it's any help, their owner would have to be ''tyrannosaur-sized at the very least.'' [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Deinocheirus_hands.jpg Have a look]] and make up your own mind about the creature.
* [[http://dinosaurs.wikia.com/wiki/Therizinosaurus Therizinosaurus]]. On the one hand, it was an herbivore and probably wouldn't see you as food. On the other hand...It had 3 ''foot'' long claws on its hands which it used to defend itself agaisnt predators.
* ''Carnotaurus''. The name means "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast meat-eating bull]]". [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Carnotaurus_DB_2.jpg Here's a picture]]. The tiny arms acting as NightmareRetardant for you? Okay, let me fix that; while the bite force of the ''Carnotaurus'' was believed to be less than that of ''Allosarurus'', it's been theorized that they made up for that by beating their upper jaws against their prey like a ''[[PrecisionFStrike fucking]] [[AxCrazy hatchet]]''.
* Large ceratopsians like ''Triceratops'' and ''Styracosaurus''. We usually don't think of them as scary due to being [[HerbivoresAreFriendly herbivores]], however, an adult could gore a tyrannosaur to death with those giant horns, let alone a human. Also, ceratopsians may [[http://www.flickr.com/photos/markwitton/522293984 have been omnivores]], not herbivores.
* ''Stegosaurus''. A dinosaur the size of an elephant with a built-in medieval flail and a brain so small it probably indiscriminately whacked anything that crossed it's path. But as bad as ''Stegosaurus'' was, it has nothing on the pure demonic nightmare fuel that is ''[[http://www.kentrosaurus.org/nova_phot042.jpg Kentrosaurus]]''.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Living]]
* Ladies and gentlemen, [[http://www.wolaver.org/animals/Hatchetfish.jpg the hatchet fish.]]
** This fish makes '''the Exorcist''' look like a puppy.
*** [[TheExorcist Max von Sydow?]]
** I take your hatchet fish and raise it with [[http://iliketowastemytime.com/sites/default/files/viperfish_deadly_deep_predator2.jpg the viper fish]]. '''SWEET JESUS, WHY DOES THAT THING EXIST?!'''
** I see your viper fish (and wish I didn't) and raise you a [[http://www.petsfoto.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Fangtooth-Fish2.jpg fangtooth]]. It's just a mouth with fins.
** [[OverlyLongGag I see all of your fish]] and raise you a [[http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lhpzj1cH5m1qgduswo1_500.jpg snaggletooth]]. It looks like it dines on souls.
* You will never be able to look at a lizard the same way after my bio teacher showed us this.
** Warning: Not for the faint of heart! [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0ThAWmEk7U Monitor]]
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jppNHoksheY Here's another one for good measure]]
** Ugh, you can hear it screaming from within its gullet!
** If anything stotats would better quality [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWIW-MDZa_8 in that department.]]
* This [[http://www.ilovemyjournal.com/media/1/SamUgliestDogLulu_sm.jpg dog]].
** That dog died a few years go. It was blind for quite some time; the joke was that it got its sight back, looked in a mirror and dropped dead of shock.
** To be clear, the dog was voted "Ugliest Dog In The World." Before its death, it was a 15-year-old Chinese hairless crested. Its eyes are white becaus it's blind.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjRSlnJ1rA4 Goblin sharks]] have protrusible jaws. Creepy!
** a bit less terrifying: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdJRb7lVoGc&feature=related
* Earthworms and parasitic tapeworms (and hookworms). I can't even look at them prior to screaming and running away.
** Why are Earthworms scary? Appearances maybe, but they're one of the best creatures out there, helping fertilize soil and such. It even has a digestive system, and respiratory system and circulatory system. It's a pretty humane creature. Tapeworms on the other hand are horrifiying, trying to suck out your nutrients without giving anything back and worst of all, it can [[BodyHorror GROW 8 METERS LONG IN YOUR VERY OWN BODY!! HOLY!!]]
** Ascaris worms (you know, the ones in your intestines that looked like slimy living pasta, and can actually accumulate as a bolus to be an [[EldritchAbomination eldritch perversion]] against the Holy FlyingSpaghettiMonster, and whose eggs are ''fucking microscopic'')
*** It's even worse with the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracunculiasis Guinea Worm]]. Seriously, this worm is really a NightmareFuel, every major health organization vowed to push it to extinction.
**** You see the Guinea worm is native to Africa, the ecosystem that humans evolved in. As such they prey exclusively on humans, and where thus introduced to other places by traveling with (read inside) humans. The reason Africa's such a [[DeathWorld nasty place]] is because it's humanity's natural habitat, and thus creatures evolved there with humans in mind, where as other continents are nicer because we're invasive species in those environments. While this has led to some good things (the honey guide bird evolved symbiotic behavior with humans, it leads us to the beehive, we get the honey, they get the larva), mostly it just amounts to creatures that can kill us. In other words, it's what environmentalists are asking for when they say humans should "live in harmony with nature". Just keep that in mind.
*** The fact that many people don't know that there's a worm living inside them makes them extremely scary. Parasitic worms were voted the #1 Most Extreme Horror in ''TheMostExtreme'' series.
* Three Words: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dermatobia_hominis Human Botfly Larvae]]. Disturbing and literally sickening to see one being removed: true. Now try ''not'' imagining hearing chewing inside your head if you ever discover one embedded in your scalp.
* Yuck, what a thick, puffy tongue this fish has... Wait, it's got ''beady little eyes!'' [[http://www.entomologia.org/bugs_in_the_news/Cymothoa_exigua.jpg picture OHMYGODTHATSNOTATONGUE!]]
*** Sounds like some sicko's LiteralMinded parody of [[LordOfTheRings Grima Wormtongue]].
*** It may or may not help the [[BodyHorror OHGODOHGOD]] factor to note that the isopod doesn't actually make life any more difficult for the fish. Because it sits where the tongue was, the fish can still eat just fine. Still, Jesus ''God'' is it creepy.
** And then there's [[http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7927 this]] little guy... "Let's go swimming. I insist."
** Also, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoids#Insects real-life]] [[{{Aliens}} Xenomorphs]]. Sweet dreams!
** Think about it this way. On the wiki page, it listed fictional parasitic insects, including little old Uroborus and Las Plagas. Imagine what would happen if these guys evolved a little. You have a stomach ache...is it just bad food, or did an enemy dose you with a little...Uroborus.
** Well, you'd certainly know if you started growing tentacles yeck... those Uroboros tentacles are all slimey and deadly (goddamn Wesker)
* Certain species of snake. Also certain members of the spider order such as Tarantula, black widow, and the trapdoor spider.
** Don't worry; be [[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5199409/British-scientists-study-Hawaiian-happy-face-spider.html happy]]!
** What's just as frightening is their venom, and more specifically, what that venom can do to a person. Some kinds, if they don't kill you, [[BodyHorror cause the skin around the bite to rot]], [[AndIMustScream paralyze and slowly suffocate you]] or (depending on the nature of the neurotoxin) cause seizures, make your blood congeal in your veins... So kids, if you see a snake in your yard, ''stay the fuck away from it, and for the love of Christ, DON'T PICK IT UP!''
** Did someone say [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySXCdcnKBgg trapdoor spider?]] (Not safe for arachnophobes)
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikz7x5NRM2c here]] is a video of an island full of snakes. "one snake for every pace you walk". It doesn't help that they are some of the most venemous snakes in the world.
** Back to the subject of snakes, even if you're not scared of them, [[http://www.diamondreptile.com/pricelist.htm#venomous how easy it is to buy and own some of the most venomous ones in the world should be enough to skeeve you out.]]
* Scorpions.
* Back to spiders - some of them are social, weaving common webs of many spiders. How many can they be? Anelosimus Eximius, for instance, bands into colonies of up to 50 000 spiders. I'll let that sink in.
* Think about the things that [[EverythingsBetterWithPenguins penguins]] have to go through when they expect a chick. The mother goes out to find food, leaving the fathers behind to look after the egg and keep it warm, ''or else the egg will crack and the contents will become frozen solid, [[TearJerker killing the baby]].''
** To make matters worse, while the mother penguin looks for food, they are at risk of being eaten by predators such as leopard seals. Sometimes it's not just the mother that gets eaten, but her unborn chick, too! Scared yet?
* Some creatures that live in the ocean. The king of them all is the great white shark with its SlasherSmile and vicious nature. Then there's piranhas that can ''render any living creature- even a cow to a skeleton within seconds'' (Although they can only do this when practically starved to death) They're still fierce scavengers though. Then there's the anglerfish.
** How about the [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1322118/Jeremy-Wades-goliath-tigerfish-British-fisherman-grapples-giant-piranha.html goliath tigerfish]]? Take a piranha and scale it up to 5 feet long.
** Great whites hunt like freaking serial killers, according to some recent studies. This just makes them even more terrifying.
*** Here's something. Recently, off the eastern coast of Australia (where else?), fishermen pulled a 3 metre (10 foot) great white shark onboard their boat. That's a good size, as great whites go, but the shark was dead, so that wasn't a problem. What was a problem was that the shark had been BITTEN CLEAN IN HALF BY SOMETHING TWICE AS LARGE. And this is just near a very popular swimming beach. Just have a think about that for a bit. Who wants to go swimming?
** On the subject of "Some creatures that live in the ocean," witness [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloop this]] article from TheOtherWiki. "The source of the sound remains unknown...it matches the audio profile of a living creature but there is no known animal that could have produced the sound...If the sound did come from an animal, it would reportedly have to be several times the size of the largest known animal on Earth, the Blue Whale." Real-life Cloverfield monster, anyone? Gaaahhhh. [[CaptainBlacksoul I]] am getting creeped out just posting this.
*** Just for reasons of balance, this from the same wiki: "An oft repeated claim is that it matches the audio profile of a living creature though this view is primarily held by cryptozoologists and is not popular among mainstream scientists."
*** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloop#Analysis This is no longer true]]. A current look at the article actually has several cited references to an NOAA marine oceanographer saying that it is likely animal in nature...
*** What gets me is that where the sound was located is very close to where the city of [[CthulhuMythos R'lyeh]] is supposed to be located.
*** The file that's usually played is the sped up one. Just try listening to it [[http://www.bloopwatch.org/bloop_realtime.wav slowed down to realtime]]. (Large File.)
* The things that go on inside you. Also, "Beauty is skin deep" is a horrible lie if you use a microscope.
* The [[OrificeInvasion Candiru]]. According to the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candiru page on them]] in ThatOtherWiki, Candiru hunt other fish by sensing the urea coming from a fish's gills. The opened urethra during urination is big enough for a candiru to get inside. It can be easily avoided by wearing a bathing suit while in the river. Or by not swimming and urinating in Amazon river at the same time.
** What about its relative, the Candiru-Acù? Victims are eaten alive, from the inside out, by up to 100 of the fish. And by 'eaten alive', I mean 'completely hollowed out'.
* Have fun reading the Cracked article of [[http://www.cracked.com/article_15816_5-most-horrifying-bugs-in-world.html The 5 Most Horrifying Bugs in the World]].
** The giant bees attacking the normal bees was pretty much just DemonicSpider vs GoddamnBats.
* Cracked articles, eh? Then we just have to mention [[http://www.cracked.com/article_17579_7-terrifying-giant-versions-disgusting-critters.html 7 Terrifying Giant Versions of Disgusting Critters]].
* Cracked articles just [[http://www.cracked.com/article/125_13-real-animals-lifted-directly-out-your-nightmares.html add 13 creatures to nightmare]]...
* Some wasps are particularly evil. Known as parasitoid wasps, they will find a live caterpillar, temporarily paralyze it, lay eggs inside the body, and allow them to hatch. The larvae will then take control of the caterpillar by devouring unnecessary organs, modifying its glands, and directly manipulating its nervous system. The host is ordered to do nothing but eat and eat until it's ten times the size of a normal caterpillar. After a set amount of time, the larvae mature and then burrow their way out of the still living animal in order to infect new hosts with their own eggs. The caterpillar has been so infected by the wasp's hormones that even as it's dying it's forced to weave the wasps a cocoon and attack any predators who threaten them. If that won't give you cold sweats, nothing will.
*** Yep, parasitic wasps inspired ''Film/{{Alien}}''. Strange but true. Even Darwin was freaked out by them, saying, [[GodIsEvil 'I'm not quite sure I can believe in a benevolent God after studying the life-cycle of this creature.']]
*** [[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/05/photogalleries/in-the-womb-animal-pictures/photo3.html Video!]]
*** The TEETH! Holy shit on a stick, the TEETH! And how did they film on the inside of the poor caterpillar!? UGH!
*** Oh, but it gets better! People all over the world ''breed'' these little bastards on special farms and send them out to specially destroy caterpillars that eat timber. That's right. We're endorsing these parasitic monstrosities and having them take out creatures whose only crime was feeding themselves. [[HumansAreBastards Do I even need to say it?]]
**** I think [[Manga/{{Bleach}} Szayel]] was based with the parasitic wasp in mind.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_cockroach_wasp Meet the Emerald Wasp.]] It doesn't just knock out a cockroach and put an egg on it; it chemically lobotomizes the roach, remote controls it to its nest, rips off its feelers, and then lays an egg on it.
** Yellowjackets: Other wasps only eat insects. Yellowjackets [[ExtremeOmnivore eat everything]]! If you ever got buzzed during a barbecue, it was probably them. And you were probably right to freak out; they have ''the'' HairTriggerTemper of the insect world. Not as bad as Africanized killer bees, but they make up for it by being EVERYWHERE. They are the most common species of wasp in the world. And, possibly, the most intelligent. The freakiest thing? As I mentioned before, they buzz barbecues, because THEY EAT MEAT. They are CARRION EATERS. And unlike ''other'' scavengers, being so small, the lack of meat on our bones compared to other animals does not deter them. I read somewhere that there's a certain cycle of insects that appear when a body is dumped in the wilderness. Guess which ones show up to ''[[ToServeMan consume thy flesh]]''!
* Yep, hornets in Australia too. Helicopter gunships of the insect world, and their reproductive strategy is straight out of ''{{Aliens}}''. Even the most diehard arachnophile would be [[{{Squick}} squicked]] watching a hornet drag a full-size huntsman spider into its burrow. [[NightmareFuel Alive, paralysed and impregnated with hornet eggs.]]
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_giant_hornet Asian Giant Hornet.]] It can outrun you. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L54exo8JTUs&feature=related 30 of these can eradicate an entire hive of 30,000 bees.]] ''It has flesh-dissolving venom''. Quoted from Cracked:
--->"It's the size of your thumb and it can spray flesh-melting poison. We really wish we were making that up for, you know, dramatic effect because goddamn, what a terrible thing a three-inch acid-shooting hornet would be, you know? Oh, hey, did we mention it shoots it into your eyes? Or that the poison also has a pheromone cocktail in it that'll call every hornet in the hive to come over and sting you until you are no longer alive? Think you can outrun it? It can fly 50 miles in a day. It'd be nice to say something reassuring at this point, like "Don't worry, they only live on top of really tall mountains where nobody wants to live," but no, they live all over the goddamned place, including outside Tokyo. Forty people die like that every year, each of them horribly".
*** If you're afraid of the Asian giant hornet, just think about these little guys: I present [[http://homepage3.nifty.com/jhb/english/hyoushi.jpg Apis cerana japonica]], the Japanese honeybee. Almost cute, isn't it? Asian giant hornets can decimate colonies of European honeybees with ease even though they are outnumbered hundreds of times over, but Japanese honeybees have an interesting defense: they swarm over the invading hornets, to the point where the hornet can't even move, and vibrate their flight muscles, which causes the temperature in the center of this dog- er, ''beepile'', to pass 47 degress Celsius. The honeybees can endure this heat, the hornet cannot. They are essentially roasted alive. It's a [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome CMoA]] for the Japanese honeybees, and a NightmareFuel death for the hornets.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepsis_wasp Pepsis Wasp, aka Tarantula Hawk]], so called because ''it eats tarantulas''. Not only that, its sting, while not that hazardous, is so painful, all you can do is lie down and '''''scream'''''.
* The stag beetle is so-named for the large, antler-like mandibles possessed by the males of many species. It [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stag_beetle easily qualifies as nightmare fuel]] for the same reason. Worse, they're big, some around four inches long. They usually don't harm people, though.
** In Japan, they're even collected and kept as pets. If you're not used to insects larger than the size of your thumb, you should stay away. YMMV though.
* An even more horrifying creature with comparatively large jaws is the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antlion antlion]]--if you're an ant, since they're not very big. Adults are relatively unremarkable, dragonfly-like insects, but the young are lethal predators that dig pits in the sand, waiting at bottom of the pit to eat whatever insects fall in with their big jaws. If God wanted to write a horror story and market it towards arthropods, I can think of few better ideas.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solifugae Solifugids, also known as camel spiders, though they aren't spiders.]] Do I even need to explain this? Possibly the most traumatizing, monstrous arachnids ever, which, given what we know about arachnids in general, says a lot.
** Want to know something creepier? While they generally don't attack humans, they use hair as nesting materials, so one of the things they do to sleeping humans is creep up on them and snip off locks of hair like some demented stalker...
* The goddamn Surinam toad. It's an amphibian that embeds its eggs in its back... and eventually, its young ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCayq56wHSA rip themselves fully-formed from their mother's skin]]''. Yeah, it's perfectly natural, but just the ''thought'' of it happening to a human being...
* Komodo Dragons. Though they have both venom and septic saliva, they [[ScienceMarchesOn are not believed to play an important role in predation]] and the idea that they will deliberately envenomate/infect their prey and wait for it to die arose from skepticism from scientists at the turn of the century towards the idea that [[ReptilesAreAbhorrent a mere reptile could dominate an entire ecosystem]]. The truth is a lot less convoluted. The Komodo Dragon is a cunning ambush hunter that takes down prey with good old fashioned brute force; they're basically land-crocodiles. Though Komodo Dragons have jaw muscles weaker than a housecat's, their teeth are razor sharp and their neck muscles are enormously powerful, allowing them to easily dispatch prey with slashing bites that cause the victim to die from blood-loss and shock within seconds. Smaller prey (such as deer and wild boar) are swept off their feet by a blow from the dragon's [[WhipItGood whiplike tail]], and then seized, instantly killed via thrashing, and are often swallowed whole. To contend with larger prey, such as Water Buffalo, the Dragon will bring the animal down by lascerating its achilles tendon so it can't run away, and then disembowel it. The animal is eaten while it's still alive.
** Komodo Dragons have also been known to harass pregnant deer, startling them into aborting their unborn offspring. The Dragon can then help itself to a meal of [[NauseaFuel placenta and tender fetal-meat.]]
* Crocodiles. Damn ''crocodiles''. Nightmarish appearance, fast, invisible in a foot of muddy water. Many varieties consider humans to be prey. They can [[PrimalFear drag you under the water]] in about two second and eat you. They are ''intelligent'' and can learn human routines. They will wait a week to get a bite of you. ''Those eyes!''
** It gets ''even better''. Crocodiles are capable of moving twice their body length in a single second. It's not uncommon to hear tales of someone being taken so quickly that you could double-take and miss it. In fact, one story where a famous American model got eaten was unusual because ''they actually had the chance to see it coming''.
** Don't think it can get any worse? Well, [[ItGotWorse it just did.]] Meet [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_%28crocodile%29 Gustave]], a 22 ft long 2,000 pound Nile Crocodile who is notorious for killing and eating over 300 people.
*** Oh, and did we mention? [[ThisIsSparta He's! Still!]] '''[[ThisIsSparta ALIVE!]]''' That's right, Gustave is still lurking in Africa waiting for his next victim.
*** There's also the fact that his body is ridden with scars from bullet wounds. Three on his side and one ''on his head''. Not only is he a giant killer crocodile, he's an ''unstoppable'' giant killer crocodile.
*** The "most recent" sighting was back in 2008. If that was the most recent, how are we to know he hasn't been spotted since? Has he been killing his witnesses, and no one's noticed?
* The [[http://www.laweekly.com/2008-07-31/news/rathouse-of-the-palisades/ Palisades Rathouse]] might qualify as nightmare fuel. Incidentally it also provides two examples of the CrazyCatLady trope who have obsessed over a different animal...
** [[http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,685045,00.html The Mülheim Cobra house!]] OK, just one cobra, but they literally teared apart the innards of the house, and ''still'' couldn't find the damn snake. Volunteers for one night in there please raise their hands!
* The [[http://www.livt.net/Clt/Ani/Cho/Mam/Ivr/ivr011.jpg solenodon]], a relative of the mole and shrew, [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Hispaniola_solenodon.jpg can be quite creepy]] or [[http://photos-513.ll.facebook.com/photos-ll-sf2p/v193/223/46/693786513/n693786513_654583_4434.jpg unsettling]]. That is, until you see the [[http://jay.kusnetz.net/pics4ext/almiqui.jpg cuban]] [[http://pikaia.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/solenodon_cubanus.jpg variety]]. Should I add that all solenodons have a poisonous bite?
* Sea urchins. Just ... motherfarking ''sea urchins''. They are living, breathing balls of spines which live on the ocean floor. Many of them live close to the shore and it's hard to see underwater, so inevitably some unlucky beachgoers will end up stepping on one. This results in a badly injured foot and a visit to the hospital.
** Hey, just imagine if some wacky mad scientists gave them brains...and a hatred of humanity! TRIBBLES OF DOOOOOOOOOOM. Though honestly death-by-urchin can very easily also extend into ridiculous Narm.
** It gets worse. Because sea urchin spines are made of calcite, they snap easily because of the alignment of the calcite crystals, leaving part of it wedged in your open wound. The best way to deal with it? ''Push the spine right into your body''. The calcite will dissolve in your bloodstream and the wound will heal normally. Have fun, kids.
*** The way this is usually accomplished is by breaking off the parts of the spines that are still outside the skin and crushing the parts that are embedded with something blunt and sturdy (a rock works fine if there's nothing else to hand) to break them up and drive them a bit deeper. It's painful, but not completely horrific. However, the ocean [[CaptainObvious being full of living stuff]] as it is, these kind of injuries do have a tendency to get infected. A good way to counteract that is by sterilizing the injury somehow.
* Jaguars. They're both awesome and freaky because they kill their prey by ''biting through its skull''. Their jaws are powerful enough to crack open a glyptodon's skull. And for those of you who don't know paleontology, glyptodonts are essentially mammalian versions of a panzer tank. Google it and see. Do '''NOT''' tick off kitty!
* Big Cats, fierce predators with strong jaws, razor-sharp claws, huge strength (a tiger could knock you unconcius with one swipe of it's paw), super speed and stealth (if a big cat stalked you in a remote area, you wouldn't see it until it was too late). Some big cats have been known to kill buffaloes, rhinos, hippos, pythons, crocodiles, wolves and even bears. To make things worse, big cat attacks are on the rise.
* Allow me to introduce you to the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldt_Squid Dosidicus gigas]]: the Humboldt squid, growing up to seven feet long and, alone among the invertebrates, ''hunting prey in packs of as many as 1200 individuals''. Their tentacles are lined with ''teeth'', they feed on each other when wounded or frenzied, they are ''highly'' aggressive against unfamiliar objects, they attack humans on a regular basis, and their natural habitat ranges from the Tierra del Fuego to coastal California ''and spreading north''. And you thought it was safe to go back in the water...
** Ocean acidification seems to be killing them off, though.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_squid Colossal Squid]]. They have GIANT HOOKS on their tentacles, which they can rotate 180 degrees. And they are up to 46 feet long.
** Cephalopods in general. As awesome as I think they are, they are also damn creepy. They're smart. Really, really smart for invertebrates. Most intelligent creatures are birds and mammals, which are pretty similar to us in terms of body structure and biology. But cephalopods are completely alien. The thought of something like that being as smart as a dog is strange. If they would be sapient, what would they think? Most likely [[BlueAndOrangeMorality we couldn't comprehend it at all]]. To think modern culture can pervert such beings.....
*** [[ItGotWorse Fun fact!]] Cephalopods have one large central brain in their head... plus one smaller brain for '''each of it's arms.''' So that's 9 brains for an octopus, 11 for a squid. The (now extinct) ammonites had 12 arms, meaning 13 brains. And then there's the eyes...
*** Weird fact about cephalopods: cuttlefish are exellent at blending into their environment by changing their colours to match their background. The thing is, they're also colourblind. How the hell do they know what colour they should change to?
*** Cuttlefish in general are chalk full of RuleOfCool. The flamboyant cuttlefish has very poorly developed fins/whatever. So instead of swimming it uses them to -walk- on the ocean floor. The broad club cuttlefish meanwhile will use it's color changing ability to visually stun/hypnotize uncooperative prey. Though octopi generally get the better known as being intelligent, cuttlefish are
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*** Cuttlefish in general are chalk full of RuleOfCool. The flamboyant cuttlefish has very poorly developed fins/whatever. So instead of swimming it uses them to -walk- on the ocean floor. The broad club cuttlefish meanwhile will use it's color changing ability to visually stun/hypnotize uncooperative prey. Though octopi generally get the better known as being intelligent, cuttlefish are much more consistent and equally intelligent. They're capable of learning - not just basic behaviourist conditioning (bell rings, do this action) but things like symbolic learning (a plastic tree in the tub means the exit with the stripe [which will change exit between tests] over it is the exit, remember, symbolic learning is the basis for ''written language''). Other species of cuttlefish functionally breed for intelligence; the biggest and strongest cuttlefish will try to regularly mate with the females but the females (who can control which sperm to use) are much more likely to use the sperm of smaller males that manage to mate with them. How do these smaller males get by the larger ones? They disguise themselves as female cuttlefish and walk right in the front door. They have the potential to be the {{Magnificent Bastard}}s of the sea.
* [[http://naamah-darling.livejournal.com/348604.html The saga of Rapemouse.]] If that's not enough, then the various anecdotes of cute animal cannibalism and brutality in the comments will be.
** For instance, pulling a spinal cord out of a blood and gore splattered rat cage because ''that was all that was left'', or watching some hamsters playing in a cage except for one that seemed to be sleeping...until one bumped it and the head was all that was there. If you think small, cute rodents are gentler than carnivorous cats and dogs, think again. Life is cheap at the bottom of the food chain, especially when you only live about three years.
** Also, the comments mention Reaver Furries, which is about the only thing more nightmare-fuelly than regular Reavers.
* Leopards. These cats are like ninjas. They have been know to crawl into houses, kill humans as they sleep, and drag them off into the night--without waking up anyone else.
* [[http://media.ebaumsworld.com/picture/emmakate/coconut_crab.jpg The Coconut Crab.]] In addition to being the largest arthropod on land, they're ludicrously strong. Strong enough to lift 64 pounds and smash coconuts open, in fact. And they can climb trees. They tend to actually shy away from humans, but if you manage to piss one off, chances are you will get hurt. Very, very badly.
*** What's even worse is the fact that it takes a flamethrower to kill one.
*** ItGotWorse...again. These buggers may have been responsible for the fact that [[NeverFoundTheBody they never found]] AmeliaEarhart's body. Some researchers are floating a theory that she ran out of fuel and ditched on a desert island, only to succumb to thirst or hunger at some point. On a HistoryChannel TV special, the team left a pig carcass out for the many crabs on the island...and they showed a high-speed shot of them swarming over the body, which was picked clean in about an hour. Brrrr.
* Any number of deep-sea creatures could fall under this, really. [[http://www.bogleech.com/bio-deep.html Let me show you them.]]
** How do you make giant isopods 100000x more scary? [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h4VuvC8KCk Time-lapse photography.]]
*** I feel this is an unfair bias against deep sea life. For in the end, can we not all gain some wisdom from the noble [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9t7E4amWDqI deep sea anglerfish]]?
*** Interesting thing about anglerfish. A male or female anglerfish cannot reach maturity on their own; instead, a male (or several), will latch onto the much larger female anglerfish. Pretty much any organ the male has that aren't his reproductive ones atrophy away, and it just becomes a protrusion on the female's body that produces sperm.
* Just the sight of the [[http://www.bogleech.com/nature/mammal-molerat3.jpg naked molerat]] is typically enough to unnerve people. Did I mention that in order to better navigate in their crowded underground tunnels, they can ''turn almost entirely around in their own skin?''
** No. The most disturbing this about naked moles rats is that there actually exists a species of ''mammals'' that live in [[BeePeople eusocial colonies]].
* A good number of invertebrates fit into this trope. I was thoroughly disgusted during an exam in invertebrate taxonomy which involved identifying live specimens. The one that has become burned into the brain was a hideous little asymmetrical thing with ridges going along its twisted curled up body with a number of thin long white tentacles coming out of it in random places. That question was marked wrong because I just couldn't bear looking at it long enough to identify it.
** And then there is the Class Polychaeta, belonging to the annelid worm family. The most notorious of these are the sand worms which burrow through the beaches of many coastlines. Segmented worms, up to 3 metres in length, with little moving bristles on the sides of each of their segments, a pair of large eyes that bulge from its front segment, and large jaws that are capable of nipping off a finger. Among the coastlines that they call home: The one that I happen to live near.
** [[SpongebobSquarePants Sponges and starfish]] aren't scary, as they're mostly harmless, but [[NightmareFuel/SpongebobSquarePants then again]]...
*** Oh really? What about the [[http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2327/2479130477_b32b348314.jpg Sun Starfish?]]
* The Irukandji Jellyfish, the most deadly jellyfish in the world. Just one brush with this thing will leave you reeling with the effects of Irukandji syndrome, a horrific condition that leaves you suffering not only every unpleasant symptom under the sun, but even ''a feeling of impending doom'' so bad that some patients are so certain they're going to die ''they ask the doctors to kill them to get it over with.'' (Probably the closest thing to [[HarryPotter Dementors]] there is.) And the worst part? [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Irukandji-jellyfish-queensland-australia.jpg THEY'RE SO RIDICULOUSLY TINY THEY'RE PRACTICALLY INVISIBLE.]]
** Not quite the deadliest though, some other jellies have stings that can kill an adult in a matter of hours. Irukandji is generally not lethal.
*** No, they'll just make you wish you they were. "Every unpleasant symptom under the sun" includes excruciating pain in various parts of the body, and wikipedia sez: "There is no known antidote for venom that has already entered the body. Morphine will not help reduce the pain." FUCK YOU, AUSTRALIA! D:
*** One person even said that'd he would've preferred getting stung by the ([[DemonicSpiders infamous]]) Box Jellyfish than an Irukandji, simply because "either you recover in 20 minutes or you die."
*** There's an account of an Irukandji victim who was pulled from the surf. After carefully removing the jellyfish remains from the now unconscious man's legs, he was dosed with painkillers and taken away to hospital. Even unconscious and Morphine'd to the eyeballs, ''he was still screaming in agony the entire time.''
* COCKROACH.
** They don't do ANYTHING, except spread diseases, and be creepy. And live without heads.
*** The problem with cockroaches is, they're too used to living like us. Grooming habits? check. Living in vast colonies? check. Capable of surviving anything? check... Capable of scaring the living piss out of any other creature in their midst? check. They're the only creature that humans seem to be universally afraid of, cause they aren't afraid of us. Unless you turn on the lights.
*** Plus, they ''smell''. Name another insect that leaves behind slimy nests in your smoke alarms and such. Pantry moths and spiders are downright civilized houseguests.
** Actually it's the tiny German cockroaches that are really scary, because you ''know'' they're living in your walls and eating your food and breeding like, um, rabbits. And until they invented Combat traps, it used to be, once you saw one, your house was doomed, there'd eventually be German cockroaches crawling out of the peeling paint when you scrape it. The giant, 2-inch scaled up cockroaches aren't as disturbing because they usually don't live indoors, they just come inside for warmth. Except on the Gulf coast where the giant cockroaches live in the house and fly around. Including when you're in the shower.
** THAT CRUNCHING NOISE MAKE IT STOP.
*** [[Film/MenInBlack Damn decent of you.]]
** They may be technically harmless, but that thing about waking up with a cockroach in your ear? Yeah, not just an urban legend. They won't lay eggs in your brain or even hurt you whatsoever if they do it, but do they ''need'' to?
* The [[http://chasenoface.blogspot.com/ cat without a face]]. Shudder.
** [[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_mtxIjWA73qM/SdQDMF4XiyI/AAAAAAAACO4/zZRWuAwySPI/s1600-h/IMG_0734.JPG That is the most horrifying thing I've seen in a long time]]. If I was that cat I would be like "Kill Me!"
** While we're at it, take a look at [[http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/cyclopes.asp this]]. Something about [[CuteKitten cats]].
* Tiger and nurse sharks cannibalise their siblings in the womb, eating their way through until they're the only one. Does anyone else find that absolutely horrifying?
** Actually sometimes happens with human babies instinctually, though I forget the medical term. Made worse because instead of eating, it's more like ABSORBING.
*** It's a type of chimerism; one fetus does absorb the other.
*** The technical scientific term is [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetus_in_fetu Fetus-in-Fetu.]]
* Type 'Rat King' into any search engine and prepare to throw up. Seriously.
** [[http://www.weird-encyclopedia.com/rat-king.php Yeah...]] Ew...
* Sphinx cats, e.g. Mr Bigglesworth in ''Austin Powers''. Argh!
** YMMV, but they're actually not as [[UglyCute disturbingly old-man-wrinkly or hairless]] as they seem, however, and are usually a pretty outgoing and friendly breed besides. It's kind of like petting a warm, purring shammy [[ShapedLikeItself shaped like a cat.]]
* Pick an Australian wild animal. Any of them. There's a good chance it can maim and/or kill you.
** Yes, this includes [[{{Discworld}} the sheep]].
*** Really, the best advice you can give a tourist visiting Australia is that, yes, the rumours are true. If it has less than two legs, or four or more legs, than it can, and will likely attempt, to kill you. Avoid at all costs. Even the cute ones, like wombats and koalas, are vicious up close.
* The sea louse. It reproduces by having a male draging five or so females into a burrow, impregnating them, and the females contain the eggs inside their body, where the larva hatch and ''eat her from the inside out''. As if pregnancy wasn't scary enough!
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leucochloridium_variae Leucochloridium variae]] is a parasite that specializes in making [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWB_COSUXMw Zombie Snails]]. The NatGeo clip on YouTube doesn't even come close to some of the more gruesome depictions I've seen of this on some nature shows.
* I saw a Discovery Channel special on wild pigs in America and how some of them might be descended from imported Eurasian wild boars. They won't eat you, but you would not want to come across one in the wild. And their population in America and Eurasia is spreading.
** Trying to avoid wild boars in their natural habitat is all fine and good, but sometimes [[http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/818514-wild-boar-runs-amok-in-office the boars come to YOUR natural habitat]]!
** Domestic pigs are dangerous enough. There's a reason why everyone acted with such concern when Dorothy fell into the pig pen.
* The mouth of the sea lamprey. Some people photoshop these onto various body parts and think that it's FUNNY.
** That's not the worst of it. They don't have jaws, you see, making them incapable of biting things. Thus, in order to feed, they ''latch onto the side of a fish and suck out its innards''.
* Since the sea is really just one giant unexplored part of the earth, we usually find creatures there that seem a little... Off. When I was young, I visited a certain beach a low tide. Walking along the seaweed, I saw loads of fishes, shrimps, sea cucumbers, clams and the like trapped in puddles. But then there was this huge rock that seemed out of place. I came closer and saw that it was covered in holes. Then, all of the sudden, these black eyes perched on black stalks came out of the holes and stared at me, then they quickly retreated. To this day, I'm still looking for that rock.
** Perhaps it was a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonefish Stonefish]]? They're very rock-like, and have protruding black eyes. Deadly venomous, too.
* Bees ([[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall my God]]) and any similar insect (wasps, hornets, etc.). I have been terrified of them since my mother was stung in the armpit while trying to protect me from one. And Africanized (or "killer") bees, previously unable to withstand cooler climates, are now managing to creep farther north as they become more resistant to cold. Sweet mercy, I hope they never make it to Pennsylvania...
** I'm right there with you, man...it makes me appreciate these 5 degree winters...
* Three words: Brain eating amoeba.
** As in this article on [[http://www.cracked.com/article_17173_7-terrifying-creatures-youll-never-see-coming_p2.html Cracked.]] It's #1 on the list, and for good reason...
* A lot of cryptids. Especially the [[http://www.bukisa.com/articles/66811_ten-ridiculously-awesome-cryptids Mothman and the Momo]].
* ''Sacculina''. When it infects a crab, it hooks into its shell and spreads tendrils throughout the body. Then it releases feminising hormones, so that even male crabs act like female ones. Then it basically uses the crab (which is sterilised by this procedure) as a puppet, right down to releasing its own spawn when the crab tries to spread its own offspring. This goes on for the rest of the crab's miserable existence, reduced to basically a puppet of a little blob of flesh descended from a barnacle.
* [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Macrocheira_kaempferi.jpg The Japanese Giant Spider Crab]] is the largest of all athropods, with a legspan of 4 meters, weighing up to 20kg and they have a life expectancy of 100 years, which means they actually lived in Ancient Japan.
** How can you miss that they are also known as [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast corpse crabs]] due to their habit of feeding on the bodies of the drowned?
* How does this section not yet have the [[http://bpwidgets.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/golden-orb-weaver-eating-bird-231x300.jpg golden orb weaver]] spider? (Warning: click at your own risk.) A spider so large it ''eats birds''. Fortunately, its toxic is not fatal to humans, except possibly when seeing one causes a heart attack.
** Surprise surprise, it's Australian.
* While they, of course, are totally unable to do this to anything larger than an insect, spiders of the ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uloboridae Uloboridae]]'' family, that lack venom glands, kill their prey wrapping them in large amounts of silk and so tightly that the pressure breaks their joints and even their exoeskeleton. Later, the spider releases over the cocoon with the unfortunate prey inside gastric fluids that kill the victim and dissolve its innards [[NightmareFuel entering where the silk has broken through]], so the spider can suck the fluids.
* Tasmanian DEVILS are called devils for a reason. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SU44KwIfBXM
* Dolphins may look all cute, doing flips with their little grins but they can be huge dicks. Males will gang up and rape a female dolphin or harass the calves of other dolphins and whales until they die. I read a story about how a dolphin that lived in a harbour would lure seagulls to the water with fish then drown them just for fun.
** And that's just the start. Just check their entry on [[http://www.cracked.com/article_15853_the-6-cutest-animals-that-can-still-destroy-you.html this]] list. What's that? They kill randomly kill their own young, just so the mother won't be preoccupied with them and can have sex? Ok, Ok, not as extreme and example as it could be... after all, ''most'' animals do that anyway. But then again, only humans and dolphins are known to go out of their way to kill animals ''just for giggles''.
** Also, they masturbate with each others blowholes. Y'know, the bit they use to breath n stuff, an equivalent to our noses. Imagine having someone get off by forcing their knob up your nose. just ew.
* [[http://www.cracked.com/funny-163-australia/ Everything in this Cracked.com article]]. Seriously, Australia...are you trying to give everyone nightmares?
** There's a reason it started as a penal colony.
*** Makes the insane amounts of bravery seen at Gallipoli(and elsewhere) a bit more understandable, don't it?
* Pick up a beautiful shell in any beach except Australia, odds are you'll take it home and make it a nice souvenir. Pick up a beautiful shell in any beach in Australia, odds are it'll shoot a poisionous harpoon at you!
* I recently watched a heron snatch a live duckling and swallow it whole. I'll never look at herons the same way again. Imagine how they would look from a duck or fish's point of view; a towering, unearthly thin body, long, spear-like beak, wide, staring eyes... Yeesh, it seems scarier than a T. rex, if mainly for that, long, uncanny neck (predators are supposed to be bulky and muscular-looking, right?) and the farking beak. Except for the eyes, of course, they almost seem like the terrifying mass-production EVA's from ''EndOfEvangelion''. FeatheredFiend, indeed.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankebetsu_brown_bear_incident The Sankebetsu brown bear incident.]]
* For anyone who does not like flying, stinging insects, [[http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Owgxo0uCZXA/SwFLFDQHvZI/AAAAAAAAAQo/zytdSa_xq_M/s1600/lebah+maluku+2.jpg Wallace's Giant Bee]]. The thing has mandibles most beetles would envy. It's endangered, though, so you will probably never see one in person. Some tropers (like me) are almost relieved.
* How's this for a creature that's kinda scary, the Ribeiroia ondatrae (and the name is it's good part), it's a kind of worm that crawls into a tadpole, and then when the thing hits puberty, it screws up it's transformation to a full frog, so it grows extra limbs and it's original ones get misshapen quite often as well, imagine going through puberty, and then waking up one day, with your knees bent the wrong way, and your tighs folded the other way, with an extra pair of smaller legs next to your genitalia.
** And the reason why it does this? Because it needs to get into a bird next, and a frog with lots of weird misshapen legs has lots of movement that's more likely to catch the eye of a predatory bird, and makes it harder for the frog to get away. So imagine that you woke up like that, and it was so that when a giant monster came around to eat you, you'd basically have a giant "EAT ME" sign on your back and couldn't get away.
* Take a box jellyfish, give it eyes, and you get [[http://www.bogleech.com/nature/cnido-cuboeyes1.jpg this]]. There's something very unsettling about that thing.
* The Goliath Tiger Fish. Google these monstrosities, and Jaws will take a backseat in your nightmares.
* I went on a nature hike where the guide gave a harrowing description of being stung by a caterpillar under the fingernail while on a hike, which soon left him in far too much pain to do the tour he had scheduled that day. After doing reserach, he discovered that this caterpillar was particularly venemous, and he would have died not long after he managed to get back to town for medical attention.
** Well, at least caterpillars are too cute for anybody to stay mad at them. Wait, no, [[http://files.myfrogbag.com/xut0p0/1207065073j5iEqv3.jpg I take that back]].
* The way Cuttlefish eat. Slowly approaching........SNAP!
* Earwigs. ''Earwigs.'' They look like they have pincers on both ends, so you can't tell if they're coming or going, they squeeze into little tiny cracks in ''your'' bedroom, and if you have an older sibling, chances are pretty good you believed they're called that because they actually crawl into your ears and lay eggs (they don't, thank God). I would give 98% of the animals and bugs on this page a big hug, but between the fear of artificial ear-semination and having the little beasties ''repeatedly'' jump out of corn husks at her while harvesting as a kid, I'm quite ready for that can of Raid.
* I don't know why elephants haven't been mentioned. Male African elephants are aggressively territorial, but in musth, the elephants mating season, their testosterone skyrockets to about ''SIXTY'' times the normal amount, making the worst case of human roid rage look like a baby pitching a fit in comparison. Combine that with the average weight of a male being about 11000 pounds, roughly 5 1/2 tons, almost all of it muscle, and a running speed of about 25-30 miles an hour. Taking into account how many people get killed by these living tanks each year, it's pretty horrifying to think how quickly a circus can turn into a nightmare.
* Ladies and Gentlemen, I introduce to you, [[http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/02_03/snakehead_468x278.jpg the Snakehead]]. This terrifying beastie, which is more dangerous than a piranha is considered unique among fish because it has the ability to breathe air and walk on land. I repeat it has the ability to ''walk on land''!
** Snakeheads aren't the most [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONhBy9uGdgs graceful things out of water though,]] but they're terrifying in water.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCgbYnNAbSM Transformer Owl]]--A YouTube video showing a certain breed of African owl and its reactions to predators of different sizes. ("Awww. it looks so cute! Ooh, they're placing a medium sized owl in front of it and it's puffing itself up as a defense mechanism. Now it looks even ''more'' cute! Awwwwww! Now they're placing a really ''big'' owl in front of it and [[GrotesqueCute OHMIGOD! WHAT THE HOLY HELL IS IT DOING!?]] [[NightmareFace THAT'S NOT RIGHT!!!]] [[BodyHorror AUUUUUGHHHHHHH!!!!]] I WANT MY MOMMY!!!!!!")
** The second "transformation" Is it trying to immitate a Lynx, or some other cat. Still distrubing though.
*** In its natural habitat, it probably would have helped it blend into tree trunks by hiding the eyes and making the profile slimmer. Compare the potoo or tawny frogmouth.
* [[{{HellIsThatNoise}} Rabbits scream.]]
** Only when they're in danger (not that that makes it any better).
** They can also aggressively attack humans. Think that was just a Monty Python joke?
* Spiders always make me (admittedly a very camp bisexual) scream. and not in a good way...
** You will never look at a red hourglass the same way again
* How do we not mention hyenas?! Strong bite force, vicious temper, and have been known to attack people.
** Most people think of a Hyena's laugh as a funny thing - we even have a [[TheHyena trope]] for it. Now imagine you're alone in the savanna at night, and [[HellIsThatNoise you hear that laughter coming from all around you]]. And this is coming from a troper who LIKES hyenas!
** And on a different level: [[ExoticEquipment "The external genitalia of females closely resemble those of males: the 15 cm (6 inch) clitoris is similar in shape and position to a penis, and is capable of erection."]] YMMV on whether this is NightmareFuel on its own, but they have to give birth through that.
* Hippos. They look cute, but they have the temper to make a {{Tsundere}} look like a YamatoNadeshiko. They are responsible for the deaths of more people than even crocodiles! And just look at those tusks! I wonder why that little girl in a Christmas song wanted one so badly.
** Plus, if you merely annoy them, they'll spray you with their feces. Whole different kind of nightmare fuel there.
*** A hippo's breath smells so foul it can scare other animals off.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookie_cutter_shark Cookiecutter sharks.]] Don't let the cute name fool you; you will NOT get any tasty baked goods from these fuckers. They are only half a metre long, but feed on other much larger predators like dolphins and seals. How? They lure them in by swimming around pretending to be normal fish, wait for them to come in for a snack and then ''take as many bites out of the unsuspecting creature as they can before it gets away.'' And just [[http://www.aasharks.com/types-of-sharks/cookiecutter-shark-picture-02.jpg LOOK AT THOSE TEETH.]] They were first dicovered after the US Navy started noticing perfectly round holes appearing in the neoprene covers of the sonar domes on their ''submarines''.
* You like puppies? Well, Ivan Palov's experiments will make you bite your nails and squirm. In the course of studying animal psychology, most of the the test subject were put into such a condition that just scream Mengele. Case in [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSrIkUXwsNk point]]
* Centipedes and millipedes. DEAR GOD. Why do these creatures exist? Creepy crawly, creepy crawly. . .
** Millipedes are cute. Somehow, upping the number of legs even further causes it to [[CrossesTheLineTwice Cross The Line Twice]]. Plus, they don't eat each other and potentially you. The same cannot be said for the giant centipede...
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAL7r7zvKDw House centipedes.]] Also known as [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRpbb6qsMB4 geji-geji]] or cave centipedes or hearth centipedes (because they crawl out of your fireplace and up the wall at 50 miles an hour like something out of a horror film). They have a million legs, each over an inch long, enough to look like a 3-inch long hairy moustache, and if you attack one, the legs come off and keep moving. Due to their speed and agility, they're totally not afraid of falling off a wall and running over your face... The good news is, they're very shy and they only eat insects, so they're considered lucky, like other things that come out of your fireplace (crickets, Santa Claus...) They only bite when cornered. And they mostly come at night... mostly. Hearth crickets, which look like some sort of evil cave cricket, are also dam' ugly.
** According to various bloggers, they are [[MemeticMutation "the only thing that scares the hell]] [[ImageBoards out of /b/"]].
** Here's another [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Scutigera_coleoptrata.JPG pic]]. [[SchmuckBait Go ahead. Enlarge the image]].
* Moray eels have a ''[[http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/08/moray_eels_attack_with_second_pair_of_alien-style_jaws.php second pair]]'' of jaws behind their teeth to grasp their prey. That's right. They eat {{Alien}}-style!
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eTzYEUW_0g Pelicans.]]
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qQzas739ic Nightmare Retardant]]
* I'm not disturbed by lobsters or crabs in and of themselves, but I'm terrified of the thought of eating them.
* I'm pretty sure Cracked won't sleep peacefully until the rest of us can't. Behold! [[http://www.cracked.com/article_18641_7-terrifying-prehistoric-creatures-that-are-still-around.html 7 Terrifying Prehistoric Creatures (That Are Still Around)]] With such wonders as:
** A fucking deep sea shark '''with a circular saw for a jaw.'''
** God damned giant-ass Stingrays '''the diameter of a VW Beetle.'''
** Some sort of unholy '''Dragon/Shark/Zombie/300-toothed-saw.'''
** Proof that there is no loving god, a cross between '''an alligator and a gar''' that is decent enough to live in swamps where they can reach you.
** A cute 'lil gecko '''the size of a human child.'''
** A "prehistoric, three-eyed, hell-shrimp".
** "The closest thing we have to genuine Lovecraftian elder gods": "'''condoms full of teeth'''".
* The way the meat, egg, and dairy industries treat animals, as seen in [[http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-513747926833909134# this video]].
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IWN8UGDyC0 The Foie Gras industry]] [[TearJerker kills female ducklings on the day they hatch.]]
** As for the males, [[SarcasmMode don't worry!]] [[ItGetsWorse It gets worse!]] Imagine being trapped in a unsanitary cage for a month [[http://media.portland.indymedia.org/images/2008/08/378473.jpg being force-fed coarse cornmeal through a metal pipe.]] And when you think you can throw it all up afterwards, you fail and either [[UpToEleven become even more cramped in the cage]] or die from the sheer amount of food inside you. That's what its like to be a Foie Gras duck ''before the slaughterhouse,'' kids.
*** While the foie gras industry is horrible, CO2 gas is considered an acceptable, humane way of killing mass quantities of animals. Of course, you're supposed to make sure they're dead before dumping them into garbage cans. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ--faib7to Grinding them up while they're alive]] is also considered acceptable and reasonably humane(because it's instantaneous). As opposed to just dropping them outside to freeze and/or starve to death.
* [[http://www.cracked.com/article/109_natures-6-most-diabolical-predators Another article from Cracked concerning the evils of nature]]. None of these are threat to humans; however, the fact that nature would spawn such sadistic and clever predators is a tad unnerving (and one of those is a ''plant''). The pictures don't help either (the ones with the beetle grubs and the assassin bug actually made me shudder). And the entries start out with the POV of the ''prey''. Oh, and arachnophobes should steer clear of this article. Just saying.
** Cracked should have it's own HONF page.
* Coconut Crabs and Japanese Spider Crabs. Not fun stumbling on pictures of the former when all you were doing was innocently looking up information on New Caledonia. The latter? Thanks, Alton Brown.
* Wasps, especially yellow jackets and hornets. I recently had a nightmare about there being a nest in the mailbox. And have you read any news stories about "super-sized" nests? This nightmare scenario happens more often in real life than you think.
** The grand champion of nightmare fuel-errific stinging insects is the Japanese Giant Hornet. I dare you to search on YouTube. 2 inches long, and its lethal venom dissolves human flesh. And its horrifying helicopter-like buzz.
** The fine folks at Cracked bring you the Giant Hornet (and more!) in [[http://www.cracked.com/article_15816_5-most-horrifying-bugs-in-world.html The 5 Most Horrifying Bugs.]]
** Not allergic to bees? You don't die in 60 seconds on one sting if you don't recieve medical care? '''You don't know shit about being afraid of bees.'''
* Two words: Box Jellyfish.
** Cone [[strike:shells]] snails. Blue-ringed octopi. Recommendation: '''stay the hell out of the water in [[LandDownunder Australia]]'''.
*** Even worse (and, in a twisted way, cooler) are the facts that the cone snail hurts about as much as a bee sting, the octopus ''doesn't hurt at all'', and both of them use the poison Tetrodotoxin, for which there. Is. No. Cure.
**** (Insert Herpes Commercial BGM here) ...but there IS a treatment. Aggressive life support (i.e., intubation and ventilation) started near or before onset of symptoms, stomach pumping if ingested, IV fluids, and certain drugs (alpha adrenergic agonists and anticholinesterases, for those interested) can get a person through the time until the toxin is out of the body; if they survive 24 hours, chances are they'll make it.
*** And there's no cure or treatment for cone snail poison, either. If you are bitten, you can pretty much kiss your ass goodbye.
** If that's so, that would simply apply to the whole area of Indo-Pacific. Here's a saccharine-sweet addition: ''Synanceia verrucosa'', (in)formally known as Stonefish. Armed with one of the most powerful fish toxins and can easily induce even the most stoic bruisers into gasping sobs. A fair trip to the reef flats of [[EastIndies Indonesia]] can yield at least an encounter or two, if your eyes are sharp enough to see them.
*** In case you don't appreciate how hard it is to see a stonefish, look at [[http://fishindex.blogspot.com/2008/06/stonefish-most-venomous-fish-in-world.html this.]] That's right. These fish are ''invisible''.
** While we're on the subject of deadly creatures found on one of Australia's greatest tourist attractions, the GREAT BARRIER REEF, we seem to have forgotten sea snakes and sting rays. Seventeen species of sea snake are on the GBR, ''all'' of which are fatally poisonous, but generally easy-going as long as they stay in the water. And sting-rays are really in the same boat: docile until provoked (ie, stepped on or trapped between a legend and a camera).
** You're not much better out of the water in Oz, either. The Australian Outback is a damn scary place. I learned that after reading BillBryson's ''In a Sunburned Country''. 120-degree temperatures, spinifex bushes (they have hypodermic-like tips that ''break off'' and become lodged in your skin, inviting flies and infection), all manner of poisonous snakes and scorpions, and did I mention the flies? Bryson's book has a lovely anecdote about how one of the outback explorers brought a camel along which got such a bad bite that ''they were scooping out maggots with a coffee cup''. When a ''camel'' starts suffering in a desert, you know you're in a damn nasty place.
*** The [[FluffyTheTerrible Teddy Bear Cholla]], a cactus found in the southwestern US and northern Mexico, is similar to the aforementioned bushes. The needles come off very easily, and are barbed, meaning that with movement, they move through one's body. I remember a guide talking about how a needle got into the sole of his foot, and ended up working its way out of the top of his foot.
**** Oh, that's ''far'' from the worst of it. Cholla is a very odd plant in that it's segmented; it's shaped a bit like [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Opuntia_bigelovii_2.jpeg a demented balloon animal]]. Those little segments will all break off at the slightest provocation; the plant spreads when they're carried somewhere else and take root. In practical terms, this means you have a decent chance of having an entire 3-inch-long length of cactus attach itself to your leg. The stuff is also sometimes called "jumping cactus," because due to that habit of falling apart and the way human reflexes work, you often won't feel the sting from the thorns until a fraction of a second after you've already moved away, making it seem like the hellish little thing actually ''jumped across the intervening space to attach itself to your skin''. Also, the reason for the name? The thorns are ''clear'' and so numerous and fine that from a distance the damn stuff [[LightIsNotGood looks fluffy or glowy]]. So yeah, ridiculous numbers of wickedly barbed, needle-sharp, hair-thin, near-invisible thorns that'll brush off at the slightest provocation, appear to leap gaps, and hurt like the dickens. And god help you if your ''dog'' gets into the stuff...
** Sydney Funnelweb. A literal real-life DemonicSpider.
*** And it ''still'' [[ItGotWorse gets worse]] - Sydney Funnelwebs are only the ''second'' most dangerous variety of the spider. Their fantastically badass cousins, who inhabit [[CutesyNameTown Orchid Beach]] on Fraser Island, are [[UpToEleven even more venomous]] and there are a lot more of them per square metre. And the kicker? Go to Orchid Beach today and there stands the decaying remains of a ''holiday resort.'' I wonder why they abandoned it...
* [[http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12840743/porks_dirty_secret_the_nations_top_hog_producer_is_also_one_of_americas_worst_polluters Hog farming.]]
-->The lagoons [holding ponds for pig manure, urine, blood, afterbirth, and stillborn piglets] themselves are so viscous and venomous that if someone falls in it is foolish to try to save him. A few years ago, a truck driver in Oklahoma was transferring pig shit to a lagoon when he and his truck went over the side. It took almost three weeks to recover his body. In 1992, when a worker making repairs to a lagoon in Minnesota began to choke to death on the fumes, another worker dived in after him, and they died the same death. In another instance, a worker who was repairing a lagoon in Michigan was overcome by the fumes and fell in. His fifteen-year-old nephew dived in to save him but was overcome, the worker's cousin went in to save the teenager but was overcome, the worker's older brother dived in to save them but was overcome, and then the worker's father dived in. They all died in pig shit.
** As a permaculture and self-sufficiency enthusiast, ''all'' industrial-scale farming qualifies for me.
* [[http://www.wheredopuppiescomefrom.com/ Puppy mills.]] Ever wondered where those adorable puppies in pet store windows come from? Well it turns out they're farmed, much like battery hens. That's right, there are battery farms ''for puppies''. The dogs are kept in cages their entire lives and forced to breed continuously, sometimes until ''their uteruses fall out.'' Because the dog breeding industry has little regulation, the law does not require these dogs to ever receive vet care, any kind of human contact, or, y'know ever be let out of their cages. Oh, and there are also kitten, bird, rabbit and ferret mills. Good luck ever looking at a pet store the same way again. Moral of the story? Always, always, '''always''' adopt from an animal shelter. '''Seriously.''' For those who absolutely '''must''' have a pure-breed of some kind, at least go to a breeder directly where you can see the mother.
** I, a dog-loving troper, find this news to be more of a {{Tear Jerker}} than nightmare fuel.
** You'll never see a dog for sale in a pet shop in the UK; almost all are bought directly from breeders or owners whose pets have had a litter. The RSPCA and Scottish SPCA take a very dim view of puppy farming.
** America is starting to get on this, unfortunately approaching it by punishing legitimate breeders and people who show dogs.
** There are also pure-breed rescue places if you want a particular kind of pure-breed cat or dog. Sometimes the official clubs for those animals run the rescue and adoption services also.
** This places a whole new and somber, if not sinister, spin on [[{{Peanuts}} Snoopy's]] puppyhood at the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm.
** It gets worse when you're working at a shelter that rescues these puppy mill dogs. I've seen dogs with severe PTSD (There's no other word f,or it), dogs with no teeth, dogs with fur so matted that it's literally coming off their bodies, dogs who are blind, dogs with their ears hacked off...
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A7gBS3QiqA This video]] showing the use of "Henderson Castration Tools". Insert the sac into the clamp, put the clamp in a variable speed drill and spin about 20 times until the cord fractures and the balls come right off. Especially nice is the scene where they inject anesthetic into the horse's testicles.
* While watching the ''Planet Earth'' series, I got to the part about jungles. Now, up until then there have been predator-prey chases, which are understandable, they're necessary. But then we get to the part about the parasitical fungi that can literally cause a ZombieApocalypse for an ant colony. They even showed the fungus [[BodyHorror growing from the ant's head]]. In time-lapse. On ''Blu-Ray''. An then there are the other pics of various other insects. AHHHHH!!!
** Oh yeah, didn't they say something like "one species of fungus that specializes in each individual insect to prevent competion"? so for every species of insect on the rainforest, there's a species of this fungus just for that insect?
* The Cane Toad is well known in the scientific community for 2 reasons. One is for being one of the worst invasive species on earth. The other? It engages in necrophillia more than any other species on earth. Not just with other cane toads either. Birds, mammals, snakes, lizards, other amphibians, you name it.
** Besides looking ugly and spreading like a plague, it EATS CORPSES,Its HIGHLY POISONOUS and its FUCKING BIG. Its regarded as a pest that should be neutralized.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_badger The honey badger]]. A member of the ''Mustelidae'' family, which includes weasels, stoats, minks, martens, otters, sea otters, badgers, polecats, and the wolverine. We all know how BadAss and scary they can be. The honey badger takes it UpToEleven. It's skin is thick and tough enough that it's nearly impossible to penetrate it even with arrows and spears. It can turn around in its skin with ease. It is a tireless and determined predator, and it will eat ''anything'' it can find and overpower. It has extremely few predators, and even the king of beasts himself would prefer to face an angry bull elephant than a pissed-off honey badger. One took the food right out of a puff adder's mouth (the second-most dangerous snake in Africa after the black mamba), then proceeded to kill the snake, receiving a few bites in the process. Halfway through eating the snake, the venom took effect and the badger passed out. A couple of hours later, the badger woke up and ''immediately began finishing off his interrupted meal'' with no problem. Oh, and their preferred method of fighting larger predators? [[BodyHorror They go for the genitals]].
* Although EverythingsBetterWithPlatypi, everything is '''''WAY''''' worse with their venom. Sadly, it's not lethal. Instead, it incapacitates the victims and [[AndIMustScream LEAVES THEM IN PAIN SO EXCRUCIATING THAT NOT EVEN MORPHINE DOES ANYTHING]].
** Quoth ''{{Cracked}}'': "The platypus is God's way of saying, 'I made this thing out of scraps left on the floor and it can still fucking cripple you.'"
* My biology class was made of this. Examples: Delivery of pig fetuses for human anatomy class, teacher showing us a cow's eye, and more, but I will only tell the most horrific event that had occured to me.
** One day while going into the the locked storage door, a friend told me to look for a "cat." I looked in the back of a room and found a {{Squick}} inducing nightmare, a cat opened up, as if ready for surgery, with all organs visible and had a expression of howling pain. I ran out of class that day
* I'm surprised no one's mentioned chimpanzees. They may look cute and cuddly when they're babies, but they are absolute ''assholes'' when fully grown. There's a reason most primatologists only work with juveniles--adults can grow to be about 5'4" and are ''extremely'' dangerous. They're at least twice as strong as humans, and when they attack, they go for the face and genitals.
** There have been reports of chimpanzes snatching young childeren and draging them off into the wilderness. Guess what happend next..
* Meet the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_wandering_spider Brazilian wandering]] [[http://www-tc.pbs.org/wnet/nature/files//home/wnetwp/webroot/wnet/wp-content/blogs.dir/3/files/2008/10/8.jpg spider]], certified by Guinness as the most venomous spider on Earth. (Arachnaphobes should [[SchmuckBait not click]] that second link.) It lives all over South America, and has occasionally traveled all over the world in shipments of [[http://tizona.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/brazilian_wandering_spider1.jpg bananas]]. They've wound up in all kinds of grocery markets, and even [[http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200505/s1357179.htm hospitals]]. The thing can wind up with a five-inch leg span, and in South America tend to inhabit rather well-populated areas. Because they're wanderers, they like to hide during the day rather than build webs--in enclosed, dark spaces. Like under your bed, or in your closet, or the cupboard under the sink.
* Ever seen an angry horse before? [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rapa_das_bestas_sabucedo_2_jpereira.jpg Here you go]].
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqDjRCHyjTY Mike the Headless Chicken]] anyone?
* Bull sharks. While most sharks will only attack when threatened or as a case of mistaken identity, these sharks have been known to attack people without any provocation whatsoever. Don't believe me? [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pjbH5OuBc4 Here's proof]]. But what's worse than a hyper-aggressive shark with no qualms about mauling a human? Try one that goes into ''freshwater''. They aren't just in there accidentally, they have adapted to swim in freshwater and have been found hundreds of miles inland. These sharks have been found in the Mississippi, the Congo, Zambezi, Ganges, Amazon, Euphrates and Tigris rivers among others. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_Shore_shark_attacks_of_1916 The Jersey Shore Shark Attacks]], the inspiration for ''{{Jaws}}'' is now largely believed to have been the work of a ''single bull shark''.
* Frogs and Toads. First of all, there are poison dart frogs, which can kill you just by touching you. Venom oozes through the pores on their skin. But that's not the worst of it. See, all the other frogs have voracious appetites. They will pretty much eat anything they can jam into their mouths and (hopefully for their sake) swallow. And the larger the frog, the larger the prey. The largest frogs eat ''mice''. And bullfrogs? They can jump straight out of the water at a bird passing over their pond, catch them in mid-air and swallow them. There is very little reason to doubt that a frog twice the size of a person would swallow that person ''whole'' if it ever laid eyes on it.
** Speaking of frogs, there is a type of beetle that has been found to suck the life right out of frogs as seen [[http://bogleech.com/bio-epomis.htm here]].
** Poison dart frogs, unlike venomous and even some other poisonous animals, are ''not at all poisonous'' in captivity, because their poison is synthesized from their diet in the wild. There are captive-bred poison dart frogs in the pet trade, which is no surprise, because apart from the poison, they're ''adorable''.
* Tiger beetles. They don't harm humans, but just imagine what it would be like if you were it's prey and the last thing you saw was [[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_vXzN1osDLC0/S_lIu6CTJHI/AAAAAAAAAIQ/VN33T6GZujs/s1600/TIGERBEETLE+1.jpg THIS]]. It would also be moving at you at 5 miles an hour, which relative to it's body weight would be like watching as a fully-grown man armed with hedge-clippers comes running at you at ''480 miles per hour''!
%% Please keep the humans example at the bottom of the folder as a [[TheStinger stinger]].
* Face eating Northern in the middle of the lake (Northern= toothed, evil fish). My cousin made a joke about it when I was 6. I had a nightmare that bodies with faces chewed down to the bone washed up on the shore. I couldn't bring myself to swim out too deep for years.
* A reporter on the ''BBC World Service'' tells the story of a couple who visited an Eskimo village in Alaska, and excitedly got to see a live polar bear, and when they got there, were horrified to watch as it was killed in front of their eyes.
** On the subject of polar bears. Remember that scene in ''[[StarWars The Empire Strikes Back]]'' where Luke gets ambushed by the Wampa? Literally comes out of nowhere and nearly caves his head in? That's what polar bears do in ''real life''. They cover up their snouts and eyes as prey approaches or as they stalk it, then suddenly spring up and hit it before it even knows what's collapsed it's skull. The best part? Polar bears are one of the few bear species that actively seek out humans as prey.
* [[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QibpmJvBDQU/TazL8C-DodI/AAAAAAAAAEw/cr6oaCFId4s/s1600/zvK9C.jpg This is what a maggot looks like under a microscope]].
* Birds of prey when they catch animals. That animal will be carried for who-knows-how-long, in terror the whole time knowing what's about to happen, to a nest with baby birds. These babies will then slowly eat it ALIVE. It's much more merciful if the animal is killed before it gets to the nest but that doesn't happen all that much...
* It's not an animal, but the full run of carnivorous plants apply. They are truly nefarious traps, which when you read about them sound like something Jigsaw might come up with if he was a botanist. Venus Flytraps are pressure-activated cages. Pitcher plants are impossible-to-escape acid-bottomed pits. Flypaper plants are sticky traps, where the prey dies of exhaustion, starvation or suffocation. Lobster-trap plants allow prey to come in, but keep it from getting out with inward-pointing barbs. The craziest, though, has to be the aquatic bladderworts. They pump out ions to generate a partial vacuum. The plant keeps this vacuum behind a leafy "door". When an aquatic insect comes along and touches a trigger hair, the "door" swings open and the vacuum sucks the insect inside. It's a ''lever-operated vacuum trap''. Thankfully, none of them fall into the ManEatingPlant category.
* Parrots can be very intimidating on their own. However, many people find them cute and great to have as pets. Then, some species as they get older can really put people into a state of fear. The birds, if not properly trained from a young age (and being incredibly intelligent), can start taking advantage of their owner. They'll make loud noises for your constant attention, they'll become aggressive and mean-spirited (especially cockatoos and macaws), and they'll throw a temper fit when you don't give them what they want. Also, placing them in a cage doesn't always do the trick as many of them can figure out how to escape. Even worse is that some of the larger parrots have strong enough jaws to chew their own cage, even when ''it is stainless steel''. Usually the only solution is to give the bird up to a rescue agency, which can result in the bird becoming depressed because of the loss of it's companion (the owner). This is why it is usually custom for a salesperson of parrots to make sure the customer thinks ''long'' and ''hard'' about this decision.
* I can't believe noone's mentioned Primates yet, gorillas espessially. Those things are monsters that can easily rip someone in two. And don't get me started on Chimpanzees. For example if they're smiling at you, you'd better run like hell, 'cause he ain't happy to see you.
** Fortunately, a lot of the great apes are actually quite calm, so long as you do not provoke them. They can hurt you, but they typically resort only to posturing. But chimpanzees? Whereas a gorilla will mostly beat his chest and make a show to get you to leave, chimpanzees may go out of their way to murder your ass ''for the hell of it''. Once, a group of "problem chimps" escaped from a primate sanctuary in Sierra Leone and came across a cab. The passenger in the cab managed to get out when the chimps got to it and decided to attack. The driver? Well let's just say that "pulled apart" barely described it.
* Spiders that spin 82 foot webs and leeches that saw their way through your rectum. And that's just the first two entries.
** http://www.cracked.com/article_19719_6-terrifying-new-creatures-science-just-discovered.html?wa_user1=1&wa_user2=Science&wa_user3=article&wa_user4=feature_module
* [[FeatheredFiend The cassowary]]. Sure, it doesn't look very dangerous, but a well placed kick from it can criple an adult, and it [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dcQO6Zb8Eg roars and growls]].
[[/folder]]
[[folder: The Most Dangerous Animal Of Them All]]
* [[HumansAreBastards Humans]]. Inhabiting much of the planet's land mass, they often kill each other and many other species for fun. And they have nukes.
** Considering that there are few animals who kill off members of their own species: humans are truly the most dangerous animal of all, endangering everything on the planet, including other humans. And we're not only talking about genocidal dictators or terrorists like Hitler, Stalin, Bin Laden, Mao, Djenghis Khan, Attilla the Hun, Pol Pot,... On a huge industrial scale humans are rapidly destroying their own environment by destroying and poisoning nature's life sources, thus putting the survival of all mankind in danger for future generations!
*** The Mosquito begs to differ. They have killed 45 billion people. To put this in perspective, they have ''killed more humans then every recorded war ever fought'', and ''more than half the number of people that ever lived''.
** You mean ''literally'' more than every recorded war ever fought? As in, from [[http://ancienthistory.about.com/b/2003/07/15/the-first-war-ever-recorded.htm the war between Sumer and Elam in 2700 B.C.]] to ''now''!?
**** Consider that, to a mosquito, a [[HumansAreCthulhu human is a mountain-sized torch]]. Mosquitoes [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu are total badasses.]]
*** Plus, there is also the idea that at least mosquitoes have a reason to suck blood, if they don't get the proper nutrients from blood, the eggs inside of them will die.
* How's about this to keep you up at night? Right now, we are currently living in one of the largest mass extinctions of life on Earth, rivaled only by the Great Dying. Take a guess as to what scientists think is causing [[YouBastard it]]. Humans can cause much, ''much'' more disease, destruction, and death then just about any other animal ''known on the planet.''Heck, we have the power to destroy much of the planet with nukes.
[[/folder]]
----
[[folder: RLNF Cosmic Horror, Eschatology and What Comes After]]
--> ''[[HopeSpot "You lot, you spend all your time thinking about dying, like you're gonna get killed by eggs, or beef, or global warming, or asteroids. But you never take time to imagine the impossible.]] Like maybe you survive."''
-->--'''The Doctor''', ''Series/DoctorWho''
--> ''"Nobody likes us 'big picture' people."''
-->--'''Calvin''', ''CalvinAndHobbes''
----
!!Please take all debate to the discussion page.
Do not post just to disprove a theory or to add NightmareRetardant. Both of them are {{natter}} here! Take all debate to the discussion page.
[[foldercontrol]]
%%
%% Do not post just to disprove a theory or to add NightmareRetardant. Both of them are {{natter}} here!
%%
[[folder:The Afterlife and Other Eternal Life scenarios]]
* WhoWantsToLiveForever.
* [[TakeAThirdOption Different option]]: We figure out how to upload our consciousness to a super computer and live millions of eternities in a mere few years, if that, and after exhausting every possible reality we can think of, end ourselves knowing that we have truly lived, willing to accept what happens, whether that is eternal life or nothingness.
** Alternate nightmare fuel? If that's a possible outcome, it's also possible that we've already done this. Every consciousness now exists on a supercomputer. This entire world and our entire lives are simply one of the aforementioned simulated existences. If we're lucky, it's multiplayer, and all of us happen to be sharing in this specific experience. If we're not lucky, only one person in the whole of existence is 'real'. The rest of us are simulated and meaningless, we have no way of knowing who the 'real' person is and therefore who our world revolves around and due to the implied desire (for a 'clean' experience) inherent in simulating an entire life for the experience of living it, he/she probably doesn't know either.
* What if there IS an afterlife? What if you were such a bad person that finally meets death? Yep. You're going to hell, and suffering for eternity in the most painful ways possible that you wouldn't if you were alive.
* There are [[FateWorseThanDeath things that will make you wish you were dead]] you say? Satan and Hell says hi right to that statement before proving that statement completely wrong.
* Singularitarians belive that cessation of existence is the worst possible outcome imaginable. Death is an obstacle to be conquered, rather than an inevitability to which we should all sheepishly submit.
* The concept of oblivion brings horror... the concept of infinity eternity brings horror... Did the cosmos become some sort of [[EldritchAbomination horror elemental]] when I wasn't looking? (Maybe this is where {{Gnosticism}}'s concept of an inept and/or malicious Demiurge gets its appeal...)
* The Rapture, and all other apocalyptic beliefs. In the US alone, 40% of the population believes that Jesus will return ''in their lifetime''. Stop and think about that for a second. At any given moment, a very, very large percentage of the human population believes that it's okay to run through resources at lightning speed, making no plans to invest in alternative energy, because their chosen deity (this isn't just limited to Christians) is going to come back and make everything all right. The same goes for things like curing disease, battling starvation and ending war.
** And that's not even getting into the Rapture cults who believe that war, famine and disease are all signs that Jesus is about to return, and view such events with thinly veiled joy.
* Suppose you are the only sentient, sapient being in the entire universe. The universe was created simply for your own amusement. Sounds wonderful, no? Actually, this means everyone you know and love ceases to exist the moment you don't see or hear or experience them in any way. Sitting in your living room right now? That is the entire universe at the moment, because why bother rendering the rest of space and time when the only being in existence, you, is reading TVTropes? All of history was fabricated so you would believe other people are thinking, intelligent humans. But they aren't. Only you exist.
** On the flip side of this, imagine that you aren't a sentient, sapient being; that someone else is. This person truly experiences reality. Everything you feel and experience is a grossly dumbed down and simplified version of true perception. Your brain is hideously slow, your eyes only see three primary colors instead of their twelve, you only exist in three dimensions instead of fourteen. [[CosmicHorrorStory This "god" is enormously superior to everything you could ever hope to be. They go about the world experiencing reality, while the rest of us literally are just here for their amusement.]]
*** The scariest thing is that, while the first suggestion denies itself (that would make us our own God), the second may be true and we may be only a toy to the rest of the people around us. It would explain a lot, be less scary and still manage to make you feel like an awful piece of crap and trash.
*** A combination of the two is even more frightening, such as starting out as the first and through some process ended up as the latter. Where the price of godhood is a hallucination where only you exist, while interacting with others means always being at the mercy of a collective-consciousness empowered by everyone's rejected omnipotence. Knowing that, even at the height of your power, you could never compete with the cumulative power of everyone else.
* The idea of [[TheNothingAfterDeath there being no afterlife]] has caused me to stay awake crying one night, and then put me into a depression.
** I can add to that: What if you get Alzheimer's Disease and there IS an afterlife? What if the soul that is allowed to go to heaven is that of you as a husk of a person, instead of the you throughout the rest of your life? Spending Eternity™ as only a husk of yourself, and everything that made you YOU gone, is rather unnerving...
** Or alternately, you can also worry about what happens if there ''is'' an [[AndIMustScream afterlife?]]
* The idea of [[AndIMustScream eternal punishment in Hell]] is pretty horrific enough, but the Calvinist belief of predestination actually makes this [[BeyondTheImpossible even more terrifying]]. How? According to Calvinist theologians, God picks and chooses who to save and who to damn. This [[FridgeHorror implies]] that God created some people for the sole purpose of being sent to Hell, [[YouCantFightFate and there's nothing that they can do about it.]] Fortunately, not many people believe in this, but the idea is horrifying enough.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Dying]]
* Let's face it ladies and gentlemen. There's a reason why so many people fear death and consider it to be the worst fate...IT'S A FUCKING TERRIFYING THOUGHT! [[CessationOfExistence Say that there is NO afterlife. Yep. pitch black darkness with nothing going on at all.]]
* I would like to assert that Danny Elfman said it best:
---->No one beats [Death] at his game\\
For very long but just the same\\
Who cares, there's no place safe to hide\\
Nowhere to run--no time to cry\\
So celebrate while you still can\\
'Cause any second it may end\\
And when it's all been said and done\\
Better that you had some fun\\
Instead of hiding in a shell\\
Why make your life a living hell?\\
So drink a toast, and down the cup\\
And drink to bones that turn to dust ('cause)\\
No one (x13)\\
No one lives forever!! (hey!)
* Then there's [[http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html Isaac Asimov's]] contribution to this problem, with a TwistEnding.
* This was Nietzsche's whole point in his part of the dialogue of western philosophy. Reality exists. So do we. We assume we are special. We're probably not. All human experience has been spent in the attempt to formulate truth so we don't have to contemplate the horror of being without reason. [[NietzscheWannabe Lots of people]] get the ultimate point behind this stance wrong though; Mr. Nietzsche wanted us to honestly and totally accept life as causa sui, and to wholly embrace it without the interference of human rationalization. Now, he admits that that's a pretty fucked up way to live and describes it as the "Will to Die" and states pretty explicitly that it is no way shameful to prefer self-generated "truth" in order to be happy. Also, the EternalRecurrence (the idea that all time repeats endlessly, much like the Quantum Immortality example below, but with each repeat being identical to the one before) to some is HighOctaneNightmareFuel (WhoWantsToLiveForever is bad enough, but being forced to see your own same mistakes over and over again is a cosmic AndIMustScream, especially if said mistakes are [[MindRape traumatic]]) while Nietzsche views it as the ultimate affirmation of life.
---->What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.' [Nietzsche, F. The Gay Science, §341]
* The simple fact that [[NothingIsScarier NOBODY KNOWS]] what happens after you die, nor can the human mind comprehend it.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The End of Civilization As We Know It]]
* At several points in Earth's history, worldwide volcanic eruptions wiped out upwards of 98% of all species on the planet. This could conceivably happen again at any time. If it's not volcanic fury that gets us, it'll be a meteor or some other sudden event that can be predicted but not prevented. The ones killed initially will be the lucky ones. The rest will be left to starve to death.
* Our sun is too small to go nova. What ''will'' happen is that it'll run out of fuel, swell into a Red Giant and ''engulf the Earth as it expands.'' Popular science says that won't happen for a good 5 billion years, but it's still a fun thought to entertain.
** Altough human life on Earth will become unbearable in much less time than that, because the sun is constantly expanding, it won't just suddenly swell in to a giant ball - altough the process gets progressively faster in time. In approximately 100 million years it is thought to be too warm for modern day humans to live, and in 500 million years, the temperatures on Earth reach levels such as that oceans will boil away.
* Watch ''Life After People''.
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBtHICMmDJk Which]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBNLl7T3EIw&feature=related can]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLlJBHhE2Hw&feature=related be]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4GTRab56_A&feature=related seen]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YM_rsu2CcsI&feature=related right]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHrlkoVlUFQ&feature=related here.]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSjRG-VJhWg&feature=related Watch]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPA3ocklQf4&feature=related nature]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4g4hV3Mmlg&feature=related fight back.]]
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XDbcMND7fY&feature=related Better]] version.
* Hardin's "Tragedy of the Commons" and how often I've seen that behaviour. You can try it this Halloween. Put a bowl of candy out for the trick-or-treaters. There's nothing preventing the ones who aren't accompanied by adults from overturning the ''entire bowl'' into their bag and leaving nothing left for everyone else. What makes this scary? It doesn't ''just'' apply to Halloween Candy. Which is particularly chilling when you think about how much society depends on fossil fuels, and how quickly we go through them. Regardless of one's stance on climate change, no one can deny that fossil fuels are going to become an issue in the future when we start running low... unless they believe that there won't ''be'' any future, which brings us to another bit of nightmare fuel...
* Watch the History Channel or Discovery Channel, eventually they'll have a "How the world ends" special. If you're religious, the History Channel provides you with plenty of cases of prophecies coming true. If you're the scientific nut, you're treated to many scientific ways the world will end including the super volcano at Yellowstone bringing nuclear winter on its own, a Deep Impact or Armageddon worthy asteroid impact, and the infamous Large Hadron Collider making exotic particles or micro-black holes. Doubly worse for the religious as the scientific ways the world will end are in fact, very possible. Especially the asteroid (we have a higher chance of impact than you getting struck by lightning).
* There's a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_caldera super volcano underneath Yellowstone.]] If it explodes, it's predicted that the entire United States will be covered in at least few centimeters of ash (in areas farthest away from the volcano), cars and planes won't function since the ash is finer and heavier than snow (causing all the engines to clog), and the ash in the atmosphere will block out the sun for several years. [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Oh, and it's overdue for its next eruption.]] At least scientists speculate that [[ApocalypseHow humanity itself won't necessarily go extinct, just that civilization as we know it might end.]]
** Yellowstone is possibly peanuts compared to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory Lake Toba, which has almost once wiped out humanity]] - the human gene pool was presumably once down to only about ten thousand individuals - and that's the optimistic estimate, the more pessimistic one has humanity dodging a bullet with a mere 1,000 individuals left.
* Care to know how the world and/or humanity might end? Go to [[http://www.exitmundi.nl/exitmundi.htm Exit Mundi]]. Excellent, witty, and sometimes disturbing reads. My personal favorite? "Eternity".
* Solar storms. Solar storm of 1859 resulted in things like "Telegraph pylons threw sparks and telegraph paper spontaneously caught fire."
* Two more potential ticking {{depopulation bomb}}s: Mass infertility due to pollution, malnutrition/undernourishment, obesity, etc. (many kids may die before their parents). We're seeing some of the effects already.
* With the possibility of a "zombie virus" able to be genetically engineered, WorldWarZ might actually happen.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The End of the Universe]]
* Before start reading this section, go to [[http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html Atomic Rockets]] Have fun realising just how stuck we really are on this miserable rock.
* Antimatter. Mixing matter (ex: the universe) and antimatter can lead to the annihilation of both.
** The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strangelet Strangelet]] is no better.
*** And while Antimatter functions like a [[YinYangBomb Yin Yang Bomb]], causing the immediate annihilation of both matter and antimatter into a crapton of energy, Strangelets function like [[TheVirus The Virus]], converting more and more baryonic (normal) matter into strange matter. It could theoretically take just a single strangelet to set off a chain reaction that results in the entire earth becoming one massive, hot ball of strange matter.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_fate_of_the_universe The ultimate fate of the universe]].
* Given that the Cosmological Constant seems to be stronger in one direction of the universe and weaker in another, it's very likely that at one point along the spectrum a vacuum metastability event has already occurred or will soon. But the universe won't be instantly obliterated; the collapse would propagate at the speed of light and you'd never see it coming. Comforting, yes?
* Here's a fun thought: the solar system is not completely stable, but only metastable. It may happen, sometime in the next few million years, that Mercury and Venus could pass close enough to one another that their mutual gravitation messes up their orbits, in turn messing up the orbits of the other inner planets. So Earth might crash into another planet, get thrown into the sun, or get flung off into interstellar space.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_decay Proton decay]]. Currently hypothetical, but it may be that in the truly deep depths of infinite time there won't be any matter left - just photons (red-shifted to almost nothing), neutrinos (don't interact in any meaningful way), and a vanishingly thin haze of electron/positron pairs that haven't quite got around to annihilating each other yet. Oh, and whatever it is that Dark Matter turns out to be... assuming it doesn't decay too.
** Please note that while the above is the most likely scenario, the mass/energy-being-created-out-of-practically-nothing vacuum fluctuations will always be around as long as space itself exists. Given the unlimited amount of time ahead of us, if there's the slightest chance of those actually creating something useful, then that will come to pass eventually.
* Speaking of celestial bodies and whatnot- Black holes. They are scary as hell when you really get into what they are and what, precisely, they are doing. They warp the fabric of space-time. They are absolutely huge, they eat everything, and you can't even see them unless there's a backdrop of, say, interstellar gas to provide a contrast. If one should happen to drift in the direction of our planet -and this is, in fact, entirely possible-, even if we saw it coming years in advance, there would be nothing we could do about it. [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption You do not stop a black hole.]] Plus, once you cross the event horizon, you are not ever coming back. And although it's unknown what, exactly, happens inside a black hole (though there are plenty of theories), it's safe to assume that it's probably something fairly horrible. If there are in fact RealLife [[CosmicHorror Cosmic Horrors]], they are probably black holes.
** The cosmic/dev/null.
** There's proof that, to an observer, somebody falling into a black hole will freeze just outside of the event horizon. That could mean that, just outside of the event horizon, [[FateWorseThanDeath YOU freeze]] and are trapped there, frozen in time, [[AndIMustScream forever.]]
** There's also these Einstein-Rosen bridges in them that lead to a mirror universe, but of course not without completely destroying you upon entering. An additional twist to this curious mirror universe is Roy Kerr's idea of rotating black holes that don't have infinite gravity at an area and could maybe be possible to go inside. Coming closer to one gives you a "house of mirrors" effect according to Michio Kaku's book titled ''Hyperspace''. So you drive a spaceship to a rotating black hole and pray you enter it from the right spot and suddenly start seeing many copies of your ship from the window until you run into one that's real and from another universe.
** Read through the following [[http://casa.colorado.edu/~ajsh/dive.html website]] and witness the animations. Though simple projections (with some artistic license), the website's animations give a fair idea about what happens near and inside a black hole. It might take some time to wrap your mind around (especially if English is not your native language), but once you unlock the fundamental idea behind the theory, it is a truly scary and amazing journey.
** And [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI9CvipHl_c#t=1m24s here's]] a video which attempts to show (with the help of a sort-of-realistic background) what we'd actually see if we were to spiral down into a black hole. (Go to 6:15 if you want to skip the commentary.) "Bizarre" doesn't even begin to describe it.
* Speaking of black holes, the current scientific theory that there is a supermassive black hole at the center of every galaxy. That means all matter in the universe is just circling one of several great cosmic drains. We're living on an eddy, being very slowly pulled into an inescapable vortex. Eventually our planet, our solar system, EVERYTHING, will be sucked down the drain and just blinked out of existence. Eventually there will be nothing but a great ravenous hole in the fabric of reality...and there's nothing we can do about it.
* Deep time. The fact that when you think about a long enough stretch of time, everything will die. Not only that, but that our current understanding of the universe implies that with enough time everything in existence will be converted into ever more widely scattered heat energy. That ultimately, it's not just that you will die, or that the human race will die, but that anything that could possibly show that either of those ever even existed will cease to be, ''and there is nothing you can do about it''.
* Gamma Ray Bursts. When huge, dying stars are consumed from within by black holes they release vast amounts of energy at very near the speed of light. In a matter of seconds, some of these blasts of energy can exceed the amount of energy that our sun will release in its entire lifetime. If one of these hit the planet then we'd probably all die before we knew what had happened. Even if one passed too close it would be like every place on one side of the planet being hit by a nuclear missile at once, and the other side of the planet dealing with the resulting wall of fire and death. The real problem is that these bursts are basically impossible to predict, and even if we could there's absolutely nothing we could do about it. The entire planet could die a horrible, fiery death within minutes of you reading this.
** WR 104. Aimed right towards us. [[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/03/03/wr-104-a-nearby-gamma-ray-burst Have a nice day.]]
* You know how the Universe just loves scaring the crap out of us planetside? What with all the Big Crunch, Supermassive Black Holes, Gargantuan Death Rays and rogue stars out there already, you feel the need to throw MOLECULAR WINDSTORMS at us! Allow me to explain, picture a Galaxy, any galaxy. Now picture something not unlike a hurricane that will rip all the molecules out of the Galaxy, leaving it sterile. These windstorms strip planets, stars, even nebulas bare of molecules. And here we are afraid of rogue black holes....
* The sounds of Saturn: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C6lymtHG60
** This is what our own planet sounds like from outer space: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AVHXMLDvWA&feature=player_embedded
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporal_paradox#Temporal_merging_hypothesis One theory]] as to how temporal paradoxes would resolve themselves is that once a temporal paradox occurred, this universe would be obliterated and be replaced with a new one with a different timeline that can accommodate whatever created the paradox. But we wouldn't be aware of it, because our universe would otherwise be exactly the same. Maybe it just happened. Maybe it just happened again.
** Or maybe our entire universe IS a replacement for sorting out a paradox, and we're just in one segment of history leading up to the creation of that paradox. It could be caused by some other civilization millions of light years away from us, and it might happen again. Humanity and everything we've created would be obliterated because of something that doesn't even know we exist. The nature of the paradox might mean we'd never be recreated again.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Humans in relation to the Universe]]
* This is basically the whole point of the CosmicHorrorStory genre as HPLovecraft envisioned it. See the genre page for details.
* Take the time to actually contemplate the vast, absurd distances between just, say, the Earth and the Moon. Then try to contemplate the Earth and another planet, or the Earth and the sun. Or the sun and another star. Your brain may start hurting and crying in fear at a glimpse of the true meaning of such a size, just the thought of all that emptiness...
** [[http://sizeofworldse.ytmnd.com/ This YTMND]] says it better than I could.
*** And it doesn't even end there. These supergiants aren't anything special, since there are billions of stars within a single galaxy. In 2003, astronomers photographed a random area of the sky measuring 11 square arc minutes, which is about as much as holding a sheet of paper 1 meter away from you and peeking through a hole 1mm x 1mm in size. To catch even extremely faint light sources, the film was exposed for a total of almost 300 hours. And in the end [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Hubble_ultra_deep_field_high_rez_edit1.jpg they ended up with this picture]].
**** [[spoiler:It shows about 10.000 Galaxies, each of them containing billions of stars. To photograph the entire sky, you'd need about 13 million photographs like this.]]
** Behold the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPm3QVKlBJg Powers of Ten.]] The Universe on both a macro and micro scale is almost incomprehensible.
* Scientists had only recently witnessed a distant supernova that had occurred '''11 billion years ago'''. With that being said, he thought this meant that there's nothing out there in the Universe, right this very minute.
* There's always the possibility that we're ''not'' alone, and the vastness of space includes the possibility of untold, fascinating new lifeforms.
* [[http://primaxstudio.com/stuff/scale_of_universe/ This]] is an interactive scale of the universe, from things human-sized (including humans), up to the Universe itself, and back down to the fabric of spacetime itself, and absolutely everything in between. Very informative and interesting... and highly haunting.
** Even more, the scale used has things such as cells and bacteria towards the ''middle''. Meaning that humans are on the large end of the scale. Think about that for a moment, and how there are things much bigger than humans. Think how a being the size of a cell would perceive the very human it inhabits, let alone the rest of the Universe.
** [[http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/589217/ Here is an updated version of the scale made by the same guy.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The Nature of Reality]]
* Quantum Immortality. Since our consciousness is evenly spread along an infinite number of nearly identical universes, from our subjective point of view we will always survive life or death situations as long as there is even a tiny chance of survival, since we will only continue to be aware in the universes where we were saved. While this does mean that we would all reach an age where we would be hospitalized because it would no longer be possible for our bodies to function by themselves, we would hardly be alone in this. There are plenty of people like this in the world, and, since there is a limit to the human life expectancy, sooner or later we would be [[CriticalExistenceFailure dead in every universe]]
** Actually, the odds are even worse than that. As we age the chances of death in the following year increase by a larger amount, but never quite to 1. What's more, beyond a certain age there's evidence that the increase slows back down again. All we know is that there isn't anyone, in this universe, who has survived thousands of years. You know why? This one's ''yours''. (Actually, no, this one's mine. Get your own universe.)
* Consider the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics]] - within the endlessly bifurcating alternate universes every possible thing happens.
[[/folder]]
----
[[HighOctaneNightmareFuel/RealLife Ready for more]], or do you [[SweetDreamsFuel need]] [[TroperTales/HeartwarmingMoments a]] [[Heartwarming/RealLife break]]?
[[/folder]]
* [[http://naamah-darling.livejournal.com/348604.html The saga of Rapemouse.]] If that's not enough, then the various anecdotes of cute animal cannibalism and brutality in the comments will be.
** For instance, pulling a spinal cord out of a blood and gore splattered rat cage because ''that was all that was left'', or watching some hamsters playing in a cage except for one that seemed to be sleeping...until one bumped it and the head was all that was there. If you think small, cute rodents are gentler than carnivorous cats and dogs, think again. Life is cheap at the bottom of the food chain, especially when you only live about three years.
** Also, the comments mention Reaver Furries, which is about the only thing more nightmare-fuelly than regular Reavers.
* Leopards. These cats are like ninjas. They have been know to crawl into houses, kill humans as they sleep, and drag them off into the night--without waking up anyone else.
* [[http://media.ebaumsworld.com/picture/emmakate/coconut_crab.jpg The Coconut Crab.]] In addition to being the largest arthropod on land, they're ludicrously strong. Strong enough to lift 64 pounds and smash coconuts open, in fact. And they can climb trees. They tend to actually shy away from humans, but if you manage to piss one off, chances are you will get hurt. Very, very badly.
*** What's even worse is the fact that it takes a flamethrower to kill one.
*** ItGotWorse...again. These buggers may have been responsible for the fact that [[NeverFoundTheBody they never found]] AmeliaEarhart's body. Some researchers are floating a theory that she ran out of fuel and ditched on a desert island, only to succumb to thirst or hunger at some point. On a HistoryChannel TV special, the team left a pig carcass out for the many crabs on the island...and they showed a high-speed shot of them swarming over the body, which was picked clean in about an hour. Brrrr.
* Any number of deep-sea creatures could fall under this, really. [[http://www.bogleech.com/bio-deep.html Let me show you them.]]
** How do you make giant isopods 100000x more scary? [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h4VuvC8KCk Time-lapse photography.]]
*** I feel this is an unfair bias against deep sea life. For in the end, can we not all gain some wisdom from the noble [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9t7E4amWDqI deep sea anglerfish]]?
*** Interesting thing about anglerfish. A male or female anglerfish cannot reach maturity on their own; instead, a male (or several), will latch onto the much larger female anglerfish. Pretty much any organ the male has that aren't his reproductive ones atrophy away, and it just becomes a protrusion on the female's body that produces sperm.
* Just the sight of the [[http://www.bogleech.com/nature/mammal-molerat3.jpg naked molerat]] is typically enough to unnerve people. Did I mention that in order to better navigate in their crowded underground tunnels, they can ''turn almost entirely around in their own skin?''
** No. The most disturbing this about naked moles rats is that there actually exists a species of ''mammals'' that live in [[BeePeople eusocial colonies]].
* A good number of invertebrates fit into this trope. I was thoroughly disgusted during an exam in invertebrate taxonomy which involved identifying live specimens. The one that has become burned into the brain was a hideous little asymmetrical thing with ridges going along its twisted curled up body with a number of thin long white tentacles coming out of it in random places. That question was marked wrong because I just couldn't bear looking at it long enough to identify it.
** And then there is the Class Polychaeta, belonging to the annelid worm family. The most notorious of these are the sand worms which burrow through the beaches of many coastlines. Segmented worms, up to 3 metres in length, with little moving bristles on the sides of each of their segments, a pair of large eyes that bulge from its front segment, and large jaws that are capable of nipping off a finger. Among the coastlines that they call home: The one that I happen to live near.
** [[SpongebobSquarePants Sponges and starfish]] aren't scary, as they're mostly harmless, but [[NightmareFuel/SpongebobSquarePants then again]]...
*** Oh really? What about the [[http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2327/2479130477_b32b348314.jpg Sun Starfish?]]
* The Irukandji Jellyfish, the most deadly jellyfish in the world. Just one brush with this thing will leave you reeling with the effects of Irukandji syndrome, a horrific condition that leaves you suffering not only every unpleasant symptom under the sun, but even ''a feeling of impending doom'' so bad that some patients are so certain they're going to die ''they ask the doctors to kill them to get it over with.'' (Probably the closest thing to [[HarryPotter Dementors]] there is.) And the worst part? [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Irukandji-jellyfish-queensland-australia.jpg THEY'RE SO RIDICULOUSLY TINY THEY'RE PRACTICALLY INVISIBLE.]]
** Not quite the deadliest though, some other jellies have stings that can kill an adult in a matter of hours. Irukandji is generally not lethal.
*** No, they'll just make you wish you they were. "Every unpleasant symptom under the sun" includes excruciating pain in various parts of the body, and wikipedia sez: "There is no known antidote for venom that has already entered the body. Morphine will not help reduce the pain." FUCK YOU, AUSTRALIA! D:
*** One person even said that'd he would've preferred getting stung by the ([[DemonicSpiders infamous]]) Box Jellyfish than an Irukandji, simply because "either you recover in 20 minutes or you die."
*** There's an account of an Irukandji victim who was pulled from the surf. After carefully removing the jellyfish remains from the now unconscious man's legs, he was dosed with painkillers and taken away to hospital. Even unconscious and Morphine'd to the eyeballs, ''he was still screaming in agony the entire time.''
* COCKROACH.
** They don't do ANYTHING, except spread diseases, and be creepy. And live without heads.
*** The problem with cockroaches is, they're too used to living like us. Grooming habits? check. Living in vast colonies? check. Capable of surviving anything? check... Capable of scaring the living piss out of any other creature in their midst? check. They're the only creature that humans seem to be universally afraid of, cause they aren't afraid of us. Unless you turn on the lights.
*** Plus, they ''smell''. Name another insect that leaves behind slimy nests in your smoke alarms and such. Pantry moths and spiders are downright civilized houseguests.
** Actually it's the tiny German cockroaches that are really scary, because you ''know'' they're living in your walls and eating your food and breeding like, um, rabbits. And until they invented Combat traps, it used to be, once you saw one, your house was doomed, there'd eventually be German cockroaches crawling out of the peeling paint when you scrape it. The giant, 2-inch scaled up cockroaches aren't as disturbing because they usually don't live indoors, they just come inside for warmth. Except on the Gulf coast where the giant cockroaches live in the house and fly around. Including when you're in the shower.
** THAT CRUNCHING NOISE MAKE IT STOP.
*** [[Film/MenInBlack Damn decent of you.]]
** They may be technically harmless, but that thing about waking up with a cockroach in your ear? Yeah, not just an urban legend. They won't lay eggs in your brain or even hurt you whatsoever if they do it, but do they ''need'' to?
* The [[http://chasenoface.blogspot.com/ cat without a face]]. Shudder.
** [[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_mtxIjWA73qM/SdQDMF4XiyI/AAAAAAAACO4/zZRWuAwySPI/s1600-h/IMG_0734.JPG That is the most horrifying thing I've seen in a long time]]. If I was that cat I would be like "Kill Me!"
** While we're at it, take a look at [[http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/cyclopes.asp this]]. Something about [[CuteKitten cats]].
* Tiger and nurse sharks cannibalise their siblings in the womb, eating their way through until they're the only one. Does anyone else find that absolutely horrifying?
** Actually sometimes happens with human babies instinctually, though I forget the medical term. Made worse because instead of eating, it's more like ABSORBING.
*** It's a type of chimerism; one fetus does absorb the other.
*** The technical scientific term is [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetus_in_fetu Fetus-in-Fetu.]]
* Type 'Rat King' into any search engine and prepare to throw up. Seriously.
** [[http://www.weird-encyclopedia.com/rat-king.php Yeah...]] Ew...
* Sphinx cats, e.g. Mr Bigglesworth in ''Austin Powers''. Argh!
** YMMV, but they're actually not as [[UglyCute disturbingly old-man-wrinkly or hairless]] as they seem, however, and are usually a pretty outgoing and friendly breed besides. It's kind of like petting a warm, purring shammy [[ShapedLikeItself shaped like a cat.]]
* Pick an Australian wild animal. Any of them. There's a good chance it can maim and/or kill you.
** Yes, this includes [[{{Discworld}} the sheep]].
*** Really, the best advice you can give a tourist visiting Australia is that, yes, the rumours are true. If it has less than two legs, or four or more legs, than it can, and will likely attempt, to kill you. Avoid at all costs. Even the cute ones, like wombats and koalas, are vicious up close.
* The sea louse. It reproduces by having a male draging five or so females into a burrow, impregnating them, and the females contain the eggs inside their body, where the larva hatch and ''eat her from the inside out''. As if pregnancy wasn't scary enough!
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leucochloridium_variae Leucochloridium variae]] is a parasite that specializes in making [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWB_COSUXMw Zombie Snails]]. The NatGeo clip on YouTube doesn't even come close to some of the more gruesome depictions I've seen of this on some nature shows.
* I saw a Discovery Channel special on wild pigs in America and how some of them might be descended from imported Eurasian wild boars. They won't eat you, but you would not want to come across one in the wild. And their population in America and Eurasia is spreading.
** Trying to avoid wild boars in their natural habitat is all fine and good, but sometimes [[http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/818514-wild-boar-runs-amok-in-office the boars come to YOUR natural habitat]]!
** Domestic pigs are dangerous enough. There's a reason why everyone acted with such concern when Dorothy fell into the pig pen.
* The mouth of the sea lamprey. Some people photoshop these onto various body parts and think that it's FUNNY.
** That's not the worst of it. They don't have jaws, you see, making them incapable of biting things. Thus, in order to feed, they ''latch onto the side of a fish and suck out its innards''.
* Since the sea is really just one giant unexplored part of the earth, we usually find creatures there that seem a little... Off. When I was young, I visited a certain beach a low tide. Walking along the seaweed, I saw loads of fishes, shrimps, sea cucumbers, clams and the like trapped in puddles. But then there was this huge rock that seemed out of place. I came closer and saw that it was covered in holes. Then, all of the sudden, these black eyes perched on black stalks came out of the holes and stared at me, then they quickly retreated. To this day, I'm still looking for that rock.
** Perhaps it was a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonefish Stonefish]]? They're very rock-like, and have protruding black eyes. Deadly venomous, too.
* Bees ([[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall my God]]) and any similar insect (wasps, hornets, etc.). I have been terrified of them since my mother was stung in the armpit while trying to protect me from one. And Africanized (or "killer") bees, previously unable to withstand cooler climates, are now managing to creep farther north as they become more resistant to cold. Sweet mercy, I hope they never make it to Pennsylvania...
** I'm right there with you, man...it makes me appreciate these 5 degree winters...
* Three words: Brain eating amoeba.
** As in this article on [[http://www.cracked.com/article_17173_7-terrifying-creatures-youll-never-see-coming_p2.html Cracked.]] It's #1 on the list, and for good reason...
* A lot of cryptids. Especially the [[http://www.bukisa.com/articles/66811_ten-ridiculously-awesome-cryptids Mothman and the Momo]].
* ''Sacculina''. When it infects a crab, it hooks into its shell and spreads tendrils throughout the body. Then it releases feminising hormones, so that even male crabs act like female ones. Then it basically uses the crab (which is sterilised by this procedure) as a puppet, right down to releasing its own spawn when the crab tries to spread its own offspring. This goes on for the rest of the crab's miserable existence, reduced to basically a puppet of a little blob of flesh descended from a barnacle.
* [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Macrocheira_kaempferi.jpg The Japanese Giant Spider Crab]] is the largest of all athropods, with a legspan of 4 meters, weighing up to 20kg and they have a life expectancy of 100 years, which means they actually lived in Ancient Japan.
** How can you miss that they are also known as [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast corpse crabs]] due to their habit of feeding on the bodies of the drowned?
* How does this section not yet have the [[http://bpwidgets.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/golden-orb-weaver-eating-bird-231x300.jpg golden orb weaver]] spider? (Warning: click at your own risk.) A spider so large it ''eats birds''. Fortunately, its toxic is not fatal to humans, except possibly when seeing one causes a heart attack.
** Surprise surprise, it's Australian.
* While they, of course, are totally unable to do this to anything larger than an insect, spiders of the ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uloboridae Uloboridae]]'' family, that lack venom glands, kill their prey wrapping them in large amounts of silk and so tightly that the pressure breaks their joints and even their exoeskeleton. Later, the spider releases over the cocoon with the unfortunate prey inside gastric fluids that kill the victim and dissolve its innards [[NightmareFuel entering where the silk has broken through]], so the spider can suck the fluids.
* Tasmanian DEVILS are called devils for a reason. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SU44KwIfBXM
* Dolphins may look all cute, doing flips with their little grins but they can be huge dicks. Males will gang up and rape a female dolphin or harass the calves of other dolphins and whales until they die. I read a story about how a dolphin that lived in a harbour would lure seagulls to the water with fish then drown them just for fun.
** And that's just the start. Just check their entry on [[http://www.cracked.com/article_15853_the-6-cutest-animals-that-can-still-destroy-you.html this]] list. What's that? They kill randomly kill their own young, just so the mother won't be preoccupied with them and can have sex? Ok, Ok, not as extreme and example as it could be... after all, ''most'' animals do that anyway. But then again, only humans and dolphins are known to go out of their way to kill animals ''just for giggles''.
** Also, they masturbate with each others blowholes. Y'know, the bit they use to breath n stuff, an equivalent to our noses. Imagine having someone get off by forcing their knob up your nose. just ew.
* [[http://www.cracked.com/funny-163-australia/ Everything in this Cracked.com article]]. Seriously, Australia...are you trying to give everyone nightmares?
** There's a reason it started as a penal colony.
*** Makes the insane amounts of bravery seen at Gallipoli(and elsewhere) a bit more understandable, don't it?
* Pick up a beautiful shell in any beach except Australia, odds are you'll take it home and make it a nice souvenir. Pick up a beautiful shell in any beach in Australia, odds are it'll shoot a poisionous harpoon at you!
* I recently watched a heron snatch a live duckling and swallow it whole. I'll never look at herons the same way again. Imagine how they would look from a duck or fish's point of view; a towering, unearthly thin body, long, spear-like beak, wide, staring eyes... Yeesh, it seems scarier than a T. rex, if mainly for that, long, uncanny neck (predators are supposed to be bulky and muscular-looking, right?) and the farking beak. Except for the eyes, of course, they almost seem like the terrifying mass-production EVA's from ''EndOfEvangelion''. FeatheredFiend, indeed.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankebetsu_brown_bear_incident The Sankebetsu brown bear incident.]]
* For anyone who does not like flying, stinging insects, [[http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Owgxo0uCZXA/SwFLFDQHvZI/AAAAAAAAAQo/zytdSa_xq_M/s1600/lebah+maluku+2.jpg Wallace's Giant Bee]]. The thing has mandibles most beetles would envy. It's endangered, though, so you will probably never see one in person. Some tropers (like me) are almost relieved.
* How's this for a creature that's kinda scary, the Ribeiroia ondatrae (and the name is it's good part), it's a kind of worm that crawls into a tadpole, and then when the thing hits puberty, it screws up it's transformation to a full frog, so it grows extra limbs and it's original ones get misshapen quite often as well, imagine going through puberty, and then waking up one day, with your knees bent the wrong way, and your tighs folded the other way, with an extra pair of smaller legs next to your genitalia.
** And the reason why it does this? Because it needs to get into a bird next, and a frog with lots of weird misshapen legs has lots of movement that's more likely to catch the eye of a predatory bird, and makes it harder for the frog to get away. So imagine that you woke up like that, and it was so that when a giant monster came around to eat you, you'd basically have a giant "EAT ME" sign on your back and couldn't get away.
* Take a box jellyfish, give it eyes, and you get [[http://www.bogleech.com/nature/cnido-cuboeyes1.jpg this]]. There's something very unsettling about that thing.
* The Goliath Tiger Fish. Google these monstrosities, and Jaws will take a backseat in your nightmares.
* I went on a nature hike where the guide gave a harrowing description of being stung by a caterpillar under the fingernail while on a hike, which soon left him in far too much pain to do the tour he had scheduled that day. After doing reserach, he discovered that this caterpillar was particularly venemous, and he would have died not long after he managed to get back to town for medical attention.
** Well, at least caterpillars are too cute for anybody to stay mad at them. Wait, no, [[http://files.myfrogbag.com/xut0p0/1207065073j5iEqv3.jpg I take that back]].
* The way Cuttlefish eat. Slowly approaching........SNAP!
* Earwigs. ''Earwigs.'' They look like they have pincers on both ends, so you can't tell if they're coming or going, they squeeze into little tiny cracks in ''your'' bedroom, and if you have an older sibling, chances are pretty good you believed they're called that because they actually crawl into your ears and lay eggs (they don't, thank God). I would give 98% of the animals and bugs on this page a big hug, but between the fear of artificial ear-semination and having the little beasties ''repeatedly'' jump out of corn husks at her while harvesting as a kid, I'm quite ready for that can of Raid.
* I don't know why elephants haven't been mentioned. Male African elephants are aggressively territorial, but in musth, the elephants mating season, their testosterone skyrockets to about ''SIXTY'' times the normal amount, making the worst case of human roid rage look like a baby pitching a fit in comparison. Combine that with the average weight of a male being about 11000 pounds, roughly 5 1/2 tons, almost all of it muscle, and a running speed of about 25-30 miles an hour. Taking into account how many people get killed by these living tanks each year, it's pretty horrifying to think how quickly a circus can turn into a nightmare.
* Ladies and Gentlemen, I introduce to you, [[http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/02_03/snakehead_468x278.jpg the Snakehead]]. This terrifying beastie, which is more dangerous than a piranha is considered unique among fish because it has the ability to breathe air and walk on land. I repeat it has the ability to ''walk on land''!
** Snakeheads aren't the most [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONhBy9uGdgs graceful things out of water though,]] but they're terrifying in water.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCgbYnNAbSM Transformer Owl]]--A YouTube video showing a certain breed of African owl and its reactions to predators of different sizes. ("Awww. it looks so cute! Ooh, they're placing a medium sized owl in front of it and it's puffing itself up as a defense mechanism. Now it looks even ''more'' cute! Awwwwww! Now they're placing a really ''big'' owl in front of it and [[GrotesqueCute OHMIGOD! WHAT THE HOLY HELL IS IT DOING!?]] [[NightmareFace THAT'S NOT RIGHT!!!]] [[BodyHorror AUUUUUGHHHHHHH!!!!]] I WANT MY MOMMY!!!!!!")
** The second "transformation" Is it trying to immitate a Lynx, or some other cat. Still distrubing though.
*** In its natural habitat, it probably would have helped it blend into tree trunks by hiding the eyes and making the profile slimmer. Compare the potoo or tawny frogmouth.
* [[{{HellIsThatNoise}} Rabbits scream.]]
** Only when they're in danger (not that that makes it any better).
** They can also aggressively attack humans. Think that was just a Monty Python joke?
* Spiders always make me (admittedly a very camp bisexual) scream. and not in a good way...
** You will never look at a red hourglass the same way again
* How do we not mention hyenas?! Strong bite force, vicious temper, and have been known to attack people.
** Most people think of a Hyena's laugh as a funny thing - we even have a [[TheHyena trope]] for it. Now imagine you're alone in the savanna at night, and [[HellIsThatNoise you hear that laughter coming from all around you]]. And this is coming from a troper who LIKES hyenas!
** And on a different level: [[ExoticEquipment "The external genitalia of females closely resemble those of males: the 15 cm (6 inch) clitoris is similar in shape and position to a penis, and is capable of erection."]] YMMV on whether this is NightmareFuel on its own, but they have to give birth through that.
* Hippos. They look cute, but they have the temper to make a {{Tsundere}} look like a YamatoNadeshiko. They are responsible for the deaths of more people than even crocodiles! And just look at those tusks! I wonder why that little girl in a Christmas song wanted one so badly.
** Plus, if you merely annoy them, they'll spray you with their feces. Whole different kind of nightmare fuel there.
*** A hippo's breath smells so foul it can scare other animals off.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookie_cutter_shark Cookiecutter sharks.]] Don't let the cute name fool you; you will NOT get any tasty baked goods from these fuckers. They are only half a metre long, but feed on other much larger predators like dolphins and seals. How? They lure them in by swimming around pretending to be normal fish, wait for them to come in for a snack and then ''take as many bites out of the unsuspecting creature as they can before it gets away.'' And just [[http://www.aasharks.com/types-of-sharks/cookiecutter-shark-picture-02.jpg LOOK AT THOSE TEETH.]] They were first dicovered after the US Navy started noticing perfectly round holes appearing in the neoprene covers of the sonar domes on their ''submarines''.
* You like puppies? Well, Ivan Palov's experiments will make you bite your nails and squirm. In the course of studying animal psychology, most of the the test subject were put into such a condition that just scream Mengele. Case in [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSrIkUXwsNk point]]
* Centipedes and millipedes. DEAR GOD. Why do these creatures exist? Creepy crawly, creepy crawly. . .
** Millipedes are cute. Somehow, upping the number of legs even further causes it to [[CrossesTheLineTwice Cross The Line Twice]]. Plus, they don't eat each other and potentially you. The same cannot be said for the giant centipede...
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAL7r7zvKDw House centipedes.]] Also known as [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRpbb6qsMB4 geji-geji]] or cave centipedes or hearth centipedes (because they crawl out of your fireplace and up the wall at 50 miles an hour like something out of a horror film). They have a million legs, each over an inch long, enough to look like a 3-inch long hairy moustache, and if you attack one, the legs come off and keep moving. Due to their speed and agility, they're totally not afraid of falling off a wall and running over your face... The good news is, they're very shy and they only eat insects, so they're considered lucky, like other things that come out of your fireplace (crickets, Santa Claus...) They only bite when cornered. And they mostly come at night... mostly. Hearth crickets, which look like some sort of evil cave cricket, are also dam' ugly.
** According to various bloggers, they are [[MemeticMutation "the only thing that scares the hell]] [[ImageBoards out of /b/"]].
** Here's another [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Scutigera_coleoptrata.JPG pic]]. [[SchmuckBait Go ahead. Enlarge the image]].
* Moray eels have a ''[[http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/08/moray_eels_attack_with_second_pair_of_alien-style_jaws.php second pair]]'' of jaws behind their teeth to grasp their prey. That's right. They eat {{Alien}}-style!
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eTzYEUW_0g Pelicans.]]
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qQzas739ic Nightmare Retardant]]
* I'm not disturbed by lobsters or crabs in and of themselves, but I'm terrified of the thought of eating them.
* I'm pretty sure Cracked won't sleep peacefully until the rest of us can't. Behold! [[http://www.cracked.com/article_18641_7-terrifying-prehistoric-creatures-that-are-still-around.html 7 Terrifying Prehistoric Creatures (That Are Still Around)]] With such wonders as:
** A fucking deep sea shark '''with a circular saw for a jaw.'''
** God damned giant-ass Stingrays '''the diameter of a VW Beetle.'''
** Some sort of unholy '''Dragon/Shark/Zombie/300-toothed-saw.'''
** Proof that there is no loving god, a cross between '''an alligator and a gar''' that is decent enough to live in swamps where they can reach you.
** A cute 'lil gecko '''the size of a human child.'''
** A "prehistoric, three-eyed, hell-shrimp".
** "The closest thing we have to genuine Lovecraftian elder gods": "'''condoms full of teeth'''".
* The way the meat, egg, and dairy industries treat animals, as seen in [[http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-513747926833909134# this video]].
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IWN8UGDyC0 The Foie Gras industry]] [[TearJerker kills female ducklings on the day they hatch.]]
** As for the males, [[SarcasmMode don't worry!]] [[ItGetsWorse It gets worse!]] Imagine being trapped in a unsanitary cage for a month [[http://media.portland.indymedia.org/images/2008/08/378473.jpg being force-fed coarse cornmeal through a metal pipe.]] And when you think you can throw it all up afterwards, you fail and either [[UpToEleven become even more cramped in the cage]] or die from the sheer amount of food inside you. That's what its like to be a Foie Gras duck ''before the slaughterhouse,'' kids.
*** While the foie gras industry is horrible, CO2 gas is considered an acceptable, humane way of killing mass quantities of animals. Of course, you're supposed to make sure they're dead before dumping them into garbage cans. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ--faib7to Grinding them up while they're alive]] is also considered acceptable and reasonably humane(because it's instantaneous). As opposed to just dropping them outside to freeze and/or starve to death.
* [[http://www.cracked.com/article/109_natures-6-most-diabolical-predators Another article from Cracked concerning the evils of nature]]. None of these are threat to humans; however, the fact that nature would spawn such sadistic and clever predators is a tad unnerving (and one of those is a ''plant''). The pictures don't help either (the ones with the beetle grubs and the assassin bug actually made me shudder). And the entries start out with the POV of the ''prey''. Oh, and arachnophobes should steer clear of this article. Just saying.
** Cracked should have it's own HONF page.
* Coconut Crabs and Japanese Spider Crabs. Not fun stumbling on pictures of the former when all you were doing was innocently looking up information on New Caledonia. The latter? Thanks, Alton Brown.
* Wasps, especially yellow jackets and hornets. I recently had a nightmare about there being a nest in the mailbox. And have you read any news stories about "super-sized" nests? This nightmare scenario happens more often in real life than you think.
** The grand champion of nightmare fuel-errific stinging insects is the Japanese Giant Hornet. I dare you to search on YouTube. 2 inches long, and its lethal venom dissolves human flesh. And its horrifying helicopter-like buzz.
** The fine folks at Cracked bring you the Giant Hornet (and more!) in [[http://www.cracked.com/article_15816_5-most-horrifying-bugs-in-world.html The 5 Most Horrifying Bugs.]]
** Not allergic to bees? You don't die in 60 seconds on one sting if you don't recieve medical care? '''You don't know shit about being afraid of bees.'''
* Two words: Box Jellyfish.
** Cone [[strike:shells]] snails. Blue-ringed octopi. Recommendation: '''stay the hell out of the water in [[LandDownunder Australia]]'''.
*** Even worse (and, in a twisted way, cooler) are the facts that the cone snail hurts about as much as a bee sting, the octopus ''doesn't hurt at all'', and both of them use the poison Tetrodotoxin, for which there. Is. No. Cure.
**** (Insert Herpes Commercial BGM here) ...but there IS a treatment. Aggressive life support (i.e., intubation and ventilation) started near or before onset of symptoms, stomach pumping if ingested, IV fluids, and certain drugs (alpha adrenergic agonists and anticholinesterases, for those interested) can get a person through the time until the toxin is out of the body; if they survive 24 hours, chances are they'll make it.
*** And there's no cure or treatment for cone snail poison, either. If you are bitten, you can pretty much kiss your ass goodbye.
** If that's so, that would simply apply to the whole area of Indo-Pacific. Here's a saccharine-sweet addition: ''Synanceia verrucosa'', (in)formally known as Stonefish. Armed with one of the most powerful fish toxins and can easily induce even the most stoic bruisers into gasping sobs. A fair trip to the reef flats of [[EastIndies Indonesia]] can yield at least an encounter or two, if your eyes are sharp enough to see them.
*** In case you don't appreciate how hard it is to see a stonefish, look at [[http://fishindex.blogspot.com/2008/06/stonefish-most-venomous-fish-in-world.html this.]] That's right. These fish are ''invisible''.
** While we're on the subject of deadly creatures found on one of Australia's greatest tourist attractions, the GREAT BARRIER REEF, we seem to have forgotten sea snakes and sting rays. Seventeen species of sea snake are on the GBR, ''all'' of which are fatally poisonous, but generally easy-going as long as they stay in the water. And sting-rays are really in the same boat: docile until provoked (ie, stepped on or trapped between a legend and a camera).
** You're not much better out of the water in Oz, either. The Australian Outback is a damn scary place. I learned that after reading BillBryson's ''In a Sunburned Country''. 120-degree temperatures, spinifex bushes (they have hypodermic-like tips that ''break off'' and become lodged in your skin, inviting flies and infection), all manner of poisonous snakes and scorpions, and did I mention the flies? Bryson's book has a lovely anecdote about how one of the outback explorers brought a camel along which got such a bad bite that ''they were scooping out maggots with a coffee cup''. When a ''camel'' starts suffering in a desert, you know you're in a damn nasty place.
*** The [[FluffyTheTerrible Teddy Bear Cholla]], a cactus found in the southwestern US and northern Mexico, is similar to the aforementioned bushes. The needles come off very easily, and are barbed, meaning that with movement, they move through one's body. I remember a guide talking about how a needle got into the sole of his foot, and ended up working its way out of the top of his foot.
**** Oh, that's ''far'' from the worst of it. Cholla is a very odd plant in that it's segmented; it's shaped a bit like [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Opuntia_bigelovii_2.jpeg a demented balloon animal]]. Those little segments will all break off at the slightest provocation; the plant spreads when they're carried somewhere else and take root. In practical terms, this means you have a decent chance of having an entire 3-inch-long length of cactus attach itself to your leg. The stuff is also sometimes called "jumping cactus," because due to that habit of falling apart and the way human reflexes work, you often won't feel the sting from the thorns until a fraction of a second after you've already moved away, making it seem like the hellish little thing actually ''jumped across the intervening space to attach itself to your skin''. Also, the reason for the name? The thorns are ''clear'' and so numerous and fine that from a distance the damn stuff [[LightIsNotGood looks fluffy or glowy]]. So yeah, ridiculous numbers of wickedly barbed, needle-sharp, hair-thin, near-invisible thorns that'll brush off at the slightest provocation, appear to leap gaps, and hurt like the dickens. And god help you if your ''dog'' gets into the stuff...
** Sydney Funnelweb. A literal real-life DemonicSpider.
*** And it ''still'' [[ItGotWorse gets worse]] - Sydney Funnelwebs are only the ''second'' most dangerous variety of the spider. Their fantastically badass cousins, who inhabit [[CutesyNameTown Orchid Beach]] on Fraser Island, are [[UpToEleven even more venomous]] and there are a lot more of them per square metre. And the kicker? Go to Orchid Beach today and there stands the decaying remains of a ''holiday resort.'' I wonder why they abandoned it...
* [[http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12840743/porks_dirty_secret_the_nations_top_hog_producer_is_also_one_of_americas_worst_polluters Hog farming.]]
-->The lagoons [holding ponds for pig manure, urine, blood, afterbirth, and stillborn piglets] themselves are so viscous and venomous that if someone falls in it is foolish to try to save him. A few years ago, a truck driver in Oklahoma was transferring pig shit to a lagoon when he and his truck went over the side. It took almost three weeks to recover his body. In 1992, when a worker making repairs to a lagoon in Minnesota began to choke to death on the fumes, another worker dived in after him, and they died the same death. In another instance, a worker who was repairing a lagoon in Michigan was overcome by the fumes and fell in. His fifteen-year-old nephew dived in to save him but was overcome, the worker's cousin went in to save the teenager but was overcome, the worker's older brother dived in to save them but was overcome, and then the worker's father dived in. They all died in pig shit.
** As a permaculture and self-sufficiency enthusiast, ''all'' industrial-scale farming qualifies for me.
* [[http://www.wheredopuppiescomefrom.com/ Puppy mills.]] Ever wondered where those adorable puppies in pet store windows come from? Well it turns out they're farmed, much like battery hens. That's right, there are battery farms ''for puppies''. The dogs are kept in cages their entire lives and forced to breed continuously, sometimes until ''their uteruses fall out.'' Because the dog breeding industry has little regulation, the law does not require these dogs to ever receive vet care, any kind of human contact, or, y'know ever be let out of their cages. Oh, and there are also kitten, bird, rabbit and ferret mills. Good luck ever looking at a pet store the same way again. Moral of the story? Always, always, '''always''' adopt from an animal shelter. '''Seriously.''' For those who absolutely '''must''' have a pure-breed of some kind, at least go to a breeder directly where you can see the mother.
** I, a dog-loving troper, find this news to be more of a {{Tear Jerker}} than nightmare fuel.
** You'll never see a dog for sale in a pet shop in the UK; almost all are bought directly from breeders or owners whose pets have had a litter. The RSPCA and Scottish SPCA take a very dim view of puppy farming.
** America is starting to get on this, unfortunately approaching it by punishing legitimate breeders and people who show dogs.
** There are also pure-breed rescue places if you want a particular kind of pure-breed cat or dog. Sometimes the official clubs for those animals run the rescue and adoption services also.
** This places a whole new and somber, if not sinister, spin on [[{{Peanuts}} Snoopy's]] puppyhood at the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm.
** It gets worse when you're working at a shelter that rescues these puppy mill dogs. I've seen dogs with severe PTSD (There's no other word f,or it), dogs with no teeth, dogs with fur so matted that it's literally coming off their bodies, dogs who are blind, dogs with their ears hacked off...
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A7gBS3QiqA This video]] showing the use of "Henderson Castration Tools". Insert the sac into the clamp, put the clamp in a variable speed drill and spin about 20 times until the cord fractures and the balls come right off. Especially nice is the scene where they inject anesthetic into the horse's testicles.
* While watching the ''Planet Earth'' series, I got to the part about jungles. Now, up until then there have been predator-prey chases, which are understandable, they're necessary. But then we get to the part about the parasitical fungi that can literally cause a ZombieApocalypse for an ant colony. They even showed the fungus [[BodyHorror growing from the ant's head]]. In time-lapse. On ''Blu-Ray''. An then there are the other pics of various other insects. AHHHHH!!!
** Oh yeah, didn't they say something like "one species of fungus that specializes in each individual insect to prevent competion"? so for every species of insect on the rainforest, there's a species of this fungus just for that insect?
* The Cane Toad is well known in the scientific community for 2 reasons. One is for being one of the worst invasive species on earth. The other? It engages in necrophillia more than any other species on earth. Not just with other cane toads either. Birds, mammals, snakes, lizards, other amphibians, you name it.
** Besides looking ugly and spreading like a plague, it EATS CORPSES,Its HIGHLY POISONOUS and its FUCKING BIG. Its regarded as a pest that should be neutralized.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_badger The honey badger]]. A member of the ''Mustelidae'' family, which includes weasels, stoats, minks, martens, otters, sea otters, badgers, polecats, and the wolverine. We all know how BadAss and scary they can be. The honey badger takes it UpToEleven. It's skin is thick and tough enough that it's nearly impossible to penetrate it even with arrows and spears. It can turn around in its skin with ease. It is a tireless and determined predator, and it will eat ''anything'' it can find and overpower. It has extremely few predators, and even the king of beasts himself would prefer to face an angry bull elephant than a pissed-off honey badger. One took the food right out of a puff adder's mouth (the second-most dangerous snake in Africa after the black mamba), then proceeded to kill the snake, receiving a few bites in the process. Halfway through eating the snake, the venom took effect and the badger passed out. A couple of hours later, the badger woke up and ''immediately began finishing off his interrupted meal'' with no problem. Oh, and their preferred method of fighting larger predators? [[BodyHorror They go for the genitals]].
* Although EverythingsBetterWithPlatypi, everything is '''''WAY''''' worse with their venom. Sadly, it's not lethal. Instead, it incapacitates the victims and [[AndIMustScream LEAVES THEM IN PAIN SO EXCRUCIATING THAT NOT EVEN MORPHINE DOES ANYTHING]].
** Quoth ''{{Cracked}}'': "The platypus is God's way of saying, 'I made this thing out of scraps left on the floor and it can still fucking cripple you.'"
* My biology class was made of this. Examples: Delivery of pig fetuses for human anatomy class, teacher showing us a cow's eye, and more, but I will only tell the most horrific event that had occured to me.
** One day while going into the the locked storage door, a friend told me to look for a "cat." I looked in the back of a room and found a {{Squick}} inducing nightmare, a cat opened up, as if ready for surgery, with all organs visible and had a expression of howling pain. I ran out of class that day
* I'm surprised no one's mentioned chimpanzees. They may look cute and cuddly when they're babies, but they are absolute ''assholes'' when fully grown. There's a reason most primatologists only work with juveniles--adults can grow to be about 5'4" and are ''extremely'' dangerous. They're at least twice as strong as humans, and when they attack, they go for the face and genitals.
** There have been reports of chimpanzes snatching young childeren and draging them off into the wilderness. Guess what happend next..
* Meet the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_wandering_spider Brazilian wandering]] [[http://www-tc.pbs.org/wnet/nature/files//home/wnetwp/webroot/wnet/wp-content/blogs.dir/3/files/2008/10/8.jpg spider]], certified by Guinness as the most venomous spider on Earth. (Arachnaphobes should [[SchmuckBait not click]] that second link.) It lives all over South America, and has occasionally traveled all over the world in shipments of [[http://tizona.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/brazilian_wandering_spider1.jpg bananas]]. They've wound up in all kinds of grocery markets, and even [[http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200505/s1357179.htm hospitals]]. The thing can wind up with a five-inch leg span, and in South America tend to inhabit rather well-populated areas. Because they're wanderers, they like to hide during the day rather than build webs--in enclosed, dark spaces. Like under your bed, or in your closet, or the cupboard under the sink.
* Ever seen an angry horse before? [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rapa_das_bestas_sabucedo_2_jpereira.jpg Here you go]].
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqDjRCHyjTY Mike the Headless Chicken]] anyone?
* Bull sharks. While most sharks will only attack when threatened or as a case of mistaken identity, these sharks have been known to attack people without any provocation whatsoever. Don't believe me? [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pjbH5OuBc4 Here's proof]]. But what's worse than a hyper-aggressive shark with no qualms about mauling a human? Try one that goes into ''freshwater''. They aren't just in there accidentally, they have adapted to swim in freshwater and have been found hundreds of miles inland. These sharks have been found in the Mississippi, the Congo, Zambezi, Ganges, Amazon, Euphrates and Tigris rivers among others. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_Shore_shark_attacks_of_1916 The Jersey Shore Shark Attacks]], the inspiration for ''{{Jaws}}'' is now largely believed to have been the work of a ''single bull shark''.
* Frogs and Toads. First of all, there are poison dart frogs, which can kill you just by touching you. Venom oozes through the pores on their skin. But that's not the worst of it. See, all the other frogs have voracious appetites. They will pretty much eat anything they can jam into their mouths and (hopefully for their sake) swallow. And the larger the frog, the larger the prey. The largest frogs eat ''mice''. And bullfrogs? They can jump straight out of the water at a bird passing over their pond, catch them in mid-air and swallow them. There is very little reason to doubt that a frog twice the size of a person would swallow that person ''whole'' if it ever laid eyes on it.
** Speaking of frogs, there is a type of beetle that has been found to suck the life right out of frogs as seen [[http://bogleech.com/bio-epomis.htm here]].
** Poison dart frogs, unlike venomous and even some other poisonous animals, are ''not at all poisonous'' in captivity, because their poison is synthesized from their diet in the wild. There are captive-bred poison dart frogs in the pet trade, which is no surprise, because apart from the poison, they're ''adorable''.
* Tiger beetles. They don't harm humans, but just imagine what it would be like if you were it's prey and the last thing you saw was [[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_vXzN1osDLC0/S_lIu6CTJHI/AAAAAAAAAIQ/VN33T6GZujs/s1600/TIGERBEETLE+1.jpg THIS]]. It would also be moving at you at 5 miles an hour, which relative to it's body weight would be like watching as a fully-grown man armed with hedge-clippers comes running at you at ''480 miles per hour''!
%% Please keep the humans example at the bottom of the folder as a [[TheStinger stinger]].
* Face eating Northern in the middle of the lake (Northern= toothed, evil fish). My cousin made a joke about it when I was 6. I had a nightmare that bodies with faces chewed down to the bone washed up on the shore. I couldn't bring myself to swim out too deep for years.
* A reporter on the ''BBC World Service'' tells the story of a couple who visited an Eskimo village in Alaska, and excitedly got to see a live polar bear, and when they got there, were horrified to watch as it was killed in front of their eyes.
** On the subject of polar bears. Remember that scene in ''[[StarWars The Empire Strikes Back]]'' where Luke gets ambushed by the Wampa? Literally comes out of nowhere and nearly caves his head in? That's what polar bears do in ''real life''. They cover up their snouts and eyes as prey approaches or as they stalk it, then suddenly spring up and hit it before it even knows what's collapsed it's skull. The best part? Polar bears are one of the few bear species that actively seek out humans as prey.
* [[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QibpmJvBDQU/TazL8C-DodI/AAAAAAAAAEw/cr6oaCFId4s/s1600/zvK9C.jpg This is what a maggot looks like under a microscope]].
* Birds of prey when they catch animals. That animal will be carried for who-knows-how-long, in terror the whole time knowing what's about to happen, to a nest with baby birds. These babies will then slowly eat it ALIVE. It's much more merciful if the animal is killed before it gets to the nest but that doesn't happen all that much...
* It's not an animal, but the full run of carnivorous plants apply. They are truly nefarious traps, which when you read about them sound like something Jigsaw might come up with if he was a botanist. Venus Flytraps are pressure-activated cages. Pitcher plants are impossible-to-escape acid-bottomed pits. Flypaper plants are sticky traps, where the prey dies of exhaustion, starvation or suffocation. Lobster-trap plants allow prey to come in, but keep it from getting out with inward-pointing barbs. The craziest, though, has to be the aquatic bladderworts. They pump out ions to generate a partial vacuum. The plant keeps this vacuum behind a leafy "door". When an aquatic insect comes along and touches a trigger hair, the "door" swings open and the vacuum sucks the insect inside. It's a ''lever-operated vacuum trap''. Thankfully, none of them fall into the ManEatingPlant category.
* Parrots can be very intimidating on their own. However, many people find them cute and great to have as pets. Then, some species as they get older can really put people into a state of fear. The birds, if not properly trained from a young age (and being incredibly intelligent), can start taking advantage of their owner. They'll make loud noises for your constant attention, they'll become aggressive and mean-spirited (especially cockatoos and macaws), and they'll throw a temper fit when you don't give them what they want. Also, placing them in a cage doesn't always do the trick as many of them can figure out how to escape. Even worse is that some of the larger parrots have strong enough jaws to chew their own cage, even when ''it is stainless steel''. Usually the only solution is to give the bird up to a rescue agency, which can result in the bird becoming depressed because of the loss of it's companion (the owner). This is why it is usually custom for a salesperson of parrots to make sure the customer thinks ''long'' and ''hard'' about this decision.
* I can't believe noone's mentioned Primates yet, gorillas espessially. Those things are monsters that can easily rip someone in two. And don't get me started on Chimpanzees. For example if they're smiling at you, you'd better run like hell, 'cause he ain't happy to see you.
** Fortunately, a lot of the great apes are actually quite calm, so long as you do not provoke them. They can hurt you, but they typically resort only to posturing. But chimpanzees? Whereas a gorilla will mostly beat his chest and make a show to get you to leave, chimpanzees may go out of their way to murder your ass ''for the hell of it''. Once, a group of "problem chimps" escaped from a primate sanctuary in Sierra Leone and came across a cab. The passenger in the cab managed to get out when the chimps got to it and decided to attack. The driver? Well let's just say that "pulled apart" barely described it.
* Spiders that spin 82 foot webs and leeches that saw their way through your rectum. And that's just the first two entries.
** http://www.cracked.com/article_19719_6-terrifying-new-creatures-science-just-discovered.html?wa_user1=1&wa_user2=Science&wa_user3=article&wa_user4=feature_module
* [[FeatheredFiend The cassowary]]. Sure, it doesn't look very dangerous, but a well placed kick from it can criple an adult, and it [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dcQO6Zb8Eg roars and growls]].
[[/folder]]
[[folder: The Most Dangerous Animal Of Them All]]
* [[HumansAreBastards Humans]]. Inhabiting much of the planet's land mass, they often kill each other and many other species for fun. And they have nukes.
** Considering that there are few animals who kill off members of their own species: humans are truly the most dangerous animal of all, endangering everything on the planet, including other humans. And we're not only talking about genocidal dictators or terrorists like Hitler, Stalin, Bin Laden, Mao, Djenghis Khan, Attilla the Hun, Pol Pot,... On a huge industrial scale humans are rapidly destroying their own environment by destroying and poisoning nature's life sources, thus putting the survival of all mankind in danger for future generations!
*** The Mosquito begs to differ. They have killed 45 billion people. To put this in perspective, they have ''killed more humans then every recorded war ever fought'', and ''more than half the number of people that ever lived''.
** You mean ''literally'' more than every recorded war ever fought? As in, from [[http://ancienthistory.about.com/b/2003/07/15/the-first-war-ever-recorded.htm the war between Sumer and Elam in 2700 B.C.]] to ''now''!?
**** Consider that, to a mosquito, a [[HumansAreCthulhu human is a mountain-sized torch]]. Mosquitoes [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu are total badasses.]]
*** Plus, there is also the idea that at least mosquitoes have a reason to suck blood, if they don't get the proper nutrients from blood, the eggs inside of them will die.
* How's about this to keep you up at night? Right now, we are currently living in one of the largest mass extinctions of life on Earth, rivaled only by the Great Dying. Take a guess as to what scientists think is causing [[YouBastard it]]. Humans can cause much, ''much'' more disease, destruction, and death then just about any other animal ''known on the planet.''Heck, we have the power to destroy much of the planet with nukes.
[[/folder]]
----
[[folder: RLNF Cosmic Horror, Eschatology and What Comes After]]
--> ''[[HopeSpot "You lot, you spend all your time thinking about dying, like you're gonna get killed by eggs, or beef, or global warming, or asteroids. But you never take time to imagine the impossible.]] Like maybe you survive."''
-->--'''The Doctor''', ''Series/DoctorWho''
--> ''"Nobody likes us 'big picture' people."''
-->--'''Calvin''', ''CalvinAndHobbes''
----
!!Please take all debate to the discussion page.
Do not post just to disprove a theory or to add NightmareRetardant. Both of them are {{natter}} here! Take all debate to the discussion page.
[[foldercontrol]]
%%
%% Do not post just to disprove a theory or to add NightmareRetardant. Both of them are {{natter}} here!
%%
[[folder:The Afterlife and Other Eternal Life scenarios]]
* WhoWantsToLiveForever.
* [[TakeAThirdOption Different option]]: We figure out how to upload our consciousness to a super computer and live millions of eternities in a mere few years, if that, and after exhausting every possible reality we can think of, end ourselves knowing that we have truly lived, willing to accept what happens, whether that is eternal life or nothingness.
** Alternate nightmare fuel? If that's a possible outcome, it's also possible that we've already done this. Every consciousness now exists on a supercomputer. This entire world and our entire lives are simply one of the aforementioned simulated existences. If we're lucky, it's multiplayer, and all of us happen to be sharing in this specific experience. If we're not lucky, only one person in the whole of existence is 'real'. The rest of us are simulated and meaningless, we have no way of knowing who the 'real' person is and therefore who our world revolves around and due to the implied desire (for a 'clean' experience) inherent in simulating an entire life for the experience of living it, he/she probably doesn't know either.
* What if there IS an afterlife? What if you were such a bad person that finally meets death? Yep. You're going to hell, and suffering for eternity in the most painful ways possible that you wouldn't if you were alive.
* There are [[FateWorseThanDeath things that will make you wish you were dead]] you say? Satan and Hell says hi right to that statement before proving that statement completely wrong.
* Singularitarians belive that cessation of existence is the worst possible outcome imaginable. Death is an obstacle to be conquered, rather than an inevitability to which we should all sheepishly submit.
* The concept of oblivion brings horror... the concept of infinity eternity brings horror... Did the cosmos become some sort of [[EldritchAbomination horror elemental]] when I wasn't looking? (Maybe this is where {{Gnosticism}}'s concept of an inept and/or malicious Demiurge gets its appeal...)
* The Rapture, and all other apocalyptic beliefs. In the US alone, 40% of the population believes that Jesus will return ''in their lifetime''. Stop and think about that for a second. At any given moment, a very, very large percentage of the human population believes that it's okay to run through resources at lightning speed, making no plans to invest in alternative energy, because their chosen deity (this isn't just limited to Christians) is going to come back and make everything all right. The same goes for things like curing disease, battling starvation and ending war.
** And that's not even getting into the Rapture cults who believe that war, famine and disease are all signs that Jesus is about to return, and view such events with thinly veiled joy.
* Suppose you are the only sentient, sapient being in the entire universe. The universe was created simply for your own amusement. Sounds wonderful, no? Actually, this means everyone you know and love ceases to exist the moment you don't see or hear or experience them in any way. Sitting in your living room right now? That is the entire universe at the moment, because why bother rendering the rest of space and time when the only being in existence, you, is reading TVTropes? All of history was fabricated so you would believe other people are thinking, intelligent humans. But they aren't. Only you exist.
** On the flip side of this, imagine that you aren't a sentient, sapient being; that someone else is. This person truly experiences reality. Everything you feel and experience is a grossly dumbed down and simplified version of true perception. Your brain is hideously slow, your eyes only see three primary colors instead of their twelve, you only exist in three dimensions instead of fourteen. [[CosmicHorrorStory This "god" is enormously superior to everything you could ever hope to be. They go about the world experiencing reality, while the rest of us literally are just here for their amusement.]]
*** The scariest thing is that, while the first suggestion denies itself (that would make us our own God), the second may be true and we may be only a toy to the rest of the people around us. It would explain a lot, be less scary and still manage to make you feel like an awful piece of crap and trash.
*** A combination of the two is even more frightening, such as starting out as the first and through some process ended up as the latter. Where the price of godhood is a hallucination where only you exist, while interacting with others means always being at the mercy of a collective-consciousness empowered by everyone's rejected omnipotence. Knowing that, even at the height of your power, you could never compete with the cumulative power of everyone else.
* The idea of [[TheNothingAfterDeath there being no afterlife]] has caused me to stay awake crying one night, and then put me into a depression.
** I can add to that: What if you get Alzheimer's Disease and there IS an afterlife? What if the soul that is allowed to go to heaven is that of you as a husk of a person, instead of the you throughout the rest of your life? Spending Eternity™ as only a husk of yourself, and everything that made you YOU gone, is rather unnerving...
** Or alternately, you can also worry about what happens if there ''is'' an [[AndIMustScream afterlife?]]
* The idea of [[AndIMustScream eternal punishment in Hell]] is pretty horrific enough, but the Calvinist belief of predestination actually makes this [[BeyondTheImpossible even more terrifying]]. How? According to Calvinist theologians, God picks and chooses who to save and who to damn. This [[FridgeHorror implies]] that God created some people for the sole purpose of being sent to Hell, [[YouCantFightFate and there's nothing that they can do about it.]] Fortunately, not many people believe in this, but the idea is horrifying enough.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Dying]]
* Let's face it ladies and gentlemen. There's a reason why so many people fear death and consider it to be the worst fate...IT'S A FUCKING TERRIFYING THOUGHT! [[CessationOfExistence Say that there is NO afterlife. Yep. pitch black darkness with nothing going on at all.]]
* I would like to assert that Danny Elfman said it best:
---->No one beats [Death] at his game\\
For very long but just the same\\
Who cares, there's no place safe to hide\\
Nowhere to run--no time to cry\\
So celebrate while you still can\\
'Cause any second it may end\\
And when it's all been said and done\\
Better that you had some fun\\
Instead of hiding in a shell\\
Why make your life a living hell?\\
So drink a toast, and down the cup\\
And drink to bones that turn to dust ('cause)\\
No one (x13)\\
No one lives forever!! (hey!)
* Then there's [[http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html Isaac Asimov's]] contribution to this problem, with a TwistEnding.
* This was Nietzsche's whole point in his part of the dialogue of western philosophy. Reality exists. So do we. We assume we are special. We're probably not. All human experience has been spent in the attempt to formulate truth so we don't have to contemplate the horror of being without reason. [[NietzscheWannabe Lots of people]] get the ultimate point behind this stance wrong though; Mr. Nietzsche wanted us to honestly and totally accept life as causa sui, and to wholly embrace it without the interference of human rationalization. Now, he admits that that's a pretty fucked up way to live and describes it as the "Will to Die" and states pretty explicitly that it is no way shameful to prefer self-generated "truth" in order to be happy. Also, the EternalRecurrence (the idea that all time repeats endlessly, much like the Quantum Immortality example below, but with each repeat being identical to the one before) to some is HighOctaneNightmareFuel (WhoWantsToLiveForever is bad enough, but being forced to see your own same mistakes over and over again is a cosmic AndIMustScream, especially if said mistakes are [[MindRape traumatic]]) while Nietzsche views it as the ultimate affirmation of life.
---->What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.' [Nietzsche, F. The Gay Science, §341]
* The simple fact that [[NothingIsScarier NOBODY KNOWS]] what happens after you die, nor can the human mind comprehend it.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The End of Civilization As We Know It]]
* At several points in Earth's history, worldwide volcanic eruptions wiped out upwards of 98% of all species on the planet. This could conceivably happen again at any time. If it's not volcanic fury that gets us, it'll be a meteor or some other sudden event that can be predicted but not prevented. The ones killed initially will be the lucky ones. The rest will be left to starve to death.
* Our sun is too small to go nova. What ''will'' happen is that it'll run out of fuel, swell into a Red Giant and ''engulf the Earth as it expands.'' Popular science says that won't happen for a good 5 billion years, but it's still a fun thought to entertain.
** Altough human life on Earth will become unbearable in much less time than that, because the sun is constantly expanding, it won't just suddenly swell in to a giant ball - altough the process gets progressively faster in time. In approximately 100 million years it is thought to be too warm for modern day humans to live, and in 500 million years, the temperatures on Earth reach levels such as that oceans will boil away.
* Watch ''Life After People''.
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBtHICMmDJk Which]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBNLl7T3EIw&feature=related can]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLlJBHhE2Hw&feature=related be]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4GTRab56_A&feature=related seen]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YM_rsu2CcsI&feature=related right]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHrlkoVlUFQ&feature=related here.]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSjRG-VJhWg&feature=related Watch]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPA3ocklQf4&feature=related nature]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4g4hV3Mmlg&feature=related fight back.]]
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XDbcMND7fY&feature=related Better]] version.
* Hardin's "Tragedy of the Commons" and how often I've seen that behaviour. You can try it this Halloween. Put a bowl of candy out for the trick-or-treaters. There's nothing preventing the ones who aren't accompanied by adults from overturning the ''entire bowl'' into their bag and leaving nothing left for everyone else. What makes this scary? It doesn't ''just'' apply to Halloween Candy. Which is particularly chilling when you think about how much society depends on fossil fuels, and how quickly we go through them. Regardless of one's stance on climate change, no one can deny that fossil fuels are going to become an issue in the future when we start running low... unless they believe that there won't ''be'' any future, which brings us to another bit of nightmare fuel...
* Watch the History Channel or Discovery Channel, eventually they'll have a "How the world ends" special. If you're religious, the History Channel provides you with plenty of cases of prophecies coming true. If you're the scientific nut, you're treated to many scientific ways the world will end including the super volcano at Yellowstone bringing nuclear winter on its own, a Deep Impact or Armageddon worthy asteroid impact, and the infamous Large Hadron Collider making exotic particles or micro-black holes. Doubly worse for the religious as the scientific ways the world will end are in fact, very possible. Especially the asteroid (we have a higher chance of impact than you getting struck by lightning).
* There's a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_caldera super volcano underneath Yellowstone.]] If it explodes, it's predicted that the entire United States will be covered in at least few centimeters of ash (in areas farthest away from the volcano), cars and planes won't function since the ash is finer and heavier than snow (causing all the engines to clog), and the ash in the atmosphere will block out the sun for several years. [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Oh, and it's overdue for its next eruption.]] At least scientists speculate that [[ApocalypseHow humanity itself won't necessarily go extinct, just that civilization as we know it might end.]]
** Yellowstone is possibly peanuts compared to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory Lake Toba, which has almost once wiped out humanity]] - the human gene pool was presumably once down to only about ten thousand individuals - and that's the optimistic estimate, the more pessimistic one has humanity dodging a bullet with a mere 1,000 individuals left.
* Care to know how the world and/or humanity might end? Go to [[http://www.exitmundi.nl/exitmundi.htm Exit Mundi]]. Excellent, witty, and sometimes disturbing reads. My personal favorite? "Eternity".
* Solar storms. Solar storm of 1859 resulted in things like "Telegraph pylons threw sparks and telegraph paper spontaneously caught fire."
* Two more potential ticking {{depopulation bomb}}s: Mass infertility due to pollution, malnutrition/undernourishment, obesity, etc. (many kids may die before their parents). We're seeing some of the effects already.
* With the possibility of a "zombie virus" able to be genetically engineered, WorldWarZ might actually happen.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The End of the Universe]]
* Before start reading this section, go to [[http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html Atomic Rockets]] Have fun realising just how stuck we really are on this miserable rock.
* Antimatter. Mixing matter (ex: the universe) and antimatter can lead to the annihilation of both.
** The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strangelet Strangelet]] is no better.
*** And while Antimatter functions like a [[YinYangBomb Yin Yang Bomb]], causing the immediate annihilation of both matter and antimatter into a crapton of energy, Strangelets function like [[TheVirus The Virus]], converting more and more baryonic (normal) matter into strange matter. It could theoretically take just a single strangelet to set off a chain reaction that results in the entire earth becoming one massive, hot ball of strange matter.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_fate_of_the_universe The ultimate fate of the universe]].
* Given that the Cosmological Constant seems to be stronger in one direction of the universe and weaker in another, it's very likely that at one point along the spectrum a vacuum metastability event has already occurred or will soon. But the universe won't be instantly obliterated; the collapse would propagate at the speed of light and you'd never see it coming. Comforting, yes?
* Here's a fun thought: the solar system is not completely stable, but only metastable. It may happen, sometime in the next few million years, that Mercury and Venus could pass close enough to one another that their mutual gravitation messes up their orbits, in turn messing up the orbits of the other inner planets. So Earth might crash into another planet, get thrown into the sun, or get flung off into interstellar space.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_decay Proton decay]]. Currently hypothetical, but it may be that in the truly deep depths of infinite time there won't be any matter left - just photons (red-shifted to almost nothing), neutrinos (don't interact in any meaningful way), and a vanishingly thin haze of electron/positron pairs that haven't quite got around to annihilating each other yet. Oh, and whatever it is that Dark Matter turns out to be... assuming it doesn't decay too.
** Please note that while the above is the most likely scenario, the mass/energy-being-created-out-of-practically-nothing vacuum fluctuations will always be around as long as space itself exists. Given the unlimited amount of time ahead of us, if there's the slightest chance of those actually creating something useful, then that will come to pass eventually.
* Speaking of celestial bodies and whatnot- Black holes. They are scary as hell when you really get into what they are and what, precisely, they are doing. They warp the fabric of space-time. They are absolutely huge, they eat everything, and you can't even see them unless there's a backdrop of, say, interstellar gas to provide a contrast. If one should happen to drift in the direction of our planet -and this is, in fact, entirely possible-, even if we saw it coming years in advance, there would be nothing we could do about it. [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption You do not stop a black hole.]] Plus, once you cross the event horizon, you are not ever coming back. And although it's unknown what, exactly, happens inside a black hole (though there are plenty of theories), it's safe to assume that it's probably something fairly horrible. If there are in fact RealLife [[CosmicHorror Cosmic Horrors]], they are probably black holes.
** The cosmic/dev/null.
** There's proof that, to an observer, somebody falling into a black hole will freeze just outside of the event horizon. That could mean that, just outside of the event horizon, [[FateWorseThanDeath YOU freeze]] and are trapped there, frozen in time, [[AndIMustScream forever.]]
** There's also these Einstein-Rosen bridges in them that lead to a mirror universe, but of course not without completely destroying you upon entering. An additional twist to this curious mirror universe is Roy Kerr's idea of rotating black holes that don't have infinite gravity at an area and could maybe be possible to go inside. Coming closer to one gives you a "house of mirrors" effect according to Michio Kaku's book titled ''Hyperspace''. So you drive a spaceship to a rotating black hole and pray you enter it from the right spot and suddenly start seeing many copies of your ship from the window until you run into one that's real and from another universe.
** Read through the following [[http://casa.colorado.edu/~ajsh/dive.html website]] and witness the animations. Though simple projections (with some artistic license), the website's animations give a fair idea about what happens near and inside a black hole. It might take some time to wrap your mind around (especially if English is not your native language), but once you unlock the fundamental idea behind the theory, it is a truly scary and amazing journey.
** And [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI9CvipHl_c#t=1m24s here's]] a video which attempts to show (with the help of a sort-of-realistic background) what we'd actually see if we were to spiral down into a black hole. (Go to 6:15 if you want to skip the commentary.) "Bizarre" doesn't even begin to describe it.
* Speaking of black holes, the current scientific theory that there is a supermassive black hole at the center of every galaxy. That means all matter in the universe is just circling one of several great cosmic drains. We're living on an eddy, being very slowly pulled into an inescapable vortex. Eventually our planet, our solar system, EVERYTHING, will be sucked down the drain and just blinked out of existence. Eventually there will be nothing but a great ravenous hole in the fabric of reality...and there's nothing we can do about it.
* Deep time. The fact that when you think about a long enough stretch of time, everything will die. Not only that, but that our current understanding of the universe implies that with enough time everything in existence will be converted into ever more widely scattered heat energy. That ultimately, it's not just that you will die, or that the human race will die, but that anything that could possibly show that either of those ever even existed will cease to be, ''and there is nothing you can do about it''.
* Gamma Ray Bursts. When huge, dying stars are consumed from within by black holes they release vast amounts of energy at very near the speed of light. In a matter of seconds, some of these blasts of energy can exceed the amount of energy that our sun will release in its entire lifetime. If one of these hit the planet then we'd probably all die before we knew what had happened. Even if one passed too close it would be like every place on one side of the planet being hit by a nuclear missile at once, and the other side of the planet dealing with the resulting wall of fire and death. The real problem is that these bursts are basically impossible to predict, and even if we could there's absolutely nothing we could do about it. The entire planet could die a horrible, fiery death within minutes of you reading this.
** WR 104. Aimed right towards us. [[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/03/03/wr-104-a-nearby-gamma-ray-burst Have a nice day.]]
* You know how the Universe just loves scaring the crap out of us planetside? What with all the Big Crunch, Supermassive Black Holes, Gargantuan Death Rays and rogue stars out there already, you feel the need to throw MOLECULAR WINDSTORMS at us! Allow me to explain, picture a Galaxy, any galaxy. Now picture something not unlike a hurricane that will rip all the molecules out of the Galaxy, leaving it sterile. These windstorms strip planets, stars, even nebulas bare of molecules. And here we are afraid of rogue black holes....
* The sounds of Saturn: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C6lymtHG60
** This is what our own planet sounds like from outer space: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AVHXMLDvWA&feature=player_embedded
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporal_paradox#Temporal_merging_hypothesis One theory]] as to how temporal paradoxes would resolve themselves is that once a temporal paradox occurred, this universe would be obliterated and be replaced with a new one with a different timeline that can accommodate whatever created the paradox. But we wouldn't be aware of it, because our universe would otherwise be exactly the same. Maybe it just happened. Maybe it just happened again.
** Or maybe our entire universe IS a replacement for sorting out a paradox, and we're just in one segment of history leading up to the creation of that paradox. It could be caused by some other civilization millions of light years away from us, and it might happen again. Humanity and everything we've created would be obliterated because of something that doesn't even know we exist. The nature of the paradox might mean we'd never be recreated again.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Humans in relation to the Universe]]
* This is basically the whole point of the CosmicHorrorStory genre as HPLovecraft envisioned it. See the genre page for details.
* Take the time to actually contemplate the vast, absurd distances between just, say, the Earth and the Moon. Then try to contemplate the Earth and another planet, or the Earth and the sun. Or the sun and another star. Your brain may start hurting and crying in fear at a glimpse of the true meaning of such a size, just the thought of all that emptiness...
** [[http://sizeofworldse.ytmnd.com/ This YTMND]] says it better than I could.
*** And it doesn't even end there. These supergiants aren't anything special, since there are billions of stars within a single galaxy. In 2003, astronomers photographed a random area of the sky measuring 11 square arc minutes, which is about as much as holding a sheet of paper 1 meter away from you and peeking through a hole 1mm x 1mm in size. To catch even extremely faint light sources, the film was exposed for a total of almost 300 hours. And in the end [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Hubble_ultra_deep_field_high_rez_edit1.jpg they ended up with this picture]].
**** [[spoiler:It shows about 10.000 Galaxies, each of them containing billions of stars. To photograph the entire sky, you'd need about 13 million photographs like this.]]
** Behold the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPm3QVKlBJg Powers of Ten.]] The Universe on both a macro and micro scale is almost incomprehensible.
* Scientists had only recently witnessed a distant supernova that had occurred '''11 billion years ago'''. With that being said, he thought this meant that there's nothing out there in the Universe, right this very minute.
* There's always the possibility that we're ''not'' alone, and the vastness of space includes the possibility of untold, fascinating new lifeforms.
* [[http://primaxstudio.com/stuff/scale_of_universe/ This]] is an interactive scale of the universe, from things human-sized (including humans), up to the Universe itself, and back down to the fabric of spacetime itself, and absolutely everything in between. Very informative and interesting... and highly haunting.
** Even more, the scale used has things such as cells and bacteria towards the ''middle''. Meaning that humans are on the large end of the scale. Think about that for a moment, and how there are things much bigger than humans. Think how a being the size of a cell would perceive the very human it inhabits, let alone the rest of the Universe.
** [[http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/589217/ Here is an updated version of the scale made by the same guy.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The Nature of Reality]]
* Quantum Immortality. Since our consciousness is evenly spread along an infinite number of nearly identical universes, from our subjective point of view we will always survive life or death situations as long as there is even a tiny chance of survival, since we will only continue to be aware in the universes where we were saved. While this does mean that we would all reach an age where we would be hospitalized because it would no longer be possible for our bodies to function by themselves, we would hardly be alone in this. There are plenty of people like this in the world, and, since there is a limit to the human life expectancy, sooner or later we would be [[CriticalExistenceFailure dead in every universe]]
** Actually, the odds are even worse than that. As we age the chances of death in the following year increase by a larger amount, but never quite to 1. What's more, beyond a certain age there's evidence that the increase slows back down again. All we know is that there isn't anyone, in this universe, who has survived thousands of years. You know why? This one's ''yours''. (Actually, no, this one's mine. Get your own universe.)
* Consider the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics]] - within the endlessly bifurcating alternate universes every possible thing happens.
[[/folder]]
----
[[HighOctaneNightmareFuel/RealLife Ready for more]], or do you [[SweetDreamsFuel need]] [[TroperTales/HeartwarmingMoments a]] [[Heartwarming/RealLife break]]?
[[/folder]]
to:
*** Cuttlefish in general are chalk full of RuleOfCool. The flamboyant cuttlefish has very poorly developed fins/whatever. So instead of swimming it uses them to -walk- on the ocean floor. The broad club cuttlefish meanwhile will use it's color changing ability to visually stun/hypnotize uncooperative prey. Though octopi generally get the better known as being intelligent, cuttlefish are much more consistent and equally intelligent. They're capable of learning - not just basic behaviourist conditioning (bell rings, do this action) but things like symbolic learning (a plastic tree in the tub means the exit with the stripe [which will change exit between tests] over it is the exit, remember, symbolic learning is the basis for ''written language''). Other species of cuttlefish functionally breed for intelligence; the biggest and strongest cuttlefish will try to regularly mate with the females but the females (who can control which sperm to use) are much more likely to use the sperm of smaller males that manage to mate with them. How do these smaller males get by the larger ones? They disguise themselves as female cuttlefish and walk right in the front door. They have the potential to be the {{Magnificent Bastard}}s of the sea.
* [[http://naamah-darling.livejournal.com/348604.html The saga of Rapemouse.]] If that's not enough, then the various anecdotes of cute animal cannibalism and brutality in the comments will be.
** For instance, pulling a spinal cord out of a blood and gore splattered rat cage because ''that was all that was left'', or watching some hamsters playing in a cage except for one that seemed to be sleeping...until one bumped it and the head was all that was there. If you think small, cute rodents are gentler than carnivorous cats and dogs, think again. Life is cheap at the bottom of the food chain, especially when you only live about three years.
** Also, the comments mention Reaver Furries, which is about the only thing more nightmare-fuelly than regular Reavers.
* Leopards. These cats are like ninjas. They have been know to crawl into houses, kill humans as they sleep, and drag them off into the night--without waking up anyone else.
* [[http://media.ebaumsworld.com/picture/emmakate/coconut_crab.jpg The Coconut Crab.]] In addition to being the largest arthropod on land, they're ludicrously strong. Strong enough to lift 64 pounds and smash coconuts open, in fact. And they can climb trees. They tend to actually shy away from humans, but if you manage to piss one off, chances are you will get hurt. Very, very badly.
*** What's even worse is the fact that it takes a flamethrower to kill one.
*** ItGotWorse...again. These buggers may have been responsible for the fact that [[NeverFoundTheBody they never found]] AmeliaEarhart's body. Some researchers are floating a theory that she ran out of fuel and ditched on a desert island, only to succumb to thirst or hunger at some point. On a HistoryChannel TV special, the team left a pig carcass out for the many crabs on the island...and they showed a high-speed shot of them swarming over the body, which was picked clean in about an hour. Brrrr.
* Any number of deep-sea creatures could fall under this, really. [[http://www.bogleech.com/bio-deep.html Let me show you them.]]
** How do you make giant isopods 100000x more scary? [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h4VuvC8KCk Time-lapse photography.]]
*** I feel this is an unfair bias against deep sea life. For in the end, can we not all gain some wisdom from the noble [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9t7E4amWDqI deep sea anglerfish]]?
*** Interesting thing about anglerfish. A male or female anglerfish cannot reach maturity on their own; instead, a male (or several), will latch onto the much larger female anglerfish. Pretty much any organ the male has that aren't his reproductive ones atrophy away, and it just becomes a protrusion on the female's body that produces sperm.
* Just the sight of the [[http://www.bogleech.com/nature/mammal-molerat3.jpg naked molerat]] is typically enough to unnerve people. Did I mention that in order to better navigate in their crowded underground tunnels, they can ''turn almost entirely around in their own skin?''
** No. The most disturbing this about naked moles rats is that there actually exists a species of ''mammals'' that live in [[BeePeople eusocial colonies]].
* A good number of invertebrates fit into this trope. I was thoroughly disgusted during an exam in invertebrate taxonomy which involved identifying live specimens. The one that has become burned into the brain was a hideous little asymmetrical thing with ridges going along its twisted curled up body with a number of thin long white tentacles coming out of it in random places. That question was marked wrong because I just couldn't bear looking at it long enough to identify it.
** And then there is the Class Polychaeta, belonging to the annelid worm family. The most notorious of these are the sand worms which burrow through the beaches of many coastlines. Segmented worms, up to 3 metres in length, with little moving bristles on the sides of each of their segments, a pair of large eyes that bulge from its front segment, and large jaws that are capable of nipping off a finger. Among the coastlines that they call home: The one that I happen to live near.
** [[SpongebobSquarePants Sponges and starfish]] aren't scary, as they're mostly harmless, but [[NightmareFuel/SpongebobSquarePants then again]]...
*** Oh really? What about the [[http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2327/2479130477_b32b348314.jpg Sun Starfish?]]
* The Irukandji Jellyfish, the most deadly jellyfish in the world. Just one brush with this thing will leave you reeling with the effects of Irukandji syndrome, a horrific condition that leaves you suffering not only every unpleasant symptom under the sun, but even ''a feeling of impending doom'' so bad that some patients are so certain they're going to die ''they ask the doctors to kill them to get it over with.'' (Probably the closest thing to [[HarryPotter Dementors]] there is.) And the worst part? [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Irukandji-jellyfish-queensland-australia.jpg THEY'RE SO RIDICULOUSLY TINY THEY'RE PRACTICALLY INVISIBLE.]]
** Not quite the deadliest though, some other jellies have stings that can kill an adult in a matter of hours. Irukandji is generally not lethal.
*** No, they'll just make you wish you they were. "Every unpleasant symptom under the sun" includes excruciating pain in various parts of the body, and wikipedia sez: "There is no known antidote for venom that has already entered the body. Morphine will not help reduce the pain." FUCK YOU, AUSTRALIA! D:
*** One person even said that'd he would've preferred getting stung by the ([[DemonicSpiders infamous]]) Box Jellyfish than an Irukandji, simply because "either you recover in 20 minutes or you die."
*** There's an account of an Irukandji victim who was pulled from the surf. After carefully removing the jellyfish remains from the now unconscious man's legs, he was dosed with painkillers and taken away to hospital. Even unconscious and Morphine'd to the eyeballs, ''he was still screaming in agony the entire time.''
* COCKROACH.
** They don't do ANYTHING, except spread diseases, and be creepy. And live without heads.
*** The problem with cockroaches is, they're too used to living like us. Grooming habits? check. Living in vast colonies? check. Capable of surviving anything? check... Capable of scaring the living piss out of any other creature in their midst? check. They're the only creature that humans seem to be universally afraid of, cause they aren't afraid of us. Unless you turn on the lights.
*** Plus, they ''smell''. Name another insect that leaves behind slimy nests in your smoke alarms and such. Pantry moths and spiders are downright civilized houseguests.
** Actually it's the tiny German cockroaches that are really scary, because you ''know'' they're living in your walls and eating your food and breeding like, um, rabbits. And until they invented Combat traps, it used to be, once you saw one, your house was doomed, there'd eventually be German cockroaches crawling out of the peeling paint when you scrape it. The giant, 2-inch scaled up cockroaches aren't as disturbing because they usually don't live indoors, they just come inside for warmth. Except on the Gulf coast where the giant cockroaches live in the house and fly around. Including when you're in the shower.
** THAT CRUNCHING NOISE MAKE IT STOP.
*** [[Film/MenInBlack Damn decent of you.]]
** They may be technically harmless, but that thing about waking up with a cockroach in your ear? Yeah, not just an urban legend. They won't lay eggs in your brain or even hurt you whatsoever if they do it, but do they ''need'' to?
* The [[http://chasenoface.blogspot.com/ cat without a face]]. Shudder.
** [[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_mtxIjWA73qM/SdQDMF4XiyI/AAAAAAAACO4/zZRWuAwySPI/s1600-h/IMG_0734.JPG That is the most horrifying thing I've seen in a long time]]. If I was that cat I would be like "Kill Me!"
** While we're at it, take a look at [[http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/cyclopes.asp this]]. Something about [[CuteKitten cats]].
* Tiger and nurse sharks cannibalise their siblings in the womb, eating their way through until they're the only one. Does anyone else find that absolutely horrifying?
** Actually sometimes happens with human babies instinctually, though I forget the medical term. Made worse because instead of eating, it's more like ABSORBING.
*** It's a type of chimerism; one fetus does absorb the other.
*** The technical scientific term is [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetus_in_fetu Fetus-in-Fetu.]]
* Type 'Rat King' into any search engine and prepare to throw up. Seriously.
** [[http://www.weird-encyclopedia.com/rat-king.php Yeah...]] Ew...
* Sphinx cats, e.g. Mr Bigglesworth in ''Austin Powers''. Argh!
** YMMV, but they're actually not as [[UglyCute disturbingly old-man-wrinkly or hairless]] as they seem, however, and are usually a pretty outgoing and friendly breed besides. It's kind of like petting a warm, purring shammy [[ShapedLikeItself shaped like a cat.]]
* Pick an Australian wild animal. Any of them. There's a good chance it can maim and/or kill you.
** Yes, this includes [[{{Discworld}} the sheep]].
*** Really, the best advice you can give a tourist visiting Australia is that, yes, the rumours are true. If it has less than two legs, or four or more legs, than it can, and will likely attempt, to kill you. Avoid at all costs. Even the cute ones, like wombats and koalas, are vicious up close.
* The sea louse. It reproduces by having a male draging five or so females into a burrow, impregnating them, and the females contain the eggs inside their body, where the larva hatch and ''eat her from the inside out''. As if pregnancy wasn't scary enough!
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leucochloridium_variae Leucochloridium variae]] is a parasite that specializes in making [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWB_COSUXMw Zombie Snails]]. The NatGeo clip on YouTube doesn't even come close to some of the more gruesome depictions I've seen of this on some nature shows.
* I saw a Discovery Channel special on wild pigs in America and how some of them might be descended from imported Eurasian wild boars. They won't eat you, but you would not want to come across one in the wild. And their population in America and Eurasia is spreading.
** Trying to avoid wild boars in their natural habitat is all fine and good, but sometimes [[http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/818514-wild-boar-runs-amok-in-office the boars come to YOUR natural habitat]]!
** Domestic pigs are dangerous enough. There's a reason why everyone acted with such concern when Dorothy fell into the pig pen.
* The mouth of the sea lamprey. Some people photoshop these onto various body parts and think that it's FUNNY.
** That's not the worst of it. They don't have jaws, you see, making them incapable of biting things. Thus, in order to feed, they ''latch onto the side of a fish and suck out its innards''.
* Since the sea is really just one giant unexplored part of the earth, we usually find creatures there that seem a little... Off. When I was young, I visited a certain beach a low tide. Walking along the seaweed, I saw loads of fishes, shrimps, sea cucumbers, clams and the like trapped in puddles. But then there was this huge rock that seemed out of place. I came closer and saw that it was covered in holes. Then, all of the sudden, these black eyes perched on black stalks came out of the holes and stared at me, then they quickly retreated. To this day, I'm still looking for that rock.
** Perhaps it was a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonefish Stonefish]]? They're very rock-like, and have protruding black eyes. Deadly venomous, too.
* Bees ([[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall my God]]) and any similar insect (wasps, hornets, etc.). I have been terrified of them since my mother was stung in the armpit while trying to protect me from one. And Africanized (or "killer") bees, previously unable to withstand cooler climates, are now managing to creep farther north as they become more resistant to cold. Sweet mercy, I hope they never make it to Pennsylvania...
** I'm right there with you, man...it makes me appreciate these 5 degree winters...
* Three words: Brain eating amoeba.
** As in this article on [[http://www.cracked.com/article_17173_7-terrifying-creatures-youll-never-see-coming_p2.html Cracked.]] It's #1 on the list, and for good reason...
* A lot of cryptids. Especially the [[http://www.bukisa.com/articles/66811_ten-ridiculously-awesome-cryptids Mothman and the Momo]].
* ''Sacculina''. When it infects a crab, it hooks into its shell and spreads tendrils throughout the body. Then it releases feminising hormones, so that even male crabs act like female ones. Then it basically uses the crab (which is sterilised by this procedure) as a puppet, right down to releasing its own spawn when the crab tries to spread its own offspring. This goes on for the rest of the crab's miserable existence, reduced to basically a puppet of a little blob of flesh descended from a barnacle.
* [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Macrocheira_kaempferi.jpg The Japanese Giant Spider Crab]] is the largest of all athropods, with a legspan of 4 meters, weighing up to 20kg and they have a life expectancy of 100 years, which means they actually lived in Ancient Japan.
** How can you miss that they are also known as [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast corpse crabs]] due to their habit of feeding on the bodies of the drowned?
* How does this section not yet have the [[http://bpwidgets.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/golden-orb-weaver-eating-bird-231x300.jpg golden orb weaver]] spider? (Warning: click at your own risk.) A spider so large it ''eats birds''. Fortunately, its toxic is not fatal to humans, except possibly when seeing one causes a heart attack.
** Surprise surprise, it's Australian.
* While they, of course, are totally unable to do this to anything larger than an insect, spiders of the ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uloboridae Uloboridae]]'' family, that lack venom glands, kill their prey wrapping them in large amounts of silk and so tightly that the pressure breaks their joints and even their exoeskeleton. Later, the spider releases over the cocoon with the unfortunate prey inside gastric fluids that kill the victim and dissolve its innards [[NightmareFuel entering where the silk has broken through]], so the spider can suck the fluids.
* Tasmanian DEVILS are called devils for a reason. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SU44KwIfBXM
* Dolphins may look all cute, doing flips with their little grins but they can be huge dicks. Males will gang up and rape a female dolphin or harass the calves of other dolphins and whales until they die. I read a story about how a dolphin that lived in a harbour would lure seagulls to the water with fish then drown them just for fun.
** And that's just the start. Just check their entry on [[http://www.cracked.com/article_15853_the-6-cutest-animals-that-can-still-destroy-you.html this]] list. What's that? They kill randomly kill their own young, just so the mother won't be preoccupied with them and can have sex? Ok, Ok, not as extreme and example as it could be... after all, ''most'' animals do that anyway. But then again, only humans and dolphins are known to go out of their way to kill animals ''just for giggles''.
** Also, they masturbate with each others blowholes. Y'know, the bit they use to breath n stuff, an equivalent to our noses. Imagine having someone get off by forcing their knob up your nose. just ew.
* [[http://www.cracked.com/funny-163-australia/ Everything in this Cracked.com article]]. Seriously, Australia...are you trying to give everyone nightmares?
** There's a reason it started as a penal colony.
*** Makes the insane amounts of bravery seen at Gallipoli(and elsewhere) a bit more understandable, don't it?
* Pick up a beautiful shell in any beach except Australia, odds are you'll take it home and make it a nice souvenir. Pick up a beautiful shell in any beach in Australia, odds are it'll shoot a poisionous harpoon at you!
* I recently watched a heron snatch a live duckling and swallow it whole. I'll never look at herons the same way again. Imagine how they would look from a duck or fish's point of view; a towering, unearthly thin body, long, spear-like beak, wide, staring eyes... Yeesh, it seems scarier than a T. rex, if mainly for that, long, uncanny neck (predators are supposed to be bulky and muscular-looking, right?) and the farking beak. Except for the eyes, of course, they almost seem like the terrifying mass-production EVA's from ''EndOfEvangelion''. FeatheredFiend, indeed.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankebetsu_brown_bear_incident The Sankebetsu brown bear incident.]]
* For anyone who does not like flying, stinging insects, [[http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Owgxo0uCZXA/SwFLFDQHvZI/AAAAAAAAAQo/zytdSa_xq_M/s1600/lebah+maluku+2.jpg Wallace's Giant Bee]]. The thing has mandibles most beetles would envy. It's endangered, though, so you will probably never see one in person. Some tropers (like me) are almost relieved.
* How's this for a creature that's kinda scary, the Ribeiroia ondatrae (and the name is it's good part), it's a kind of worm that crawls into a tadpole, and then when the thing hits puberty, it screws up it's transformation to a full frog, so it grows extra limbs and it's original ones get misshapen quite often as well, imagine going through puberty, and then waking up one day, with your knees bent the wrong way, and your tighs folded the other way, with an extra pair of smaller legs next to your genitalia.
** And the reason why it does this? Because it needs to get into a bird next, and a frog with lots of weird misshapen legs has lots of movement that's more likely to catch the eye of a predatory bird, and makes it harder for the frog to get away. So imagine that you woke up like that, and it was so that when a giant monster came around to eat you, you'd basically have a giant "EAT ME" sign on your back and couldn't get away.
* Take a box jellyfish, give it eyes, and you get [[http://www.bogleech.com/nature/cnido-cuboeyes1.jpg this]]. There's something very unsettling about that thing.
* The Goliath Tiger Fish. Google these monstrosities, and Jaws will take a backseat in your nightmares.
* I went on a nature hike where the guide gave a harrowing description of being stung by a caterpillar under the fingernail while on a hike, which soon left him in far too much pain to do the tour he had scheduled that day. After doing reserach, he discovered that this caterpillar was particularly venemous, and he would have died not long after he managed to get back to town for medical attention.
** Well, at least caterpillars are too cute for anybody to stay mad at them. Wait, no, [[http://files.myfrogbag.com/xut0p0/1207065073j5iEqv3.jpg I take that back]].
* The way Cuttlefish eat. Slowly approaching........SNAP!
* Earwigs. ''Earwigs.'' They look like they have pincers on both ends, so you can't tell if they're coming or going, they squeeze into little tiny cracks in ''your'' bedroom, and if you have an older sibling, chances are pretty good you believed they're called that because they actually crawl into your ears and lay eggs (they don't, thank God). I would give 98% of the animals and bugs on this page a big hug, but between the fear of artificial ear-semination and having the little beasties ''repeatedly'' jump out of corn husks at her while harvesting as a kid, I'm quite ready for that can of Raid.
* I don't know why elephants haven't been mentioned. Male African elephants are aggressively territorial, but in musth, the elephants mating season, their testosterone skyrockets to about ''SIXTY'' times the normal amount, making the worst case of human roid rage look like a baby pitching a fit in comparison. Combine that with the average weight of a male being about 11000 pounds, roughly 5 1/2 tons, almost all of it muscle, and a running speed of about 25-30 miles an hour. Taking into account how many people get killed by these living tanks each year, it's pretty horrifying to think how quickly a circus can turn into a nightmare.
* Ladies and Gentlemen, I introduce to you, [[http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/02_03/snakehead_468x278.jpg the Snakehead]]. This terrifying beastie, which is more dangerous than a piranha is considered unique among fish because it has the ability to breathe air and walk on land. I repeat it has the ability to ''walk on land''!
** Snakeheads aren't the most [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONhBy9uGdgs graceful things out of water though,]] but they're terrifying in water.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCgbYnNAbSM Transformer Owl]]--A YouTube video showing a certain breed of African owl and its reactions to predators of different sizes. ("Awww. it looks so cute! Ooh, they're placing a medium sized owl in front of it and it's puffing itself up as a defense mechanism. Now it looks even ''more'' cute! Awwwwww! Now they're placing a really ''big'' owl in front of it and [[GrotesqueCute OHMIGOD! WHAT THE HOLY HELL IS IT DOING!?]] [[NightmareFace THAT'S NOT RIGHT!!!]] [[BodyHorror AUUUUUGHHHHHHH!!!!]] I WANT MY MOMMY!!!!!!")
** The second "transformation" Is it trying to immitate a Lynx, or some other cat. Still distrubing though.
*** In its natural habitat, it probably would have helped it blend into tree trunks by hiding the eyes and making the profile slimmer. Compare the potoo or tawny frogmouth.
* [[{{HellIsThatNoise}} Rabbits scream.]]
** Only when they're in danger (not that that makes it any better).
** They can also aggressively attack humans. Think that was just a Monty Python joke?
* Spiders always make me (admittedly a very camp bisexual) scream. and not in a good way...
** You will never look at a red hourglass the same way again
* How do we not mention hyenas?! Strong bite force, vicious temper, and have been known to attack people.
** Most people think of a Hyena's laugh as a funny thing - we even have a [[TheHyena trope]] for it. Now imagine you're alone in the savanna at night, and [[HellIsThatNoise you hear that laughter coming from all around you]]. And this is coming from a troper who LIKES hyenas!
** And on a different level: [[ExoticEquipment "The external genitalia of females closely resemble those of males: the 15 cm (6 inch) clitoris is similar in shape and position to a penis, and is capable of erection."]] YMMV on whether this is NightmareFuel on its own, but they have to give birth through that.
* Hippos. They look cute, but they have the temper to make a {{Tsundere}} look like a YamatoNadeshiko. They are responsible for the deaths of more people than even crocodiles! And just look at those tusks! I wonder why that little girl in a Christmas song wanted one so badly.
** Plus, if you merely annoy them, they'll spray you with their feces. Whole different kind of nightmare fuel there.
*** A hippo's breath smells so foul it can scare other animals off.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookie_cutter_shark Cookiecutter sharks.]] Don't let the cute name fool you; you will NOT get any tasty baked goods from these fuckers. They are only half a metre long, but feed on other much larger predators like dolphins and seals. How? They lure them in by swimming around pretending to be normal fish, wait for them to come in for a snack and then ''take as many bites out of the unsuspecting creature as they can before it gets away.'' And just [[http://www.aasharks.com/types-of-sharks/cookiecutter-shark-picture-02.jpg LOOK AT THOSE TEETH.]] They were first dicovered after the US Navy started noticing perfectly round holes appearing in the neoprene covers of the sonar domes on their ''submarines''.
* You like puppies? Well, Ivan Palov's experiments will make you bite your nails and squirm. In the course of studying animal psychology, most of the the test subject were put into such a condition that just scream Mengele. Case in [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSrIkUXwsNk point]]
* Centipedes and millipedes. DEAR GOD. Why do these creatures exist? Creepy crawly, creepy crawly. . .
** Millipedes are cute. Somehow, upping the number of legs even further causes it to [[CrossesTheLineTwice Cross The Line Twice]]. Plus, they don't eat each other and potentially you. The same cannot be said for the giant centipede...
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAL7r7zvKDw House centipedes.]] Also known as [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRpbb6qsMB4 geji-geji]] or cave centipedes or hearth centipedes (because they crawl out of your fireplace and up the wall at 50 miles an hour like something out of a horror film). They have a million legs, each over an inch long, enough to look like a 3-inch long hairy moustache, and if you attack one, the legs come off and keep moving. Due to their speed and agility, they're totally not afraid of falling off a wall and running over your face... The good news is, they're very shy and they only eat insects, so they're considered lucky, like other things that come out of your fireplace (crickets, Santa Claus...) They only bite when cornered. And they mostly come at night... mostly. Hearth crickets, which look like some sort of evil cave cricket, are also dam' ugly.
** According to various bloggers, they are [[MemeticMutation "the only thing that scares the hell]] [[ImageBoards out of /b/"]].
** Here's another [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Scutigera_coleoptrata.JPG pic]]. [[SchmuckBait Go ahead. Enlarge the image]].
* Moray eels have a ''[[http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/08/moray_eels_attack_with_second_pair_of_alien-style_jaws.php second pair]]'' of jaws behind their teeth to grasp their prey. That's right. They eat {{Alien}}-style!
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eTzYEUW_0g Pelicans.]]
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qQzas739ic Nightmare Retardant]]
* I'm not disturbed by lobsters or crabs in and of themselves, but I'm terrified of the thought of eating them.
* I'm pretty sure Cracked won't sleep peacefully until the rest of us can't. Behold! [[http://www.cracked.com/article_18641_7-terrifying-prehistoric-creatures-that-are-still-around.html 7 Terrifying Prehistoric Creatures (That Are Still Around)]] With such wonders as:
** A fucking deep sea shark '''with a circular saw for a jaw.'''
** God damned giant-ass Stingrays '''the diameter of a VW Beetle.'''
** Some sort of unholy '''Dragon/Shark/Zombie/300-toothed-saw.'''
** Proof that there is no loving god, a cross between '''an alligator and a gar''' that is decent enough to live in swamps where they can reach you.
** A cute 'lil gecko '''the size of a human child.'''
** A "prehistoric, three-eyed, hell-shrimp".
** "The closest thing we have to genuine Lovecraftian elder gods": "'''condoms full of teeth'''".
* The way the meat, egg, and dairy industries treat animals, as seen in [[http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-513747926833909134# this video]].
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IWN8UGDyC0 The Foie Gras industry]] [[TearJerker kills female ducklings on the day they hatch.]]
** As for the males, [[SarcasmMode don't worry!]] [[ItGetsWorse It gets worse!]] Imagine being trapped in a unsanitary cage for a month [[http://media.portland.indymedia.org/images/2008/08/378473.jpg being force-fed coarse cornmeal through a metal pipe.]] And when you think you can throw it all up afterwards, you fail and either [[UpToEleven become even more cramped in the cage]] or die from the sheer amount of food inside you. That's what its like to be a Foie Gras duck ''before the slaughterhouse,'' kids.
*** While the foie gras industry is horrible, CO2 gas is considered an acceptable, humane way of killing mass quantities of animals. Of course, you're supposed to make sure they're dead before dumping them into garbage cans. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ--faib7to Grinding them up while they're alive]] is also considered acceptable and reasonably humane(because it's instantaneous). As opposed to just dropping them outside to freeze and/or starve to death.
* [[http://www.cracked.com/article/109_natures-6-most-diabolical-predators Another article from Cracked concerning the evils of nature]]. None of these are threat to humans; however, the fact that nature would spawn such sadistic and clever predators is a tad unnerving (and one of those is a ''plant''). The pictures don't help either (the ones with the beetle grubs and the assassin bug actually made me shudder). And the entries start out with the POV of the ''prey''. Oh, and arachnophobes should steer clear of this article. Just saying.
** Cracked should have it's own HONF page.
* Coconut Crabs and Japanese Spider Crabs. Not fun stumbling on pictures of the former when all you were doing was innocently looking up information on New Caledonia. The latter? Thanks, Alton Brown.
* Wasps, especially yellow jackets and hornets. I recently had a nightmare about there being a nest in the mailbox. And have you read any news stories about "super-sized" nests? This nightmare scenario happens more often in real life than you think.
** The grand champion of nightmare fuel-errific stinging insects is the Japanese Giant Hornet. I dare you to search on YouTube. 2 inches long, and its lethal venom dissolves human flesh. And its horrifying helicopter-like buzz.
** The fine folks at Cracked bring you the Giant Hornet (and more!) in [[http://www.cracked.com/article_15816_5-most-horrifying-bugs-in-world.html The 5 Most Horrifying Bugs.]]
** Not allergic to bees? You don't die in 60 seconds on one sting if you don't recieve medical care? '''You don't know shit about being afraid of bees.'''
* Two words: Box Jellyfish.
** Cone [[strike:shells]] snails. Blue-ringed octopi. Recommendation: '''stay the hell out of the water in [[LandDownunder Australia]]'''.
*** Even worse (and, in a twisted way, cooler) are the facts that the cone snail hurts about as much as a bee sting, the octopus ''doesn't hurt at all'', and both of them use the poison Tetrodotoxin, for which there. Is. No. Cure.
**** (Insert Herpes Commercial BGM here) ...but there IS a treatment. Aggressive life support (i.e., intubation and ventilation) started near or before onset of symptoms, stomach pumping if ingested, IV fluids, and certain drugs (alpha adrenergic agonists and anticholinesterases, for those interested) can get a person through the time until the toxin is out of the body; if they survive 24 hours, chances are they'll make it.
*** And there's no cure or treatment for cone snail poison, either. If you are bitten, you can pretty much kiss your ass goodbye.
** If that's so, that would simply apply to the whole area of Indo-Pacific. Here's a saccharine-sweet addition: ''Synanceia verrucosa'', (in)formally known as Stonefish. Armed with one of the most powerful fish toxins and can easily induce even the most stoic bruisers into gasping sobs. A fair trip to the reef flats of [[EastIndies Indonesia]] can yield at least an encounter or two, if your eyes are sharp enough to see them.
*** In case you don't appreciate how hard it is to see a stonefish, look at [[http://fishindex.blogspot.com/2008/06/stonefish-most-venomous-fish-in-world.html this.]] That's right. These fish are ''invisible''.
** While we're on the subject of deadly creatures found on one of Australia's greatest tourist attractions, the GREAT BARRIER REEF, we seem to have forgotten sea snakes and sting rays. Seventeen species of sea snake are on the GBR, ''all'' of which are fatally poisonous, but generally easy-going as long as they stay in the water. And sting-rays are really in the same boat: docile until provoked (ie, stepped on or trapped between a legend and a camera).
** You're not much better out of the water in Oz, either. The Australian Outback is a damn scary place. I learned that after reading BillBryson's ''In a Sunburned Country''. 120-degree temperatures, spinifex bushes (they have hypodermic-like tips that ''break off'' and become lodged in your skin, inviting flies and infection), all manner of poisonous snakes and scorpions, and did I mention the flies? Bryson's book has a lovely anecdote about how one of the outback explorers brought a camel along which got such a bad bite that ''they were scooping out maggots with a coffee cup''. When a ''camel'' starts suffering in a desert, you know you're in a damn nasty place.
*** The [[FluffyTheTerrible Teddy Bear Cholla]], a cactus found in the southwestern US and northern Mexico, is similar to the aforementioned bushes. The needles come off very easily, and are barbed, meaning that with movement, they move through one's body. I remember a guide talking about how a needle got into the sole of his foot, and ended up working its way out of the top of his foot.
**** Oh, that's ''far'' from the worst of it. Cholla is a very odd plant in that it's segmented; it's shaped a bit like [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Opuntia_bigelovii_2.jpeg a demented balloon animal]]. Those little segments will all break off at the slightest provocation; the plant spreads when they're carried somewhere else and take root. In practical terms, this means you have a decent chance of having an entire 3-inch-long length of cactus attach itself to your leg. The stuff is also sometimes called "jumping cactus," because due to that habit of falling apart and the way human reflexes work, you often won't feel the sting from the thorns until a fraction of a second after you've already moved away, making it seem like the hellish little thing actually ''jumped across the intervening space to attach itself to your skin''. Also, the reason for the name? The thorns are ''clear'' and so numerous and fine that from a distance the damn stuff [[LightIsNotGood looks fluffy or glowy]]. So yeah, ridiculous numbers of wickedly barbed, needle-sharp, hair-thin, near-invisible thorns that'll brush off at the slightest provocation, appear to leap gaps, and hurt like the dickens. And god help you if your ''dog'' gets into the stuff...
** Sydney Funnelweb. A literal real-life DemonicSpider.
*** And it ''still'' [[ItGotWorse gets worse]] - Sydney Funnelwebs are only the ''second'' most dangerous variety of the spider. Their fantastically badass cousins, who inhabit [[CutesyNameTown Orchid Beach]] on Fraser Island, are [[UpToEleven even more venomous]] and there are a lot more of them per square metre. And the kicker? Go to Orchid Beach today and there stands the decaying remains of a ''holiday resort.'' I wonder why they abandoned it...
* [[http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12840743/porks_dirty_secret_the_nations_top_hog_producer_is_also_one_of_americas_worst_polluters Hog farming.]]
-->The lagoons [holding ponds for pig manure, urine, blood, afterbirth, and stillborn piglets] themselves are so viscous and venomous that if someone falls in it is foolish to try to save him. A few years ago, a truck driver in Oklahoma was transferring pig shit to a lagoon when he and his truck went over the side. It took almost three weeks to recover his body. In 1992, when a worker making repairs to a lagoon in Minnesota began to choke to death on the fumes, another worker dived in after him, and they died the same death. In another instance, a worker who was repairing a lagoon in Michigan was overcome by the fumes and fell in. His fifteen-year-old nephew dived in to save him but was overcome, the worker's cousin went in to save the teenager but was overcome, the worker's older brother dived in to save them but was overcome, and then the worker's father dived in. They all died in pig shit.
** As a permaculture and self-sufficiency enthusiast, ''all'' industrial-scale farming qualifies for me.
* [[http://www.wheredopuppiescomefrom.com/ Puppy mills.]] Ever wondered where those adorable puppies in pet store windows come from? Well it turns out they're farmed, much like battery hens. That's right, there are battery farms ''for puppies''. The dogs are kept in cages their entire lives and forced to breed continuously, sometimes until ''their uteruses fall out.'' Because the dog breeding industry has little regulation, the law does not require these dogs to ever receive vet care, any kind of human contact, or, y'know ever be let out of their cages. Oh, and there are also kitten, bird, rabbit and ferret mills. Good luck ever looking at a pet store the same way again. Moral of the story? Always, always, '''always''' adopt from an animal shelter. '''Seriously.''' For those who absolutely '''must''' have a pure-breed of some kind, at least go to a breeder directly where you can see the mother.
** I, a dog-loving troper, find this news to be more of a {{Tear Jerker}} than nightmare fuel.
** You'll never see a dog for sale in a pet shop in the UK; almost all are bought directly from breeders or owners whose pets have had a litter. The RSPCA and Scottish SPCA take a very dim view of puppy farming.
** America is starting to get on this, unfortunately approaching it by punishing legitimate breeders and people who show dogs.
** There are also pure-breed rescue places if you want a particular kind of pure-breed cat or dog. Sometimes the official clubs for those animals run the rescue and adoption services also.
** This places a whole new and somber, if not sinister, spin on [[{{Peanuts}} Snoopy's]] puppyhood at the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm.
** It gets worse when you're working at a shelter that rescues these puppy mill dogs. I've seen dogs with severe PTSD (There's no other word f,or it), dogs with no teeth, dogs with fur so matted that it's literally coming off their bodies, dogs who are blind, dogs with their ears hacked off...
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A7gBS3QiqA This video]] showing the use of "Henderson Castration Tools". Insert the sac into the clamp, put the clamp in a variable speed drill and spin about 20 times until the cord fractures and the balls come right off. Especially nice is the scene where they inject anesthetic into the horse's testicles.
* While watching the ''Planet Earth'' series, I got to the part about jungles. Now, up until then there have been predator-prey chases, which are understandable, they're necessary. But then we get to the part about the parasitical fungi that can literally cause a ZombieApocalypse for an ant colony. They even showed the fungus [[BodyHorror growing from the ant's head]]. In time-lapse. On ''Blu-Ray''. An then there are the other pics of various other insects. AHHHHH!!!
** Oh yeah, didn't they say something like "one species of fungus that specializes in each individual insect to prevent competion"? so for every species of insect on the rainforest, there's a species of this fungus just for that insect?
* The Cane Toad is well known in the scientific community for 2 reasons. One is for being one of the worst invasive species on earth. The other? It engages in necrophillia more than any other species on earth. Not just with other cane toads either. Birds, mammals, snakes, lizards, other amphibians, you name it.
** Besides looking ugly and spreading like a plague, it EATS CORPSES,Its HIGHLY POISONOUS and its FUCKING BIG. Its regarded as a pest that should be neutralized.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_badger The honey badger]]. A member of the ''Mustelidae'' family, which includes weasels, stoats, minks, martens, otters, sea otters, badgers, polecats, and the wolverine. We all know how BadAss and scary they can be. The honey badger takes it UpToEleven. It's skin is thick and tough enough that it's nearly impossible to penetrate it even with arrows and spears. It can turn around in its skin with ease. It is a tireless and determined predator, and it will eat ''anything'' it can find and overpower. It has extremely few predators, and even the king of beasts himself would prefer to face an angry bull elephant than a pissed-off honey badger. One took the food right out of a puff adder's mouth (the second-most dangerous snake in Africa after the black mamba), then proceeded to kill the snake, receiving a few bites in the process. Halfway through eating the snake, the venom took effect and the badger passed out. A couple of hours later, the badger woke up and ''immediately began finishing off his interrupted meal'' with no problem. Oh, and their preferred method of fighting larger predators? [[BodyHorror They go for the genitals]].
* Although EverythingsBetterWithPlatypi, everything is '''''WAY''''' worse with their venom. Sadly, it's not lethal. Instead, it incapacitates the victims and [[AndIMustScream LEAVES THEM IN PAIN SO EXCRUCIATING THAT NOT EVEN MORPHINE DOES ANYTHING]].
** Quoth ''{{Cracked}}'': "The platypus is God's way of saying, 'I made this thing out of scraps left on the floor and it can still fucking cripple you.'"
* My biology class was made of this. Examples: Delivery of pig fetuses for human anatomy class, teacher showing us a cow's eye, and more, but I will only tell the most horrific event that had occured to me.
** One day while going into the the locked storage door, a friend told me to look for a "cat." I looked in the back of a room and found a {{Squick}} inducing nightmare, a cat opened up, as if ready for surgery, with all organs visible and had a expression of howling pain. I ran out of class that day
* I'm surprised no one's mentioned chimpanzees. They may look cute and cuddly when they're babies, but they are absolute ''assholes'' when fully grown. There's a reason most primatologists only work with juveniles--adults can grow to be about 5'4" and are ''extremely'' dangerous. They're at least twice as strong as humans, and when they attack, they go for the face and genitals.
** There have been reports of chimpanzes snatching young childeren and draging them off into the wilderness. Guess what happend next..
* Meet the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_wandering_spider Brazilian wandering]] [[http://www-tc.pbs.org/wnet/nature/files//home/wnetwp/webroot/wnet/wp-content/blogs.dir/3/files/2008/10/8.jpg spider]], certified by Guinness as the most venomous spider on Earth. (Arachnaphobes should [[SchmuckBait not click]] that second link.) It lives all over South America, and has occasionally traveled all over the world in shipments of [[http://tizona.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/brazilian_wandering_spider1.jpg bananas]]. They've wound up in all kinds of grocery markets, and even [[http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200505/s1357179.htm hospitals]]. The thing can wind up with a five-inch leg span, and in South America tend to inhabit rather well-populated areas. Because they're wanderers, they like to hide during the day rather than build webs--in enclosed, dark spaces. Like under your bed, or in your closet, or the cupboard under the sink.
* Ever seen an angry horse before? [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rapa_das_bestas_sabucedo_2_jpereira.jpg Here you go]].
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqDjRCHyjTY Mike the Headless Chicken]] anyone?
* Bull sharks. While most sharks will only attack when threatened or as a case of mistaken identity, these sharks have been known to attack people without any provocation whatsoever. Don't believe me? [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pjbH5OuBc4 Here's proof]]. But what's worse than a hyper-aggressive shark with no qualms about mauling a human? Try one that goes into ''freshwater''. They aren't just in there accidentally, they have adapted to swim in freshwater and have been found hundreds of miles inland. These sharks have been found in the Mississippi, the Congo, Zambezi, Ganges, Amazon, Euphrates and Tigris rivers among others. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_Shore_shark_attacks_of_1916 The Jersey Shore Shark Attacks]], the inspiration for ''{{Jaws}}'' is now largely believed to have been the work of a ''single bull shark''.
* Frogs and Toads. First of all, there are poison dart frogs, which can kill you just by touching you. Venom oozes through the pores on their skin. But that's not the worst of it. See, all the other frogs have voracious appetites. They will pretty much eat anything they can jam into their mouths and (hopefully for their sake) swallow. And the larger the frog, the larger the prey. The largest frogs eat ''mice''. And bullfrogs? They can jump straight out of the water at a bird passing over their pond, catch them in mid-air and swallow them. There is very little reason to doubt that a frog twice the size of a person would swallow that person ''whole'' if it ever laid eyes on it.
** Speaking of frogs, there is a type of beetle that has been found to suck the life right out of frogs as seen [[http://bogleech.com/bio-epomis.htm here]].
** Poison dart frogs, unlike venomous and even some other poisonous animals, are ''not at all poisonous'' in captivity, because their poison is synthesized from their diet in the wild. There are captive-bred poison dart frogs in the pet trade, which is no surprise, because apart from the poison, they're ''adorable''.
* Tiger beetles. They don't harm humans, but just imagine what it would be like if you were it's prey and the last thing you saw was [[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_vXzN1osDLC0/S_lIu6CTJHI/AAAAAAAAAIQ/VN33T6GZujs/s1600/TIGERBEETLE+1.jpg THIS]]. It would also be moving at you at 5 miles an hour, which relative to it's body weight would be like watching as a fully-grown man armed with hedge-clippers comes running at you at ''480 miles per hour''!
%% Please keep the humans example at the bottom of the folder as a [[TheStinger stinger]].
* Face eating Northern in the middle of the lake (Northern= toothed, evil fish). My cousin made a joke about it when I was 6. I had a nightmare that bodies with faces chewed down to the bone washed up on the shore. I couldn't bring myself to swim out too deep for years.
* A reporter on the ''BBC World Service'' tells the story of a couple who visited an Eskimo village in Alaska, and excitedly got to see a live polar bear, and when they got there, were horrified to watch as it was killed in front of their eyes.
** On the subject of polar bears. Remember that scene in ''[[StarWars The Empire Strikes Back]]'' where Luke gets ambushed by the Wampa? Literally comes out of nowhere and nearly caves his head in? That's what polar bears do in ''real life''. They cover up their snouts and eyes as prey approaches or as they stalk it, then suddenly spring up and hit it before it even knows what's collapsed it's skull. The best part? Polar bears are one of the few bear species that actively seek out humans as prey.
* [[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QibpmJvBDQU/TazL8C-DodI/AAAAAAAAAEw/cr6oaCFId4s/s1600/zvK9C.jpg This is what a maggot looks like under a microscope]].
* Birds of prey when they catch animals. That animal will be carried for who-knows-how-long, in terror the whole time knowing what's about to happen, to a nest with baby birds. These babies will then slowly eat it ALIVE. It's much more merciful if the animal is killed before it gets to the nest but that doesn't happen all that much...
* It's not an animal, but the full run of carnivorous plants apply. They are truly nefarious traps, which when you read about them sound like something Jigsaw might come up with if he was a botanist. Venus Flytraps are pressure-activated cages. Pitcher plants are impossible-to-escape acid-bottomed pits. Flypaper plants are sticky traps, where the prey dies of exhaustion, starvation or suffocation. Lobster-trap plants allow prey to come in, but keep it from getting out with inward-pointing barbs. The craziest, though, has to be the aquatic bladderworts. They pump out ions to generate a partial vacuum. The plant keeps this vacuum behind a leafy "door". When an aquatic insect comes along and touches a trigger hair, the "door" swings open and the vacuum sucks the insect inside. It's a ''lever-operated vacuum trap''. Thankfully, none of them fall into the ManEatingPlant category.
* Parrots can be very intimidating on their own. However, many people find them cute and great to have as pets. Then, some species as they get older can really put people into a state of fear. The birds, if not properly trained from a young age (and being incredibly intelligent), can start taking advantage of their owner. They'll make loud noises for your constant attention, they'll become aggressive and mean-spirited (especially cockatoos and macaws), and they'll throw a temper fit when you don't give them what they want. Also, placing them in a cage doesn't always do the trick as many of them can figure out how to escape. Even worse is that some of the larger parrots have strong enough jaws to chew their own cage, even when ''it is stainless steel''. Usually the only solution is to give the bird up to a rescue agency, which can result in the bird becoming depressed because of the loss of it's companion (the owner). This is why it is usually custom for a salesperson of parrots to make sure the customer thinks ''long'' and ''hard'' about this decision.
* I can't believe noone's mentioned Primates yet, gorillas espessially. Those things are monsters that can easily rip someone in two. And don't get me started on Chimpanzees. For example if they're smiling at you, you'd better run like hell, 'cause he ain't happy to see you.
** Fortunately, a lot of the great apes are actually quite calm, so long as you do not provoke them. They can hurt you, but they typically resort only to posturing. But chimpanzees? Whereas a gorilla will mostly beat his chest and make a show to get you to leave, chimpanzees may go out of their way to murder your ass ''for the hell of it''. Once, a group of "problem chimps" escaped from a primate sanctuary in Sierra Leone and came across a cab. The passenger in the cab managed to get out when the chimps got to it and decided to attack. The driver? Well let's just say that "pulled apart" barely described it.
* Spiders that spin 82 foot webs and leeches that saw their way through your rectum. And that's just the first two entries.
** http://www.cracked.com/article_19719_6-terrifying-new-creatures-science-just-discovered.html?wa_user1=1&wa_user2=Science&wa_user3=article&wa_user4=feature_module
* [[FeatheredFiend The cassowary]]. Sure, it doesn't look very dangerous, but a well placed kick from it can criple an adult, and it [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dcQO6Zb8Eg roars and growls]].
[[/folder]]
[[folder: The Most Dangerous Animal Of Them All]]
* [[HumansAreBastards Humans]]. Inhabiting much of the planet's land mass, they often kill each other and many other species for fun. And they have nukes.
** Considering that there are few animals who kill off members of their own species: humans are truly the most dangerous animal of all, endangering everything on the planet, including other humans. And we're not only talking about genocidal dictators or terrorists like Hitler, Stalin, Bin Laden, Mao, Djenghis Khan, Attilla the Hun, Pol Pot,... On a huge industrial scale humans are rapidly destroying their own environment by destroying and poisoning nature's life sources, thus putting the survival of all mankind in danger for future generations!
*** The Mosquito begs to differ. They have killed 45 billion people. To put this in perspective, they have ''killed more humans then every recorded war ever fought'', and ''more than half the number of people that ever lived''.
** You mean ''literally'' more than every recorded war ever fought? As in, from [[http://ancienthistory.about.com/b/2003/07/15/the-first-war-ever-recorded.htm the war between Sumer and Elam in 2700 B.C.]] to ''now''!?
**** Consider that, to a mosquito, a [[HumansAreCthulhu human is a mountain-sized torch]]. Mosquitoes [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu are total badasses.]]
*** Plus, there is also the idea that at least mosquitoes have a reason to suck blood, if they don't get the proper nutrients from blood, the eggs inside of them will die.
* How's about this to keep you up at night? Right now, we are currently living in one of the largest mass extinctions of life on Earth, rivaled only by the Great Dying. Take a guess as to what scientists think is causing [[YouBastard it]]. Humans can cause much, ''much'' more disease, destruction, and death then just about any other animal ''known on the planet.''Heck, we have the power to destroy much of the planet with nukes.
[[/folder]]
----
[[folder: RLNF Cosmic Horror, Eschatology and What Comes After]]
--> ''[[HopeSpot "You lot, you spend all your time thinking about dying, like you're gonna get killed by eggs, or beef, or global warming, or asteroids. But you never take time to imagine the impossible.]] Like maybe you survive."''
-->--'''The Doctor''', ''Series/DoctorWho''
--> ''"Nobody likes us 'big picture' people."''
-->--'''Calvin''', ''CalvinAndHobbes''
----
!!Please take all debate to the discussion page.
Do not post just to disprove a theory or to add NightmareRetardant. Both of them are {{natter}} here! Take all debate to the discussion page.
[[foldercontrol]]
%%
%% Do not post just to disprove a theory or to add NightmareRetardant. Both of them are {{natter}} here!
%%
[[folder:The Afterlife and Other Eternal Life scenarios]]
* WhoWantsToLiveForever.
* [[TakeAThirdOption Different option]]: We figure out how to upload our consciousness to a super computer and live millions of eternities in a mere few years, if that, and after exhausting every possible reality we can think of, end ourselves knowing that we have truly lived, willing to accept what happens, whether that is eternal life or nothingness.
** Alternate nightmare fuel? If that's a possible outcome, it's also possible that we've already done this. Every consciousness now exists on a supercomputer. This entire world and our entire lives are simply one of the aforementioned simulated existences. If we're lucky, it's multiplayer, and all of us happen to be sharing in this specific experience. If we're not lucky, only one person in the whole of existence is 'real'. The rest of us are simulated and meaningless, we have no way of knowing who the 'real' person is and therefore who our world revolves around and due to the implied desire (for a 'clean' experience) inherent in simulating an entire life for the experience of living it, he/she probably doesn't know either.
* What if there IS an afterlife? What if you were such a bad person that finally meets death? Yep. You're going to hell, and suffering for eternity in the most painful ways possible that you wouldn't if you were alive.
* There are [[FateWorseThanDeath things that will make you wish you were dead]] you say? Satan and Hell says hi right to that statement before proving that statement completely wrong.
* Singularitarians belive that cessation of existence is the worst possible outcome imaginable. Death is an obstacle to be conquered, rather than an inevitability to which we should all sheepishly submit.
* The concept of oblivion brings horror... the concept of infinity eternity brings horror... Did the cosmos become some sort of [[EldritchAbomination horror elemental]] when I wasn't looking? (Maybe this is where {{Gnosticism}}'s concept of an inept and/or malicious Demiurge gets its appeal...)
* The Rapture, and all other apocalyptic beliefs. In the US alone, 40% of the population believes that Jesus will return ''in their lifetime''. Stop and think about that for a second. At any given moment, a very, very large percentage of the human population believes that it's okay to run through resources at lightning speed, making no plans to invest in alternative energy, because their chosen deity (this isn't just limited to Christians) is going to come back and make everything all right. The same goes for things like curing disease, battling starvation and ending war.
** And that's not even getting into the Rapture cults who believe that war, famine and disease are all signs that Jesus is about to return, and view such events with thinly veiled joy.
* Suppose you are the only sentient, sapient being in the entire universe. The universe was created simply for your own amusement. Sounds wonderful, no? Actually, this means everyone you know and love ceases to exist the moment you don't see or hear or experience them in any way. Sitting in your living room right now? That is the entire universe at the moment, because why bother rendering the rest of space and time when the only being in existence, you, is reading TVTropes? All of history was fabricated so you would believe other people are thinking, intelligent humans. But they aren't. Only you exist.
** On the flip side of this, imagine that you aren't a sentient, sapient being; that someone else is. This person truly experiences reality. Everything you feel and experience is a grossly dumbed down and simplified version of true perception. Your brain is hideously slow, your eyes only see three primary colors instead of their twelve, you only exist in three dimensions instead of fourteen. [[CosmicHorrorStory This "god" is enormously superior to everything you could ever hope to be. They go about the world experiencing reality, while the rest of us literally are just here for their amusement.]]
*** The scariest thing is that, while the first suggestion denies itself (that would make us our own God), the second may be true and we may be only a toy to the rest of the people around us. It would explain a lot, be less scary and still manage to make you feel like an awful piece of crap and trash.
*** A combination of the two is even more frightening, such as starting out as the first and through some process ended up as the latter. Where the price of godhood is a hallucination where only you exist, while interacting with others means always being at the mercy of a collective-consciousness empowered by everyone's rejected omnipotence. Knowing that, even at the height of your power, you could never compete with the cumulative power of everyone else.
* The idea of [[TheNothingAfterDeath there being no afterlife]] has caused me to stay awake crying one night, and then put me into a depression.
** I can add to that: What if you get Alzheimer's Disease and there IS an afterlife? What if the soul that is allowed to go to heaven is that of you as a husk of a person, instead of the you throughout the rest of your life? Spending Eternity™ as only a husk of yourself, and everything that made you YOU gone, is rather unnerving...
** Or alternately, you can also worry about what happens if there ''is'' an [[AndIMustScream afterlife?]]
* The idea of [[AndIMustScream eternal punishment in Hell]] is pretty horrific enough, but the Calvinist belief of predestination actually makes this [[BeyondTheImpossible even more terrifying]]. How? According to Calvinist theologians, God picks and chooses who to save and who to damn. This [[FridgeHorror implies]] that God created some people for the sole purpose of being sent to Hell, [[YouCantFightFate and there's nothing that they can do about it.]] Fortunately, not many people believe in this, but the idea is horrifying enough.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Dying]]
* Let's face it ladies and gentlemen. There's a reason why so many people fear death and consider it to be the worst fate...IT'S A FUCKING TERRIFYING THOUGHT! [[CessationOfExistence Say that there is NO afterlife. Yep. pitch black darkness with nothing going on at all.]]
* I would like to assert that Danny Elfman said it best:
---->No one beats [Death] at his game\\
For very long but just the same\\
Who cares, there's no place safe to hide\\
Nowhere to run--no time to cry\\
So celebrate while you still can\\
'Cause any second it may end\\
And when it's all been said and done\\
Better that you had some fun\\
Instead of hiding in a shell\\
Why make your life a living hell?\\
So drink a toast, and down the cup\\
And drink to bones that turn to dust ('cause)\\
No one (x13)\\
No one lives forever!! (hey!)
* Then there's [[http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html Isaac Asimov's]] contribution to this problem, with a TwistEnding.
* This was Nietzsche's whole point in his part of the dialogue of western philosophy. Reality exists. So do we. We assume we are special. We're probably not. All human experience has been spent in the attempt to formulate truth so we don't have to contemplate the horror of being without reason. [[NietzscheWannabe Lots of people]] get the ultimate point behind this stance wrong though; Mr. Nietzsche wanted us to honestly and totally accept life as causa sui, and to wholly embrace it without the interference of human rationalization. Now, he admits that that's a pretty fucked up way to live and describes it as the "Will to Die" and states pretty explicitly that it is no way shameful to prefer self-generated "truth" in order to be happy. Also, the EternalRecurrence (the idea that all time repeats endlessly, much like the Quantum Immortality example below, but with each repeat being identical to the one before) to some is HighOctaneNightmareFuel (WhoWantsToLiveForever is bad enough, but being forced to see your own same mistakes over and over again is a cosmic AndIMustScream, especially if said mistakes are [[MindRape traumatic]]) while Nietzsche views it as the ultimate affirmation of life.
---->What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.' [Nietzsche, F. The Gay Science, §341]
* The simple fact that [[NothingIsScarier NOBODY KNOWS]] what happens after you die, nor can the human mind comprehend it.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The End of Civilization As We Know It]]
* At several points in Earth's history, worldwide volcanic eruptions wiped out upwards of 98% of all species on the planet. This could conceivably happen again at any time. If it's not volcanic fury that gets us, it'll be a meteor or some other sudden event that can be predicted but not prevented. The ones killed initially will be the lucky ones. The rest will be left to starve to death.
* Our sun is too small to go nova. What ''will'' happen is that it'll run out of fuel, swell into a Red Giant and ''engulf the Earth as it expands.'' Popular science says that won't happen for a good 5 billion years, but it's still a fun thought to entertain.
** Altough human life on Earth will become unbearable in much less time than that, because the sun is constantly expanding, it won't just suddenly swell in to a giant ball - altough the process gets progressively faster in time. In approximately 100 million years it is thought to be too warm for modern day humans to live, and in 500 million years, the temperatures on Earth reach levels such as that oceans will boil away.
* Watch ''Life After People''.
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBtHICMmDJk Which]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBNLl7T3EIw&feature=related can]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLlJBHhE2Hw&feature=related be]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4GTRab56_A&feature=related seen]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YM_rsu2CcsI&feature=related right]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHrlkoVlUFQ&feature=related here.]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSjRG-VJhWg&feature=related Watch]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPA3ocklQf4&feature=related nature]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4g4hV3Mmlg&feature=related fight back.]]
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XDbcMND7fY&feature=related Better]] version.
* Hardin's "Tragedy of the Commons" and how often I've seen that behaviour. You can try it this Halloween. Put a bowl of candy out for the trick-or-treaters. There's nothing preventing the ones who aren't accompanied by adults from overturning the ''entire bowl'' into their bag and leaving nothing left for everyone else. What makes this scary? It doesn't ''just'' apply to Halloween Candy. Which is particularly chilling when you think about how much society depends on fossil fuels, and how quickly we go through them. Regardless of one's stance on climate change, no one can deny that fossil fuels are going to become an issue in the future when we start running low... unless they believe that there won't ''be'' any future, which brings us to another bit of nightmare fuel...
* Watch the History Channel or Discovery Channel, eventually they'll have a "How the world ends" special. If you're religious, the History Channel provides you with plenty of cases of prophecies coming true. If you're the scientific nut, you're treated to many scientific ways the world will end including the super volcano at Yellowstone bringing nuclear winter on its own, a Deep Impact or Armageddon worthy asteroid impact, and the infamous Large Hadron Collider making exotic particles or micro-black holes. Doubly worse for the religious as the scientific ways the world will end are in fact, very possible. Especially the asteroid (we have a higher chance of impact than you getting struck by lightning).
* There's a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_caldera super volcano underneath Yellowstone.]] If it explodes, it's predicted that the entire United States will be covered in at least few centimeters of ash (in areas farthest away from the volcano), cars and planes won't function since the ash is finer and heavier than snow (causing all the engines to clog), and the ash in the atmosphere will block out the sun for several years. [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Oh, and it's overdue for its next eruption.]] At least scientists speculate that [[ApocalypseHow humanity itself won't necessarily go extinct, just that civilization as we know it might end.]]
** Yellowstone is possibly peanuts compared to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory Lake Toba, which has almost once wiped out humanity]] - the human gene pool was presumably once down to only about ten thousand individuals - and that's the optimistic estimate, the more pessimistic one has humanity dodging a bullet with a mere 1,000 individuals left.
* Care to know how the world and/or humanity might end? Go to [[http://www.exitmundi.nl/exitmundi.htm Exit Mundi]]. Excellent, witty, and sometimes disturbing reads. My personal favorite? "Eternity".
* Solar storms. Solar storm of 1859 resulted in things like "Telegraph pylons threw sparks and telegraph paper spontaneously caught fire."
* Two more potential ticking {{depopulation bomb}}s: Mass infertility due to pollution, malnutrition/undernourishment, obesity, etc. (many kids may die before their parents). We're seeing some of the effects already.
* With the possibility of a "zombie virus" able to be genetically engineered, WorldWarZ might actually happen.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The End of the Universe]]
* Before start reading this section, go to [[http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html Atomic Rockets]] Have fun realising just how stuck we really are on this miserable rock.
* Antimatter. Mixing matter (ex: the universe) and antimatter can lead to the annihilation of both.
** The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strangelet Strangelet]] is no better.
*** And while Antimatter functions like a [[YinYangBomb Yin Yang Bomb]], causing the immediate annihilation of both matter and antimatter into a crapton of energy, Strangelets function like [[TheVirus The Virus]], converting more and more baryonic (normal) matter into strange matter. It could theoretically take just a single strangelet to set off a chain reaction that results in the entire earth becoming one massive, hot ball of strange matter.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_fate_of_the_universe The ultimate fate of the universe]].
* Given that the Cosmological Constant seems to be stronger in one direction of the universe and weaker in another, it's very likely that at one point along the spectrum a vacuum metastability event has already occurred or will soon. But the universe won't be instantly obliterated; the collapse would propagate at the speed of light and you'd never see it coming. Comforting, yes?
* Here's a fun thought: the solar system is not completely stable, but only metastable. It may happen, sometime in the next few million years, that Mercury and Venus could pass close enough to one another that their mutual gravitation messes up their orbits, in turn messing up the orbits of the other inner planets. So Earth might crash into another planet, get thrown into the sun, or get flung off into interstellar space.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_decay Proton decay]]. Currently hypothetical, but it may be that in the truly deep depths of infinite time there won't be any matter left - just photons (red-shifted to almost nothing), neutrinos (don't interact in any meaningful way), and a vanishingly thin haze of electron/positron pairs that haven't quite got around to annihilating each other yet. Oh, and whatever it is that Dark Matter turns out to be... assuming it doesn't decay too.
** Please note that while the above is the most likely scenario, the mass/energy-being-created-out-of-practically-nothing vacuum fluctuations will always be around as long as space itself exists. Given the unlimited amount of time ahead of us, if there's the slightest chance of those actually creating something useful, then that will come to pass eventually.
* Speaking of celestial bodies and whatnot- Black holes. They are scary as hell when you really get into what they are and what, precisely, they are doing. They warp the fabric of space-time. They are absolutely huge, they eat everything, and you can't even see them unless there's a backdrop of, say, interstellar gas to provide a contrast. If one should happen to drift in the direction of our planet -and this is, in fact, entirely possible-, even if we saw it coming years in advance, there would be nothing we could do about it. [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption You do not stop a black hole.]] Plus, once you cross the event horizon, you are not ever coming back. And although it's unknown what, exactly, happens inside a black hole (though there are plenty of theories), it's safe to assume that it's probably something fairly horrible. If there are in fact RealLife [[CosmicHorror Cosmic Horrors]], they are probably black holes.
** The cosmic/dev/null.
** There's proof that, to an observer, somebody falling into a black hole will freeze just outside of the event horizon. That could mean that, just outside of the event horizon, [[FateWorseThanDeath YOU freeze]] and are trapped there, frozen in time, [[AndIMustScream forever.]]
** There's also these Einstein-Rosen bridges in them that lead to a mirror universe, but of course not without completely destroying you upon entering. An additional twist to this curious mirror universe is Roy Kerr's idea of rotating black holes that don't have infinite gravity at an area and could maybe be possible to go inside. Coming closer to one gives you a "house of mirrors" effect according to Michio Kaku's book titled ''Hyperspace''. So you drive a spaceship to a rotating black hole and pray you enter it from the right spot and suddenly start seeing many copies of your ship from the window until you run into one that's real and from another universe.
** Read through the following [[http://casa.colorado.edu/~ajsh/dive.html website]] and witness the animations. Though simple projections (with some artistic license), the website's animations give a fair idea about what happens near and inside a black hole. It might take some time to wrap your mind around (especially if English is not your native language), but once you unlock the fundamental idea behind the theory, it is a truly scary and amazing journey.
** And [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI9CvipHl_c#t=1m24s here's]] a video which attempts to show (with the help of a sort-of-realistic background) what we'd actually see if we were to spiral down into a black hole. (Go to 6:15 if you want to skip the commentary.) "Bizarre" doesn't even begin to describe it.
* Speaking of black holes, the current scientific theory that there is a supermassive black hole at the center of every galaxy. That means all matter in the universe is just circling one of several great cosmic drains. We're living on an eddy, being very slowly pulled into an inescapable vortex. Eventually our planet, our solar system, EVERYTHING, will be sucked down the drain and just blinked out of existence. Eventually there will be nothing but a great ravenous hole in the fabric of reality...and there's nothing we can do about it.
* Deep time. The fact that when you think about a long enough stretch of time, everything will die. Not only that, but that our current understanding of the universe implies that with enough time everything in existence will be converted into ever more widely scattered heat energy. That ultimately, it's not just that you will die, or that the human race will die, but that anything that could possibly show that either of those ever even existed will cease to be, ''and there is nothing you can do about it''.
* Gamma Ray Bursts. When huge, dying stars are consumed from within by black holes they release vast amounts of energy at very near the speed of light. In a matter of seconds, some of these blasts of energy can exceed the amount of energy that our sun will release in its entire lifetime. If one of these hit the planet then we'd probably all die before we knew what had happened. Even if one passed too close it would be like every place on one side of the planet being hit by a nuclear missile at once, and the other side of the planet dealing with the resulting wall of fire and death. The real problem is that these bursts are basically impossible to predict, and even if we could there's absolutely nothing we could do about it. The entire planet could die a horrible, fiery death within minutes of you reading this.
** WR 104. Aimed right towards us. [[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/03/03/wr-104-a-nearby-gamma-ray-burst Have a nice day.]]
* You know how the Universe just loves scaring the crap out of us planetside? What with all the Big Crunch, Supermassive Black Holes, Gargantuan Death Rays and rogue stars out there already, you feel the need to throw MOLECULAR WINDSTORMS at us! Allow me to explain, picture a Galaxy, any galaxy. Now picture something not unlike a hurricane that will rip all the molecules out of the Galaxy, leaving it sterile. These windstorms strip planets, stars, even nebulas bare of molecules. And here we are afraid of rogue black holes....
* The sounds of Saturn: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C6lymtHG60
** This is what our own planet sounds like from outer space: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AVHXMLDvWA&feature=player_embedded
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporal_paradox#Temporal_merging_hypothesis One theory]] as to how temporal paradoxes would resolve themselves is that once a temporal paradox occurred, this universe would be obliterated and be replaced with a new one with a different timeline that can accommodate whatever created the paradox. But we wouldn't be aware of it, because our universe would otherwise be exactly the same. Maybe it just happened. Maybe it just happened again.
** Or maybe our entire universe IS a replacement for sorting out a paradox, and we're just in one segment of history leading up to the creation of that paradox. It could be caused by some other civilization millions of light years away from us, and it might happen again. Humanity and everything we've created would be obliterated because of something that doesn't even know we exist. The nature of the paradox might mean we'd never be recreated again.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Humans in relation to the Universe]]
* This is basically the whole point of the CosmicHorrorStory genre as HPLovecraft envisioned it. See the genre page for details.
* Take the time to actually contemplate the vast, absurd distances between just, say, the Earth and the Moon. Then try to contemplate the Earth and another planet, or the Earth and the sun. Or the sun and another star. Your brain may start hurting and crying in fear at a glimpse of the true meaning of such a size, just the thought of all that emptiness...
** [[http://sizeofworldse.ytmnd.com/ This YTMND]] says it better than I could.
*** And it doesn't even end there. These supergiants aren't anything special, since there are billions of stars within a single galaxy. In 2003, astronomers photographed a random area of the sky measuring 11 square arc minutes, which is about as much as holding a sheet of paper 1 meter away from you and peeking through a hole 1mm x 1mm in size. To catch even extremely faint light sources, the film was exposed for a total of almost 300 hours. And in the end [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Hubble_ultra_deep_field_high_rez_edit1.jpg they ended up with this picture]].
**** [[spoiler:It shows about 10.000 Galaxies, each of them containing billions of stars. To photograph the entire sky, you'd need about 13 million photographs like this.]]
** Behold the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPm3QVKlBJg Powers of Ten.]] The Universe on both a macro and micro scale is almost incomprehensible.
* Scientists had only recently witnessed a distant supernova that had occurred '''11 billion years ago'''. With that being said, he thought this meant that there's nothing out there in the Universe, right this very minute.
* There's always the possibility that we're ''not'' alone, and the vastness of space includes the possibility of untold, fascinating new lifeforms.
* [[http://primaxstudio.com/stuff/scale_of_universe/ This]] is an interactive scale of the universe, from things human-sized (including humans), up to the Universe itself, and back down to the fabric of spacetime itself, and absolutely everything in between. Very informative and interesting... and highly haunting.
** Even more, the scale used has things such as cells and bacteria towards the ''middle''. Meaning that humans are on the large end of the scale. Think about that for a moment, and how there are things much bigger than humans. Think how a being the size of a cell would perceive the very human it inhabits, let alone the rest of the Universe.
** [[http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/589217/ Here is an updated version of the scale made by the same guy.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The Nature of Reality]]
* Quantum Immortality. Since our consciousness is evenly spread along an infinite number of nearly identical universes, from our subjective point of view we will always survive life or death situations as long as there is even a tiny chance of survival, since we will only continue to be aware in the universes where we were saved. While this does mean that we would all reach an age where we would be hospitalized because it would no longer be possible for our bodies to function by themselves, we would hardly be alone in this. There are plenty of people like this in the world, and, since there is a limit to the human life expectancy, sooner or later we would be [[CriticalExistenceFailure dead in every universe]]
** Actually, the odds are even worse than that. As we age the chances of death in the following year increase by a larger amount, but never quite to 1. What's more, beyond a certain age there's evidence that the increase slows back down again. All we know is that there isn't anyone, in this universe, who has survived thousands of years. You know why? This one's ''yours''. (Actually, no, this one's mine. Get your own universe.)
* Consider the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics]] - within the endlessly bifurcating alternate universes every possible thing happens.
[[/folder]]
----
[[HighOctaneNightmareFuel/RealLife Ready for more]], or do you [[SweetDreamsFuel need]] [[TroperTales/HeartwarmingMoments a]] [[Heartwarming/RealLife break]]?
[[/folder]]
* [[http://naamah-darling.livejournal.com/348604.html The saga of Rapemouse.]] If that's not enough, then the various anecdotes of cute animal cannibalism and brutality in the comments will be.
** For instance, pulling a spinal cord out of a blood and gore splattered rat cage because ''that was all that was left'', or watching some hamsters playing in a cage except for one that seemed to be sleeping...until one bumped it and the head was all that was there. If you think small, cute rodents are gentler than carnivorous cats and dogs, think again. Life is cheap at the bottom of the food chain, especially when you only live about three years.
** Also, the comments mention Reaver Furries, which is about the only thing more nightmare-fuelly than regular Reavers.
* Leopards. These cats are like ninjas. They have been know to crawl into houses, kill humans as they sleep, and drag them off into the night--without waking up anyone else.
* [[http://media.ebaumsworld.com/picture/emmakate/coconut_crab.jpg The Coconut Crab.]] In addition to being the largest arthropod on land, they're ludicrously strong. Strong enough to lift 64 pounds and smash coconuts open, in fact. And they can climb trees. They tend to actually shy away from humans, but if you manage to piss one off, chances are you will get hurt. Very, very badly.
*** What's even worse is the fact that it takes a flamethrower to kill one.
*** ItGotWorse...again. These buggers may have been responsible for the fact that [[NeverFoundTheBody they never found]] AmeliaEarhart's body. Some researchers are floating a theory that she ran out of fuel and ditched on a desert island, only to succumb to thirst or hunger at some point. On a HistoryChannel TV special, the team left a pig carcass out for the many crabs on the island...and they showed a high-speed shot of them swarming over the body, which was picked clean in about an hour. Brrrr.
* Any number of deep-sea creatures could fall under this, really. [[http://www.bogleech.com/bio-deep.html Let me show you them.]]
** How do you make giant isopods 100000x more scary? [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h4VuvC8KCk Time-lapse photography.]]
*** I feel this is an unfair bias against deep sea life. For in the end, can we not all gain some wisdom from the noble [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9t7E4amWDqI deep sea anglerfish]]?
*** Interesting thing about anglerfish. A male or female anglerfish cannot reach maturity on their own; instead, a male (or several), will latch onto the much larger female anglerfish. Pretty much any organ the male has that aren't his reproductive ones atrophy away, and it just becomes a protrusion on the female's body that produces sperm.
* Just the sight of the [[http://www.bogleech.com/nature/mammal-molerat3.jpg naked molerat]] is typically enough to unnerve people. Did I mention that in order to better navigate in their crowded underground tunnels, they can ''turn almost entirely around in their own skin?''
** No. The most disturbing this about naked moles rats is that there actually exists a species of ''mammals'' that live in [[BeePeople eusocial colonies]].
* A good number of invertebrates fit into this trope. I was thoroughly disgusted during an exam in invertebrate taxonomy which involved identifying live specimens. The one that has become burned into the brain was a hideous little asymmetrical thing with ridges going along its twisted curled up body with a number of thin long white tentacles coming out of it in random places. That question was marked wrong because I just couldn't bear looking at it long enough to identify it.
** And then there is the Class Polychaeta, belonging to the annelid worm family. The most notorious of these are the sand worms which burrow through the beaches of many coastlines. Segmented worms, up to 3 metres in length, with little moving bristles on the sides of each of their segments, a pair of large eyes that bulge from its front segment, and large jaws that are capable of nipping off a finger. Among the coastlines that they call home: The one that I happen to live near.
** [[SpongebobSquarePants Sponges and starfish]] aren't scary, as they're mostly harmless, but [[NightmareFuel/SpongebobSquarePants then again]]...
*** Oh really? What about the [[http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2327/2479130477_b32b348314.jpg Sun Starfish?]]
* The Irukandji Jellyfish, the most deadly jellyfish in the world. Just one brush with this thing will leave you reeling with the effects of Irukandji syndrome, a horrific condition that leaves you suffering not only every unpleasant symptom under the sun, but even ''a feeling of impending doom'' so bad that some patients are so certain they're going to die ''they ask the doctors to kill them to get it over with.'' (Probably the closest thing to [[HarryPotter Dementors]] there is.) And the worst part? [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Irukandji-jellyfish-queensland-australia.jpg THEY'RE SO RIDICULOUSLY TINY THEY'RE PRACTICALLY INVISIBLE.]]
** Not quite the deadliest though, some other jellies have stings that can kill an adult in a matter of hours. Irukandji is generally not lethal.
*** No, they'll just make you wish you they were. "Every unpleasant symptom under the sun" includes excruciating pain in various parts of the body, and wikipedia sez: "There is no known antidote for venom that has already entered the body. Morphine will not help reduce the pain." FUCK YOU, AUSTRALIA! D:
*** One person even said that'd he would've preferred getting stung by the ([[DemonicSpiders infamous]]) Box Jellyfish than an Irukandji, simply because "either you recover in 20 minutes or you die."
*** There's an account of an Irukandji victim who was pulled from the surf. After carefully removing the jellyfish remains from the now unconscious man's legs, he was dosed with painkillers and taken away to hospital. Even unconscious and Morphine'd to the eyeballs, ''he was still screaming in agony the entire time.''
* COCKROACH.
** They don't do ANYTHING, except spread diseases, and be creepy. And live without heads.
*** The problem with cockroaches is, they're too used to living like us. Grooming habits? check. Living in vast colonies? check. Capable of surviving anything? check... Capable of scaring the living piss out of any other creature in their midst? check. They're the only creature that humans seem to be universally afraid of, cause they aren't afraid of us. Unless you turn on the lights.
*** Plus, they ''smell''. Name another insect that leaves behind slimy nests in your smoke alarms and such. Pantry moths and spiders are downright civilized houseguests.
** Actually it's the tiny German cockroaches that are really scary, because you ''know'' they're living in your walls and eating your food and breeding like, um, rabbits. And until they invented Combat traps, it used to be, once you saw one, your house was doomed, there'd eventually be German cockroaches crawling out of the peeling paint when you scrape it. The giant, 2-inch scaled up cockroaches aren't as disturbing because they usually don't live indoors, they just come inside for warmth. Except on the Gulf coast where the giant cockroaches live in the house and fly around. Including when you're in the shower.
** THAT CRUNCHING NOISE MAKE IT STOP.
*** [[Film/MenInBlack Damn decent of you.]]
** They may be technically harmless, but that thing about waking up with a cockroach in your ear? Yeah, not just an urban legend. They won't lay eggs in your brain or even hurt you whatsoever if they do it, but do they ''need'' to?
* The [[http://chasenoface.blogspot.com/ cat without a face]]. Shudder.
** [[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_mtxIjWA73qM/SdQDMF4XiyI/AAAAAAAACO4/zZRWuAwySPI/s1600-h/IMG_0734.JPG That is the most horrifying thing I've seen in a long time]]. If I was that cat I would be like "Kill Me!"
** While we're at it, take a look at [[http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/cyclopes.asp this]]. Something about [[CuteKitten cats]].
* Tiger and nurse sharks cannibalise their siblings in the womb, eating their way through until they're the only one. Does anyone else find that absolutely horrifying?
** Actually sometimes happens with human babies instinctually, though I forget the medical term. Made worse because instead of eating, it's more like ABSORBING.
*** It's a type of chimerism; one fetus does absorb the other.
*** The technical scientific term is [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetus_in_fetu Fetus-in-Fetu.]]
* Type 'Rat King' into any search engine and prepare to throw up. Seriously.
** [[http://www.weird-encyclopedia.com/rat-king.php Yeah...]] Ew...
* Sphinx cats, e.g. Mr Bigglesworth in ''Austin Powers''. Argh!
** YMMV, but they're actually not as [[UglyCute disturbingly old-man-wrinkly or hairless]] as they seem, however, and are usually a pretty outgoing and friendly breed besides. It's kind of like petting a warm, purring shammy [[ShapedLikeItself shaped like a cat.]]
* Pick an Australian wild animal. Any of them. There's a good chance it can maim and/or kill you.
** Yes, this includes [[{{Discworld}} the sheep]].
*** Really, the best advice you can give a tourist visiting Australia is that, yes, the rumours are true. If it has less than two legs, or four or more legs, than it can, and will likely attempt, to kill you. Avoid at all costs. Even the cute ones, like wombats and koalas, are vicious up close.
* The sea louse. It reproduces by having a male draging five or so females into a burrow, impregnating them, and the females contain the eggs inside their body, where the larva hatch and ''eat her from the inside out''. As if pregnancy wasn't scary enough!
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leucochloridium_variae Leucochloridium variae]] is a parasite that specializes in making [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWB_COSUXMw Zombie Snails]]. The NatGeo clip on YouTube doesn't even come close to some of the more gruesome depictions I've seen of this on some nature shows.
* I saw a Discovery Channel special on wild pigs in America and how some of them might be descended from imported Eurasian wild boars. They won't eat you, but you would not want to come across one in the wild. And their population in America and Eurasia is spreading.
** Trying to avoid wild boars in their natural habitat is all fine and good, but sometimes [[http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/818514-wild-boar-runs-amok-in-office the boars come to YOUR natural habitat]]!
** Domestic pigs are dangerous enough. There's a reason why everyone acted with such concern when Dorothy fell into the pig pen.
* The mouth of the sea lamprey. Some people photoshop these onto various body parts and think that it's FUNNY.
** That's not the worst of it. They don't have jaws, you see, making them incapable of biting things. Thus, in order to feed, they ''latch onto the side of a fish and suck out its innards''.
* Since the sea is really just one giant unexplored part of the earth, we usually find creatures there that seem a little... Off. When I was young, I visited a certain beach a low tide. Walking along the seaweed, I saw loads of fishes, shrimps, sea cucumbers, clams and the like trapped in puddles. But then there was this huge rock that seemed out of place. I came closer and saw that it was covered in holes. Then, all of the sudden, these black eyes perched on black stalks came out of the holes and stared at me, then they quickly retreated. To this day, I'm still looking for that rock.
** Perhaps it was a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonefish Stonefish]]? They're very rock-like, and have protruding black eyes. Deadly venomous, too.
* Bees ([[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall my God]]) and any similar insect (wasps, hornets, etc.). I have been terrified of them since my mother was stung in the armpit while trying to protect me from one. And Africanized (or "killer") bees, previously unable to withstand cooler climates, are now managing to creep farther north as they become more resistant to cold. Sweet mercy, I hope they never make it to Pennsylvania...
** I'm right there with you, man...it makes me appreciate these 5 degree winters...
* Three words: Brain eating amoeba.
** As in this article on [[http://www.cracked.com/article_17173_7-terrifying-creatures-youll-never-see-coming_p2.html Cracked.]] It's #1 on the list, and for good reason...
* A lot of cryptids. Especially the [[http://www.bukisa.com/articles/66811_ten-ridiculously-awesome-cryptids Mothman and the Momo]].
* ''Sacculina''. When it infects a crab, it hooks into its shell and spreads tendrils throughout the body. Then it releases feminising hormones, so that even male crabs act like female ones. Then it basically uses the crab (which is sterilised by this procedure) as a puppet, right down to releasing its own spawn when the crab tries to spread its own offspring. This goes on for the rest of the crab's miserable existence, reduced to basically a puppet of a little blob of flesh descended from a barnacle.
* [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Macrocheira_kaempferi.jpg The Japanese Giant Spider Crab]] is the largest of all athropods, with a legspan of 4 meters, weighing up to 20kg and they have a life expectancy of 100 years, which means they actually lived in Ancient Japan.
** How can you miss that they are also known as [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast corpse crabs]] due to their habit of feeding on the bodies of the drowned?
* How does this section not yet have the [[http://bpwidgets.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/golden-orb-weaver-eating-bird-231x300.jpg golden orb weaver]] spider? (Warning: click at your own risk.) A spider so large it ''eats birds''. Fortunately, its toxic is not fatal to humans, except possibly when seeing one causes a heart attack.
** Surprise surprise, it's Australian.
* While they, of course, are totally unable to do this to anything larger than an insect, spiders of the ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uloboridae Uloboridae]]'' family, that lack venom glands, kill their prey wrapping them in large amounts of silk and so tightly that the pressure breaks their joints and even their exoeskeleton. Later, the spider releases over the cocoon with the unfortunate prey inside gastric fluids that kill the victim and dissolve its innards [[NightmareFuel entering where the silk has broken through]], so the spider can suck the fluids.
* Tasmanian DEVILS are called devils for a reason. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SU44KwIfBXM
* Dolphins may look all cute, doing flips with their little grins but they can be huge dicks. Males will gang up and rape a female dolphin or harass the calves of other dolphins and whales until they die. I read a story about how a dolphin that lived in a harbour would lure seagulls to the water with fish then drown them just for fun.
** And that's just the start. Just check their entry on [[http://www.cracked.com/article_15853_the-6-cutest-animals-that-can-still-destroy-you.html this]] list. What's that? They kill randomly kill their own young, just so the mother won't be preoccupied with them and can have sex? Ok, Ok, not as extreme and example as it could be... after all, ''most'' animals do that anyway. But then again, only humans and dolphins are known to go out of their way to kill animals ''just for giggles''.
** Also, they masturbate with each others blowholes. Y'know, the bit they use to breath n stuff, an equivalent to our noses. Imagine having someone get off by forcing their knob up your nose. just ew.
* [[http://www.cracked.com/funny-163-australia/ Everything in this Cracked.com article]]. Seriously, Australia...are you trying to give everyone nightmares?
** There's a reason it started as a penal colony.
*** Makes the insane amounts of bravery seen at Gallipoli(and elsewhere) a bit more understandable, don't it?
* Pick up a beautiful shell in any beach except Australia, odds are you'll take it home and make it a nice souvenir. Pick up a beautiful shell in any beach in Australia, odds are it'll shoot a poisionous harpoon at you!
* I recently watched a heron snatch a live duckling and swallow it whole. I'll never look at herons the same way again. Imagine how they would look from a duck or fish's point of view; a towering, unearthly thin body, long, spear-like beak, wide, staring eyes... Yeesh, it seems scarier than a T. rex, if mainly for that, long, uncanny neck (predators are supposed to be bulky and muscular-looking, right?) and the farking beak. Except for the eyes, of course, they almost seem like the terrifying mass-production EVA's from ''EndOfEvangelion''. FeatheredFiend, indeed.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankebetsu_brown_bear_incident The Sankebetsu brown bear incident.]]
* For anyone who does not like flying, stinging insects, [[http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Owgxo0uCZXA/SwFLFDQHvZI/AAAAAAAAAQo/zytdSa_xq_M/s1600/lebah+maluku+2.jpg Wallace's Giant Bee]]. The thing has mandibles most beetles would envy. It's endangered, though, so you will probably never see one in person. Some tropers (like me) are almost relieved.
* How's this for a creature that's kinda scary, the Ribeiroia ondatrae (and the name is it's good part), it's a kind of worm that crawls into a tadpole, and then when the thing hits puberty, it screws up it's transformation to a full frog, so it grows extra limbs and it's original ones get misshapen quite often as well, imagine going through puberty, and then waking up one day, with your knees bent the wrong way, and your tighs folded the other way, with an extra pair of smaller legs next to your genitalia.
** And the reason why it does this? Because it needs to get into a bird next, and a frog with lots of weird misshapen legs has lots of movement that's more likely to catch the eye of a predatory bird, and makes it harder for the frog to get away. So imagine that you woke up like that, and it was so that when a giant monster came around to eat you, you'd basically have a giant "EAT ME" sign on your back and couldn't get away.
* Take a box jellyfish, give it eyes, and you get [[http://www.bogleech.com/nature/cnido-cuboeyes1.jpg this]]. There's something very unsettling about that thing.
* The Goliath Tiger Fish. Google these monstrosities, and Jaws will take a backseat in your nightmares.
* I went on a nature hike where the guide gave a harrowing description of being stung by a caterpillar under the fingernail while on a hike, which soon left him in far too much pain to do the tour he had scheduled that day. After doing reserach, he discovered that this caterpillar was particularly venemous, and he would have died not long after he managed to get back to town for medical attention.
** Well, at least caterpillars are too cute for anybody to stay mad at them. Wait, no, [[http://files.myfrogbag.com/xut0p0/1207065073j5iEqv3.jpg I take that back]].
* The way Cuttlefish eat. Slowly approaching........SNAP!
* Earwigs. ''Earwigs.'' They look like they have pincers on both ends, so you can't tell if they're coming or going, they squeeze into little tiny cracks in ''your'' bedroom, and if you have an older sibling, chances are pretty good you believed they're called that because they actually crawl into your ears and lay eggs (they don't, thank God). I would give 98% of the animals and bugs on this page a big hug, but between the fear of artificial ear-semination and having the little beasties ''repeatedly'' jump out of corn husks at her while harvesting as a kid, I'm quite ready for that can of Raid.
* I don't know why elephants haven't been mentioned. Male African elephants are aggressively territorial, but in musth, the elephants mating season, their testosterone skyrockets to about ''SIXTY'' times the normal amount, making the worst case of human roid rage look like a baby pitching a fit in comparison. Combine that with the average weight of a male being about 11000 pounds, roughly 5 1/2 tons, almost all of it muscle, and a running speed of about 25-30 miles an hour. Taking into account how many people get killed by these living tanks each year, it's pretty horrifying to think how quickly a circus can turn into a nightmare.
* Ladies and Gentlemen, I introduce to you, [[http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/02_03/snakehead_468x278.jpg the Snakehead]]. This terrifying beastie, which is more dangerous than a piranha is considered unique among fish because it has the ability to breathe air and walk on land. I repeat it has the ability to ''walk on land''!
** Snakeheads aren't the most [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONhBy9uGdgs graceful things out of water though,]] but they're terrifying in water.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCgbYnNAbSM Transformer Owl]]--A YouTube video showing a certain breed of African owl and its reactions to predators of different sizes. ("Awww. it looks so cute! Ooh, they're placing a medium sized owl in front of it and it's puffing itself up as a defense mechanism. Now it looks even ''more'' cute! Awwwwww! Now they're placing a really ''big'' owl in front of it and [[GrotesqueCute OHMIGOD! WHAT THE HOLY HELL IS IT DOING!?]] [[NightmareFace THAT'S NOT RIGHT!!!]] [[BodyHorror AUUUUUGHHHHHHH!!!!]] I WANT MY MOMMY!!!!!!")
** The second "transformation" Is it trying to immitate a Lynx, or some other cat. Still distrubing though.
*** In its natural habitat, it probably would have helped it blend into tree trunks by hiding the eyes and making the profile slimmer. Compare the potoo or tawny frogmouth.
* [[{{HellIsThatNoise}} Rabbits scream.]]
** Only when they're in danger (not that that makes it any better).
** They can also aggressively attack humans. Think that was just a Monty Python joke?
* Spiders always make me (admittedly a very camp bisexual) scream. and not in a good way...
** You will never look at a red hourglass the same way again
* How do we not mention hyenas?! Strong bite force, vicious temper, and have been known to attack people.
** Most people think of a Hyena's laugh as a funny thing - we even have a [[TheHyena trope]] for it. Now imagine you're alone in the savanna at night, and [[HellIsThatNoise you hear that laughter coming from all around you]]. And this is coming from a troper who LIKES hyenas!
** And on a different level: [[ExoticEquipment "The external genitalia of females closely resemble those of males: the 15 cm (6 inch) clitoris is similar in shape and position to a penis, and is capable of erection."]] YMMV on whether this is NightmareFuel on its own, but they have to give birth through that.
* Hippos. They look cute, but they have the temper to make a {{Tsundere}} look like a YamatoNadeshiko. They are responsible for the deaths of more people than even crocodiles! And just look at those tusks! I wonder why that little girl in a Christmas song wanted one so badly.
** Plus, if you merely annoy them, they'll spray you with their feces. Whole different kind of nightmare fuel there.
*** A hippo's breath smells so foul it can scare other animals off.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookie_cutter_shark Cookiecutter sharks.]] Don't let the cute name fool you; you will NOT get any tasty baked goods from these fuckers. They are only half a metre long, but feed on other much larger predators like dolphins and seals. How? They lure them in by swimming around pretending to be normal fish, wait for them to come in for a snack and then ''take as many bites out of the unsuspecting creature as they can before it gets away.'' And just [[http://www.aasharks.com/types-of-sharks/cookiecutter-shark-picture-02.jpg LOOK AT THOSE TEETH.]] They were first dicovered after the US Navy started noticing perfectly round holes appearing in the neoprene covers of the sonar domes on their ''submarines''.
* You like puppies? Well, Ivan Palov's experiments will make you bite your nails and squirm. In the course of studying animal psychology, most of the the test subject were put into such a condition that just scream Mengele. Case in [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSrIkUXwsNk point]]
* Centipedes and millipedes. DEAR GOD. Why do these creatures exist? Creepy crawly, creepy crawly. . .
** Millipedes are cute. Somehow, upping the number of legs even further causes it to [[CrossesTheLineTwice Cross The Line Twice]]. Plus, they don't eat each other and potentially you. The same cannot be said for the giant centipede...
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAL7r7zvKDw House centipedes.]] Also known as [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRpbb6qsMB4 geji-geji]] or cave centipedes or hearth centipedes (because they crawl out of your fireplace and up the wall at 50 miles an hour like something out of a horror film). They have a million legs, each over an inch long, enough to look like a 3-inch long hairy moustache, and if you attack one, the legs come off and keep moving. Due to their speed and agility, they're totally not afraid of falling off a wall and running over your face... The good news is, they're very shy and they only eat insects, so they're considered lucky, like other things that come out of your fireplace (crickets, Santa Claus...) They only bite when cornered. And they mostly come at night... mostly. Hearth crickets, which look like some sort of evil cave cricket, are also dam' ugly.
** According to various bloggers, they are [[MemeticMutation "the only thing that scares the hell]] [[ImageBoards out of /b/"]].
** Here's another [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Scutigera_coleoptrata.JPG pic]]. [[SchmuckBait Go ahead. Enlarge the image]].
* Moray eels have a ''[[http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/08/moray_eels_attack_with_second_pair_of_alien-style_jaws.php second pair]]'' of jaws behind their teeth to grasp their prey. That's right. They eat {{Alien}}-style!
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eTzYEUW_0g Pelicans.]]
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qQzas739ic Nightmare Retardant]]
* I'm not disturbed by lobsters or crabs in and of themselves, but I'm terrified of the thought of eating them.
* I'm pretty sure Cracked won't sleep peacefully until the rest of us can't. Behold! [[http://www.cracked.com/article_18641_7-terrifying-prehistoric-creatures-that-are-still-around.html 7 Terrifying Prehistoric Creatures (That Are Still Around)]] With such wonders as:
** A fucking deep sea shark '''with a circular saw for a jaw.'''
** God damned giant-ass Stingrays '''the diameter of a VW Beetle.'''
** Some sort of unholy '''Dragon/Shark/Zombie/300-toothed-saw.'''
** Proof that there is no loving god, a cross between '''an alligator and a gar''' that is decent enough to live in swamps where they can reach you.
** A cute 'lil gecko '''the size of a human child.'''
** A "prehistoric, three-eyed, hell-shrimp".
** "The closest thing we have to genuine Lovecraftian elder gods": "'''condoms full of teeth'''".
* The way the meat, egg, and dairy industries treat animals, as seen in [[http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-513747926833909134# this video]].
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IWN8UGDyC0 The Foie Gras industry]] [[TearJerker kills female ducklings on the day they hatch.]]
** As for the males, [[SarcasmMode don't worry!]] [[ItGetsWorse It gets worse!]] Imagine being trapped in a unsanitary cage for a month [[http://media.portland.indymedia.org/images/2008/08/378473.jpg being force-fed coarse cornmeal through a metal pipe.]] And when you think you can throw it all up afterwards, you fail and either [[UpToEleven become even more cramped in the cage]] or die from the sheer amount of food inside you. That's what its like to be a Foie Gras duck ''before the slaughterhouse,'' kids.
*** While the foie gras industry is horrible, CO2 gas is considered an acceptable, humane way of killing mass quantities of animals. Of course, you're supposed to make sure they're dead before dumping them into garbage cans. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ--faib7to Grinding them up while they're alive]] is also considered acceptable and reasonably humane(because it's instantaneous). As opposed to just dropping them outside to freeze and/or starve to death.
* [[http://www.cracked.com/article/109_natures-6-most-diabolical-predators Another article from Cracked concerning the evils of nature]]. None of these are threat to humans; however, the fact that nature would spawn such sadistic and clever predators is a tad unnerving (and one of those is a ''plant''). The pictures don't help either (the ones with the beetle grubs and the assassin bug actually made me shudder). And the entries start out with the POV of the ''prey''. Oh, and arachnophobes should steer clear of this article. Just saying.
** Cracked should have it's own HONF page.
* Coconut Crabs and Japanese Spider Crabs. Not fun stumbling on pictures of the former when all you were doing was innocently looking up information on New Caledonia. The latter? Thanks, Alton Brown.
* Wasps, especially yellow jackets and hornets. I recently had a nightmare about there being a nest in the mailbox. And have you read any news stories about "super-sized" nests? This nightmare scenario happens more often in real life than you think.
** The grand champion of nightmare fuel-errific stinging insects is the Japanese Giant Hornet. I dare you to search on YouTube. 2 inches long, and its lethal venom dissolves human flesh. And its horrifying helicopter-like buzz.
** The fine folks at Cracked bring you the Giant Hornet (and more!) in [[http://www.cracked.com/article_15816_5-most-horrifying-bugs-in-world.html The 5 Most Horrifying Bugs.]]
** Not allergic to bees? You don't die in 60 seconds on one sting if you don't recieve medical care? '''You don't know shit about being afraid of bees.'''
* Two words: Box Jellyfish.
** Cone [[strike:shells]] snails. Blue-ringed octopi. Recommendation: '''stay the hell out of the water in [[LandDownunder Australia]]'''.
*** Even worse (and, in a twisted way, cooler) are the facts that the cone snail hurts about as much as a bee sting, the octopus ''doesn't hurt at all'', and both of them use the poison Tetrodotoxin, for which there. Is. No. Cure.
**** (Insert Herpes Commercial BGM here) ...but there IS a treatment. Aggressive life support (i.e., intubation and ventilation) started near or before onset of symptoms, stomach pumping if ingested, IV fluids, and certain drugs (alpha adrenergic agonists and anticholinesterases, for those interested) can get a person through the time until the toxin is out of the body; if they survive 24 hours, chances are they'll make it.
*** And there's no cure or treatment for cone snail poison, either. If you are bitten, you can pretty much kiss your ass goodbye.
** If that's so, that would simply apply to the whole area of Indo-Pacific. Here's a saccharine-sweet addition: ''Synanceia verrucosa'', (in)formally known as Stonefish. Armed with one of the most powerful fish toxins and can easily induce even the most stoic bruisers into gasping sobs. A fair trip to the reef flats of [[EastIndies Indonesia]] can yield at least an encounter or two, if your eyes are sharp enough to see them.
*** In case you don't appreciate how hard it is to see a stonefish, look at [[http://fishindex.blogspot.com/2008/06/stonefish-most-venomous-fish-in-world.html this.]] That's right. These fish are ''invisible''.
** While we're on the subject of deadly creatures found on one of Australia's greatest tourist attractions, the GREAT BARRIER REEF, we seem to have forgotten sea snakes and sting rays. Seventeen species of sea snake are on the GBR, ''all'' of which are fatally poisonous, but generally easy-going as long as they stay in the water. And sting-rays are really in the same boat: docile until provoked (ie, stepped on or trapped between a legend and a camera).
** You're not much better out of the water in Oz, either. The Australian Outback is a damn scary place. I learned that after reading BillBryson's ''In a Sunburned Country''. 120-degree temperatures, spinifex bushes (they have hypodermic-like tips that ''break off'' and become lodged in your skin, inviting flies and infection), all manner of poisonous snakes and scorpions, and did I mention the flies? Bryson's book has a lovely anecdote about how one of the outback explorers brought a camel along which got such a bad bite that ''they were scooping out maggots with a coffee cup''. When a ''camel'' starts suffering in a desert, you know you're in a damn nasty place.
*** The [[FluffyTheTerrible Teddy Bear Cholla]], a cactus found in the southwestern US and northern Mexico, is similar to the aforementioned bushes. The needles come off very easily, and are barbed, meaning that with movement, they move through one's body. I remember a guide talking about how a needle got into the sole of his foot, and ended up working its way out of the top of his foot.
**** Oh, that's ''far'' from the worst of it. Cholla is a very odd plant in that it's segmented; it's shaped a bit like [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Opuntia_bigelovii_2.jpeg a demented balloon animal]]. Those little segments will all break off at the slightest provocation; the plant spreads when they're carried somewhere else and take root. In practical terms, this means you have a decent chance of having an entire 3-inch-long length of cactus attach itself to your leg. The stuff is also sometimes called "jumping cactus," because due to that habit of falling apart and the way human reflexes work, you often won't feel the sting from the thorns until a fraction of a second after you've already moved away, making it seem like the hellish little thing actually ''jumped across the intervening space to attach itself to your skin''. Also, the reason for the name? The thorns are ''clear'' and so numerous and fine that from a distance the damn stuff [[LightIsNotGood looks fluffy or glowy]]. So yeah, ridiculous numbers of wickedly barbed, needle-sharp, hair-thin, near-invisible thorns that'll brush off at the slightest provocation, appear to leap gaps, and hurt like the dickens. And god help you if your ''dog'' gets into the stuff...
** Sydney Funnelweb. A literal real-life DemonicSpider.
*** And it ''still'' [[ItGotWorse gets worse]] - Sydney Funnelwebs are only the ''second'' most dangerous variety of the spider. Their fantastically badass cousins, who inhabit [[CutesyNameTown Orchid Beach]] on Fraser Island, are [[UpToEleven even more venomous]] and there are a lot more of them per square metre. And the kicker? Go to Orchid Beach today and there stands the decaying remains of a ''holiday resort.'' I wonder why they abandoned it...
* [[http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12840743/porks_dirty_secret_the_nations_top_hog_producer_is_also_one_of_americas_worst_polluters Hog farming.]]
-->The lagoons [holding ponds for pig manure, urine, blood, afterbirth, and stillborn piglets] themselves are so viscous and venomous that if someone falls in it is foolish to try to save him. A few years ago, a truck driver in Oklahoma was transferring pig shit to a lagoon when he and his truck went over the side. It took almost three weeks to recover his body. In 1992, when a worker making repairs to a lagoon in Minnesota began to choke to death on the fumes, another worker dived in after him, and they died the same death. In another instance, a worker who was repairing a lagoon in Michigan was overcome by the fumes and fell in. His fifteen-year-old nephew dived in to save him but was overcome, the worker's cousin went in to save the teenager but was overcome, the worker's older brother dived in to save them but was overcome, and then the worker's father dived in. They all died in pig shit.
** As a permaculture and self-sufficiency enthusiast, ''all'' industrial-scale farming qualifies for me.
* [[http://www.wheredopuppiescomefrom.com/ Puppy mills.]] Ever wondered where those adorable puppies in pet store windows come from? Well it turns out they're farmed, much like battery hens. That's right, there are battery farms ''for puppies''. The dogs are kept in cages their entire lives and forced to breed continuously, sometimes until ''their uteruses fall out.'' Because the dog breeding industry has little regulation, the law does not require these dogs to ever receive vet care, any kind of human contact, or, y'know ever be let out of their cages. Oh, and there are also kitten, bird, rabbit and ferret mills. Good luck ever looking at a pet store the same way again. Moral of the story? Always, always, '''always''' adopt from an animal shelter. '''Seriously.''' For those who absolutely '''must''' have a pure-breed of some kind, at least go to a breeder directly where you can see the mother.
** I, a dog-loving troper, find this news to be more of a {{Tear Jerker}} than nightmare fuel.
** You'll never see a dog for sale in a pet shop in the UK; almost all are bought directly from breeders or owners whose pets have had a litter. The RSPCA and Scottish SPCA take a very dim view of puppy farming.
** America is starting to get on this, unfortunately approaching it by punishing legitimate breeders and people who show dogs.
** There are also pure-breed rescue places if you want a particular kind of pure-breed cat or dog. Sometimes the official clubs for those animals run the rescue and adoption services also.
** This places a whole new and somber, if not sinister, spin on [[{{Peanuts}} Snoopy's]] puppyhood at the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm.
** It gets worse when you're working at a shelter that rescues these puppy mill dogs. I've seen dogs with severe PTSD (There's no other word f,or it), dogs with no teeth, dogs with fur so matted that it's literally coming off their bodies, dogs who are blind, dogs with their ears hacked off...
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A7gBS3QiqA This video]] showing the use of "Henderson Castration Tools". Insert the sac into the clamp, put the clamp in a variable speed drill and spin about 20 times until the cord fractures and the balls come right off. Especially nice is the scene where they inject anesthetic into the horse's testicles.
* While watching the ''Planet Earth'' series, I got to the part about jungles. Now, up until then there have been predator-prey chases, which are understandable, they're necessary. But then we get to the part about the parasitical fungi that can literally cause a ZombieApocalypse for an ant colony. They even showed the fungus [[BodyHorror growing from the ant's head]]. In time-lapse. On ''Blu-Ray''. An then there are the other pics of various other insects. AHHHHH!!!
** Oh yeah, didn't they say something like "one species of fungus that specializes in each individual insect to prevent competion"? so for every species of insect on the rainforest, there's a species of this fungus just for that insect?
* The Cane Toad is well known in the scientific community for 2 reasons. One is for being one of the worst invasive species on earth. The other? It engages in necrophillia more than any other species on earth. Not just with other cane toads either. Birds, mammals, snakes, lizards, other amphibians, you name it.
** Besides looking ugly and spreading like a plague, it EATS CORPSES,Its HIGHLY POISONOUS and its FUCKING BIG. Its regarded as a pest that should be neutralized.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_badger The honey badger]]. A member of the ''Mustelidae'' family, which includes weasels, stoats, minks, martens, otters, sea otters, badgers, polecats, and the wolverine. We all know how BadAss and scary they can be. The honey badger takes it UpToEleven. It's skin is thick and tough enough that it's nearly impossible to penetrate it even with arrows and spears. It can turn around in its skin with ease. It is a tireless and determined predator, and it will eat ''anything'' it can find and overpower. It has extremely few predators, and even the king of beasts himself would prefer to face an angry bull elephant than a pissed-off honey badger. One took the food right out of a puff adder's mouth (the second-most dangerous snake in Africa after the black mamba), then proceeded to kill the snake, receiving a few bites in the process. Halfway through eating the snake, the venom took effect and the badger passed out. A couple of hours later, the badger woke up and ''immediately began finishing off his interrupted meal'' with no problem. Oh, and their preferred method of fighting larger predators? [[BodyHorror They go for the genitals]].
* Although EverythingsBetterWithPlatypi, everything is '''''WAY''''' worse with their venom. Sadly, it's not lethal. Instead, it incapacitates the victims and [[AndIMustScream LEAVES THEM IN PAIN SO EXCRUCIATING THAT NOT EVEN MORPHINE DOES ANYTHING]].
** Quoth ''{{Cracked}}'': "The platypus is God's way of saying, 'I made this thing out of scraps left on the floor and it can still fucking cripple you.'"
* My biology class was made of this. Examples: Delivery of pig fetuses for human anatomy class, teacher showing us a cow's eye, and more, but I will only tell the most horrific event that had occured to me.
** One day while going into the the locked storage door, a friend told me to look for a "cat." I looked in the back of a room and found a {{Squick}} inducing nightmare, a cat opened up, as if ready for surgery, with all organs visible and had a expression of howling pain. I ran out of class that day
* I'm surprised no one's mentioned chimpanzees. They may look cute and cuddly when they're babies, but they are absolute ''assholes'' when fully grown. There's a reason most primatologists only work with juveniles--adults can grow to be about 5'4" and are ''extremely'' dangerous. They're at least twice as strong as humans, and when they attack, they go for the face and genitals.
** There have been reports of chimpanzes snatching young childeren and draging them off into the wilderness. Guess what happend next..
* Meet the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_wandering_spider Brazilian wandering]] [[http://www-tc.pbs.org/wnet/nature/files//home/wnetwp/webroot/wnet/wp-content/blogs.dir/3/files/2008/10/8.jpg spider]], certified by Guinness as the most venomous spider on Earth. (Arachnaphobes should [[SchmuckBait not click]] that second link.) It lives all over South America, and has occasionally traveled all over the world in shipments of [[http://tizona.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/brazilian_wandering_spider1.jpg bananas]]. They've wound up in all kinds of grocery markets, and even [[http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200505/s1357179.htm hospitals]]. The thing can wind up with a five-inch leg span, and in South America tend to inhabit rather well-populated areas. Because they're wanderers, they like to hide during the day rather than build webs--in enclosed, dark spaces. Like under your bed, or in your closet, or the cupboard under the sink.
* Ever seen an angry horse before? [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rapa_das_bestas_sabucedo_2_jpereira.jpg Here you go]].
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqDjRCHyjTY Mike the Headless Chicken]] anyone?
* Bull sharks. While most sharks will only attack when threatened or as a case of mistaken identity, these sharks have been known to attack people without any provocation whatsoever. Don't believe me? [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pjbH5OuBc4 Here's proof]]. But what's worse than a hyper-aggressive shark with no qualms about mauling a human? Try one that goes into ''freshwater''. They aren't just in there accidentally, they have adapted to swim in freshwater and have been found hundreds of miles inland. These sharks have been found in the Mississippi, the Congo, Zambezi, Ganges, Amazon, Euphrates and Tigris rivers among others. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_Shore_shark_attacks_of_1916 The Jersey Shore Shark Attacks]], the inspiration for ''{{Jaws}}'' is now largely believed to have been the work of a ''single bull shark''.
* Frogs and Toads. First of all, there are poison dart frogs, which can kill you just by touching you. Venom oozes through the pores on their skin. But that's not the worst of it. See, all the other frogs have voracious appetites. They will pretty much eat anything they can jam into their mouths and (hopefully for their sake) swallow. And the larger the frog, the larger the prey. The largest frogs eat ''mice''. And bullfrogs? They can jump straight out of the water at a bird passing over their pond, catch them in mid-air and swallow them. There is very little reason to doubt that a frog twice the size of a person would swallow that person ''whole'' if it ever laid eyes on it.
** Speaking of frogs, there is a type of beetle that has been found to suck the life right out of frogs as seen [[http://bogleech.com/bio-epomis.htm here]].
** Poison dart frogs, unlike venomous and even some other poisonous animals, are ''not at all poisonous'' in captivity, because their poison is synthesized from their diet in the wild. There are captive-bred poison dart frogs in the pet trade, which is no surprise, because apart from the poison, they're ''adorable''.
* Tiger beetles. They don't harm humans, but just imagine what it would be like if you were it's prey and the last thing you saw was [[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_vXzN1osDLC0/S_lIu6CTJHI/AAAAAAAAAIQ/VN33T6GZujs/s1600/TIGERBEETLE+1.jpg THIS]]. It would also be moving at you at 5 miles an hour, which relative to it's body weight would be like watching as a fully-grown man armed with hedge-clippers comes running at you at ''480 miles per hour''!
%% Please keep the humans example at the bottom of the folder as a [[TheStinger stinger]].
* Face eating Northern in the middle of the lake (Northern= toothed, evil fish). My cousin made a joke about it when I was 6. I had a nightmare that bodies with faces chewed down to the bone washed up on the shore. I couldn't bring myself to swim out too deep for years.
* A reporter on the ''BBC World Service'' tells the story of a couple who visited an Eskimo village in Alaska, and excitedly got to see a live polar bear, and when they got there, were horrified to watch as it was killed in front of their eyes.
** On the subject of polar bears. Remember that scene in ''[[StarWars The Empire Strikes Back]]'' where Luke gets ambushed by the Wampa? Literally comes out of nowhere and nearly caves his head in? That's what polar bears do in ''real life''. They cover up their snouts and eyes as prey approaches or as they stalk it, then suddenly spring up and hit it before it even knows what's collapsed it's skull. The best part? Polar bears are one of the few bear species that actively seek out humans as prey.
* [[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QibpmJvBDQU/TazL8C-DodI/AAAAAAAAAEw/cr6oaCFId4s/s1600/zvK9C.jpg This is what a maggot looks like under a microscope]].
* Birds of prey when they catch animals. That animal will be carried for who-knows-how-long, in terror the whole time knowing what's about to happen, to a nest with baby birds. These babies will then slowly eat it ALIVE. It's much more merciful if the animal is killed before it gets to the nest but that doesn't happen all that much...
* It's not an animal, but the full run of carnivorous plants apply. They are truly nefarious traps, which when you read about them sound like something Jigsaw might come up with if he was a botanist. Venus Flytraps are pressure-activated cages. Pitcher plants are impossible-to-escape acid-bottomed pits. Flypaper plants are sticky traps, where the prey dies of exhaustion, starvation or suffocation. Lobster-trap plants allow prey to come in, but keep it from getting out with inward-pointing barbs. The craziest, though, has to be the aquatic bladderworts. They pump out ions to generate a partial vacuum. The plant keeps this vacuum behind a leafy "door". When an aquatic insect comes along and touches a trigger hair, the "door" swings open and the vacuum sucks the insect inside. It's a ''lever-operated vacuum trap''. Thankfully, none of them fall into the ManEatingPlant category.
* Parrots can be very intimidating on their own. However, many people find them cute and great to have as pets. Then, some species as they get older can really put people into a state of fear. The birds, if not properly trained from a young age (and being incredibly intelligent), can start taking advantage of their owner. They'll make loud noises for your constant attention, they'll become aggressive and mean-spirited (especially cockatoos and macaws), and they'll throw a temper fit when you don't give them what they want. Also, placing them in a cage doesn't always do the trick as many of them can figure out how to escape. Even worse is that some of the larger parrots have strong enough jaws to chew their own cage, even when ''it is stainless steel''. Usually the only solution is to give the bird up to a rescue agency, which can result in the bird becoming depressed because of the loss of it's companion (the owner). This is why it is usually custom for a salesperson of parrots to make sure the customer thinks ''long'' and ''hard'' about this decision.
* I can't believe noone's mentioned Primates yet, gorillas espessially. Those things are monsters that can easily rip someone in two. And don't get me started on Chimpanzees. For example if they're smiling at you, you'd better run like hell, 'cause he ain't happy to see you.
** Fortunately, a lot of the great apes are actually quite calm, so long as you do not provoke them. They can hurt you, but they typically resort only to posturing. But chimpanzees? Whereas a gorilla will mostly beat his chest and make a show to get you to leave, chimpanzees may go out of their way to murder your ass ''for the hell of it''. Once, a group of "problem chimps" escaped from a primate sanctuary in Sierra Leone and came across a cab. The passenger in the cab managed to get out when the chimps got to it and decided to attack. The driver? Well let's just say that "pulled apart" barely described it.
* Spiders that spin 82 foot webs and leeches that saw their way through your rectum. And that's just the first two entries.
** http://www.cracked.com/article_19719_6-terrifying-new-creatures-science-just-discovered.html?wa_user1=1&wa_user2=Science&wa_user3=article&wa_user4=feature_module
* [[FeatheredFiend The cassowary]]. Sure, it doesn't look very dangerous, but a well placed kick from it can criple an adult, and it [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dcQO6Zb8Eg roars and growls]].
[[/folder]]
[[folder: The Most Dangerous Animal Of Them All]]
* [[HumansAreBastards Humans]]. Inhabiting much of the planet's land mass, they often kill each other and many other species for fun. And they have nukes.
** Considering that there are few animals who kill off members of their own species: humans are truly the most dangerous animal of all, endangering everything on the planet, including other humans. And we're not only talking about genocidal dictators or terrorists like Hitler, Stalin, Bin Laden, Mao, Djenghis Khan, Attilla the Hun, Pol Pot,... On a huge industrial scale humans are rapidly destroying their own environment by destroying and poisoning nature's life sources, thus putting the survival of all mankind in danger for future generations!
*** The Mosquito begs to differ. They have killed 45 billion people. To put this in perspective, they have ''killed more humans then every recorded war ever fought'', and ''more than half the number of people that ever lived''.
** You mean ''literally'' more than every recorded war ever fought? As in, from [[http://ancienthistory.about.com/b/2003/07/15/the-first-war-ever-recorded.htm the war between Sumer and Elam in 2700 B.C.]] to ''now''!?
**** Consider that, to a mosquito, a [[HumansAreCthulhu human is a mountain-sized torch]]. Mosquitoes [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu are total badasses.]]
*** Plus, there is also the idea that at least mosquitoes have a reason to suck blood, if they don't get the proper nutrients from blood, the eggs inside of them will die.
* How's about this to keep you up at night? Right now, we are currently living in one of the largest mass extinctions of life on Earth, rivaled only by the Great Dying. Take a guess as to what scientists think is causing [[YouBastard it]]. Humans can cause much, ''much'' more disease, destruction, and death then just about any other animal ''known on the planet.''Heck, we have the power to destroy much of the planet with nukes.
[[/folder]]
----
[[folder: RLNF Cosmic Horror, Eschatology and What Comes After]]
--> ''[[HopeSpot "You lot, you spend all your time thinking about dying, like you're gonna get killed by eggs, or beef, or global warming, or asteroids. But you never take time to imagine the impossible.]] Like maybe you survive."''
-->--'''The Doctor''', ''Series/DoctorWho''
--> ''"Nobody likes us 'big picture' people."''
-->--'''Calvin''', ''CalvinAndHobbes''
----
!!Please take all debate to the discussion page.
Do not post just to disprove a theory or to add NightmareRetardant. Both of them are {{natter}} here! Take all debate to the discussion page.
[[foldercontrol]]
%%
%% Do not post just to disprove a theory or to add NightmareRetardant. Both of them are {{natter}} here!
%%
[[folder:The Afterlife and Other Eternal Life scenarios]]
* WhoWantsToLiveForever.
* [[TakeAThirdOption Different option]]: We figure out how to upload our consciousness to a super computer and live millions of eternities in a mere few years, if that, and after exhausting every possible reality we can think of, end ourselves knowing that we have truly lived, willing to accept what happens, whether that is eternal life or nothingness.
** Alternate nightmare fuel? If that's a possible outcome, it's also possible that we've already done this. Every consciousness now exists on a supercomputer. This entire world and our entire lives are simply one of the aforementioned simulated existences. If we're lucky, it's multiplayer, and all of us happen to be sharing in this specific experience. If we're not lucky, only one person in the whole of existence is 'real'. The rest of us are simulated and meaningless, we have no way of knowing who the 'real' person is and therefore who our world revolves around and due to the implied desire (for a 'clean' experience) inherent in simulating an entire life for the experience of living it, he/she probably doesn't know either.
* What if there IS an afterlife? What if you were such a bad person that finally meets death? Yep. You're going to hell, and suffering for eternity in the most painful ways possible that you wouldn't if you were alive.
* There are [[FateWorseThanDeath things that will make you wish you were dead]] you say? Satan and Hell says hi right to that statement before proving that statement completely wrong.
* Singularitarians belive that cessation of existence is the worst possible outcome imaginable. Death is an obstacle to be conquered, rather than an inevitability to which we should all sheepishly submit.
* The concept of oblivion brings horror... the concept of infinity eternity brings horror... Did the cosmos become some sort of [[EldritchAbomination horror elemental]] when I wasn't looking? (Maybe this is where {{Gnosticism}}'s concept of an inept and/or malicious Demiurge gets its appeal...)
* The Rapture, and all other apocalyptic beliefs. In the US alone, 40% of the population believes that Jesus will return ''in their lifetime''. Stop and think about that for a second. At any given moment, a very, very large percentage of the human population believes that it's okay to run through resources at lightning speed, making no plans to invest in alternative energy, because their chosen deity (this isn't just limited to Christians) is going to come back and make everything all right. The same goes for things like curing disease, battling starvation and ending war.
** And that's not even getting into the Rapture cults who believe that war, famine and disease are all signs that Jesus is about to return, and view such events with thinly veiled joy.
* Suppose you are the only sentient, sapient being in the entire universe. The universe was created simply for your own amusement. Sounds wonderful, no? Actually, this means everyone you know and love ceases to exist the moment you don't see or hear or experience them in any way. Sitting in your living room right now? That is the entire universe at the moment, because why bother rendering the rest of space and time when the only being in existence, you, is reading TVTropes? All of history was fabricated so you would believe other people are thinking, intelligent humans. But they aren't. Only you exist.
** On the flip side of this, imagine that you aren't a sentient, sapient being; that someone else is. This person truly experiences reality. Everything you feel and experience is a grossly dumbed down and simplified version of true perception. Your brain is hideously slow, your eyes only see three primary colors instead of their twelve, you only exist in three dimensions instead of fourteen. [[CosmicHorrorStory This "god" is enormously superior to everything you could ever hope to be. They go about the world experiencing reality, while the rest of us literally are just here for their amusement.]]
*** The scariest thing is that, while the first suggestion denies itself (that would make us our own God), the second may be true and we may be only a toy to the rest of the people around us. It would explain a lot, be less scary and still manage to make you feel like an awful piece of crap and trash.
*** A combination of the two is even more frightening, such as starting out as the first and through some process ended up as the latter. Where the price of godhood is a hallucination where only you exist, while interacting with others means always being at the mercy of a collective-consciousness empowered by everyone's rejected omnipotence. Knowing that, even at the height of your power, you could never compete with the cumulative power of everyone else.
* The idea of [[TheNothingAfterDeath there being no afterlife]] has caused me to stay awake crying one night, and then put me into a depression.
** I can add to that: What if you get Alzheimer's Disease and there IS an afterlife? What if the soul that is allowed to go to heaven is that of you as a husk of a person, instead of the you throughout the rest of your life? Spending Eternity™ as only a husk of yourself, and everything that made you YOU gone, is rather unnerving...
** Or alternately, you can also worry about what happens if there ''is'' an [[AndIMustScream afterlife?]]
* The idea of [[AndIMustScream eternal punishment in Hell]] is pretty horrific enough, but the Calvinist belief of predestination actually makes this [[BeyondTheImpossible even more terrifying]]. How? According to Calvinist theologians, God picks and chooses who to save and who to damn. This [[FridgeHorror implies]] that God created some people for the sole purpose of being sent to Hell, [[YouCantFightFate and there's nothing that they can do about it.]] Fortunately, not many people believe in this, but the idea is horrifying enough.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Dying]]
* Let's face it ladies and gentlemen. There's a reason why so many people fear death and consider it to be the worst fate...IT'S A FUCKING TERRIFYING THOUGHT! [[CessationOfExistence Say that there is NO afterlife. Yep. pitch black darkness with nothing going on at all.]]
* I would like to assert that Danny Elfman said it best:
---->No one beats [Death] at his game\\
For very long but just the same\\
Who cares, there's no place safe to hide\\
Nowhere to run--no time to cry\\
So celebrate while you still can\\
'Cause any second it may end\\
And when it's all been said and done\\
Better that you had some fun\\
Instead of hiding in a shell\\
Why make your life a living hell?\\
So drink a toast, and down the cup\\
And drink to bones that turn to dust ('cause)\\
No one (x13)\\
No one lives forever!! (hey!)
* Then there's [[http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html Isaac Asimov's]] contribution to this problem, with a TwistEnding.
* This was Nietzsche's whole point in his part of the dialogue of western philosophy. Reality exists. So do we. We assume we are special. We're probably not. All human experience has been spent in the attempt to formulate truth so we don't have to contemplate the horror of being without reason. [[NietzscheWannabe Lots of people]] get the ultimate point behind this stance wrong though; Mr. Nietzsche wanted us to honestly and totally accept life as causa sui, and to wholly embrace it without the interference of human rationalization. Now, he admits that that's a pretty fucked up way to live and describes it as the "Will to Die" and states pretty explicitly that it is no way shameful to prefer self-generated "truth" in order to be happy. Also, the EternalRecurrence (the idea that all time repeats endlessly, much like the Quantum Immortality example below, but with each repeat being identical to the one before) to some is HighOctaneNightmareFuel (WhoWantsToLiveForever is bad enough, but being forced to see your own same mistakes over and over again is a cosmic AndIMustScream, especially if said mistakes are [[MindRape traumatic]]) while Nietzsche views it as the ultimate affirmation of life.
---->What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.' [Nietzsche, F. The Gay Science, §341]
* The simple fact that [[NothingIsScarier NOBODY KNOWS]] what happens after you die, nor can the human mind comprehend it.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The End of Civilization As We Know It]]
* At several points in Earth's history, worldwide volcanic eruptions wiped out upwards of 98% of all species on the planet. This could conceivably happen again at any time. If it's not volcanic fury that gets us, it'll be a meteor or some other sudden event that can be predicted but not prevented. The ones killed initially will be the lucky ones. The rest will be left to starve to death.
* Our sun is too small to go nova. What ''will'' happen is that it'll run out of fuel, swell into a Red Giant and ''engulf the Earth as it expands.'' Popular science says that won't happen for a good 5 billion years, but it's still a fun thought to entertain.
** Altough human life on Earth will become unbearable in much less time than that, because the sun is constantly expanding, it won't just suddenly swell in to a giant ball - altough the process gets progressively faster in time. In approximately 100 million years it is thought to be too warm for modern day humans to live, and in 500 million years, the temperatures on Earth reach levels such as that oceans will boil away.
* Watch ''Life After People''.
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBtHICMmDJk Which]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBNLl7T3EIw&feature=related can]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLlJBHhE2Hw&feature=related be]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4GTRab56_A&feature=related seen]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YM_rsu2CcsI&feature=related right]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHrlkoVlUFQ&feature=related here.]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSjRG-VJhWg&feature=related Watch]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPA3ocklQf4&feature=related nature]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4g4hV3Mmlg&feature=related fight back.]]
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XDbcMND7fY&feature=related Better]] version.
* Hardin's "Tragedy of the Commons" and how often I've seen that behaviour. You can try it this Halloween. Put a bowl of candy out for the trick-or-treaters. There's nothing preventing the ones who aren't accompanied by adults from overturning the ''entire bowl'' into their bag and leaving nothing left for everyone else. What makes this scary? It doesn't ''just'' apply to Halloween Candy. Which is particularly chilling when you think about how much society depends on fossil fuels, and how quickly we go through them. Regardless of one's stance on climate change, no one can deny that fossil fuels are going to become an issue in the future when we start running low... unless they believe that there won't ''be'' any future, which brings us to another bit of nightmare fuel...
* Watch the History Channel or Discovery Channel, eventually they'll have a "How the world ends" special. If you're religious, the History Channel provides you with plenty of cases of prophecies coming true. If you're the scientific nut, you're treated to many scientific ways the world will end including the super volcano at Yellowstone bringing nuclear winter on its own, a Deep Impact or Armageddon worthy asteroid impact, and the infamous Large Hadron Collider making exotic particles or micro-black holes. Doubly worse for the religious as the scientific ways the world will end are in fact, very possible. Especially the asteroid (we have a higher chance of impact than you getting struck by lightning).
* There's a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_caldera super volcano underneath Yellowstone.]] If it explodes, it's predicted that the entire United States will be covered in at least few centimeters of ash (in areas farthest away from the volcano), cars and planes won't function since the ash is finer and heavier than snow (causing all the engines to clog), and the ash in the atmosphere will block out the sun for several years. [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Oh, and it's overdue for its next eruption.]] At least scientists speculate that [[ApocalypseHow humanity itself won't necessarily go extinct, just that civilization as we know it might end.]]
** Yellowstone is possibly peanuts compared to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory Lake Toba, which has almost once wiped out humanity]] - the human gene pool was presumably once down to only about ten thousand individuals - and that's the optimistic estimate, the more pessimistic one has humanity dodging a bullet with a mere 1,000 individuals left.
* Care to know how the world and/or humanity might end? Go to [[http://www.exitmundi.nl/exitmundi.htm Exit Mundi]]. Excellent, witty, and sometimes disturbing reads. My personal favorite? "Eternity".
* Solar storms. Solar storm of 1859 resulted in things like "Telegraph pylons threw sparks and telegraph paper spontaneously caught fire."
* Two more potential ticking {{depopulation bomb}}s: Mass infertility due to pollution, malnutrition/undernourishment, obesity, etc. (many kids may die before their parents). We're seeing some of the effects already.
* With the possibility of a "zombie virus" able to be genetically engineered, WorldWarZ might actually happen.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The End of the Universe]]
* Before start reading this section, go to [[http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html Atomic Rockets]] Have fun realising just how stuck we really are on this miserable rock.
* Antimatter. Mixing matter (ex: the universe) and antimatter can lead to the annihilation of both.
** The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strangelet Strangelet]] is no better.
*** And while Antimatter functions like a [[YinYangBomb Yin Yang Bomb]], causing the immediate annihilation of both matter and antimatter into a crapton of energy, Strangelets function like [[TheVirus The Virus]], converting more and more baryonic (normal) matter into strange matter. It could theoretically take just a single strangelet to set off a chain reaction that results in the entire earth becoming one massive, hot ball of strange matter.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_fate_of_the_universe The ultimate fate of the universe]].
* Given that the Cosmological Constant seems to be stronger in one direction of the universe and weaker in another, it's very likely that at one point along the spectrum a vacuum metastability event has already occurred or will soon. But the universe won't be instantly obliterated; the collapse would propagate at the speed of light and you'd never see it coming. Comforting, yes?
* Here's a fun thought: the solar system is not completely stable, but only metastable. It may happen, sometime in the next few million years, that Mercury and Venus could pass close enough to one another that their mutual gravitation messes up their orbits, in turn messing up the orbits of the other inner planets. So Earth might crash into another planet, get thrown into the sun, or get flung off into interstellar space.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_decay Proton decay]]. Currently hypothetical, but it may be that in the truly deep depths of infinite time there won't be any matter left - just photons (red-shifted to almost nothing), neutrinos (don't interact in any meaningful way), and a vanishingly thin haze of electron/positron pairs that haven't quite got around to annihilating each other yet. Oh, and whatever it is that Dark Matter turns out to be... assuming it doesn't decay too.
** Please note that while the above is the most likely scenario, the mass/energy-being-created-out-of-practically-nothing vacuum fluctuations will always be around as long as space itself exists. Given the unlimited amount of time ahead of us, if there's the slightest chance of those actually creating something useful, then that will come to pass eventually.
* Speaking of celestial bodies and whatnot- Black holes. They are scary as hell when you really get into what they are and what, precisely, they are doing. They warp the fabric of space-time. They are absolutely huge, they eat everything, and you can't even see them unless there's a backdrop of, say, interstellar gas to provide a contrast. If one should happen to drift in the direction of our planet -and this is, in fact, entirely possible-, even if we saw it coming years in advance, there would be nothing we could do about it. [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption You do not stop a black hole.]] Plus, once you cross the event horizon, you are not ever coming back. And although it's unknown what, exactly, happens inside a black hole (though there are plenty of theories), it's safe to assume that it's probably something fairly horrible. If there are in fact RealLife [[CosmicHorror Cosmic Horrors]], they are probably black holes.
** The cosmic/dev/null.
** There's proof that, to an observer, somebody falling into a black hole will freeze just outside of the event horizon. That could mean that, just outside of the event horizon, [[FateWorseThanDeath YOU freeze]] and are trapped there, frozen in time, [[AndIMustScream forever.]]
** There's also these Einstein-Rosen bridges in them that lead to a mirror universe, but of course not without completely destroying you upon entering. An additional twist to this curious mirror universe is Roy Kerr's idea of rotating black holes that don't have infinite gravity at an area and could maybe be possible to go inside. Coming closer to one gives you a "house of mirrors" effect according to Michio Kaku's book titled ''Hyperspace''. So you drive a spaceship to a rotating black hole and pray you enter it from the right spot and suddenly start seeing many copies of your ship from the window until you run into one that's real and from another universe.
** Read through the following [[http://casa.colorado.edu/~ajsh/dive.html website]] and witness the animations. Though simple projections (with some artistic license), the website's animations give a fair idea about what happens near and inside a black hole. It might take some time to wrap your mind around (especially if English is not your native language), but once you unlock the fundamental idea behind the theory, it is a truly scary and amazing journey.
** And [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI9CvipHl_c#t=1m24s here's]] a video which attempts to show (with the help of a sort-of-realistic background) what we'd actually see if we were to spiral down into a black hole. (Go to 6:15 if you want to skip the commentary.) "Bizarre" doesn't even begin to describe it.
* Speaking of black holes, the current scientific theory that there is a supermassive black hole at the center of every galaxy. That means all matter in the universe is just circling one of several great cosmic drains. We're living on an eddy, being very slowly pulled into an inescapable vortex. Eventually our planet, our solar system, EVERYTHING, will be sucked down the drain and just blinked out of existence. Eventually there will be nothing but a great ravenous hole in the fabric of reality...and there's nothing we can do about it.
* Deep time. The fact that when you think about a long enough stretch of time, everything will die. Not only that, but that our current understanding of the universe implies that with enough time everything in existence will be converted into ever more widely scattered heat energy. That ultimately, it's not just that you will die, or that the human race will die, but that anything that could possibly show that either of those ever even existed will cease to be, ''and there is nothing you can do about it''.
* Gamma Ray Bursts. When huge, dying stars are consumed from within by black holes they release vast amounts of energy at very near the speed of light. In a matter of seconds, some of these blasts of energy can exceed the amount of energy that our sun will release in its entire lifetime. If one of these hit the planet then we'd probably all die before we knew what had happened. Even if one passed too close it would be like every place on one side of the planet being hit by a nuclear missile at once, and the other side of the planet dealing with the resulting wall of fire and death. The real problem is that these bursts are basically impossible to predict, and even if we could there's absolutely nothing we could do about it. The entire planet could die a horrible, fiery death within minutes of you reading this.
** WR 104. Aimed right towards us. [[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/03/03/wr-104-a-nearby-gamma-ray-burst Have a nice day.]]
* You know how the Universe just loves scaring the crap out of us planetside? What with all the Big Crunch, Supermassive Black Holes, Gargantuan Death Rays and rogue stars out there already, you feel the need to throw MOLECULAR WINDSTORMS at us! Allow me to explain, picture a Galaxy, any galaxy. Now picture something not unlike a hurricane that will rip all the molecules out of the Galaxy, leaving it sterile. These windstorms strip planets, stars, even nebulas bare of molecules. And here we are afraid of rogue black holes....
* The sounds of Saturn: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C6lymtHG60
** This is what our own planet sounds like from outer space: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AVHXMLDvWA&feature=player_embedded
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporal_paradox#Temporal_merging_hypothesis One theory]] as to how temporal paradoxes would resolve themselves is that once a temporal paradox occurred, this universe would be obliterated and be replaced with a new one with a different timeline that can accommodate whatever created the paradox. But we wouldn't be aware of it, because our universe would otherwise be exactly the same. Maybe it just happened. Maybe it just happened again.
** Or maybe our entire universe IS a replacement for sorting out a paradox, and we're just in one segment of history leading up to the creation of that paradox. It could be caused by some other civilization millions of light years away from us, and it might happen again. Humanity and everything we've created would be obliterated because of something that doesn't even know we exist. The nature of the paradox might mean we'd never be recreated again.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Humans in relation to the Universe]]
* This is basically the whole point of the CosmicHorrorStory genre as HPLovecraft envisioned it. See the genre page for details.
* Take the time to actually contemplate the vast, absurd distances between just, say, the Earth and the Moon. Then try to contemplate the Earth and another planet, or the Earth and the sun. Or the sun and another star. Your brain may start hurting and crying in fear at a glimpse of the true meaning of such a size, just the thought of all that emptiness...
** [[http://sizeofworldse.ytmnd.com/ This YTMND]] says it better than I could.
*** And it doesn't even end there. These supergiants aren't anything special, since there are billions of stars within a single galaxy. In 2003, astronomers photographed a random area of the sky measuring 11 square arc minutes, which is about as much as holding a sheet of paper 1 meter away from you and peeking through a hole 1mm x 1mm in size. To catch even extremely faint light sources, the film was exposed for a total of almost 300 hours. And in the end [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Hubble_ultra_deep_field_high_rez_edit1.jpg they ended up with this picture]].
**** [[spoiler:It shows about 10.000 Galaxies, each of them containing billions of stars. To photograph the entire sky, you'd need about 13 million photographs like this.]]
** Behold the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPm3QVKlBJg Powers of Ten.]] The Universe on both a macro and micro scale is almost incomprehensible.
* Scientists had only recently witnessed a distant supernova that had occurred '''11 billion years ago'''. With that being said, he thought this meant that there's nothing out there in the Universe, right this very minute.
* There's always the possibility that we're ''not'' alone, and the vastness of space includes the possibility of untold, fascinating new lifeforms.
* [[http://primaxstudio.com/stuff/scale_of_universe/ This]] is an interactive scale of the universe, from things human-sized (including humans), up to the Universe itself, and back down to the fabric of spacetime itself, and absolutely everything in between. Very informative and interesting... and highly haunting.
** Even more, the scale used has things such as cells and bacteria towards the ''middle''. Meaning that humans are on the large end of the scale. Think about that for a moment, and how there are things much bigger than humans. Think how a being the size of a cell would perceive the very human it inhabits, let alone the rest of the Universe.
** [[http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/589217/ Here is an updated version of the scale made by the same guy.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The Nature of Reality]]
* Quantum Immortality. Since our consciousness is evenly spread along an infinite number of nearly identical universes, from our subjective point of view we will always survive life or death situations as long as there is even a tiny chance of survival, since we will only continue to be aware in the universes where we were saved. While this does mean that we would all reach an age where we would be hospitalized because it would no longer be possible for our bodies to function by themselves, we would hardly be alone in this. There are plenty of people like this in the world, and, since there is a limit to the human life expectancy, sooner or later we would be [[CriticalExistenceFailure dead in every universe]]
** Actually, the odds are even worse than that. As we age the chances of death in the following year increase by a larger amount, but never quite to 1. What's more, beyond a certain age there's evidence that the increase slows back down again. All we know is that there isn't anyone, in this universe, who has survived thousands of years. You know why? This one's ''yours''. (Actually, no, this one's mine. Get your own universe.)
* Consider the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics]] - within the endlessly bifurcating alternate universes every possible thing happens.
[[/folder]]
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[[HighOctaneNightmareFuel/RealLife Ready for more]], or do you [[SweetDreamsFuel need]] [[TroperTales/HeartwarmingMoments a]] [[Heartwarming/RealLife break]]?
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[[folder: RLNF Diseases and Infection]]
* If you want a real interesting experience, Google "turban tumor", "Brooke-Spiegler syndrome", or "cylindroma." IF, of course, you want to know what a scalp full of bulb-like, bright red tumors looks like.
* Pfiesteria ''piscicida'', called the "Dinoflagellate from Hell" by scientists, is a microscopic protista that eats living flesh; the species name literally means "fish-killer" but its not picky on the type of flesh it devours. It can enter through just skin contact, and you won't know it's inside of you until you get sores that won't heal. The only way to get rid of them is to cut out the chunck of infected flesh. If you don't catch them in time to do that then they can cause headaches, skin rash, eye irritation, upper respiratory irritation, muscle cramps, and gastrointestinal complaints, acute skin burning, confusion, and memory loss. By the way, these protists are mainly found off the coast of North Carolina. So when the signs say don't go in the water, ''don't''.
** According to [[http://www.dnr.state.md.us/bay/cblife/algae/dino/pfiesteria/where.gif this chart,]] it's found primarily around coastal Maryland ''and'' North Carolina. People vacation out there....
* A Smallpox outbreak in the early 1900s killed 12 million people. Smallpox still exists, remains untreatable and is just as deadly today. A Smallpox outbreak in a large city such as New York, Paris or Tokyo would probably kill many time more. Should a few carriers get on planes and carry the disease throughout the world, we are all fucked. Sure, smallpox was ''usually'' nonfatal. But if you got one of the nastier forms, you ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_pox were]]'' fucked. Just because smallpox was usually nonfatal, doesn't mean it didn't ''suck monkey balls''. Have you ever had a blister on your toe? Now imagine that all over your body. The "best" part is, unlike Ebola, smallpox doesn't affect the brain. In fact, it's said to make patients particularly lucid. So not only are you covered in horrifically painful blisters, but you're ''completely conscious for
** Um? 1980, the WHO's greatest victory? [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome Smallpox has been utterly eradicated in the wild.]] There are only two samples remaining, one each in an American and a Russian laboratory, simply for research purposes and in case the disease re-emerges or something similar mutates. There is a prevention; in fact the Smallpox vaccine was the first in Western medicine, as the related and lesser disease Cowpox gave antibodies against Smallpox too. And there is a potential cure: Cidofovir is a potent antiviral and if it ever emerges again, this may well be the drug of choice.
*** Note however that the reason there are samples in that laboratory is that countries were asked to send their samples to one of each. But can you really trust the governments of all and each of the infected countries? Even if none of them had vile purposes, it is always possible a sample was not registered properly and is out there hidden in some fridge in some laboratory waiting for someone to find it. It only takes one of these samples to be found by a group with ulterior motives to have attempts to weaponized small pox, and that's high octane nightmare fuel, even if far-fetched. Ever since Smallpox has been erradicated, the vaccination efforts stopped, so an infection would spread over to a sizeable part of the population before we could apply the cure and the vaccines to stop it.
*** Also, in Russia's case, they were ''extremely'' uncooperative about keeping their samples tracked before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Basically, there was no one central authority on exactly what was going on with all the samples, and when the labs studying it shut down, the people working them just kind of left. So while they know for sure that there's a sample in Moscow, there's no guarantee there aren't other samples elsewhere.
* Fortunately for the world, Ebola, for all its nastiness, is a flash in the pan. It kills victims too quickly to spread, and it's only communicable by fluids. Granted, that's cold comfort to them as will die from it, but it's relatively harmless as outbreaks go. [[TooDumbToLive Unless some]] [[ApocalypseHow stupid human]] [[EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt engineers it]] [[KillEmAll to be otherwise]], Ebola's nothing to worry about. Except for that outbreak of Ebola in Reston Virginia. This strain of Ebola was ''airborne''. We were lucky and when it mutated, it was no longer lethal to humans. Read ''The Hot Zone''. The graphic description of Ebola's effect on the human body in the beginning of ''The Hot Zone'' [[SarcasmMode should be a treat]].
** Let's hope [[ApocalypseHow they don't]] [[EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt do something]] [[KillEmAll that stupid.]] Except there's been evidence that bioweapons research facilities in other countries have attempted to do just that. Ebola weaponization programs are, frighteningly, nothing new.
** Aaaaaaand now it's in pigs. Yeah, in a few years, ''we are screwed.''
* Tetanus. For those of you who don't know what it is, it's a disease that paralyzes your mouth and jaw after a puncture wound. If that doesn't sound scary enough, imagine this: you're walking outside, and you somehow step on a rusty nail. It hurts badly, but you don't want to go to the doctor's office, so you disinfect the wound yourself. A few days later, you find out that you can't open your mouth to talk, eat, or drink. Your fate? You die from dehydration, all because of a rusty nail.
** [[FalseReassurance Don't worry. Eventually the very painful spasms (oh wait, you forgot to mention those?) will exahust your respiratory muscles, and you will die of asphyxiation long before dehydration sets in]]
* The Black Plague. Some research suggests that the original Bubonic Plague was a cocktail of both ''Yersinia pestis'' and anthrax. The latter, of course, is one of the hottest sources of real-life NightmareFuel this decade. The former has about a 12% fatality rate these days, which, while not the killer it used to be, still is nothing to sneeze at (or vomit blood at, or...). Thankfully, there is comfort to be had, by way of viewing one's fear as [[http://www.giantmicrobes.com/us/products/blackdeath.html a cuddly plush toy]]. Those afraid of both the Black Death and dolls may be screwed, though.
* For that matter, ''the flu''. In 1830, ''a quarter of the people who got it died''. In the US, it ''currently'' kills about 36,000 people ''every year''. It's comparatively treatable, it's comparatively preventable, and yet ''it kills 36,000 people every year like a metronome'' because it's just not [[strike:profitable]] possible to keep people vaccinated. (I would like to point out that many different strains of influenza come and go every year and constantly mutate making old vaccinations worthless very quickly. This is a bug that can literally change faster than new vaccines can be produced.)
* Did someone say flu? How about "the greatest medical holocaust in history", which occurred from 1918 to 1920? The Spanish flu supposedly killed off 2.5%-5% of the world's population. Not only did it probably kill more people than the Black Plague (which affected people heavily for centuries), but it only happened in two years. For comparative purposes. WorldWarOne killed ten million people. The flu killed between 50 and 100 million worldwide. Interestingly enough, not many people seem to know about it. The Spanish Flu got swept under the historical carpet even as it was happening; World War I was still raging, and anything that got in the way of that was Simply Not Allowed.
** When a historian interviewed a lot of Australians who had been children during WorldWarI, they remembered it not as influenza at all, but as ''bubonic plague'', as the symptoms could include a level of cyanosis that could literally turn people so dark a blue they looked black. Even history has largely obliterated it--it warranted exactly one line in a senior history book. The deadliest disease in the planet's history, and almost nobody thinks to mention it. Even relatively contemporary literature seems to ignore it--''[[Literature/AnneOfGreenGables Rilla of Ingleside]]'', the last of the ''Anne of Green Gables'' books, was centered around WorldWarI, which the writer lived through, yet makes no mention whatsoever of the pandemic. Even when she talks about some of the male characters being shipped overseas late in the war, she says nothing about how the flu made it next to impossible to ''do'' that, or of the very real danger a recruit would be dead of the flu before they even got to Europe.
*** An old Reader's Digest book, [[http://www.betterworldbooks.co.uk/great-disasters-id-089577321X.aspx "Great Disasters"]], has the 1918 Influenza Pandemic listed. Four pages of chilling.
** It killed so many people it depressed ''global'' life expectancy by a decade.
** And we only survived due to better hygiene, sanitation, and medicine. If the Spanish Flu struck in the Middle Ages like the Bubonic Plague? There's a high chance humanity in Europe and Asia would have been ''completely'' wiped out, the only safe places being across the sea in the Americas.
*** But there's always the chance such an epidemic can happen again. You think [=H1N1=] was bad? It could have been worse.
*** To quote a man who was a child in 1918 in a documentary: "People didn't want to believe that they could be healthy in the morning, and dead by nightfall, they didn't want to believe that."
* Autoimmune conditions, in general. It ''sounds'' like a brilliant idea. Just [[TimTaylorTechnology boost the immune system]]. Oops, now your own body is digesting portions of itself, or swelling things shut, or just deciding that maybe it's time to give up the ghost on that whole working brain thing. Oh, and the disasters are unpredictable, and tend to be triggered by unusual or eccentric stuff that you weren't exposed to earlier. Hope you didn't want to see anything new!
* Myasthenia Gravis is the TruthInTelevision version of SoapOperaDisease. Myasthenics' immune systems attack their motor nerves, severely weakening their muscles, and trying to exercise only makes them even weaker. The disease varies from day to day so you'll have no idea whether tomorrow you'll be almost normal or bedridden. There's even the possibility that it could suddenly flare up to the point that your respiratory muscles seize up and you stop breathing. The immunosuppressive therapy used to treat the disease makes even minor illnesses potentially lethal. And the worst part of all is that myasthenia gravis can cause thymus cancer. The thymus is a gland in your chest that is useless after puberty, but in myasthenics it can become cancerous, and, if malignant, is an absolutely ''raging'' cancer that will spread all over your body and probably kill you within a year. This cancer is so deadly that a surgical procedure where they get the gland out by ''sawing through your breastbone'', a brutally invasive surgery that takes months to recover from and can kill, is done as a ''preventative measure''. This disease tends to first show up in early adulthood. Right around [[MostTropersAreYoungNerds the ages of many tropers]], in fact...
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locked_in_syndrome Locked-in syndrome]]. On a similar note, sleep paralysis. Especially since it can also be accompanied by (and here I quote TheOtherWiki's article on the subject) 'terrifying hallucinations'. And it could happen to anyone. Even without the hallucinations, it is still absolutely terrifying. Imagine waking up with the feeling that you're about to die due to an inability to move...
** I get sleep paralysis all the time, and yes, it's pretty terrifying. You see, when your body adjusts for the REM period of sleep, your body naturally stops moving, and this is usually after you fall asleep. But for some reason, it doesn't always happen in that order. So, when I'm drifting off to sleep, I feel this weird sinking sensation and suddenly... I can't move. I can open my eyes, and blink, but I can't open my mouth or say anything so I can't tell anyone that I can't move. This can be remedied by moving an arm or a leg, but... well, let's just say it takes an awful lot of will-power to get your body to move when it thinks it's sleeping. I don't ever have hallucinations when this happens, thank goodness, but I still get the chills just thinking about sleep paralysis and knowing that it might happen again tonight... Gah.
** Opposite end of the spectrum. Sleepwalking/talking/eating/etc. Here's a vivid example. At a summer camp in a foreign country, without your parents and with almost no security, you go to bed early, upset because of a friend; telling your roommate that you won't be attending dinner. Next thing you know, your roommate is screaming her head off at you about how everyone think's she's a liar and where the hell have you been?! A teacher later explains to you (more coherently) that the councilors/teachers sent your roommate to wake you up because you weren't allowed to skip meals. She finds your bed empty and a massive search ensues trying to find you. Later, some older friends who went into the town that night swear they saw you in the crowd periodically, stalking them. You have no memory of the entire incident. As far as you know, you went to bed and slept, and woke up in that same bed. Extend to any possible time you sleep you may be doing something of which you will have no recollection, complete with semi-coherent babbling and complex muscle memory; such as punching your lover in your sleep (I'm a martial artist), or screaming insults at them with tidbits of coherency referencing sensitive topics. None of which is in your control.
* Tachycardia. It is possible for your heart to go so fast that it is unable to pump blood - it just pumps nothing, and besides being dangerous it is an extremely strange feeling. Not painful, exactly, but it seems that the entire world is throbbing with you and then you get dizzy and the lack of oxygenation can apparently cause hallucinations. Since there's not much of a refractory (resting) period during extreme tachycardia, the ventricles don't have time to fill with blood, and as such are pumping whatever blood does manage to get into the ventricular chambers in the severely limited amount of time between beats. Added fun, sometimes one half of your heart resumes normal rhythm and the other doesn't. Then your heart stops. Once that happens it's the most peculiar feeling of absolute silence in your body. Well for about 15 seconds anyway, then you start to pass out. Another note, Tachycardia is exhausting. Your heart hammering away at 300bpm for even a minute or two is tiring, and if you keep moving around it can last for 20-30 minutes.
** For severe SVT (supraventricular tachycardia) the first medication trained medics are supposed to give you is a drug that does just what you describe. Stop your heart cold. It can kill you, but it's also better than the alternative.
* Brain Eating Amoebas...They're called ''Naegleria fowleri''. To be fair, unless you're going swimming in really gross scummy waters, you're fine, but... yeah. There have been reports of them found in poorly maintained swimming pools as well. Just thought you'd like to know.C To top it all off, it's nearly impossible to tell if you've been infected. The only symptoms it shows are that of a mild cold or flu, but if not treated will kill a person in about two weeks.
** "If not treated" is hilariously optimistic and borderline wrong. The fatality rate of primary amoebic meningoencephalitis among patients lucky enough to receive treatment is ''over 97%''. The brain damage caused by ''N. fowleri'' is irreversible, of course, in those few that survive (there are something on the order of 10 known survivors). And the treatment involves pumping so much Amphotericin B into the patient that they're likely to suffer irreversible kidney damage as well.
* Gangrene. Tetanus, too. You can get both from infected minor injuries
* And then there's Leprosy, which, more than the fabled "falling apart" is kinda terrifying because the subject supposedly has to be very careful and continually check themselves over for any injury no matter how minor, because they may not have felt it and it just makes things worse.
* Pick's disease, or amnesia. Not that fake movie amnesia-- The kind of thing where you lose your memories and ''know'' that you've lost them.
* Then there's AIDS and other sexual diseases yet. There was a long Discover article on AIDS back in the '80s. Having your immune system ''shut down'' and then be slowly, agonizingly killed by every damn thing in your environment, coming down with weird diseases no one ever heard of? Sweet Christ.
** Watching someone die from full-blown AIDS is tragic and horrifying, especially the swiftness with which a person can go from being active and self-sufficient to being unable to feed, dress and care for themselves, even in 1st world nations (and the horror is multiplied in impoverished areas, where HIV can evolve into AIDS over a very short period of time, and sufferers often don't even have the benefit of being made "comfortable" during their final days). A person can seem fine, even appear to be improving, only to deteriorate over the course of a few weeks with little warning. It only takes one opportunistic infection to do a person in, leaving his or her loved ones behind to wonder how things went south so quickly. What's truly disturbing, however, is that there are actually people out there who believe a person ''deserves'' to die this way if they happen to be gay or bisexual, but that's [[CompleteMonster another trope altogether]].
* Syphilis and gonorrhea also belong on this list. Sure, they can be cured nowadays, but you can read some highly disturbing descriptions about what syphilis did to people before an effective cure was invented. Untreated tertiary syphilis can make your spine ''rot''. Oh, and do you
[[/folder]]
** The per act risk of contracting HIV is nowhere near 30%. For insertive penile-vaginal intercourse, it's about 0.05%; for receptive penile-vaginal intercourse, it's 0.1%. Even in low-income countries, the per-act risk with an infected person and no protection is about 0.3%. Aside from blood transfusions and mother-to-child transmission, the act with the highest risk of acquisition of HIV is receptive anal intercourse - and even then, it's estimated at only 1.7%, with a margin of error from 3.0% to 8.9%. See [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV#Transmission The Other Wiki]].
* Ever heard of the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DStwXsmZ3OE Human Tree]]?
** Dede's case is both horrific and a TearJerker. Because of his condition, he's been shunned most of his adult life and had to find employment in a ''sideshow''. And all he wants is to be married and have children.
* Even though it's pretty benign compared to other diseases mentioned, Gastroesophageal Reflux Disorder, also known as Acid Reflux or simply frequent heartburn. It's common and often no more than an after-meal nuisance, but then you realize that the heartburn means ''your stomach acid is eating away at your esophagus little by little''... And the foods that aggravate it most? Anything caffeinated, carbonated, or acidic. You'll never look at a glass of orange juice, a mug of coffee, a can of soda, or a plate of spaghetti, the same way ''ever again''. And anyone can develop it at any stage in their life.
** It might not really kill you, but it's rather painful.
*** It can kill; it nearly killed my sister, but she was a newborn and very small to begin with.
** Actually, if you're interested in something ''really'' horrifying, there's bulimia. People with this disorder eat and then vomit up the food they just ate. Given that people with bulimia do this on a regular basis, the amounts of stomach acid in the vomit damage the esophagus more than heartburn can. *shudder*
*** Bulimia, and eating disorders in general, practically deserve their own subpage.
* Heart disease. No matter where you are or what you're doing, your heart might just decide to stop working and kill you. Even when you're sleeping.
** Sweet dreams, kids.
* [[http://www.visualsnow.com/ Visual Snow]] Imagine having literal static in your vision, every day, 24/7.
** I actually cannot comprehend why this qualifies as HONF. This tropes has had visual snow her whole life and actually rarely notices it unless it becomes very obvious (such as against solid dark surfaces) or when she is reminded, like now. Since it's a 24/7 condition it's very easy to get desensitized towards it.
* Certain tumors, known as teratomas, can contain almost anything - hair, teeth, even eyeballs. Apparently there's also a subset called 'fetiform teratoma' which is a teratoma that contains a ''malformed human fetus''.
* "Phossy jaw," an occupational disease caused by chronic exposure to presently-outlawed white phosphorus, which was present in matches in the 1800's and early 1900's. Symptoms would start as painful toothaches and swelling of the gums, leading to the jaw bone tissue rotting away entirely (This was also accompanied by a foul-smelling discharge, making phossy jaw sufferers a rather unwelcome presence in social circles). The only way to avoid eventual death by organ failure would be to remove the jaw bones entirely, resulting in permanent, horrific disfigurement. And get this -- while afflicted, a sufferer's jaw would literally ''glow in the dark'' due to a reaction between the phosphorus and air.
* Another terrifying thing to have is diabetes and Crohn's disease together. Although not horrifying in of themselves, when you have both, they can be quite a menace. Imagine, if you eat to control your diabetes, you get severe diarrhea from the Crohn's, but if you don't eat to control the Crohn's, your diabetes goes out of control. Catch 22 anyone?
* Diabetes mellitus (which is usually meant with just "Diabetes")is not horrifying? Well, consider what he is: Diseases that keep Glucose from entering your cells-keep in mind that Glucose is the most important molecule for the cell to get energy...O, and the name means honeysweet passing through, [[NauseaFuel because it was originally diagnosed by drinking the urine.]]
* Speaking of fun diseases that do debilitating things to people, why not try [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creutzfeldt-Jakob_disease Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease]]? It's basically Mad Cow Disease for humans. Now what does Mad Cow Disease do? Basically turns your brain and spine into a sponge. Not very pretty. Oh, and it's contagious just like Mad Cow is, but it's up for grabs of how contagious it is. The best way to get it though is eating an infected.
** How about having someone tell you that you can't can't give blood because of the mere possibility of it being in your blood?
** It gets even more terrifying. It's often a delayed-reaction disease, meaning you can have contracted it up to 10-15 years before it manifests, and there is no cure. Once you've got it, ''you will die'', quite horribly. And, if that wasn't awful enough, autopsy tools used on infected tissue can never be used on anything else again, because there is no way at all to decontaminate them.
* Someone, somewhere, is finding it hard to sleep because of the [=H1N1=] influenza. It might even be you. The current (2009) swine flu (Type A [=H1N1=]) or a possible Avian flu (Probably still Type A [=H1N1=]). Remember that H1 stands for the type of haemagluttinin and the N is for Neuraminidase. And [=H1N1=] flu is not new. In fact the Spanish flu in 1918 was [=H1N1=]. Of course now we have far better health care. Swine flu isn't actually much, if any, more dangerous than regular flu. Whether that reassures you that swine flu isn't so bad, or scares you of the danger of regular flu,[[YourMileageMayVary only you can say]].
* Here's a fun image to look at [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycystic_kidney_disease for the Polycystic Kidney Disease]] It aslo has a cousin Polycystic Ovary Disease. If you looked at the kidney picture, now imagine that on a woman's entire reproductive system. ''*shudder*'' What's scarier about Polycystic Ovary Disease is the amount of women ''who don't know they have it.''
** It's actually predominantly known as "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycystic_ovarian_syndrome Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome]]", not "Disease". And there are those women who have the illness who don't necessarily have the ovary/-ies filled with cysts the way one would expect from the syndrome's name (which used to be known as Stein-Leventhal syndrome). But the great majority of sufferers have those ovarian cysts.
*** I don't have actual PCOS, but I do get ovarian cysts, and they are hands-down the most painful thing I have ever experienced, even more so than a kidney stone. The worst part is that for me (and a lot of other women), you don't really get much warning. I tend to get maybe five minutes of cramps, if I'm lucky, and then BAM. It seriously feels like someone's trying to eviscerate you -- one time when one burst, I literally passed out from the pain. The worst part is that it can be very hard to find a doctor who will just yank the damn ovary and spare you any more of that, because [[SarcasmMode apparently]] all women will [[MandatoryMotherhood biological children]] someday. Nevermind that cysts can cause scarring and render you sterile anyway.
*** Effects of PCOS include: hirsutism (facial hair on women, excessive body hair), acne (especially on the back and shoulders, but also on the face), insulin resistance (easily leading to diabetes/metabolic syndrome), acanthosis (darkening of elbows), amenorrhea/irregular bleeding (can't even call it menstrual periods, since if you do not ovulate you will not menstruate either), obesity and unexplained weight gain, hair loss on head (male pattern baldness on women), and infertility. Which one of those is most nightmarish? {{Your Mileage May Vary}}.
* Two words: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquefactive_necrosis Liquefactive necrosis.]] Central nervous system cells (i.e. brain or spine cells) get turned into soup. Sleep tight!
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola Ebola]]. The most lethal kind, Zaire, has a ''90%'' death rate. Why? It turns your organs to mush. And the worst part is the symptoms start off similar to a lot of other viruses, and by the time the unique symptoms come along, well, it's too late to be cured.
** By 'unique symptoms', we're talking about your eyes turning bright red due to the blood vessels bursting, your body throwing bloodclots everywhere to try to stop the virus only to run out and hemmorhage (typically lethal), the 'personality' of the victim nearly vanishing due to brain damage caused by those blood clots, sloughing of the intestines, vomiting up partially digested blood, and other, horrible things that I don't entirely recall. It's a horrible way to die. And by the time those symptoms are showing up, it's usually too late. Oh, and the virus itself is typically transmitted through contact with infected liquid matter. ''And these people are bleeding all over the floor!''
** If it's some consolation, Zaire 'burns out'. It's too lethal to be successful because it kills hosts too fast for infections to spread very far. It's Ebola ''Reston'' you have to fear. (There's another that has a 'mere' 30% fatality rate) Reston, on the other hand, cropped up right outside Washington D.C. and had...a 0% human fatality rate. It utterly destroyed the testing monkey population and resulted in the lab being quarantined. What makes Reston truly horrifying is that it has one thing other strains don't: ''aerial transmission''. Other forms of Ebola are spread by bodily contact. And remember: Mutation from animal diseases happen, we got AIDS from chimps. The best part of ALL Ebola forms? The origin of the virus was unknown and had no known natural resivoir until recently (when it was found in fruitbats).
* As long as we're talking about Ebola, we might as well mention the other [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_hemorrhagic_fever viral hemorrhagic fevers]], all of which have similar symptoms (albeit variable mortality rates):
** Arenaviridae: Bolivian hemorrhagic fever, Argentine hemorrhagic fever, Brazilian hemorrhagic fever, Venezuelan hemorrhagic fever, Lassa fever
** Bunyaviridae: Korean hemorrhagic fever, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, Rift Valley fever
** Filoviridae: Marburg hemorrhagic fever and the aforementioned Ebola hemorrhagic fever
** Flaviviridae: yellow fever, Omsk hemorrhagic fever, Kyasanur Forest disease
* Sleep Apnea. Imagine going to sleep and having your body forget to breathe. Happened to a friend of mine; now he's a "vegetable."
** If it's any consolation, usually you only stop breathing for the space of a few breaths anyway. For most sufferers, the risk isn't any greater than if you held your breath for 30 seconds. No, the real fun part of apnea comes in when you remember that each time it happens, even if you don't remember it, your sleep cycle gets disturbed. That happens often enough, it can contribute to anything from weight gain to vivid hallucinations. Pleasant dreams.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ondine%27s_curse Ondine's curse]], also called congenital central hypoventilation syndrome (CCHS) or primary alveolar hypoventilation, is a very rare and serious form of sleep apnea. In someone with this disorder, the autonomic nervous system is unable to control breathing, which therefore requires conscious effort. Even worse, it can be congenital, and those born with it rarely survive infancy.
* [[http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/china-s-elephant-man-4210/Overview#tab-Videos/06684_00 Huang, "China's Elephant Man."]][[{{TearJerker}} God, I wanna give him a hug.]]
* [[http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sugexp=frgbld&cp=6&gs_id=48&xhr=t&q=neurofibromatosis&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&biw=859&bih=437&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=pU-LT-zmJYaE8QSLrZjuCQ Neurofibromatosis]] anyone? You can develop tumors anywhere you have nerve tissue. Anywhere. Yes, even there.
* Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. This condition makes your skin soft, rubbery, and easily broken. Your joints are loose and stretchy, causing frequent sprains or dislocations. Even the tiniest of paper cuts can take months to heal and leave huge scars, and the skin can bruise from a light tap. Add in a few cardiac issues, a handful of spine and blood disorders, fibromyalgia, poor muscle tone, fragile bones, and rupture-prone arteries, intestines, and urinary tracts, and you have a life of pain held together by scar tissue.
* Rabies anyone? How'd this page even get this far without mentioning it. It's just scary to imagine having it. Not to mention that only a handful of people have ever survived it without a vaccine or treatment.
** If we're going to talk about rabies, we may as well go into the gory details. Rabies is easily transmitted via the saliva. Bats are usually the cause of human cases, which is really unfortunate, because bat bites often don't hurt all that much -- a person may not even know they've been bitten until its too late, which is why doctors recommend that everyone in the home get a rabies shot even if you just discover a bat (dead or alive) in the house but have no contact with it. The incubation period for humans is usually about a month or two (although this varies depending on various factors, with anywhere from a couple of weeks to over a year being reported in medical literature), which most people don't know, so they might assume that they're fine after being bitten due to lack of symptoms. When the symptoms ''do'' show up, it's already too late. Symptoms:
*** It starts off with flu-like symptoms. This quickly evolves into something much worse.
*** Personality changes and damage to the motor skills is next. A person might become moody and irritable, or they'll be inexplicably excited and happy, or overconfident. Fine motor skills are compromise, leading a person to have difficulty doing complex tasks that they normally did with ease. General motor skills then begin to worsen. In the case of the girl who was put into a coma to save her, she suddenly lost the ability to walk, which prompted her parents to bring her to the hospital.
*** The person becoming hyper-sensitive to light. Loud sounds may irritate them as well.
*** As the disease progresses, the patient begins to have trouble swallowing, leading to the fear of water associated with rabies (hence its other name, "hydrophobia"). Not being able to swallow leads to the sensation that one is choking on all liquids, which is frightening for the sufferer. This is where the stereotypical foaming at the mouth also comes from -- excess saliva builds up in the mouth, making the disease even more infectious, since saliva is the means by which is travels to a new host.
*** Paranoia, delusions, hallucinations, etc. soon follow as the brain dies. Patients need to be restrained at this stage, because they present a very, very serious danger to themselves and others. This is the final and most horrifying state of the disease.
*** Finally, the person dies. For someone in the end stages of rabies, death is merciful.
*** To be clearer, rabies occurs in three stages: The flu-like stage, the "mad" stage (any personality or behavior change, not just viciousness) and the "dumb" stage, which is when motor skills completely fail, and the animal eventually dies. There is a lot of overlap between all three stages.
*** Speaking as a trained Bat control specialist, the odds of getting rabies from a Bat bite is actually ridiculously low. Rabies spreads by saliva, meaning a bat has to be bitten by something else and not only survive, but remain functional enough to reach a perspective new host. Bats are fragile creatures, not only is it highly unlikely for them to survive any sort of attack, but if their wings are the slightest bit injured, they will be almost completely immobile and will starve to death before encountering anything else. Not only that, but Bat bites are also unlikely to break the skin(although if someone knows they have been bit, they should seek obviously seek medical attention as a healthy bat will almost certainly not bite someone) Bats live in 97% of structures over 10 years old, if bats were actually the most likely animal to spread rabies, it would be an epidemic. Basically any omnivorous or carnivorous house pet has a higher chance of spreading rabies due to their relative aggressiveness and hardiness.
** This all takes place over the course of a couple weeks. A vaccinated person can also develop symptoms, but they're usually less severe. Symptomatic rabies is a near-certain death sentence, even with the advances in medicine. The messed up part? Your own brain basically kills itself via its efforts to fight off the disease, which is why doctors are attempting to treat it by inducing a coma while administering a cocktail of powerful drugs. So far, success has been limited. If you develop symptomatic rabies, you'll probably be dead within the next couple weeks. Oh, and keep in mind that even if you do get vaccinated, there is a chance that you'll develop symptoms anyway.
** Fun fact: A rabid animal won't automatically be vicious. They may appear to be friendly, due to the disease making them over-confident in approaching humans. In addition, a rabid animal needn't be foaming at the mouth. The disease is still contagious, even if the animal haven't reached the foaming stage yet. In addition, any contact with the saliva can pass it on to you. So, if an animal licks you, and you happen to have an open wound somewhere, you can be infected. It's also worth mentioning that cats are a lot more likely to become vicious when infected than dogs are. In fact, a previously vicious dog may suddenly become friendly during the second stage of rabies. It's better to look for any personality changes than just viciousness if you suspect a pet might be rabid.
** Another fun fact: Almost all mammals can become infected with rabies, although the disease is only endemic to certain species (bats being one of the most prominent ones).
* An [[http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/409/held-hostage episode]] of {{This American Life}} featured a man with narcolepsy with cataplexy. That means that he just freezes up for extended periods of time, ''when he is filled with joy''. If he talks to his kids, goes to a wedding, is affectionate with his wife, he will lose all control of his body and freeze.
* Uh... Cancer anyone?
** You mean that disease where your body basically says "fuck you" and produces killer cells that rapidly multiply, spreading throughout your whole body if not treated soon enough (and some forms usually can't be detected until it's already too late)? The one that can strike ''anyone,'' even if they've taken perfect care of themselves or are just children? The one that slowly breaks your body down until your last days are spent either in a coma or as a broken husk? The one with treatments that are even more corrosive and painful than the disease itself, and are so hideously expensive that the millions of people without health care are screwed from the get go? [[SarcasmMode Nope, never heard of it.]] (I lost a parent to the disease, so I have first-hand experience of how fucking horrible it is)
*** I watched my aunt die of it. I'm convinced she was viciously murdered by God.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeliac_disease Celiac Disease]] is one that doesn't sound so horrible on the surface. But what the disease actually does is destroy the intestinal villus in the small intestine, which are responsible for absorbing nutrients from food into the body. If you continue to ingest gluten and too many are destroyed, your body wont be able to get anything from the food you eat, and '''you will starve to death, even if you've been eating healthy'''. What's even worse, some people don't exhibit symptoms, even if they have the disorder.
** And the one sure-fire way of diagnosing the disorder from a medical standpoint (if you have a doctor who takes it seriously) is not only kinda invasive (pincers up your anus) but not covered by insurance because it's considered an 'elective.' Yeah, I've quite familiar with this. Ended up self-diagnosing myself after I couldn't get doctors to actually look at my symptoms. The big problem is that the symptoms can be just about anything because everyone responds to malnutrition a little differently.
** As someone with coeliac disease this is all kinds of wrong. Most doctors (in the UK at least) are aware of the disease and it can be diagnosed through a simple blood test. The gold standard diagnosis is an endoscopy, which actually enters through the mouth, not the anus. Something like this should not be self-diagnosed as many of the symptoms are indicative of other diseases such as bowel cancer.
* The "Bairnsdale Ulcer", or formally called the Buruli ulcer, is one of these, for Australians. A flesh eating bacterium that will ''BURROW THROUGH YOUR TOENAIL TO CHEW ON THE SWEET, SWEET MEAT UNDERNEATH'' incidentally you won't feel any pain, not very much itching. Also despite the majority of its victims being African, living in areas where these types of viruses thrive there is a bizarre tendency for outbreaks to occur in coastal areas in the state of Victoria, located in the south-eastern corner of the Australia, which is very much unlike the type of environment you expect a flesh eating bacterium to survive. Despite its genome being recently mapped the cause of the disease is still unknown...
* Asthma attacks. Not being able to breathe is a terrifying experience. Imagine having it happen with little to no warning, and you are powerless to prevent it. Imagine feeling like your lungs are full of water. Imagine having to work so hard at taking a breath, or coughing so hard after taking a breath, that you rupture a blood vessel in your face or neck. Every breath is a painful struggle. At this point, your inhaler is useless; you have to go to a hospital, and there's a very real possibility that you could die at this point. If you don't (and thanks to the advances of science and medicine in the last fifty years, you stand a very big chance of not dying), you may be on life support for several days, while your lungs re-learn how to breathe. (That alone should be scary; imagine your body not knowing how to perform one of its most basic functions; namely, ''the one that keeps you alive''.) And the worst part about asthma attacks is they can last a ''very, very long time'', up to several days.
** What makes Asthma even worse is the fact that it can strike at any moment and there are so many different things that may set you off it makes you not want to do anything, ever. Plus the fact that during an attack, you're not just struggling to get air ''in'', you're also struggling to get it ''out''--and lungs don't have an unlimited capacity.
* I did a search for information on bed sores one afternoon. I wouldn't recommend anyone else do the same.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_unexplained_death_syndrome Sudden unexplained death syndrome]]. Imagine being otherwise completely healthy, and then one day go to sleep just to never wake up again... ParanoiaFuel indeed. It mostly happens to Hmong men, but still.
* Strokes. Especially when there are no warning signs nor does the patient have any visible risk factors. Imagine being healthy one minute, and then having everything suddenly goes to hell in the next. Could be that the entire left side of your body has suddenly gone numb and limp, or the text you were reading has turned into jibberish. Maybe you were talking to someone, and find that what is coming out of your mouth in no way resembles what you were really trying to say -- it's all just random babbling. Maybe you've lost the ability to write. Or perhaps you're in a room with people you've known for years, but when you look around, you can't recognize anyone's face. Depending on which part of your brain they occur in, strokes can cause all kinds of horrific symptoms. The aftermath can be just as bad, too. If you're particularly unlucky, you'll end up with severe brain damage for the rest of your life... or you might just drop dead out of no where because the part of your brain that tells your heart to keep beating has stopped working. Another possible outcome is having your personality completely altered and/or losing many of your memories. Strokes are a terrifying reminder of just how much we rely on the health of our brains, and just how fragile those brains can be.
** And any form of brain damage is just as terrifying, leading to...
* Comas. Despite what you've seen on TV, a coma isn't like being in a deep sleep. For one thing, people generally don't just "wake up" from one. They slowly come out of the coma in different stages, which can take weeks or even months. During this time, they won't be "asleep" -- they might even be moving around, trying to fight nurses and doctors, attempting to harm themselves, screaming and crying, babbling, having seizures or even trying to ''eat their own bodily waste''. Even when one is out of the coma, they still have a long, long road ahead. At first, everything is confusing for the sufferer. They'll have random moments of clarity, separated by gaps of incomprehension. As those gaps close, the patient must learn how to do basic tasks all over again, the specifics of which vary depending on the cause and location of the brain injury. Amnesia is often present, in varying degrees. The worst part? A person who has just come out of a coma and is regaining awareness knows that something bad has happened to them, but they have no idea what it was, or why they suddenly can't do things that they used to do with ease. They may have to be told over and over again that they were in a car accident or had a stroke, having the same horrified reaction over and over again. In a lot of ways, it's as if the person's brain has been rebooted, emerging from the coma as an infant, and then going through all the stages of development all over again, on a faster time scale. The majority of these people will never be the same person they were before the coma. And that's not even getting into the physical side of a long-term coma, which often results in muscles atrophying, limbs becoming 'locked' in place and all kinds of other terrors, even when the patient is attended by a physical therapist every single day.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_infant_death_syndrome Sudden Infant Death Syndrome]]. You put your baby down for the night and when you wake up in the morning, s/he's gone. This is what kept me up for almost 48 hours straight one when I watched my nephew for a weekend when he was a baby. If he made a strange noise, or even if he was too quiet, I had to go to his crib to put my hand on his chest to assure myself that he was still breathing. It's a good thing I'm childfree, because if I had kids, I'd be a basket case.
* Embolism. To put it bluntly, one second: You're alive, doing whatever it is you're doing. Next milisecond: You're dead. That is all.
* This one doesn't affect humans - but imagine for a moment that you are a lagomorph. Myxomatosis is a horrible disease. The eyelids swell as the eyeball shrinks back into the red raw socket, pus filling the empty space and cementing the blind eye shut. Mucus and pus cake into the ears and nose, rendering the rabbit essentially senseless. Slowly that thick, drowning sludge fills the throat, the lungs. Unable to see, hear, or smell, the weakening creature just sits in the middle of a field, helpless, wheezing as it slowly chokes and succumbs. If the rabbit is lucky, this can take as little as 48 hours. If they're unlucky? The average is fourteen DAYS. The worst part? Humans did this. Myxomatosis was introduced as a form of population control.
** Considering that the little bastards contributed to the destruction of Australian habitat, along with so many other invasive species, it's hard to feel very sorry.
*** We did that too. Someone got the great idea of bringing rabbits over to raise as target practice and meat. Then some escaped. ''There was an old lady who swallowed a...''
* Tuberculosis, anyone? It's a ''horrible'' disease that, while not quite as bad and omnipresent now as it was in the rest of human history, is still destructive. It ruins your lungs (basically giving you a real life IncurableCoughOfDeath), makes you hypersensitive, and causes rapid weight loss, wasting you away. Hence, it's old name "consumption"; the disease ''consumed you.'' According to TheOtherWiki, nowadays one in three people have a latent TB infection. Of those latent infections, roughly 10% will develop into an actual onset of the disease...which has a 50% mortality rate. [[ParanoiaFuel Sweet dreams.]]
** In fact, the IncurableCoughOfDeath seen in historical fiction was often implied to be, or at least based upon, Tuberculosis.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necrotizing_fasciitis Necrotizing fasciitis]] ([[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin flesh-eating disease]]). Just the premise of having a bacteria eating your very flesh is [[FridgeHorror horrifying]].
** This troper recalls having nercotizing fasciitis as a little girl. In her case, it was infected chicken pox gone horribly wrong. The scars from skin grafting are still there to this day. It's horrifying enough on a grown adult. Now imagine having it ''as a three-year-old.''
*** Hey remember that disease from CabinFever?The one were the people who got it practically fell apart?That's Nerotizing Fasciitis and just about any one any time can get it.The good news is its curable with heavy doses of Anti-Biotics and removing some infected flesh though.
* Funny nobody has so far mentioned [[http://en.wikipedia.org./wiki/poliomyelitis poliomyelitis]]. This disease, also known as polio and infantile paralysis, is one of the most nastiest diseases in the world. What makes it so nasty is not that it kills, but it also cripples. The virus destroyes the motoric nerve cells of the spinal column (those nerves which control muscles) and can leave the patient paralyzed for life. Death usually occurs due to paralysis of breathing muscles - the patient chokes alive. As it is a virus disease, there is no treatment. Fortunately it can be prevented by vaccine, but it still kills and cripples people in the undeveloped countries.
* There are around 400 documented species of parasitic fungus within the genus ''Cordyceps''. Once you are infected with ''Cordyceps'', you're pretty much boned - it hijacks your nervous system lnd eventually compels you to climb to the highest point you can and cling there until you die. Shortly afterwards, mushrooms grow out of your head and release their spores, pretty much boning everyone downwind. Sounds like a horror movie, right? Bad news: ''Cordyceps is real''. Good news: Each known species infects only a certain species of insect. Scary idea: What if ''Cordyceps'' spread to mammals? Terrifying idea: What if it spread to '''humans'''?
** It'd probably look something like [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/Halo The flood]]
** Or it will just grow inside and shut the system down. With all those burial practices, if it gets the spores out before the burial, a lot of people are boned. And then they spread it out. Luckily, evolution doesn't work that way.
* There is a recently discovered parasite that has a symbiotic relationship with cats. It deposits its larval form in the cats' feces which are likely to eventually come in contact with rodents. When the rodents are infected, the parasite infiltrates the brain which is modified to make the animal braver than before. This makes the rodent more likely to be eaten by another cat which also absorbs the parasite. Furthermore, this parasite has been known to make the jump to humans, causing symptoms reminiscent of schizophrenia. First, this means that all of those crazy cat ladies are insane because of their cats, rather than the other way around. Second, it means that some people who claim that a brain parasite is making them go crazy might actually be right.
** That would be Toxoplasma.
** Gondii. But fortunately, it doesn't send a human carrier straight away insane as the original poster said. the rat-zombifying bug just makes you more likely to go insane, and research suggests it can cause brain tumours. The worse part? Half the population is suspected to have it. Sleep tight.
* I once thought there was a severed head on my desk. When I was ten. In the middle of the night. Alone. And with only a tiny blue light from my speakers to give any sort of light. I later went to his psychiatrist, he said that it may be due to something called a streptococcal. I can't remember if that's what the doctor said caused it. I don't see the head anymore. [[FridgeHorror But that's probably because I sleep in a different room.]]
* Imagine, one day, waking up and finding mild itching all over your body. Not too bad, you try to ignore it or scratch at it. As the day goes on, however, the itching is getting worse and worse. Even after taking a shower or applying creams. Then you start noticing bumps like Chicken Pox...but you've already had that. Then it starts getting harder and harder to breath and you have to be rushed to the hospital. Congratulations, you have the worst type of allergic reaction which would lead to Aliphatic Shock which will kill you if not treated.
** Speaking of Chicken Pox, Shingles (which occurs when the dormant Chicken Pox virus is reactivated later in life) can be pretty nasty, if generally not as bad as some of the things listed on this page. Shingles are usually a worse ordeal than the original Chicken Pox infection, especially as you get older. Headaches, fever, a very painful rash (in very bad cases, it's described as excruciating), and feeling overall crappy for the duration of the disease... and if you've ever had the Chicken Pox, there's a chance that you could develop it at any time. On the bright side, it's very unlikely that it will actually kill you. Still, most of us probably don't want to experience Chicken Pox cranked UpToEleven.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracunculiasis Dracunculiasis]], also known as guinea worm. You drink some water, not knowing that it contains guinea worm larvae, which grow to adulthood in your body. A year later, you get a painful, burning sensation as a blister forms somewhere, anywhere on your body. It remains for 72 hours before it ruptures and an end of the worm emerges. Then you have to slowly pull it out and as the worm is pulled out, it is excruciatingly painful and this process sometimes takes '''MONTHS''' before the worm is finally entirely removed. Additionally, the victim sometimes has the symptoms of fever, nausea, vomiting, a combination of two of these, or all three. And yet there is a [[TooDumbToLive Save the Guinea Worm Foundation out there]].
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_epidermal_necrolysis Toxic epidermal necrolysis]]. Imagine, one day, you get the common cold or something similar. You take some antibiotics for it. After a while, most of your skin and mucous membrane falls off. When TEN starts, it looks exactly like an upper respiratory system inflammation (tonsillitis, the cold, sinusitis...), and when you take the necessary medication: ''your skin is peeling off, your eyes''(/esophagus/urethra/something like that) ''start shedding, your mouth begins to erode...'' And I'll stop here. A minor cough becomes this s**t festival. Luckily, it is very rare, from 0.4 and 1.3 cases per '''million''' patients.
* Speaking of the above, the idea that people are taking antibiotics for the common cold itself is terrifying, since the cold is caused by a virus--something completely unaffected by an antibiotic. Things like this are what cause MRSA.
* [[http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Gas+Gangrene&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1280&bih=802&sei=cWbNTuDqCInNswaT7PXjDA Gas Gangrene]]. [[NauseaFuel Do not look it up]]. ''[[SchmuckBait I MEAN IT]]''.
* Threadworms. Though they're not fatal at all, just the idea of them is horrible; little worms, crawling around your insides and [[OrificeInvasion coming out of your ass at night to lay eggs]]. And if you're [[SarcasmMode lucky enough to be female]], they'll also crawl into your vagina and lay eggs in there, too. Best of all? Almost everyone gets it more than once in their lives, no matter how clean they keep themselves.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=305aQ9JqQ3E A large canine tooth root cyst.]]
* Consider all of the above diseases. Consider that vaccination keeps many of them at bay, particularly the phenomenon of herd immunity. Now consider what putting an end to vaccination would actually mean, and you begin to understand why "anti-vaxers" are so despised by everyone with any actual understanding of epidemiology.
* Do a Youtube or Google Image search for ''Harlequin Ichthyosis''. Actually, ''don't''. You've been warned.
** [[SchmuckBait Too late.]]
* Cholera. While it is possible to recover from the disease if it's treated promptly, the sheer number of deaths it can cause is HORRIFYING. This Troper recently read a book describing the Broad Street Outbreak of 1854. 127 people dead in three days, 616 by the time it was over. Oh, and it's still around. Just to let you know.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TTTS Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome]] occasionally happens when identical twin fetuses end up sharing a placenta. In normal cases, blood from the shared placenta is circulated equally between both fetuses. In TTTS, it's shared ''dis''proportionally, leading to one twin being an enormous, bloated mess with a surplus of blood in its body (and all the problems associated with high blood pressure/volume, including heart failure) and the other twin ''wasting away from lack of blood''. Even more horrifyingly, sometimes the disproportionate blood supply will suddenly reverse itself, leading the formerly under-developed twin to be flooded to the bursting point with too much blood, while the other, formerly overwhelmed twin dies from the sudden drop in blood pressure. Without treatment, it carries something close to 100% fatality to one or both fetuses. And until as recently as the 1980s, not only was there no treatment, ''there was no way to diagnose it in utero.''
* ...[[http://www.shortbeauty.com/eye-infection-treatmentsare-the-natural-cures-for-eye-irritation/ This]]. A page on Eye Infections, containing one of the scariest photoshops of an Infected Eye imaginable. It looks like something out of a Sci-Fi movie's deepest depths of BodyHorror diseases!
* MRSA can be a living nightmare to have!
* Vitiligo. Yes, the "MichaelJackson disease". It is a sudden loss of pigment in the skin, causing you to grow irregular white patches. It's not so much noticeable in white people, (most would have to look really hard to see it), but in black people, it causes them to come down with a severe identity crisis and affects their mental state. In rare cases ''it will cause black people to turn white and white people to look like a ghost''. This troper is white and has it on his right hand.
* [[http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H5N1 Avian flu]] seems to have faded from people's minds after swine flu's mild outbreak. But it has a 60% mortality rate. Normal flu already kills 36,000 people annually, as stated earlier. We're lucky the thing hasn't figured out how to do human-to-human transmission yet. [[ItGotWorse Worse]], not only does it attack your lungs directly (as opposed to the nose and throat like most other flus), but it actually causes your immune system to react so violently it causes uncontrolled inflammation in your lungs. Also known as ''flooding your lungs with fluid and white blood cells''. Even worse? The 1918 Spanish Flu was thought to do this too.
* Botulinum. You can get this by eating poorly preserved foods, and the LD50 is one ''MIRCOGRAM'' per kilo. One Kilo kills the world's population. The really scary thing? This is what botox is.
[[/folder]]
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[[folder: RLNF General Medical]]
'''Chemistry'''
* Ladies and gents, I give you the newest craze sweeping Russia - krokodil! It's a chemical derived from morphine, and, if used properly, can be used for medicinal purposes. However, when it's made improperly, like the substance floating around Russia, it can have devastating effects. The stuff going around Russia, a drug for those who can no longer afford to keep up their usual habit, rots flesh. That isn't an exaggeration, it literally rots the user's flesh and muscle - pretty much everything except bone. It's the perfect combination of AndIMustScream and BodyHorror. There are about 100,000 people using it. The worst part is that you can survive for a year on it - imagine going for months in a drug-fueled haze, the only sensation being the desire for a hit and the pain of your body slowly sloughing away as you breathe. Or, better yet, don't.
* Coaxil (see [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianeptine here]]) tablets contains some silicagel, which causes thrombosis if tablets used for making liquid for intravenous injection (yes, there are idiots that do such a thing). There are videos of people suffering from its effects [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZGkO2xYcEU here]].
* Chlorine Trifluoride is a compound which embodies this trope literally, and was once experimented with as a flamethrower and liquid-fueled rocket oxidiser. Chlorine trifluoride attacks virtually anything that can be oxidized and isn't already in a compound with fluorine(itself being the strongest oxidizer among the elements). If a compound or element does not react, it's probably for kinetic reasons - in other words, the reaction goes really slow. When you consider that the world is almost entirely made up of oxides, including water, and compounds with even weaker oxidants (chlorine, bromine, etc.) or free elements that have yet to be oxidized (metals) there isn't much that wouldn't undergo combustion on contact with the stuff. That is to say, it can react with concrete, sand and ''asbestos'', not to mention [[http://www.airproducts.com/nr/rdonlyres/8479ed55-2170-4651-a3d4-223b2957a9f3/0/safetygram39.pdf common-or-garden flesh and protective gloves]], all the while releasing acutely toxic, corrosive byproducts in the process. Even materials such as cloth and wood can undergo reaction with Chlorine Trifluoride. As a result,[[http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2008/02/26/sand_wont_save_you_this_time.php chemists do not like to hear about, much less work with, this compound]]. The Germans experimented with it before the Second World War for possible use in chemical warfare, as well as a potential filling for incendiary bombs. It turned out to be much too expensive for them to mass produce with the technology they had at the time. But there is some produced currently, for experimental purposes (rocket fuel) and certain industrial processes involving semiconductor manufacture.
** As to the question of why this compound has not consumed the planet yet is answered by the fact that the compound does not occur naturally. The fluorine needed to make it, and the chlorine for that matter, have been tied up in ionic (and a few covalent) compounds for about as long as they've been on Earth. Furthermore, because what little there is isn't [=ClF3=] anymore once it reacts with something a gram of the stuff won't keep burning and burning forever or anything. The whole point of being so reactive is that it's on a very delicate energetic balance, and the burning is it throwing off all that energy as it comes down into something stabler (still toxic and nasty, but at least not obscenely explosive).
** This compound should not be confused with chloro-trifluoromethane, which, by comparison, is relatively inert. It's not flammable, corrosive, or oxidizing, was once used as a refrigerant, and also was (and is) one of the main contributors for the hole in the ozone layer.
* Many other fluorine-based compounds are strong oxidizers. For instance, hydrofluoric acid can seep through the skin and damages nerves and bones. That is to say, it can melt bones while leaving the flesh above intact. It will also leech calcium out of the blood stream, which doesn't sound as bad as melting bones... except that losing blood calcium rapidly can slow or even outright stop your heart. Incidentally, hydrofluoric acid happens to be one of the byproducts when chlorine trifluoride combusts.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boron_trifluoride Boron trifluoride]] is a compound which, for all intents and purposes, can also cause the disintegration of bones. Imagine if some person used that on someone... along with the krokodil mentioned above? The person's ''entire body'' would, in effect, ''rot and disintegrate''.
* While we're at it with florous corrosive substances, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluoroantimonic_acid Fluoroantimonic acid]] is 20 quintillion (short scale) times stronger as an acid than 100% sulfuric acid.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimethylaluminium Trimethylaluminum]] ignites instantaneously upon exposure to air and burns at over six thousand degrees, emitting blinding, searing white light with a very large percentage of very damaging short-wavelength ultraviolet light. Just looking in the direction of the flame for a moment can cause permanent blindness via retinal damage. It reacts extremely violently (i.e. explodes) upon contact with even a trace of water. Once burning it cannot be extinguished with water or carbon dioxide.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piranha_solution Piranha solution]] is used in inorganic chem labs to clean glassware of even the tiniest trace of certain types of inorganic residues, and also in some types of semiconductor manufacture. There are multiple possible ways it can explode if mixed or used by an unwary person, such as touching any trace of acetone--another solvent frequently used to clean laboratory glassware. And what piranha solution does to living tissue [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin is what earned it the name in the first place]].
* Same goes for [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrolein Acrolein]], a component in polyurethane and antifreeze. Spilling a 55 gallon drum of it is enough to force the evacuation of an area at ''least'' 50 square miles, since concentrations of 2ppm in air are immediately deadly.
** Just to make things worse, the already-nasty chemotherapy drug [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclophosphamide Cytoxan]] gets metabolized ''into'' acrolein and phosphoramide mustard, a nitrogen mustard and distant cousin to the sulfur mustard used in ''mustard gas''. In fact, the chemistry of antineoplastics (many chemotherapy drugs) and cytotoxins (chemicals toxic to cells) in general is pretty much nightmare fuel by itself.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyridine Pyridine]] is a compound with a structure similar to that of benzene, and will reduce the fertility of mammals under prolonged exposure. It is also flammable, and has acute toxic effects in vapor form, causing dizziness, headache, nausea and loss of appetite. Further symptoms include abdominal pain and pulmonary congestion. Assuming the acute toxicity doesn't affect you first, your reproductive success drops significantly.
* If you thought asbestos was bad, check out radon. Basically, it's an inexpensive and easy-to-use blueish clay ''sometimes'' used for making concrete. The drawbacks? It emits a colorless, odorless radioactive gas. Imagine those rads building up inside you throughout your life. You won't notice until it's... by coincidence, the next to highest amount of people who die of lung cancer live in radon-houses.
** Rest at ease, Radon is '''not''' that threatening. The clay stays in the ground, while the radiation tends to leak upwards into basements (especially in houses built on mountains). The Radiation itself is relatively harmless, unless you tend to spend an awful lot of time in the basement. Even then though, it is very easy to remove/block.
* This might count more as EverythingIsTryingToKillYou, but... Everything has an [=LD50=] -- which means the lethal dose for 50% of the population. And I mean everything. Somewhere, somebody out there is trying to figure out how much of some innocent chemical can be consumed before killing you, ForScience. Only one way to figure it out: get hundreds of small animals (generally rats), see how much of the chemical it takes for 50% of them to die, and extrapolate from there. No pain killers are used.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_poisoning water intoxication]]: drinking too much water can kill you. You know that feeling of dehydration that you get sometimes when you're outside for a long time or you're working out really hard, and you're drinking water, but you still feel thirsty? Yeah, that's how water intoxication gets you. Your thirst mechanism doesn't just immediately 'shut down' the instant water flows down your throat.
* 95% of chemicals approved for commercial use in the United States ''have not been adequately tested for their health effects on living things.'' Much of the 5% that actually has and has been found to cause massive problems has ''only been banned recently.'' You're probably inhaling all manner of horrific chemicals ''right this very moment.''
* Carbon monoxide. It's not the effects alone that make it terrifying: it's also '''odorless, tasteless, and colorless.''' Meaning that in areas with lots of carbon monoxide, you could be inhaling all that awful stuff and ''not even know it until it's too late.''
* Any cyanide compound, but particularly hydrogen cyanide. Doses below 1 mg/kg have been fatal to humans. It has a very faint smell that you might not notice at low concentrations--and by the way, some people are genetically unable to smell it at all. Get exposed to enough of this and you can expect seizures and cardiac arrest within minutes if the concentration is high enough, confusion progressing to coma if it's not. The worst bit? The seeds of a surprising variety of fruits contain cyanide... and yes, people have gotten cyanide poisoning this way.
** Remember this: [[FridgeHorror Cyanide does not smell like almonds.]] [[NoExceptYes Almonds smell like cyanide.]] If eaten without proper preperation, you could get quite ill from these little legume-wannabes.
'''General Medical'''
* All the horrors of the past ''are still out there'' and all it takes to unleash them again is a few days without power or clean water. Enjoy your 'improved society' while it lasts.
* [[http://www.edmontonjournal.com/health/parents+sell+chickenpox+lollipops/5671093/story.html This]].
** For those who don't want to click an unmarked link, it's a link to parents who sold lollipops spiked with chickenpox to other parents who wanted their children to get it at a young age, instead of getting a vaccine. This is an interesting and unfortunate case of outdated information and anti-vaccination hysteria combined. Reliable chicken pox vaccines are relatively new, and as recently as the early 70s exposing your child to chicken pox, then treating it properly, was considered a perfectly valid method of making a child immune to it. This is no longer the case, but some people flatly refuse to get the message.
* Medical Mistakes - Of all the things that you can catch, be born with, or have happen to you the worst is trusting people to help you and they mess up. This doesn't mean talking about normal complications or simply being unable to help; this means someone doing something WRONG like:
** Injecting someone with cleaning fluid. [[http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/how-could-this-happen-hospital-blunder-turns-a-familys-joy-into-heartbreak-20100820-138xw.html This woman died]] and [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-517296/Mother-paralysed-injected-cleaning-fluid-childbirth-win-5m-damages.html this woman was paralyzed]].
** What about ''catching on fire while on the operation table.'' This has become so common, there is a [[http://www.surgicalfire.org/ WEBSITE]] dedicated to educating people on how these fires start. And a large majority of them start 'on or in the patient.' Let me repeat that: THESE FIRES TEND TO START EITHER ON THE PATIENT, OR INSIDE OF THEM.
* They don't know and can't figure out what you have - Considering how long it can take to come up with a treatment for something, much less a cure, the last thing I want is anything new.
** Or they know what you have and only a dozen other people in the world have it at any given time and it will kill you but it's just not cost effecting to manufacture the cure.
* They don't believe you when you say something is wrong with you - You feel horrible, you know something's wrong, and you can't find a doctor willing to help you. Like the last one, since you don't know what's going on you don't know if what you have is causing permanent damage or if it's fatal.
* The medical community has technical, neutral-sounding terms for what in hindsight are pretty terrifying concepts. For example, "idiopathic", which basically means, "we don't know what the hell this is," or "sorry mate, you're just going to have to wait for it to clear up on its own". But some of them take months to go away, or even years, or they never go away at all.
* Here's something that'll make you NOT sleep well at night. Remember antibiotics? This magical near-panacea that is basis of modern medicine? There are at tens if not hundreds highly antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the wild - undoubtedly one of the most famous examples is MRSA, but thus far at least 29 bacterium strains have been identified that are utterly immune to all current antibiotics. Hospitals have been bringing back medicines developed and ditched in favour of modern antibiotics in the fifties, such as '''Colistin''' that, while has plenty of side-effects and isn't even hugely effective, are one of the few medicines these bacterium have developed no resistance against. So, what does this all mean in practice? Basically, until we devise some new and better antibiotic or completely different method of annihilating resistant bacteria, we'll be thrown a hundred years back in medicine; No organ transplants, very little open surgery, and diseases such as pneumonia can once again become life-threatening illnesses with no cure other than rest and hydration. Of course, the situation isn't that bad... Yet. But, in the next ten years, things can become pretty ugly. Here's obviously hoping for the best though.
* Three words: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibrodysplasia_ossificans_progressiva Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva]]. It's a rare genetic disorder where, instead of repairing old damaged muscles with fresh new muscle cells, the body replaces them with ''bone''. Even the tiniest tear will become ossified, and removing the new bones via surgery doesn't help either- your body just replaces it with more bone. One by one your joints become locked in place, and you end up as a twisted living statue by your early thirties. The only hope for you is that in your last hours, as your lungs struggle to expand with your ribcage locked in place, that you are frozen sitting or lying down so you'll be at least ''somewhat'' relaxed. [[http://s2.hubimg.com/u/319637_f520.jpg Here]] is a picture of a FOP victim's skeleton (WARNING: NSFS (Not Safe For Sanity).
* Think about all the things that your body does every second of every day to keep you alive. Things you don't even have to think about. Things you couldn't think about without somehow [[CentipedesDilemma messing it up]]. Your heart is beating, your respiratory system is bringing in oxygen to your blood, your stomach is digesting food, your immune system is beating back countless invading particles even as we speak— and you are unable to control a thing. The concept that you are doing so many things simultaneously every second you are alive, and that every other person on the planet is doing those same things, and that no one is even aware of it for more than a fraction of the time, is horrifying.
** ...Which makes it that much more tragic when someone is declared legally brain-dead. That means their body will never be able to do those things again without mechanical support. In fact, the concept of being brain-dead is in itself a whole new level of horror.
* Last year, the (now defunct) Seattle PI ran an article about anaesthetics. It talked, in detail, about how sometimes anaesthetics don't work; instead of numbing the pain they ''paralyse the person but keep them awake.'' The doctors then ''work on the patient as if the patient is under.'' The most terrifying thing was that one of the stories was about a woman who the anaesthetics failed during ''eye surgery.''
** That's called Anaesthesia Awareness, and the chances of it happening range from 1 in 14,000 to 1 in 42,000. But yeah, it does happen.
[[/folder]]
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[[folder: Psychopathology And Brain Disorders]]
'''Behavior Disorders'''
* Anorexia nervosa. There's something very disturbing about those unnaturally thin actresses and supermodels.
** It gets worse. Now there are those groups of anorexics, who exchange "thinspiration" pics of super-thin women, and encourage each other. These groups are called Pro-Ana and Pro-Mia. "It's a lifestyle choice, not a disease." Shiver.
*** Heh. Check out [[http://x63.xanga.com/109c97437503663997695/b22538688.jpg what]] [[http://www.pro-thinspo.com/images/thinspiration_4_1_.jpg "thinspiration"]] [[http://xbf.xanga.com/547c45ea62132168195544/z126317568.jpg looks]] [[http://thegirlcanwrite.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/thinspiration.jpg like.]] Yes, these are all legitimate pictures, taken from the blogs of Pro-Anas. Who the ''hell'' thinks this is attractive? [[http://tilt214.tripod.com/id6.html This]] is the worst one yet. Half of the women pictured here are ''mental patients'' who '''died''' as a result of this disease--and these girls are holding them up as role models!
*** [[http://www.snopes.com/photos/people/models.asp They're fake]]. Still, it doesn't matter whether they're real or not; women with anorexia still look up to them as the ideal body type. ''That'' is the crux of what makes this Nightmare Fuel.
** Eating disorders in general are terrifying when you think about just how insidious they really are even apart from the physical symptoms.
** Exercise Bulimia. When your friend/child/whathaveyou is eating and then throwing up, it's comparatively easy to see and catch. When they are eating normally and then working out for upwards of four hours a day, it's hard to see the difference until it's much too late. Read anything on the topic by Jamie Lynn Discala (of Sopranos fame).
** Let's focus on the emotional consequences as well. It's like there's this voice in the back of your head telling you to just work harder, just eat less and less and you can be beautiful. You want to stop but she tells you you can't, you aren't beautiful yet. She's always there, and occasionally she calls you useless and stupid and ugly but mostly she's incredibly sweet and gentle and you know she just wants to help you. Nothing else matters anymore, the only thing that's important is keeping the fat off your body. Any is too much. And when you think maybe you should stop, that voice comes along and says no, and you can't make yourself not listen. You just have to do what she tells you. It's kind of like being possessed, actually.
*** And we just veered into TearJerker territory.
*** Some people have another voice on top of the one telling them to lose fat: one that is telling them that they should add more weight to the routine because there isn't enough muscle. Of course, the voice doesn't neglect to tell that whatever they add will never be enough. Apparently, this is called "biggerexia" by professional bodybuilders and is the muscle-bound version of anorexia nervosa.
*** Also, you can think of it this way: You're eating normal -- 2000 calories a day -- and you're sitting there on your chair, and your stomach is spilling out onto your legs and your thighs are soaking over the chair... so you cut it down to 1000. And it works. Until it doesn't, because so-and-so days later, you're sitting there on your chair, and it's the exact same thing all over again... so then it's 500 calories, then 200, then 100... You can ''never be happy with yourself'' -- you're not seeing what other people are saying, which only goes to show that reality is relative -- and no matter how thin you get, you'll never, ever be happy. Except that your brain is telling you, ''This is the only way to be happy.''
** Another eating disorder on the rise, orthorexia. Is the [[YouKeepUsingThatWord organic food trend]] cranked UpToEleven. You '''must''' eat raw/fresh food. A lot of the food is from a vegan diet, like cashew butter. Many people with this grow their own food, which is great and all for a ZombieApocalypse. Not so great since it takes '''''three hours''''' on a regular basis to prepare a meal. The worst part is your are under the impression that you are doing good for your body while you waste away. Probably one of the worst food trends ever, since Americans stress being fit and healthy. A morbid example was of an Olypmic gymnast who ''died'' from orthorexia.
** And let's not forget some nasty side effects of self-starvation. Think of the worst breakup you have ever had. How obsessed you felt with that person. Imagine that person is food and it doesn't get better. Every single day, you think "What can I eat what did I just eat I want to eat this now I am craving this food food food food". Which goes against your other constant stream of conscience going "Food is disgusting, I am vile, I should die, calories, fat grams, even thinking about food makes me fat". You are fighting your own brain, all the time. You aren't in control of either of these thought streams.
** Plus, anorexics often end up wetting themselves or losing all bowel control due to muscle wastage/ laxative abuse.
** There have been cases of bulimics that have nothing else to binge on eating but out of date food, food from the garbage, or even their own vomit.
** Anorexics, and probably orthorexics (not sure about bulimics), have one more thing to worry about aside from muscle wastage. Without adequate nutrition, one's body begins to literally shut down. This is irreversible. Reformed anorexics have to live with the pain of a half-shut-down body until they die. Probably early. Of a heart attack.
** In addition, these disorders actually alter the body structure in more ways than the obvious. Some of the changes include:
*** Dryness of skin
*** Fine hair all over the body
*** Anemia
*** Changes in brain structure
*** Osteoporosis
*** Kidney failure
*** Cardiovascular problems
** The worst part? Many of these are permanent. In other words, even if you manage to "beat" an eating disorder, you will suffer the effects of it ''for the rest of your life.''
** Another aspect is that fact that 9 out of 10 sufferers are women. If you're the 1 male, it's extremely hard to find treatment. Since Eating Disorders are viewed as a disease suffered by women, most men won't even be diagnosed even if the symptoms are obvious. Most men are ashamed to admit they have an Eating Disorder because they feel weak for having a "woman's disease." Men also have muscle deterioration much faster due to having less natural body fat on the body as women. That means heart, brain and organ deterioration happens much faster to men than women and they are much less likely to get treatment for it.
** For you to legally be diagnosed as having Anorexia Nervosa, you need to have a bmi (body mass index) of less than 18.5. For a lot of sufferers, you can't get help until you are that thin. You don't have to be that thin to die of the disease, but you have to be that thin to get treatment. For most people, having a bmi of 18.5 would put you under 100 pounds. So for a lot of sufferers, '''''they can't get treatment because they are not thin enough.'''''
*** YMMV on that number. There are some with BMI's that low that are just genetically more lean, even if they eat more than others.
**** Plus, his description is completely wrong. A person with a BMI of 18.5 is actually within the normal limits. The average height for a woman is 5 ft 4 inches. At 100 pounds, her BMI would be 17.2, putting her in the underweight category. In fact, she would have to be 110 pounds to have a BMI of 18.5. According to the DSM-IV, the current manual for diagnosing psychiatric disorders, the criteria are intense fear of gaining weight, a refusal to maintain body weight above 85% of the expected weight for a given age and height, and three consecutive missed periods and either refusal to admit the seriousness of the weight loss, or undue influence of shape or weight on one's self image, or a disturbed experience in one's shape or weight.
** And now there's groups of people out there that claim that "Anorexia is a lifestyle choice, not a disorder.." So now people can feel justified into living like this, thanks!
* Selective Mutism. It's tame compared to most of these examples of mental health problems, but, imagine... you can't speak in school or at home. You are constantly ridiculed for it, people go out of their way to antagonize you and put you down, you have about five friends who you rarely see, and only one who really understands you, your parents won't admit you have anything wrong, your condition is barely understood by doctors and psychiatrists, and, because of its effects, usually can't tell if you really have it or not.
* Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. It's not just constant hand-washing (although that by itself is bad; imagine scrubbing, over and over, because they just can't get ''clean''). It wears many faces.
** Obsessions: Wear slippers when you leave the bedroom - otherwise your personality will be overwritten by anyone else who has walked on that carpet. If you scrape against something, you must sweep the bit of your soul that got caught off of it and rub it back into the tear. Your mind falls out of your eyes every time you see a crack on the road; scoop it up and put it back in. Time must be balanced - if you fast-forward something, you must then rewind it. Do it, or you will feel the panic again. You don't want to feel the panic again, do you?
** Compulsions: Imagine that every time you look at a knife, for just a second, you see yourself stabbing the cat or cutting your tongue out. Or worse, seeing a nail and feeling the urge to blind yourself with it - for just a moment. Compulsions take many forms. The worst part is that it's possible to know, on a deep level, that your compulsions are insane, that you would never act on them... but they ''don't stop''. And one day, a tiny part of you wonders, you may just act on them.
*** Putting Obsession and Compulsion together can be even scarier. Imagine that there was a slightly bad thing you did in the past, or something slightly dangerous you have to do, or something you're just a little bit too afraid of. Now imagine you feel physically unclean thinking about it and exaggerate it in your own mind. ''This leads to living in a state of self-imposed denial of it so as not to induce a possibly physically damaging panic attack or extreme guilt, complete with a bunch of little mental safeguards you must use at the slightest provocation that can even happen in your sleep.'' Any mistakes means you must apologize to God and make up for them or the panic returns.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korsakoff%27s_syndrome Korsakoff's Syndrome]], a mental disorder brought on by alcohol abuse and malnutrition. Not only do you have both retrograde and anterograde amnesia (the inability to recall past memories or form new memories, respectively), but your mind has filled in the gaps with a made-up fantasy world of things and events that never existed and never happened. Not only that, but your mind has little or no sense of cause and effect, and has difficulty with problem solving (ex: you can't figure out that flipping a light switch turns the light on, even if you do it several times). Not that you'd bother with it, since you now have the attention span of a goldfish. But the worst part is that ''you have no idea that something is wrong with you.'' Here, try playing {{Korsakovia}} to see what it's like.
'''Cognitive Disorders'''
* Alzheimers. You slowly lose all concept of ''who'' you are. Even worse, ''it could happen to you'' and ''you won't know until you have it.'' Or even worse, learning you have it too late, and ''never comprehending that something is wrong with you.'' As RogerEbert said, "[[http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071129/REVIEWS/71129006 Some films on Alzheimer's attempt to show an upside. I don't think there is an upside. At least with cancer you get to be yourself until you die.]]" Watching a grandparent slowly slip away from this disease is completely heart breaking. Listening to the way that the general public views it as almost a joke, however, is enough to make those who are left behind's blood boil.
** As with Locked In Syndrome, the damage may or may not mercifully negate the ability to comprehend the nightmare for oneself. Also, there are many drugs in development, but sadly studies take a load of time.
** Brain tumors do that too, only much much faster. They can turn you from a normal person with headaches to a muttering non-walking vegetable in just six months. And many of the worst ones are utterly untreatable. Most brain tumors don't hurt. Only the lucky ones have the advance warning of a headache.
** Add to that the fact that as we age naturally we all have pathology of Alzheimer's slowly encroaching, it just moves faster in some people and many of us die before actual onset, but pretty much everyone aging naturally is going in that direction at one speed or another.
** Early-onset Dementia. It's like Alzheimer's, except it progresses much faster due to young age. At 36, you can wake up unable to speak. Within eight years you can die of organ failure as your liquefying brain leaks into your bloodstream. Also, your children may get it.
* Parkinson's disease. Nowadays there's medication and operations you can get, but you still will lose control of your muscles so they are shaking all the time; but the difference with Alzheimer's and things like that is you are perfectly aware of what is happening to you. It's being described as a living hell.
** Stephen King unintentionally got more fear reaction from me in his novel ''{{From a Buick 8}}'', in telling of major-character police captain Tony Schoondist's contracting Alzheimer's in his later years than from his fascinating descriptions of the titular impossible-soul-eating-car-from-Nowhere.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anterograde_amnesia Anterograde Amnesia]]. Basically this is the inability to form new memories after a traumatic head injury. The upside is you still keep your old memories. The bad news is, the earlier you get this, the worse it is, and you can get this at any age. While we have the comedy ''50 First Dates'', ''Film/{{Memento}}'' is another film depicting this disorder on a level that's heavily realistic, according to psychologists.
** RealLife: A 70 year old man has retrograde ''and'' anterograde amnesia due to [[{{Squick}} a disease he caught in his late twenties/early thirties]]. He now considers himself a twelve-year-old boy, forgets his thoughts as soon as he moves on, and once looked into a reflection of himself and, when asked who the image was, "Oh, just some old guy."
** RealLife 2.0: The Japanese documentary ''Without Memory'' follows a Japanese man who developed anterograde amnesia after prolonged hospital stay and B12 deficiency.
*** A [[http://discovermagazine.com/2005/apr/thanks-for-the-memories/?searchterm=finding%20nemo Discover article]] about movie portrayals of amnesia says Finding Nemo was actually highly regarded for its portrayal. It just happens to demonstrate that anterograde amnesia can be made hilarious as well.
** [[http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/2007-11/memory/foer-text2.html Anterograde amnesia is apparently not that bad for the people that have it - it never occurs to them that something is wrong, and if it does, they forget it immediately]].
'''Disturbing Social Phenomena'''
* The amount of people in the world who are unhappy. Think about it. The number of people living in poverty, under dictators, starving, getting horrific diseases, considered sub-human through discrimination, being tortured, stuck in work and prison camps, abused physically, sexually and emotionally...
* Total isolation. If you saw that episode of ''LawAndOrderSVU'' you'll know it can drive you crazy. In the absence of stimulation your brain begins to make shit up, and if that produces any kind of reaction it'll keep it up, ''even if that reaction is "paranoia and abject terror".''
** A former POW was interviewed about his captivity. He was isolated for ''months'', and was literally in the dark for the whole time; he quickly lost all sense of time, and began to doubt that he ''even existed'', just because his brain had absolutely no stimulation to keep it in order. In his own words, there was "nothing there to even confirm his existance." Try telling me that ''isn't'' terrifying.
** Not only that but isolation and lack of stimuli often pushes the brain to generate stimuli by itself in order to avoid a total shutdown; interviews with long-term isolation subjects ("long term" being months or years) reveal that hallucinations (visual and audible) were prevalent. That isn't the scary part, not by itself; the scary part is that these hallucinations often reached terrifying extremes to jog the brain. One victim describes the hallucination as suddenly waking up and finding himself in the middle of a scorching-hot, burning, endless, limitless desert. However, as he gets up and takes his first steps into the said desert, it suddenly turns into a frozen tundra (equally limitless and all-expanding) with bone-chilling cold (not to mention he is psycho-somatically responding to the imagined temperatures as opposed to existent ones). If that wasn't enough, a second hallucination involved hearing music in the dark - nice piece of music that starts innocently enough, but gradually grows. More instruments get thrown in until the entire thing hears like an ear-drum splitting noise. The victim said he was "banging his head against the walls and screaming for the noise to stop".
* Having and knowing about a mental disease is horrifying enough, but being told by one of the best psychiatrists (specialists in the field of mental diseases and medication, for those who do not know) in your country that you have "enough of everything to be measurable but not enough in anything to be classified as such" is something that should not be experienced by anyone. Especially not when they emotionally broke down crying in front of said person and his colleagues and begging them to just help, in some way, at the age of ten. It might be possible to function normally with the right medication, but combine that with always thinking about whether the medication is helping, or controlling.
* In Japan, the practice of working oneself to death is called ''karoshi'' (or ''karoushi'', to be more precise). Not only do people work themselves to death there, it's common enough that they have a name for it. And if you think that's the worst part, you obviously didn't read the rest of the page up to this point. The worst part: they do this '''voluntarily'''-- [[MoreThanMindControl or as voluntarily as they can do anything that they've been conditioned from birth to do]].
* In the 1950's, BeautyContests (for women) often emphasized extreme conformity, but to the point where you might be disqualified if your thighs were too long or short. They measured your beauty with tape, according to statistics.
* The fact how often supposedly good people do nothing. Wait, can you then actually call them ''good''?
** How often horrible things tend to happen to good people.
** [[KarmaHoudini And those evil sons-of-bitches who get away with it]].
** [[TheBoondockSaints And there is another kind of evil which we must fear more-- the indifference of good men.]]
* Aokigahara. A forest just at the base of Mt. Fuji, known for its stunning natural beauty, as well as for being one of the most popular places to commit suicide. The trees are so thick that it's dark no matter where you go, and it's filled with dead bodies. In 2002, they found 78 bodies. 78. And now think about all the ones they didn't find. [[http://usagiyjay.wordpress.com/2008/09/19/bosque-de-aokigahara/ Do not look at these pictures if you value your soul.]] Sweet dreams.
* The BuddDwyer tape. Strangely enough, there's something slightly disturbing about watching a real suicide that was broadcasted on LIVE tv. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budd_Dwyer Due to a major snowstorm throughout Pennsylvania that day, many schools were closed and many school-aged children witnessed the suicide.]]
'''Emotional Disorders'''
* Paranoid Schizophrenia sometimes manifests as an unending feeling of dread, combined with a general lack of trust for anyone else. Just imagine for a second that everyone you know is hiding ''something'' about you from you, and that everyone you trust actually hates you... Can you imagine that? Now picture that every single second of your life.
** A symptom of schizophrenia is hearing or seeing things that don't exist. Picture someone frightening you, then demanding to know "Why are you crying? I know you're crying, I ''heard'' you! Who is making you cry?"
* One day your friends tell you that you've been behaving strangely -- you say that work has been stressing you out. At the hardware store, you suddenly realize that it's strange to buy several boxes of duct tape... then, you remember that you need those to prevent burning spiders from crawling under the door cracks. One morning you wake up and feel a dozen multi-segmented, yards-long insect legs caressing you. Your family takes you to see a psychiatrist, but you can't say anything because he's eating your thoughts up, he's taking your thoughts away from you. And glasses fill up and the screwdrivers are put on the table so the truckdrivers can drive through the trees and and an -- and you realize that your mind has shattered and the way with which you feel yourself is destroyed. Psychosis... is surviving the death of your soul.
* Just think... Bipolar Disorder is just the tip of the iceberg. The chemicals in your brain causing mood swings so wide that one minute you're immortal and nothing can harm you and you're the best and happiest person ever and the next minute all you can think about is how your life sucks and what is the best way to remove yourself from the equation and there's little to no in-between mood-state. The annual suicide rate of bipolar individuals is 10 to more than 20 times that of the general population.
** On the subject of suicidal tendencies for bipolar disorder: for a major depressive episode, the highest risk of suicide is not at the nadir, but rather when the mood and energy level are recovering--the brain has not purged the shame and self-destructive urges by the time the sufferer had regained enough strength to act on them. For those suffering from bipolar disorder (particularly those with psychotic features and/or rapid cycles), this explosive suicidal madness occurs somewhere from between once a few months to ''every other minute''. Speaking as a clinician, if you know those who suffers from this condition, urge them to take mood stabilizers if they do not already and give them all the support you can. No side effect can be more evil than constant threat of self-destruction.
* Depression, purely and simply, isn't the nicest thing. Thinking of yourself as a monster, the worst thing to ever happen, not being able to do anything without thinking you're going to screw with this, not being capable of taking baths frequently because you hate your own body... Yeah.
** Suicidal depression- the idea that your brain/mind is trying to kill you. And some days you just feel like letting it.
** Or the way in which suicidal ideation is often horribly logical and yet completely detached from reality. One of the best ways to describe it is: you don't want to ''die'', you just want to stop living. It is often described as being 'selfish' (sometimes understandably, [[BerserkButton sometimes not]]) yet anyone seriously considering self-termination cannot really be considered to be in a normal state of mind, and thus has a somewhat screwed up perception of 'self'. The idea that it would ''truly'' be better for everyone if you were dead is not just an excuse.
*** It's even worse when the patient isn't even fully mentally numbed. You can do horrible things to yourself - harm yourself, mistreat your life and family etc - because most of you simply ''doesn't care'' but there is still a small shred of healthy mind that is under the depression. From time to time you'll snap into reality, knowing what you do is wrong, but you are so tired and drained that you just don't have the power to do anything else than to watch the shadow that you've become and feel guilt about it. It's like you are a puppet for the depression and there's nothing you can do about it...
** Another thing to consider: the unpleasant interaction between clinical depression and the ingrained-into-the-public-consciousness trope "{{Wangst}}." Depression is often as much about chemical imbalance in the brain as ongoing events that are triggering it. Thus, many sufferers will hate themselves all the more because ''Why am I whining so much? It's not like I've got any reason to, everything's set up in my favor. I'm such a worthless loser, I can't even get off my ass and stop feeling sorry for myself'' while everyone and everything around you is telling you that the fact that you're feeling so horrible is ''your fault'' and that ''you deserve it''. Maybe you had any guts you'd get over yourself and be happy again, but it will more than likely lead to a downward spiral away from society as a whole (which the guy who is called out as wangsty would see as NotSoDifferent from a Sociopath at this point) and into Total DespairEventHorizon.
** Another thing about depression is that when you feel happy (which is rare, but not impossible) even for a moment, it feels incredibly strange and uncanny and usually causes a bout of hysterical crying.
** A two-tier symptom of depression applies to the relationships of the sufferer: the first type is where the sufferer actively ruins otherwise healthy and supportive (of the sufferer) relationships (friends, etc.) The second is where the sufferer actively seeks out people that would only harm him/her - which is, in a way, self-mutilation with the responsibility of it delegated to others.
---> "[[NeonGenesisEvangelion I'm of no value to anyone.]] [[DespairEventHorizon No reason left to live]]".
** Another thing to consider: most psychiatric conditions are misunderstood to be psychological in nature by the casual observers. It quickly becomes impossible to communicate the nature of your problem, because, according to the people you are trying to communicate it to, it's just you being wangsty and not suffering from a neurochemical disorder that shifts your moods around at random (there are some people who refuse to believe a thing such as "neurochemical condition" exist at all.) This applies also to people's reactions to medication: some people are perfectly content with destroying their own lives by letting their conditions go unchecked (because, apparently, medication is "weakness" or "giving up") and will patronize you on how you should do the same - listening to why you are weak and why your dependence on anti-depressants or mood-stabilizers by people who are close to you (who, like yourself, are mentally ill) is almost as devastating as the condition itself.
* Borderline Personality Disorder. It's kind of like bipolar, where you have mood swings. Only the moods can come in go in ''minutes.''
* Severe bipolar disorder. Similar to the fear of Alzheimers, one of the major problems is that you don't know there's a problem. In other words, if you're not acting "normally" you won't be able to tell because it's your own abnormal brain telling you you're being normal. During the "up" phase you feel great, like nothing can go wrong and everyone is having a grand time and you're perfectly fabulous, which is usually a big lie. During a bad "down" phase, you are ''absolutely the biggest piece of shit on the planet''. There is ''nobody'' who is a worse piece of crap than you are. You suck, you don't even deserve to be here. In fact, you should probably just die. And you ''never'' question that you might be feeling strange, because ''your own brain'' is telling you these things.
** There are two major categorization of bipolar disorder -- Bipolar Disorder Type I and Type II. Type II (which seems to approximate the description above) is when the depressive swing is more pronounced. The depressive episodes are just as painful as unipolar depression (if not worse, due to the increase risk of self-harm during relapse) but the manic episodes are, thankfully, not as destructive in Type I. Type I is defined by its more pronounced manic features. A firsthand description of a major manic episode would be: Four days of screaming without a pause excepting fainting from exhaustion, constant and vivid fantasy--desire--compulsion to kill and violate one's lover and closest friends, emotional brutality to anyone who approaches to help, hallucinations of the world covered in blood and psychotic rage. Many sufferers of Bipolar I end up destroyed by this condition. Yet, even with such threat and trauma, they persist and ''get better''. The message is that, while all too many of us are inflicted with this terror to all of its degrees, we can get better.
** What scares me the most about Bipolar Disorder is that medication does nothing for it. Mood stabilizers tone down the manic phases while doing nothing for the depression. Meanwhile antidepressants increase the suicidal tendencies.
* Sociopaths. People who simply do not feel love or guilt. Most aren't criminals and/or murders. Many marry and have children. You probably know at least one, and they'll be a nasty piece of work, but at the end of the day they are normal people. Except that if they ran you over they'd never feel a twinge of guilt. Ever. That's the scariest thing for me, at least a decent human being would have their conscience punish them for bad things they've done, even if the law or Karma didn't. Sociopaths won't.
** Even scarier, sociopaths/psychopaths are masters of emotional and social camouflage, and [[CriticalPsychoAnalysisFailure can fool even psychologists into thinking they're perfectly normal]]. They are real-life {{Stepford Smiler}}s, a potential mixture of Types B and C, who can and will make themselves appear to be absolutely normal, and the more intelligent they are the greater the chances are that you will never know unless it becomes in their best interests for you to know - say they decide it's in their interests to kill you, and only then do you realize they feel no remorse for what they're about to do. To the very extreme they can be AffablyEvil.
** That's not the scary part. The scary part? Such people are responsible for a minuscule fraction of the horrific actions that people perform. You don't have to be a sociopath to not care. You just have to convince yourself that someone doesn't count, isn't the same as you. Most of the worst things we have done were done by people with no inherent madness, just a belief that the victims somehow deserved it, or else a refusal to think of them at all, or just thinking that you are following an obligation. Think of the people who participated in the Nazi regime but responds while being interrogated with "I am just doing my job." Think of the famous [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment Milgram Experiment]], where it has been observed that authority by itself can ''actually override empathy''. Or on the lesser degree call out even a genuinely suicidally depressed and empathy-needing person as {{wangst}}y just because TV Tropes tells you to.
*** Don't forget that a lot of non-sociopaths committing sociopathic actions have been led to believe they're actually doing ''good.'' Like, they're acting in the service of a God or [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans some larger plan]]. Or even [[WellIntentionedExtremist genuinely good intentions]], like [[TotalitarianUtilitarian happiness]]. Who do you think is more likely to turn it UpToEleven: the person acting in the name of their own selfish interest or in the name of God? See also the KnightTemplar character for more of this type of personality.
*** Interestingly enough, many people have exactly that same apathy toward those whom they know to be or discover to be sociopaths. Some (or maybe many) people who by all indications feel empathy and emotion could probably sit and watch a murderous sociopath be slowly and painfully killed in the way he killed his victims, and his screams of pain might not elicit any guilt or remorse from those watching, because he "doesn't count" and is a "CompleteMonster." I read a website that describes sociopaths as "Pseudo-human," without irony. It's ironic that many normal people can realize what it feels like to be a sociopath if they turn their thoughts ''toward'' sociopaths, and find themselves feeling the very same lack of empathy that the sociopath feels for the world. It's a High Octane Nightmare Fuel {{Not So Different}} moment, because even if sociopaths don't inspire that apathy in ''you'', you probably know someone for whom they ''do''.
** Consider life for the sociopath. A world of people all around you, capable of whole spectrum of emotions, and you are not. You cannot relate. You are alienated and you don't care because you're "better than them". Massively inflated ego is generally a symptom of sociopathy.
* Anxiety disorders. Imagine being so afraid of life, everything around you, and the progression of time and everything that signals it (including your own thoughts, breathing, heartbeat; basically your own entire existence) that you want to kill yourself... and being too afraid of ''that'', too, to do it. And, when you feel relatively good, knowing that it's only a matter of time before you're at that point again.
** Combine this with the compulsions from OCD, especially if those lead you to seek out disturbing materials (like this very page, or particularly scary horror movies). You will live in a constant state of terror. Have fun.
** Social Anxiety Disorder. Enjoy (or even just tolerate) talking to people? Going to parties? Going to school? Work? Restaurants, stores, gas stations, etc? Like talking on the phone? Feel comfortable calling 911 in an emergency? Go on many dates? Have many friends? Realize that the depression is a symptom of the social anxiety, but you're too anxious to talk to anyone about it, much less a professional? Yeah, have fun.
* Suffering a panic attack suddenly brings the trigger into a sort of high octane nightmare fuel situation. Aside from having a totally sudden onset, irrational fears can develop. Not only that your body starts to go into a constant state of fear (shaking; fast, shallow breathing; and of course, panicking).
** Not to mention, the amount of paranoia and fear depends how often you have panic attacks. Lightest ones conclude nothing more than being more jittery than usual and feeling of being unreal. On the flip side of the coin it's a massive crash that starts with few uneasy thoughts, then hyperactivity and nervous ranting with shallow breathing leaving you curled up in a corner crying and repeating a MadnessMantra, feeling that the whole universe and everything in is trying to kill you. Feelings of going insane and going apart are also very common, but you're so petrified with horror that you barely can breath, chest aching with every inhale. There is no certain duration of the attack (usually it's only few minutes, but they feel like eternity) and ''it can happen anytime, without warning''.
** Panic attacks can come with a feeling of nausea as well, as does the vasovagal reaction (faint). So you feel like you're about to pass out. While feeling like you're losing control and going insane. While feeling afraid of literally everything. And consider this: ''being alone'' when this happens. Yep.
* A mention of panic attacks as being in a constant state of fear, but that's hardly the worst of it. A panic attack can feel ''exactly'' like a heart attack. You can go down a checklist of heart attack symptoms and have every single one. Chest pains, dizziness, breathlessness, the whole gamut.
* Panic disorder. Imagine you're doing something you've done thousands of times, but you make a mistake. It's not the first time you've made a mistake but for some reason this time you become dizzy, your entire body becomes unbearably hot, you start shaking uncontrollably, you can't breath and there is an impending sense of doom as if you're about to die. Now imagine not being able to predict exactly what will cause this panic attack because the stimulus is different each time.
* Free floating anxiety. There's a voice in the back of your head that's wondering: "Okay, how should I prepare for the next bad thing to happen?" and constantly scan the horizon.
'''Other Brain Conditions'''
* Epilepsy It can kill you at anytime, no matter what you are doing: you fall right, you're dead; have a seizure while in the bath, you're dead; driving a car, good chance you're dead, not to mention any unfortunate motorists that get in your way; climbing stairs, holding sharp objects, crossing the road on a busy street, even just standing still you can die. Not to mention even if the seizure goes well i.e. no concussions or major wounds, the after effects feel like the love child of a hangover and the day after an over-zealous workout. Some people have these daily.
** Simple partial seizures are terrifying in their own way. One of the pre-seizure symptoms is depersonalisation; loosing all sense of who and what you are, as well as who and what everyone around you is. Imagine looking at your own mother in this state and wondering for a few seconds who she was and any knowledge of her feeling fake. That stage lasts for maybe ten seconds, and that's the only warning epileptics get before their entire brain goes haywire.
** Photosensitive seizures; no nightclubs for you! These can come with no warning - you literally just drop.
** Absence seizures. Not frightening on the epileptic's part, but... there's something unnerving about seeing the victim do stuff normally, then they suddenly ''freeze.'' Then, a few seconds later, they continue what they were doing as if it hadn't happened. I repeat. ''Unnerving.''
** These can be unnerving to people with epilepsy as well. Imagine you're just talking to someone, and all of a sudden they're looking at you like you've grown two extra heads. You have no idea what just happened or why they're looking at you that way. There have even been cases where the victim of an absence seizure is on some level, partially aware of what is going on. They KNOW that they have stopped or are about to, and then time just jumps forward a bit, and their friends are staring at them. It isn't much, but there's still that brief flicker of knowing that you're about to freeze. There are even rarer cases where the victim is completely aware that they have frozen, but losing track of time as it goes on. Completely unable to move, can't blink, can't speak, and can only just breath. *shudders*
** Local temporal seizures have been known to trigger sudden, acute and extreme mood swings and psychosis (Handel was said to have suffered from epileptic psychosis[[hottip:*:or psychotic epilepsy, however you see it]]). The fact that it is usually limited to night makes this a reasonable suspicion, as well.
** [[http://www.epilepsy.com/EPILEPSY/sudep_epilepsy Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy]]. Most doctors won't even tell someone with epilepsy about this, and it accounts for 15-20% of all deaths in epileptics.
** Breakthrough seizures. They're not even like "normal" seizures; they're a hundred times more severe.
** Myoclonic seizures (like severe arms/hands/legs spasms) can render you unable to do something as simple as write because you can't stop shaking. You might not even be able to walk normally.
* Brain Disorders. The seat of your ''being'' turning against you and breaking your very ''self''. Watch the episode of ''Secret Life of the Brain'' titled ''Losing Reality'' and tell me the idea of such things happening to ''you'' isn't utterly terrifying. You can't.
** Or maybe '''[[FridgeHorror you're the brain?]]''' And the body's like your car, which you the brain is driving?
* Ever heard of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgellons Morgellons]]? No? You probably don't want to. If the Nightmare Fuel isn't enough, add in a layer of Squick, and top with a dash of ParanoiaFuel. Sounds fun, doesn't it?
** Most doctors still consider Morgellons to be delusional parasitosis, masquerading under another name.
* Multiple Sclerosis and its relapses are horrifying. Say you wake up one day and it feels like you slept on your arm. Fine, you think, I'll just go about my day until the circulation comes back. But it doesn't. And you have trouble walking because for some reason, your legs aren't working very well. All the while you try and convince yourself you're okay but something is wrong with you and you have no idea what.
* Your own mind. Not only does it play nasty tricks on you without notice but it is you very own, personal worst enemy. A cruel critic sitting nicely in your head and mocks you at every decision and makes you feel something is happening to your very being and you can't stop it doing it without intense therapy. [[hottip:*: Or it's just me!?]]
* The story of Carl Tanzler and Elena Hoyos. In brief, Austrian doctor Carl Tanzler fell in love with one of his patients, Elena Hoyos, who sadly died. Tanzler didn't take this well. First he built a mausoleum for her body, which is obsessive enough but not (yet) horrifically creepy. Then he graverobbed her body, took it back to his house, and proceded [[MummiesAtTheDinnerTable to live with it as its "husband"]] for the rest of his days. The ''real'' HONF is how when Hoyos's body started to rot, Tanzler replaced her skin with silk and her hair with a wig of Hoyos's own hair- and allegedly he also (WARNING: GROSS)[[spoiler:replaced her vagina with a tube so that he could have sex with the corpse]]. The result essentially looked like the creepiest CreepyDoll ever and was way, way beyond the UncannyValley. Oh, and it gets worse; the body/doll was discovered by Hoyos's own sister when she ''saw it in Tanzler's window.'' Think about that for a second. After this the body/doll was seized and reburied, but Tanzler made a life-size replica from a death mask and proceded to live with that for the rest of his life. Oh, and if you don't believe me? You can see the body/doll right [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tanzer_031.jpg here]]. [[SchmuckBait Don't click unless you absolutely need to see it]].
* Pica. It's an eating disorder, but, unlike the eating disorders covered elsewhere on the page (which deal with weight or health), this one affects ''what'' you eat - non-food items. Stuff like dirt, chalk, paper, soap (as well as more [[NauseaFuel disgusting]] bodily substances) - that's what it makes people eat. Of special note is the image for the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pica_(disorder) Wikipedia article]] for it. Look at it. It probably won't strike you as immediately disturbing, but once you look at the caption for it "Stomach contents of a psychiatric inpatient with pica", it becomes clear why it's so awful. It gets worse, too. It's bad that all that stuff was inside somebody's stomach, but it had to be ''removed'' from the stomach. Have fun thinking about the different ways that could have been accomplished.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_familial_insomnia FFI]]. If that gene activates you're dead. Slowly, excruciatingly you die of insomnia. There's no cure. Genetic testing can verify whether you have that mutation or not but it won't tell you whether it's going to kill you. Living with that kind of uncertainty is also some deep HONF.
* Being transgender isn't intrinsically scary. As long as they are accepted for who they are, allowed to express their gender identity in the way they see fit, and able to access whatever hormones and surgery they feel they need, trans folk get along just as well as anyone else. However, transfolk who are forced to conform to their biological sex (say, a trans woman forced to live as a man) almost invariably develop crippling emotional and psychological damage and are often driven to suicide because of the contradiction between mind and body. Imagine being forced to live in a body that isn't your own, and you'll understand how painful that is.
** Another thing that's nightmarish is the ''huge'' amount of [[http://www.livescience.com/11208-high-suicide-risk-prejudice-plague-transgender-people.html violence]], [[http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/2/prweb8112217.htm discrimination]], and [[http://takesupspace.wordpress.com/cis-privilege-checklist/ marginalization]] faced by the trans community on a daily basis. (Note: "cisgender/cissexual" simply means that your biological sex and gender identity match - in other words, you are ''not'' transgender.) Those allowed to transition, however, are able to live normal and fully functional lives.
** Add to this those transgendered individuals who are stuck in the gender society perceives them to be due to the fact that ''everyone they have ever loved and trusted'' would turn away from them if they did anything about it. The real high octane nightmare fuel here is that these individuals will go through hell no matter what they decide to do. How do you choose between going mad inside a body that isn't yours or losing everyone and everything you have ever loved?
** Imagine you're transgender. Now imagine you're experiencing anything else on this page, or you've ever experienced any other kind of trauma. Even if you're comfortable, secure, and proud in your gender identity, there is some asshole who thinks ''your gender'', a fundamental and unchangeable part of your being, is a "side effect" of being mentally ill.
'''Perceptual Disorders'''
* Dissociation. It makes people wake up hours later with no clue as to how much time has passed or what happened during that time.
** Also, there are numerous people who suffer from something called [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derealization Derealization/Depersonalization]], which is similar to the previously described sensation. Except it doesn't seem to leave the person for years and years. If there is one benefit to the multitude of horrors people out there face, it is that it makes the rest of us feel quite fortunate indeed to live the life we've been given.
** Derealization is a feature of pre-seizure auras, and it is terrifying. As the name implies, reality gets ripped out from under the sufferer's feet and they are lost in a dreamworld, unable to speak or understand what people are saying.
*** Try adding in migraine aura. The main effects are that real world feels like a movie set, the tangible objects all seem to be props (albeit fully functional ones) and other people seem to be actors (the ones I interact with) or robots or puppets in the background as extras.This can become a permanent delusion.
** Having trouble recognising yourself in the mirror and connecting that face with your thoughts or needing to pinch yourself to make sure that you're awake and in this body doing whatever you're doing at that moment and 'hey are those my hands that I'm washing, the water feels unreal'. It's terrifying.
* [[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/04/07/IN237723.DTL Shaar Menashe]] is the proper way to combine Godwin's Law and NightmareFuel: it's a hospital in Israel dedicated to the care of mentally ill survivors of the Holocaust. Post-traumatic stress disorder's ravages have resulted in there being people in the world for whom the Shoah never ended, who are still in the camps after ''seventy years''.
* A psychotic blackout. Imagine your friends revealing that last night you had been violent and ranting and apparently even threatened to rape someone. You have no memory of doing this. Worse, you could remember the feeling of pleasure you had when hurting people.
* Multiple Personality Disorder doesn't quite seem scary at first. You can have a full-time job, pay taxes, shower regularly. However, those who have MPD never know for sure when the personalities will surface and who they will be around when they do. MPD also can come with blackouts when another personality takes over. Imagine being at work, then suddenly you're somewhere you have never seen before or even in an asylum because another personality broke lose and took over.
** Even "natural multiples" who have control over their condition who basically just share their bodies like roommates might share a car still have to worry constantly about what the others might get up to. What if the other personality bounces a check because someone else had an expensive dinner you didn't know about or has unprotected sex with a stranger at a party and was too ashamed to tell you?
** One of the more unsettling versions of MPD is the 'little voice'. So you have another personality, or a couple of them. You're the main one, in control most of the time, and the others don't really bother you that much when they do 'take over'. But there's this one personality, this one voice that you can always hear. And ''it doesn't like you.'' It is constantly criticizing what you say, do, and think. Sometimes the other voices interfere, sometimes they don't...
*** At this point, two things need to be brought up: First, MPD, or as it's now called DID, for dissociative identity disorder, is ''extraordinarily'' rare, with not more than five hundred cases world-wide. Second, there's reason to believe it doesn't actually exist, or if it does, that the condition is iatrogenic (iatrogenic disorders themselves would qualify nicely as nightmare fuel).
** Society's "view" of MPD is also High Octane Nightmare Fuel. Everyone feels you have an incurable disease that is heavily based on psychotic delusion that must be controlled for the safety of you and everyone around you. And by controlled, we mean by heavy amounts of neuro-toxic drugs that can permanently alter/damage your brain. You can have your rights stripped away, be hospitalized against your will, be drugged against your will; have your children taken away, and be fired from your job for telling anyone.
* Mirrored self-misidentification: For most adults, the ability to recognize oneself in the mirror is a basic skill, something you learn as an infant. For some people, the person in the mirror is ''someone else'', a stranger, maybe someone following them around, maybe someone inexplicably in their house, but people with this delusion are convinced that no, that's not me, that couldn't possibly be me, what the hell are you doing in my house and why are you following me around?
* Capgras delusion, related to the above, is the belief that a friend or close family member is actually an identical imposter. Think ''Invasion of the Body Snatchers''. Now imagine thinking that's happened to your innermost circle of colleagues.
* The Cotard delusion. People with this delusion believe that they're dead, decomposing, or they don't really exist. Imagine thinking that you're dead, no matter how many times people try to convince you otherwise.
** Or even worse, knowing that you're not dead, but still believing it anyway.
* Intrusive thoughts. Little thoughts you think might be your own but don't know. Most of the time its like a little mumbling in the back of your head. Other times, they get really loud. Imagine standing alone in an empty house screaming "Shut up, shut up, ''SHUT UP!''" to something that exist solely in your ''head''.
** Here's a variation: Imagine that none of the things you usually feel actually are ''you'' feeling them, but that they just feel like a signal from the body that you are in that isn't actually you. Neither is that feeling of being angry, happy, or any other not-very-strong emotion you may have, that is just a signal that the brain sends you that infringes on you and your rationality, but isn't actually something ''you'' feel. Those emotions are still just as painful when they are bad, just not something that you feel, but something from the outside. Now imagine that those thoughts are actually images, vivid images of you doing stuff you find abhorrent, stuff you think you'd never do, and you can't get rid of these images, you begin developing tics like grimacing or hitting yourself on the head whenever one surfaces, and then you start thinking, ''What if I only think I hate those things? What if I actually '''want''' them?''
* Sensory Overload. Imagine every nerve on your body flaring up like it's on fire. You can't talk without slurring your speech, and your brain feels like it's going to explode. The quietest noise is suddenly amplified to the point that you can't concentrate on anything anymore. It's like self-imposed MindRape. You don't want to go into that noisy restaurant, but you do because you're with your family for a meal. As soon as you enter, all the activity begins to grate upon you. You feel like your nerves are going to explode, and that you must scream. You're on edge before the overload even happens. All you want is quiet, but it just gets louder, and the more you want peace, the louder is seems to get, until it's like everyone in the building is being noisy just to hurt you. The overload itself builds gradually and you're not even really aware of it until it happens, and then, you just have to get out at any cost- throwing people aside, forcing your way through doors, and any other means necessary. The reason you wear a hood all the time, even indoors, is because the lights bother you. You wear earbuds everywhere to filter out noises, and if your music dies, you panic. You only wear long-sleeved shirts and pants because you hate the idea of brushing up against someone. Certain foods are completely repulsive to you based on how they feel in your mouth. There are certain things you can't touch without feeling sick, and you have an urge to wash your hands after. You can't wear certain fabrics, shoes, or accessories. And if you're overloaded, you panic and try to get out as soon as possible, because if you don't, you feel like you're really going to hurt somebody, and it might be yourself.
** The above-described conditions are a fact of life for many people with a disorder on the autistic spectrum.
'''Psychological Medications'''
* Codeine - literally. In 1% of patients, it causes very vivid and horrifying nightmares. In 33% of these cases, the nightmares are so bad they ''cause post-traumatic stress disorder''.
** A milder trouble with this pill is the fact that it causes some patients to vomit. Try that on top of a mouth or throat surgery.
** In some cases, melatonin supplements can also cause nightmares.
* Medications for mental health disorders. There is a percentage of people (especially teenagers and young adults) who have bad reactions to them. They can also permanently damage your brain.
** Bipolar medication carries warnings about [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevens-Johnson_syndrome Stevens-Johnson Syndrome]] which freaks me right out. The thing that helps you cope may be the thing that causes your skin to rot off your body... * shudder*
** Seizure medications have some of the worst side effects; it comes down to weighing the pros of not seizing as often (hopefully) vs. whatever freaky side-effect it might have, such as terrifying nightmares (I'm looking at you, Tegretol), terrifying insomnia (you too, Felbatol), and just generally being a complete dick (hey there, Keppra!) who is [[RuleofThree terrifying.]]
*** Lamotrigine can make seizures worse... as in, it can cause up to three full-blown grand-mal seizures in one day. On the plus side, Lamotrigine can also help treat mental illness, particularly bipolar disorder. The success rate is only about 70 percent, but for some people that's a hell of a lot better than nothing.
* Haloperidol, a medicine which was also used for Shizophrenia treatment can cause permanent symptoms similar to parkinsons disease (even if it's not permanent, many people who get the drug experience this symptoms temporarily) and for people with epilepsia, it can increase the possibility of seisures. And there were cases were this medicine was abused on persons which were completely healthy to make them easier controlable.
'''Psychological Trauma'''
* Pedophobia or "fear of children". There was a psychologist working with adults with Asperger's Syndrome/High Functioning Autism who also had PTSD. They were veterans, but the PTSD was not related to the war. One of them explained to the doctor that in a war, he knew who was on his side. Their post-traumatic stress stemmed from school, where other kids spoke a completely foreign social language, where someone could smile to your face and then stab you in the back later. Now every single time they see a child, they imagine the child sees the scared, unpopular kid they used to be and is judging them harshly for not understanding their rules.
* Childhood traumas can be some of the worst, as they can affect your entire life and you may only vaguely remember why you hate clowns or spiders without deep meditation or hypnosis. Even before that could be in-the-womb trauma, birth trauma, or baby trauma, due to [[http://www.terrylarimore.com/BabiesAndPain.html malpractice]] or ignorant parents. And before those, if you're into reincarnation, past-life trauma.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_stress_reaction Acute stress reaction]] after experiencing any traumatic event. It is similar to PTSD and can develop into such, but it is not quite as enduring. It is still horrifying. For one thing, imagine having been attacked and just having escaped. You get yourself into a safe place and all of a sudden you feel dazed. As you try to calm yourself down from the attack, you find yourself unable to think clearly and this heightens your already-anxious state of mind. All the while, you're sweating, flushed, and possibly sobbing. And then most everything that comes with full-blown PTSD. The lucky ones recover from this after four weeks at the most, usually a few days. The unlucky ones develop PTSD, which usually affects the victim for years and possibly their whole life afterward.
** It's quite common to experience these kinds of symptoms to some degree after any terrifying event. It becomes a bit tricky when the reaction is delayed for hours or days, as even the person undergoing the stress can think everything is fine until the horror finally hits them, and they suddenly break down.
* Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Imagine the worst thing you can think of happening to you, something that will change your life forever. You never want whatever you saw and experienced that day to happen again, so you start changing around your entire life, living in fear of it happening again. You don't want to even think about it again, but it invades your thoughts, forcing you to relive the worst moments of your life over and over and over again. You lash out at the people you love, and few are willing to understand that you can't control your emotions, but since you don't want to think about it, you don't even want to get help because then you would have to talk about it and remember. And all it takes is one bad day.
** There is also a subset of this called Complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD), which unlike just plain Post-traumatic stress disorder, which can be caused by a single traumatic event, is caused by prolonged trauma with a lack or loss of control over the situation and any possibility of escape. Imagine not only having been abused in any way, shape or form and not only having to deal with that, but also being unable to escape from the situation that caused you trauma and having more traumatic events happen. This can sometimes go on for weeks or longer at a time. Meanwhile, the victim is already developing PTSD from the initial traumatic event and the inability to escape from the situation that caused it with a possible combination of additional traumatic events causes it to fester into C-PTSD.
* Abuse, its effects, and many people's reactions to it.
** Finding out that a person you know who is happy, bubbly, and pleasant to be around is really a survivor of abuse and that behind that cheerful act is, to at least some measure, a Type A StepfordSmiler act. Even if it's not a full-blown facade of this type and the person's affability is genuine, it can still be terrifying to be in this situation.
* Triggers, another result of trauma. They can be ''anything'' connected to the event from a song to seeing a similar fictional event on Television. They might just trigger an uncomfortable feeling you can't put a finger on, a full-blown anxiety attack, self-destructive behaviors you have no control over, or a ''full-blown flashback to the event in question''.
** Now remember how many people are victimized in once-familiar situations, or even in their own homes, by people they know. These people are surrounded by triggers now!
** One such example, just to demonstrate how debilitating this can be: A woman who was raped by a man wearing a bandana to hide his face can experience a sudden flash-black if she happens to see a bandana laying around somewhere, or an item that resembles one. The worst part is that these episodes can set back months of progress in an instant as the person relives the original trauma.
* As was mentioned above about triggers, there are thankfully trigger warnings in some places to warn people who may be triggered by descriptions of violence (rape, abuse, etc.), but unfortunately, some people are not just triggered by descriptions or depictions reminding them of their traumatic event; they can be triggered by things you wouldn't expect and most likely consider to be normal, such as the feel of carpeting because a part of the traumatic event is having had their attacker on top of them with their exposed skin rubbing up against the carpet. To make things worse, there are some times when a survivor of a traumatic event has been triggered by the second type of such, told a nearby person about this fact to explain their reaction, and then been told that it's "not reasonable" to be flashing back to the event, etc. just because their trigger happens to be a common everyday object. Imagine that a certain thing that you used to not think much of or even like now causing you to have a flashback, panic attack, etc. and when you confide this in someone who you thought you could trust, that person belittled you for telling you that on top of the trigger itself.
* In some cases of abuse or a traumatic event, especially if the person does not physically require any medical attention, the victim will still be expected to go about their regular life the next day, or even hours or ''minutes'', after the event happened and it is still fresh in their minds. What's more, people in this situation are often expected to not divulge any of the details to anyone or else they don't for other reasons. So they've been freshly traumatized and yet they must make like it never happened. To make things worse, people in this situation keep up this StepfordSmiler facade for months, or even ''years'', on end.
* The fact that some abusers are able to successfully psychologically manipulate their victims into sticking around and even into believing that what they're doing is for their own good. At least when it's only limited to physical, sexual, etc. abuse and the victim is able to retain their psychological integrity, they are more able to seek and accept help to get out of the situation and heal. When the victim is also being successfully emotionally manipulated into staying with their abuser and accepting the abuse, they are less able to seek and accept help and they have to heal from the psychological abuse as well as the physical, sexual, etc. aspects of it.
* [[TraumaInducedAmnesia The kind of amnesia that results from a traumatic event]]. Most notable are the examples of people who saw something happen or been through something that was traumatic but don't remember the event at all. But there are some examples where the person can remember some details vividly, but cannot remember others for some reason. Imagine recalling the worst thing that happened to you with clarity and horror. Except... there's something missing, and you ''know'' there's something missing, but you don't know exactly what.
* Flashbacks themselves are nightmare fuel, particularly if they happen while the sufferer are asleep. Imagine the worst possible thing that could happen to you happening. Then happening again, in all of its horrifying detail and it feels so real. When you least expect it.
** There's also sometimes a loss of control that comes with the flashback. You may wind up injuring yourself or someone nearby, or do something strange and not realize it till later.
[[/folder]]
----
[[folder: RLNF Real Life Crime and Punishment]]
--->''"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god."''
--->--'''Jean Rostand'''
'''Ancient and more modern torture and execution devices'''
* Korean torture method: Tying the victim, naked, up above a plant known as quick-growing bamboo. Quick growing bamboo is measured in MPH. It does grow an awfully fast 24 inches a day. ''Mythbusters'' also proved that bamboo can actually grow through a human.
** ''{{Mythbusters}}'' also proved that you can actually torture someone by dripping water on their forehead. WrenchWench Kari Byron had a nervous breakdown after a few hours. (...and she'd been ''voluntarily'' tied down, and was surrounded by friends. Imagine being in enemy hands and enduring that.)
* The North Vietnamese caught a teacher teaching his elementary students about democracy and freedom. [[spoiler: The military promptly took the teacher outside with the class, forced the students to watch the teacher be executed, with their hands tied behind their backs. To make matters worse, they jabbed chopsticks into their ears, so they wouldn't be able to listen to anymore of that.]]
* One torture technique described locking someone in something that could be used as a locker filled with glass sand. Then a fan would blow to spread the "locker" with this glass sand. Anyone that survived was pretty damn bloody internally.
** Also used for a time in Vietnam and North Korea was the punishment of sedating a rat, putting it in the person's chest cavity, and sewing them back up. Apparently, with the lungs lacerated, enough air escapes to keep the rat alive for quite some time after it wakes up and ''panics''.
** North Vietnam: The torturers would insert a thin, hollow glass tube into the victim's urethra. Then they would get a prostitute to arouse the victim, causing an erection, thus causing the glass tube to shatter. And upon reading this, all men will scream and want to vomit.
* Recently released Chinese documents detail torture and execution methods in Maoist China. [[http://www.historytoday.com/frank-dikötter/chinese-history-great-leap-backward Here is an introduction]], including the story of a boy buried alive for stealing a handful of grain. They made his father bury him.
** The Chinese invented many...''creative'' ways to execute people. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_slicing One of them]] is particularly horrifying. The executioner was required to slice literally a thousand pieces of flesh off the victim while he is still alive, otherwise the executioner will be punished. The worst thing is surrounding crowd had been known to buy the flesh for, above all, ''food and medicine''. Now imagine being cut to thousands of pieces alive while the crowd is buying your flesh.
** The various dynasties had their own "interesting" ways of dealing with crime and punishment.
---> 'death by slow slicing', which in some cases could take days (Ming Dynasty),
---> 'death by being ripped apart by chariots' (Qin Dynasty),
---> 'the Five Pains' (which happen to be the nose, a hand, a foot, genitalia, then being cut in half) (Qin Dynasty),
---> 'death by climbing a red-hot bronze pole' (Shang Dynasty),
---> 'death by being cooked alive' (Tang Dynasty - Wu Zetian)
---> 'death by fighting elephants and tigers' (Southern Han)
---> 'death by burying criminals neck-deep in compact mud, waiting for the blood to go to the head, then beheading them so that the blood spurts out like a fountain' (Ming Dynasty)
** Also the Chinese tradition of 'collective punishment' meant that you could be executed because of a relative doing something wrong. Traditionally nine classes were executed - grandparents, parents, children, grandchildren, siblings and in-laws, uncles, and also the criminal himself. There was one case in which ten classes were exterminated, the final class being friends and students. In that case, 873 people were killed.
* At the Maryland's Renaissance Fair, there is an exhibit of old torture methods. In one method shown, the victim was hung upside-down with his legs spread, and then '' '''sawed in half''' '' starting at the groin. Because you were hanging upside-down and the blood was beginning to pool into your upper extremeties, the saw would have to get about ''halfway through your body before you would pass out from blood loss.'' '''Commence to shuddering.'''
** Also, consider the practice of impalement; the victim's legs would be spread, hanging him upside-down, and then a ''blunt pike was shoved up their ass and out their mouth'', pushing the internal organs aside so as to keep the victim alive (and conscious, and suffering audibly) for hours, sometimes even ''days.'' Consider also that Vlad the Impaler would take his meals in a ''garden'' of impalement victims, moaning as they died.
* Whether the forms of torture mentioned above were carried out by the Japanese or not doesn't matter, as Japanese soldiers were definitely nasty in so many ways unimaginable to the Filipinos during WWII. Those held captive had each their fingernails pulled out whole, after which they would be submerged fully-naked into a cauldron of boiling water. And if you were female, the only way for you to escape sexual slavery would be for you to be hideous. Don't try making yourself dirty; they'd just get you to wash up, and then they'll rape you. No, you would have to be horribly disfigured to avoid defiling.
* If you ever find yourself in [[UsefulNotes/EquatorialGuinea Equatorial Guinea]] (lucky you), do yourself a favor and don't break the law, lest you end up in [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-455635/True-hell-earth-Simon-Mann-faces-imprisonment-cruellest-jail-planet.html Black Beach Jail]], the worst prison on the planet according to the UK's ''Daily Mail''. Prisoners are kept in shackles, there's barely any access to lawyers or even family or friends, there's little to no clean water, disease and vermin are rife...and foreign prisoners have a habit of dying, ostensibly of disease, but usually with injuries resembling those of torture. According to the linked article, broken jaws and snapped forearms are ''normal'' in this modern-day Devil's Island.
** The (literal) driving force behind all this is Teodoro Nguema, the country's OmnicidalManiac despot ruler, who seems like no less than the reincarnation of [[TheLastKingOfScotland Idi Amin]]. He proudly claims to be a [[ImAHumanitarian cannibal]], dining on his opponents' testicles "to gain their power". When British SAS officer Simon Mann tried to overthrow him, Nguema ordered his extradition to Equatorial Guinea, and Mann's lawyer tells him not to go. Apparently Nguema's plans for him are to personally sodomize him, then ''skin him alive''. Yes, Mann was qualifiably TooDumbToLive with his filibustering plans there, but that doesn't make the place much less scary.
*'''Crucifixion'''. Getting nailed on a cross. It is generally considered to be the most cruel and unpleasant way to die - the convict literally drowns in his own bodily fluids and his brain gets cooked as the body temperature will rise over 42 degrees C (107.6 F) due to the pain. Death usually comes within two days, but sometimes it can occur in six hours.
'''Criminal children and teenagers'''
* The murder of Shanda Sharer. Everything about it. Basically, a teen girl breaks up with her girlfriend, then sees her with another date, 12-year-old Shanda Sharer. Then she gets together with a couple other girls to brutally torture, abuse and murder Shanda. The full, gruesome story is [[http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/young/shanda_sharer/1.html here]]. There's also the scary fact that the media (especially sensationalist stuff like Dr. Phil) have been doing their "best" to portray it as some kind of [[UnfortunateImplications "evil, coke-snorting, punk-loving lesbian witches kill innocent heterosexual Christian girl"]] case, when Shanda was as lesbian as her killers.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_James_Bulger The death of James Bulger]]. Two ten-year-old boys led a young, two-year-old child away from his mother only to torture him to death by dropping him on his head, putting paint in his eye, beating him with bricks, rocks, and an iron bar, removing his clothing and, if the the pathologist's report saying that his foreskin had been disturbed is any indication, they violated him. Oh, and then they left him on railroad tracks for a train to cut him in half. All of this was done ''by ten-year-olds.'' The image of a young man leading a young child away, captured by CCTV footage, is chilling once you realize what will soon be happening to the young boy...
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itamar_killings Fogel Family murders]]. The worst part isn't the fact that a family of five were murdered in their sleep. It's not that three of the victims were eleven years, four years and five months old. It's not the fact it's a terrorist attack. It's the fact it was committed by seventeen and eighteen year old brothers. And they're proud. And the oldest was smiling as he told the court what happened. How a man can sneak into a house, wake up a four year old and say, "Sh, everything's alright, we're doing patrols" and then slit his throat, stab him, wake up his brother, do the same to him and then go on to stab and beat their parents and baby sister and then be proud of the fact, astonishes and disgusts me. Oh, and their twelve, and two year old sister and brother were the ones to find the bodies.
* The murder of [[http://digitaljournal.com/article/267781 Kenzie Houk]]. Jordan Brown, her fiance's ''11-year old son'' shot her in the back of the while she lay sleeping. Oh, and did I mention she was ''eight months pregnant''? Brown's motive for the murder? [[ItsAllAboutMe He was afraid that his father would pay more attention to Kenzie's baby than him]].
* Look up the story of Mary Bell. When I read about a ten year old who would willfully and maliciously kill another child, it makes me want to throw up. She's free now. With a new identity and a child of her own. She's most likely a psychopath with no remorse for any of her actions. You don't recover from a personality disorder. She's as sick now as she ever was, and she's raising her own child.
** The worst part? She's not a unique case. Remember the James Bulger case? Or even more recently and gut-churningly horrifying, the Doncaster torture case? How does one even begin to contemplate the idea of a ten and a twelve year old inflicting ColdBloodedTorture upon two kids their own age for no discernible reason other than to watch them suffer? If children of today are capable of that, maybe we really are beyond hope.
* Joseph Kony and his child soldiers.
* School shootings. Columbine, Virginia Tech, Jokela, Kauhajoki and many others. Know what's really terrifying? Perpetrators are often still humans deep in their torn shells, mentally driven over the edge. They no longer care or are so deep in their despair they see no better option, hurting and killing many innocents in the process. In both Jokela and Kauhajoki shootings, the perpetrator was an overtly intelligent and sensitive young man bullied relentlessly into insanity and misanthropy until they snapped and committed the shootings.
** In Columbine, however, Eric Harris was simply [[SocialDarwinist rotten to]] [[TheSociopath begin with]], and Dylan Klebold a kid with anger issues he [[ManipulativeBastard wrapped around his little finger]]. [[http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/assessment/2004/04/the_depressive_and_the_psychopath.html Read this and weep for humanity]].
* Brian Blackwell. He was 18 and lived with his parents in an affluent area, was clever and (seemingly) well-adjusted. Then he killed his parents with a hammer and a kitchen knife, left them there and ''got in a taxi and went on holiday to America''. When he came home, the bodies still hadn't been discovered and he stayed at his girlfriend's house while pretending they were on holiday. According to the police the bodies looked like they'd been shot. And he had no reason to kill them. He pleaded diminished responsibility because of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which he exhibited pretty much all of the symptoms of- when "normal" people usually have one or two, he had them all. Just think, did he kill them because he really believed he was better than everyone and they were in his way? Or did they die because they loved him too much and wanted the best for him? He was still using his father's credit card even while the bodies were decomposing in their house, after he'd murdered them in cold blood.
* [[http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,288512,00.html The Dunbar Village Rape]]. For those of you who hadn't heard of it, in June of 2007, a group of teens broke into the apartment of a mother and her twelve year old son, beat them both, raped the mother while forcing the son to watch, and then forced the son to rape his own mother at gunpoint. They then beat the son, poured cleaners into his eyes, stole several hundred dollars in cash and jewelry, and escaped. All this would be horrific enough on its own until you realize that this assault took place in an apartment complex. The kind of place where the neighbors hear you when you yell. ''Nobody called the police.''
* [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1339154/Ruby-Thomas-drunk-homophobic-attack-stranger-Trafalgar-Square.html Ruby Thomas]]
* Teenage serial torturer and murderer [[http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/history/pomeroy/1.html Jesse Pomeroy]]. His torture spree occurred in Boston during 1871-72 when he was 12. His victims were young boys under the age of 10 that he would lure to remote areas where he would proceed to tie them up, beat them senseless, then threaten to castrate them. He was eventually arrested when and sent to reform school, but he was released for good behavior. His first murder victim was 10-year-old Katie Curren. Katie went to his mother's shop to buy schoolbooks, and he lured her to the cellar and slit her throat. His second victim was 4-year-old Horace Millen and brutally stabbed him. He was sentenced to life in prison at age 14 and spent 41 years in solitary confinement.
'''Gangs'''
* Gangs. Want to die? Piss off a gang member.
** There used to be a feasible explanation for this. After all, much gang activity happens outside of public jurisdiction, much of it being illegal, so they have to create their own tribalistic rules and punishments. They don't punish, they lose face, get seen as weak, someone else tries to move in. Case in point, most schoolyard gangs during the 70s were not quite as bad as today, but in new immigrant areas in the early 20th century. At any rate, gang life seems to be cyclical as now we're moving back towards insane sociopaths of the 1920s stripe (ie compare Purple Gang with MS13 with Crips/Bloods). But the gang I was a member of growing up certainly didn't do anything like that, in fact it was formed to protect my community from a ''legal'' gang. (If you guessed LA, no, but if you guessed somewhere in the Midwest, you're very close.) The way some see it, a gang is a society that has risen to maintain peace and order, usually because the society calling them "a gang" has failed to do so. Still not much justification.
* Certain gangs such as Los Zetas have access to high-caliber rifles and surface-to-air missiles.
* A car bomb rocks the night, blowing up the front of the building it was placed in front of. Another building is destroyed when someone fires a grenade launcher at it. A block burns down as someone throws molotov cocktails at yet another building. Insurgents targeting government buildings in Iraq or Afghanistan? Summary for the latest JasonStatham film? Not this time, this time what's being described are things that happened in Canada and the United States by the hands of biker gangs like the Hell's Angels, Mongols and Banditos in their gang wars.
* A frightening story from the early 90's. Ludwig 'Tarzan' Fainberg was one of the heads of the Russian Mafiya in Miami and one of the big players in the local drug distribution scene. This being just after the end of the Cold War, many members of the Russian military were joining gangs and giving away the weapons and vehicles placed under their care. Tarzan made a deal with a military officer in charge of a Naval station that also stored submarines. While there, he asked (jokingly, one assumes) if he could buy one of those submarines. The commander reportedly told Tarzan "Do you want that with or without the missiles?" He eventually ''did'' purchase the submarine for the purposes of running cocaine for a mere 5 Million USD, but before he could enjoy his purchase, he was arrested for racketeering. A ''Russian gangster'' almost got his hands on a ''Soviet submarine''.
'''Murderers and Kidnappers'''
* Imagine a man. A nice young man, mid-to-late 20s, good looks, charming personality; everyone adores him, especially his wife. Now imagine that same young man going out late every night, riding the bus, and checking out all the young girls that come on. He eventually finds one that he likes, and he observes her. Eventually, her stop comes, and she gets off, with him following behind. As she gets to her house, he quickly grabs her, subdues her, and rapes her on her front lawn. He does this for about 5 years, in several places. He loves it. He enjoys it. His wife, who knows full well what her husband does when he goes out on these late night excursions, loves it too. So much so, that she gives him her sister as an "engagement gift". Several times. She eventually dies during an attack, and neither of them care. In the 5 years that these crimes occur, nobody really becomes suspicious of either of them. You're probably thinking "No way; such people don't exist!" [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Bernardo You only wish]]. Meet [[AxCrazy Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka]].
** Homolka has recently finished her prison sentence. She lives somewhere in or near Montreal, I think. Oh, and do you know why she is free now while her husband is still in prison? ''The prosecution made a deal with her to reduce her sentence if she testified against her husband.'' They'd thought that she was an unwilling victim of her husband's cruelty. Once she'd gotten her deal, she showed them the videotapes of what they'd done together. She was, for the record, definitely not unwilling, but the prosecution couldn't do anything about it.
**Believe it or not, [[ItGotWorse it gets worse]]. Much, much worse. Read what they did to one of their victims, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Bernardo#Leslie_Mahaffy Leslie Mahaffy]], and if you're up for it, read what happened to the others. But this isn't all of the It Gets Worse part.... the real kicker is where Karla is now. She's in the freaking Antilles, with a '''''new husband and''''' (at the time of writing this) '''''4 YEAR OLD SON.''''' who she's trying to "give a more normal life" to.
* ChrisBenoit. After EddieGuerrero's death, he just broke down and became the shadow of what he used to be. [[http://www.cagesideseats.com/2010/12/22/1892494/new-information-comes-out-about-chris-benoit-and-his-murder-suicide]] I find the fact that he wrote the note "I'm preparing to leave this Earth" so disturbing and [[{{tearjerker}} so heartbreaking at once]].
* The Canada Greyhound murder a few years ago. Tim [=McLean=] was sitting on a Greyhound bus, minding his own business, dozing with his earphones on, and suddenly a fellow passenger, for ''absolutely no reason'' outside his own mind, flipped out and hacked him to death with a knife. And then cut his head and other pieces off and ate some of them.
* The murder of Jimmy Michael. Jimmy's wife Michelle was dissatisfied with her marriage, so she murdered him. The HONF comes when you learn just how she killed him-she injected him with [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocuronium_bromide rocuronium]], a drug that paralyzes all the body's muscles. Normally, people injected with rocuronium are placed on artificial ventilation. In Jimmy's case, however, he was simply injected and left alone. For 10 minutes, [[AndIMustScream he was unable to move and slowly suffocating due to the paralysis of his respiratory muscles]] before he finally blacked out and died. To add insult to injury, she left his corpse in their bed and set the house on fire.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Speck The Richard Speck murders]]. Out of his mind on intoxicants, he broke into a student nurse dormitory and proceeded to commit an octuple rape-homicide.
** -->""I had no feelings at all that night. They said there was blood all over the place. I can't remember. It felt like nothing..."
* [[http://www.wmur.com/news/25372919/detail.html Kimberly and Jaimie Cates]]. A group of teens selected their secluded Mont Vernon home at random and proceeded to attack the mother and her 11-year-old daughter. In the middle of the night, as they slept. With a machete. Kimberly was killed, and Jaimie only survived because she played dead.
** The testimony of the "man" who confessed to being the one to kill Kimberly, Christopher Gribble, was especially chilling and disturbing as he calmly recounted the way he repeatedly stabbed the mother, all without any obvious signs of emotion or remorse. He asked the jury to find him mentally unstable. If he was, he would be sent to a secure psychiatric unit at state prison, and there was a possibility he could gain his freedom someday. The jury sentenced him to life in prison. Thank God. [[http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2011/03/gribble_guilty.html]]
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murders_of_Channon_Christian_and_Christopher_Newsom The Christian-Newsom murders in Knoxville, Tennessee]] The murders were pure HONF unleaded but the exploitation of this incident by [[http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2007/fall/the-big-lie White Supremacists]] is incredibly loathesome.
* Johnny Adair. A serial killer who used the Troubles as an excuse to murder lots of people, and got away with it Scot free. He used to murder Catholics, mutilate their bodies, and display them in Catholic neighborhoods. He also ruthlessly abused his own family, and was eventually run out of Ireland by other Protestants. And the worst part? [[WhatTheHellHero There's reason to believe the British government new exactly how dangerous he was, yet they still used him as an agent and tipped him off to possible IRA agents, who were then killed horribly without any proof they were really IRA.]] There were others who eclipsed Adair. The [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Shankhill Butchers]] had a particularly hideous agenda. They would abduct absolutely neutral citizens in a black taxi and spend [[FateWorseThanDeath hours]] killing them.
* Anders Behring Breivik. 77 dead. The bloodiest spree killing in history. Almost as frightening are the people who try to defend him... [[GuiltFreeExterminationWar because his victims were "Marxists".]]
* [[http://www.theblaze.com/stories/police-homeless-woman-snatches-baby-from-stroller-tries-to-eat-its-arm/ This]] story here. A homeless woman grabs someone's baby and tries to [[EatsBabies eat it's arm]]. Luckly the baby only suffered minor injuries, but this is still pretty scary.
* One of the most evil women I've ever seen: [[http://www.authorkevinflynn.com/kf/LaBarre_case.html Sheila LaBarre]]. Lets see, she overworked the men who she ensnared, and to make herself feel better about killing them? She tried to get them to confess to being pedophiles. A frantic call of her's had her sending a 'confession' of her last victim, Kenny, to the police. While 'confessing' he was vomiting, and literally dying. When he turned on her in an attempt to survive, she gleefully stabbed him since she couldn't take being resisted. Then...she burned his body like the others. [[DissonantSerenity All while sitting in front of the fire and holding her bunny rabbit.]]
* James Byrd's death in Jasper, Texas. Three men took James and dragged him from their truck by a logging chain for three miles. Why? Because he was black. It gets worse when you learn that he was conscious for most of the ordeal and died when he hit a Culvert, severing his head and arm. One of his killers was executed in 2011. That killer showed no remorse and said he would do it again hundreds of times if he had the chance.
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiac_killer Zodiac Killer]].
* The murder of Joe Andriano. Joe was suffering from terminal cancer. His wife, Wendi, resented the burden of caring for him. So she poisoned him by putting pesticide in his food. Unfortunately, she didn't put in enough to kill him instantly. So he lay in agony for several minutes while his wife did nothing. Finally, she beat him with a stool-but he STILL didn't die, so she stabbed him in the neck, which finally killed him.
* Jeffrey Dahmer. Sure, he killed people, and raped people, and ate people, and all that fun stuff, but the worst things he did? He kept the skull of one of his victims until he was caught, about two years. He tried to make "zombies" by drilling holes in men's brains and dumping hydrochloric acid inside. Another one of his victims actually escaped and ran away, dazed, drugged, naked, and bleeding from the rectum. Two women found him and called the police. Dahmer tried to take him back, but the women wouldn't let him. Good, right? Wrong. He told the police that the boy was his nineteen year old boyfriend with whom he'd had an argument while they were drinking (he was actually only fourteen). The police gave him back, despite having smelled a strange smell in Dahmer's apartment. The smell was a previous victim decomposing in the bedroom. Dahmer was a child molester on probation, but the police didn't bother to check that; they were too busy cracking homophobic jokes. The boy was killed and dismembered that night. Two of the three officers were let go for that incident, but they appealed it and were reinstated with back pay. The police union named them officers of the year for fighting the "righteous fight" for their jobs.
* Albert Fish. Not just a child molester and serial killer, but he shoved needles in his crouch. Look at the x-rays. He was fond of torturing the children pretty extensively, including putting gasoline drenched cotton balls into their anus and lighting them on fire (I believe he also did this to himself). He was know, in an eerily understated way, as "The Gray Man".
* [[http://www.serialkillercalendar.com/Detailed-Bio-of-Richard-Chase.html Richard]] [[http://www.serialkillercalendar.com/Detailed-Bio-of-Richard-Chase.html Chase]].
* Jared Lee Loughner. Suspected of carrying out a shooting in Tucson, Arizona and here's two links with his very disturbing mugshot [[http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3341792/I-warned-about-massacre-fiend-Jared-Loughner.html]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Lee_Loughner]]
* H. H. Holmes. One of America's earliest serial killers. He built a [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Murder]] [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Castle]] with such [[SarcasmMode fun things]] as pools of acid and rooms that let Holmes suffocate his victims. Holmes was convicted of 27 murders. Convicted, but some believe his body count goes as high as [[BeyondTheImpossible 200]] Holmes was also a [[DeadlyDoctor doctor]] who regularly dissected his victims then sold the organs and bones using his ties in the medical community?!
* Rodney Alcala. He has been convicted of killing 4 women and a 12-year-old girl, but, because of a set of photos found in a storage facility he rented, we know his actual victim count could be as high as 100. He was a winning bachelor on the syndicated version of TheDatingGame in 1978, having already raped and killed at least 2 women. (The woman who picked him later refused to go on the date.) You can watch his appearance [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Uf95INZmWI here.]]
----> '''Cheryl''': "Bachelor #1, what's your best time?" \\
'''Rodney''': "The best time is at night. Nighttime." \\
'''Cheryl''': "Why do you say that?" \\
'''Rodney''': "''Because that's the only time there is.''"
* The name Robert Pickton (much like Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo, above) inspires fear in the heart of pretty much every person in Canada, especially those living out in British Columbia. Pickton was a pig farmer who (according to police videotapes) admitted killing 49 prostitutes in various gruesome ways. While the full extent of his crimes are still unknown, what is known is truly horrifying. Pickton apparently picked up prostitutes at night and brought them back to his farm, where he would tie them up, rape them, handcuff and strangle them, inject them with windshield wiper fluid for kicks, then gut them and ''feed their remains to his pigs''. what police discovered at his farm were the remains of several different women, various bones littered around the property (including skulls that were '''cut in half with hands and feet stuffed inside'''), blood-stained clothing, a revolver with a dildo attached to it and night-vision goggles. Pickton is currently serving a life sentence after being charged with 6 of the deaths, but the worst part? '''These murders went on for over 14 years'''. A profiler studying the earlier disappearances realized they were the work of a serial killer, told the Greater Vancouver RCMP, and their superiors dismissed the profiler and buried the report. It would have been politically inappropriate to admit there was a serial killer at large. The higher-ups considered it better for the area's image to let a serial killer keep killing than to act quickly and effectively to stop him.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_bundy Ted Bundy]]. Murderer, rapist, and ''necrophiliac'', who is estimated to have killed around 35 women. If you watch an interview with him he seems like a pretty normal guy. Nice enough. He even had groupies. Now realize that every move he makes, '''''every single thing he says''''' is calculated to disarm you, to create this superficially charming persona. It worked on his victims, '''and it worked on you too'''.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89cole_Polytechnique_massacre École Polytechnique massacre]]: Some nutcase went to the place and shot up 28 people, mostly women due to his anti-feminist views.
* There's also [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Collier_Township_shooting George Sodini]]. All because he couldn't get laid.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Curley The murder of Jeffrey Curley.]] This was the incident that brought ''[=NAMBLA=]'' to national attention. Another freaky detail not mentioned in the article; the killers volunteered for the search party when young Jeffrey was reported missing.
* William Bonin ("the Freeway Killer") raped, tortured, and killed at least twenty-one boys and men. How did he kill them? Mostly in "typical" serial killer ways...except the two where he drove ice picks into their ears until they died.
* One day, a 14-year-old from urban Chicago was visiting his relatives in Mississippi. He was hanging around the local general store with some friends, when he flirted with a white woman; the store owner's wife Carolyn Bryant. They ran off when she threatened them with a pistol. When the store owner, an asshole by the name of Roy Bryant was told of what happened, they found out where he lived, took him by force, then drove him out to the country and ''mutilated'' this poor boy. The ensuing trial made a mockery out of human behaviour. Despite the previously mentioned corpse (which Emmett's mother displayed in an open casket funeral to show everyone what they had done to her son) as well as eyewitnesses who identified the Bryant's as the kidnappers/murderers, the jury acquitted both defendants after a 67-minute deliberation; one juror said, "If we hadn't stopped to drink pop, it wouldn't have taken that long." Then those fucking cowards admitted to the murder a year later in "Look" Magazine, protected by double jeopardy laws. They said they had did it to instill fear in the so-called "uppity niggers". But this story has a good ending. Disgusted by their behaviour, the black patrons boycotted the Bryant's store and forced it into bankruptcy. It also gave courage and hope to a generation of blacks no longer afraid of dealing with the white man's inhumanity. Here's the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till wikipedia article for more information.]] Also, fuck the
** The description of Emmett Till's body as he was found. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWMF72gL8YI His mother's description, as well as images of him. Not for the weak-stomached.]] [[spoiler: His tongue is choked out, one eye is out of its socket and the other is gone, the bridge of his nose is hacked to bits, his teeth have been knocked out except for two, his ear is gone, there's a bullet hole that runs all the way through his head, and the front and back of his skull are seperate.]] And as a final post scriptum, playing on our fears of abandoned buildings, here are the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EmmettTillStoreMoneyMS.JPG crumbling remains of Bryant's store today]].
* The Matthew Shephard murder. Not horrifying ''just'' because it’s a hate crime. His murderers robbed him, pistol whipped, tortured, and tied him to a fence in the middle of nowhere and left him to die. Matthew didn’t die yet – he just went into a coma. He was discovered 18 hours later by someone who thought that he was a scarecrow. Among other things, Matthew experienced severe brain stem damage, which affected his body's ability to regulate heart rate, body temperature, and other important functions. His injuries were deemed too severe for doctors to operate. Matthew never recovered, and eventually died. All of this happened simply because he was gay.
** Matthew Shepard and Emmett Till are side-by-side in this article for a reason -- both deaths had some people blame it on the victim for flirting with the wrong people, both deaths were horrible (spoiler for disturbing content: [[spoiler: to the point where it's virtually impossible to tell them apart in many photos, despite one being black and the other white]]), and both led to a serious re-evaluation of existing laws and moral standards in the US.
* Brandon Teena's murder and the knowledge that there is at least one murder of a transperson ''a month'', not to mention numerous other acts of violence committed against people simply because their biological sex and gender are different.
* The murder of PFC Barry Winchell. Not that because he had been gay or transperson, but because he dated Calpernia Addams - a transgendered singer and artist, ''who was post-op and in all aspects like an ordinary woman''. The murderers perceived him as something really hateful for having a transwoman as girlfriend. To make this case even more vile, his murderers were his service mates in the Army. Ms. Addams herself has served in the US Navy before her musical career.
* The infamous "3 guys 1 hammer" video, showing a murder committed by the Dnepropetrovsk maniacs. The victim, Seregei Yatzenko was just one of ''many'', out of 21 confirmed murders. They viciously [[spoiler: smash his face to bits with a hammer, poke his eyes out and stab him with a screwdriver.]] The acts were committed by 19-year-olds. The victim was still alive ''and conscious'' while they were doing this. You can hear him gurgling in the video.
* Ed Gein. The Wikipedia [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Gein article]] of him. [[spoiler: He made trophies out of human body parts.]] Inspired many famous fictional serial killers, like Norman Bates of ''{{Psycho}}'' and the entire family from the ''Film/TheTexasChainsawMassacre'', despite not technically qualifying as a serial killer. He killed two people himself, one short of being considered a serial killer. Most of the bodies found on his property were dug up from cemeteries.
* Another Ed, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Savitz Ed Savitz]], has done some pretty creepy stuff too.
* A man named Jarrod Wyatt, who was a cage fighter, was found brutalizing the body of his friend, Taylor Powell. Most of Powell's face was gone, with his eyeball laying in the middle of the living roo, and a huge hole cut into his chest, where most of his organs were removed, including his heart. Autopsies on the body revealed that Wyatt had torn out Powell's heart while he was still alive before bleeding to death.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Bathory Elizabeth Báthory]], nicknamed "the blood countess" and probably the most famous female serial killer in history. She had an estimated 675 victims. [[spoiler: Her victims were subject to severe beatings that lasted a long time and often killed them, burning/mutilation of their faces, genitals, and hands, having their flesh bitten off, being frozen to death on purpose, having (frequently fatal) surgery performed on them while still conscious, being starved to death, and sexual assault.]]
* Two words: Charles Manson. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Manson read about it.]] He still gets tons of letters from people outside, wanting to join the family.
* Jack The Ripper, the iconic serial killer from Britain in the late 1800's responsible for who knows how many murders. Who is he? To this day, we still have no clue.
'''Kidnapping, torture and/or rape with surviving victims'''
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_of_Jaycee_Lee_Dugard Jaycee Dugard]] was kidnapped at age 11 (in front of her horrified stepfather) and held captive for ''eighteen years'', during which her kidnapper/rapist got her pregnant. Twice. They lived in a "tent prison" in the kidnapper's backyard, which is easily seen from Google Maps. Her kidnapper was only caught when people saw him with his two daughters (he's a ''registered sex offender'') and he idiotically went to the police station with his entire family, at which point Jaycee told police what had been going on'''''for eighteen years'''''.
** And get this: during questioning, Dugard described her kidnapper as "a great person" who was "good with [her] kids", and that even though he had clearly raped her numerous times and held her and her children captive in a tiny tent, she insisted that he was "a changed man". That's right, folks: StockholmSyndrome.
* The Natascha Kampusch case. Being kidnapped from 1998 until 2006, without anyone knowing you are still alive is a horrible thought.
* Speaking of horrific physical abuse, the case of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Smart_kidnapping Elizabeth Smart]] deserves a mention here. Although she has the somewhat unfortunate distinction of being one of the catalysts of modern MissingWhiteWomanSyndrome, there's a ''reason'' her case was so well-covered and sensationalized by the media: it reads like a cornucopia of every single thing a parent would ever fear happening to their child, ever. Consider: two people broke into her home in the dead of night. They then proceeded to kidnap her at knife-point, while her then-nine-year-old sister was watching and pretending to be asleep. Her abductor then took her from her home, leaving no good evidence to locate them quickly, and proceeded to "marry" her when they had made good their escape. She was then raped. Constantly. For '''''nine months'''''. That she is even ''[[GoMadFromTheRevelation coherent]]'', much less a successful college student and activist now, is a bit of a miracle in and of itself.
* A little girl was abducted on her way to school, raped repeatedly, and sexually tortured to the point that her digestive system and genitals were permanently damaged. She will have to live the rest of her life with a bag attached to her bladder. You know what makes this even worse? The monster who did this only got 12 years in prison. You can find the whole story here. [[http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/na-young.html]]
* [[http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/08/31/garrido.victim.lkl/index.html Katherine Callaway Hall]] After reading her story, you will vow to never give anyone a ride, ever. If you plan to go to a supermarket anytime soon, stay well away from that story.
'''Lynchings'''
* The deaths of 17th century Dutch statesman Johan de Witt and his brother. During a period of high political turmoil in the Netherlands, his brother Cornelius was imprisoned. When Johan went to see his brother, an angry mob stormed the prison and murdered both of them by literally ''ripping them apart''. Then their mutilated bodies were hung upside down from a lamp post, cut into pieces and sold off, and according to some sources ''[[ImAHumanitarian partially eaten]]''.
'''Parental abuse and/or murder'''
* The most disturbing thing about so many of these cases is the obvious ''thought'' involved. This wasn't spur of the moment, this was sitting around thinking "What can we do to him today?"
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_(feral_child) Genie,]] who was abused and neglected to the extent that her upbringing is defined by a term usually reserved for ''children surviving on their own in a wilderness.'' She spent most her childhood tied to a training toilet. Imagine that: Spending a presumed 99.9% of several years of your life in the exact same room, alone.
* Bobby Äikiä, a Swedish ten-year-old boy, was abused and tortured to death by his mother and stepfather. According to his mother, the torture included: [[spoiler:having his soiled underpants pushed to his face, being forced to lie naked in the snow and having snow shovelled over him, having alcohol forced into him by a funnel to his mouth, having a vacuum cleaner hose to his genitals (confirmed by the discovery of blood inside the hose), being pushed around and beaten with sticks and burned with cigarettes. He died in his bed, choking on his own vomit.]] After Bobby's death, his mother and stepfather put his body in their woodshed, but later lowered it into a lake. They reported him missing, claiming that he had disappeared from their car when they had left him alone in it outside a mall. After searching for him for days, the police started to suspect that he had been killed, and arrested the mother and stepfather. During the interrogation, Bobby's mother finally admitted where his body was located.
* The New Zealand toddler [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nia_Glassie_abuse_case Nia Glassie]].
* Katherine Knight, murderer/butcher. The woman was mentally ill, and decorated the whole house, even the ceilings with everything to knives from animal remains. Then when she was fed up with her fourth husband, she stabbed him with a knife, even chasing him down when he tried to get away, then afterwards ''skinned him, cut him up, cooked the remains, and served it to her children.'' For anyone who's curious, the details are [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Knight here]].
* There's [[http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10279/1092864-55.stm Dewayne Calloway]], whose girlfriend was so desperate for a baby that they conspired to drug her 13-year-old daughter so he could rape her and get her pregnant. The girl would then, of course, be forced to turn the baby over to mom to raise. What the linked article doesn't mention is that this was a last ditch effort on their part because the girl consistently refused in the past when they would pressure her to let him impregnate her "consensually." It's awful enough for a girl to have to constantly be on edge and barricade herself away from mom's new boyfriend, but imagine her having to barricade herself from mom as well.
* If you want to sleep soundly at night, [[ShmuckBait dont highlight this spoiler,]] and '''whatever you do,''' don't click the link! [[spoiler:[[http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/843007/cannibal-mum-should-be-executed-dad A mother]] ''mutilated and cannibalised'' '''her own baby.''']] The mother in question was a [[http://pysih.com/2010/10/07/update-otty-sanchez/ schizophrenic]] who had been hallucinating for some time before that point. She actually tried to get herself checked into an inpatient facility, and the idiots ''sent her home''. She did try to get help while she was still lucid enough to realize she needed it - she even gave the baby to her sister for a while, but the sister decided she didn't want to deal and gave the child back, and left them both alone.
* [[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/story/2008/11/12/sinclairmurder-trial.html?ref=rss Phoenix Sinclair]]: a little girl that was beaten and tortured by her own mother and her stepfather for the majority of her life before her death at 5-years-old. She was shot at with a BB gun, denied food (her step brothers were punished if they tried to feed her), forced to eat her own vomit, and forced to sleep in an unheated basement. When she died, she was buried by her mother and step father in the garbage dump near their home, her mother wrapping plastic around the girl's body and covering the grave in pepper "because she saw it on CSI" (her mother even suggested cutting off Phoenix's head to eliminate DNA evidence). Phoenix was under the protection of Child and Family Services but no one noticed that Phoenix was gone for almost a year (her parents masqueraded another little girl about Phoenix's age whenever a CFS worker stopped by to check on Phoenix). The parents continued to collect benefits for her (government child allowance, etc) for months after she died. The sad part was Phoenix had been taken from these monsters and placed in a loving foster home but due to a policy with CFS was placed back with her parents when they proved fit to take care of her.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5EDVVP861Q this news story]] about a 7 year old adopted girl who was beaten to death by her parents is both this and a {{TearJerker}}. The HONF comes from the fact that she was beaten for SEVEN HOURS and suffered injuries similar to that of victims of natural disasters and bombings.
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Baby_P Baby Peter]] and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Victoria_Climbié Victoria Climbié]] cases. Made worse by Sharon Shoesmith; the woman in charge of Haringey's Children's services (who whilst not actually killing Baby P, is responsible for the failings of her team) now claiming that she is the victim. Yes, a child beaten so badly it lay in its cot with a broken spine is nowhere near as bad a losing your job. Still continuing to be utterly remorseless in court, she's now probably going to paid a large sum of money for her "hurt feelings".
* The death of Chandler Grafner, a 7-year-old boy who lived in {{Denver}}, Colorado. His adoptive parents, Jon Phillips and Sarah Berry, locked him in a closet whenever he "misbehaved", and, during his final weeks, he stayed in this closet, [[http://www.denverpost.com/colleges/ci_6344385 without food, water or other basic amenities]], and only weighed 30 pounds at the time of his death. His half-brother, Dominick Philips, didn't fare much better; he was barely fed, and is probably scarred for life now. This one is obscurer than others, but it merits a mention here.
* And then, of course, there's that charming fellow Josef Fritzl and what he did to his daughter. Yeah. Locked in a basement for 24 years, never allowed to see the sun, and repeatedly forced to have sex ''with your own father'', without any way of knowing if you were ever getting out of there? Nightmare Fuel indeed.
* Cage, a rapper on the Def Jux label, was a victim of severe child abuse: he was forced to help his father do heroin, until his father was arrested for threatening him and his mother with a shotgun. Cage was 8 years old.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Xs7oKrG7Pc&feature=related This horrifying audio clip]] of a Muslim girl calling 911 after she and her sister were shot by their own father for not dating Muslim boys. Now, the clip and the crime is horrifying by itself, but read the ''comments section'' for that video. They say such things as "death to Islam" and "I piss on your Qur'an, shitheads". And these are ''highly rated''. The thought that there are so many people who genuinely believe that Muslims are inherently evil is terrifying.
* The death of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JonBen%C3%A9t_Ramsey [=JonBenét=] Ramsey]]. A six year old girl is sexually assaulted and strangled in her own home, in the middle of the night, on Christmas day. The killer took the time to frame it as a kidnapping-for-ransom, so her body is not found until after the police are called. Absolutely ''every'' option for whodunnit in this instance is completely horrifying: either the girl was raped and murdered by one of her ''own parents'', someone every child should be safe with, and they proceeded to feign grief, or a family friend killed [=JonBenét=] -- maybe even came back to mourn and fawn over her parents' loss, or a pedophile targeted her as their sexual fascination after seeing her perform at a beauty pageant, or it was a ''total stranger'' who just decided to murder a child. The details leading up before her death ([=JonBenét=] talking about an extra visit from Santa, the bowl of pineapple, the fact that she was taken from her own bed without crying out) all indicate whoever killed her at least faked being someone she could trust, a friend. The hypothetical situations thrown around when her parents were still the main suspects were horrifying enough (child sexual abuse, her mother murdering her ''for wetting the bed'') but since her parents have now been ruled out as suspects... Furthermore, imagine that everyone will only ever recall the ''murder of your child'' as something kinky and weird, ''CriminalMinds'' meets ''Toddlers In Tiaras'', or worse, glamorize and sexualize your child's life and death because of one facet of her life. Paris Hilton makes jokes about your murdered child. Your murdered child's name and face are attached to a band that uses her image for perverted, morbid jokes. Someone out there is so obsessed with ''your murdered child'' that they would falsely admit to killing her, just to get a little closer...
** Don't forget poor little Toya Currie, attacked the same day. Raped, tortured, and left for dead, she somehow pulled through. [[MissingWhiteWomanSyndrome Hardly anyone noticed her story.]]
* The murder of Junko Furuta. She was sixteen years old when four boys around her age kidnapped her and raped and tortured her for 44 days. They kept her in one of the boy's houses. Over 100 people supposedly knew Junko was being held there, and no one did anything to help her. She died on January 4, 1989 of shock after being beaten to death with a barbell, doused with a propellant, and set on fire. After that, they stuffed her body into an oil drum and filled it with cement. Her body was found when a residentof the area went to investigate the smell. The men who did this to her got eight years in prison for the reduced charge of "committing bodily injury that resulted in death." Since then, she has become the fodder of guro rags and imageboards as well as one of the most famous songs out of the Japanese rock scene (Taion, by TheGazette - her family got nothing from this). Where was human decency?
* The torture and murder of [[http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/young/likens/1.html Sylvia Likens]]. A 16-year-old girl, subjected to many beatings, she was often tied up in the basement of the house for days at a time. [[ItGetsWorse And it gets worse:]] (spoilers used to shield the faint of heart) [[spoiler: The pointed end of a heated screw was used to carve several words onto her stomach; she was found with over 100 burn marks on her body from cigarettes being put out on her skin; she was forced to bathe in scalding hot water; she was forced to eat her own feces, drink her own urine; neighbors participated--local adolescents. Neighborhood boy Coy Hubbard would practice his judo moves on her, repeatedly throwing her, making sure every time to smash her head onto the floor or the wall. They would shove her down the stairs, wake her up, drag her to the top of the stairs, then shove her down again. Repeatedly. Every day.]] And all this in suburban Indiana during the 1960s, no less.
* Saiqa Akhter of Irving, Texas. [[http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20011314-504083.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody Killed both of her children]] - 5-year old son and 2-year old daughter - and [[http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=11222266 then called 911]]. The reason? They were autistic and sh
* The death of Kristy Bamu, aged 15. He and his four siblings were staying with their oldest sister and her boyfriend for Christmas... and then the boyfriend decided, and convinced the oldest sister, that Kristy was a witch. They attacked Kristy with knives, sticks, metal bars, ceramic floor tiles, bottles and a hammer and chisel, as well as torturing him with pliers, for days before drowning him in the bath. And they made the younger children, one only 11 years old, help them do it.
'''Psychological terror in the name of law and/or decency'''
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Comstock Anthony Comstock's]] single-minded obsession, which made him one of the most brutal and cruel [[MoralGuardians "Moral" Guardians]] of all time, and ''one of the most powerful''. Realising that this man ''really lived'', in the ''United States'', and died '''less than a hundred years ago''', is enough to put one beyond mere fear. The man was proud of driving fifteen people to suicide. Most ethicists agree that bullying is bad; bullying to the point that a person takes their own life makes the tormentor partially responsible for that person's death. He prevented certain anatomy books from being sent to doctors. Preventing what could be life-saving treatments is far more immoral than the pictures that could help with the treatment.
** ''Partially responsible''? In a world where karma was 100 percent effectual, Comstock's life would have an ended when a man in the employ of the government pulled a lever.
** The man destroyed '''fifteen tons''' of books. Some of them the aforementioned anatomical studies, but mainly ''anything'' he found "obscene". Where [[NaziGermany else]] have we seen that kind of oppression of thought and speech?
** In a quite frankly awesome bit of irony, there is a studio called Comstock Films. It makes Erotic Documentaries.
* J. Edgar Hoover (who was allegedly inspired by Comstock's methods) founded the FBI, and directed it for 37 years. His [[http://www.cracked.com/article/89_the-6-most-horrific-bosses-all-time/ antics]] on the job are the reason directors are currently limited to 10 years.
* Live Action Role Playing seems harmless right? After reading the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment Stanford Prison Experiment]] you'll never see [=LARPing=] the same way ever again. It is ''extremely'' disturbing to see the video of this experiment in action. The HighOctaneNightmareFuel starts flowing once you find out that the college students in the study and even the ''scientist himself, Dr. Philip Zimbardo'' got so caught up in the experiment that they thought it was all real is incredibly scary.
** And while we're on the subject, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Wave the Third Wave experiment.]]
* The Arthur Dozier School For Boys in Marianna, FL. It was a reform school where, at least in the 1950s and 1960s, sadistic guards raped, tortured, and sometimes killed the children left there. Nobody knew about it until 2008, when some of the boys, now grown adults, began to tell stories of the horrors inside, provoking the state governor to begin an investigation. One of the most disgusting things is that the guards that did this probably died of old age unpunished or, if living, will spend the last years of their life under scrutiny like Nazi war criminals.
** [[http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/6/30/44110/2720 the Tranquility Bay facility in Jamaica]]. (The original article in ''The Observer'' is [[http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2003/jun/29/schools.uk1 here]] and [[http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2003/jun/29/schools.uk here]].) To summarize: children, usually from well-off families, are essentially ''kidnapped'' with the parents' consent, and taken outside the United States. The kids are placed in a prison-like atmosphere for an indefinite period of time, possibly until they turn eighteen. They are emotionally abused to break their spirit, and return to the family docile and compliant. If you try not to obey, they'll make you lie on your face on a concrete floor until you submit. One girl did this for ''eighteen months'' until they broke her. Compliance brings privileges, along with the responsibility of policing those below you in the hierarchy--there is no solidarity among prisoners. As ''The Observer'' put it, "These children do not just obey rules. They seem to have been psychologically rewired." The families seem happy enough. As one said: "Oh, you would not believe the change in her! It's amazing, the way they change a kid's life. She's so polite now, I wouldn't know her." The offenses for which one might have one's personality demolished, like something out of ''[[NineteenEightyFour 1984]]'' or ''TheInvisibles''? It might be something as simple as dating an unapproved partner, being "defiant", smoking weed, or "promiscuity". Thankfully, Tranquility Bay has been [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tranquility_Bay shut down]], and there are multiple pending lawsuits against the owners. Here's hoping justice will be served.
** There exist places like the above, that are known as Straight Camps. Parents send their homosexual or bisexual children for a summer of hypocritical, judgmental, entirely false Bible-thumping to brainwash them into being straight.
** There are many so-called boot camps for so-called troubled or at risk youth in the U.S. To help to put a stop to them, [[http://www.heal-online.org/teenrights.htm go here]].
* PoliceBrutality in general. The idea that the very folks whose job is to protect us from criminals resort to the very same things violent criminals would do to people who don't deserve it.
* The Branch Davidian Waco standoff is pure nightmare fuel. the image of children crying while being trapped in a room continuously soaked with gallons of flammable tear gas, by FBI/ATF agents, for hours. Not to mention, the mysterious fire on Day 51 and the deaths of those still inside the compound (either caused by, depending on who you ask, the Davidians or the federal agents, accidentally or intentionally). A tragedy such as this happened in Texas in 1993, and it all happened because the Branch Davidians violated federal gun laws. The Branch Davidians were buying quick-fire triggers for guns so that they could put up a decent fight when the government came to take them down. Cue ATF raid.
* FalseRapeAccusation. Imagine someone accusing you of rape. Now, imagine that ''you are completely innocent''. The evidence even shows that you couldn't have done it. ''Except that no one believes you''. Your reputation is ruined. Maybe you're even convicted and serve time - you might even be put on the sex offenders' registry, depending on the age of your accuser. And eventually, it comes out. Your accuser was ''lying all along''. But despite all the suffering you've endured because of this, she will ''never'' see justice; she may get a few months in prison - but nothing compared to what you would have (or may already have) served. And this happens more often than you would think - many rape accusations are true. Most are. But an almost entirely unknown number ''aren't'' -- there have been few proper studies of the rate of false rape reports, and those that do attempt it run into numerous issues, such as small sample size, non-representative samples, or existing biases in the data. (two of the most complete studies involve the use of polygraph tests, which are contraindicated for rape accusations, and whose use indicates a bias toward finding rape accusations false) Results have varied from 1.5%
** And then to think that the false rape accusations make genuine rape cases so much more difficult to prosecute, because then the actual victims have to prove they're not lying. One false accusation means a future genuine rape victim will be accused of "trying to ruin the reputation" of the "good man" who raped her. Though the small fraction of false accusations that come forth don't seem to make a difference when it's a celebrity or famous athlete who is accused, everyone just assumes from the get go that the victim was trying to extort money from him or was asking for it.
* Expanding on the false accusation bit above, what if you were falsely accused of homicide, convicted, and then sentenced to death? Surely that doesn't happen these days. Oh wait, meet [[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann?currentPage=all Cameron Todd Willingham]], a Texas man who was convicted of the triple homicide of his young daughters via the arson of their home. Too bad the investigative procedures and conclusions concerning the supposed arson were completely flawed, and that the fire could easily be proved accidental. Too bad the state of Texas decided to completely ignore the detailed report an expert in arson (unlike the original inspectors, whose only qualifications were having served as firefighters) put together in the days before the execution that proved the fire could not have been arson. The state proceeded with the execution, largely due to the fact that the governor, Rick Perry, was running for reelection and would rather be seen as "tough on crime" than stop the death of an innocent man. Just imagine it--not only do you wake up one day with your house on fire and your children screaming and burning up, you are later accused of murdering them and then executed.
** The Texas Forensic Science Commission, [[http://articles.cnn.com/2009-10-01/justice/texas.execution.probe_1_willingham-case-cameron-todd-willingham-execution?_s=PM:CRIME 2 days before announcing that the original claims of arson were doubtful, had three of its nine commission members replaced by order of Texas Governor Rick Perry]] in order to impede the investigation...
* For that matter, false arson accusations are a lot more common than you should be comfortable with. The first call on whether or not a fire is arson is usually made by firefighters that have no formal training in determining whether something was arson or not, and have to rely on urban legends about arson passed around the firehouse. Unsurprisingly, these are frequently dangerously inaccurate, and some things that firefighters commonly believe are proof of arson are actually indications ''against'' it.
* Look up the Anthony Graves case (also in Texas, my home state). That one was somewhat worse. He was sentenced to death with less evidence than Willingham had against him. At least he was cleared in 2010 (and, unlike Willingham, he wasn't executed). Look up the Graves case on Yahoo or google.
* The above listed false accusations/convictions aren't the only one on record. [[http://www.innocenceproject.org/ The Innocence Project]] in America has helped to exonerate almost 300 innocent people so far who were convicted for murder, rape, robbery, etc. Reading the stories behind this will give people plenty of HONF regarding the justice system.
'''Refusal of help in emergency situations'''
* David Iredale, an Australian teenager who went missing in rugged bushland in late 2006. He was found dead from dehydration and exposure about a week after he was first declared missing, but that's not the worst part of it. From reports, he was able to make several calls to 000 on his mobile phone (that being our equivalent of 911) and, although he was delirious, he was mostly lucid - but the operators ''refused to believe him'' when he said that he was lost in the bush. They kept asking him for his address, what street he was on, what town he was in. And they ''never reported the calls he'd made.'' Imagine being lost in the bush, dehydrated, feverish, making useless call after useless call as your mobile phone battery slowly runs down, only for some idiot operator to keep dismissing you as a pranker. He was so close to help and nobody helped him. If they'd just reported his calls to the search party, he almost certainly would have been found in time.
* That's only the tip of the iceberg. How about the woman who called in tears begging for police to arrive, because her boyfriend - audibly swearing and pounding on the door in the background of the call - was going to kill her? The operator blah-blah'd her until the phone was yanked away and the line went dead, and the recording catches the operator's words on the matter: A muttered "I couldn't give a damn what happens to you." And then there's the little boy who tried calling 911 because his mom wasn't moving or breathing...
* KittyGenovese, a woman stabbed to death in 1964, while 38 onlookers DID NOTHING! This type of psychological group behaviour is even nicknamed "Kitty Genovese Effect".
* Wang Yue, a two-year-old Chinese girl who was run over by two vehicles on the afternoon of 13 October 2011 in a narrow road in Foshan, Guangdong. As she lay bleeding on the road for more than seven minutes, at least 18 passers-by skirted around her body, ignoring her. She was eventually helped by a female rubbish scavenger and sent to a hospital for treatment, but succumbed to her injuries and died eight days later!
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Gang_incident
'''Miscellaneous cases'''
* [[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/world/africa/08iht-tanzania.1.13549207.html?_r=1 It sucks to be an albino in Tanzania.]] The most disturbing fact is that the article describes bluntly a '''trade''' in Parts. Of. Humans. Not just slavery, a market the organs and limbs of '''actual humans''' to solve minor medical conditions that may be fixed with simple medicine.
** A BBC report on the same topic noted those same [[SarcasmMode professionals]] trading in albino body calling ''foreign'' doctors 'witch-doctors'. [[{{Hypocrite}} Hypocrisy,]] you are a harsh mistress.
* Josef Mengele. He managed to freak everyone out even in death. He escaped to South America and died of a heart attack in 1979. Then in 1985, Nazi-hunters managed to pinpoint his grave and exhumed his corpse to determine his identity. His rotting remains were plastered in
* Terrorists, assassins, spree killers, etc.: anyone who wants to kill people but doesn't wear a uniform. It's rather disturbing to sit in a cafe and know that there is a small possibility that one of the people in that room has a gun or bomb under their jacket, and that this might be the last day of your life.
* Sex slavery. '''Millions''' of women and children locked inside brothels. They never agreed to it, they never see any of the money, they are raped, sometimes up to ten times a day, a different man each time. Most are told to pretend they enjoy it, and are beaten by the brothel owners if they don't. In other words customers may think they're visiting a willing prostitute and have no idea they are committing rape. And then there are the ones that know, and don't care. Sex slavery is most common in South-East Asia and Easter Europe, but it does occur in every country in the world. So all you well off educated westerners? It's happening in your country too. ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_slavery#United_States "According to a report conducted by the University of Pennsylvania,]] [[AdultFear anywhere from 100,000 up to 300,000 American children are at risk of commercial sexual exploitation]] [[ParanoiaFuel at any given time."]]''
* Child pornography. The idea that you could go onto a file-sharing network, type in "child pornography", and get enough of the genuine article to keep a pedophile busy for days.
* Rape itself in all its terrible forms is Nightmare Fuel. Consider what it must be like to be beaten up and violated in a dark alley by some big-bodied thugs. Consider how often it happens ''every day'' somewhere in the world. Then consider how the 96% of rapes are ''not'' committed by total strangers, but people known to the victim - people known ''by'' the victim. People like spouses or parents... those who you are supposed to protect you, and that you're supposed to ''love, trust and never be afraid of''. Consider how a woman was once considered the property of her husband and therefore if he forced her to have sex with him against her will, it wasn't legally considered rape. Consider how the last laws permitting the practice weren't repealed until ''1975'', in Mississippi. (And in Great Britain, it was totally legal for a husband to rape his wife until the late 1980s. It was finally outlawed by court decisions - ''not'' legislative action - in Scotland one year and in England the next.) Consider the large number of people who assume the victim of such brutality to be at fault if they were drunk, or if they knew the attacker, or were too scared to try to fight off the rape, or because they were known to date the rapist, or just because they think the victim is trying to get the attacker in trouble. Consider the stigma of being a rape victim and how, in order to report the crime you have to describe and relive your horror, and in the vast majority of cases, the rapist won't be convicted or even ever identified. Consider how often it is never reported at all. Consider how the vast majority of children being raped goes unreported. Consider how often media [[PrisonRape (especially homosexual rape)]] considers it [[RapeAsComedy comedic]] trope. Or somehow [[RapeIsLove love]]. Or somehow [[RapeAsRedemption redemptive]]. Or [[DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale Ok If Its Female On Male]]. Consider it happening to you or your sister or your mother or your favorite teacher or your best friend or your child, and how ruined a life could be. Consider it. Then go and hug someone you love and who loves you.
** Imagine that you are suddenly raped, at gunpoint, and you tell the police, and they laugh it off. That's what it's like for a victim of female on male rape. In many countries, the legal definition of rape does not cover women attacking men, and then the culture assumes that men are naturally horny and therefor can't be raped. And then there's the idea that because women are for the most part weaker than men, that a man who is raped by a woman is automatically a sissy, or really wanted to be raped.
** Additional NightmareFuel. In many Islamic countries a rapist can avoid conviction by agreeing to marry the woman he raped. [[KarmaHoudini It is like awarding the bastard for what he did. Not only he gets away with it scot-free, he gets to keep the victim around for more fun.]] Because of this law, many police officers who make sure a rapist suffers an unfortunate accident when resisting arrest.
** Opposite spectrum: the constant fear of rape instilled in most girls because of the atrocities in the past makes it often too easy to accuse an innocent man of rape, ruining his life with a stigma which may get him horribly mutilated by misguided neighbors who are then lauded by society even when the possibility of innocence is recognized. If you piss off the wrong crazy girl, and she is a good enough actor or crazed enough to TRUELY BELIEVE that you raped her (or god forbid, was actually raped and only put your face mistakenly on that of her rapist, making the experience even more real and harder to dissuade) Your whole life is turned upside down, close friends and family suddenly see you as a monster they either actively abuse or completely isolate from their lives. And everywhere you go you are legally required to inform every person you meet of the stigma, creating an isolation that can never be relieved. The only people who may understand you are likely to be actually guilty of their crimes; and you don't even get the benefit of the original 'wolf-cry' before you are punished for it.
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hi-Fi_Murders Hi-Fi murders]] in Utah in 1974. They made them drink liquid drain cleaner!
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Mexico_State_Penitentiary_Riot#Violence_ensues New Mexico State Penitentiary Riot.]] of 1980. First of all there's the violence that we associate with any prison riot ... Then ItGotWorse. Construction workers had left a few blowtorches lying around. Some of the prisoners decided to break into the cellblock where the snitches, informants, mentally ill and sex offenders were kept.
--> When the group reached cellblock 4, they found that they did not have keys to enter these cells. Unfortunately for the prisoners in protective custody, the rioters found blowtorches that had been brought into the prison as part of an ongoing construction project. They used these to cut through the bars over the next five hours. Locked in their cells, the segregated prisoners called to the State Police pleading for them to save them, but to no avail. Waiting officers decided to do nothing despite there being a back door to cellblock 4, which would have offered a way to free them. Meanwhile, the rioters began taunting prison officials over the radio about what they are going to do to the men in cell block 4. But no action is taken. One official is heard to remark about the men in the segregation facility, "it's their ass". As dawn broke, an 'execution squad' finally cut through the grille and entered the block. The security panel controlling the cell doors was burned off. Victims were pulled from their cells to be tortured, dismembered, decapitated, or burned alive. Men were killed with piping, work tools and knives. One man was partially decapitated after being thrown over the second tier balcony with a noose around his neck. The corpse was then dragged down and hacked up. According to one eyewitness: ''"I was sighting on the guard tower opposite the custody unit. They lay this guy out on one of the cell doors. One of the prisoners then took a blowtorch and began cutting this guy apart. He was screaming all the time until they put the torch through his head."''
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight,_Incorporated Straight, Inc.]][[http://survivingstraightinc.com/links_to_more_straight_survivor_stories Here's a link]] to a few horror stories from the "survivors."
* Here's a scary thought: Buried beneath their sympathy (be it genuine or feigned), people usually have a morbidly curious attitude toward the suffering and death of their fellowman. What else would have made us want to read these entries?
*** {{Tool}} have an explanation. It might not make you feel any better, but it can help to [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPJ6yRs1JYY rationalise it]].
[[/folder]]
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[[folder: RLNF War and Crimes Against Humanity]]
[[quoteright:347:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bild_fran_auschwitz_s_6737.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:347: Trust us. [[YouDoNotWantToKnow You don't want to know]] [[BodyHorror what]] [[ColdBloodedTorture went]] [[MadScientist on]] [[DeadlyGas inside]] [[NaziGermany that place.]]]]
'''Africa'''
* Africa. Just... starving, dehydrating, rape, disease, war and just about every other horrific thing that can happen, does happen in ridiculously high amounts. 'Nuff said.
* The history of Africa's colonization is full of nightmare fuel. During the triangular trade time period, the majority of Africa's healthy, young population was removed from the continent and exported to a foreign continent and forced to work under highly brutal conditions. This caused Africa's population structure and economy and society to go out of whack.
** Some of the perhaps most disturbing acts of cruelty can be found in the Second Congo War (also called The Great War of Africa). Millions of people were killed, thousands raped or even [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Congo_War#Pygmies eaten]].
** Another former Belgian colony, Rwanda, had it real bad. The genocide of 1994 resulted in the killings of 800,000 people, composed of Tutsis and moderate Hutus, by the extremist Interahamwe[[hottip:*:the context being a combination of Hutu Power, anti-Tutsi sentiment of the time since the Tutsis had been set up as a ruling class during colonial times, and the gunning down of a plane that killed the presidents of both Rwanda and Burundi]]. Furthermore, the international community did little but watch (the UN largely backing away; the US, recently humiliated in Somalia, VERY hesitant to get involved), among the atrocities committed included the Interahamwe slaughtering thousands at a church ''presumed safe'', and radio airwaves had been filled with hate-filled propaganda from extremists, calling for the exterminations and rapings of Tutsis.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda_Anti-Homosexuality_Bill The Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill.]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo77w_71hA0 A documentary on it.]]
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euXQbZDwV0w And then they eat da poo poo!]]
*** Am I bad if I think that CrossesTheLineTwice (and then wraps around again into genuinely disturbing)? The sheer idiocy of these people...the only way ''not'' to be totally sickened by it is [[BlackComedy to laugh]].
*** You would get arrested and executed ''[[DisproportionateRetribution for having AIDS]]''. Which can be caught through heterosexual intercourse, the use of contaminated needles, blood transfusions, or even as a fetus from an infected mother.
*** The bill was defeated. [[MemeticMutation Some faith in humanity has been restored.]]
* Joseph Kony, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kony#Indictment and]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc how]].
** Seriously, I'd bet the only reason he hasn't been put in the CompleteMonster category yet is because we have a rule against it.
'''Americas'''
* Just about everything that happened on [[WarOnTerror September 11]], but what really took the cake were the many people jumping out of the Twin Towers. A cop recalled standing in the deserted plaza just outside, with only the sounds of debris hitting the ground, suicides landing...and [[SoundtrackDissonance the Muzak playing]].
** And then there was the sight of the towers collapsing, filling lower Manhattan with a gigantic cloud of dust that looked all too like the eruption of Mt. St. Helens.
*** Looked more like an EldritchAbomination swallowing an entire city.
** And if it's bad enough to know that they were going to die think about the people the did not see it, for example the people in the elevators, They had no idea that a plane had crashed and that they were doomed.
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLW0jKKRXMo Listening to the final words of a man trapped in the topmost floors of World Trade Center Tower 2]], begging for help, the operator doing her best to calm him. And then you hear a deep resonating rumble in the background, and the last thing the man says before the line goes dead is one of the most viscerally frightening screams of terror you could ever hear. For maximum effect, watch a video of the call synced with the collapse of Tower 2 so you can hear ''and see'' the man's final moments.
** The idea of being trapped and having the choice of either burning to death, suffocating or jumping. It's too terrible. My heart wrenched when I saw [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPcw4R5lczw&feature=player_detailpage#t=138s this documentary]] retelling the events dramatically. It's just so horrible that someone can be DrivenToSuicide like that. This is a TearJerker as well as NightmareFuel, especially when you see videos of the jumpers and realise they were ''freaking out'' as they fell. No horror film will ''ever'' be as terrifying and disturbing as what took place that day.
** Some of those who didn't make it out when the towers fell were {{buried alive}} underneath the rubble [[AndIMustScream for several days]] before they were rescued. [[FridgeHorror and that's just the people who made it out.]]
** [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/29/Amerithrax-letter-a.jpg The contents of the]] [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Anthraxnote2.jpg "anthrax letters".]]
--->Note: '''YOU DIE NOW.'''
--->Note: '''ARE YOU AFRAID?'''
--->Note: '''TAKE PENICILLIN NOW'''
* Just in case you ever were a woman who ever wanted to enter the U.S. military: [[http://blog.buzzflash.com/analysis/337 LaVena Johnson]]. She was found in her tent having been beaten so severely it broke her nose and smashed her teeth, with lye poured on her genitals (almost certainly to destroy evidence of rape), with a bullet wound in her head that didn't come from her gun. That's horrific enough on it's own, but it gets worse: the Army ruled it a suicide. This woman was quite obviously beaten, raped, and murdered, and the Army insists it's a ''suicide''. And she's not the only woman whose "suicide" has been called into question, even by other Army veterans. Many of these deaths occurred after accusations of rape or sexual assault, either by Army personnel or civilian contractors. The problem is so prevalent that in some units, women are encourage to stop drinking water early in the evening so they [[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1968110,00.html don't get raped on their way]] to the ''latrine''. This is the twenty-first century, yet a woman in the Army is in just as much--if not more--danger from ''our own side'' as that of the enemy.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_genocide Does this count?]] Disease, fighting, and starvation is estimated to have killed ~41 million between 1492 and the 16th century alone. The worst part about the Native Americans is, what decimated their populations wasn't the wars, it was smallpox, the Europeans killed the natives merely with their (and by extension their germs') presence.
** On another note, many people in America have a small percentage of Cherokee blood (including [[SageSerin me]], though the percent is a little higher) in them? It's scary if one traces their history back to a Cherokee relative when one realizes that they had to walk for hundreds of miles, [[spoiler: possibly dragging along dead corpses of their relatives]] as they were moved into small areas. If you are among those people with a Cherokee ancestor who walked the Trail of Tears and SURVIVED, you're one lucky individual, considering how easily they died from the pain.
* TheAmericanRevolution had moments that were particulary nasty. There was little love lost between the white settlers and Indian populations, particulary the four Iroquois nations that sided with the British. Each side was fiendishly talented at doling out atrocity -- and the American propoganda machine was talented at making the most of the enemy's acts, while downplaying their own. And atrocities abounded. Leaders on either side paid bounties for scalps from the other side. Neither Indian nor settler had much interest in promising safety to captured soldiers, making surrender a very dangerous crapshoot. Also, since the Indians regarded the settlers -and their families- as invaders and land theives, men women and children were all considered fair game by most of the tribes. Still more moral sketchyness involved settlers accepting paroles of surrender in some cases ... [[ISurrenderSuckers then promptly breaking the parole and fighting a few weeks/months later]].
** In 1777 in upstate New York, Mohawks murdered a civilan woman named Jane [=McCrae=], whose brother was an American patriot, but who herself was engaged to a Loyallist. The atrocity (and the American publication of it) had widespread ramifications, as nearly every available male with a gun joined the American cause just long enough to force a British army to surrender at Saratoga.
** The July 3rd 1778 Battle of Wyoming was a pretty fair and square battle ... except that after the Americans were routed, they were hunted down and slaughtered by the Iroquois wihout mercy. This provided plenty of grist for anti-British and anti-Indian propoganda mills.
** In November 1778 the Indians attacked Cherry Valley. They didn't catpure the fort, or the soldiers therin, but did destroy the outlying town, slaughtering some millitary officers, but mostly women and children.
** American retaliation for these incursions was directed from the highest level. In an surprising act of ruthlessness and revenge, George Washington sent 3000 men under Gen. John Sullivan into the lands of the Iroquois, with orders to destroy everything- every town and every crop. It was done. No encampent or town was spared, and the Iroquois, once an empire unto themselves in the upstate NY, PA, & Canada areas were impovershed and ended as a serious threat. Hundreds starved as a result of Sullivan's Expedition.
** The Seneca were most displeased with the soldiers in this expedition. Two American soliders named Parker and Boyd were captured from a scouting mission. After interogation, they were tortured all night long ... by people who knew their business. Their torment included [[spoiler:cutting off of noses, ears, eyes, genital mutilation, and climaxed with self-disembowlment, that is having a segment of their intestines drawn from an incision made in their abdomens, the intestine nailed to a tree, and the men being forced to run around the tree, bowels unspooling behind them untill they dropped dead]].
* As a person who reached his teen years in the 1980's and now has a family, I still have the occasional ''actual'' nightmare about the height of the Reagan-years Cold War. The "bombing begins in 5 minutes" so-called gaffe, the constant military escalation and sabre rattling, the constant uncontrollable fear of seeing contrails in the sky at any moment because someone gave the President decaf that morning or the Premier had a particularly bad night's sleep. These were the days when TV shows like "The Day After" were made because people ''weren't already scared enough'' about the possible realistic effects of nuclear war. Terms like "Nuclear Winter" were coined in this time. I grew up close to a major airbase ([=MacDill=] AFB, aka [=US CENTCOM=] and a key bomber base at the time) that would have been considered a key strategic nuclear target and likely have been host to several missile detonations. When I went out ''I used to think about how far I was driving from my family to wonder if I would have enough time to get back home to say goodbye if I heard that "birds were in the air".'' I didn't consider myself a particularly cynical or paranoid teen. I was old enough to think I knew just how precarious the situation appeared, and now that I'm grown up, looking back, I can't see that I was that far from reality. The thought of seeing multiple incoming (or outgoing) contrails is still one of the scariest images I can imagine.
** Unfortunately, you should probably ''still'' be scared...the end of the Cold War did not by any means end the threat of nuclear destruction(despite what many Americans--and presumably Russians--like to believe.) Since the fall of the Soviet Union, we've had 10 years in which Russia was a kleptocracy with a poorly funded military and a tendency for their nuclear warheads to go missing, and 10 years in which Russia is starting to slowly mutate into the Soviet Union, sans an official Communist ideology.
* The Ku Klux Klan.
** The history of America's first hate group/terrorist group is rather long and complicated. They started off as a rather harmless Gentleman's club at the end of the AmericanCivilWar, made up of mostly ex-Confederates and former plantation slave owners. It all began as simple racial rhetoric...which, after a few years they began putting into frightening practice. Lynching blacks and whites supporting blacks, scaring them from voting, etc. all to keep who they saw as inferior down, President Grant was forced to step in and destroyed the first incarnation of the Klan by outlawing their practice of wearing hoods. After the JimCrowLaws passed though, the Klan began to have a resurgence at the late 19th Century/early 20th Century, and when ''BirthOfANation'' hit theaters for the first time, they had a ''surge'' of recruits. It got to the point where most southern politicians were Klansmen or were supported by Klansmen. In the 1920's, the Klan was in its Golden Age, with nearly two million strong. They could march down the streets of Washington DC untouched. Lynchings of Blacks reached a peak during this time as well, and a Southern jury would never convict the perpetrators. It all came crashing down when a high-ranking Klansman raped and murdered a girl he was with, destroying the public image of 'protecting white women' that they had worked so hard to create. WorldWarII (given the Klan's close ties with the American Nazi Party and support of NaziGermany) was thought to be the final nail in the coffin of the Klan, having shrunk to less than 2000 members. But during the Civil Rights Era, they had yet another resurgence, trying to stop integration through fear and intimidation of Civil Rights Leaders. However, by this time J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI had finally had enough of them, and systematically worked to take them down through infiltration and enforcement of the Civil Rights Act. [[RuleOfThree Again]], it was thought that the Klan was dead until it again reinvented itself into the current militia heavy terrorist cell it is today. Though nowhere near its former strength...the Klan lives. It's the cockroach of America, no matter how much you step on it, how much you destroy it...it just comes back in a new form. And that's what's terrifying about it -- no matter what, in over a century, ''nothing'' has stopped this hate group from coming back.
** Amusingly, they attempted a resurgence just after World War II, which was defeated by Superman. Really. Look up "Clan of the Fiery Cross."
* I asked myself why wasn't Latin America as a whole not included? I really don't know where to start. In Mexico in February 1968 a train got off reel and the government blamed the C.N.E.D. (Spanish for National Center of Democratic Students). Then, on July 22 a group of gangs fought at a square known as "La Ciudadela" and the police was called. This caused the infamous [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c10yts2cPpg&feature=related Mexican Student Movement which ended on Wednesday, October 2, 1968]], known as the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tlatelolco_Massacre Tlatelolco Massacre]]. That day more than 8000 people gathered at the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaza_of_the_Three_Cultures Plaza of the Three Cultures]] as another demonstration. The [[http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_neT8fdNk1Ls/SNlyNjcpKbI/AAAAAAAAGoE/gSpaB1T4rww/s320/S%C3%B3crates+Amado+Campos+Lemus.JPG speakers]] [[http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4048/4669400678_4a504eeb0f.jpg sat]] on the [[http://v1.nonxt8.c.bigcache.googleapis.com/static.panoramio.com/photos/original/34603140.jpg?redirect_counter=1 Chihuahua Building's]] [[http://www.google.com.mx/imgres?imgurl=http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2t3i9V3WD5s/SsZ4XLlPgYI/AAAAAAAAAXY/ZBwCPbbVZac/s400/LOMO013.jpg&imgrefurl=http://desurtida.blogspot.com/2009_10_01_archive.html&usg=__gQGqXViIVA9oansMRShscNcq-nU=&h=264&w=400&sz=10&hl=es&start=33&zoom=1&tbnid=3v6KDULarBe7PM:&tbnh=154&tbnw=222&ei=ONIMTvbUHIyCsQPS78WqDg&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dedificio%2Bchihuahua%2B%2522tercer%2Bpiso%2522%2Btlatelolco%26um%3D1%26hl%3Des%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:es-MX:official%26biw%3D1600%26bih%3D699%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=1086&vpy=257&dur=291&hovh=182&hovw=276&tx=71&ty=133&page=2&ndsp=20&ved=1t:429,r:11,s:33&biw=1600&bih=699 third floor]], along with national and international journalists. Then red and green flares were fired and the army arrived. People began to shoot (they were [[http://camacho.com.mx/tlatelolco68/002sem.jpg policemen and soldiers in disguise]] -look at those white gloves on their left hands- who fired at the real army) and the army reacted in different ways. Many people died for close wounds (bayonets) even [[http://www.google.com.mx/imgres?imgurl=http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2007/10/02/Images/nota4-02.jpg&imgrefurl=http://foro.mediotiempo.com/showthread.php%3F27401-2-de-Octubre...-a-39-a%25F1os-de-la-Masacre-de-Tlatelolco&usg=__ilacymKO_OIsCc0VZkMPATqt2NA=&h=380&w=500&sz=25&hl=es&start=21&zoom=1&tbnid=k6W2QX1caGMx2M:&tbnh=99&tbnw=130&ei=ddAMTtaUJor2swPSkJ2lDg&prev=/search%3Fq%3D2%2Bde%2Boctubre%2Bni%25C3%25B1o%2Bmuerto%2Btlatelolco%26um%3D1%26hl%3Des%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3D2yN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:es-MX:official%26biw%3D1600%26bih%3D699%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1&biw=1600&bih=699 children]] and [[http://books.google.com/books?id=4x0X5d0kTlIC&pg=PA244&lpg=PA244&dq=tlatelolco+embarazada&source=bl&ots=dSlbgJBnL_&sig=RGrXdi-CMGbnlLgtOpaDaVrd6dI&hl=es&ei=jT68TcPLBJH4swPTvZnSBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=tlatelolco%20embarazada&f=false a pregnant woman]]. It also doesn't help to [[http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ8FQo8oCLyoq6Xdtv6LCVFdDwFqqEGiOa3HrcNln0xHI8sbvIC search "2 de octubre"]] on Google (warning: explicit images and general horror) or watching the movie [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rojo_Amanecer "Rojo Amanecer"]]. The tales are horrible and the death count is still in dispute. Sure, it doesn't sound bad at all, but just try to imagine being trapped at a 13 story building for 10 hours not knowing if you're going to live or die without anybody knowing your story. Rain falling on the floor, the building flooding (the bullets pierced the water pipes), screams coming from the stairs and not knowing if the [[http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7175/6439735437_3034eabb43_z.jpg guy holding a gun]] [[http://html.rincondelvago.com/000367001.jpg next to you]] is going to shout at you or shoot you. The students were taken to the Chihuahua Building's ground floor and were [[http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_yYxTEoMwhws/SOU0SesweuI/AAAAAAAAAGo/NwoQcRNVQhg/s320/tlatelolco2oct.jpg stripped]] [[http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_EFnb6CMJANE/TSqFihHQOdI/AAAAAAAAABg/Bz-1CdCZBQM/s1600/2octubre2.jpg and]] [[http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR1FR1YwbpUMKNiQcYHrftUzdMJCmRkKjQC3wJxUwCCFYg0D2zE&t=1 beaten]]. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_Christi_Massacre Three years later, another demonstration]] took place on an avenue (oddly enough, my dentist and his brothers were there) and a trained shock group called "Los Halcones" attacked the students (some even brought guns). You can see a documentary about it [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvLgdbmul_Q here]] (although it's on Spanish). The survivors of both events were sent to the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palacio_de_Lecumberri "Black Palace" of Lecumberri]] and endured all kind of physical and psychological torture. Worst of all, the man responsible of this was sentenced to 3 years of house arrest.
** While the student movement was on, a group of five workers from the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla got themselves in a town called San Miguel Canoa. Because of heavy rain, they had to find shelter until the next day, when they were going to climb a local mountain called "La Malinche". They never got to climb it because in the next hours, groups of locals began spreading false rumors of them being communists and wanting to rape the women, kill the babies, take the livestock, ban religion (no, really) and plant a red and white strike flag on the local flagpole (which was situated in front of the local church). Led by the local priest, he gathered a crowd outside the church, rang the bells, gave a very fundamentalist religious speech using the local church's micorophone and convinced the people of the town to lynch the workers. The found the workers and tortured them and insulted them. Out of those five, two were killed, plus another two: the owner of the house they were staying in and another man. The other three workers barely survived with one getting some his fingers chopped off. They were lucky the police intervened. However, few people were arrested and the priest was not even punished/scolded or whatever. [[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0131335/ A film was made]], but outside of that, the event is still pretty unknown, even in Mexico itself.
** The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Reorganization_Process National Reorganization Process]] in Argentina. 30.000 victims of torture and murder, off the hands of monsters like Adolfo Scilingo, who jettisoning the drugged, naked bodies of political dissidents from military aircraft into the Atlantic Ocean. And all the babies stolen from the prisoners, taken as a present for many military families. Until 2011, the [[http://www.madres.org Asociación Madres de Plaza de mayo]], mostly conformed of the grandmothers of those children, have located 108 sons and daughters of the "Desaparecidos" ("Missing", the name the military give to the victims, because they don't acknowledge them as murders, only as missing people).
*** Speaking of Argentina and Mexico, Héctor García Rey, Argentinian, was commissioned by the InterPol. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMCYZf2nZqw&feature=player_detailpage#t=550s He is accused of training special shock groups in Mexico against the Student Movement and is possible he was at the Plaza of the Three Cultures at the time of the massacre]]. Later, he became sheriff of the Argentinian Federal Police and in the 70's chief of the Alianza Argentina Anticomunista (A.A.A.), group responsible of more than 2000 people's murders. His presence in Mexico is actually quite possibly related to the C.I.A.'s activities in that country.
** Two words: El Salvador. Holy fucking shit that place was horrible to be if you were not among the wealthy or military. Thousands of people being killed every year, and by "killed" I mean "raped, stabbed, shot, and horribly mutilated" for many victims. One of the most horrifying accounts I've ever heard comes from a woman whose family was decapitated while at the dinner table, and the death squad soldiers '''''LEFT THEIR HEADS ON THE TABLE IN FRONT OF THE BODIES'''''! Worse still, the US government, especially under Reagan, is proudly funding and wholeheartedly supporting your government's mass murder, and practically laughing off any talk of human rights abuse. Worse still, any leaders or priests who try to help you, like Oscar Romero, are not only murdered in cold blood but also ignored when they plead for help from organizations like the Catholic Church. The really sad fact is that reigns of terror like that in El Salvador are continually downplayed and ignored to this day.
** In Chile, Salvador Allende was democratically elected, but because of America's paranoia, they coup d'etat'ed him and put Augusto Pinochet in his place. Of course this was the cold war so America had to do something right? How exactly is raping women with dogs and putting rats in their vaginas (google it) going to help you stop the evil commies?
*** Though luckily Chile [[ItGotBetter got better]] when Pinochet drew the conclusion that people weren't too keen on totalitarianism and decided to give capitalism a try and gave Western companies that had had their properties expropriated by the socialists a chance to come back in. Political freedom came from economic freedom, Pinochet was removed from office and Chile is now the wealthiest and freest South American country. Not an endorsement of Pinochet but a testament to the human spirit and proof that if you give people a little taste of freedom they always want more. Even if their great grand children take it for granted. Also it's worth pointing out that, contrary to popular belief, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_intervention_in_Chile#1973_coup the US was not involved with the coup]] in any truly significant way. Maybe this is hyperbole but sometimes I think that widespread anti-Americanism like that is a form of HONF (and I'm a Limey).
**** [[http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/nsaebb8i.htm Sorry pal, but I'm going to have to disagree.]] Furthermore, take a look at [[http://www.albionmonitor.com/9903a/kissingerchile.html this]]. Also "Chile is now the wealthiest and freest South American country", but not thanks to Pinocho, that's for sure.
**** [[SarcasmMode Sure. Allende had the country in such a great state anyways. It was thriving. Damn those filthy capitalist dogs and their money grubbing]]
**** [[SarcasmMode Yeah, because everyone knows it's totally cool and morally justified to subject a nation to terror, tyranny, and a shitload of social and economic problems just because you don't like their leader and view the nation's people as irrelevant.]]
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_massacre The Banana Massacre]]. While the incident itself is not actually all that horrifying, it's shocking to see AMERICAN companies treat their workers like that. While the Cold War was on, many of these companies falsely accused their workers and labor unions of being socialists or communists. [[SarcasmMode Sure, because]] ''[[SarcasmMode EVERY]]'' [[SarcasmMode person that wants 8 hours of work and a day of rest is]] ''[[SarcasmMode surely]]'' [[SarcasmMode an evil commie]]. That Coca-Cola you're drinking? Probably cost the life of a hard-working Colombian man. Still today, being in a labor union in South America is considered the equivalent of a self-death sentence. Another example is the Guatemalan Coup d'etat. The United Fruit Co. had a monopoly on the Guatemalan railway system. The president Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán expropriated the lands of the U.F.C. and gave them the indemnization their policy stated. However, the U.F.C. rose the price of the indemnization to an impossible ammount of money, then convinced the president of the U.S.A. to invade the country because Arbenz was a communist, when he really was inspired by the American New Deal. As a result, they put on a dictatorship that killed 200k people, mostly Mayans, but also students, ''Catholics'' (which is like making a muslim genocide in the Middle East), people who sympathised with the Liberation Theology, people who sympathised with social movements and socialists themselves, people of inferior socio-economic strata, Guatemalan-Germans who sympathised with peasant groups, peasants themselves and political and labor union leaders. Oh, and TheOtherWiki still has no page for it as of 30/06/11.
* Archaeological evidence indicates that North America had 20 million inhabitants in 1492. By the time European settlers began to penetrate the interior en masse, the native population had been reduced to approximately 1 million. ''19 million people'' died of diseases which were introduced (sometimes ''intentionally'') by Europeans on the coast and spread inland along trade routes. Virtually an entire continent was wiped out and people ''forgot it happened''.
** The crimes the European settlers committed against the native Americans. No, that's not the scary part, though they were certainly horrific. The scary part is that ''people are completely ignorant of them''. Columbus enslaved the Arawaks, native to Haiti, and forced them to mine for gold. Anyone who didn't meet quota got their arms chopped off, and Columbus was in the habit of giving Arawak women (and "young girls" of unspecified age) to his officers as gifts. Today, Columbus is venerated as a hero, while you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone who has any idea what an "Arawak" is. Textbooks devote maybe a sentence or two to them if they mention them at all while spending page after page romanticizing Columbus' life and voyage. All the contributions the natives made to the forming American state? Ignored. The forced relocations, massacres, and assorted injustices they received in return? Barely addressed at all until after the Civil War, when a few paragraphs will be spent on Wounded Knee and Geronimo, despite the latter having led a grand total of 40 warriors well after the United States had effectively broken any sort of organized resistance to its imperialism (Manifest Destiny is usually even portrayed in a ''positive'' light). Just go read Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen already.
*** When the Spaniards took over Hispaniola, there were recorded instances of ''mass suicide'' and even mothers '''''murdering their newborn children'''''. Why? Because apparently death was preferable to living under them. Think about it from the Native American POV. Your home is invaded by SufficientlyAdvancedAliens who are also [[ScaryDogmaticAliens scarily dogmatic]] and who take MarsNeedsWomen and general greed to NightmareFuel levels. You are now under the control of people who have no moral qualms about subjecting you to a FateWorseThanDeath, and there is '''''absolutely nothing you can do'''''. Other than die, of course.
** The Natives that the Spanish encountered could go tit-for-tat on wanton inhumanity: Well into the 19th Century the Skidi Pawnee, a tribe from Nebraska sacrificed humans to the Morning Star deity. One of the rituals for the Aztec Earth mother goddess, Teteoinnan, was having a women skinned, and then a priest put her skin on like Silence of the Lambs while a ritual was carried out. The Aztecs were so brutal that other tribes helped the Spanish conquer them. It's like Soviets joining the Nazis to fight Stalin. When the colonists attacked Fort Mystic, 2/3's of the attacking force were members of the Narragansett, Mohegan, and Niantic warriors... Conveniently forgotten facts my teacher didn't tell me.
** Of course, this is America, where there are steps people can take when their Constitutional rights are being violated. One woman who was sterilized against her will took her case all the way to the Supreme Court. In Buck v Bell, they ruled that forced sterilization was totally legal. Oh, and the kicker? She was sterilized for being the mentally retarded daughter of a mentally retarded mother who had just given birth to another retarded girl. Stephen Jay Gould researched the case. Guess what two people definitely, provably weren't mentally retarded? Yeah. Oh, and the second gen "moron"'s sister was sterilized as well. They never told her. The real reason this family was deemed worthless? The girls were bastards[[hottip:*:Meaning that at the time they were conceived and born, their mother, the first generation "imbecile," was not married to and living with a husband, not that they were bastards in that they were horrible people]]. Yes, violate societal norms and you will be institutionalized and have your reproductive rights taken away!
*** Also, Carrie Buck, the woman in question who was sterilized, was only pregnant because she was raped by her foster parents' nephew when she was living with them, not because of her alleged promiscuity. Cases like these are reasons why I, an autistic troper, am kind of paranoid about letting my doctors have too much access to my body for fear that one of them might sterilize my without my consent or even knowledge. And to add to my paranoia, I can no longer be reassured that I am still fertile when I get my period since I found out that you can still get your period after you had your tubes tied. And the sad thing is that involuntary sterilization of people with disabilities, especially developmental disabilities, is still rampant and considered acceptable. For example, read the second letter on [[http://www.thehawkeye.com/story/Abby-051910 this Dear Abby Column]].
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system Canada's Indian Residential Schools]]: imagine being 5 and getting sent to a place almost 1000 kms away from your parents, your home, and everything you've ever known. Imagine being separated from your siblings when you arrive and either having your name changed or being referred to by a number. Imagine being beaten if you speak any other language other than English (which you don't know when you arrive) or for practicing your own faith. You're constantly told that you're subhuman and that you're not going to Heaven because you're an Indian. You rarely get to see your parents and the rest of your family (if ever) and if you do, you can't communicate with them as the only language you know now is English. My great-aunt once told me that she saw a girl at school thrown against a hot wood stove and held there for a minute by a priest after she forgot herself and spoke Cree. A woman talks about seeing a [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CReISnQDbBE&feature=player_embedded student's newborn murdered at a school]]. Another student talks about [[http://youtu.be/SkmqJlDyVe8 how kids could receive better treatment if they "allowed" the teachers to molest and rape them]]. And [[http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/hunt-begins-for-long-missing-students/article718816/page1/ there are stories]] of students being tasked with burying their friends in unmarked graves on the school grounds after they died from TB, abuse, or neglect (it being too expensive to ship the bodies home to their families). The worst bit is this didn't happen too long ago! Both my parents were residential school students.
* The [[http://www.archive.org/details/ptc1978-11-18.flac16 recording]] of the "final meeting" of the "congregation" of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_jones Jim Jones]]. For those unfamiliar with Jones, his "temple," which preached an incredibly strange combination of Communism and bizarre mysticism, had recently had a Congressman murdered, and the government was closing in on the organization to incarcerate them. At this point, Jones decided the best course of action was for the entire congregation to commit suicide. ''Over 900 of them''. This event is where we get the phrase "drinking the Kool-Aid" from, as the method of suicide was by drinking Flavor Aid laced with cyanide. The knowledge of something so creepy is already quite unsettling, but the recording features a woman arguing with Jones, and Jones attempting (eventually successfully) to convince her to kill herself, ''and her child''.
--> *while talking over a woman crying and saying something unintelligible* "Mother, please. Mother, please, please, please. Don't--don't do this. Don't do this. Lay down your life with your child. But don't do this. Free at last. Keep--keep your emotions down. Keep your emotions down. Children, it will not hurt. If you'd be--if you'll be quiet. If you'll be quiet... Be patient. Death is--I tell you, I don't care how many screams you hear. I don't care how many anguished cries. Death is a million times preferable to ten more days of this life."
** [[ItGotWorse It gets worse.]] Most of the deaths at Jonestown ''weren't'' suicide; a good number of people were held down and injected with poison, or simply shot.
'''Asia- except WWII'''
* For almost all of its history, India has suffered from periodic famines, in which millions have died, often worsened by mistakes made by the various governments that ruled it. Due to agricultural advances and famine relief these have mostly disappeared over the last century, however.
* On a smaller, but no less disturbing, scale, the Dutch East India Company. Beyond ruthless, they managed to seize the Malucu Islands, only source of cloves at that time, from the Portuguese. The Portuguese had largely made the islands into dependent client states, importing European goods and getting cloves in return. Dissatisfied with their deals with the Dutch, the natives of the Banda Islands (a part of the Malucu archipelago) tried to trade with the English instead. The Dutch East India Company's directors hired mercenaries to wipe out the entire native population, then turned the islands into giant slave plantations, which allowed them to cut costs, manipulate the supply, and reap obscene profits. This was to be but the tip of the iceberg in the company's long history of horrific atrocities against native populaces.
** Hence the villains of PiratesOfTheCarribbean.
*** Actually, those were the ''British'' East India Company there. Not that they were much better (see India).
* I have a friend who was a Chinese citizen. Four years ago she and her husband violated China's One-Child Policy by getting pregnant with their second child. They tried to keep it a secret but somehow the authorities found out and they forced her to get an abortion. Now, this has nothing to do with the current debate in America over whether or not abortions are morally right; we're talking about being ''dragged'' to a facility and ''forced'' to abort ''your'' child that you wanted to keep. To me, that is both terrifying and heartbreaking.
** There was an HBO documentary about this, but with a twist: Chinese officials and procurers were working together to ''kidnap'' children for profit, even if the parents had gotten permission to have a second child, ''or even if it was their first child.''
** I read a Reader's Digest article by a Chinese doctor. He was helping a woman abort her second child... unfortunately, the child came out alive. He tried to argue for getting it adopted or something, but his superior told him to kill it. He wouldn't do it. So his superior killed the baby.
** I was originally suppose to be a twin. But come day of birth, only I came out. My dad is still paranoid that the hospital took the other child (who was suppose to be a girl or something). And that was ''before'' I read about all the twin horrors on this page. Maybe that explains the voices I've been hearing...
* On the other hand, I (living in the Netherlands), married to a Chinese woman, having been to China, knowing and acquainted with a lot of Chinese people in China proper, can say that the most he has seen is that, if you dare to go against the one-child-only policy, what they do is take away your welfare benefits (which are pretty substantial). I have never, ever found any case of anybody being forced to abort a child against their will. I do not doubt the story of the previous poster; I have no reason to think that it did not happen -- but I do not think that it is common, or typical.
* The present Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, was formerly a political prison known as S-21 during the rule of the Khmer Rouge. An estimated 20,000 inmates passed through its gates during the Khmer Rouge's 3 years in power; [[http://blogs.voanews.com/breaking-news/2011/08/30/acclaimed-khmer-rouge-prison-survivor-reported-near-death-2/ only SEVEN are known to have survived]]. The place has been preserved in close to its original state, with exhibits of cells, torture devices and graphic depictions of the torture carried out there. Those are awful, but the worst part is the thousands of photographs of inmates, taken just after they entered the prison. Thousands and thousands of blank, anxious, staring faces, each a friend, a father, a daughter, a grandmother... almost certainly all innocent and almost all dead in exceedingly cruel ways. The place is a fearsome monument to humanity's inhumanity. To add to the horror, those who perished there are likely only a small percentage of the total number killed - estimated at up to 2 million - by the brutal Khmer Rouge.
** [[http://www.cambcomm.org.uk/holocaust.html Tuol Sleng alone saw 2000 children murdered in cold blood,]] now consider the above mention of [[http://cyclingtales.blogspot.com/2007/01/atrocities-of-khmer-rouge.html a vast number of]] [[UnfortunateImplications torture devices...]] then consider that Tuol Sleng was only for the torture of ''political'' prisoners. Yes, the Khmer Rouge described [[http://www.flickr.com/photos/15947583@N00/3457259768/ boys and]] [[http://www.flickr.com/photos/aniewbeginning/2572627595/ girls less than 9 years old]] as ''political criminals'' and [[FateWorseThanDeath subjected them to pain that would make you desire death]]. Oh and [[http://www.flickr.com/photos/21236805@N08/2250518719/ infants were considered political dissidents]], [[AndIMustScream too...]]
*** The photographing of each victim is the only light that can be found in this, as it gives a face to each poor person that suffered there, and a victim to grieve even if their whole family is gone.
** Something like one quarter of Cambodia's population perished at the hands of soldiers and don't get the idea this was by bullets or something quick. No, most were battered to death by guards in their teens who, if they refused, would be murdered in a similar manner. If you think I mean only adults, er no, [[http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/khmeryears/camps.html there were CHILDREN'S LABOUR CAMPS]] - if the child or infant was too young to work, or became too sick to slave, they would '''slowly beat the child to death against a tree''' or stab them, ''if the child was lucky''. There is the account in the current LonelyPlanet guide of a then '''6 year old who was left to be burnt alive by the guards''' but survived, however most of his cousins and siblings perished.
*** And, unlike the majority of Nazi war criminals, most of the lower guards and officers went unpunished and live a normal life in Cambodia.
* Considering [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward sheer]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_civil_war amount]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution of shit]] that happened, I, a Chinese troper, am absolutely terrified of living in China from 1940s-1960s. The propaganda and living situations during the Great Leap Forward is probably one of the closest examples of a real life ''NineteenEightyFour'', not mention the overwhelming amount of causalities (over ''five million'') and human rights violations. You could be beaten, worked to death, and have your house plundered for disagreeing with the government, and the government was watching you ''[[BigBrotherIsWatching all the fucking time]]''. Just the words 'houses of happiness' is enough to send chills down your spine...
** Let's not forget that, if you count the famine, Mao Zedong was the ''deadliest human who ever lived''. Historians still aren't quite certain what happened to Hitler's body. We all know the fate of Chairman Mao. He's in a mausoleum in Beijing. Embalmed, so his body will be recognizable for probably long after we are all gone. And with his visage smugly watching over the country, including the square where [[strike:thousands were massacred in the name of the tyranny he founded]] [[TheSimpsons nothing]] [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial happened]].
*** Not to mention that Mao in China is still regarded as 70% right, that his rule marked the 'rise of the new China', that he assumes the role of a hero in Chinese propaganda movies ('Beginning of the Great Revival'), and that people in Nepal/India still willingly fight in his name. Not even Stalin had it that good.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Mutilation_of_Japanese_War_Dead Mutilation of war dead]]. Just the thought that war turns you into a merciless being with no regard for others besides nationalism is such a disheartening idea. For that matter, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre My Lai Massacre]] incident during the Vietnam War. Only Captain Hugh Thompson, Jr and his US Army helicopter crew finding and stopping the massacre restores a little faith in the US military.
** Oh, dear God, the My Lai Massacre. I am Vietnamese-Australian and had to ask to be excused from the class to vomit when studying that little chapter of Vietnam's history during high school. Any kind of atrocity like that is horrible.
** Upon closer inspection (of the very link provided above), there is SOME good news. Firstly, a large portion of the soldiers of the unit committing the massacre refused to participate, or refused to participate after committing one of two murders (imaginably, said soldiers had a MyGodWhatHaveIDone moment and stopped), and a patrolling helicopter spotted the massacre, and intervened, saving something like two dozen lives, and were awarded the Silver Star for their efforts. Also, the massacre shifted US public opinion against the war. There were many other factors involved, such as lack of officer talent due to draft-dodging and high casualties, as well as the up-playing of obedience to orders and downplaying of "responsibility to disobey unlawful orders" at the time. Not only that, but the massacre is taught in American high schools, signifying that, yes, our country's actions were horribly wrong and this is something to be actively prevented in the future.
** When I brought this up with one of my friends, the friend attempted to justify it by saying that the people involved were "nervous and on a hair-trigger temper" and that "they had to be sure that there were no Viet Cong" (ignoring the fact that the group's leader had given ''direct orders'' to shoot everyone in the village, including children), as well as quoting a US source as saying "every unit had its own My Lai", which was [[InsaneTrollLogic somehow supposed to make the massacre OK.]] Cue me freaking out and refusing to speak to my friend for the rest of the day.
*** Then there's people who defend William Calley insisting that he was avenging his fallen men claiming that this is a normal procedure of war. Never mind the fact that if this was true, he's been taking his anger out on unarmed civilians who were BEGGING for mercy.
* On the Communist side, the Hue Massacre. Possibly as many as 6000 people were killed, both prisoners of war and civilians, and buried in mass graves. Some of them were ALIVE. The discovery of one of these graves features in FullMetalJacket, a scene which is HONF in itself. Or Dak Son, where roughly 250 indigenous natives were killed, including by flamethrowers.
* The Vietnam war. My Lai was bad enough, but the entire thing had to be one of the most awful conflicts of the last three hundred years. On one side, you had the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese beating the crap out of prisoners and starving them, massacring civilians, brutally killing enemy wounded...then on the other side you had the United States and its allies, dropping napalm on villages, making plans to nuke the country (e.g. then-California governor {{RonaldReagan}}'s casual statement that "we could pave the whole country, put up parking strips and be home by Christmas"), and ''also'' massacring civilians! Admittedly, both sides had their heroes too, and the vast majority of them weren't bad people, but the sheer amount of death and pain that occurred was enough to drive me to tears. And the worst part was, I had literally ''never heard'' about the 5,000,000-odd civilians and 2,000,000 enemy soldiers who died until I was into my teens.
** To clarify that last point, if you have ever seen the Washington DC Vietnam War Memorial, imagine it, then imagine it ''over a hundred times bigger''. That's how big it would be if civilian and enemy casualties were counted.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange Agent Orange]]. It was used as a defoliant to deny guerrillas cover, destroy agricultural resources, and force peasants to flee to US-dominated cities in order to keep them from joining the North Vietnamese, but it didn't stop there. '''Warning:''' The article has some graphic images of the side effects.
** "[[http://www.pcf45.com/sealords/cuadai/wanderingsoul.html Wandering Soul]]", a tape that US Army Psyops would play via loud speakers mounted on Huey's. It is supposed to be the ghost of a dead Viet Cong lamenting that since he died far from home he will not get into heaven. The trifecta of preying on the enemies culture, mythology and being '''creepy as hell.''' Listen to it [[http://www.pcf45.com/sealords/cuadai/ghost10.mp3 here]] and never sleep again.
* Zhang Xianzhong, warlord of Sichuan when the Ming Dynasty fell. He ordered EVERYONE killed-even ordering his soldiers to kill each other. He set up mounds of ear and feet and set up a monument with the following words:
-->Heaven brings forth innumerable things to help man.
-->Man has nothing with which to recompense Heaven.
-->Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill.
** The population of Sichuan fell from 3 million to 18,000! Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot etc. at least actually cared about ruling their country. This guy was basically [[TheCaligula a serial killer in power]]. And to date he's the only recorded OmnicidalManiac in human history. Sweet dreams.
*** Zhang Xianzhong's rule was just one bad spot out of many in the chaotic transition between the Ming and the Qing Dynasty. Numerous massacres and famines happened and basically it was a horrific time to be in. To give some idea: China's population during the 1630s was around 200 million. China's population in the 1740s (and this was a China which had expanded to twice its original size, with an extended period of peace between 1660 - 1740) was around 150 million.
* Oh, and also the much celebrated 'Three Kingdoms' period of China? The 90-year period saw China's population decrease by 50% - 70% (some estimates even put it at 90%). Cao Cao's poem "The Graveyard Song" has these two lines:
--> White bones lay in fields,
--> No cockerels for a thousand miles.
--> Out of a hundred men, one remains,
--> The very thought is heartbreaking.
And this from a guy who basically massacred a whole province-worth of people in revenge for his father's death.
* What happened in East Timor, but particularly the treatment of women by Indonesian troops. One woman was interrogated while stripped half-naked, tortured, molested, and threatened with death. Another was chained at the hands and feet, raped repeatedly, and interrogated for weeks. On top of this, depending on who you talk to, between 1/7 and 1/3 of the East Timorese were killed, either during the invasion, or due famines that were engineered by the military to drive people into their waiting guns...
* How is North Korea not on here? Not only is the personality cult creepy as hell but there are people there who spend their entire lives in concentration camps! [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxLBywKrTf4 These]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ6E3cShcVU&feature=related videos]] should sum everything up about why North Korea is a very, '''VERY''' terrifying place to live in.
** And for those who don't cry much when they hear about the maltreatment of humans but drown in tears upon hearing about animal rights abuses here's a snippet from Sam Harris's book ''A Letter to a Christian Nation'': "Kim il-Sung, for instance, demanded that his beds at his various dwellings be situated precisely five hundred meters above sea level. His duvets had to be filled with the softest down imaginable. What is the softest down imaginable? It apparently comes from the chin of a sparrow. Seven hundred thousand sparrows were required to fill a single duvet." Now that is a lot of sparrows.
** And now Kim Jong-Il's dead, and his even more insane son Kim Jong-Un is set to take his place. [[OhCrap Shit.]]
** [[ItGotWorse It gets worse]] for those who try to leave. South Korea has an orientation program to help escaped North Koreans acclimate to living in a first-world country, but the catch is, due to the likelihood of spies, escapees have to get to the South themselves. The only viable routes are getting flights from mainland China, or escaping through China into Mongolia. Many private individuals (mainly South Korean pastors) have dedicated themselves to helping North Koreans escape through China. What's bad about this? China doesn't recognize anyone escaping North Korea as a refugee. By Chinese law, anyone escaping the North is considered an illegal immigrant and, if caught, will get sent back to the North. What happens after that? It certainly involves execution, and likely torture. Then escapees have to deal with any friends who may have been captured, and family they may have left behind in the North. It's a harrowing experience. That people attempt it with no regrets is testament to just how bad things are.
* Genghis Khan. This guy pretty much set the bar for genocidal tyrants looking to seize power. One of his favorite means of keeping those under check was to massacre entire towns and build a pyramid made out of the victims heads as a warning to those who might oppose him. Anyone else that survived were used as human shields for whatever future invasions/battles/etc. the Mongols had in mind.
** Actually, he wasn't a bad ruler; he kept his towns civil, cracked down on rape and other sex-crimes, and generally wasn't too bad to know... he was, however, very, ''very'' good at killing things in brutal ways. I can't remember where I read that, though. Also, he allowed someone who's name I've forgotten to advise him, and who kept things calm and spared many cities Khan's wrath. Genghis generally defended this advisor's decisions, and even kept him safe from his murderous and crazed troops. That was from a {{Cracked}} article, though.
*** The thing is about Khan is that quite literally he would never have survived if he didn't do what he did. Terrible yes, but you've got to remember, our morality today was quite literally non-existent back then. Hell, the HONF may derive from the fact that Khan was somewhat lenient in his ways. Allowing cities to surrender so long as they paid a tax to them, rather then wantonly destroying everything may not seem good now but back then it was bloody amazing to have that option when usually the only option was face destruction. Plus he was a guy really into letting myth not stand in the way of fact. As such some things may be over-exaggerated or outright false, due to Khan actively encouraging the worst possible rumour to persist which just makes getting any facts difficult. Thus yeah, Khan is evil now but back then for what amounts to a force of nature, not too bad.
*** One thing Genghis Khan did that qualified even in his time was his invasion of the Khwarezmid empire. He wiped it completely off the map, slaughtering millions. Whole cities were erased; rivers were diverted to make sure those cities would never be rebuilt. There was no chance of surrender. What makes this horrifying is that it started with Genghis Khan making an offer of peace; he wanted a trade agreement with these people. One of their governors captured the mongol's caravan and accused them of spying. Genghis sent an envoy to the Shah, giving him one last chance at peace if he release the caravan and hand the governor over for punishment. The Shah had one of the envoy killed and the others shaved and sent back to Genghis, while ordering the execution of the prisoners from the caravan. Genghis laid siege to the governor's city for six months, eventually executing him by pouring molten silver down his throat. He didn't relent on the campaign of destruction against Khwarezmid until he heard of the Shah's death; the man died alone, penniless, hiding from his mongol pursuers on an island. By then, his empire had been utterly laid to waste. The region still hasn't completely recovered from the depopulation caused by this invasion. More than any other single event, this is what earns Genghis and the mongols their reputation as blood thirsty barbarians.
**** I'm the one who kinda defended him above. In response to that paragraph, I'm not justifying what he done but they can easily be seen as asshole victims. Plus the fact he offered peace not once but twice is what removes Khan from the HONF for me. Many kingdoms NEVER offered cities this chance EVER, often just going for the pillaging. For what could be called the most realistic unstoppable force in human history, to offer peace twice is quite remarkable. However, as I'm writing this a bit of fridge HONF came to me about the Shah. How terryfying is it that for no other reason then pride, a leader would rather refuse to surrender instead of trying to save his people. Indeed he comes across as a cowardly victim. Really in that example, throughout history you do not under any cicumstances harm messangers, to do it twice is just idiotic. So not HONF as it was really self inflictated (I mean really EVERY empire would have completely destroyed them after the first instance let alone the second.
** Ironically, it might have been a reasonable to respond that way when someone [[ShootTheMessenger kills your messenger.]] It was the equivalent of killing a foreign super power's diplomat today.
* The 1947 partition of India and Pakistan. I woke up screaming every night for nearly a week after reading survivor accounts. Roughly 500,000–1,000,000 people died during the population exchange between the two countries. For a week in August getting on a train basically guaranteed that you would die in a bloodbath. And the things people did to their neighbors and ''even their own families'' were utterly horrific. From an account given to researchers Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin:
--> "My uncle had six daughters, all of them very good-looking. He was well-to-do and also had very good relations with his Muslim neighbors. They told him to give his daughters in marriage to their sons - that way, they would all then be related and his family's safety assured. They could continue to live in the village without fear. He kept listening to them and nodding, seeming to agree. That evening, he got all his family members together and decapitated each one of them, killing 13 people in all. He then lit their pyre, climbed on to the roof of his house and cried out: "Bring on the marriage parties! You can bring your grooms now. Take my daughters away, they are ready for their marriages!", and so saying, he killed himself too."
'''Europe- except WWII'''
* The ThirtyYearsWar (1618–1648) was the first major gun powder war, the first war that involved all of Europe, and the bloodiest European war pre-WWI. It killed 1/3 of Germany's entire population. The war was fought entirely by mercenary armies, since gunpowder had made the old knight baised model of warfare obsolete, and nobody had figured out professional armies yet. Miss a payment and the armies switched over to your enemy. The solders themselves where conscripted. An army would come to your town and say "every man here joins us or we hang you." The ones who joined had to loot farms in order to survive. Often an entire town had to pool their gold, and bribe the army to go away, (Of course sometimes they'd just take to money and loot anyway). It didn't matter who's side the army was on, it was the enemy. One man wrote "The red coats killed and ate all my pigs, the blue coats raped my wife, the black coats burnt down my house, and now here come the yellow coats, god have mercy". They also had large groups of civilians they kidnapped to use as servants for the army. So children were born in the army and never knew anything else when the war ended ''decades later''. Many mercenaries would just desert the army and strike it out on their own as bandits and highwaymen, thus furthering the plight of the common peasant just trying to live their lives. Add to that the religous conflicts going on at the same time. A particually fanatical lord would often decide he didn't like that his neighboring lord was Catholic, or Protestant, or ''the wrong kind'' of Protestant, and order his mercenaries to go and genocide his neighbor's peasants ''even if the majority of said peasants where the same religion as him.'' That's just scratching the surface. Truly one of the most horrific conflicts in human history.
** Sweden entered the war as a pre-emptive strike - the speaker of the Estate of Yeomen stated ''[[BadassBoast It is better to staple our horses in the houses of the enemy than his in ours]]''. Nevertheless, the entering of Sweden in the war turned a disaster into a catastrophe.
-->Die Schweden find hier gekommen
-->haben alles mitgenommen
-->haben Fenster eingeschlagen
-->haben Blei daraufgetragen
-->haben Kugel daraufgegossen
-->und alle Bauer ergeschossen
** (The Swedes found their way here/took everything with them/smashed the windows in/tore off all lead lining/cast bullets off the lead/and shot all the peasants)
* The French ''Jacquerie'' in 1358. Unhappy peasants revolting against nobles doesn't sound like a really bad thing, right? ''Wrong.'' At first, the peasants "merely" killed the nobles and their ''entire families,'' but that didn't seem to be enough. They quickly moved to raping all the women and girls they could find, often brutally, and in full view of their husbands and fathers. Famously:
-->[The peasants] killed a knight, put him on a spit, and roasted him with his wife and children looking on. After ten or twelve of them raped the lady, they wished to force feed them the roasted flesh of their father and husband and made them then die by a miserable death.
* Many lived under a possibility of a war. I grew up in a war... I was born in '89 in Zagreb, Croatia. Third child of a rather happy couple. Dad managed not to get drafted, and ended up in "Civil defense"(aka, local neighborhood military assigned people who were responsible for getting people to shelters and preventing mass panic) due to his age (he was born in '45, those born in '47 and after were drafted) Cue 2nd May '95, the first rocket attack happened around 10am if i remember correctly. I was scheduled to go to the Klaićeva childrens hospital for a medical checkup. Mother and I left our home around 10:30 so we didnt know that an attack happened already (the media was a bit more "controlled", so to say...) On our way there I noticed that the streets were a bit more silent and emptier than usual. We got off the tram some time around noon and were walking rather slowly towards the hospital. We were barely 100 meters away from the hospital, ready to cross the road, when we heard a whistling sound. Then an explosion at the hospital. We ran away as fast as we could. Air raid alarms started wailing again. I do not remember how exactly we got home or when. Most i remember was that after the whistling and screams, my mother grabbed me and we ran as far as we could. I remember my father being extremely scared when we got home, and we immediately proceeded to our bathroom (the way our buildings were built, there were a few centerline walls and 4 "main beams" for lack of a better name that ran through the building, luckily one went straight through our bathroom...) Due to some bureaucratic oversights, our building ended up without a shelter in the basements, so the reasoning was that near the main support walls we'd have a bigger chance of surviving if something did hit our building. Anyhow, later that day we found out that that was the 'second' rocket attack that day. We were scared shitless and didn't dare go out of our flat for the next few days. Alarms didn't stop glaring for the next three days. I will also never forget the overflights of JNA's Mig's... That sound and the whistling sound of an incoming rocket are my high octane nightmare fuels. ''Unleaded''. A few days ago I was checking out some sound sample collections. Ran across one called "High speed jet fighter overpass" guess which one... MiG 21bis... Cue panic attack and running to hide to the aforementioned bathroom. To anyone reading this wall of text, thank you. To anyone interested into some more details.. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zagreb_rocket_attacks here's a wiki link]]
*** Even worse about that: the Yugoslavian war was the bloodiest war in Europe since WorldWarII, and occurred only a few hundred miles from Western Europe, which you would think would intervene to try to stop it, right? '''[[MemeticMutation WRONG!]]''' The democratic countries in Europe were ''right there'', and did nothing.
* Stalinist KGB prisons. This example is from the one in Vilnius. Prisoners were kept in small cells up to 20 of them together, with absolutely no furniture or anything at all, they were under constant watch and eavesdropping, allowed outside 10 minutes a day to walk in silence in a circle, allowed to shower (all of the cell together) once a month and the wards would play with the water temperature, torture was commonplace and they had to make a room on the prison floor since prisoners would get so badly injured they couldn't walk up the stairs. Imagine being locked into the isolation cell, with no clothes expect your underwear, it's cold, completely dark, no human contact and you get just enough food to not starve to death nothing more, and being locked up like that for days. And forced feeding if you did try to starve to death. Or the fact prisoners buttons had to be removed so they didn't get creative and tried to chock themselves to death rather than take the torture. Or the fact the only two to ever escaped was recaptured and taken back.
** A little creepy, having been to the Vilnius KGB building, is parts of the old prison have been left untouched, including the room they used for executions. It's one of many ways Lithuania seems determined to make sure history doesn't forget what happened there.
** Not to mention the GULAG prison system that sent millions of Soviet citizens who did not agree with collectivization or Stalin's agenda were sent to the most remote portions of Siberia or Kazakhstan. Disproportionately, these unlucky folks were ethnic minorities like Belorussians, Ukrainians, Balts etc.
* Vlad Tepes. (Better known as "Dracula." The real one, not the literary vampire.) Under his rule, Wallachia was a place of order, because the people were so terrified of what he would do to them if they broke laws. Not only did he impale enemy soldiers, he did that to his own people, as well as using other creative methods. Go read about them on TheOtherWiki.
** Most of his atrocities against his own people were [[UnreliableNarrator from the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire]] trying to conquer his lands. Vlad Tepes is a hero in Wallachia, and has been for ''centuries''. True, he used impalement against captured enemy soldiers and ate in the fields of screams, but there has been no serious documentation found of him using the method on fellow Wallachians.
* Yugoslavia. Aside from the crippling genocide, general war time anti-frolicking, this war took it an extra step. Rape Camps. Places where they hoard up women, put them in camps not unlike Nazi concentration camps, and BRUTALLY RAPED THEM DAILY. From what i heard, this was done to MAKE SURE CERTAIN RACES NEVER BRED AGAIN. Anyone else sick to their stomach?
** And those "races"? There was absolutely no difference, whether physical, cultural, or linguistic, between them. [[TakeThat Yugoslavians are just too bigoted to notice this, and to this day are willfully ignorant of this fact.]]
* World War I examples can go here.
** I’ll get us started with the Battle of Verdun, which doesn't get much coverage among English-speakers. Accounts from the survivors read less like soldiers' memoirs and more like some surreal horror ''parody'' of soldiers' memoirs. Basically, the men who fought there felt like they’d been sucked into some vast machine for grinding up soldiers, leading the French to call it ''l'abbatoir'' and the Germans to christen it "The Mill." The combination of BodyHorror and existential dread the shelling induced has to be read to be disbelieved. As one survivor wrote: "Men were squashed, cut in two, or divided from top to bottom; blown into showers, bellies turned inside-out and scattered anyhow; skulls forced bodily into the chest, as if by a blow with a club." Jacques Péricard wrote wearily, "Men will march over me and the nails of their boots will rip up my face, as just a moment ago I ripped up the face of that corporal when I stumbled over him in the snow." "Coming out of the shelter," wrote Captain la Chausée, "I realise that I’m walking on corpses, from the way the soil gives way under my feet, and feels slippery and soft." The stench was so bad that, in the words of one French soldier, "If we had to construct trenches we put garlic cloves in our nostrils." There were so many dead bodies around that men cutting forward trenches toward Fort Vaux found they were digging not through soil but ''viande'': meat. "Pay no attention," said their lieutenant, "keep digging." The final casualty figures were 378,000 for the French and 162,000 for the Germans – almost a death a minute for the entire 10 months the battle lasted.
** No mention of the Battle of the Somme? By far one of-if not ''the'' bloodiest battle of all time, the Battle of the Somme was indecisive. How bloody was it? [[BeyondTheImpossible 60,000 British soldiers]] died [[ThisIsSPARTA in ONE. SINGLE. DAY.]] It was a literal meat grinder, over one million men fell at the end of the battle...for nothing. Neither side one and the war continued to drag on.
* Though it pales in comparison to some of the other examples on this page, the History Of Ireland has seen some pretty horrific moments.
** At one point there were more Irish slaves than African in the Carribbean, largely because they were much, much cheaper. Many of these were deported on trumped up charges to fill the ever growing demand for "workers". At one point, a law was introduced to prevent the rape of Irish women, because it was effecting profits of the Slave companies after plantation owners worked out that since any child born in captivity remained in captivity.
*** As if that wasn't bad enough, instead of learning from our past experiences, the Irish would go on to willingly volunteer to crush several slave rebellions in Jamaica. One of which was so violent and cruel that even the English were horrified, and had several Irishmen hanged for war crimes. That's before we get into tacit approval of the Stolen Generation in Australia.
** The Great Famine caused 1 million deaths ''from starvation'', and the emigration of another million. Within the space of a single generation, Ireland went from being one of the most densely populated countries in Western Europe to being one of the most sparse. Regardless of the widespread famine, ''food was still being exported to England the entire time''. The Sultan Abdulmecid of Ottoman initially offered £10,000 in aid, but Queen Victoria requested he reduce it to £1,000, as she herself had merely sent £2,000. He complied, but secretly sent 3 ships loaded with food. The British attempted to block this as well.
*** Though there were various other factors involved, the population of Ireland was so devastated that it wouldn't see a rise for exactly 100 years after the end of The Famine. Not return to normal mind, merely more people being born than dying or emigrating in a single year.
*** In a CrowningMomentOfHeartWarming however, members of the Choctaw Nation donated $710. This was a mere 16 years after the Trail Of Tears.
* If I'm not mistaken, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i44dv1KMPsM this]] is a video of an elderly Irish gentleman confronting Irish politicians about his experiences in an Irish orphanage that was controlled by the Irish Catholic Church in the 1940s or so. Where, indeed, he was beaten, raped, and subjected to horrible stuff, and how ''nobody'' did ''anything'' about it. '''Ever'''. And how ''nobody'' had ever ''acknowledged'' that anything like that had ever happened in Ireland. This elderly man appeared to be in his 70s and he was crying, and it was the most infuriating, heartbreaking and maddening thing you could ever see. EVER.
'''Middle East'''
* The Assyrians. When they defeated a nation (which tended to be nasty business, as they didn't have laws like we have stating that soldiers cannot plunder civilian homes or rape the women they find; that was just part of ancient warfare), they would take the defeated people to be slaves. But when they did that, the Assyrians led them on chains attached to hooks that went through the victims' noses or lips. This is even mentioned in TheBible.
** The monuments built by the Assyrian Kings in which they [[ForTheEvulz take great delight in describing the atrocities they had inflicted and boast of them to everyone]]. Some historians say that it is puffed up for propaganda reasons, but even the real thing must have been horrible enough.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wNicluzOT0 Christopher Hitchens]] on life in Abu Ghraib before Americans came along: "There was nothing in the realm of torture and humiliation that he didn't try. You can lookup up what Human Rights Watch (...) has produced about Iraq (...) and you'll read stuff that'll freeze you're blood; [[BrainBleach you won't be able to get it out of your mind]] what is was like to be a prisoner in Iraq under Saddam Hussein."
** Family members had to watch ''and applaud'' while you were being tortured, murdered or tortured and murdered. And then you had to pay for the ammunition.
* Libya is going through a horrific civil war. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymTOG8otlAY&feature=player_embedded This video]] taken during the Siege of Misurata shows the people turning to rebels as Gaddafi's men are slowly starving and killing ''everyone'' in the city.
** These [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1mw7rbckUA resent]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB1dnhhA-1s&feature=related videos]] have cleary proved that the so called "democratic revolutionaries" arn't so all white and pure themselves. As you see, once they won the Battle of Benghazi, they started to attack and kill completly innocent people on the street, claiming that they were supporters of Gaddafi without any form of evidence to back up their accusations. Hell, they didn't even gave them fair trials. Of course, the western media didn't show those videos, for whatever reason.
*** The Libyan civil war has ended, at least.
* The looming possibility of an Iranian nuclear bomb, if you live in {{Israel}}. Various tidbits of thought: "I should set a rendezvous point with my girlfriend in case suddenly the alarms go off one day so I can at least die with her, seeing as the cellular network is likely to crash within seconds". "I should look into whether there's anywhere within ten minutes' running time from here which could reasonably serve as nuclear shelter." "Ooh what if there was some great intelligence screw-up and suddenly the alarms go off NOW? What do I do with the remaining twelve-odd minutes of my life?". Fun.
** Alternatively, the looming possibility of an Israeli nuclear bomb if you live anywhere else in the Middle East.
** Israel has had them for years and only has them as a disincentive to attack them (like the United States and Soviet Union). That's a horrible reason to own a device that could kill millions, but it's not the same as owning it and wanting to use it to without provocation to bring on the end of the world and bring back the Twelfth Imam. That's the nontrivial difference between Israeli nukes and Iranian nukes.
*** If ''either'' side uses a nuke, the other one is going to as well. Whether the cloud of white-hot radioactive gases that vaporizes a man is Iranian or Israeli is really rather unimportant.
** Iran had one of its own, namely the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Iraq_war Iran-Iraq war]]. Imagine the First World War, with the added bonus of Iraqi Scuds. If "Project Babylon" was completed, then Tehran would be the crater formerly known as Tehran. Oh, I almost forgot about the mustard gas...
** Reading up on said Iran-Iraq War, I discovered a new word - ''basij''. The basij were Iran's human shields. Literally. Rather than combat training, they were given a set of plastic 'keys to heaven' and taught a number of inspiring songs and told that they were getting an instant pass into paradise. Then they marched out in rows as ''literal human shields'' for the more experienced Iranian infantry behind. TheOtherWiki 's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basij article]] says: ''The human wave tactic was implemented in the following way: The barely armed children and teenagers had to move continuously forward in perfectly straight rows. It did not matter whether they fell as canon fodder to enemy fire or detonated the mines with their bodies. The important thing was that the Basij continued to move forward over the torn and mutilated remains of their fallen comrades, going to their death in wave after wave. “They come toward our positions in huge hordes with their fists swinging,” an Iraqi officer complained in the summer of 1982. “You can shoot down the first wave and then the second. But at some point the corpses are piling up in front of you, and all you want to do is scream and throw away your weapon. Those are human beings, after all.”''
** Holy mother of misanthropy.. My first thought while reading this was "That sounds as close to zombies as you can possibly get in real life", but seriously, this is just inhumane. This is exactly the kind of stuff that makes me disgusted to be human. And we're ''all'' like this, supressed or not, we all carry the potential for such violence, we just have different breaking points at which it surfaces. I guess fanatics have it easy, believing they're doing "God's work" and all.. I wonder - how many idealists have actually seen things like this and remained such? Do love, art and strawberry ice cream really justify such acts? The older i get, the more i think "not"..
** It's quite possible to still be an idealist, despite knowing the worst humans have to offer. The simple way to think about it is that, while there are many atrocities being committed around the world today, on the whole, ItGetsBetter. Progress is staggered and slow, but definitely there. Hell, the fact that a vast, VAST majority of the world would be horrified by just reading about that tragedy says quite a lot of good things about humanity.
** There is a BitterSweetEnding to this though: after the Iran Iraq war Iran found itself running low on humans for some reason, so the government incentivized the bringing of new humans into the world. Those Iranian baby boomers are in their rebellious years at the moment and they will [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQrwBd6FUag likely by the ones who overthrow the theocracy that encouraged them into the world]].
* The aftermath of both Iraq wars, which, including the sanctions following the first one and radiation from [[DepletedPhlebotinumShells depleted uranium shell deposits]], resulting in over half a million children dead.
* I'm surprised you guys just decided to put WWI here, but how about the FUCKING ARMENIAN GENOCIDE?
** One and a half million people were murdered by the Young Turk government, in what is considered to be the first modern genocide and the template for the Holocaust (before the real fun started, the Armenians were not permitted to live opposite a Muslim household and were forced to wear special clothes to identify them as Christians - sound familiar?) To give an idea of what it was like, starving people were force-marched across the desert and gassed to death in caves - a fire would be lit outside to choke them with the fumes. Also, the Turks invented a horrible "game" where men on horseback would throw young women at swords. Even now, the Turkish government refuses to acknowledge this and the writer Orhan Parmuk was imprisoned just for ''mentioning'' it, whilst most people today are, at best only vaguely aware of one of the earliest and most apalling crimes of the twentieth century. The worst thing now is that some revisionist "historians" take a "blame-the-victim" attitude and even argue that it was just an "inter-ethnic conflict", a "tragedy" where many Turks were also killed in Armenian "rebellions" - which is like saying that the Holocaust came about because of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, and that we should really spare a thought for those poor little Nazis who were killed too...
*** According to Celal Bey, the former governor of Halep Province, a deputy of Konya explained him the situation and said to him Blood flowing instead of water in the river, and thousands of innocent children, blameless elderly, helpless women and strong youths were flowing towards death in this blood flow.
**** [[SarcasmMode It]] [[ItGotWorse gets better]]: Although it's not certain he said that, Adolph Hitler is quoted as saying allegedly included in a speech at Obersalzberg, 22 August 1939, "''Our strength consists in our speed and in our brutality. Genghis Khan led millions of women and children to slaughter, with premeditation and a happy heart. History sees in him solely the founder of a state. It's a matter of indifference to me what a weak western European civilization will say about me. I have issued the command, and I'll have anybody who utters but one word of criticism executed by a firing squad, that our war aim does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. Accordingly, I have placed my death's-head formation in readiness, for the present only in the East, with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space (Lebensraum) which we need. '''Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians'''?''"
* Enver Hoxha, late prime minister (as well as Comrade-Chairman-Prime Minister-Foreign-Minister-Minister of War-Commander-in-Chief of the People's Army - among other cabinet titles) of Albania, often used body doubles for fear of rightly-deserved assassination. One of them was a former dentist who was kidnapped from a rural area and forced to undergo plastic surgery to give him a more uncanny resemblance to the batshit insane dictator. Forced to leave his life behind, the man lived on pretending to be the prime minister, hoping he would get shot. What's truly frightening is this could have happened to anyone (or at least anyone who bore some resemblance to the face of Enver Hoxha). Now in addition to starvation, abuse and persecution, people of totalitarian regimes have to worry that some force sent by their insane leader will kidnap them, perform {{Body Horror}} surgery on their faces which literally take away their physical identity, and live on as a double despised by the country's citizens with little or no recourse other than a bullet to the head from some protestor or revolutionary group.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse Abu Ghraib.]] The way our government essentially turned a blind eye to it and allowed the disgusting dehumanization to occur in the prison, including [[spoiler: making hooded prisoners masturbate, raping them with batons, murdering them, jumping on a prisoner's already shot leg so it wouldn't heal, urinating on them, POURING PHOSPHORIC ACID ON THEM]] among many other things. WARNING: link contains NSFW pictures.
'''WWII'''
* The Holocaust. Just... the Holocaust. Force your way past your "it's just history" shields for a moment and ''really think'' about the fact that it ''actually happened.'' Everyone who was killed was ''real.'' Everyone doing the killing was ''real.''
** The Whole World War II, really. Estimated around 50 to 78 million people dead, and well over half of them were civilians. Some countries lost approximately up to 14% of their total population at the time, not to mention it's the only war where nuclear weapons have been deployed in actual combat - we can only hope we don't repeat this sad, revolting piece of world history ever again.
** Visiting the Auschwitz camp museum in Poland is enough to force anyone past his shields for a moment. There is a long corridor, which looks absolutely normal for a while, but then you realize that there are glass walls on both sides and you are SURROUNDED BY GIANT PILES OF SHOES THAT ONCE BELONGED TO PEOPLE KILLED IN GRUESOME WAYS.
** They had drawings made on ''human skin'' and paper flatteners made of reduced heads. Yesh.
** [[Tropers/{{Praetyre}} I]] managed to sit through a one hour documentary by Sidney Bernstein featuring footage of liberated death camps and detailed descriptions of the conveyor belts used to funnel the corpses into mass graves. But even I had to look away at parts of an amateur documentary on Unit 731.
** I heard a story from one of my teachers about his grandfather who was a Jew in the Holocaust. The SS Troopers liked to play a game. They had put the Jews in straight line in front of a pit (where they had thrown all the corpses) and saw how many they could kill with a single bullet. Luckily for his grandfather, he was the last person in this line. So he decided to play dead and fall to the pit. He stayed '''3 DAYS''' there '''buried''' in all those dead corpses before the SS had gone away and he could get out and run from there.
** I was under the "just history" camp until after a bath I caught a documentary on German Television detailing the things happening there and showing real footage of the camps. The most shocking thing was that there was also footage of the different leaders of these camps talking about how it was not their fault. To think that someone can just deny this is disgusting.
** Think things got better after liberation? They did...eventually. Things were still terrible. The liberators had no idea what they were going to find. The people died faster, in huge numbers, because they couldn't handle the richness of the food they were given. Note: The food was ordinary soldier's fare, nothing fancy. They couldn't handle ordinary food that was probably actually poorer in quality than most normal food.
*** Most of them were just normal doctors pre-war, and were in no way physically prepared for what they were about to deal with, let alone mentally. My next door neighbour as a kid was one of the first doctors in Bergen-Belson. Despite being a member of the Dutch Resistance, and being tortured by the NAZIs herself, she said this was the worst thing she had ever experienced. That, despite all their best intentions, they were still responsible for killing Jews in Bergen-Belson.
** This isn't even going into the conspirators in the Ukraine and Lithuania. Lets just say they were an EvilArmy on the level of the Japanese then, keeping detailed records of how many Jews they killed. It was so bad that ThoseWackyNazis were [[EvenEvilHasStandards horrified]] and surprised at the sheer...efficiency of the populaces. In Lithuania, the collaborationist government ''proudly'' produced records and said "I can whole heartedly say that the Jewish Problem in Lithuania has been solved. There are no more jews.''
** It's far worse when you're related to people who went through it. My grandparents are Holocaust survivors (my grandma survived Auschwitz), and it's best not to think about what they went through because it's absolutely soul-crushing.
** Which is why when [[{{Timber}} I]] had to write a paper on the Holocaust for a scholarship contest, I wrote about Denmark's role. Seriously, look into it sometime. It's probably the single greatest CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming in history... ''And yet it came from one of history's most horrific events.'' YinYangBomb indeed.
*** [[http://www.auschwitz.dk/denmark.htm This]] is a pretty good website to see what happened... [[TearJerker Good luck getting through that with a straight face]].
** I read a book on Hitler wherein the prologue brought up the question of who was more "evil", Hitler or Stalin (can't remember if Mao was mentioned). Sheer numbers are one thing, the ''mentality'' and ''dehumanization'' in the minds of all three is another. Let's call all three the nadir of humanity. As the book put it, this question is "demonology", not historiography.
*** That is, of course, if you subscribe to the view that the Holocaust perpetrated by the Axis Powers in Europe does not include people who were killed in the German invasion of the USSR. Many people do consider it as a Holocaust, since it was launched for similar reasons of racial and ideological hatred, or at the very least an act of genocide. Within postwar borders, that includes more than 26 million people, primarily civilian deaths, raising that number to upwards of ~46 million people. And that was just lower-end estimates of one country....the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties_of_the_Soviet_Union numbers go higher]].
*** I actually mentioned the comparisons between the Third Reich and Soviet Union under Stalin in the [[FromNobodyToNightmareDiscussion the discussion page]] for FromNobodyToNightmare. I believe it is reasonable to reproduce this portion from my original post:
--->And when it comes to claims about the casualties caused by governments acting in the name of communism, it seems to be common among some people to deliberately use differing standards when evaluating these governments and comparing them to other governments. One of the most common examples seems to be using relatively inclusive criteria when discussing the casualties caused by Stalin's regime while concentrating solely on the Holocaust when discussing the deaths caused by the Third Reich. For example, the estimation about 100 million casualties in the Black Book of Communism also includes the people, who died due to the famines caused by policies of Mao (accounting for dozens of millions of casualties in the 100 million figure). So, if somebody insists on using the estimates from the Black Book of Communism when evaluating and discussing the ideology and policies of those regimes, it can be said that he/she should apply the very same standards to other countries and governments if he/she wants to act in intellectually honest manner.
--->Also, in the case it needs to be said: I have no illusions about those regimes and I think that their crimes need to be brought to light. However, my motives for that are grounded in the larger dedication for human rights and I have certain contempt for people, who try to use those actions as excuse to act as apologists for the crimes of the Western countries and their allies. I understood the principle of opposing human rights violations regardless of the perpetrator when I was child. How should I react to adults failing to grasp such an elementary concept?
** The Allies returning Soviet POW's to Russia is something that seems to be ignored despite them being sent back to face certain death. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betrayal_of_the_Cossacks#Western_Allied_motivations]]
** And to compound the creepy, the perpetrators of these thought that their victims were ''fundamentally sub-human.''
*** A lot of other people have had similar beliefs. Including your ancestors.
**** Unless your ancestors were so entrenched in the lowest parts of the caste system that they believed ''themselves'' subhuman... which is really almost as saddening.
*** Related: Hitler was [[VillainWithGoodPublicity a great speaker]]. [[Tropers.{{Lilfut}} I]] have read some of his speeches. Without historical context, I would have believed Hitler. '''''HITLER CONVINCED PEOPLE THAT WHAT HE WAS DOING WAS RIGHT.'''''
**** A similar thing happened when [[Tropers/BrendanRizzo I]] read something by Mussolini... and I hate fascism.
***** On a similar note, it's important to keep in mind that the United States and most countries of Western Europe had eugenic laws on their books, and many intellectuals and politicians, (some of whom are still respected today) advocated varying levels of "race hygiene".
*** You actually find in that some measure of comfort--it allows me to think of the torturers as horrifically deluded rather than inhumanly evil. It's something, at least.
*** That's why KidsAreCruel and TeensAreMonsters in terms of bullying. They're only good towards the people they ''consider'' human - If you're fat, thin, gay, have red hair, have autism or AspergersSyndrome, have a short leg, have freckles, etc...you're ''considered subhuman'' by the bullies - and when Adults join in, it's hopeless. For that matter, most AdultsAreUseless against bullying. I felt terrible seeing a kid with mid-functioning Aspergers and red-hair go into school...because for twelve years, he was going to be ''tortured''. And the adults would do '''''nothing'''''. And this wasn't a ''public school'' - Private school kids can be ''just as bad'' if not ''even worse''. Sure enough, I was right - three days later, he went screaming to his parents about the things that were being said to him at school and [[CassandraTruth nobody believed him]].
** And then there's Josef Mengele... pretty much the definition of ItGotWorse if you were picked to be one of his experiments. Here's one example, spoilered in case you don't want to read it (the idea nearly made me vomit): [[spoiler:"I remember one set of twins in particular: Guido and Ina, aged about four. One day, Mengele took them away. When they returned, they were in a terrible state: they had been sewn together, back to back, like Siamese twins. Their wounds were infected and oozing pus. They screamed day and night. Then their parents - I remember the mother's name was Stella - managed to get some morphine and they killed the children in order to end their suffering."]]
--->His attitude to twins..as gentle as a father.... .. Twin children frequently called him "Uncle Pepi", and other twins told how Mengele would bring them sweets and invite them for a ride in his car, which turned out to be "a little drive with Uncle Pepi, to the gas chamber"
** [[http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2614/3899581331_303be0e36b_o.png Funny, talking about Gandhi and the Nazis...]]
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_massacre The Rape of Nanking]]. Absolutely terrifying, especially considering most people don't even know about it.[[hottip:*:It is know by some as The Forgotten Holocaust]]
** A PetTheDog and CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming, however, for ThoseWackyNazis. The German Government was appalled at the incident, while Nazi Party member John Rabe established the Nanking Safety Zone, saving somewhere between 250 and 300'000 Nanking residents during the massacre.
** Let's elaborate on this. Up to 100,000-500,000 (depending on who you're getting your figures from) were killed while 20,000-80,000 women aged from ''eight to eighty'' were raped. Pregnant women were stabbed in the stomach with bayonets so their ''intestines and the fetus'' spilled out usually while ''they were still alive''. And the worst thing was that soldiers could come into your house at ''any time'' to torture, rape and kill your children (even infants at the age of ''two'' weren't spared), force you to commit incest by raping your family members, and torch your house for sport.
** Civilian women were tricked into thinking they could get employment with the so-called benevolent invaders, and when they reported for work, they were stripped, imprisoned, and repeatedly raped until death.
** The reporter who wrote 'The Rape of Nanking' eventually committed suicide, with recognition that some of what caused her depression was the material she had to research for that book (and another on war crimes).
** The total ''civilian'' deaths of this event were more than twice the total number of American Civil War soldiers killed in action, and only slightly less than the total deaths of the war. That's right, over the course of ''[[OmnicidalManiac six weeks]]'', an [[EvilArmy army]] managed to wipe out [[AxCrazy as many civilians]] ''as a five-year war''.
** Not just in Nanking, but all over China, you have tales of gang-rape, killing-for-sport, random mutilations ... it goes on. There are Japanese newspapers that can be found that report literal headcounts for famous Japanese soldiers having their fun in conquered cities by competing with one another for number of civilian heads collected. Newspapers published on the home front and intended to inspire nationalism, by the way.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_massacre#Debate_in_Japan What's worse is that the Japanese government has denied any of this ever happened.]] One prime minster apologized in 1995, but then the Japanese government went and denied it again in 2007. Ugh.
** Live human targets for bayonet practice.
** The primary [[http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/PTO/IMTFE/IMTFE-8.html resource]] for the Nanking Massacre article in TheOtherWiki catalogues every atrocity committed. According to military records, towards the end of the Pacific War, the Allied dead weren't just mutiliated--they were [[ImAHumanitarian eaten]]. To quote:
-->''At times this consumption of the flesh of their enemies was made into something of a festive occasion at officers' quarters. Even officers of the rank of General and Rear-Admiral took part. Flesh of murdered prisoners or soup made from such flesh was served at meals of Japanese below the rank of officers. The evidence indicates that this cannibalism occurred when there was other food available. That is to say, on such occasions, this horrible practice was indulged in from choice and not of necessity.''
** Yes, you read that correctly: '''they ate people''' '''[[ForTheLulz for fun.]]'''
** Oh, and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 Unit 731]]. Let's not forget the Japanese bioweapons division, which was at least as bad as what the Germans got up to and possibly worse. Infection of human prisoners with nasty diseases, vivisection, live human targets for guns and grenades...
** What was particularly disturbing for me was that Japanese troops in the Russo-Japanese war of 1905 and WWI [[AffablyEvil generally treated their prisoners well and with a reasonable amount of respect.]] They were nothing like the blood-crazed horde that descended on China twenty or thirty years later.
*** Should be noted that Japan and China have had bad blood going between them for thousands of years, likely being the reason for the above. Not that it justifies it, obviously.
** Related to the Japanese military in WWII was the Bataan Death March in the Philippines. Hundreds of Allied soldiers, specifically American and Filipino, were killed for fun. POW's, who were forced to march from one place to another in a massive line would be pulled out of line and shot dead for the smallest of reasons, like sneezing, looking in the wrong direction, or just no reason at all. Japanese soldiers in passing jeeps would stick their bayonets out into the line and cut the throats of dozens of prisoners just because. The prisoners were mutilated and decapitated, then left out to rot just because they thought it would be fun.
* Similar to the above, the Russian invasion of Prussia and Germany in general, saw the systematic rape of every female 8-80. The Soviet leadership even encouraged it as a form of revenge for the acts Germans had committed in Russia. Read Max Hastings 'Armageddon' if you want to be sickened by what humanity is capable of.
* The battle of Okinawa. Imagine all of the horrors of the previous battles of America's island hopping campaign and then imagine the scale of them turned to eleven. The mistreatment of the native population by the Japanese, the Americans burning caves often holding civilians and the massive scale of Japanese Kamikaze attacks. And then we get into the mass suicides. Hundreds of people, either believing themselves to be subject to mass rape and massacres at the hands of the victorious American forces or even forced to commit suicide by the Japanese, threw themselves off of cliffs, among other ways. Sad thing is that Japanese propaganda was somewhat correct, some estimates say that [[{{Eagleland}} American]] [[SociopathicSoldier troops]] committed over 10,000 rapes during the three month campaign.
* Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If you were lucky, you disappeared in a white flash without ever knowing what happened. If you were unlucky, you lived for a very short time as your body slowly (and literally) fell apart from radiation poisoning.
** Now imagine that you were in Hiroshima on the day of the bombing. You survive, suffering serious burns before heading to Nagasaki -- your home town. You arrive, only to be hit by the second bomb. It wasn't until [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7963581.stm March 2009]] that it was found that Tsutomu Yamaguchi, had '''[[CrowningMomentOfAwesome survived being hit by the nuclear bomb twice]]'''. He was reportedly three kilometers away from the epicenter of both blasts. Although he sustained injuries, he lived to be 93 years old.
*** Talk about {{Badass Normal}}.
*** See also, ''BarefootGen''. This is an autobiographical manga series (made into 2 animes and a live-action film) about the Hiroshima bombing, and the immediate aftermath. (I don't know what upset me more about that: the graphic detail the events are described in, or the fact that it really happened.)
**** Extremely rare is the HONF that can reduce me to tears, and Barefoot Gen just did it. Holy shit. Please tell me they didn't really die like that.
***** They died much, much faster that was shown in the anime, if that helps.
** When I was little, I lived in Hiroshima for a year and my parents told me nothing of this, I guess because to not make me feel a certain way initially while living in the city. Now imagine about 5 years later in school being taught about this all for the first time, being told about how all this destruction occurred because of a bomb. Hey, doesn't that name sound familiar? It sounds stupid but the description was so damn awful that I didn't believe they were telling the truth ''until I saw actual footage of the damage occuring on television when I was about 14, when I just sat there in awe with my mouth wide open''; sleepless nights ensued. Of course, this comes to mind because only a few days ago a friend innocently showed me a clip from the movie ''BarefootGen'' and I literally ''did not sleep at all that night''. It really hits hard when you realize you probably know people personally who were just kids/babies that were going through that. The silver lining in all this talk though is that the city certainly made an excellent recovery and if you had no knowledge walking in like I was, you'd think it was pretty normal in every respect.
*** Arguably, Japan's economic recovery and subequent becoming one of the richest countries on Earth was at least partially stimulated by the nuclear bombs, perhaps even stimulating Japan's notoriety for technological advancement.
**** No one will argue that atomic weapons are an evil, devistating force. But this troper would like to remind everyone of America's only alternative to those two bombs: Operation Downfall; the amphibious landing and invasion of the four Japanese home islands. According to TheOtherWiki, the planners for the invasion had an upward prediction of "Half a million US dead." and five to ten MILLION Japanese dead. The Japanese were planning on fighting to the last man, woman and child. In order to prepare for the invasion, the United States filled out an order for 500,000 Purple Hearts; medals awarded to solders wounded on the field of battle. We have STILL not exhausted this supply. It is downright chilling that Harry Truman had this decision to make: Obliterate two cities filled with civilians, or the systematic destruction of an entire country. A country, need I remind you, that is now one of the leaders in technology today.
**** Even so, why drop the bomb on a city populated by noncombatants? Military areas were suggested as possible detonation zones. Moreover, there's a lot of evidence to suggest that the Japanese were planning to surrender (especially because of the firebombing mentioned below.) Many people involved with the project have suggested that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki occurred to make an example of exactly how powerful America had become, in order to stymy a possible Russian threat. Even worse, in documentaries such as The Day after Trinity, several scientists said that the bomb had been dropped not because it was necessary, but because it had been built and the social institutions were in place. Think about that: 90,000 people killed for the sake of bureaucracy.
***** Since that wouldn't have impacted the Japanese enough. Nagasaki and Hiroshima were both military targets, as well as industrial heartlands of Japan. Not only that, there wasn't talk of Japan surrendering even due to the Firebombings. There were orders for everyone to fight till the last man, woman and child. The shock of the bombs dropped showed that the situation for Japan was FINALLY hopeless and their tries at the {{Determinator}} were just going to be for naught.
***** Some records say the primary target for the second bombing was Kyoto (a larger city) due to its military importance. This plan was abandoned because of high cloud coverage over the city and instead they fell to the secondary target, Nagasaki. Kyoto is now one of the largest cities in Japan, rivaling Tokyo.
* Most people focus on the atomic bombing and ignore the firebombing of cities during WWII, which killed several times the number of civilians. Under the direction of Churchill and [[MeaningfulName Arthur "Bomber" Harris]], the Allies figured out how to be re-enact what happened to them at Coventry much more efficiently. Pound a dense city center with high explosive, then drop as many incendiaries as you can within a very short time, and you create a self-feeding, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firestorm unquenchable inferno]] with temperatures comparable to a blast furnace. The fire sucks all oxygen out of the vicinity, so people drop like dolls or are even sucked into the flames by the high winds. What's left of a bustling city was compared by Kurt Vonnegut to a moonscape with "corpse mines" of groups huddled in underground air shelters, untouched by flame but dead from suffocation. Horrifically effective in Japan, where firefighting equipment was woefully inadequate and houses were made of wood and paper. The firebombing of Tokyo ''alone'' killed more than the nuclear strikes at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
** Ye gods, the firebombings. My dad has a book about it that I read in sixth grade. The atomic bombings are less than three percent of the urban area destroyed by the bombings. The other 97 percent was burned. Brick school buildings became ovens as people sought shelter from the flames, packed to the windows and doors with cooked bodies. Pools and rivers filled with bodies, completely displacing the water. Temperatures exceeding 1800 degrees, so hot that the B-29s dropping the bombs had to do it at 20000 feet instead of 2 or 3 thousand because of the updrafts. The bomb crews kept running out of nausea medication because the CREWS COULD SMELL THE PEOPLE THEY WERE BURNING ALIVE. It was reportedly a sickly sweet smell.
*** Yes, Nazi's were (are?) evil, we know. Yet, the allied bombing of Dresden shows how horrific the 'good' side of the conflict can be. Why was the bombing of this city so bad? It was not necessary. The allied forces effectively had control of the skies and the German war machine was being routed. The only reason they bombed the city? To show how much progress the allies had made into German held territory, and how far the allied war machine could reach. Dresden is ''still'' in the process of being rebuild, since Soviet occupation did little to heal the scarred city.
** Actually, several manmade firestorms occurred in World War II. The first one was caused by the Nazis in Stalingrad, but then there was Hamburg, Kassel, Braunschweig, Darmstadt, etc. The process was widely used by the Nazis against England (for instance, the Coventry Blitz), but it wasn't until, Stalingrad and the RAF attacks on Germany that the attack concentrations reached a level to cause an actual firestorm. In a number of the cases, these did not occur because they actually were looking to produce a "tornado of fire", but because they were looking for high-impact bombing - the physics were an unintended side effect. It is unclear, and a [[YourMileageMayVary matter of debate]], when the physics was understood sufficiently and when the firestorms were being started "on purpose".
* Speaking of Unit 731. We'll get the traditional stuff out the way first. Vivisection without anesthesia, involving removing organs and other parts from people while they were alive and awake (liver, lungs, brains, also fetuses), but paralyzed with diseases... oh and [[ItGotWorse some of these alive victims were children.]] [[ForScience In their own twisted mind, it was for a good]] [[KnightTemplar reason]].
** And the humans that were used as target practice for flame throwers, bombs, and a variety of chemical weapons... and germ releasing bombs. That's GrandTheftAuto in real life. Those characters don't seem so fiction now, do they?
** [[AndIMustScream Being buried alive]] ForTheEvulz. [[AxCrazy Charming people.]]
** This is from the article on [[PlayingWithSyringes the WWII Japanese Unit 731]]. The tone conveys a sense of inhumanity and chilling calmness when dealing with unbelievably horrifying topics–like the Wiki/SCPFoundation, but ''in real life''.
*** Want more? Just read the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_deaths Unusual Deaths]] page on [[TheOtherWiki The Other Wiki]]
*** This can be a byproduct of academic or "objective" accounts that sometimes feels horrifying. Nothing makes me feel more ill at times than taking notes on atrocities like this as part of my work, or hearing a tutor discuss it in detail, only to then joke with them about some trivial aspect of college life after the formal tutorial is over. To study something so horrifying, then to go on living life as though nothing had happened. Even though we have to think of other things simply to go on living life and to make progress, that feeling of shame and disgust that the intense suffering of these people (and other beings) is discussed calmly by those who have never had to deal with such things directly, and can even become removed from context and used in intellectual pissing contests by some historians, can be terrible.
*** Hours of cruising the SCP Foundation's HONF page and this is what finally gets me. Read this last night and it seems my brain took it as literal nightmare fuel, because that's exactly what I dreamt of.
** Oh, the commander of that unit: Got off scot-free because [=MacArthur=] would rather have him hand over the results of his "research" than face the consequences of being a monster.
*** This is the most disturbing aspect of Unit 731: What the people involved did, as horrific as it was, was done very, very well. They took copious notes, recorded everything, and analyzed their findings with immense care. Their actions were vile, their methods revolting, but to refuse to use the information gathered would have cost even more lives. Frankly, [=MacArthur=] made the right decision. In contrast, the "medical data" gained in the so-called "experiments" in the German camps was worthless; except for the hypothermia experiments, the concentration camp "experiments" were nothing but exercises in cruelty with a thin veneer of pseudo-scientific justification.
* [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Trinity_Test_Fireball_16ms.jpg This]] is the Trinity explosion, 0.016 seconds after detonation. The fireball is about 200 meters, or 600 feet wide. ''Trees may be seen as black objects in the foreground for comparison.'' Yeah.
** [[http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/7483/scrubbingbomb.jpg Here's]] a bit of NightmareRetardant for everybody, courtesy of EvoluderViral.
* The Holodomor -- the Ukrainian Holocaust -- is a good example. Stalin deliberately engineered a famine that killed millions of Ukrainians. Some of them resorted to cannibalism -- there are literally thousands of cases of people who, driven by starvation, actually killed people in order to eat them. Not infrequently, in fact, parents ate their own children's flesh. One particularly chilling case documents an orphanage in which the children, driven by the extremes of hunger, devoured the smallest child alive, tearing off strips of his flesh to eat. Once they began, the child himself ripped off strips of his own flesh in order to sate his hunger.
** Just Eastern Europe during WWII. Between Hitler's Holocaust (disproportionately hit CEE as the corridor from Poland and Hungary onward through Lithuania, Ukraine and Belarus into Russia was the center of European Jewish culture) and plan to erradicate the largest ethnic group in Europe (Slavs), and Stalin's orchestrated famines, Gulags and suppression of its minorities made the war period particularly brutal. While some citizens took one side in these regions, many fought against all the invaders.
* Everyone knows about how evil ThoseWackyNazis were, and I'm never going to dispute that. However, we do tend to put too much focus on the atrocities that they committed and let others fly under the radar. Let me tell you a story that can be read in full in the book 'Keen As Mustard'. In World War II, Britain had a great fear of being gassed again, like they were in World War I. To this end, they decided to do tests. Setting up shop in Northern Australia, they asked for volunteers among the Australian soldiers who had already served overseas. They were not informed of what the test would entail, simply that if they chose to go through with it, they would not have to serve another period overseas. They also asked for volunteer secretaries who could write shorthand. Situating each secretary at a window to a gas chamber, the British scientists then subjected the Australian volunteers to mustard gas, while the secretaries wrote down what they observed. Mustard gas is perhaps one of the most horrible ways to die; it blisters the skin, the eyes, the air tracts...everything. At the time this experiment was conducted, Australia and Britain had both ratified the Geneva convention, whereas America and Japan had not. Further, the scientists involved in this experimentation got away with no punitive measures. If, in Britain today, you might meet an old man who was -is- on the same caliber as Josef Mengele. If you would like to see an interview with this 'gentleman' and the effects of the mustard gas on the Australian volunteers, find the documentary title 'Keen As Mustard'. Further, because these were scientists who did the video recording, the clip of the gassing is in ''colour''.
** A somewhat similar experiment, but which lasted for 40 years: The Tuskegee Study. The government took 400 black men infected with syphillis and kept them untreated from 1932 to 1972, even after effective cures were discovered and made the original experiment unnecessary. Imagine having a potentially deadly, highly painful disease, and being told by {{The Government}} that they were under orders to ''kill you'' if you sought treatment.
* The [[ImperialJapan Japanese]] [[http://ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=47 invasion]], and subsequent occupation of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_occupation_of_Malaya,_North_Borneo_and_Sarawak Malaya]] and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_occupation_of_Singapore Singapore]]. The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kempeitai Kempeitai]] (Japanese military police) were ruthless in their attempts to weed out members of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayan_Peoples%27_Anti-Japanese_Army the]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_136 resistance]], arresting and [[ColdBloodedTorture torturing]] people to get information. Informants spied on the general populace and reported suspicious people to the Japanese. It was not uncommon for innocent people to be reported on because they had offended the informant in the past. Chinese men suspected of being anti-Japanese were massacred en-masse in the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sook_Ching_massacre Sook-Ching Massacre]]. People were [[DisproportionateRetribution executed for petty crimes]] like stealing, even though food was tightly rationed. Suffice to say, it wasn't a fun time to be alive in.
* Being a soldier, sailor, tanker or what have you in WW2 was no barrel of laughs. But many people seem to think the air war was something removed, perhaps even a romantic notion of chivalry between pilots. But more than likely, your life would end as you spiral out of control in a metal cylinder, on fire and spurting oil everywhere until you either hit the ground or water and were pulverized. That's assuming you were not just blown out of the air completely. Theoretically, you could jump out. But this required the plane to be level and you to pull the cockpit door open, climb out and jump. And if you were too low to the ground, it would not even matter. Bombers had the worst of it. They had to fly straight and level regardless of what was going on around them, relying totally on the guns that they had festooned about their aircraft (you could count on fighter escorts for maybe the first half of the trip before the Mustang was introduced), carrying several tons of explosives and fuel which for any number of reasons could have exploded and literally left you a black smear in the sky. If you had to ditch, it was almost assured that at least two of you would not get out in time or at all, which was an optimistic statistic. And you would likely spend the rest of the war in a prison camp, assuming the soldiers who found you did not kill you out of revenge for the bombings they had been suffering through. Flack exploded all around them, with the potential to rip the plane and it's occupants inside to pieces. And then there were the enemy fighters. Really, the turrets were practically a comfort, because they required the enemy planes to get in close, and the gunners would have seconds to draw a lead on the target and fire. Speaking of turrets, one of the worst was the underbelly ball-turret of a B-17. No heat, cramped conditions and the only way out was a small hatch in the top, which could only be opened if the turret was perfectly positioned with the belly of the plane. If the hydraulics went out for any reason, the landing gear nor the turret could be moved. Assuming the plane even survived it, a belly-landing would be required. The ball turret was not designed to retract, so the gunner would be left only to watch and brace as the weight of the plane crushed him into paste. The turret was also completely exposed to enemy fire. The poem, ''"The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner"'' tells this best. Bonus points for being based on a real incident where the author's crew-mate's turret was hit by exploding cannon rounds from a fighter.
-->From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
-->And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
-->Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
-->I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters
-->When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
'''Other Atrocities Not Limited to Locale'''
* The Stanley Milgram experiment explains ''a lot'' on this page. This was an experiment designed to test obedience to authority. Actors would play the roles as "students" being tested and the subjects were the "teachers" asking questions. For every wrong answer, the "teacher" would be asked to push a button administiring a shock to the subject with each shock getting progressively worse. Eventually, the shocks would reach fatal voltage at 450 volts. In almost all of the experiments, over half of the subjects were actually willing to potentially kill the "students". Fortunately, this had been staged and no one was really hurt, [[FridgeHorror but the subjects administiring the shocks didn't know it was fake until the end of the experiment]] And these weren't {{Sociopath}}s, they were every day people. Let that sink in...
** It gets better, Milgram repeated the experiment in different situations to further explore how authority works, such as having the experiment done in a shoddier-looking building (Lower compliance rate) or having someone tell the subjects that they would take responsibility if anything were to go wrong (Much higher compliance). And in all of them, the actor getting "shocked" would change his replies at certain voltage intervals, going from mild pain to pleading and eventually, to nothing at all at about 300v or so. The actor was silent after previously begging them to stop and some of the people kept "shocking" him further due to his lack of reply, despite the very real probability that the actor had died.
** Wanna know what makes it worse? In 2010, a French TV channel decided to film a show/documentary to see if another source of authority would produce different results. Whereas the first Milgram experiment used scientists and a laboratory as the setting for "authority", the French version placed the test subjects inside of a fake TV game show, complete with an actor playing the test subject, actors playing the in-studio audience, and an actress playing the host. As with the first experiment, the test subjects would be told to send potentially-lethal shocks to someone if they failed to answer a question. The results? Not only did the majority administer "shocks" of up to 480 volts, but it turned out '''said majority was larger than in the original experiment'''. Larger by about 20%. That's right: the most potent source of authority, to which 8 people out of 10 defer, is fucking '''TELEVISION'''. The network claimed the goal was to warn people about the dangers of RealityTV, but that claimed was drowned out by the French public going "Holy crap, are we THAT dumb?"
** The experiment was repeated by Sheridan and King, with the idea that the shocks may have been 'administered' because people may have figured out the trick. So they decided to repeat the experiment with a real live puppy that the "teachers" could see. The results actually ended up going up, with most men and all of women shocking the puppy until the end of the experiment, even though some of the women openly wept.
** In fact, the experiment has been repeated with different scenarios. The good news is that if your friends stand up to the authority, you are much more likely to. The bad news is if your friends don't, you are significantly less likely to stand up to the authority, even when compared to you without any friends!
* Recorded human history goes back about seven thousand years. How many of those years do you think have passed without some kind of war? How many years of true, global peace have we had in all our combined lifetimes? [[spoiler: Twenty-nine. That's less than 0.5% of recorded human history.]] [[SarcasmMode Great job, humanity.]]
** Sadly a majority of intelligent life we meet out there will be like this as well.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide Any]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide kind]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_genocide of]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_genocide genocide]] whatsoever. Being hunted down and hacked to death by your own neighbors, some of whom you might have lived with your entire life, trying desperately to avoid being massacred and knowing that the international community would do ''absolutely nothing'' to help stop the killing.
* Check out [[http://www.somethingawful.com/d/comedy-goldmine/most-evil-companies.php this]] lovely list of major corporations--historical and current!--that unabashedly engaged in horrifying atrocities. But in terms of sheer inhumanity, nothing tops Congo Free State. Belgium's King Leopold treated Zaire as his own personal playground and subjected the natives to awful tortures and maimings if they failed to comply with their forced servitude. Zaire is still a violent hellhole, and with such a nightmarish legacy it's not hard to understand why: Leopold was so insanely greedy that his armed thugs had to report in a human hand for every bullet they shot, to make sure they weren't wasting ammunition. But since these soldiers were given only meager rations, they would often chop up random people's hands ''in advance'' so they could expend bullets to hunt game in the bush. This is stuff that would make fucking [[HarryPotter Voldemort]] blush.
** No, but he'd be impressed.
* Hate crimes (aka bias-motivated crimes). Somebody hurting and/or murdering you, simply because of your race, sexual orientation, gender etc. This is especially troubling to people in groups who are often victims.
* The various methods of biological and chemical warfare. As part of Basic Training for the [[YanksWithTanks US Military]], many of the recruits (at least in the Army and Air Force) have to be trained in the use of their chemical warfare gear, a big, hot, heavy suit designed to prevent them from being exposed to a wide variety of chemicals and diseases that could be used as weapons by unscrupulous enemies. After being trained in how to don the suit, the recruits walk into a gas chamber which is then filled with CS gas while they are briefed on what symptoms they will encounter if their gear is not working properly, or if they did not don it correctly. [[TrainingFromHell then they are ordered to remove their masks, take a deep breath]], and [[CasualDangerDialogue report with their name and rank: "Sir, Trainee So-and-So, Reports as ordered!"]]. Your skin burns, your eyes burn, your nose runs uncontrollably, trying to eject the poison. Your lungs and throat burn and close up, making it almost impossible to breath. [[TheStoic If you do not panic]], you are allowed to walk out the door and go outside so you can get the stuff out of your system and wash up. [[hottip:*: Guys: after being exposed to CS gas, always remember to wash your hands ''before'' using the restroom. [[GroinAttack Or else]].]] Now consider that CS gas is considered a non-lethal gas, better known as Tear Gas. What the ''actual'' biological or chemical weapons will do to you is much worse.
** Nerve toxins send your body into uncontrollable spasms, resulting in the victim soiling themselves in the most undignified way possible before suffocating because they no longer control their own lungs. Blister agents make every exposed area break out in horribly painful blisters, including your skin, [[EyeScream eyes]], and ''lungs''. Blood agents block your blood's ability to transfer oxygen to your body, causing you to suffocate, even if you are taking deep, gasping, desperate breaths of air.
*** Nerve gas has to be the worst. It kills you ''slowly'', giving you enough time to vomit, lose control of your bowels, cry uncontrollably, and writhe on the ground in agony before the poison finally targets your diaphragm and kills you (still horribly). And if you get ''any'' on you at all, especially if it's VX, you're basically screwed.
*** There is a silver lining here though, if you are hit with nerve toxin. You can take a shot of Atropine to counter the effects of the toxin. Of course, one of the things Atropine can do is give you a ''heart attack'' (if you watch medical dramas a lot, they use it to give a patient's heart a jump start if it stops beating, which is TruthInTelevision). ''All this assumes you have enough heads up before an attack to have your chemical gear and atropine injectors with you.''
*** To counteract the effects of atropinization, we carry around autoinjectors of 2-PAM Chloride as well as the atropine. Probably the most stressful thing about gas attacks is that you can't breathe until you have a seal with your mask. And we're trained to get that thing on in 9 seconds... which almost nobody can actually do. Also we never carry around the masks. And even with all this, the projected casualty rate of a gas attack is ungodly high, something like 90 percent.
* Eugenics. The idea of applying selective breeding to humans. This so-called "science" that attracted numerous white supremacists who believed that they could purify the Nordic race with some perversion of science. Of course, this idea really caught on with ThoseWackyNazis, but the worst part about eugenics was, it started in America. Though some of its early proponents supported execution as a means to eliminate the unwanted members of the population, they felt that America was not ready for it, but shifted to other methods that were more insidious, but as, if not more disturbing than the idea of mass executions: forced sterilizations, mostly done on women, sometimes for things as trivial as having an abnormally large clitoris. The Nazis got their ideas from America, Hitler mentions American eugenics in Mein Kampf. Fortunately, the ideas of eugenics lost support when evidence of what the Nazis had really been up to behind the scenes was uncovered. However, many states in America had eugenics laws on the books for decades after World War II. These included laws that obligated citizens to report anyone they suspected to be "feeble-minded," who would then be institutionalized by order of the state, even if their family refused. Many men, women, and children were sterilized under these laws. It's especially horrifying when parents have it done to their disabled children and people think it's acceptable just because of the child's disability.
* The Aboriginal Australian Stolen Generation. Children were taken from their parents if they were considered white enough to pass in civilised white society. They were adopted out or put into homes and orphanges, stripped of their cultural identity and most never saw their family again for years and years, if ever. And that's not the worst of it. The government department in Western Australia who were charge of 'looking after' the Aboriginal people was under the department of fisheries and the environment. Also in WA 'Full blooded' (aka: rather dark skinned) Aboriginals were transported forcibly from their homes into Moore River, which was effectively a detainment camp. They were not allowed to buy or be in possession of alcohol, they need governmental permission to marry, to move house, get a job. All Aboriginal children were considered to be under the guardianship of the Chief Protector of Aboriginals rather than their actual parents. WhatMeasureIsANonHuman All of this stuff is still in living memory. One of the worst things is the vast majority of white Australians had no idea what was really going on and that hasn't changed much today. Aboriginals have something like half the expected lifespan of the rest of the country, they are far more likely to suffer from psychological disorders, have lower literacy rates and the rest of Australia just does not care. Or worse, they think that they deserve it and 'need to get over the Stolen Generation and just get a job'. The lucky country indeed...
* The thought of being arrested in a foreign country, thousands of miles from home. You do not know your legal rights and there is a pretty good chance they are not as good as the ones you had back home.
* The fact that free market advocates and apologists denounce cartels, monopolies, corruption, disregard for the environment, etc. as "distortions" of the free market is SEVERE nightmare fuel for me. The sheer, blind loyalty these people hold to this ideology and the way they worship it as a religion prevents them from seeing its obvious and deadly flaws, and the countless horrible consequences of those flaws. To say the pollution, the cartels, the cutthroat competition, the murders, the sabotages, the abuse of people, and MANY other horrors are "distortions" of the free market is just as awful as, if not more so than, saying that those awful dictatorships and horrible practices in the Soviet Union, North Korea, Cuba, and other nations are not "real" communism. To have self-interest, profit, and competition as not only major cultural values but also as the main power sources for your economy is a GREAT recipe for COMPLETE DISASTER. The fact that SO many people arrogantly, stupidly, and enthusiastically disregard this reality and worship this system of people fighting each other for survival as well as every advantage (of any kind) they can get as a beacon of progress and civility has got to be one of the most insane and horrifying things I know about. They will not look for or listen to ANY type of major alternatives, even thought humanity has so much technological and other potential and can really make a better world if they worked for it, because they are so locked into this train of thought. PLEASE don't delete this; I really need people to understand where I'm coming from.
** The problem then arises: What ''is'' the solution. As far as I can see, the best thing is a system similar to that of Northern Europe's, but it just seems impossible in this day in age to come up with a reasonable - and easily achievable - economic model. Actually, that in itself is rather scary... it seems like there should be better ways, but we've yet to find a proper one.
** OP here. Part of the reason we can't come up with ANY solutions is because people are too busy drowning in the effects of our current system or are otherwise just too unwilling to listen and talk about it. It's like Ghandi and Martin Luther King said: any change will have to come from people... and by people I mean "an overwhelming tidal wave of all humans everywhere"...
* Conscription. Or, as its better known: The Draft. For years peaceful men (and in some cases, even women) have been forced to fight and die in war against their will. But that's over and done with right? It isn't ever coming back right? Several countries carry out this inhumane practice even today... including the United States. Basically, if you're a woman and you turn 18... happy birthday, enjoy your adult life. If you're a man and you turn 18? You have 30 days to register with the selective service. Failure to do so is a felony and can result in a $250,000 fine AND up to 5 years in prison. In addition most states refuse collage aid and driver's licenses to men who don't sign up. But hey, its not like were on the verge of WWlll, so no big deal right? Well, let's say the draft is reinstated. Basically, you have 3 options: fight and possibly die in a foreign land at a young age, enjoy a long prison stay with rapists and murder's for being concerned about your well being, or become a C.O. and do community service to assist the war effort. To those of you who don't think that last option sounds so bad, you might want to avoid looking up what some men had to go through on TheOtherWiki. Regardless of what option you picked, you skill get taken away from your family and forced to basically become a slave. The worst part? Your friends and family might fully support this. Imagine dying at age 18 before ever even starting your life (All those years of High School? Wasted. That girl you planned to marry and have kids with? She'll find someone else. At least you were able to enjoy your first beer right? No, the legal drinking age is 21.) and basically having everyone you care about brush it off as an [[MenAreTheExpendableGender "acceptable loss"]] to keep your country safe. [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere Oh, and the young men out there who think they can just run away to Canada?]] That options been closed off, you'll be deported back to the U.S. as soon as you get there. Happy 18 birthday...
** However, considering that conscripts are sometimes the only defence force a nation has, this may be a JustifiedTrope in certain parts of the world. It still sucks, though.
*** Wouldn't it being a JustifiedTrope would make it even worse? "Sorry kid, but you have to die a pointless death or suffer a gruesome injury because we need you to. Deal with it." Sadly, that isn't the worst thing about the draft. The worst thing is that is simply doesn't work, and people are still having trouble seeing it. Indeed, there are several men who don't bother to register and the government can't do anything about it except deny them a few things because the draft is so politically unacceptible. How is that scary? Imagion all the millions of dollars the government has poured into the draft that could have gone to better causes. We might very well have had the cure for cancer by now if Uncle Sam wasn't so insistant on throwing so much of it away by having half the population sign up for something that will most likely never even happen.
**** "...will most likely never even happen." Let me raise the nightmare fuel even higher. Russian espionage in the U.S. is around the Cold War levels. China is growing as a military power, is arguably the strongest nation in the world, and is at odds with many western countries (i.e. many other industrialized nations). The Middle East is in turmoil, not only with the current Arab Spring revolts, but with the Arabic hatred towards Israel threatening to escalate into a war (which larger nations would inevitably become involved in, as the rich oil supplies in the region are too important to allow them to have a regional conflict). Any of these scenarios threaten to throw a major war into our midst (maybe not WWIII but definitely similar to the Korean War or Vietnam), and suddenly the idea of being conscripted into service doesn't sound so far off, does it?
* If you are autistic, hearing someone verbally justify or excuse someone who has murdered or even talked about wanting to murder an autistic child is definitely horrifying, especially if they know what you are. They are totally okay with the idea of someone like you being murdered and would probably do it to you for almost any reason if they had the chance.
** This isn't just limited to autism. The fact that there are people out there who would gladly kill you (or horribly torture you and then kill you) because of your race/religion/sexual orientation/deviation from what they consider "acceptable" is horrifying on a personal and philosophical level.
* Land mines. In many parts of the world mines are still a very real and terrifying threat to daily life. Imagine people being killed and loosing limbs on a daily basis simply trying to go about their lives.
* Weapons of Mass Destruction. Biological warfare, chemical warfare, nukes. All delivered via bomb or missile. That nations, leaders and their generals ''want'' these weapons and keep ''trying'' to build/acquire them. Instead of say, spending money on medical care or schools or using diplomacy. No lets build a large missile and arm it with a virus that makes SARS look like a case of the sniffles! Even worse, the know-how to make bio-weapons is available to any nation with a good biology program. Making chemical and biological weapons are easier and the tools ''cheaper'' too.
** Nukes at least are a useful deterrent for conventional warfare. If it wasn't for nukes...the Cold War would have gone hot in a second.
[[/folder]]
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Changed line(s) 1,3 (click to see context) from:
British. Politics nerd. Wannabe writer.
I like people, places and things.
I like people, places and things.
to:
British. Politics nerd. Wannabe writer.
soon-to-be-published, major-award-winning author.
I like people, places andthings.things.
I'm a horror writer so the following is unofficial and in place only for my own future reference.
[[folder: Real Life Nightmare Fuel]]
You're probably thinking that after reading about all that NightmareFuel, you're safe from it because you don't live in Fiction Land, right? ''[[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou Wrong!]]''
'''Note:''' This page is ''not'' for those easily scared by books or movies. If you happen to be one of those people, please go [[http://www.givesmehope.com/ here]] instead. Thank you and have a nice day.
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[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder: Other]]
* [[http://www2.rwu.edu/studentlife/studentservices/counselingcenter/sexualassault/rapemyths.htm According to a survey]], 33% of college aged men would commit rape if they could get away with it, and 25% of those surveyed believed that rape was acceptable if "the woman asks the man out; or the man pays for the date; or the woman goes back to the man's room after the date."
* The Westboro Baptist Church. It's an honest to [[spoiler:not their]] God group of [[MisanthropeSupreme misanthrope supremes]] who imagine ''the nigh-entirety of humanity'' in HELL. And that's not even getting into Fred Phelps, who'd probably be one of the most terrifying supervillains ever in a comic book universe.
** For an example of how frightening these people are [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBV2hnPxESw check out this "parody" of "We Are The World"]]. It's either {{High Octane Nightmare Fuel}} or {{Narm}}, but what makes this so scary is that they are [[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer actually serious]].
*** The "church" in question is a very small group with a very high profile, which is itself rather disturbing. They are not recognized as a valid church by any other religious organization anywhere in the world. Canada, which has very strong laws on both religious freedom and hate speech, refuses to allow Fred Phelps across the border.
* The [[EmergencyBroadcast Emergency Alert System]] test sequences.
** I used to hide under the coffee table when those came on TV. *shiver*
** I try to block them out on numerous occasions.
** The new ones aren't any better, either: instead of the sine-wave test tone, now it's that awful buzzing and the very, very badly synthesized voice reading the "This is a test of the Emergency Alert System" message.
** In addition to being afraid of Emergency Broadcast System tests, I was very afraid of the multicolored-bars TV "test pattern" thing that would display whenever a TV station was having broadcast issues. It's not the actual test pattern that was scary, it was the loud high-pitched beeping that accompanied it.
** The horrid "three beeps" severe weather alerts played on local TV, complete with a massive, bright red, flashing "TORNADO WARNING - TAKE COVER IMMEDIATELY" message across the bottom of the screen. To be yanked from Sesame Street into Howling Winds of Death once or twice a month in the summer is very unpleasant. Perhaps that is the whole point.
* Whatever your local name for the old Civil Defence air-raid sirens is - hurricane siren, disaster siren, tornado siren, etc. Imagine standing on the front porch as a little kid during a particularly severe thunderstorm, in which the sky turned green, the wind abruptly quit and the whole world went dead silent for about five seconds - and then the sirens fired up. This is used in the SilentHill series to great effect.
* Factology believes, according to Wikipedia, "some aborted [[FetusTerrible fetuses]] survive their abortion to live in the sewers, where they are being gathered and organized [[TakeOverTheWorld to take over the world]]."
* To all those in college - you think your roommate is bad? Read [[http://www.wyseguys.com/shittyroomate.asp this possibly true story]], and you will be glad the worst thing your roommate does is snore.
** Half of the student body at [=DigiPen=] has one-upped that guy (up through The Black Time) in one way or another (except without the drugs).
** More roommate horror [[http://gawker.com/roommate-horror-stories/ here]]. Worst one is the woman who walked in on her college roommate having sex doggy-style with her ''biological father''. The [[http://gawker.com/5879703/these-are-the-worlds-worst-roommate-stories?comment=46476429#comments winner]] was actually someone who ''killed and skinned a squirrel'' and left it on her housemate's bed.
*** The former also contains a bit of FridgeHorror, as several readers have noted that the roommate's poor hygiene and behavioral problems match the symptoms of sexual abuse. Even the person who submitted the story admits that if she had made the connection at the time, she would have reported what she had seen.
* Have you ever heard someone die? 9-1-1 calls which end tragically...
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxLlwsC5hWs Here's one]]. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox3gmJvQAA0 And here's another]]. The former has a HellIsThatNoise sound made from the woman's screams at the beginning, and the latter has a VERY EFFECTIVE ScareChord.
* Memorial or Post-Mortem Photography: A "mostly" extinct practice where family members photograph themselves and their dead in such positions, (like opening the eyes, moving the mouth, setting the body correctly, and dressing it up) to make their relatives look 'almost' like they're still alive. [[http://www.paulfrecker.com/collections.cfm?=library&typeID=1&ShowStart=81&ShowEnd=88&myPage=11 Most of these photos are babies!!]]
** Apparently, it's still a common practice nowadays that when a baby passes away, one of the nurses cleans the body, dresses it up, and wraps it in a blanket for the parents to hold and take a picture with. One sad advantage of doing this with a deceased child is that the baby is no longer covered in tubes and needles to keep it alive, so it appears as it couldn't in life. And it seems rather gruesome, yes, but it seems many people need that picture, that memory, to help them through the grieving process. It's almost as if to show themselves that their baby was alive and real, even if it couldn't stay that way for very long.
* [[http://www.nowilaymedowntosleep.org/ This site]]. Think of it this way, most of those babies are stillborn. The parents NEVER would have gotten a single picture if it weren't for those. They used to be tossed in the trash. Now the parents get to hold their precious child. Much like when you hold a dying friend...
* Cracked has done it again: [[http://www.cracked.com/article_17379_6-real-islands-way-more-terrifying-than-one-on-lost.html 6 Real, Terrifying Islands.]] One features a snake population of around five ''per square meter''. Another has the charred bones from 160,000 plague victims ''still'' wash up on the shores. And those are near the bottom of the list.
* [[http://www.themorningstarr.co.uk/2009/07/17/baby-eaten-by-rats/ "Baby Eaten By Rats"]]. [[http://www.themorningstarr.co.uk/2009/07/26/autopsy-reveals-rats-did-kill-baby/ She wasn't dead when they started.]]
* Ladies and gentlemen, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_in_the_Box_(Philadelphia) Boy in the Box]], a cold case from the 1950's where the body of a small boy was found in a box in the woods. The worst part? They still to this day haven't caught the person who did it.
* [[http://cakeheadlovesevil.wordpress.com/2009/04/18/island-of-the-dolls The Island of the Dolls]] in Mexico.
* In 2003, a man named Hitoshi Nikaidoh walked inside an elevator and had his shoulders pinned by the elevator doors due to faulty wiring. Despite struggling to pull himself inside, the elevator kept ascending until the ceiling sliced off most of his head. His left ear, lower lip, teeth and jaw were still attached to his body, which fell to the bottom of the elevator shaft, as the elevator continued moving upward. A surgery resident, who was in the elevator at the time, witnessed the gruesome spectacle and spent more than an hour trapped in the elevator with Hitoshi's head.
* Cracked again! This article for the [[http://www.cracked.com/article_18381_the-5-creepiest-unexplained-broadcasts.html 5 Creepiest Unexplained Broadcasts]]
* "Chat", "That's Life" and similar magazines sold at supermarket checkouts. In the words of Charlie Brooker, they look at first glance like they're full of word searches and knitting patterns. In reality they're full of the kind of BodyHorror and {{Gorn}} that rotten.com is built on, alongside more mundane adult fears, with the odd "kids say the funniest things" feature for added MoodWhiplash goodness.
** For those who have no idea of what these magazines are...well, [[http://www.storieswanted.com/userimages/HPThatslife.jpg here's]] [[http://www.letssubscribe.com/images/products/7781.jpg for]] [[http://img.dooyoo.co.uk/GB_EN/orig/0/6/3/6/1/636108.jpg reference]]. ''"Life! Death! Prizes!"'' Actual tagline.
*** And the attractive woman on the cover? She won't be seen in the magazine, has no bearing on any articles whatsoever. Eye candy to get you into the back of the van, as it were.
** African tabloid examples take this [[BeyondTheImpossible up to eleven]], and even more frightening is that even MORE people take them as the truth than [[DeepSouth in the US!]] [[http://redpepper.co.ug/welcome/ The Red Pepper]] is the most notorious. The engrish and hilarious slang seems charming (referring recently to one outed minister as the "notorious bum driller"), until you see how many articles are about [[BuryYourGays outing and advocating the murder of local notable gays]] among other things. Never has the term 'frighteningly funny' been so apt. You know Adebesi from Oz? Not only is that the paper's target demographic but that's ALSO THEIR REPORTING TEAM. That's right, as amusing as this paper might seem, it regularly gets families murdered by local religious fanatics.
* Disused refrigerators with rotten stuff still in them, as seen on YouTube. Some have been sitting around for 20 years or more.
** Speaking of that, there have been many cases of dead people going unnoticed for a decade or more. There's actually an article on snopes.com, if you're brave enough to look it up.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWdgAMYjYSs The max headroom Pirating Incident]]. Not the act itself, but the fact that to this day, no one really has the foggiest idea what was going on, who he was or why he was doing it.
** There is also the fact that the man who did it is still at large... he could be anywhere, he could even be on this website.
* The Church of the Innocents in Paris has an... unusual history. It was one of the first churches in France that allowed actual burials (6th century) and became the largest and most popular cemetery by the 13th century. By the 15th century it was so crowded that the residents of older graves (many were in mass graves by this point) had to be moved to ossuaries. When the Black Death hit, newer corpses had to be moved into the ossuaries, leaving behind fatty residues in the dirt. By the late 17th century the cemetery was essentially a mass of greasy residue that could no longer decompose. Oh yes: a pile of leftovers from thousands of human corpses that could ''no longer decay''. And that's not the worst part- in 1780 the wall of a cellar bordering the cemetery collapsed under the weight of the whole mess. One can only hope that no one was in the cellar at the time, or there'd be an unpleasant combination of the primal fears of drowning and necrophobia. Oh, and it was this incident that led to the creation of the famous Catacombs of Paris.
* Train engineers who are forced to watch as their trains mow down anyone unlucky enough to get themselves on the tracks (in this case a young teen who, while listening to her iPod, was killed by a deadly silent Amtrak train while on her trek to school). Because freight trains going 60 mph take about a mile to stop before the emergency brake is applied, the train engineers are forced to watch it happen. When they go through post-traumatic stress counselling, the one thing they talk about is that they see the people's eyes right before they hit them. A lot of those engineers don't return to work.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF7488WHcok Robert the doll]] If you thought regular old dolls were creepy, how about a haunted one?
* Cracked once again aims to keep us all up at night. Here are the [[http://www.cracked.com/article_18459_the-5-creepiest-unsolved-crimes-nobody-can-explain.html 5 Creepiest Unsolved Crimes Nobody Can Explain.]]
* Walking around a ''pitch-black'' room with only a flashlight, fearing and believing that there is something or someone that will be standing in or pass in front of your flashlight beam.
* [[http://www.carhire.org/blog/scariest-airport-runways Matekane Air Strip in Lesotho (Number 13 on list)]] is built on the side of a mountain, on a patch of horizontal real estate too small to accommodate a standard-length runway. How do they manage to get up to speed for takeoff, you ask? They use the [[{{Discworld}} Granny Weatherwax]] method, which is to say ''[[PrimalFear they throw the plane off a cliff]]''.
* Roadkill. Especially the real gory, mutilated sort, [[ItGotWorse even better]] when baking in the sun for a few days, or when the guts have partially burst out and been scattered around the carcass. Who needs a gory horror movie or video game when there's plenty of gruesome carnage right along your local road, perhaps on the commute to work or school.
** And the fact that sometimes ''you can no longer tell what it was before it was killed'' is unsettling.
* Stay up until the wee hours of the morning (say, about 1:00 - 2:00 in the morning), in a room with very little light in it, and read as many missing persons' cases from [[http://www.charleyproject.org/ this site]] as possible. Start with the earliest ones. 1945 should be good. Also, while you're at it, go to [[http://www.doenetwork.org/ this other website]] and peruse their "Unidentified Victims" index. Start off with the first entry there, the Caledonia Jane Doe discovered in 1979. Pleasant dreams.
** The forum [[http://www.websleuths.com/ websleuths]]; notably the "unidentified" pages.
* It's common for schools to hold assemblies which provide kids with safety and emergency information. In the U.S., some schools have taken a "scared straight" approach to this. Famously, one school had chosen a few students to be absent all on the same day. On that day, with the selected kids nowhere in sight, the staff announced an accident that killed those children. Predictably, some of the students found this to be extremely traumatic and needed psychological care after the caper was revealed. Furthermore, some schools have held assemblies in which students are cast as fire, accident or other victims while their classmates are ushered around the scenes by teachers describing the terrible situations being portrayed. The latter usually occurs with some fore-knowledge on the part of the students so that they know it's fake, but these assemblies are prone to extremity in the young actors' make-up.
** There was a school that hired an actor to run into a school and start "shooting" a fake gun (sounded real) between classes. Think only school was stupid enough to do it? Of course you're wrong!
** Winnipeg, Manitoba did the same thing in 1942, calling it ''If Day''. "Nazis" (citizens in costume) took over Winnipeg, "arresting" the mayor and premier and turning one section of the city into a concentration camp. They also went around beating people up. They would go into schools and ask for the Jewish students to stand up, then they would take them away. For someone who wasn't in on it, especially the schoolkids, that would be absolutely terrifying. It was a ploy to try to get people involved in the war effort.
* Bullying. The thoughts of how many AdultsAreUseless - Do you guys know what it's like to have been beaten up, or see someone else beaten up, only to tell an adult because someone is ''literally'' in danger, only to be told off or [[CassandraTruth not believed]]? The adults could literally just turn their head ''two centimeters'' to the right and see a kid with paint splattered all over him and a black eye, yet they don't see anything. And just imagine how many target(s) in western countries are being bullied for whatever reason, only for adults to ''encourage'' it with their own inaction?
** Let's not forget the disproportionate retribution. The minute the victim has had enough and decides to stand up to the bully, sometimes violently, the victim is the one that gets the severe punishment despite being the one that was pushed around in the first place.
** The climatic moment of DangerousMinds is based on cases such as these.
* Burglars. The thought of creepy FacelessGoons walking around your house and stealing things at random doesn't terrify you at all?
* The {{GIFT}}. To sum up several quotes from the quotes section, coarse people won't say what they ''really'' think to your face - because they aren't free from consequences, meaning they're within punching or kicking range. They may act nice to you in real life, but they have an image to maintain. They may not say something like "BarackObama deserves to be institutionalized" or "All of Israel should just be nuked" if you asked them in real life, but on the internet, of course they'd say that - that's what they ''really'' think. And you know what is even scarier? Imagining what'd happen if, even ''if'' you could attach a face to someone, what if this was like ''RealLife''? People would probably just murder children so they wouldn't have a threat to their power, steal ''everything'', just go on a shooting spree with a complete disregard for who they're killing, and just flat-out bastardy cranked UpToEleven.
--> '''OscarWilde:''' "Give a man a mask, and he will tell you the truth."
** {{Troll}}s and cyberbullies in general. Picture this, an adult troll who uses the internet as a personal haven for their inner bastardry intentionally harasses someone, that someone being a teenager with low-self esteem that he doesn't know, by teasing him, calling him names, and ''encouraging'' him to commit suicide. ''[[DudeNotFunny All the while thinking that this is funny]]!''
*** Here's [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2036935/Natasha-MacBryde-death-Facebook-internet-troll-Sean-Duffy-jailed.html?ito=feeds-newsxml an example]] that fits the exact description above. You might take some consolation in the fact that this man was arrested, however. Seems people are becoming more willing to prosecute the internet version of threats/harassment/etc.
*** Milder, but still disturbing and proceeding from the same mentality, are griefers, people who play online games for the sole purpose of disrupting other people's games. They derive enjoyment from ruining other people's fun, and cannot be reasoned with because no normal appeal, whether to compassion or self-interest, will work. They have no compassion for other players, and are already getting exactly what they want.
* Check out [[http://photographybytainatimar.blogspot.com/2010/05/world-famous-photography-throughout.html these]] well-known photographs. Now, read the stories behind the pictures; in many of these cases, the photographer gazed upon unmitigated human suffering and '''''did absolutely nothing to help'''''. All for the sake of capturing "the perfect photograph". Welcome to the world of photojournalism.
** The sad thing about the Omayra Sanchez photograph was that nothing could ''be'' done. The girl was trapped in that water for ''three days'' before she died, because it would be impossible to free her without amputating her legs, which would have made her bleed to death. A water pump was sent to the village... which arrived broken. Basically, the reporters stayed with her so she wouldn't die alone, as most of her family members were already dead.
** Having read the above, imagine YOU are a photographer dealing with such things. That link shows a photograph by [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Carter Kevin Carter]]. Carter was haunted by nightmares and visions of death after he took that picture of the starving girl being stalked by the vulture. He was also heavily criticized by people who didn't understand how little he could have intervened. Eventually, Carter took his own life.
* You don't have to be a vegetarian, vegan, or even value animal life very much to be outraged or disgusted at [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBbYUdvGWk0 this]]. What kind of things the animals have to go through in slaughterhouses is bad enough, actually imagining yourself as one of these animals is probably one of the most terrifying and depressing thing that you can think of.
** You are now imagining you are an animal in a slaughterhouse.... In Australia. Next to a forest of stinging trees. Likely the leases for the land were ridiculously cheap because of their 'neighbors.' Not only is a man-made travesty dicking with you, but a NATURAL one the turns your body to FIRE every time there's a slight breeze. For those that don't know, [[http://www.blueswami.com/stinging_trees.html read this link]] and then [[TearJerker think of what those poor, poor cows went through]] before they get anywhere NEAR a blade.
* Tar Pits. Getting stuck in them is one of the worst ways to die. Unlike quicksand which sucks you in, death by tar pit is slow. The only way you can die is if you starve (humans can survive for about two weeks without food), dehydration (lack of water), or if you somehow commit suicide. Thankfully, if you have a cell phone you could call for help, unlike the poor wild animals that became trapped thousands of years ago. Those animals either starved, became dehydrated, or were killed by a predator. Hundreds of skeletons have been found in the La Brea Tar Pits in California.
* Working in a [[SteelMill steel mill]]. There are a thousand ways to die in one - and they are all nasty. [[EverythingTryingToKillYou White-hot bubbling molten metal, fiery furnaces, electric arcs, poisonous gases, eerie (and certainly dangerous) machinery, heavy objects falling from great heights, horrible noise -- you name it]].
** The book Ganz Unten ("Lowest of the Low") by Günther Wallraff describes first-hand accounts on working in one. He describes of the working conditions of Turkish immigrant workers in the post-WWII West German steel industry. [[LavaPit One of the workers stumbled at work and fell in the blast furnace]]. What makes it FridgeHorror is that you realize it is ''West'' Germany. How about working in an ''East'' German [[NightmarishFactory hell factory]]...?
*** There was an accident in a chemical plant in Leuna, Eastern Germany. About a dozen workers were cooked to death by superheated steam when a door fell shut behind them.
*** An episode of ''UnsolvedMysteries'' had the story of Dave Bocks, a nuclear power plant worker who disappeared mysteriously. One day, his car keys and some bone fragments were found in one of the plant's furnaces. Worse, it was concluded that ''somebody threw him in there''.
** An unfortunate individual was locked in some oven-thing over a weekend. When the next work day rolled around, the oven was automatically turned on.
** It doesn't even need to be a traditionally-scary type of factory like a steel mill. There was a case of two workers in an [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1443939.stm innocuous bread factory]], who were sent inside an oven to do some maintenance work. They were sent in on a conveyer belt, like the loaves. It was switched off, but no one had ensured it had actually ''cooled down''- and there was no way to reverse the conveyer.
* Think 9/11 was bad when you were just sitting there watching the attacks on TV? In some places, '''the power went out.''' Of course, it had nothing to do with terrorists, but you can bet more than a few people were thinking they were all going to die.
* Mines. Not the explosive kind, the underground ones. Claustrophobic, dark, potentially filled with spiders, and could collapse if not safe. You'd need to worry about the ground crushing you against the ceiling in a landslide than about the roof collapsing. Needless to say, [[AndIMustScream surviving that would be less desirable than dying.]] Crawling along in the dark, bones probably broken, exit probably shut... that's the stuff HighOctaneNightmareFuel is made of... if you could move at all.
** Don't forget how many of them have portions that are [[KillItWithFire CONSTANTLY ON FIRE]] to boot.
* Radio signals. Find a weird spike producing noises that'll haunt your nightmares for years to come? Well good luck finding what in the name of Jimmi Hendrix was making it, unless you've got some good equipment. And who knows? [[spoiler: It may not even be from Earth.]]
* When you put in earphones while listening to music, you'll find you'll be hearing back vocals and certain instruments (that you couldn't hear before) [[ScareChord in one ear.]] One song that abuses this is "the Greatest Show Unearthed" by [[CreatureFeature Creature Feature.]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ9hkRsN5Yg&feature=autoplay&list=WL3E5D31E6C59460E9&index=1&playnext=14 Remember, it only works with earphones.]]
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cosmonauts Lost Cosmonauts]] theory. Yuri Gargarin was not the first man in space. He was the first to ''[[GoneHorriblyWrong come]] [[SuicideMission back]] [[{{Unperson}} alive]]''....
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident Dyatlov Pass incident.]] Nine hikers in the Ural mountains left their camp for no apparent reason and were later found dead. While this isn't that creepy on its own, five of the hikers had a variety of weird injuries (one was ''missing her tongue''), and four had elevated levels of radiation on their clothing. And no one knows what happened because no one who was present survived. We're probably better off not knowing the whole story.
* While looking up pictures of the Franklin Expedition, you might find a mugshot of one of the dead explorers they dug up from Beechy Island named John Torrington. Go look him up. You have been warned.
* [[BuriedAlive Premature burial.]] It's [[http://www.snopes.com/horrors/gruesome/buried.asp real]], it's been happening as long as humans have walked this planet, and in some parts of the world it ''still happens''.
** More to the point, buried alive after being presumed DEAD, not by a landslide or anything natural like that. Read up on what started the idea of vampires or their forebearers strigoi existing some time...
* Halloween can be SeriousBusiness for [[http://i.imgur.com/UCErT.jpg some people]]. Although, for [[NightmareFetishist some]] that picture qualifies as a [[MomentOfAwesome Crowning Moment of Awesome]].
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl9y3SIPt7o This video of abuse captured on tape]] is disturbing enough in it's own right. But there are a few things special to this case that make it pure HighOctaneNightmareFuel:
** 1. Her father, being a judge, was a well respected member of the community, therefore [[CassandraTruth no one would believe]] this girl as to what kind of a person he really is behind closed doors. [[FridgeHorror It makes you wonder what other well respected people are really like.]] [[ParanoiaFuel Including those you know (or think you know).]]
** 2. [[{{GIFT}} The comments.]] There are many who see nothing wrong with what he did to her and some even applauding him. Others claiming that they recieved [[ItGotWorse worse than that,]] while still thinking that it did them good. [[http://www.theblaze.com/stories/extremely-disturbing-video-claims-to-show-texas-judge-savagely-whipping-daughter-with-belt/ here]] is an example of one of the articles and the comments. Some of these people even go as far to blame this girl for the abuse she suffered through, [[InsaneTrollLogic claiming that she set him up just to provoke a beating and was faking her cries.]] The fact that people can see obvious abuse and still find ways to blame the victim is absolutely horrifying.
** 3. He was a family law judge who dealt with child abuse cases of all things. He had denounced the testimonies of children, claiming they were fantasizers, [[HarsherInHindsight no we know why.]]
** 4. The daughter in question had cerebral palsy and almost all sources on the abuse scandal don't bother to mention it and/or gloss over it. Given the examples of people who ''[[OffingTheOffspring murdered]]'' [[OffingTheOffspring their disabled children]] and have had people defend their actions, it's pretty much safe to say that somehow, the abuse of a disabled person matters less than that of a nondisabled person in the exact same situation in they eyes of the writers of the sources that omitted this fact.
* They have [[CureYourGays straight camps]]. Places people are sent, told their way of live is wrong, and taught how to lie about who they are so they are accepted by society. Parents actually send their children to these places for being curious.
** What happened to institutionalized GLBT individuals in years past. That's not FridgeHorror, that is HighOctaneNightmareFuel of the highest order and seriously [[UsefulNotes/{{Trigger}} triggering]] to many people -- but think of how many people were sent to these things, not ''just'' out of their parents and caretakers' bigotry, but because ''that was the reigning medical opinion''. It wasn't just a bunch of fundamentalist nuts turning over their gay, transgender and gender-nonconforming kids so they could expect grandkids. These people were scared... and they thought they were doing the right thing. Their pastors, their doctors and teachers and trusted family friends thought they were doing the right thing too. Subjecting their children and loved ones to ''hellish'' treatment to "fix" them, turning them over into the hands of people who would beat them, rape them, starve them and mistreat them until they were "[[CameBackWrong well]]" or [[BuryYourGays dead]] or [[AndIMustScream physically compromised]] -- [[HeroicBSOD most certainly traumatized]] -- [[FateWorseThanDeath for life]]. To make them normal. Safe, healthy, sane, good. Someone you loved might have done that to you.
* Book banning controversies. Sounds geeky in text but they can get freakin' ''brutal''. For example there was this giant controversy in Panama City about a book (I think it was ''I Am the Cheese'') that people wanted removed from the shelves. When a group of teachers and an IntrepidReporter tried to defend the book, how do they get repaid? By receiving threatening phonecalls, death threats, letterbombs, and one of them almost getting her house burned down. Worse still, [[TheFundamentalist the people contending this book]] ''[[CassandraTruth accused them of lying, or even doing these horrible things to themselves to gain sympathy]]''. And to think, all of this trouble is over a ''book''. Thank God the author of the book set the record straight or [[FridgeHorror who knows what could have happened]]...
** These accusations of lying are textbook example of denialism. Imagine that kind of logic: Jews are evil, The Holocaust did not happen and they deserved it anwyay... you know the drill.
* Spontaneous Human Combustion. Imagine one minute you're enjoying life, then out of the freaking blue you're engulfed in a burning fire without warning and will likely burn to death without even knowing what hit you.
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAMfCG6nn1w ADHD friendly example]].
* Not as horrifying as some things here but... [[http://i.imgur.com/dcEI5.jpg]] this. A girl in a wheelchair is STABBED by a "friend". With a FORK.
* You know TheExorcismOfEmilyRose was loosely based on a true story, right? [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr-IdHU3A5M Here is ACTUAL AUDIO of the exorcism session it was based on]]. Just don't make the mistake of watching it before bed or while suffering emotional problems...
* Cracked are really good at these! Most commenters agree that of [[http://www.cracked.com/article_19705_the-5-most-spectacular-landscapes-earth-that-murder-you.html The 5 Most Spectacular Landscapes on Earth (That Murder You)]], the creepiest one is #3, the Bolton Strid. You'll never see forest streams the same way again.
* Do a Google Image search on "trypophobia." You know what? Don't. You've probably had enough NightmareFuel for one day.
-----
You've done it! You've made it through all these pages of mind-numbing horror. What more can be said? As you go about your day and try not to break down, try to remember to do one thing: [[LifeOfBrian Always look on the bright side of life...]]
[[SweetDreamsFuel But you all probably need]] [[Heartwarming/RealLife these links.]] [[http://www.cuteroulette.com And this one for good measure.]]
[[/folder]]
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[[folder: RLNF Accidents and General Body Horror]]
* The Nikki Catsouras case. How would you like to lose any loved one, never mind your own child, and then two weeks later recieve an email from a complete stranger with a picture showing [[AdultFear YOUR OWN CHILD'S MANGLED REMAINS??]] Worse, the photos were leaked by members of the ''California Highway Patrol.''
* Gore websites. While they will not be linked here due to FamilyFriendly policy, they feature violent and painful deaths and injuries, often to cater to people's fetishes.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_ulcer Jungle Rot]], otherwise known as a Tropical Ulcer. An infected scratch in the jungle, and your entire body starts to erode.
* There's a ton of outer space horrors that come in mind. Two more notable are pressurization failure (e.g., a hole in your space suit) and life support failure.
* In ''AmericasBestDanceCrew'', the crew the Ringmasters. They were already grotesque to begin with, their gimmick being unsightly flexibility, but their challenge during Britney Spears week was to create the illusion of gigantic performers. So what did they do? They wore hoodies and somehow came up with [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ringmasters.JPG these monstrosities.]] Or perhaps [[http://www.mtv.com/videos/americas-best-dance-crew-season-3-ep-3-britney-challenge/1603283/playlist.jhtml seeing them in motion will have a stronger effect]] (the fifth section, about 30 minutes in)? (And by the way, their song was "[[CircusOfFear Circus]]."
* Charla Nash. The victim of a chimpanzee attack. [[SchmuckBait Good god, ]]'''''[[SchmuckBait do not ]]'''''[[SchmuckBait look up photos from Google of her face from her appearance on Oprah. As a matter of fact, it's not advisable that you look up any article about her appearance on Oprah, considering that that article might inadvertently have photos of her face]]. Absolutely horrifying. The lady's arms were ''literally'' ripped and pulled off, her eyes, eyelids as well as her lips... she looks almost like Pale Man from ''PansLabyrinth'', except more horrifying in that she actually has a huge, bloody hole in the middle of her face.
* The "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin#Diving_bell_accident Byford Dolphin diving bell accident]]". Just the description about what happened to the bodies (including [[spoiler:gas bubbles [[EyeScream forming in the eye tissue]]]]) is enough to cause shivers. Sure, the victims probably died instantly and painlessly, but can you imagine having to clean up or autopsy one of these corpses? The people in charge of that must have been scarred for life.
** Subsequent investigation by forensic pathologists determined that diver D4, being exposed to the highest pressure gradient, exploded with violence due to the rapid and massive expansion of internal gases. All of his thoracic and abdominal organs, and even his thoracic spine, were ejected, as were all his limbs. [...] Chunks of his body were found scattered about the rig.
* There was a story about a girl in India whose hair was caught in a machine which ended up separating her face from her head. They then showed you both the girl with her musculature exposed, and [[http://health.discovery.com/centers/plasticsurgery/facetransplant/gallery/face2_h.jpg the face, in two pieces, resting on the plastic bag the girl's mother brought it in.]]
* William Harvey. A very important 17th century scientist, who made his biological discoveries in horrifying ways. Some of his highlights include performing unanaesthetised dissections on live animals, and draining all of the blood from most of a person's vessels into one vein, making that one vein swell up like a balloon.
* You want to teach kids not to smoke cigarettes? Have them visit with someone who's had a laryngectomy.
* Spontaneous Human Combustion. It's highly unsettling to think that one day you could burn to death from the inside out for ''no apparent reason'', with nothing left but a big black spot, a pile of burnt oily mess and bone, and maybe a leg or two sticking out. Crematoria use furnaces of up to 1000°C to burn human bodies - but in cases of SHC, only materials above and next to what's left of you will be burned. Images of victims' charred remains can be found, but having a few gallons of BrainBleach handy would be highly advisable if you plan to search for them. There are more than enough [[http://anomalyinfo.com/articles/sa00013.php?page=SHC examples]] that have ''no explanation whatsoever.''
* At the time, [[TheCaligula Nero]]'s use of Christians as gladiator bait didn't catch much attention in Rome. That wasn't particularly unusual, and they were convenient scapegoats for the Great Fire. What ''did'' catch attention was the extreme cruelty of [[http://www.oriensjournal.com/11edit.html the spectacle he made of it]], including the "innovative" use of their living bodies as candles to provide light for it.
* Fires in general, nightclub fires in particular, like [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIetpe_KAJU&feature=related the Station Night Club,]] Happy Land, or Coconut Grove. The notion of burning is scary enough, the notion of dying of smoke inhalation is scary enough .... but the thing that gets you is how ''fast'' it all happens. The smoke buildup [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxiOXZ55hbc&feature=related in this video]] goes from "minor" to "completely consuming the room" in a minute and a half. In that time, the people in the crowd go from oblivious - to mildly concerned - to complete, involuntary all-consuming panic, behaving like stampeding animals, as the vast majority of them succumb to the smoke.
* Being in a DUI crash and that [[http://web.archive.org/web/20030201093613/www.austin360.com/aas/specialreports/jacqui this]] can easily happen to anyone is pure NightmareFuel.
* A car rammed into a carrier truck at a red light, causing a bunch of incredibly corrosive acid to spill out and wash across tarmac for twenty meters or so. (This was probably back in the 80s or something because of the truck's poor protection.) Anyway, some spilled over the woman in the car, and she started screaming. The truck driver leaned out of his window and began to scream as loudly as possible "Get back, get the fuck back!" (This was only partly necessary, as most people had run to a safer area when they saw the tarmac start to bubble.) So one onlooker started shouting "Why is nobody going to help her?!" The rest of the bystanders tried to reassure the onlooker, but she broke free and started to run across the acid to the woman in the car. Within a few seconds, it had eaten through the soles of her shoes and then her feet. The woman fell over from the pain, face-first into the acid. Then she started to roll around in agony, after which point she passed out.
* A whole host of birth defects:
** Anencephaly: literally no or very little brain matter.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetus_in_fetu fetus in fetu]]'', a medical condition where a developing fetus envelops his/her identical twin - and the enveloped twin develops inside as a parasite! Naturally, being a television documentary, it was complete with pictures of the removed twin, which looked like a shrunken head with a proportioned body.
** ConjoinedTwins. Being physically attached to your sibling in one of a dozen different ways. You could be attached by just a little flap of skin, or share an entire body from the neck down. And if they don't die soon after being born, many are usually subjected to surgical separation where, more often then not one or both, will die.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy Lobotomies.]] The first lobotomies were lengthy, costly operations that were as precise as possible for the 1930s. Then Walter Freeman found the ice-picks in his freezer, remembered the bone behind our eyes is quite thin, hammered a couple into someone's head and jiggled them about a bit to get pretty much the same effect. The goal of these operations was to get people out of mental institutions - not necessarily well, just well ''enough''...at first. As lobotomies first became popular then were progressively considered barbaric operations, Walter Freeman felt the pressure to prove they were indeed a medical breakthrough. An operation once reserved for an absolute last resort in the treatment of severe mental illness was eventually performed on unruly children. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Dully Meet one.]] The history of lobotomies fuels more nightmares than the thought of the actual operation, since it's a prime example of how humanity sucks in many, many areas and how few of those we keep an eye on to this day. Freeman used to perform lobotomies with a showman's attitude, sometimes shoving in two ice picks at once. He even accidentally killed a man by briefly leaving the ice picks in while he went looking for a camera. The inventor ''won the Nobel Prize for Medicine''.
** Poor Rosemary Kennedy had the misfortune of being the "slow one" in a family full of ambitious, gifted children (experts think she had an IQ of around 90). The pressure of trying to measure up to her more sophisticated siblings caused her to act out and ultimately her parents ended up having a doctor perform brain surgery on her at the age of 23 to curb her mood swings. He succeeded...in reducing her mind to that of a literal infant, a state she remained in until she died at the age of 86. One wonders if the Kennedy family would have been a lot happier if Papa Joe hadn't been so hellbent on creating his own dynasty.
---> ''We went through the top of the head, I think she was awake. She had a mild tranquilizer. I made a surgical incision in the brain through the skull. It was near the front. It was on both sides. "We just made a small incision, no more than an inch." The instrument Dr. Watts used looked like a butter knife. He swung it up and down to cut brain tissue. "We put an instrument inside," he said. As Dr. Watts cut, Dr. Freeman put questions to Rosemary. For example, he asked her to recite the Lord's Prayer or sing "God Bless America" or count backwards. ... "We made an estimate on how far to cut based on how she responded." ... When she began to become incoherent, they stopped.''
** One of the things that make it really frightening is how the media whitewash lobotomies to a state of numb mindlessness. If only. Imagine being able to remember caring, feeling, thinking as you do now, and then that just... stops, but the rest of you knows it and keeps on going.
** In fact, most of what passed for cutting-edge psychiatric treatment until very recently is more than a little terrifying. Someone behaving badly? Brain surgery time! Lobotomies are one of the best examples, but the entire medical profession prior to the last fifty years or so is pretty creepy. As for the pharmacological industry before the FDA - just don't go there.
* Dentists. Or anything tooth-related. due to the immense amount of nerves and pain-related receptors.
* Oral surgery in general (wisdom teeth, root canals) is horrifying. Even perfectly normal, ostensibly non-horrifying procedures can be incredibly painful, like tooth removal and getting braces. The feeling of a dentist grabbing your tooth and jerking it back and forth until it comes out is incredibly creepy even when you've had a lot of anaesthetic and can't feel any pain. The mouth is also one of the worst-feeling areas when subjected to local anaesthetic, for some reason. Just recovering from something and having to put up with a big numb rubbery mouth, and the drooling you end up subconsciously doing sometimes.
* The two books published about [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_farm the Body Farm]]. Mixed in with the fascinating descriptions and applications of forensic science is a high dose of {{Body Horror}} as you learn in excruciating detail exactly what happens to a human body after death. But the worst parts by far are all the descriptions the horrible ways real people have died in certain cases. (No photos are included; you won't need them.) Especially the explosion at the illegal fireworks operation. ''Her brain fell out''...
** StephenFry was "lucky" enough to be granted access to it during his documentary on the US. As a special bonus he claims ''to have never seen a dead body before'' and his tour guide admits she has gotten into the habit of [[{{Bones}} figuring out what people's skulls look like]] under their skin.
* Anesthesia awareness. You wake up during surgery, but you can't communicate. Happens to 20,000 people a year.
* Faces Of Meth - what methamphetamine abuse and its consequences (hallucinations, poverty, poor nutrition, poisoning from the chemicals in the drug) do to people's appearance over time.
* Tapeworms. The bad part about pork tape worms isn't the aspect of living in your small intestine stealing your nutrients... but actually the fact that if you eat their eggs instead of their immature form they can circulate throughout your body and implant themselves on whatever random tissue they land on. Unfortunately they often decide to land on brain tissue and can cause permanent brain damage.
** ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea_worms Guinea worms]].'' Parasitic disease in general.
* Abortion. Pro-life, pro-choice, doesn't matter, the basic concept is still ''sucking the baby/mass of cells/what have you out of the uterus with a giant vacuum.''
* What would happen to you if you were exposed into the vacuum of space without space gear. You will wish that one and a half minute of remaining life were much, much shorter. In the absence of atmospheric pressure, water will spontaneously convert into vapor, which would cause the moisture in a victim's mouth and eyes to quickly boil away. The same effect would cause water in the muscles and soft tissues of the body to evaporate, prompting some parts of the body to swell to twice their usual size after a few moments. In the absence of air pressure the gas exchange of the lungs works in reverse, dumping oxygen out of the blood and accelerating the oxygen-starved state known as hypoxia. After about ten seconds a victim will experience loss of vision and impaired judgment, and the cooling effect of evaporation will lower the temperature in the victim's mouth and nose to near-freezing. Unconsciousness and convulsions would follow several seconds later, and a blue discoloration of the skin called cyanosis would become evident. At this point the victim would be floating in a blue, bloated, unresponsive stupor, but their brain would remain undamaged and their heart would continue to beat. Without intervention in those first ninety seconds, the blood pressure would fall sufficiently that the blood itself would begin to boil, and the heart would stop beating. As a side bonus, with no bacteria present, your frozen, non-decomposing body will drift off into space for millions or perhaps billions of years if left untouched.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_decapitation Internal decapitation]]. It's [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin pretty much what its name would imply]], and it's ''the very definition'' of this trope.
* There's this video floating around on the Internet, a public service announcement made by a Middle Eastern country where two men jump off a bridge into water. The bridge isn't too high (about 20-30 feet). One of the men makes it. The other? He slips at the last second only to have his face smash against the corner of a concrete pier at the bottom. The later show him in the emergency room, [[spoiler: with his face split open and still alive]].
* Elevator FailsafeFailure. Example: that Japanese guy who got his head ripped off by a elevator with faulty sensors. And the other passenger was trapped in the car with the severed head for an hour. Or in Italy, June 2009: during a heavy rainstorm, an old woman rode her elevator down to her cellar. Too bad the cellar was flooded. The elevator stopped when it touched the water, then the flood got worse, and worse, and worse...she drowned in there. In Brazil, all elevators have warnings "before entering through the elevator doors, please check that the elevator car is on the current floor",
* Ectopic pregnancy. The fertilized egg doesn't make it to the uterus and starts growing "inside" the fallopian tube. The [[http://www.bodiestheexhibition.com/ Bodies Exhibition]] had the plasticized, dissected reproductive organs of a woman who had died from an ectopic pregnancy, complete with a little walnut-sized fetus thing still in the fallopian tube. In a rare few cases of ectopic pregnancy, the zygote will actually ''fall out'' of the fallopian tube and attach itself to a random spot in the abdominal cavity... usually an organ. Said organ will proceed to suffer severe damage as the placenta grows -- and the placenta is much more likely to grow to a larger size than it would in a normal ectopic pregnancy, thanks to not being stuck inside a non-elastic tube. Some of these pregnancies have actually lasted to full term. Incidentally, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cord_%26_Placenta.jpg this]] is what a placenta looks like at nine months. Sweet dreams, ladies.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_cutting Female genital mutilation]], or FGM.
** Genital mutilation in general
* ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stick_shaker The eerie sound of the stick shaker can be heard in the black box recording on the doomed ice-covered Air Florida flight 90 that stalled and crashed into the Potomac river near Washington DC in 1982.]]''[[http://www.airdisaster.com/download2/af90.shtml that recording]]. Oh, and [[ItGotWorse if that's not bad enough]], one can actually hear the plane's explosive impact, too.
** This still pales in comparison to [[http://www.airdisaster.com/download2/jal123.shtml the JAL-123 recording]]. The constant beeping, the desperate shouts of the crew, the ground proximity warning system ("Pull up!... Pull up!... Pull up!"), the sound of two impacts... it's 55 seconds of pure despair. "We're going down, Larry(?)"..."I KNOW!", preceding the BOOM, is more jarring than the sound of the stick shaker.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_585 United Airlines Flight 585]]. Suddenly and without warning, the aircraft rolled to the right and began to pitch downward, nose first. Nine seconds later, they crashed into Widefield Park at 4g. There were no survivors. And it all happened in nine seconds. The cockpit transcript from those nine seconds can be found in the [[http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/2001/AAR0101.pdf aircraft accident report]], on pages 177-178, and it is chilling. [[YourMileageMayVary Your mileage may vary]] as to whether it's more or less chilling to read the normal conversations that make up most of the transcript, knowing what's going to happen at the end. The worst part is, this happened while the plane was on its ''final approach to the runway''. Just a minute or two longer and they would've been fine. Imagine you're the captain or co-pilot, on a normal domestic flight from Denver to Colorado Springs. You're on your final approach to the runway. Imagine the mounting anticipation and sense of relief you would feel, knowing you'll be on the ground again in a few short minutes. Maybe you'll grab a coffee. Then you can check into a hotel and finally relax. And then suddenly you're hurtling towards the ground with nine seconds to live. Nine seconds of pure terror, of screaming and swearing as you try desperately to regain control.
** A similar thing happened to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USAir_Flight_427 USAir Flight 427]] three-and-a-half years later. Once again, no survivors. Except that this time, there were 132 onboard instead of 25, and the uncontrolled descent lasted ''twenty-eight seconds''.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUhGVpP8hCwThe 911 call from the Twin Towers]] ''as they collapsed.'' Being trapped on a top floor and slowly suffocating while calling 911 and basically being told '''they can't do anything''' to save you. Not to mention having the tower go down while you're inside it. Not to mention how the person on the other end must have felt, having to listen to those men beg for help and '''listen to them die.''' The entire thing is beyond horrifying.
* Amniocentesis. A long needle is inserted into a pregnant woman's belly, through the wall of her uterus to draw out a sample of amniotic fluid. (This can be dangerous to the fetus if it is stuck by the needle accidentally; may lead to miscarriage.) The idea is to get fetal cells to test for genetic diseases and disorders. (Thus usually done for older moms, or moms who have a high-risk of problems. An alternative exists, but it isn't much better (it can still cause miscarriage, and it's still scary), where a tube is inserted through the vagina and cervix and a small chunk of placenta is taken.
* Pelvic exams and the horrifying TurnedUpToEleven pelvic exam known as a colposcopy. (Usually done in cases where the woman has had two consecutive abnormal Pap smears, or when she's been raped (and they have reason to believe she sustained more serious internal injuries during the attack). That one may involve biopsies and weird tests involving iodine. Kind of like a vaginal alien probe, but not by aliens.
* ECRP. Hoo boy. This is ''really'' simplifying here, but if some or all of the 4 bile ducts in the liver are blocked, they go in and ''drill through'' the blocked ducts to unblock them in an attempt to salvage liver function. It's very painful, and they can't put the patient out completely because his/her cooperation is needed. It can cause internal bleeding, infection, and pancreatitis as well. (Which is why it's no longer done as a diagnostic procedure as it formerly was; it's too dangerous for that. It's only used for therapeutic purposes.)
* Pancreatitis itself. Imagine the worst pain you can ever imagine traveling through the upper abdomen and shooting its way to the back. Imagine living life feeling extremely nauseated and dehydrated all at once, so that one has to live by an extremely restricted diet AND try to get as much water as necessary without throwing up the water one has consumed. Now imagine trying to live as normal a life as one can with such a disorder ravaging one's body, including going so far as to be permanently fed via IV if that's what it takes to keep the "writhing on the floor of your bathroom or bedroom while curled up in a ball"-level pain away.
* The end results of a human gas turbine ingestion accident. It pretty much defines the ChunkySalsaRule. For those who have more intestinal fortitude, read on. [[spoiler: Imagine, if you will, the inner nacelle of an aircraft engine, and massive fan within. Now spread a chunky paste of redness about eight inches around the front and back of the fan, glued to the nacelle. Scatter some bits and pieces up to a hundred feet behind the engine for added effect. Now realise that that chunky red mess was a ''person''.]]
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectal_prolapse Rectal prolapse.]] This is also featured from ChuckPalahniuk's creepypasta ''Guts''. Cracked's description really takes the cake(spoiler'd because it ''will'' keep you up at night): [[spoiler: It is a weakening of the ligaments that hold your intestines together, and in the worst case scenario, your intestine comes loose and hangs out your anus.]] Possibly the worst thing is that you don't have to do anything particularly dangerous or extreme to have this happen. All you have to do is what many people consider to be normal procedure in this situation.
* Günther Wallraff describes in his book ''Ganz Unten'' ("Lowest of the Low") a horrific case in a West German steel mill where a Turkish immigrant steelworker had stumbled at work in a steel mill and fallen in a blast furnace. His body had been incinerated completely - the kinsfolks were presented a symbolical piece of metal containing
* Historical torture:
** Crucifixion. They tied or nailed your hands and feet that way so that you had to stand up to able to breathe. Once you lost the energy to stand, you would collapse, at which point you couldn't breathe and had to pull yourself up to breathe again and collapse then you'd collapse again and again and again ... a proper crucifixion could take three days to kill someone.
** A medieval French favorite is quartering. Tie four horses to each limb of the victim's body, then whip the horses. For an added bonus, the torturers would give the victim a last drink so they could watch the liquid pour out of their exposed entrails. Not to be confused with the even more horrifying English punishment known as drawing and quartering, where the condemned is dragged across the filthy, bumpy, trash-strewn roads to the place of execution by a horse, he is hanged but cut down while still alive, his "privy member" [[GroinAttack is cut off]], his belly is slit open and he is forced to watch as they pull out his intestines and burn them in front of his face, and then they hack off his head, cut his body into four quarters, and distribute them among various places where he performed treasonous or seditious acts.
** Scalping. Which, by the way, was not done by Native American tribes but ''to'' them by US soldiers.
** One Native American tribe favored burying a man up to his neck, covering his head with honey, and waiting for the ants to come.
** A basic one but still painful: [[BurnTheWitch burning at the stake]].
** "Carving the blood eagle," a particularly {{squick}}tastic Viking method of killing which consisted of cutting and breaking the victim's ribs so they resembled bird wings, pulling out the lungs, and then salting the wounds that were left behind to make death ''even more painful than it already was.''
** Edward II was thought to be gay, and this was back in the 1300s when homosexuality was a sin. A group of nobles killed him by anally raping him with a hot iron rod.
* Then there are the more humane ways forms of execution... except when they go wrong.
** Beheaded with a an axe that isn't sharp. Sometimes it took as many as fifty blows.
** Just ask Catherine Howard.
** Same with a dull guillotine. Imagine hearing the sound of it falling, feeling the pain, and then hearing "[[ItGotWorse Pull it back up and try again]]."
** Lethal injection every so often goes wrong, and you are quite aware of the pain but you can't scream or move.
** To help with the electric chair, they would put a sponge on the victim's forehead. The sponge is meant to be placed under the electrode cap to help conduct the current and ensure a quick death in the chair. StephenKing's ''TheGreenMile'' has a particularly horrific and nasty scene that was based on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_chair#First_executions the very first execution by electric chair]], where said sponge wasn't used.
** Hanging, if done wrong, does not snap your neck -- you suffocate. You have to drop the victim at least fifteen feet or so for a quick death. This is particularly common with people attempting to commit suicide. There's also the exact opposite problem. The mathematics for performing a proper long drop is fairly simple, but occasionally back in the day they would mess up. If the rope is too long, the person will be decapitated [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KetchumDecapitated.jpg like this fellow by the name of Tom Ketchum]]. They forgot to recalculate his weight after he gained weight while in prison. After the botched hanging of Eva Dugan, Arizona switched to the "more humane" method of execution by gas chamber.
* From an old radio announcement: ''"This is the sound of a train hitting a person: ...chugga-chugga, chugga-chugga, chugga-CHUGGA, CHUGGA-CHUGGA, CHUGGA-CHUGGA, CHUGGA-CHUGGA, CHUGGA-chugga, chugga-chugga, chugga-chugga..."''
* JohnFKennedy's assassination. It was the same as any other headshot, really, but it happened in BROAD DAYLIGHT in front of many, many people, ''children'' included. And don't even get us started on the ''autopsy''...
* A test pilot who bailed out of a plane at supersonic speed in the '50s; his entire body inflated to ''twice its size'', his eyeballs swelled to the size of Major League baseballs, and ''six feet of his lower intestine protruded out''-yet he somehow survived.
* The [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Yfd_7jrnMk gruesome]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM6v-43-1PU effects]] of the Russian heroin substitute 'Krokodil' called so because the users skin and flesh turns green and becomes horribly gangrenous, before it rots off revealing fresh bone without any blood. It is made from codeine extracted from codeine medication and mixed with cleaning solvents, which is why the average lifespan of the user is less than a year. How someone could not take themselves to hospital the moment they started feeling decomposition in their limbs is amazing, but [[BodyHorror how any human could even survive that level of injury without succumbing to sepsis or shock is incredible.]]
* [[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001355 Hypokalemic Periodic Paralysis Disorder]]. It doesn't sound too bad, but YOU try waking up one morning not being able to move your arms or legs without feeling like you're tearing the muscles from the bone or not having the ability to grip anything (thus leading to an inability to button your own pants) because your blood potassium levels have dropped. Even more horrifying is that while the condition is genetic, the effects are activated by something as simple as eating too much pizza the night before.
* Hydrofluoric acid accidents. Even chemistry geeks are deathly scared of that stuff, as it not only eats through pretty much anything (including glass), but causes severe tissue necrosis. It also etches bones, and slows or stops the victim's heart through rapid loss of blood calcium. Direct skin contact with even a small amount is usually fatal. And it doesn't react well with flesh, so you don't have any obvious acid burns to tip you off that you got some on you. Just an unpleasant itching or tingling.
* Let's talk about a few suicide methods that aren't as painless or reliable as most people think.
** Overdosing on medication. As simple as going to sleep? Haha, yeah right. More like hours of projectile vomiting once your stomach starts to reject the medication, and a host of other horrifying symptoms (which ones you experience depends on the medication you took) including but not limited to: Loud ringing in the ears (very common, and much more distressing than you might think), temporary deafness, temporary blindness, seizures, intense burning or itching of the skin, severe stomach pain, GI bleeding, hallucinations, paranoia, panic attacks, loss of muscle control, loss of bowel and bladder control, hyperventilating, fast or slow heartbeat (both of which you can feel), difficulty breathing, coma and, of course, death (rarely). At the hospital, you'll be forced to drink liquid charcoal, a nasty concoction that tastes like you're drinking mud (complete with gritty bits -- ever ate a sandwich at the beach, and accidentally got sand in it?), and usually makes you vomit even more. [=ODing=] is rarely fatal, but can cause permanent damage to the organs and brain. You might also have your stomach pumped, depending on what you took and how much, or how long ago.
** Tylenol, a common method of OD, is particularly nasty. The person feels icky for a few hours after taking it, but shows no major symptoms at first. The person may start to feel better later in the day, believing that they're going to be okay and failing to seek medical treatment. Big, BIG mistake. 24 to 48 hours later, liver failure begins to set in. The nausea returns, cranked UpToEleven, as well as INTENSE pain. No, really, the pain is utterly horrible, as in you feel as though your liver is expanding due to being stuffed full of shards of glass. Ever had gall stones? If so, it's like that, but even worse. Your skin turns yellow, and toxins build up throughout your body, which brings about all kinds of painful symptoms. If you wind up needing a liver transplant, you might be rejected by the donor committee due to being suicidal.
** Aspirin, another common one, makes you very nauseated; causes very, very loud ringing in the ears, and makes them feel as if they're stuffed with cotton; feeling disconnected with reality, which is disturbing; in extreme cases, bleeding in the GI tract due to ''eating away at the inside of the stomach''; seizures; a very fast heart beat; hyperventilating, as your body attempts to expel excess carbon dioxide in the blood; low blood sugar; potential edema (swelling) in the brain; and a host of other symptoms.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSRI SSRIs]] are near impossible to OD on. Fatally, that is. Instead what happens is that your brain goes nuts from the overdose of serotonin, which is not as pleasant as it sounds. Some of the symptoms include profuse vomiting, diarrhea, hallucinations, rapid heartbeat, shivering, sweating, tremors, and coma. In short, you probably won't die, but you'll feel like you are--and probably wish you had for a few days.
** Gunshot to the head. Even pointblank, to the forehead, temple or [[AteHisGun in the mouth]], [[TisOnlyABulletInTheBrain these are survivable]]. Sure, brain-damage is likely, but that doesn't automatically kill a person. A large number of people who attempt suicide via gun accidentally blow off part of their face, but manage to live. One may end up drowning in their own blood because they've destroyed their nasal cavity -- hardly an easy death. Since the body is almost guaranteed to flinch by reflex in response to the gun going off, there's a very good chance that one will miss the brain entirely. Or they might hit it, but only in an area that affects higher reasoning, leaving them alive, but paralyzed, mentally challenged, or both. Yes, yes, ''[[RealityIsUnrealistic you don't even need the seat of your soul and personality to live.]]'' See also one of the most famous cases of surviving this kind of brain trauma, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage Phineas Gage]]. If you use a certain kind of gun/ammo with bullets that aren't strong enough to penetrate the skull, you can have the bullet hit the back of your skull and bounce off, ricocheting around your brain and slicing it up. Likewise, gunshots to other parts of the body often miss the organ being aimed for, leaving the person to bleed to death or disabled. Those who aim for the heart may miss and hit the lungs instead, for instance. This effectively causes a person to drown in their own blood.
** Cutting the wrists. Definitely not as easy as sliding a knife across your arm. To even be effective, a person has to hack their way down through tendons and muscle to reach the artery, which takes time. NOT painless, NOT quick and scary as hell. Even if one successfully cuts open the artery and does all the things people do to prevent clotting, they're probably not going to die (even if they're not found by anyone after they pass out). It will, however, leave an enormous scar down the arm, as well as permanent nerve damage and less flexibility in the skin, leading to a constant feeling of 'tightness' in the arm.
** Hanging. This can certainly kill a person, but not always painlessly. Suicide victims rarely succeed in breaking their own neck, which would cause an instant death. Instead, they hang there, slowly asphyxiating. The pain is excessive (imagine your entire body being held up by a noose around your neck), not to mention the sheer panic one experiences -- survival instinct kicks in automatically, even if the person really does want to kill their self, as they hang there and die. Plus, if they're rescued before they die, brain damage is a very likely possibility. Oh, the corpse of a hanging victim is not very nice to look at, what with the bloated face, the tongue sticking out, the burst capillaries in the eyes and the blood pooling in their legs and forearms.
** Drowning. Panicking under water is not a fun way to die, and inhaling water is painful.
** To sum it all up:
---> ''Razors pain you;
---> Rivers are damp;
---> Acids stain you;
---> And drugs cause cramp.
---> Guns aren't lawful;
---> Nooses give;
---> Gas smells awful;
---> You might as well live.''
----> -- Dorothy Parker
* A recent psychological study indicates that the idea that deals the worst response (from a handful given to test subjects) is [[spoiler: Pointy objects being pushed through the smallest holes in the body, namely the [[FreudWasRight nipples]]]] Try to think about that and NOT get chills.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlequin_fetus Harlequin fetuses]]. Just...''ick''.
* Seeing your own bones or blood after an injury.
* [[http://sometimes-interesting.com/2011/06/29/over-200-dead-bodies-on-mount-everest/ There are over 200 dead bodies littering Mt. Everest.]] Above a certain point, it is unsafe to bring them down, so they are pretty much left to waste away.
* The physical effects of bulimic and anorexic behavior.
[[/folder]]
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[[folder: RLNF Animals]]
[[quoteright:345:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/angler_fish.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:345:Hey kids, remember that [[NightmareFuel scary part]] in FindingNemo? Well, fish like that are really out there. And this one ain't the worst of it...]]
->[[http://www.cracked.com/funny-5588-hybrid-animals/ "Apparently, Nature evolved humans so that she would have something to scream at all of her other creations."]]\\
-- ''{{Cracked}}''
-> "DAMN, NATURE! YOU SCARY!"
-->--''{{Family Guy}}''
Some animals just make anything better. Others, [[NightmareFuel make anything scary]].
TV tropes would like to remind you that the animals listed are just that: animals, not horrible monsters that should be [[KillItWithFire killed with fire]]. They are also not really after your blood. Except for the blood sucking ones.
Note to All Tropers: Enough with the side conversations on this page, take it to the discussion boards. And make sure your entry isn't already here before you add: there's already a lot of bugs, for instance.
See also EverythingsWorseWithBears. [[EverythingsWorseWithBees And bees]]. [[EverythingsEvenWorseWithSharks And sharks]].
----
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder: Extinct]]
* TwoWords: ''[[TyrannosaurusRex Tyrannosaurus rex'']]. To put it bluntly, we're talking about an animal that was 36-42 feet long, 11 feet tall, weighed 6 tons, and had razor-sharp serrated teeth that could grow to the size of a banana. Oh, and it gets even better. The jaws of a T-rex were strong enough to crush bone and are considered one of the strongest sets of jaws known to ever exist in the animal kingdom (Only the prehistoric fish, Dunkleosteus, had a stronger bite). Be thankful it's extinct.
** ''T. Rex'' definitely was a badass. But it was hardly alone in being NightmareFuel. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Largesttheropods.svg See this chart?]] Yeah, I'm glad those thing's aren't around anymore.
** [[ItGotWorse It gets worse.]] There's now evidence that suggests that T.rex could run fast. So, now you got a 42 ft long, 6 ton predator that may have been able to run up to 20 mph and had bone-crushing jaws.
** [[RuleOfThree It gets even worse.]] There's evidence that Tyrannosaurus Rexes ''hunted in packs''. [[ZergRush Sending the faster juveniles up ahead]] to herd the prey into the jaws of the adults.
*** [[JurassicPark Mustgofastermustgofastermustgofaster...]]
** [[OverlyLongGag It gets worse.]] Paleontologists think they could grow even ''larger'' than 42 feet. There could be [[BeyondTheImpossible a 50 foot specimen buried out there, or even a 60 foot!]]
* ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalania Everyone, meet Megalania]]'', the gigantic prehistoric cousin of the Komodo Dragon. Again, be thankful its extinct
** There have been reports of a komodo dragon like lizard in the Indonesian islands, but 2 or 3 times it's size. It's now a cryptozoological animal.
* There once lived a prehistoric crocodile known as ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinosuchus Deinosuchus]]'' (the name itself means "terrible crocodile") that was estimated to have been 30 to 50 feet long and weighed up to nine tons, with a bite force [[UpToEleven even greater than T. rex]], which ate ''dinosaurs''. Have fun swimming, kids.
** Similarly: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcosuchus Sarcosuchus]], [[FanNickname a.k.a.]] "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Supercroc]]." This time, you can't even take solace in the off-chance the size might be overestimated, because some very complete skeletons have been found.
* What about ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkleosteus Dunkleosteus]]''? This big fish had a bite force of over 8,000 pounds per inch (greater than TyrannosaurusRex!) on the tip of its teeth[[hottip:*:Technically, they're extensions of the jaws, not teeth.]]. The worst part? Its hunting tactic was to open its mouth so quickly as to suck in prey moving in due to the pressure change - so you would be sucked into a gape that could chop pretty much anything in half and you wouldn't be able to escape.
** It doesn't help that it looks roughly like a [[StarWars Rancor]] crossed with a gigantic piranha.
* Marsupial lions. Ice Age Australia's answer to the Sabre-tooth cats. The biggest, Thylacoleo, was about the size of a large cougar, and could disembowel prey with its claws, and deigned to rip off limbs in favour of [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/07/sci_nat_enl_1169658723/html/1.stm snipping them off with its teeth]]. It also apparently dropped from trees onto its prey. Even scarier, it ''may still exist.''
** So wait, drop bears actually existed?
** At least they look somewhat cute and cuddly, being cats, still. They aren't as lethal, but having a coconut crab do a paradrop on your head is pretty freakish. Especially if it whacks you with said coconut before hand.
*** They're not cats. A better comparison would be giant killer wombats (or maybe even ''[[KillerRabbit koalas]]'') with sickle clawed thumbs. Yes, that's right, marsupial lions come from the "herbivore" side of the marsupial family tree.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastric-brooding_frog Gastric-brooding Frogs.]] ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. [[{{Squick}} Ew]].
** They've been gone for a while, actually... we drove them to extinction back in the eighties. At least all you easily-disgusted folks can rejoice now.
*** Except the Pharmaceutical Industry, who, realising that young frog's ability to suppress the digestive fluids of its parent could've yielded potentially life-saving drugs, are not exactly rejoicing. They're offering big bucks to anyone who can capture a live one, which it doesn't look like is gonna happen.
*** Unless of course, zombie frogs.
* Mosasaurs. Enormous, carnivorous, aquatic lizards that hunt in packs. Fortunately, they're extinct now, but they were seriously scary.
** It doesn't help that one mosasaur fossil was found with the remains of [[BigEater a shark, a seabird, a bony fish and another mosasaur the size of an alligator]] in its stomach area.
* ''{{Megalodon}}''. Prehistoric shark with a mouth a grown man could stand up in. Extrapolating from its fossilized jaws, paleontologists have estimated it to be around 50 to 60 feet long. A creature that big would probably eat ''adult whales''. And if that wasn't scary enough, if it was anything like its smaller modern cousin, the Great White Shark, it could ''breach like a whale''. Imagine, if you will, a shark the size of a Greyhound bus taking to the air with a whale in its mouth. Sweet dreams....
** [[{{Jaws}} We're gonna need a bigger boat.]]
** It's called a polaris breach, for those interested. Great whites aren't the only creature in the sea to do it, but are certainly the most deadly. The last run of Shark Week on the DiscoveryChannel showcased what seal nightmares are made of.
** Of course, the proper NightmareRetardant for that would be the [[SoBadItsGood not-so-classic]] JohnBarrowman flick ''Shark Attack 3: Megalodon''. Then you will never be able to hear that creature's name without giggling.
** Speaking of sharks breaching the surface [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skYRZ_-RXtk&feature=related]]
** One of the nature channels has recently been airing trailers suggesting that ''Megalodon'' might actually still be out there. Think about ''that'' for a while.
*** The book "Meg" by Steve Alten is about exactly that. But, in that it escapes and proceeds to rape the oceanic world. With its teeth.
** How big were these? They made the fearsome Great White Shark look tiny. They made the [[GentleGiant not-so-fearsome]] (but massive) ''Whale Shark'' look tiny.
*** Here's a [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Megalodon_scale1.png chart]] for comparison. The green one is a great white. The red one is ''conservative'' estimate for a megalodon.
** You know how museums have that tendency to put animal jaws on the floor and basically go, "Hey, guys, look how easily this thing could eat you?" Well, this one had freaking ''Megalodon'' jaws. Looking into a pair of jaws that are about half your size again is...disconcerting to say the least.
*** Think about it that way: A great white will have a bony meal out of you. For that thing? ''You're a pretzel.'
** Speaking of large sea animals, scientists have recently found the skull of a large whale similar to the sperm whale about sixty feet long with tusk-like teeth about fourteen inches long. They were thought to have eaten other whales and the fangs would've ripped out huge chunks of the unfortunate victims. Their given name? ''[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Leviathan]] [[Literature/MobyDick melvillei]]''.
*** It also lived alongside ''Megalodon''. Two giant ocean predators with mouths bristling with teeth, one a lone ambush assassin and the other a pack-hunting determinater. And evidence shows ''Megalodon'' and ''Leviathan'' preyed on each other.
** Speaking of EverythingsEvenWorseWithSharks, meet ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicoprion Helicoprion]]'' and ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edestus Edestus]]''. Those ''jaws''...
* Dromaeosaurs (better known as "Raptors" to your average person...Ya know, like ''Velociraptor'', ''Utahraptor'', ''Deinonychus'', etc.) are quite terrifying when one thinks about it. Sure, a good number of species are small, but they also have razor-sharp claws and teeth, a pair of huge scythe-like talons on their hind feet, and its been theorized that several species were highly intelligent social predators.
** Try most. At the very least ''Deinonychus'', the bugger who inspired the monstrous raptors of Jurassic Park, hunted in packs. And while many people consider dinosaurs to be less bad ass with feathers, well, there is a little something called Wing-Assisted-Incline-Flight or something. Quails use it. It allows them to run up straight inclines. Ladies and gentlemen, we have [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot Spider-Raptor]].
*** There isn't any conclusive evidence of them ''hunting'' in groups ''per se''. A group of "raptors" scavenging or mobbing (as opposed to the coordinated group hunting we see in canids) is [[ScienceMarchesOn just as if not more likely]]. But when it comes down to being ripped apart by a dozen [[FeatheredFiend feathered fiends]] the unfortunate prey item probably doesn't care about the difference.
*** Speaking of extinct, feathery deathbringers, let me introduce you to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phorusrhacidae the Terror Birds]]. Basically like a [[FinalFantasy Chocobo]] except they actually existed. And could probably rip apart anything they damn well wanted to, including ''horses''.
**** Jesus, that thing looks like a devil dodo (doesn't seem to be any direct relation, though). And one subfamily is named ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanis Titanis]]'', because of how big it was.
*** Here's a flying menace for you. Meet the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wm7FqZVirI=text Haast's Eagle]]. This raptor was large and powerful enough to take down moas with ease. And it existed when humans started settling in New Zealand. It was a bird DESIGNED TO KILL PEOPLE.
*** [[ItGotWorse It gets worse. Much worse.]] Recent studies suggest that ''Sinornithosaurus millenii'', a small dromaeosaur that lived in Asia, was venomous. That's right, not only were "Raptors" intelligent, fast, and had razor-sharp claws...but now they're poisonous. OhCrap...
**** It's said that the evidence is weak on that one, so you don't ''really'' have to worry about venomous "raptors". Yet. And, fortunately they weren't as intelligent as [[JurassicPark some movies]] show; they couldn't have held a candle in the intelligence department to nearly all modern birds. Also, there were in fact many, many other dinosaurs (including the comparatively much larger ''[[TyrannosaurusRex Tyrannosaurus rex]]'') that were ''better'' adapted for running than the dromaeosaurids. Chances are they could still run faster than ''you'', however. And any cassowary will tell you that you don't have to be the most intelligent birdbrain to be scary... Not to mention, dromaeosaurids may have been good at climbing trees.
**** They may have vomited [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellet_(ornithology) food pellets]] like owls, which is either NightmareRetardant or NauseaFuel.
**** ItGotWorse: Some of them (or at least [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahonavis this one]]) could ''fly''. You ''better'' run.
**** Oh yes, and they got big. Look at [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Utahraptor_scale.png this size chart]] for ''Utahraptor''. The green is a ''conservative'' estimate of its size.
**** Try Megaraptor. Utahraptor has nothing on these things. Go find a ruler. That is the space between the sickle claw's tip and where it connects to the toe.
* Sea Scorpions. Can you imagine an amphibious scorpion the size of a crocodile? I can't without getting the willies.
* Entelodonts. Take a wild boar or a javelina, and give it steroids. A lot of steroids. Enough to make it the size of a bull or rhinoceros. Now, strip off most of its fur, and change its teeth from that of an omnivore into things designed to shear and tear flesh. And take away most of its omnivorous tendencies. Pure carnivore baby. Not to mention that they were the first animals to develop the traditional artiodactyl-style hoof, which made them incredibly fast. Oh yeah, and they ate rhinos on a regular basis.
* Holy shit, ''Andrewsarchus''. [[http://ssjgarfield.deviantart.com/art/Andrewsarchus-62918294 Just....Andrewsarchus]]. It's hard to believe this beast belonged to a family closely related to even-toed artiodactyls (think deer, sheep, and cattle), since its gigantic head alone was over three feet long and it was the largest carnivorous land mammal that walked the Earth. This page from the manga "Eden no Ori" [[http://www.mangafox.com/manga/eden_no_ori/v01/c003/12.html sums up its size quite nicely]].
* ''[[http://www.flickr.com/photos/markwitton/2465048793/in/set-72057594082038974/ Hatzegopteryx]]'' may not look physically terrifying, but once [[FridgeHorror you realise some things]] you would be thankful things like that are extinct. First of all, it was basically like a giant stork in habits, catching prey with the beak. In Hatzegi's case, a beak longer than the jaws of the largest theropod dinosaurs (aka T. rex had a shorter snout). And that pterosaurs was taller than a giraffe. Considering birds like herons can swallow things as proportionally big as rabbits, and since reptilian (including avian) esophagi are very tough (turkeys can swallow blades and not suffer ill effects), Hatzegopteryx could easily grab a person with the jaws, swallow him/her alive and you wouldn't even be able to fight back, only to find your doom at the digestive juices.
* [[http://www.nunoxei.com/images/Tasmanian_tiger.gif The Tasmanian Tiger]], which can distend its jaws far beyond the capabilities of those of any animal other than a snake. I am considering a campaign to Tasmania to make sure that there aren't any more alive, because they could apparently swim...
** Apparently, thanks to advancements in technology, it could be possible to bring the species back. They're attempting this now. You're welcome.
* The Permian Extinction. The worst extinction event in the history of earth. The closest life ever came to ceasing to exist all together. Over 90% of all species on earth vanished. It gets even more disturbing when you hear the details. Of all the dozens groups of reptiles, only a handful survived. Synapsids: aka, “mammal-like reptiles”. The missing link between mammals and reptiles. These creatures basically ruled the earth, very diverse. Both tiny creatures, and mega fauna rivaling the dinosaurs and mammals after them. The only ones who survived where tiny burrowing creatures who eventually became mammals. Anapsids: There used to be 100s of different kinds of armored reptiles roaming around. Only the turtles survived. Archosaurs: The common ancestor of birds, dinosaurs, crocodilians, and pterosaurs. Before the extinction they where tiny scavengers. Afterwards they exploded from lack of completion. Lepidosauria: The Ancestors of lizards and snakes. Sphenodontia: The Ancestors of modern tuataras. Of all the Amphibians that evolved since they first left the ocean, only the Lissamphibia survived. Crocodilians where only able to become crocodilians because the giant Croc-like Amphibians died out. Reptilomorphs aka, “reptile-like amphibians.” The missing link, and the most successful group of amphibians at the time, Where completely wiped out. Trilobites: some of the oldest and most successful ocean life at the time. More successful than fish. Completely wiped out. Insects didn’t make it out okay either. All six-winged insects vanished. Their cousins, the non-insect Hexapods vanished, except the wood lice. Fossil evidence shows that for almost a million years after the extinction, the most common form of life on earth was ''fungus''. The icing on the cake? Unlike the Dinosaurs and the massive impact Crater, scientists have '''''NO CLUE''''' what caused it, or if it could ever happen again. There is not a shread of evidence of anything that could have caused it on earth, leading some to theorize it was a local supernova, but the truth is we have no idea.
** The current most likely theory is that all the landmasses coming together caused widespread "desertification", quite literally turning vast amounts of what was previously rainforest and swampland into arid, nasty environments few creatures could adapt to. The oceans weren't safe, either; with only one landmass, currents settled and the oceans stagnated. Almost every ocean-going creature ''suffocated'' due to lack of oxygen. Other theories include a flood basalt, which is basically a supervolcanic eruption that lasts centuries. There's no word to describe just how insanly nightmarish a flood basalt eruption is. First the name. It causes a litteral flood of basaltic rock over the area it happens. Next how it occurs. Triggered by the massive tectonic stress brought about by a single landmass subducting ocean plates on all sides, a massive chunk of the earth's crust crumbles off and falls into the mantle. This forces the magma upwards to the surface. How big is it? Well the largest volacano on earth today is the size of Hawaii's large island. The Permian flood basalt, the Siberian traps are the size of the continental United States. And the eruption lasted for 100s, if not 1000s of years nonstop. What happens after it's done? Aside from the aformentioned flood of basalt, imagine all that volcanic gas. Now imagine that gas is methane, one of the most potent green house gases that occur on earth. Now imagine not only the sun's heat, but the volcanic heat trapped in the atmosphere at the same time. The allways popular "huge asteroid" is another theory, as is [[ApocalypseWow a local supernova]]. My favorite theory is that the single landmass and single ocean caused the planet to become tidally locked, meaning one side always facing the sun, one side always facing away. The kicker? The numbers don't really add up in any model.
*** [[WildMassGuessing Or it could be]] [[TakeAThirdOption ALL]] [[NoKillLikeOverkill of them]].
*** It was obviously [[MassEffect The Reapers]].
* Of course some of the creatures that the Permian Extinction got rid of where pretty scary.
** Mammal like reptiles? Here's an image for you. Picture a creature with neither fur nor scales, the jaw of a crocodile with the teeth of a saber-cat. Now imagine it's the size of rhino, and has fully upright legs built for running. Ladies and gentlemen, [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Inostrancevia_4DB.jpg meet the Gorgonopsids!]]
** Reptile like amphibians? You're probably thinking "Come on! What's a frog gonna do?" [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prionosuchus this guy ain't no frog!]]
** Of course some of the Archosaurs that replaced them were scary too. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postosuchus meet Postosuchus.]] Best described as a fully upright 15 foot long land crocodile.
* The [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes Titanoboa]]. A snake that grew up to 15 meters in length and, come on, it's called the ''[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Titan]]''oboa! So, it's kind of like taking your average boa constrictor or anaconda, whatever, and drilling it up to eleven. Be thankful it no longer exists.
* During the Carboniferous era, we had ''Meganeura'', a dragonfly the size of an eagle and ''Arthropluera'', a millepede that's 6 feet long. SIX FEET LONG!
* Wow, I'm surprised no one's mentioned ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinosaurus Spinosaurus]]'' yet! Take a crocodile, give it plenty of steroids, give it a six-foot high sail on its back and put it on two legs. Scared yet? Here's something for you. See [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Largesttheropods.svg this chart]]? ''Spinosaurus'' is red. ''TyrannosaurusRex'' is ''the purple one''.
** Luckily, Spinosaurus has it's fair share of NightmareRetardant. Spinosaurus primarily ate fish, so T.rex would probably kill one most of the time, if they were to fight. It wasn't a super predator like it's often portrayed as.
** That said, it is also thought to have taken down medium sized prey as well. So that means it would probably be eating grisly bears if it were still alive. Not to mention this fish it ate could very well have been ''sharks''.
*** it dies if you make it ''[[WeaksauceWeakness roll over]]'' [[EpicFail since of said fin]] being evolution's crowning [[IdiotBall]]
* Of course! How could [[{{Tropers/Spinosegnosaurus77}} I]] forget ''Deinocheirus''? Its eight-foot long arm and hand bones were found in 1970 (the creature's name means "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast terrible hand]]"). Nothing else from the creature has been found yet, and those arms have been a mystery ever since. If it's any help, their owner would have to be ''tyrannosaur-sized at the very least.'' [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Deinocheirus_hands.jpg Have a look]] and make up your own mind about the creature.
* [[http://dinosaurs.wikia.com/wiki/Therizinosaurus Therizinosaurus]]. On the one hand, it was an herbivore and probably wouldn't see you as food. On the other hand...It had 3 ''foot'' long claws on its hands which it used to defend itself agaisnt predators.
* ''Carnotaurus''. The name means "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast meat-eating bull]]". [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Carnotaurus_DB_2.jpg Here's a picture]]. The tiny arms acting as NightmareRetardant for you? Okay, let me fix that; while the bite force of the ''Carnotaurus'' was believed to be less than that of ''Allosarurus'', it's been theorized that they made up for that by beating their upper jaws against their prey like a ''[[PrecisionFStrike fucking]] [[AxCrazy hatchet]]''.
* Large ceratopsians like ''Triceratops'' and ''Styracosaurus''. We usually don't think of them as scary due to being [[HerbivoresAreFriendly herbivores]], however, an adult could gore a tyrannosaur to death with those giant horns, let alone a human. Also, ceratopsians may [[http://www.flickr.com/photos/markwitton/522293984 have been omnivores]], not herbivores.
* ''Stegosaurus''. A dinosaur the size of an elephant with a built-in medieval flail and a brain so small it probably indiscriminately whacked anything that crossed it's path. But as bad as ''Stegosaurus'' was, it has nothing on the pure demonic nightmare fuel that is ''[[http://www.kentrosaurus.org/nova_phot042.jpg Kentrosaurus]]''.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Living]]
* Ladies and gentlemen, [[http://www.wolaver.org/animals/Hatchetfish.jpg the hatchet fish.]]
** This fish makes '''the Exorcist''' look like a puppy.
*** [[TheExorcist Max von Sydow?]]
** I take your hatchet fish and raise it with [[http://iliketowastemytime.com/sites/default/files/viperfish_deadly_deep_predator2.jpg the viper fish]]. '''SWEET JESUS, WHY DOES THAT THING EXIST?!'''
** I see your viper fish (and wish I didn't) and raise you a [[http://www.petsfoto.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Fangtooth-Fish2.jpg fangtooth]]. It's just a mouth with fins.
** [[OverlyLongGag I see all of your fish]] and raise you a [[http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lhpzj1cH5m1qgduswo1_500.jpg snaggletooth]]. It looks like it dines on souls.
* You will never be able to look at a lizard the same way after my bio teacher showed us this.
** Warning: Not for the faint of heart! [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0ThAWmEk7U Monitor]]
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jppNHoksheY Here's another one for good measure]]
** Ugh, you can hear it screaming from within its gullet!
** If anything stotats would better quality [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWIW-MDZa_8 in that department.]]
* This [[http://www.ilovemyjournal.com/media/1/SamUgliestDogLulu_sm.jpg dog]].
** That dog died a few years go. It was blind for quite some time; the joke was that it got its sight back, looked in a mirror and dropped dead of shock.
** To be clear, the dog was voted "Ugliest Dog In The World." Before its death, it was a 15-year-old Chinese hairless crested. Its eyes are white becaus it's blind.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjRSlnJ1rA4 Goblin sharks]] have protrusible jaws. Creepy!
** a bit less terrifying: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdJRb7lVoGc&feature=related
* Earthworms and parasitic tapeworms (and hookworms). I can't even look at them prior to screaming and running away.
** Why are Earthworms scary? Appearances maybe, but they're one of the best creatures out there, helping fertilize soil and such. It even has a digestive system, and respiratory system and circulatory system. It's a pretty humane creature. Tapeworms on the other hand are horrifiying, trying to suck out your nutrients without giving anything back and worst of all, it can [[BodyHorror GROW 8 METERS LONG IN YOUR VERY OWN BODY!! HOLY!!]]
** Ascaris worms (you know, the ones in your intestines that looked like slimy living pasta, and can actually accumulate as a bolus to be an [[EldritchAbomination eldritch perversion]] against the Holy FlyingSpaghettiMonster, and whose eggs are ''fucking microscopic'')
*** It's even worse with the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracunculiasis Guinea Worm]]. Seriously, this worm is really a NightmareFuel, every major health organization vowed to push it to extinction.
**** You see the Guinea worm is native to Africa, the ecosystem that humans evolved in. As such they prey exclusively on humans, and where thus introduced to other places by traveling with (read inside) humans. The reason Africa's such a [[DeathWorld nasty place]] is because it's humanity's natural habitat, and thus creatures evolved there with humans in mind, where as other continents are nicer because we're invasive species in those environments. While this has led to some good things (the honey guide bird evolved symbiotic behavior with humans, it leads us to the beehive, we get the honey, they get the larva), mostly it just amounts to creatures that can kill us. In other words, it's what environmentalists are asking for when they say humans should "live in harmony with nature". Just keep that in mind.
*** The fact that many people don't know that there's a worm living inside them makes them extremely scary. Parasitic worms were voted the #1 Most Extreme Horror in ''TheMostExtreme'' series.
* Three Words: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dermatobia_hominis Human Botfly Larvae]]. Disturbing and literally sickening to see one being removed: true. Now try ''not'' imagining hearing chewing inside your head if you ever discover one embedded in your scalp.
* Yuck, what a thick, puffy tongue this fish has... Wait, it's got ''beady little eyes!'' [[http://www.entomologia.org/bugs_in_the_news/Cymothoa_exigua.jpg picture OHMYGODTHATSNOTATONGUE!]]
*** Sounds like some sicko's LiteralMinded parody of [[LordOfTheRings Grima Wormtongue]].
*** It may or may not help the [[BodyHorror OHGODOHGOD]] factor to note that the isopod doesn't actually make life any more difficult for the fish. Because it sits where the tongue was, the fish can still eat just fine. Still, Jesus ''God'' is it creepy.
** And then there's [[http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7927 this]] little guy... "Let's go swimming. I insist."
** Also, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoids#Insects real-life]] [[{{Aliens}} Xenomorphs]]. Sweet dreams!
** Think about it this way. On the wiki page, it listed fictional parasitic insects, including little old Uroborus and Las Plagas. Imagine what would happen if these guys evolved a little. You have a stomach ache...is it just bad food, or did an enemy dose you with a little...Uroborus.
** Well, you'd certainly know if you started growing tentacles yeck... those Uroboros tentacles are all slimey and deadly (goddamn Wesker)
* Certain species of snake. Also certain members of the spider order such as Tarantula, black widow, and the trapdoor spider.
** Don't worry; be [[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5199409/British-scientists-study-Hawaiian-happy-face-spider.html happy]]!
** What's just as frightening is their venom, and more specifically, what that venom can do to a person. Some kinds, if they don't kill you, [[BodyHorror cause the skin around the bite to rot]], [[AndIMustScream paralyze and slowly suffocate you]] or (depending on the nature of the neurotoxin) cause seizures, make your blood congeal in your veins... So kids, if you see a snake in your yard, ''stay the fuck away from it, and for the love of Christ, DON'T PICK IT UP!''
** Did someone say [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySXCdcnKBgg trapdoor spider?]] (Not safe for arachnophobes)
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikz7x5NRM2c here]] is a video of an island full of snakes. "one snake for every pace you walk". It doesn't help that they are some of the most venemous snakes in the world.
** Back to the subject of snakes, even if you're not scared of them, [[http://www.diamondreptile.com/pricelist.htm#venomous how easy it is to buy and own some of the most venomous ones in the world should be enough to skeeve you out.]]
* Scorpions.
* Back to spiders - some of them are social, weaving common webs of many spiders. How many can they be? Anelosimus Eximius, for instance, bands into colonies of up to 50 000 spiders. I'll let that sink in.
* Think about the things that [[EverythingsBetterWithPenguins penguins]] have to go through when they expect a chick. The mother goes out to find food, leaving the fathers behind to look after the egg and keep it warm, ''or else the egg will crack and the contents will become frozen solid, [[TearJerker killing the baby]].''
** To make matters worse, while the mother penguin looks for food, they are at risk of being eaten by predators such as leopard seals. Sometimes it's not just the mother that gets eaten, but her unborn chick, too! Scared yet?
* Some creatures that live in the ocean. The king of them all is the great white shark with its SlasherSmile and vicious nature. Then there's piranhas that can ''render any living creature- even a cow to a skeleton within seconds'' (Although they can only do this when practically starved to death) They're still fierce scavengers though. Then there's the anglerfish.
** How about the [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1322118/Jeremy-Wades-goliath-tigerfish-British-fisherman-grapples-giant-piranha.html goliath tigerfish]]? Take a piranha and scale it up to 5 feet long.
** Great whites hunt like freaking serial killers, according to some recent studies. This just makes them even more terrifying.
*** Here's something. Recently, off the eastern coast of Australia (where else?), fishermen pulled a 3 metre (10 foot) great white shark onboard their boat. That's a good size, as great whites go, but the shark was dead, so that wasn't a problem. What was a problem was that the shark had been BITTEN CLEAN IN HALF BY SOMETHING TWICE AS LARGE. And this is just near a very popular swimming beach. Just have a think about that for a bit. Who wants to go swimming?
** On the subject of "Some creatures that live in the ocean," witness [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloop this]] article from TheOtherWiki. "The source of the sound remains unknown...it matches the audio profile of a living creature but there is no known animal that could have produced the sound...If the sound did come from an animal, it would reportedly have to be several times the size of the largest known animal on Earth, the Blue Whale." Real-life Cloverfield monster, anyone? Gaaahhhh. [[CaptainBlacksoul I]] am getting creeped out just posting this.
*** Just for reasons of balance, this from the same wiki: "An oft repeated claim is that it matches the audio profile of a living creature though this view is primarily held by cryptozoologists and is not popular among mainstream scientists."
*** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloop#Analysis This is no longer true]]. A current look at the article actually has several cited references to an NOAA marine oceanographer saying that it is likely animal in nature...
*** What gets me is that where the sound was located is very close to where the city of [[CthulhuMythos R'lyeh]] is supposed to be located.
*** The file that's usually played is the sped up one. Just try listening to it [[http://www.bloopwatch.org/bloop_realtime.wav slowed down to realtime]]. (Large File.)
* The things that go on inside you. Also, "Beauty is skin deep" is a horrible lie if you use a microscope.
* The [[OrificeInvasion Candiru]]. According to the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candiru page on them]] in ThatOtherWiki, Candiru hunt other fish by sensing the urea coming from a fish's gills. The opened urethra during urination is big enough for a candiru to get inside. It can be easily avoided by wearing a bathing suit while in the river. Or by not swimming and urinating in Amazon river at the same time.
** What about its relative, the Candiru-Acù? Victims are eaten alive, from the inside out, by up to 100 of the fish. And by 'eaten alive', I mean 'completely hollowed out'.
* Have fun reading the Cracked article of [[http://www.cracked.com/article_15816_5-most-horrifying-bugs-in-world.html The 5 Most Horrifying Bugs in the World]].
** The giant bees attacking the normal bees was pretty much just DemonicSpider vs GoddamnBats.
* Cracked articles, eh? Then we just have to mention [[http://www.cracked.com/article_17579_7-terrifying-giant-versions-disgusting-critters.html 7 Terrifying Giant Versions of Disgusting Critters]].
* Cracked articles just [[http://www.cracked.com/article/125_13-real-animals-lifted-directly-out-your-nightmares.html add 13 creatures to nightmare]]...
* Some wasps are particularly evil. Known as parasitoid wasps, they will find a live caterpillar, temporarily paralyze it, lay eggs inside the body, and allow them to hatch. The larvae will then take control of the caterpillar by devouring unnecessary organs, modifying its glands, and directly manipulating its nervous system. The host is ordered to do nothing but eat and eat until it's ten times the size of a normal caterpillar. After a set amount of time, the larvae mature and then burrow their way out of the still living animal in order to infect new hosts with their own eggs. The caterpillar has been so infected by the wasp's hormones that even as it's dying it's forced to weave the wasps a cocoon and attack any predators who threaten them. If that won't give you cold sweats, nothing will.
*** Yep, parasitic wasps inspired ''Film/{{Alien}}''. Strange but true. Even Darwin was freaked out by them, saying, [[GodIsEvil 'I'm not quite sure I can believe in a benevolent God after studying the life-cycle of this creature.']]
*** [[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/05/photogalleries/in-the-womb-animal-pictures/photo3.html Video!]]
*** The TEETH! Holy shit on a stick, the TEETH! And how did they film on the inside of the poor caterpillar!? UGH!
*** Oh, but it gets better! People all over the world ''breed'' these little bastards on special farms and send them out to specially destroy caterpillars that eat timber. That's right. We're endorsing these parasitic monstrosities and having them take out creatures whose only crime was feeding themselves. [[HumansAreBastards Do I even need to say it?]]
**** I think [[Manga/{{Bleach}} Szayel]] was based with the parasitic wasp in mind.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_cockroach_wasp Meet the Emerald Wasp.]] It doesn't just knock out a cockroach and put an egg on it; it chemically lobotomizes the roach, remote controls it to its nest, rips off its feelers, and then lays an egg on it.
** Yellowjackets: Other wasps only eat insects. Yellowjackets [[ExtremeOmnivore eat everything]]! If you ever got buzzed during a barbecue, it was probably them. And you were probably right to freak out; they have ''the'' HairTriggerTemper of the insect world. Not as bad as Africanized killer bees, but they make up for it by being EVERYWHERE. They are the most common species of wasp in the world. And, possibly, the most intelligent. The freakiest thing? As I mentioned before, they buzz barbecues, because THEY EAT MEAT. They are CARRION EATERS. And unlike ''other'' scavengers, being so small, the lack of meat on our bones compared to other animals does not deter them. I read somewhere that there's a certain cycle of insects that appear when a body is dumped in the wilderness. Guess which ones show up to ''[[ToServeMan consume thy flesh]]''!
* Yep, hornets in Australia too. Helicopter gunships of the insect world, and their reproductive strategy is straight out of ''{{Aliens}}''. Even the most diehard arachnophile would be [[{{Squick}} squicked]] watching a hornet drag a full-size huntsman spider into its burrow. [[NightmareFuel Alive, paralysed and impregnated with hornet eggs.]]
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_giant_hornet Asian Giant Hornet.]] It can outrun you. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L54exo8JTUs&feature=related 30 of these can eradicate an entire hive of 30,000 bees.]] ''It has flesh-dissolving venom''. Quoted from Cracked:
--->"It's the size of your thumb and it can spray flesh-melting poison. We really wish we were making that up for, you know, dramatic effect because goddamn, what a terrible thing a three-inch acid-shooting hornet would be, you know? Oh, hey, did we mention it shoots it into your eyes? Or that the poison also has a pheromone cocktail in it that'll call every hornet in the hive to come over and sting you until you are no longer alive? Think you can outrun it? It can fly 50 miles in a day. It'd be nice to say something reassuring at this point, like "Don't worry, they only live on top of really tall mountains where nobody wants to live," but no, they live all over the goddamned place, including outside Tokyo. Forty people die like that every year, each of them horribly".
*** If you're afraid of the Asian giant hornet, just think about these little guys: I present [[http://homepage3.nifty.com/jhb/english/hyoushi.jpg Apis cerana japonica]], the Japanese honeybee. Almost cute, isn't it? Asian giant hornets can decimate colonies of European honeybees with ease even though they are outnumbered hundreds of times over, but Japanese honeybees have an interesting defense: they swarm over the invading hornets, to the point where the hornet can't even move, and vibrate their flight muscles, which causes the temperature in the center of this dog- er, ''beepile'', to pass 47 degress Celsius. The honeybees can endure this heat, the hornet cannot. They are essentially roasted alive. It's a [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome CMoA]] for the Japanese honeybees, and a NightmareFuel death for the hornets.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepsis_wasp Pepsis Wasp, aka Tarantula Hawk]], so called because ''it eats tarantulas''. Not only that, its sting, while not that hazardous, is so painful, all you can do is lie down and '''''scream'''''.
* The stag beetle is so-named for the large, antler-like mandibles possessed by the males of many species. It [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stag_beetle easily qualifies as nightmare fuel]] for the same reason. Worse, they're big, some around four inches long. They usually don't harm people, though.
** In Japan, they're even collected and kept as pets. If you're not used to insects larger than the size of your thumb, you should stay away. YMMV though.
* An even more horrifying creature with comparatively large jaws is the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antlion antlion]]--if you're an ant, since they're not very big. Adults are relatively unremarkable, dragonfly-like insects, but the young are lethal predators that dig pits in the sand, waiting at bottom of the pit to eat whatever insects fall in with their big jaws. If God wanted to write a horror story and market it towards arthropods, I can think of few better ideas.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solifugae Solifugids, also known as camel spiders, though they aren't spiders.]] Do I even need to explain this? Possibly the most traumatizing, monstrous arachnids ever, which, given what we know about arachnids in general, says a lot.
** Want to know something creepier? While they generally don't attack humans, they use hair as nesting materials, so one of the things they do to sleeping humans is creep up on them and snip off locks of hair like some demented stalker...
* The goddamn Surinam toad. It's an amphibian that embeds its eggs in its back... and eventually, its young ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCayq56wHSA rip themselves fully-formed from their mother's skin]]''. Yeah, it's perfectly natural, but just the ''thought'' of it happening to a human being...
* Komodo Dragons. Though they have both venom and septic saliva, they [[ScienceMarchesOn are not believed to play an important role in predation]] and the idea that they will deliberately envenomate/infect their prey and wait for it to die arose from skepticism from scientists at the turn of the century towards the idea that [[ReptilesAreAbhorrent a mere reptile could dominate an entire ecosystem]]. The truth is a lot less convoluted. The Komodo Dragon is a cunning ambush hunter that takes down prey with good old fashioned brute force; they're basically land-crocodiles. Though Komodo Dragons have jaw muscles weaker than a housecat's, their teeth are razor sharp and their neck muscles are enormously powerful, allowing them to easily dispatch prey with slashing bites that cause the victim to die from blood-loss and shock within seconds. Smaller prey (such as deer and wild boar) are swept off their feet by a blow from the dragon's [[WhipItGood whiplike tail]], and then seized, instantly killed via thrashing, and are often swallowed whole. To contend with larger prey, such as Water Buffalo, the Dragon will bring the animal down by lascerating its achilles tendon so it can't run away, and then disembowel it. The animal is eaten while it's still alive.
** Komodo Dragons have also been known to harass pregnant deer, startling them into aborting their unborn offspring. The Dragon can then help itself to a meal of [[NauseaFuel placenta and tender fetal-meat.]]
* Crocodiles. Damn ''crocodiles''. Nightmarish appearance, fast, invisible in a foot of muddy water. Many varieties consider humans to be prey. They can [[PrimalFear drag you under the water]] in about two second and eat you. They are ''intelligent'' and can learn human routines. They will wait a week to get a bite of you. ''Those eyes!''
** It gets ''even better''. Crocodiles are capable of moving twice their body length in a single second. It's not uncommon to hear tales of someone being taken so quickly that you could double-take and miss it. In fact, one story where a famous American model got eaten was unusual because ''they actually had the chance to see it coming''.
** Don't think it can get any worse? Well, [[ItGotWorse it just did.]] Meet [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_%28crocodile%29 Gustave]], a 22 ft long 2,000 pound Nile Crocodile who is notorious for killing and eating over 300 people.
*** Oh, and did we mention? [[ThisIsSparta He's! Still!]] '''[[ThisIsSparta ALIVE!]]''' That's right, Gustave is still lurking in Africa waiting for his next victim.
*** There's also the fact that his body is ridden with scars from bullet wounds. Three on his side and one ''on his head''. Not only is he a giant killer crocodile, he's an ''unstoppable'' giant killer crocodile.
*** The "most recent" sighting was back in 2008. If that was the most recent, how are we to know he hasn't been spotted since? Has he been killing his witnesses, and no one's noticed?
* The [[http://www.laweekly.com/2008-07-31/news/rathouse-of-the-palisades/ Palisades Rathouse]] might qualify as nightmare fuel. Incidentally it also provides two examples of the CrazyCatLady trope who have obsessed over a different animal...
** [[http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,685045,00.html The Mülheim Cobra house!]] OK, just one cobra, but they literally teared apart the innards of the house, and ''still'' couldn't find the damn snake. Volunteers for one night in there please raise their hands!
* The [[http://www.livt.net/Clt/Ani/Cho/Mam/Ivr/ivr011.jpg solenodon]], a relative of the mole and shrew, [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Hispaniola_solenodon.jpg can be quite creepy]] or [[http://photos-513.ll.facebook.com/photos-ll-sf2p/v193/223/46/693786513/n693786513_654583_4434.jpg unsettling]]. That is, until you see the [[http://jay.kusnetz.net/pics4ext/almiqui.jpg cuban]] [[http://pikaia.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/solenodon_cubanus.jpg variety]]. Should I add that all solenodons have a poisonous bite?
* Sea urchins. Just ... motherfarking ''sea urchins''. They are living, breathing balls of spines which live on the ocean floor. Many of them live close to the shore and it's hard to see underwater, so inevitably some unlucky beachgoers will end up stepping on one. This results in a badly injured foot and a visit to the hospital.
** Hey, just imagine if some wacky mad scientists gave them brains...and a hatred of humanity! TRIBBLES OF DOOOOOOOOOOM. Though honestly death-by-urchin can very easily also extend into ridiculous Narm.
** It gets worse. Because sea urchin spines are made of calcite, they snap easily because of the alignment of the calcite crystals, leaving part of it wedged in your open wound. The best way to deal with it? ''Push the spine right into your body''. The calcite will dissolve in your bloodstream and the wound will heal normally. Have fun, kids.
*** The way this is usually accomplished is by breaking off the parts of the spines that are still outside the skin and crushing the parts that are embedded with something blunt and sturdy (a rock works fine if there's nothing else to hand) to break them up and drive them a bit deeper. It's painful, but not completely horrific. However, the ocean [[CaptainObvious being full of living stuff]] as it is, these kind of injuries do have a tendency to get infected. A good way to counteract that is by sterilizing the injury somehow.
* Jaguars. They're both awesome and freaky because they kill their prey by ''biting through its skull''. Their jaws are powerful enough to crack open a glyptodon's skull. And for those of you who don't know paleontology, glyptodonts are essentially mammalian versions of a panzer tank. Google it and see. Do '''NOT''' tick off kitty!
* Big Cats, fierce predators with strong jaws, razor-sharp claws, huge strength (a tiger could knock you unconcius with one swipe of it's paw), super speed and stealth (if a big cat stalked you in a remote area, you wouldn't see it until it was too late). Some big cats have been known to kill buffaloes, rhinos, hippos, pythons, crocodiles, wolves and even bears. To make things worse, big cat attacks are on the rise.
* Allow me to introduce you to the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldt_Squid Dosidicus gigas]]: the Humboldt squid, growing up to seven feet long and, alone among the invertebrates, ''hunting prey in packs of as many as 1200 individuals''. Their tentacles are lined with ''teeth'', they feed on each other when wounded or frenzied, they are ''highly'' aggressive against unfamiliar objects, they attack humans on a regular basis, and their natural habitat ranges from the Tierra del Fuego to coastal California ''and spreading north''. And you thought it was safe to go back in the water...
** Ocean acidification seems to be killing them off, though.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_squid Colossal Squid]]. They have GIANT HOOKS on their tentacles, which they can rotate 180 degrees. And they are up to 46 feet long.
** Cephalopods in general. As awesome as I think they are, they are also damn creepy. They're smart. Really, really smart for invertebrates. Most intelligent creatures are birds and mammals, which are pretty similar to us in terms of body structure and biology. But cephalopods are completely alien. The thought of something like that being as smart as a dog is strange. If they would be sapient, what would they think? Most likely [[BlueAndOrangeMorality we couldn't comprehend it at all]]. To think modern culture can pervert such beings.....
*** [[ItGotWorse Fun fact!]] Cephalopods have one large central brain in their head... plus one smaller brain for '''each of it's arms.''' So that's 9 brains for an octopus, 11 for a squid. The (now extinct) ammonites had 12 arms, meaning 13 brains. And then there's the eyes...
*** Weird fact about cephalopods: cuttlefish are exellent at blending into their environment by changing their colours to match their background. The thing is, they're also colourblind. How the hell do they know what colour they should change to?
*** Cuttlefish in general are chalk full of RuleOfCool. The flamboyant cuttlefish has very poorly developed fins/whatever. So instead of swimming it uses them to -walk- on the ocean floor. The broad club cuttlefish meanwhile will use it's color changing ability to visually stun/hypnotize uncooperative prey. Though octopi generally get the better known as being intelligent, cuttlefish are much more consistent and equally intelligent. They're capable of learning - not just basic behaviourist conditioning (bell rings, do this action) but things like symbolic learning (a plastic tree in the tub means the exit with the stripe [which will change exit between tests] over it is the exit, remember, symbolic learning is the basis for ''written language''). Other species of cuttlefish functionally breed for intelligence; the biggest and strongest cuttlefish will try to regularly mate with the females but the females (who can control which sperm to use) are much more likely to use the sperm of smaller males that manage to mate with them. How do these smaller males get by the larger ones? They disguise themselves as female cuttlefish and walk right in the front door. They have the potential to be the {{Magnificent Bastard}}s of the sea.
* [[http://naamah-darling.livejournal.com/348604.html The saga of Rapemouse.]] If that's not enough, then the various anecdotes of cute animal cannibalism and brutality in the comments will be.
** For instance, pulling a spinal cord out of a blood and gore splattered rat cage because ''that was all that was left'', or watching some hamsters playing in a cage except for one that seemed to be sleeping...until one bumped it and the head was all that was there. If you think small, cute rodents are gentler than carnivorous cats and dogs, think again. Life is cheap at the bottom of the food chain, especially when you only live about three years.
** Also, the comments mention Reaver Furries, which is about the only thing more nightmare-fuelly than regular Reavers.
* Leopards. These cats are like ninjas. They have been know to crawl into houses, kill humans as they sleep, and drag them off into the night--without waking up anyone else.
* [[http://media.ebaumsworld.com/picture/emmakate/coconut_crab.jpg The Coconut Crab.]] In addition to being the largest arthropod on land, they're ludicrously strong. Strong enough to lift 64 pounds and smash coconuts open, in fact. And they can climb trees. They tend to actually shy away from humans, but if you manage to piss one off, chances are you will get hurt. Very, very badly.
*** What's even worse is the fact that it takes a flamethrower to kill one.
*** ItGotWorse...again. These buggers may have been responsible for the fact that [[NeverFoundTheBody they never found]] AmeliaEarhart's body. Some researchers are floating a theory that she ran out of fuel and ditched on a desert island, only to succumb to thirst or hunger at some point. On a HistoryChannel TV special, the team left a pig carcass out for the many crabs on the island...and they showed a high-speed shot of them swarming over the body, which was picked clean in about an hour. Brrrr.
* Any number of deep-sea creatures could fall under this, really. [[http://www.bogleech.com/bio-deep.html Let me show you them.]]
** How do you make giant isopods 100000x more scary? [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h4VuvC8KCk Time-lapse photography.]]
*** I feel this is an unfair bias against deep sea life. For in the end, can we not all gain some wisdom from the noble [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9t7E4amWDqI deep sea anglerfish]]?
*** Interesting thing about anglerfish. A male or female anglerfish cannot reach maturity on their own; instead, a male (or several), will latch onto the much larger female anglerfish. Pretty much any organ the male has that aren't his reproductive ones atrophy away, and it just becomes a protrusion on the female's body that produces sperm.
* Just the sight of the [[http://www.bogleech.com/nature/mammal-molerat3.jpg naked molerat]] is typically enough to unnerve people. Did I mention that in order to better navigate in their crowded underground tunnels, they can ''turn almost entirely around in their own skin?''
** No. The most disturbing this about naked moles rats is that there actually exists a species of ''mammals'' that live in [[BeePeople eusocial colonies]].
* A good number of invertebrates fit into this trope. I was thoroughly disgusted during an exam in invertebrate taxonomy which involved identifying live specimens. The one that has become burned into the brain was a hideous little asymmetrical thing with ridges going along its twisted curled up body with a number of thin long white tentacles coming out of it in random places. That question was marked wrong because I just couldn't bear looking at it long enough to identify it.
** And then there is the Class Polychaeta, belonging to the annelid worm family. The most notorious of these are the sand worms which burrow through the beaches of many coastlines. Segmented worms, up to 3 metres in length, with little moving bristles on the sides of each of their segments, a pair of large eyes that bulge from its front segment, and large jaws that are capable of nipping off a finger. Among the coastlines that they call home: The one that I happen to live near.
** [[SpongebobSquarePants Sponges and starfish]] aren't scary, as they're mostly harmless, but [[NightmareFuel/SpongebobSquarePants then again]]...
*** Oh really? What about the [[http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2327/2479130477_b32b348314.jpg Sun Starfish?]]
* The Irukandji Jellyfish, the most deadly jellyfish in the world. Just one brush with this thing will leave you reeling with the effects of Irukandji syndrome, a horrific condition that leaves you suffering not only every unpleasant symptom under the sun, but even ''a feeling of impending doom'' so bad that some patients are so certain they're going to die ''they ask the doctors to kill them to get it over with.'' (Probably the closest thing to [[HarryPotter Dementors]] there is.) And the worst part? [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Irukandji-jellyfish-queensland-australia.jpg THEY'RE SO RIDICULOUSLY TINY THEY'RE PRACTICALLY INVISIBLE.]]
** Not quite the deadliest though, some other jellies have stings that can kill an adult in a matter of hours. Irukandji is generally not lethal.
*** No, they'll just make you wish you they were. "Every unpleasant symptom under the sun" includes excruciating pain in various parts of the body, and wikipedia sez: "There is no known antidote for venom that has already entered the body. Morphine will not help reduce the pain." FUCK YOU, AUSTRALIA! D:
*** One person even said that'd he would've preferred getting stung by the ([[DemonicSpiders infamous]]) Box Jellyfish than an Irukandji, simply because "either you recover in 20 minutes or you die."
*** There's an account of an Irukandji victim who was pulled from the surf. After carefully removing the jellyfish remains from the now unconscious man's legs, he was dosed with painkillers and taken away to hospital. Even unconscious and Morphine'd to the eyeballs, ''he was still screaming in agony the entire time.''
* COCKROACH.
** They don't do ANYTHING, except spread diseases, and be creepy. And live without heads.
*** The problem with cockroaches is, they're too used to living like us. Grooming habits? check. Living in vast colonies? check. Capable of surviving anything? check... Capable of scaring the living piss out of any other creature in their midst? check. They're the only creature that humans seem to be universally afraid of, cause they aren't afraid of us. Unless you turn on the lights.
*** Plus, they ''smell''. Name another insect that leaves behind slimy nests in your smoke alarms and such. Pantry moths and spiders are downright civilized houseguests.
** Actually it's the tiny German cockroaches that are really scary, because you ''know'' they're living in your walls and eating your food and breeding like, um, rabbits. And until they invented Combat traps, it used to be, once you saw one, your house was doomed, there'd eventually be German cockroaches crawling out of the peeling paint when you scrape it. The giant, 2-inch scaled up cockroaches aren't as disturbing because they usually don't live indoors, they just come inside for warmth. Except on the Gulf coast where the giant cockroaches live in the house and fly around. Including when you're in the shower.
** THAT CRUNCHING NOISE MAKE IT STOP.
*** [[Film/MenInBlack Damn decent of you.]]
** They may be technically harmless, but that thing about waking up with a cockroach in your ear? Yeah, not just an urban legend. They won't lay eggs in your brain or even hurt you whatsoever if they do it, but do they ''need'' to?
* The [[http://chasenoface.blogspot.com/ cat without a face]]. Shudder.
** [[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_mtxIjWA73qM/SdQDMF4XiyI/AAAAAAAACO4/zZRWuAwySPI/s1600-h/IMG_0734.JPG That is the most horrifying thing I've seen in a long time]]. If I was that cat I would be like "Kill Me!"
** While we're at it, take a look at [[http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/cyclopes.asp this]]. Something about [[CuteKitten cats]].
* Tiger and nurse sharks cannibalise their siblings in the womb, eating their way through until they're the only one. Does anyone else find that absolutely horrifying?
** Actually sometimes happens with human babies instinctually, though I forget the medical term. Made worse because instead of eating, it's more like ABSORBING.
*** It's a type of chimerism; one fetus does absorb the other.
*** The technical scientific term is [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetus_in_fetu Fetus-in-Fetu.]]
* Type 'Rat King' into any search engine and prepare to throw up. Seriously.
** [[http://www.weird-encyclopedia.com/rat-king.php Yeah...]] Ew...
* Sphinx cats, e.g. Mr Bigglesworth in ''Austin Powers''. Argh!
** YMMV, but they're actually not as [[UglyCute disturbingly old-man-wrinkly or hairless]] as they seem, however, and are usually a pretty outgoing and friendly breed besides. It's kind of like petting a warm, purring shammy [[ShapedLikeItself shaped like a cat.]]
* Pick an Australian wild animal. Any of them. There's a good chance it can maim and/or kill you.
** Yes, this includes [[{{Discworld}} the sheep]].
*** Really, the best advice you can give a tourist visiting Australia is that, yes, the rumours are true. If it has less than two legs, or four or more legs, than it can, and will likely attempt, to kill you. Avoid at all costs. Even the cute ones, like wombats and koalas, are vicious up close.
* The sea louse. It reproduces by having a male draging five or so females into a burrow, impregnating them, and the females contain the eggs inside their body, where the larva hatch and ''eat her from the inside out''. As if pregnancy wasn't scary enough!
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leucochloridium_variae Leucochloridium variae]] is a parasite that specializes in making [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWB_COSUXMw Zombie Snails]]. The NatGeo clip on YouTube doesn't even come close to some of the more gruesome depictions I've seen of this on some nature shows.
* I saw a Discovery Channel special on wild pigs in America and how some of them might be descended from imported Eurasian wild boars. They won't eat you, but you would not want to come across one in the wild. And their population in America and Eurasia is spreading.
** Trying to avoid wild boars in their natural habitat is all fine and good, but sometimes [[http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/818514-wild-boar-runs-amok-in-office the boars come to YOUR natural habitat]]!
** Domestic pigs are dangerous enough. There's a reason why everyone acted with such concern when Dorothy fell into the pig pen.
* The mouth of the sea lamprey. Some people photoshop these onto various body parts and think that it's FUNNY.
** That's not the worst of it. They don't have jaws, you see, making them incapable of biting things. Thus, in order to feed, they ''latch onto the side of a fish and suck out its innards''.
* Since the sea is really just one giant unexplored part of the earth, we usually find creatures there that seem a little... Off. When I was young, I visited a certain beach a low tide. Walking along the seaweed, I saw loads of fishes, shrimps, sea cucumbers, clams and the like trapped in puddles. But then there was this huge rock that seemed out of place. I came closer and saw that it was covered in holes. Then, all of the sudden, these black eyes perched on black stalks came out of the holes and stared at me, then they quickly retreated. To this day, I'm still looking for that rock.
** Perhaps it was a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonefish Stonefish]]? They're very rock-like, and have protruding black eyes. Deadly venomous, too.
* Bees ([[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall my God]]) and any similar insect (wasps, hornets, etc.). I have been terrified of them since my mother was stung in the armpit while trying to protect me from one. And Africanized (or "killer") bees, previously unable to withstand cooler climates, are now managing to creep farther north as they become more resistant to cold. Sweet mercy, I hope they never make it to Pennsylvania...
** I'm right there with you, man...it makes me appreciate these 5 degree winters...
* Three words: Brain eating amoeba.
** As in this article on [[http://www.cracked.com/article_17173_7-terrifying-creatures-youll-never-see-coming_p2.html Cracked.]] It's #1 on the list, and for good reason...
* A lot of cryptids. Especially the [[http://www.bukisa.com/articles/66811_ten-ridiculously-awesome-cryptids Mothman and the Momo]].
* ''Sacculina''. When it infects a crab, it hooks into its shell and spreads tendrils throughout the body. Then it releases feminising hormones, so that even male crabs act like female ones. Then it basically uses the crab (which is sterilised by this procedure) as a puppet, right down to releasing its own spawn when the crab tries to spread its own offspring. This goes on for the rest of the crab's miserable existence, reduced to basically a puppet of a little blob of flesh descended from a barnacle.
* [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Macrocheira_kaempferi.jpg The Japanese Giant Spider Crab]] is the largest of all athropods, with a legspan of 4 meters, weighing up to 20kg and they have a life expectancy of 100 years, which means they actually lived in Ancient Japan.
** How can you miss that they are also known as [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast corpse crabs]] due to their habit of feeding on the bodies of the drowned?
* How does this section not yet have the [[http://bpwidgets.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/golden-orb-weaver-eating-bird-231x300.jpg golden orb weaver]] spider? (Warning: click at your own risk.) A spider so large it ''eats birds''. Fortunately, its toxic is not fatal to humans, except possibly when seeing one causes a heart attack.
** Surprise surprise, it's Australian.
* While they, of course, are totally unable to do this to anything larger than an insect, spiders of the ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uloboridae Uloboridae]]'' family, that lack venom glands, kill their prey wrapping them in large amounts of silk and so tightly that the pressure breaks their joints and even their exoeskeleton. Later, the spider releases over the cocoon with the unfortunate prey inside gastric fluids that kill the victim and dissolve its innards [[NightmareFuel entering where the silk has broken through]], so the spider can suck the fluids.
* Tasmanian DEVILS are called devils for a reason. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SU44KwIfBXM
* Dolphins may look all cute, doing flips with their little grins but they can be huge dicks. Males will gang up and rape a female dolphin or harass the calves of other dolphins and whales until they die. I read a story about how a dolphin that lived in a harbour would lure seagulls to the water with fish then drown them just for fun.
** And that's just the start. Just check their entry on [[http://www.cracked.com/article_15853_the-6-cutest-animals-that-can-still-destroy-you.html this]] list. What's that? They kill randomly kill their own young, just so the mother won't be preoccupied with them and can have sex? Ok, Ok, not as extreme and example as it could be... after all, ''most'' animals do that anyway. But then again, only humans and dolphins are known to go out of their way to kill animals ''just for giggles''.
** Also, they masturbate with each others blowholes. Y'know, the bit they use to breath n stuff, an equivalent to our noses. Imagine having someone get off by forcing their knob up your nose. just ew.
* [[http://www.cracked.com/funny-163-australia/ Everything in this Cracked.com article]]. Seriously, Australia...are you trying to give everyone nightmares?
** There's a reason it started as a penal colony.
*** Makes the insane amounts of bravery seen at Gallipoli(and elsewhere) a bit more understandable, don't it?
* Pick up a beautiful shell in any beach except Australia, odds are you'll take it home and make it a nice souvenir. Pick up a beautiful shell in any beach in Australia, odds are it'll shoot a poisionous harpoon at you!
* I recently watched a heron snatch a live duckling and swallow it whole. I'll never look at herons the same way again. Imagine how they would look from a duck or fish's point of view; a towering, unearthly thin body, long, spear-like beak, wide, staring eyes... Yeesh, it seems scarier than a T. rex, if mainly for that, long, uncanny neck (predators are supposed to be bulky and muscular-looking, right?) and the farking beak. Except for the eyes, of course, they almost seem like the terrifying mass-production EVA's from ''EndOfEvangelion''. FeatheredFiend, indeed.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankebetsu_brown_bear_incident The Sankebetsu brown bear incident.]]
* For anyone who does not like flying, stinging insects, [[http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Owgxo0uCZXA/SwFLFDQHvZI/AAAAAAAAAQo/zytdSa_xq_M/s1600/lebah+maluku+2.jpg Wallace's Giant Bee]]. The thing has mandibles most beetles would envy. It's endangered, though, so you will probably never see one in person. Some tropers (like me) are almost relieved.
* How's this for a creature that's kinda scary, the Ribeiroia ondatrae (and the name is it's good part), it's a kind of worm that crawls into a tadpole, and then when the thing hits puberty, it screws up it's transformation to a full frog, so it grows extra limbs and it's original ones get misshapen quite often as well, imagine going through puberty, and then waking up one day, with your knees bent the wrong way, and your tighs folded the other way, with an extra pair of smaller legs next to your genitalia.
** And the reason why it does this? Because it needs to get into a bird next, and a frog with lots of weird misshapen legs has lots of movement that's more likely to catch the eye of a predatory bird, and makes it harder for the frog to get away. So imagine that you woke up like that, and it was so that when a giant monster came around to eat you, you'd basically have a giant "EAT ME" sign on your back and couldn't get away.
* Take a box jellyfish, give it eyes, and you get [[http://www.bogleech.com/nature/cnido-cuboeyes1.jpg this]]. There's something very unsettling about that thing.
* The Goliath Tiger Fish. Google these monstrosities, and Jaws will take a backseat in your nightmares.
* I went on a nature hike where the guide gave a harrowing description of being stung by a caterpillar under the fingernail while on a hike, which soon left him in far too much pain to do the tour he had scheduled that day. After doing reserach, he discovered that this caterpillar was particularly venemous, and he would have died not long after he managed to get back to town for medical attention.
** Well, at least caterpillars are too cute for anybody to stay mad at them. Wait, no, [[http://files.myfrogbag.com/xut0p0/1207065073j5iEqv3.jpg I take that back]].
* The way Cuttlefish eat. Slowly approaching........SNAP!
* Earwigs. ''Earwigs.'' They look like they have pincers on both ends, so you can't tell if they're coming or going, they squeeze into little tiny cracks in ''your'' bedroom, and if you have an older sibling, chances are pretty good you believed they're called that because they actually crawl into your ears and lay eggs (they don't, thank God). I would give 98% of the animals and bugs on this page a big hug, but between the fear of artificial ear-semination and having the little beasties ''repeatedly'' jump out of corn husks at her while harvesting as a kid, I'm quite ready for that can of Raid.
* I don't know why elephants haven't been mentioned. Male African elephants are aggressively territorial, but in musth, the elephants mating season, their testosterone skyrockets to about ''SIXTY'' times the normal amount, making the worst case of human roid rage look like a baby pitching a fit in comparison. Combine that with the average weight of a male being about 11000 pounds, roughly 5 1/2 tons, almost all of it muscle, and a running speed of about 25-30 miles an hour. Taking into account how many people get killed by these living tanks each year, it's pretty horrifying to think how quickly a circus can turn into a nightmare.
* Ladies and Gentlemen, I introduce to you, [[http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/02_03/snakehead_468x278.jpg the Snakehead]]. This terrifying beastie, which is more dangerous than a piranha is considered unique among fish because it has the ability to breathe air and walk on land. I repeat it has the ability to ''walk on land''!
** Snakeheads aren't the most [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONhBy9uGdgs graceful things out of water though,]] but they're terrifying in water.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCgbYnNAbSM Transformer Owl]]--A YouTube video showing a certain breed of African owl and its reactions to predators of different sizes. ("Awww. it looks so cute! Ooh, they're placing a medium sized owl in front of it and it's puffing itself up as a defense mechanism. Now it looks even ''more'' cute! Awwwwww! Now they're placing a really ''big'' owl in front of it and [[GrotesqueCute OHMIGOD! WHAT THE HOLY HELL IS IT DOING!?]] [[NightmareFace THAT'S NOT RIGHT!!!]] [[BodyHorror AUUUUUGHHHHHHH!!!!]] I WANT MY MOMMY!!!!!!")
** The second "transformation" Is it trying to immitate a Lynx, or some other cat. Still distrubing though.
*** In its natural habitat, it probably would have helped it blend into tree trunks by hiding the eyes and making the profile slimmer. Compare the potoo or tawny frogmouth.
* [[{{HellIsThatNoise}} Rabbits scream.]]
** Only when they're in danger (not that that makes it any better).
** They can also aggressively attack humans. Think that was just a Monty Python joke?
* Spiders always make me (admittedly a very camp bisexual) scream. and not in a good way...
** You will never look at a red hourglass the same way again
* How do we not mention hyenas?! Strong bite force, vicious temper, and have been known to attack people.
** Most people think of a Hyena's laugh as a funny thing - we even have a [[TheHyena trope]] for it. Now imagine you're alone in the savanna at night, and [[HellIsThatNoise you hear that laughter coming from all around you]]. And this is coming from a troper who LIKES hyenas!
** And on a different level: [[ExoticEquipment "The external genitalia of females closely resemble those of males: the 15 cm (6 inch) clitoris is similar in shape and position to a penis, and is capable of erection."]] YMMV on whether this is NightmareFuel on its own, but they have to give birth through that.
* Hippos. They look cute, but they have the temper to make a {{Tsundere}} look like a YamatoNadeshiko. They are responsible for the deaths of more people than even crocodiles! And just look at those tusks! I wonder why that little girl in a Christmas song wanted one so badly.
** Plus, if you merely annoy them, they'll spray you with their feces. Whole different kind of nightmare fuel there.
*** A hippo's breath smells so foul it can scare other animals off.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookie_cutter_shark Cookiecutter sharks.]] Don't let the cute name fool you; you will NOT get any tasty baked goods from these fuckers. They are only half a metre long, but feed on other much larger predators like dolphins and seals. How? They lure them in by swimming around pretending to be normal fish, wait for them to come in for a snack and then ''take as many bites out of the unsuspecting creature as they can before it gets away.'' And just [[http://www.aasharks.com/types-of-sharks/cookiecutter-shark-picture-02.jpg LOOK AT THOSE TEETH.]] They were first dicovered after the US Navy started noticing perfectly round holes appearing in the neoprene covers of the sonar domes on their ''submarines''.
* You like puppies? Well, Ivan Palov's experiments will make you bite your nails and squirm. In the course of studying animal psychology, most of the the test subject were put into such a condition that just scream Mengele. Case in [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSrIkUXwsNk point]]
* Centipedes and millipedes. DEAR GOD. Why do these creatures exist? Creepy crawly, creepy crawly. . .
** Millipedes are cute. Somehow, upping the number of legs even further causes it to [[CrossesTheLineTwice Cross The Line Twice]]. Plus, they don't eat each other and potentially you. The same cannot be said for the giant centipede...
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAL7r7zvKDw House centipedes.]] Also known as [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRpbb6qsMB4 geji-geji]] or cave centipedes or hearth centipedes (because they crawl out of your fireplace and up the wall at 50 miles an hour like something out of a horror film). They have a million legs, each over an inch long, enough to look like a 3-inch long hairy moustache, and if you attack one, the legs come off and keep moving. Due to their speed and agility, they're totally not afraid of falling off a wall and running over your face... The good news is, they're very shy and they only eat insects, so they're considered lucky, like other things that come out of your fireplace (crickets, Santa Claus...) They only bite when cornered. And they mostly come at night... mostly. Hearth crickets, which look like some sort of evil cave cricket, are also dam' ugly.
** According to various bloggers, they are [[MemeticMutation "the only thing that scares the hell]] [[ImageBoards out of /b/"]].
** Here's another [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Scutigera_coleoptrata.JPG pic]]. [[SchmuckBait Go ahead. Enlarge the image]].
* Moray eels have a ''[[http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/08/moray_eels_attack_with_second_pair_of_alien-style_jaws.php second pair]]'' of jaws behind their teeth to grasp their prey. That's right. They eat {{Alien}}-style!
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eTzYEUW_0g Pelicans.]]
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qQzas739ic Nightmare Retardant]]
* I'm not disturbed by lobsters or crabs in and of themselves, but I'm terrified of the thought of eating them.
* I'm pretty sure Cracked won't sleep peacefully until the rest of us can't. Behold! [[http://www.cracked.com/article_18641_7-terrifying-prehistoric-creatures-that-are-still-around.html 7 Terrifying Prehistoric Creatures (That Are Still Around)]] With such wonders as:
** A fucking deep sea shark '''with a circular saw for a jaw.'''
** God damned giant-ass Stingrays '''the diameter of a VW Beetle.'''
** Some sort of unholy '''Dragon/Shark/Zombie/300-toothed-saw.'''
** Proof that there is no loving god, a cross between '''an alligator and a gar''' that is decent enough to live in swamps where they can reach you.
** A cute 'lil gecko '''the size of a human child.'''
** A "prehistoric, three-eyed, hell-shrimp".
** "The closest thing we have to genuine Lovecraftian elder gods": "'''condoms full of teeth'''".
* The way the meat, egg, and dairy industries treat animals, as seen in [[http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-513747926833909134# this video]].
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IWN8UGDyC0 The Foie Gras industry]] [[TearJerker kills female ducklings on the day they hatch.]]
** As for the males, [[SarcasmMode don't worry!]] [[ItGetsWorse It gets worse!]] Imagine being trapped in a unsanitary cage for a month [[http://media.portland.indymedia.org/images/2008/08/378473.jpg being force-fed coarse cornmeal through a metal pipe.]] And when you think you can throw it all up afterwards, you fail and either [[UpToEleven become even more cramped in the cage]] or die from the sheer amount of food inside you. That's what its like to be a Foie Gras duck ''before the slaughterhouse,'' kids.
*** While the foie gras industry is horrible, CO2 gas is considered an acceptable, humane way of killing mass quantities of animals. Of course, you're supposed to make sure they're dead before dumping them into garbage cans. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ--faib7to Grinding them up while they're alive]] is also considered acceptable and reasonably humane(because it's instantaneous). As opposed to just dropping them outside to freeze and/or starve to death.
* [[http://www.cracked.com/article/109_natures-6-most-diabolical-predators Another article from Cracked concerning the evils of nature]]. None of these are threat to humans; however, the fact that nature would spawn such sadistic and clever predators is a tad unnerving (and one of those is a ''plant''). The pictures don't help either (the ones with the beetle grubs and the assassin bug actually made me shudder). And the entries start out with the POV of the ''prey''. Oh, and arachnophobes should steer clear of this article. Just saying.
** Cracked should have it's own HONF page.
* Coconut Crabs and Japanese Spider Crabs. Not fun stumbling on pictures of the former when all you were doing was innocently looking up information on New Caledonia. The latter? Thanks, Alton Brown.
* Wasps, especially yellow jackets and hornets. I recently had a nightmare about there being a nest in the mailbox. And have you read any news stories about "super-sized" nests? This nightmare scenario happens more often in real life than you think.
** The grand champion of nightmare fuel-errific stinging insects is the Japanese Giant Hornet. I dare you to search on YouTube. 2 inches long, and its lethal venom dissolves human flesh. And its horrifying helicopter-like buzz.
** The fine folks at Cracked bring you the Giant Hornet (and more!) in [[http://www.cracked.com/article_15816_5-most-horrifying-bugs-in-world.html The 5 Most Horrifying Bugs.]]
** Not allergic to bees? You don't die in 60 seconds on one sting if you don't recieve medical care? '''You don't know shit about being afraid of bees.'''
* Two words: Box Jellyfish.
** Cone [[strike:shells]] snails. Blue-ringed octopi. Recommendation: '''stay the hell out of the water in [[LandDownunder Australia]]'''.
*** Even worse (and, in a twisted way, cooler) are the facts that the cone snail hurts about as much as a bee sting, the octopus ''doesn't hurt at all'', and both of them use the poison Tetrodotoxin, for which there. Is. No. Cure.
**** (Insert Herpes Commercial BGM here) ...but there IS a treatment. Aggressive life support (i.e., intubation and ventilation) started near or before onset of symptoms, stomach pumping if ingested, IV fluids, and certain drugs (alpha adrenergic agonists and anticholinesterases, for those interested) can get a person through the time until the toxin is out of the body; if they survive 24 hours, chances are they'll make it.
*** And there's no cure or treatment for cone snail poison, either. If you are bitten, you can pretty much kiss your ass goodbye.
** If that's so, that would simply apply to the whole area of Indo-Pacific. Here's a saccharine-sweet addition: ''Synanceia verrucosa'', (in)formally known as Stonefish. Armed with one of the most powerful fish toxins and can easily induce even the most stoic bruisers into gasping sobs. A fair trip to the reef flats of [[EastIndies Indonesia]] can yield at least an encounter or two, if your eyes are sharp enough to see them.
*** In case you don't appreciate how hard it is to see a stonefish, look at [[http://fishindex.blogspot.com/2008/06/stonefish-most-venomous-fish-in-world.html this.]] That's right. These fish are ''invisible''.
** While we're on the subject of deadly creatures found on one of Australia's greatest tourist attractions, the GREAT BARRIER REEF, we seem to have forgotten sea snakes and sting rays. Seventeen species of sea snake are on the GBR, ''all'' of which are fatally poisonous, but generally easy-going as long as they stay in the water. And sting-rays are really in the same boat: docile until provoked (ie, stepped on or trapped between a legend and a camera).
** You're not much better out of the water in Oz, either. The Australian Outback is a damn scary place. I learned that after reading BillBryson's ''In a Sunburned Country''. 120-degree temperatures, spinifex bushes (they have hypodermic-like tips that ''break off'' and become lodged in your skin, inviting flies and infection), all manner of poisonous snakes and scorpions, and did I mention the flies? Bryson's book has a lovely anecdote about how one of the outback explorers brought a camel along which got such a bad bite that ''they were scooping out maggots with a coffee cup''. When a ''camel'' starts suffering in a desert, you know you're in a damn nasty place.
*** The [[FluffyTheTerrible Teddy Bear Cholla]], a cactus found in the southwestern US and northern Mexico, is similar to the aforementioned bushes. The needles come off very easily, and are barbed, meaning that with movement, they move through one's body. I remember a guide talking about how a needle got into the sole of his foot, and ended up working its way out of the top of his foot.
**** Oh, that's ''far'' from the worst of it. Cholla is a very odd plant in that it's segmented; it's shaped a bit like [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Opuntia_bigelovii_2.jpeg a demented balloon animal]]. Those little segments will all break off at the slightest provocation; the plant spreads when they're carried somewhere else and take root. In practical terms, this means you have a decent chance of having an entire 3-inch-long length of cactus attach itself to your leg. The stuff is also sometimes called "jumping cactus," because due to that habit of falling apart and the way human reflexes work, you often won't feel the sting from the thorns until a fraction of a second after you've already moved away, making it seem like the hellish little thing actually ''jumped across the intervening space to attach itself to your skin''. Also, the reason for the name? The thorns are ''clear'' and so numerous and fine that from a distance the damn stuff [[LightIsNotGood looks fluffy or glowy]]. So yeah, ridiculous numbers of wickedly barbed, needle-sharp, hair-thin, near-invisible thorns that'll brush off at the slightest provocation, appear to leap gaps, and hurt like the dickens. And god help you if your ''dog'' gets into the stuff...
** Sydney Funnelweb. A literal real-life DemonicSpider.
*** And it ''still'' [[ItGotWorse gets worse]] - Sydney Funnelwebs are only the ''second'' most dangerous variety of the spider. Their fantastically badass cousins, who inhabit [[CutesyNameTown Orchid Beach]] on Fraser Island, are [[UpToEleven even more venomous]] and there are a lot more of them per square metre. And the kicker? Go to Orchid Beach today and there stands the decaying remains of a ''holiday resort.'' I wonder why they abandoned it...
* [[http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12840743/porks_dirty_secret_the_nations_top_hog_producer_is_also_one_of_americas_worst_polluters Hog farming.]]
-->The lagoons [holding ponds for pig manure, urine, blood, afterbirth, and stillborn piglets] themselves are so viscous and venomous that if someone falls in it is foolish to try to save him. A few years ago, a truck driver in Oklahoma was transferring pig shit to a lagoon when he and his truck went over the side. It took almost three weeks to recover his body. In 1992, when a worker making repairs to a lagoon in Minnesota began to choke to death on the fumes, another worker dived in after him, and they died the same death. In another instance, a worker who was repairing a lagoon in Michigan was overcome by the fumes and fell in. His fifteen-year-old nephew dived in to save him but was overcome, the worker's cousin went in to save the teenager but was overcome, the worker's older brother dived in to save them but was overcome, and then the worker's father dived in. They all died in pig shit.
** As a permaculture and self-sufficiency enthusiast, ''all'' industrial-scale farming qualifies for me.
* [[http://www.wheredopuppiescomefrom.com/ Puppy mills.]] Ever wondered where those adorable puppies in pet store windows come from? Well it turns out they're farmed, much like battery hens. That's right, there are battery farms ''for puppies''. The dogs are kept in cages their entire lives and forced to breed continuously, sometimes until ''their uteruses fall out.'' Because the dog breeding industry has little regulation, the law does not require these dogs to ever receive vet care, any kind of human contact, or, y'know ever be let out of their cages. Oh, and there are also kitten, bird, rabbit and ferret mills. Good luck ever looking at a pet store the same way again. Moral of the story? Always, always, '''always''' adopt from an animal shelter. '''Seriously.''' For those who absolutely '''must''' have a pure-breed of some kind, at least go to a breeder directly where you can see the mother.
** I, a dog-loving troper, find this news to be more of a {{Tear Jerker}} than nightmare fuel.
** You'll never see a dog for sale in a pet shop in the UK; almost all are bought directly from breeders or owners whose pets have had a litter. The RSPCA and Scottish SPCA take a very dim view of puppy farming.
** America is starting to get on this, unfortunately approaching it by punishing legitimate breeders and people who show dogs.
** There are also pure-breed rescue places if you want a particular kind of pure-breed cat or dog. Sometimes the official clubs for those animals run the rescue and adoption services also.
** This places a whole new and somber, if not sinister, spin on [[{{Peanuts}} Snoopy's]] puppyhood at the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm.
** It gets worse when you're working at a shelter that rescues these puppy mill dogs. I've seen dogs with severe PTSD (There's no other word f,or it), dogs with no teeth, dogs with fur so matted that it's literally coming off their bodies, dogs who are blind, dogs with their ears hacked off...
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A7gBS3QiqA This video]] showing the use of "Henderson Castration Tools". Insert the sac into the clamp, put the clamp in a variable speed drill and spin about 20 times until the cord fractures and the balls come right off. Especially nice is the scene where they inject anesthetic into the horse's testicles.
* While watching the ''Planet Earth'' series, I got to the part about jungles. Now, up until then there have been predator-prey chases, which are understandable, they're necessary. But then we get to the part about the parasitical fungi that can literally cause a ZombieApocalypse for an ant colony. They even showed the fungus [[BodyHorror growing from the ant's head]]. In time-lapse. On ''Blu-Ray''. An then there are the other pics of various other insects. AHHHHH!!!
** Oh yeah, didn't they say something like "one species of fungus that specializes in each individual insect to prevent competion"? so for every species of insect on the rainforest, there's a species of this fungus just for that insect?
* The Cane Toad is well known in the scientific community for 2 reasons. One is for being one of the worst invasive species on earth. The other? It engages in necrophillia more than any other species on earth. Not just with other cane toads either. Birds, mammals, snakes, lizards, other amphibians, you name it.
** Besides looking ugly and spreading like a plague, it EATS CORPSES,Its HIGHLY POISONOUS and its FUCKING BIG. Its regarded as a pest that should be neutralized.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_badger The honey badger]]. A member of the ''Mustelidae'' family, which includes weasels, stoats, minks, martens, otters, sea otters, badgers, polecats, and the wolverine. We all know how BadAss and scary they can be. The honey badger takes it UpToEleven. It's skin is thick and tough enough that it's nearly impossible to penetrate it even with arrows and spears. It can turn around in its skin with ease. It is a tireless and determined predator, and it will eat ''anything'' it can find and overpower. It has extremely few predators, and even the king of beasts himself would prefer to face an angry bull elephant than a pissed-off honey badger. One took the food right out of a puff adder's mouth (the second-most dangerous snake in Africa after the black mamba), then proceeded to kill the snake, receiving a few bites in the process. Halfway through eating the snake, the venom took effect and the badger passed out. A couple of hours later, the badger woke up and ''immediately began finishing off his interrupted meal'' with no problem. Oh, and their preferred method of fighting larger predators? [[BodyHorror They go for the genitals]].
* Although EverythingsBetterWithPlatypi, everything is '''''WAY''''' worse with their venom. Sadly, it's not lethal. Instead, it incapacitates the victims and [[AndIMustScream LEAVES THEM IN PAIN SO EXCRUCIATING THAT NOT EVEN MORPHINE DOES ANYTHING]].
** Quoth ''{{Cracked}}'': "The platypus is God's way of saying, 'I made this thing out of scraps left on the floor and it can still fucking cripple you.'"
* My biology class was made of this. Examples: Delivery of pig fetuses for human anatomy class, teacher showing us a cow's eye, and more, but I will only tell the most horrific event that had occured to me.
** One day while going into the the locked storage door, a friend told me to look for a "cat." I looked in the back of a room and found a {{Squick}} inducing nightmare, a cat opened up, as if ready for surgery, with all organs visible and had a expression of howling pain. I ran out of class that day
* I'm surprised no one's mentioned chimpanzees. They may look cute and cuddly when they're babies, but they are absolute ''assholes'' when fully grown. There's a reason most primatologists only work with juveniles--adults can grow to be about 5'4" and are ''extremely'' dangerous. They're at least twice as strong as humans, and when they attack, they go for the face and genitals.
** There have been reports of chimpanzes snatching young childeren and draging them off into the wilderness. Guess what happend next..
* Meet the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_wandering_spider Brazilian wandering]] [[http://www-tc.pbs.org/wnet/nature/files//home/wnetwp/webroot/wnet/wp-content/blogs.dir/3/files/2008/10/8.jpg spider]], certified by Guinness as the most venomous spider on Earth. (Arachnaphobes should [[SchmuckBait not click]] that second link.) It lives all over South America, and has occasionally traveled all over the world in shipments of [[http://tizona.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/brazilian_wandering_spider1.jpg bananas]]. They've wound up in all kinds of grocery markets, and even [[http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200505/s1357179.htm hospitals]]. The thing can wind up with a five-inch leg span, and in South America tend to inhabit rather well-populated areas. Because they're wanderers, they like to hide during the day rather than build webs--in enclosed, dark spaces. Like under your bed, or in your closet, or the cupboard under the sink.
* Ever seen an angry horse before? [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rapa_das_bestas_sabucedo_2_jpereira.jpg Here you go]].
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqDjRCHyjTY Mike the Headless Chicken]] anyone?
* Bull sharks. While most sharks will only attack when threatened or as a case of mistaken identity, these sharks have been known to attack people without any provocation whatsoever. Don't believe me? [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pjbH5OuBc4 Here's proof]]. But what's worse than a hyper-aggressive shark with no qualms about mauling a human? Try one that goes into ''freshwater''. They aren't just in there accidentally, they have adapted to swim in freshwater and have been found hundreds of miles inland. These sharks have been found in the Mississippi, the Congo, Zambezi, Ganges, Amazon, Euphrates and Tigris rivers among others. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_Shore_shark_attacks_of_1916 The Jersey Shore Shark Attacks]], the inspiration for ''{{Jaws}}'' is now largely believed to have been the work of a ''single bull shark''.
* Frogs and Toads. First of all, there are poison dart frogs, which can kill you just by touching you. Venom oozes through the pores on their skin. But that's not the worst of it. See, all the other frogs have voracious appetites. They will pretty much eat anything they can jam into their mouths and (hopefully for their sake) swallow. And the larger the frog, the larger the prey. The largest frogs eat ''mice''. And bullfrogs? They can jump straight out of the water at a bird passing over their pond, catch them in mid-air and swallow them. There is very little reason to doubt that a frog twice the size of a person would swallow that person ''whole'' if it ever laid eyes on it.
** Speaking of frogs, there is a type of beetle that has been found to suck the life right out of frogs as seen [[http://bogleech.com/bio-epomis.htm here]].
** Poison dart frogs, unlike venomous and even some other poisonous animals, are ''not at all poisonous'' in captivity, because their poison is synthesized from their diet in the wild. There are captive-bred poison dart frogs in the pet trade, which is no surprise, because apart from the poison, they're ''adorable''.
* Tiger beetles. They don't harm humans, but just imagine what it would be like if you were it's prey and the last thing you saw was [[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_vXzN1osDLC0/S_lIu6CTJHI/AAAAAAAAAIQ/VN33T6GZujs/s1600/TIGERBEETLE+1.jpg THIS]]. It would also be moving at you at 5 miles an hour, which relative to it's body weight would be like watching as a fully-grown man armed with hedge-clippers comes running at you at ''480 miles per hour''!
%% Please keep the humans example at the bottom of the folder as a [[TheStinger stinger]].
* Face eating Northern in the middle of the lake (Northern= toothed, evil fish). My cousin made a joke about it when I was 6. I had a nightmare that bodies with faces chewed down to the bone washed up on the shore. I couldn't bring myself to swim out too deep for years.
* A reporter on the ''BBC World Service'' tells the story of a couple who visited an Eskimo village in Alaska, and excitedly got to see a live polar bear, and when they got there, were horrified to watch as it was killed in front of their eyes.
** On the subject of polar bears. Remember that scene in ''[[StarWars The Empire Strikes Back]]'' where Luke gets ambushed by the Wampa? Literally comes out of nowhere and nearly caves his head in? That's what polar bears do in ''real life''. They cover up their snouts and eyes as prey approaches or as they stalk it, then suddenly spring up and hit it before it even knows what's collapsed it's skull. The best part? Polar bears are one of the few bear species that actively seek out humans as prey.
* [[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QibpmJvBDQU/TazL8C-DodI/AAAAAAAAAEw/cr6oaCFId4s/s1600/zvK9C.jpg This is what a maggot looks like under a microscope]].
* Birds of prey when they catch animals. That animal will be carried for who-knows-how-long, in terror the whole time knowing what's about to happen, to a nest with baby birds. These babies will then slowly eat it ALIVE. It's much more merciful if the animal is killed before it gets to the nest but that doesn't happen all that much...
* It's not an animal, but the full run of carnivorous plants apply. They are truly nefarious traps, which when you read about them sound like something Jigsaw might come up with if he was a botanist. Venus Flytraps are pressure-activated cages. Pitcher plants are impossible-to-escape acid-bottomed pits. Flypaper plants are sticky traps, where the prey dies of exhaustion, starvation or suffocation. Lobster-trap plants allow prey to come in, but keep it from getting out with inward-pointing barbs. The craziest, though, has to be the aquatic bladderworts. They pump out ions to generate a partial vacuum. The plant keeps this vacuum behind a leafy "door". When an aquatic insect comes along and touches a trigger hair, the "door" swings open and the vacuum sucks the insect inside. It's a ''lever-operated vacuum trap''. Thankfully, none of them fall into the ManEatingPlant category.
* Parrots can be very intimidating on their own. However, many people find them cute and great to have as pets. Then, some species as they get older can really put people into a state of fear. The birds, if not properly trained from a young age (and being incredibly intelligent), can start taking advantage of their owner. They'll make loud noises for your constant attention, they'll become aggressive and mean-spirited (especially cockatoos and macaws), and they'll throw a temper fit when you don't give them what they want. Also, placing them in a cage doesn't always do the trick as many of them can figure out how to escape. Even worse is that some of the larger parrots have strong enough jaws to chew their own cage, even when ''it is stainless steel''. Usually the only solution is to give the bird up to a rescue agency, which can result in the bird becoming depressed because of the loss of it's companion (the owner). This is why it is usually custom for a salesperson of parrots to make sure the customer thinks ''long'' and ''hard'' about this decision.
* I can't believe noone's mentioned Primates yet, gorillas espessially. Those things are monsters that can easily rip someone in two. And don't get me started on Chimpanzees. For example if they're smiling at you, you'd better run like hell, 'cause he ain't happy to see you.
** Fortunately, a lot of the great apes are actually quite calm, so long as you do not provoke them. They can hurt you, but they typically resort only to posturing. But chimpanzees? Whereas a gorilla will mostly beat his chest and make a show to get you to leave, chimpanzees may go out of their way to murder your ass ''for the hell of it''. Once, a group of "problem chimps" escaped from a primate sanctuary in Sierra Leone and came across a cab. The passenger in the cab managed to get out when the chimps got to it and decided to attack. The driver? Well let's just say that "pulled apart" barely described it.
* Spiders that spin 82 foot webs and leeches that saw their way through your rectum. And that's just the first two entries.
** http://www.cracked.com/article_19719_6-terrifying-new-creatures-science-just-discovered.html?wa_user1=1&wa_user2=Science&wa_user3=article&wa_user4=feature_module
* [[FeatheredFiend The cassowary]]. Sure, it doesn't look very dangerous, but a well placed kick from it can criple an adult, and it [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dcQO6Zb8Eg roars and growls]].
[[/folder]]
[[folder: The Most Dangerous Animal Of Them All]]
* [[HumansAreBastards Humans]]. Inhabiting much of the planet's land mass, they often kill each other and many other species for fun. And they have nukes.
** Considering that there are few animals who kill off members of their own species: humans are truly the most dangerous animal of all, endangering everything on the planet, including other humans. And we're not only talking about genocidal dictators or terrorists like Hitler, Stalin, Bin Laden, Mao, Djenghis Khan, Attilla the Hun, Pol Pot,... On a huge industrial scale humans are rapidly destroying their own environment by destroying and poisoning nature's life sources, thus putting the survival of all mankind in danger for future generations!
*** The Mosquito begs to differ. They have killed 45 billion people. To put this in perspective, they have ''killed more humans then every recorded war ever fought'', and ''more than half the number of people that ever lived''.
** You mean ''literally'' more than every recorded war ever fought? As in, from [[http://ancienthistory.about.com/b/2003/07/15/the-first-war-ever-recorded.htm the war between Sumer and Elam in 2700 B.C.]] to ''now''!?
**** Consider that, to a mosquito, a [[HumansAreCthulhu human is a mountain-sized torch]]. Mosquitoes [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu are total badasses.]]
*** Plus, there is also the idea that at least mosquitoes have a reason to suck blood, if they don't get the proper nutrients from blood, the eggs inside of them will die.
* How's about this to keep you up at night? Right now, we are currently living in one of the largest mass extinctions of life on Earth, rivaled only by the Great Dying. Take a guess as to what scientists think is causing [[YouBastard it]]. Humans can cause much, ''much'' more disease, destruction, and death then just about any other animal ''known on the planet.''Heck, we have the power to destroy much of the planet with nukes.
[[/folder]]
----
[[folder: RLNF Cosmic Horror, Eschatology and What Comes After]]
--> ''[[HopeSpot "You lot, you spend all your time thinking about dying, like you're gonna get killed by eggs, or beef, or global warming, or asteroids. But you never take time to imagine the impossible.]] Like maybe you survive."''
-->--'''The Doctor''', ''Series/DoctorWho''
--> ''"Nobody likes us 'big picture' people."''
-->--'''Calvin''', ''CalvinAndHobbes''
----
!!Please take all debate to the discussion page.
Do not post just to disprove a theory or to add NightmareRetardant. Both of them are {{natter}} here! Take all debate to the discussion page.
[[foldercontrol]]
%%
%% Do not post just to disprove a theory or to add NightmareRetardant. Both of them are {{natter}} here!
%%
[[folder:The Afterlife and Other Eternal Life scenarios]]
* WhoWantsToLiveForever.
* [[TakeAThirdOption Different option]]: We figure out how to upload our consciousness to a super computer and live millions of eternities in a mere few years, if that, and after exhausting every possible reality we can think of, end ourselves knowing that we have truly lived, willing to accept what happens, whether that is eternal life or nothingness.
** Alternate nightmare fuel? If that's a possible outcome, it's also possible that we've already done this. Every consciousness now exists on a supercomputer. This entire world and our entire lives are simply one of the aforementioned simulated existences. If we're lucky, it's multiplayer, and all of us happen to be sharing in this specific experience. If we're not lucky, only one person in the whole of existence is 'real'. The rest of us are simulated and meaningless, we have no way of knowing who the 'real' person is and therefore who our world revolves around and due to the implied desire (for a 'clean' experience) inherent in simulating an entire life for the experience of living it, he/she probably doesn't know either.
* What if there IS an afterlife? What if you were such a bad person that finally meets death? Yep. You're going to hell, and suffering for eternity in the most painful ways possible that you wouldn't if you were alive.
* There are [[FateWorseThanDeath things that will make you wish you were dead]] you say? Satan and Hell says hi right to that statement before proving that statement completely wrong.
* Singularitarians belive that cessation of existence is the worst possible outcome imaginable. Death is an obstacle to be conquered, rather than an inevitability to which we should all sheepishly submit.
* The concept of oblivion brings horror... the concept of infinity eternity brings horror... Did the cosmos become some sort of [[EldritchAbomination horror elemental]] when I wasn't looking? (Maybe this is where {{Gnosticism}}'s concept of an inept and/or malicious Demiurge gets its appeal...)
* The Rapture, and all other apocalyptic beliefs. In the US alone, 40% of the population believes that Jesus will return ''in their lifetime''. Stop and think about that for a second. At any given moment, a very, very large percentage of the human population believes that it's okay to run through resources at lightning speed, making no plans to invest in alternative energy, because their chosen deity (this isn't just limited to Christians) is going to come back and make everything all right. The same goes for things like curing disease, battling starvation and ending war.
** And that's not even getting into the Rapture cults who believe that war, famine and disease are all signs that Jesus is about to return, and view such events with thinly veiled joy.
* Suppose you are the only sentient, sapient being in the entire universe. The universe was created simply for your own amusement. Sounds wonderful, no? Actually, this means everyone you know and love ceases to exist the moment you don't see or hear or experience them in any way. Sitting in your living room right now? That is the entire universe at the moment, because why bother rendering the rest of space and time when the only being in existence, you, is reading TVTropes? All of history was fabricated so you would believe other people are thinking, intelligent humans. But they aren't. Only you exist.
** On the flip side of this, imagine that you aren't a sentient, sapient being; that someone else is. This person truly experiences reality. Everything you feel and experience is a grossly dumbed down and simplified version of true perception. Your brain is hideously slow, your eyes only see three primary colors instead of their twelve, you only exist in three dimensions instead of fourteen. [[CosmicHorrorStory This "god" is enormously superior to everything you could ever hope to be. They go about the world experiencing reality, while the rest of us literally are just here for their amusement.]]
*** The scariest thing is that, while the first suggestion denies itself (that would make us our own God), the second may be true and we may be only a toy to the rest of the people around us. It would explain a lot, be less scary and still manage to make you feel like an awful piece of crap and trash.
*** A combination of the two is even more frightening, such as starting out as the first and through some process ended up as the latter. Where the price of godhood is a hallucination where only you exist, while interacting with others means always being at the mercy of a collective-consciousness empowered by everyone's rejected omnipotence. Knowing that, even at the height of your power, you could never compete with the cumulative power of everyone else.
* The idea of [[TheNothingAfterDeath there being no afterlife]] has caused me to stay awake crying one night, and then put me into a depression.
** I can add to that: What if you get Alzheimer's Disease and there IS an afterlife? What if the soul that is allowed to go to heaven is that of you as a husk of a person, instead of the you throughout the rest of your life? Spending Eternity™ as only a husk of yourself, and everything that made you YOU gone, is rather unnerving...
** Or alternately, you can also worry about what happens if there ''is'' an [[AndIMustScream afterlife?]]
* The idea of [[AndIMustScream eternal punishment in Hell]] is pretty horrific enough, but the Calvinist belief of predestination actually makes this [[BeyondTheImpossible even more terrifying]]. How? According to Calvinist theologians, God picks and chooses who to save and who to damn. This [[FridgeHorror implies]] that God created some people for the sole purpose of being sent to Hell, [[YouCantFightFate and there's nothing that they can do about it.]] Fortunately, not many people believe in this, but the idea is horrifying enough.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Dying]]
* Let's face it ladies and gentlemen. There's a reason why so many people fear death and consider it to be the worst fate...IT'S A FUCKING TERRIFYING THOUGHT! [[CessationOfExistence Say that there is NO afterlife. Yep. pitch black darkness with nothing going on at all.]]
* I would like to assert that Danny Elfman said it best:
---->No one beats [Death] at his game\\
For very long but just the same\\
Who cares, there's no place safe to hide\\
Nowhere to run--no time to cry\\
So celebrate while you still can\\
'Cause any second it may end\\
And when it's all been said and done\\
Better that you had some fun\\
Instead of hiding in a shell\\
Why make your life a living hell?\\
So drink a toast, and down the cup\\
And drink to bones that turn to dust ('cause)\\
No one (x13)\\
No one lives forever!! (hey!)
* Then there's [[http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html Isaac Asimov's]] contribution to this problem, with a TwistEnding.
* This was Nietzsche's whole point in his part of the dialogue of western philosophy. Reality exists. So do we. We assume we are special. We're probably not. All human experience has been spent in the attempt to formulate truth so we don't have to contemplate the horror of being without reason. [[NietzscheWannabe Lots of people]] get the ultimate point behind this stance wrong though; Mr. Nietzsche wanted us to honestly and totally accept life as causa sui, and to wholly embrace it without the interference of human rationalization. Now, he admits that that's a pretty fucked up way to live and describes it as the "Will to Die" and states pretty explicitly that it is no way shameful to prefer self-generated "truth" in order to be happy. Also, the EternalRecurrence (the idea that all time repeats endlessly, much like the Quantum Immortality example below, but with each repeat being identical to the one before) to some is HighOctaneNightmareFuel (WhoWantsToLiveForever is bad enough, but being forced to see your own same mistakes over and over again is a cosmic AndIMustScream, especially if said mistakes are [[MindRape traumatic]]) while Nietzsche views it as the ultimate affirmation of life.
---->What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.' [Nietzsche, F. The Gay Science, §341]
* The simple fact that [[NothingIsScarier NOBODY KNOWS]] what happens after you die, nor can the human mind comprehend it.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The End of Civilization As We Know It]]
* At several points in Earth's history, worldwide volcanic eruptions wiped out upwards of 98% of all species on the planet. This could conceivably happen again at any time. If it's not volcanic fury that gets us, it'll be a meteor or some other sudden event that can be predicted but not prevented. The ones killed initially will be the lucky ones. The rest will be left to starve to death.
* Our sun is too small to go nova. What ''will'' happen is that it'll run out of fuel, swell into a Red Giant and ''engulf the Earth as it expands.'' Popular science says that won't happen for a good 5 billion years, but it's still a fun thought to entertain.
** Altough human life on Earth will become unbearable in much less time than that, because the sun is constantly expanding, it won't just suddenly swell in to a giant ball - altough the process gets progressively faster in time. In approximately 100 million years it is thought to be too warm for modern day humans to live, and in 500 million years, the temperatures on Earth reach levels such as that oceans will boil away.
* Watch ''Life After People''.
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBtHICMmDJk Which]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBNLl7T3EIw&feature=related can]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLlJBHhE2Hw&feature=related be]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4GTRab56_A&feature=related seen]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YM_rsu2CcsI&feature=related right]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHrlkoVlUFQ&feature=related here.]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSjRG-VJhWg&feature=related Watch]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPA3ocklQf4&feature=related nature]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4g4hV3Mmlg&feature=related fight back.]]
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XDbcMND7fY&feature=related Better]] version.
* Hardin's "Tragedy of the Commons" and how often I've seen that behaviour. You can try it this Halloween. Put a bowl of candy out for the trick-or-treaters. There's nothing preventing the ones who aren't accompanied by adults from overturning the ''entire bowl'' into their bag and leaving nothing left for everyone else. What makes this scary? It doesn't ''just'' apply to Halloween Candy. Which is particularly chilling when you think about how much society depends on fossil fuels, and how quickly we go through them. Regardless of one's stance on climate change, no one can deny that fossil fuels are going to become an issue in the future when we start running low... unless they believe that there won't ''be'' any future, which brings us to another bit of nightmare fuel...
* Watch the History Channel or Discovery Channel, eventually they'll have a "How the world ends" special. If you're religious, the History Channel provides you with plenty of cases of prophecies coming true. If you're the scientific nut, you're treated to many scientific ways the world will end including the super volcano at Yellowstone bringing nuclear winter on its own, a Deep Impact or Armageddon worthy asteroid impact, and the infamous Large Hadron Collider making exotic particles or micro-black holes. Doubly worse for the religious as the scientific ways the world will end are in fact, very possible. Especially the asteroid (we have a higher chance of impact than you getting struck by lightning).
* There's a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_caldera super volcano underneath Yellowstone.]] If it explodes, it's predicted that the entire United States will be covered in at least few centimeters of ash (in areas farthest away from the volcano), cars and planes won't function since the ash is finer and heavier than snow (causing all the engines to clog), and the ash in the atmosphere will block out the sun for several years. [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Oh, and it's overdue for its next eruption.]] At least scientists speculate that [[ApocalypseHow humanity itself won't necessarily go extinct, just that civilization as we know it might end.]]
** Yellowstone is possibly peanuts compared to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory Lake Toba, which has almost once wiped out humanity]] - the human gene pool was presumably once down to only about ten thousand individuals - and that's the optimistic estimate, the more pessimistic one has humanity dodging a bullet with a mere 1,000 individuals left.
* Care to know how the world and/or humanity might end? Go to [[http://www.exitmundi.nl/exitmundi.htm Exit Mundi]]. Excellent, witty, and sometimes disturbing reads. My personal favorite? "Eternity".
* Solar storms. Solar storm of 1859 resulted in things like "Telegraph pylons threw sparks and telegraph paper spontaneously caught fire."
* Two more potential ticking {{depopulation bomb}}s: Mass infertility due to pollution, malnutrition/undernourishment, obesity, etc. (many kids may die before their parents). We're seeing some of the effects already.
* With the possibility of a "zombie virus" able to be genetically engineered, WorldWarZ might actually happen.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The End of the Universe]]
* Before start reading this section, go to [[http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html Atomic Rockets]] Have fun realising just how stuck we really are on this miserable rock.
* Antimatter. Mixing matter (ex: the universe) and antimatter can lead to the annihilation of both.
** The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strangelet Strangelet]] is no better.
*** And while Antimatter functions like a [[YinYangBomb Yin Yang Bomb]], causing the immediate annihilation of both matter and antimatter into a crapton of energy, Strangelets function like [[TheVirus The Virus]], converting more and more baryonic (normal) matter into strange matter. It could theoretically take just a single strangelet to set off a chain reaction that results in the entire earth becoming one massive, hot ball of strange matter.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_fate_of_the_universe The ultimate fate of the universe]].
* Given that the Cosmological Constant seems to be stronger in one direction of the universe and weaker in another, it's very likely that at one point along the spectrum a vacuum metastability event has already occurred or will soon. But the universe won't be instantly obliterated; the collapse would propagate at the speed of light and you'd never see it coming. Comforting, yes?
* Here's a fun thought: the solar system is not completely stable, but only metastable. It may happen, sometime in the next few million years, that Mercury and Venus could pass close enough to one another that their mutual gravitation messes up their orbits, in turn messing up the orbits of the other inner planets. So Earth might crash into another planet, get thrown into the sun, or get flung off into interstellar space.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_decay Proton decay]]. Currently hypothetical, but it may be that in the truly deep depths of infinite time there won't be any matter left - just photons (red-shifted to almost nothing), neutrinos (don't interact in any meaningful way), and a vanishingly thin haze of electron/positron pairs that haven't quite got around to annihilating each other yet. Oh, and whatever it is that Dark Matter turns out to be... assuming it doesn't decay too.
** Please note that while the above is the most likely scenario, the mass/energy-being-created-out-of-practically-nothing vacuum fluctuations will always be around as long as space itself exists. Given the unlimited amount of time ahead of us, if there's the slightest chance of those actually creating something useful, then that will come to pass eventually.
* Speaking of celestial bodies and whatnot- Black holes. They are scary as hell when you really get into what they are and what, precisely, they are doing. They warp the fabric of space-time. They are absolutely huge, they eat everything, and you can't even see them unless there's a backdrop of, say, interstellar gas to provide a contrast. If one should happen to drift in the direction of our planet -and this is, in fact, entirely possible-, even if we saw it coming years in advance, there would be nothing we could do about it. [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption You do not stop a black hole.]] Plus, once you cross the event horizon, you are not ever coming back. And although it's unknown what, exactly, happens inside a black hole (though there are plenty of theories), it's safe to assume that it's probably something fairly horrible. If there are in fact RealLife [[CosmicHorror Cosmic Horrors]], they are probably black holes.
** The cosmic/dev/null.
** There's proof that, to an observer, somebody falling into a black hole will freeze just outside of the event horizon. That could mean that, just outside of the event horizon, [[FateWorseThanDeath YOU freeze]] and are trapped there, frozen in time, [[AndIMustScream forever.]]
** There's also these Einstein-Rosen bridges in them that lead to a mirror universe, but of course not without completely destroying you upon entering. An additional twist to this curious mirror universe is Roy Kerr's idea of rotating black holes that don't have infinite gravity at an area and could maybe be possible to go inside. Coming closer to one gives you a "house of mirrors" effect according to Michio Kaku's book titled ''Hyperspace''. So you drive a spaceship to a rotating black hole and pray you enter it from the right spot and suddenly start seeing many copies of your ship from the window until you run into one that's real and from another universe.
** Read through the following [[http://casa.colorado.edu/~ajsh/dive.html website]] and witness the animations. Though simple projections (with some artistic license), the website's animations give a fair idea about what happens near and inside a black hole. It might take some time to wrap your mind around (especially if English is not your native language), but once you unlock the fundamental idea behind the theory, it is a truly scary and amazing journey.
**And [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI9CvipHl_c#t=1m24s here's]] a video which attempts to show (with the help of a sort-of-realistic background) what we'd actually see if we were to spiral down into a black hole. (Go to 6:15 if you want to skip the commentary.) "Bizarre" doesn't even begin to describe it.
* Speaking of black holes, the current scientific theory that there is a supermassive black hole at the center of every galaxy. That means all matter in the universe is just circling one of several great cosmic drains. We're living on an eddy, being very slowly pulled into an inescapable vortex. Eventually our planet, our solar system, EVERYTHING, will be sucked down the drain and just blinked out of existence. Eventually there will be nothing but a great ravenous hole in the fabric of reality...and there's nothing we can do about it.
* Deep time. The fact that when you think about a long enough stretch of time, everything will die. Not only that, but that our current understanding of the universe implies that with enough time everything in existence will be converted into ever more widely scattered heat energy. That ultimately, it's not just that you will die, or that the human race will die, but that anything that could possibly show that either of those ever even existed will cease to be, ''and there is nothing you can do about it''.
* Gamma Ray Bursts. When huge, dying stars are consumed from within by black holes they release vast amounts of energy at very near the speed of light. In a matter of seconds, some of these blasts of energy can exceed the amount of energy that our sun will release in its entire lifetime. If one of these hit the planet then we'd probably all die before we knew what had happened. Even if one passed too close it would be like every place on one side of the planet being hit by a nuclear missile at once, and the other side of the planet dealing with the resulting wall of fire and death. The real problem is that these bursts are basically impossible to predict, and even if we could there's absolutely nothing we could do about it. The entire planet could die a horrible, fiery death within minutes of you reading this.
** WR 104. Aimed right towards us. [[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/03/03/wr-104-a-nearby-gamma-ray-burst Have a nice day.]]
* You know how the Universe just loves scaring the crap out of us planetside? What with all the Big Crunch, Supermassive Black Holes, Gargantuan Death Rays and rogue stars out there already, you feel the need to throw MOLECULAR WINDSTORMS at us! Allow me to explain, picture a Galaxy, any galaxy. Now picture something not unlike a hurricane that will rip all the molecules out of the Galaxy, leaving it sterile. These windstorms strip planets, stars, even nebulas bare of molecules. And here we are afraid of rogue black holes....
* The sounds of Saturn: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C6lymtHG60
** This is what our own planet sounds like from outer space: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AVHXMLDvWA&feature=player_embedded
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporal_paradox#Temporal_merging_hypothesis One theory]] as to how temporal paradoxes would resolve themselves is that once a temporal paradox occurred, this universe would be obliterated and be replaced with a new one with a different timeline that can accommodate whatever created the paradox. But we wouldn't be aware of it, because our universe would otherwise be exactly the same. Maybe it just happened. Maybe it just happened again.
** Or maybe our entire universe IS a replacement for sorting out a paradox, and we're just in one segment of history leading up to the creation of that paradox. It could be caused by some other civilization millions of light years away from us, and it might happen again. Humanity and everything we've created would be obliterated because of something that doesn't even know we exist. The nature of the paradox might mean we'd never be recreated again.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Humans in relation to the Universe]]
* This is basically the whole point of the CosmicHorrorStory genre as HPLovecraft envisioned it. See the genre page for details.
* Take the time to actually contemplate the vast, absurd distances between just, say, the Earth and the Moon. Then try to contemplate the Earth and another planet, or the Earth and the sun. Or the sun and another star. Your brain may start hurting and crying in fear at a glimpse of the true meaning of such a size, just the thought of all that emptiness...
** [[http://sizeofworldse.ytmnd.com/ This YTMND]] says it better than I could.
*** And it doesn't even end there. These supergiants aren't anything special, since there are billions of stars within a single galaxy. In 2003, astronomers photographed a random area of the sky measuring 11 square arc minutes, which is about as much as holding a sheet of paper 1 meter away from you and peeking through a hole 1mm x 1mm in size. To catch even extremely faint light sources, the film was exposed for a total of almost 300 hours. And in the end [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Hubble_ultra_deep_field_high_rez_edit1.jpg they ended up with this picture]].
**** [[spoiler:It shows about 10.000 Galaxies, each of them containing billions of stars. To photograph the entire sky, you'd need about 13 million photographs like this.]]
** Behold the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPm3QVKlBJg Powers of Ten.]] The Universe on both a macro and micro scale is almost incomprehensible.
* Scientists had only recently witnessed a distant supernova that had occurred '''11 billion years ago'''. With that being said, he thought this meant that there's nothing out there in the Universe, right this very minute.
* There's always the possibility that we're ''not'' alone, and the vastness of space includes the possibility of untold, fascinating new lifeforms.
* [[http://primaxstudio.com/stuff/scale_of_universe/ This]] is an interactive scale of the universe, from things human-sized (including humans), up to the Universe itself, and back down to the fabric of spacetime itself, and absolutely everything in between. Very informative and interesting... and highly haunting.
** Even more, the scale used has things such as cells and bacteria towards the ''middle''. Meaning that humans are on the large end of the scale. Think about that for a moment, and how there are things much bigger than humans. Think how a being the size of a cell would perceive the very human it inhabits, let alone the rest of the Universe.
** [[http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/589217/ Here is an updated version of the scale made by the same guy.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The Nature of Reality]]
* Quantum Immortality. Since our consciousness is evenly spread along an infinite number of nearly identical universes, from our subjective point of view we will always survive life or death situations as long as there is even a tiny chance of survival, since we will only continue to be aware in the universes where we were saved. While this does mean that we would all reach an age where we would be hospitalized because it would no longer be possible for our bodies to function by themselves, we would hardly be alone in this. There are plenty of people like this in the world, and, since there is a limit to the human life expectancy, sooner or later we would be [[CriticalExistenceFailure dead in every universe]]
** Actually, the odds are even worse than that. As we age the chances of death in the following year increase by a larger amount, but never quite to 1. What's more, beyond a certain age there's evidence that the increase slows back down again. All we know is that there isn't anyone, in this universe, who has survived thousands of years. You know why? This one's ''yours''. (Actually, no, this one's mine. Get your own universe.)
* Consider the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics]] - within the endlessly bifurcating alternate universes every possible thing happens.
[[/folder]]
----
[[HighOctaneNightmareFuel/RealLife Ready for more]], or do you [[SweetDreamsFuel need]] [[TroperTales/HeartwarmingMoments a]] [[Heartwarming/RealLife break]]?
[[/folder]]
I like people, places and
I'm a horror writer so the following is unofficial and in place only for my own future reference.
[[folder: Real Life Nightmare Fuel]]
You're probably thinking that after reading about all that NightmareFuel, you're safe from it because you don't live in Fiction Land, right? ''[[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou Wrong!]]''
'''Note:''' This page is ''not'' for those easily scared by books or movies. If you happen to be one of those people, please go [[http://www.givesmehope.com/ here]] instead. Thank you and have a nice day.
----
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder: Other]]
* [[http://www2.rwu.edu/studentlife/studentservices/counselingcenter/sexualassault/rapemyths.htm According to a survey]], 33% of college aged men would commit rape if they could get away with it, and 25% of those surveyed believed that rape was acceptable if "the woman asks the man out; or the man pays for the date; or the woman goes back to the man's room after the date."
* The Westboro Baptist Church. It's an honest to [[spoiler:not their]] God group of [[MisanthropeSupreme misanthrope supremes]] who imagine ''the nigh-entirety of humanity'' in HELL. And that's not even getting into Fred Phelps, who'd probably be one of the most terrifying supervillains ever in a comic book universe.
** For an example of how frightening these people are [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBV2hnPxESw check out this "parody" of "We Are The World"]]. It's either {{High Octane Nightmare Fuel}} or {{Narm}}, but what makes this so scary is that they are [[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer actually serious]].
*** The "church" in question is a very small group with a very high profile, which is itself rather disturbing. They are not recognized as a valid church by any other religious organization anywhere in the world. Canada, which has very strong laws on both religious freedom and hate speech, refuses to allow Fred Phelps across the border.
* The [[EmergencyBroadcast Emergency Alert System]] test sequences.
** I used to hide under the coffee table when those came on TV. *shiver*
** I try to block them out on numerous occasions.
** The new ones aren't any better, either: instead of the sine-wave test tone, now it's that awful buzzing and the very, very badly synthesized voice reading the "This is a test of the Emergency Alert System" message.
** In addition to being afraid of Emergency Broadcast System tests, I was very afraid of the multicolored-bars TV "test pattern" thing that would display whenever a TV station was having broadcast issues. It's not the actual test pattern that was scary, it was the loud high-pitched beeping that accompanied it.
** The horrid "three beeps" severe weather alerts played on local TV, complete with a massive, bright red, flashing "TORNADO WARNING - TAKE COVER IMMEDIATELY" message across the bottom of the screen. To be yanked from Sesame Street into Howling Winds of Death once or twice a month in the summer is very unpleasant. Perhaps that is the whole point.
* Whatever your local name for the old Civil Defence air-raid sirens is - hurricane siren, disaster siren, tornado siren, etc. Imagine standing on the front porch as a little kid during a particularly severe thunderstorm, in which the sky turned green, the wind abruptly quit and the whole world went dead silent for about five seconds - and then the sirens fired up. This is used in the SilentHill series to great effect.
* Factology believes, according to Wikipedia, "some aborted [[FetusTerrible fetuses]] survive their abortion to live in the sewers, where they are being gathered and organized [[TakeOverTheWorld to take over the world]]."
* To all those in college - you think your roommate is bad? Read [[http://www.wyseguys.com/shittyroomate.asp this possibly true story]], and you will be glad the worst thing your roommate does is snore.
** Half of the student body at [=DigiPen=] has one-upped that guy (up through The Black Time) in one way or another (except without the drugs).
** More roommate horror [[http://gawker.com/roommate-horror-stories/ here]]. Worst one is the woman who walked in on her college roommate having sex doggy-style with her ''biological father''. The [[http://gawker.com/5879703/these-are-the-worlds-worst-roommate-stories?comment=46476429#comments winner]] was actually someone who ''killed and skinned a squirrel'' and left it on her housemate's bed.
*** The former also contains a bit of FridgeHorror, as several readers have noted that the roommate's poor hygiene and behavioral problems match the symptoms of sexual abuse. Even the person who submitted the story admits that if she had made the connection at the time, she would have reported what she had seen.
* Have you ever heard someone die? 9-1-1 calls which end tragically...
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxLlwsC5hWs Here's one]]. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox3gmJvQAA0 And here's another]]. The former has a HellIsThatNoise sound made from the woman's screams at the beginning, and the latter has a VERY EFFECTIVE ScareChord.
* Memorial or Post-Mortem Photography: A "mostly" extinct practice where family members photograph themselves and their dead in such positions, (like opening the eyes, moving the mouth, setting the body correctly, and dressing it up) to make their relatives look 'almost' like they're still alive. [[http://www.paulfrecker.com/collections.cfm?=library&typeID=1&ShowStart=81&ShowEnd=88&myPage=11 Most of these photos are babies!!]]
** Apparently, it's still a common practice nowadays that when a baby passes away, one of the nurses cleans the body, dresses it up, and wraps it in a blanket for the parents to hold and take a picture with. One sad advantage of doing this with a deceased child is that the baby is no longer covered in tubes and needles to keep it alive, so it appears as it couldn't in life. And it seems rather gruesome, yes, but it seems many people need that picture, that memory, to help them through the grieving process. It's almost as if to show themselves that their baby was alive and real, even if it couldn't stay that way for very long.
* [[http://www.nowilaymedowntosleep.org/ This site]]. Think of it this way, most of those babies are stillborn. The parents NEVER would have gotten a single picture if it weren't for those. They used to be tossed in the trash. Now the parents get to hold their precious child. Much like when you hold a dying friend...
* Cracked has done it again: [[http://www.cracked.com/article_17379_6-real-islands-way-more-terrifying-than-one-on-lost.html 6 Real, Terrifying Islands.]] One features a snake population of around five ''per square meter''. Another has the charred bones from 160,000 plague victims ''still'' wash up on the shores. And those are near the bottom of the list.
* [[http://www.themorningstarr.co.uk/2009/07/17/baby-eaten-by-rats/ "Baby Eaten By Rats"]]. [[http://www.themorningstarr.co.uk/2009/07/26/autopsy-reveals-rats-did-kill-baby/ She wasn't dead when they started.]]
* Ladies and gentlemen, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_in_the_Box_(Philadelphia) Boy in the Box]], a cold case from the 1950's where the body of a small boy was found in a box in the woods. The worst part? They still to this day haven't caught the person who did it.
* [[http://cakeheadlovesevil.wordpress.com/2009/04/18/island-of-the-dolls The Island of the Dolls]] in Mexico.
* In 2003, a man named Hitoshi Nikaidoh walked inside an elevator and had his shoulders pinned by the elevator doors due to faulty wiring. Despite struggling to pull himself inside, the elevator kept ascending until the ceiling sliced off most of his head. His left ear, lower lip, teeth and jaw were still attached to his body, which fell to the bottom of the elevator shaft, as the elevator continued moving upward. A surgery resident, who was in the elevator at the time, witnessed the gruesome spectacle and spent more than an hour trapped in the elevator with Hitoshi's head.
* Cracked again! This article for the [[http://www.cracked.com/article_18381_the-5-creepiest-unexplained-broadcasts.html 5 Creepiest Unexplained Broadcasts]]
* "Chat", "That's Life" and similar magazines sold at supermarket checkouts. In the words of Charlie Brooker, they look at first glance like they're full of word searches and knitting patterns. In reality they're full of the kind of BodyHorror and {{Gorn}} that rotten.com is built on, alongside more mundane adult fears, with the odd "kids say the funniest things" feature for added MoodWhiplash goodness.
** For those who have no idea of what these magazines are...well, [[http://www.storieswanted.com/userimages/HPThatslife.jpg here's]] [[http://www.letssubscribe.com/images/products/7781.jpg for]] [[http://img.dooyoo.co.uk/GB_EN/orig/0/6/3/6/1/636108.jpg reference]]. ''"Life! Death! Prizes!"'' Actual tagline.
*** And the attractive woman on the cover? She won't be seen in the magazine, has no bearing on any articles whatsoever. Eye candy to get you into the back of the van, as it were.
** African tabloid examples take this [[BeyondTheImpossible up to eleven]], and even more frightening is that even MORE people take them as the truth than [[DeepSouth in the US!]] [[http://redpepper.co.ug/welcome/ The Red Pepper]] is the most notorious. The engrish and hilarious slang seems charming (referring recently to one outed minister as the "notorious bum driller"), until you see how many articles are about [[BuryYourGays outing and advocating the murder of local notable gays]] among other things. Never has the term 'frighteningly funny' been so apt. You know Adebesi from Oz? Not only is that the paper's target demographic but that's ALSO THEIR REPORTING TEAM. That's right, as amusing as this paper might seem, it regularly gets families murdered by local religious fanatics.
* Disused refrigerators with rotten stuff still in them, as seen on YouTube. Some have been sitting around for 20 years or more.
** Speaking of that, there have been many cases of dead people going unnoticed for a decade or more. There's actually an article on snopes.com, if you're brave enough to look it up.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWdgAMYjYSs The max headroom Pirating Incident]]. Not the act itself, but the fact that to this day, no one really has the foggiest idea what was going on, who he was or why he was doing it.
** There is also the fact that the man who did it is still at large... he could be anywhere, he could even be on this website.
* The Church of the Innocents in Paris has an... unusual history. It was one of the first churches in France that allowed actual burials (6th century) and became the largest and most popular cemetery by the 13th century. By the 15th century it was so crowded that the residents of older graves (many were in mass graves by this point) had to be moved to ossuaries. When the Black Death hit, newer corpses had to be moved into the ossuaries, leaving behind fatty residues in the dirt. By the late 17th century the cemetery was essentially a mass of greasy residue that could no longer decompose. Oh yes: a pile of leftovers from thousands of human corpses that could ''no longer decay''. And that's not the worst part- in 1780 the wall of a cellar bordering the cemetery collapsed under the weight of the whole mess. One can only hope that no one was in the cellar at the time, or there'd be an unpleasant combination of the primal fears of drowning and necrophobia. Oh, and it was this incident that led to the creation of the famous Catacombs of Paris.
* Train engineers who are forced to watch as their trains mow down anyone unlucky enough to get themselves on the tracks (in this case a young teen who, while listening to her iPod, was killed by a deadly silent Amtrak train while on her trek to school). Because freight trains going 60 mph take about a mile to stop before the emergency brake is applied, the train engineers are forced to watch it happen. When they go through post-traumatic stress counselling, the one thing they talk about is that they see the people's eyes right before they hit them. A lot of those engineers don't return to work.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF7488WHcok Robert the doll]] If you thought regular old dolls were creepy, how about a haunted one?
* Cracked once again aims to keep us all up at night. Here are the [[http://www.cracked.com/article_18459_the-5-creepiest-unsolved-crimes-nobody-can-explain.html 5 Creepiest Unsolved Crimes Nobody Can Explain.]]
* Walking around a ''pitch-black'' room with only a flashlight, fearing and believing that there is something or someone that will be standing in or pass in front of your flashlight beam.
* [[http://www.carhire.org/blog/scariest-airport-runways Matekane Air Strip in Lesotho (Number 13 on list)]] is built on the side of a mountain, on a patch of horizontal real estate too small to accommodate a standard-length runway. How do they manage to get up to speed for takeoff, you ask? They use the [[{{Discworld}} Granny Weatherwax]] method, which is to say ''[[PrimalFear they throw the plane off a cliff]]''.
* Roadkill. Especially the real gory, mutilated sort, [[ItGotWorse even better]] when baking in the sun for a few days, or when the guts have partially burst out and been scattered around the carcass. Who needs a gory horror movie or video game when there's plenty of gruesome carnage right along your local road, perhaps on the commute to work or school.
** And the fact that sometimes ''you can no longer tell what it was before it was killed'' is unsettling.
* Stay up until the wee hours of the morning (say, about 1:00 - 2:00 in the morning), in a room with very little light in it, and read as many missing persons' cases from [[http://www.charleyproject.org/ this site]] as possible. Start with the earliest ones. 1945 should be good. Also, while you're at it, go to [[http://www.doenetwork.org/ this other website]] and peruse their "Unidentified Victims" index. Start off with the first entry there, the Caledonia Jane Doe discovered in 1979. Pleasant dreams.
** The forum [[http://www.websleuths.com/ websleuths]]; notably the "unidentified" pages.
* It's common for schools to hold assemblies which provide kids with safety and emergency information. In the U.S., some schools have taken a "scared straight" approach to this. Famously, one school had chosen a few students to be absent all on the same day. On that day, with the selected kids nowhere in sight, the staff announced an accident that killed those children. Predictably, some of the students found this to be extremely traumatic and needed psychological care after the caper was revealed. Furthermore, some schools have held assemblies in which students are cast as fire, accident or other victims while their classmates are ushered around the scenes by teachers describing the terrible situations being portrayed. The latter usually occurs with some fore-knowledge on the part of the students so that they know it's fake, but these assemblies are prone to extremity in the young actors' make-up.
** There was a school that hired an actor to run into a school and start "shooting" a fake gun (sounded real) between classes. Think only school was stupid enough to do it? Of course you're wrong!
** Winnipeg, Manitoba did the same thing in 1942, calling it ''If Day''. "Nazis" (citizens in costume) took over Winnipeg, "arresting" the mayor and premier and turning one section of the city into a concentration camp. They also went around beating people up. They would go into schools and ask for the Jewish students to stand up, then they would take them away. For someone who wasn't in on it, especially the schoolkids, that would be absolutely terrifying. It was a ploy to try to get people involved in the war effort.
* Bullying. The thoughts of how many AdultsAreUseless - Do you guys know what it's like to have been beaten up, or see someone else beaten up, only to tell an adult because someone is ''literally'' in danger, only to be told off or [[CassandraTruth not believed]]? The adults could literally just turn their head ''two centimeters'' to the right and see a kid with paint splattered all over him and a black eye, yet they don't see anything. And just imagine how many target(s) in western countries are being bullied for whatever reason, only for adults to ''encourage'' it with their own inaction?
** Let's not forget the disproportionate retribution. The minute the victim has had enough and decides to stand up to the bully, sometimes violently, the victim is the one that gets the severe punishment despite being the one that was pushed around in the first place.
** The climatic moment of DangerousMinds is based on cases such as these.
* Burglars. The thought of creepy FacelessGoons walking around your house and stealing things at random doesn't terrify you at all?
* The {{GIFT}}. To sum up several quotes from the quotes section, coarse people won't say what they ''really'' think to your face - because they aren't free from consequences, meaning they're within punching or kicking range. They may act nice to you in real life, but they have an image to maintain. They may not say something like "BarackObama deserves to be institutionalized" or "All of Israel should just be nuked" if you asked them in real life, but on the internet, of course they'd say that - that's what they ''really'' think. And you know what is even scarier? Imagining what'd happen if, even ''if'' you could attach a face to someone, what if this was like ''RealLife''? People would probably just murder children so they wouldn't have a threat to their power, steal ''everything'', just go on a shooting spree with a complete disregard for who they're killing, and just flat-out bastardy cranked UpToEleven.
--> '''OscarWilde:''' "Give a man a mask, and he will tell you the truth."
** {{Troll}}s and cyberbullies in general. Picture this, an adult troll who uses the internet as a personal haven for their inner bastardry intentionally harasses someone, that someone being a teenager with low-self esteem that he doesn't know, by teasing him, calling him names, and ''encouraging'' him to commit suicide. ''[[DudeNotFunny All the while thinking that this is funny]]!''
*** Here's [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2036935/Natasha-MacBryde-death-Facebook-internet-troll-Sean-Duffy-jailed.html?ito=feeds-newsxml an example]] that fits the exact description above. You might take some consolation in the fact that this man was arrested, however. Seems people are becoming more willing to prosecute the internet version of threats/harassment/etc.
*** Milder, but still disturbing and proceeding from the same mentality, are griefers, people who play online games for the sole purpose of disrupting other people's games. They derive enjoyment from ruining other people's fun, and cannot be reasoned with because no normal appeal, whether to compassion or self-interest, will work. They have no compassion for other players, and are already getting exactly what they want.
* Check out [[http://photographybytainatimar.blogspot.com/2010/05/world-famous-photography-throughout.html these]] well-known photographs. Now, read the stories behind the pictures; in many of these cases, the photographer gazed upon unmitigated human suffering and '''''did absolutely nothing to help'''''. All for the sake of capturing "the perfect photograph". Welcome to the world of photojournalism.
** The sad thing about the Omayra Sanchez photograph was that nothing could ''be'' done. The girl was trapped in that water for ''three days'' before she died, because it would be impossible to free her without amputating her legs, which would have made her bleed to death. A water pump was sent to the village... which arrived broken. Basically, the reporters stayed with her so she wouldn't die alone, as most of her family members were already dead.
** Having read the above, imagine YOU are a photographer dealing with such things. That link shows a photograph by [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Carter Kevin Carter]]. Carter was haunted by nightmares and visions of death after he took that picture of the starving girl being stalked by the vulture. He was also heavily criticized by people who didn't understand how little he could have intervened. Eventually, Carter took his own life.
* You don't have to be a vegetarian, vegan, or even value animal life very much to be outraged or disgusted at [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBbYUdvGWk0 this]]. What kind of things the animals have to go through in slaughterhouses is bad enough, actually imagining yourself as one of these animals is probably one of the most terrifying and depressing thing that you can think of.
** You are now imagining you are an animal in a slaughterhouse.... In Australia. Next to a forest of stinging trees. Likely the leases for the land were ridiculously cheap because of their 'neighbors.' Not only is a man-made travesty dicking with you, but a NATURAL one the turns your body to FIRE every time there's a slight breeze. For those that don't know, [[http://www.blueswami.com/stinging_trees.html read this link]] and then [[TearJerker think of what those poor, poor cows went through]] before they get anywhere NEAR a blade.
* Tar Pits. Getting stuck in them is one of the worst ways to die. Unlike quicksand which sucks you in, death by tar pit is slow. The only way you can die is if you starve (humans can survive for about two weeks without food), dehydration (lack of water), or if you somehow commit suicide. Thankfully, if you have a cell phone you could call for help, unlike the poor wild animals that became trapped thousands of years ago. Those animals either starved, became dehydrated, or were killed by a predator. Hundreds of skeletons have been found in the La Brea Tar Pits in California.
* Working in a [[SteelMill steel mill]]. There are a thousand ways to die in one - and they are all nasty. [[EverythingTryingToKillYou White-hot bubbling molten metal, fiery furnaces, electric arcs, poisonous gases, eerie (and certainly dangerous) machinery, heavy objects falling from great heights, horrible noise -- you name it]].
** The book Ganz Unten ("Lowest of the Low") by Günther Wallraff describes first-hand accounts on working in one. He describes of the working conditions of Turkish immigrant workers in the post-WWII West German steel industry. [[LavaPit One of the workers stumbled at work and fell in the blast furnace]]. What makes it FridgeHorror is that you realize it is ''West'' Germany. How about working in an ''East'' German [[NightmarishFactory hell factory]]...?
*** There was an accident in a chemical plant in Leuna, Eastern Germany. About a dozen workers were cooked to death by superheated steam when a door fell shut behind them.
*** An episode of ''UnsolvedMysteries'' had the story of Dave Bocks, a nuclear power plant worker who disappeared mysteriously. One day, his car keys and some bone fragments were found in one of the plant's furnaces. Worse, it was concluded that ''somebody threw him in there''.
** An unfortunate individual was locked in some oven-thing over a weekend. When the next work day rolled around, the oven was automatically turned on.
** It doesn't even need to be a traditionally-scary type of factory like a steel mill. There was a case of two workers in an [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1443939.stm innocuous bread factory]], who were sent inside an oven to do some maintenance work. They were sent in on a conveyer belt, like the loaves. It was switched off, but no one had ensured it had actually ''cooled down''- and there was no way to reverse the conveyer.
* Think 9/11 was bad when you were just sitting there watching the attacks on TV? In some places, '''the power went out.''' Of course, it had nothing to do with terrorists, but you can bet more than a few people were thinking they were all going to die.
* Mines. Not the explosive kind, the underground ones. Claustrophobic, dark, potentially filled with spiders, and could collapse if not safe. You'd need to worry about the ground crushing you against the ceiling in a landslide than about the roof collapsing. Needless to say, [[AndIMustScream surviving that would be less desirable than dying.]] Crawling along in the dark, bones probably broken, exit probably shut... that's the stuff HighOctaneNightmareFuel is made of... if you could move at all.
** Don't forget how many of them have portions that are [[KillItWithFire CONSTANTLY ON FIRE]] to boot.
* Radio signals. Find a weird spike producing noises that'll haunt your nightmares for years to come? Well good luck finding what in the name of Jimmi Hendrix was making it, unless you've got some good equipment. And who knows? [[spoiler: It may not even be from Earth.]]
* When you put in earphones while listening to music, you'll find you'll be hearing back vocals and certain instruments (that you couldn't hear before) [[ScareChord in one ear.]] One song that abuses this is "the Greatest Show Unearthed" by [[CreatureFeature Creature Feature.]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ9hkRsN5Yg&feature=autoplay&list=WL3E5D31E6C59460E9&index=1&playnext=14 Remember, it only works with earphones.]]
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cosmonauts Lost Cosmonauts]] theory. Yuri Gargarin was not the first man in space. He was the first to ''[[GoneHorriblyWrong come]] [[SuicideMission back]] [[{{Unperson}} alive]]''....
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident Dyatlov Pass incident.]] Nine hikers in the Ural mountains left their camp for no apparent reason and were later found dead. While this isn't that creepy on its own, five of the hikers had a variety of weird injuries (one was ''missing her tongue''), and four had elevated levels of radiation on their clothing. And no one knows what happened because no one who was present survived. We're probably better off not knowing the whole story.
* While looking up pictures of the Franklin Expedition, you might find a mugshot of one of the dead explorers they dug up from Beechy Island named John Torrington. Go look him up. You have been warned.
* [[BuriedAlive Premature burial.]] It's [[http://www.snopes.com/horrors/gruesome/buried.asp real]], it's been happening as long as humans have walked this planet, and in some parts of the world it ''still happens''.
** More to the point, buried alive after being presumed DEAD, not by a landslide or anything natural like that. Read up on what started the idea of vampires or their forebearers strigoi existing some time...
* Halloween can be SeriousBusiness for [[http://i.imgur.com/UCErT.jpg some people]]. Although, for [[NightmareFetishist some]] that picture qualifies as a [[MomentOfAwesome Crowning Moment of Awesome]].
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl9y3SIPt7o This video of abuse captured on tape]] is disturbing enough in it's own right. But there are a few things special to this case that make it pure HighOctaneNightmareFuel:
** 1. Her father, being a judge, was a well respected member of the community, therefore [[CassandraTruth no one would believe]] this girl as to what kind of a person he really is behind closed doors. [[FridgeHorror It makes you wonder what other well respected people are really like.]] [[ParanoiaFuel Including those you know (or think you know).]]
** 2. [[{{GIFT}} The comments.]] There are many who see nothing wrong with what he did to her and some even applauding him. Others claiming that they recieved [[ItGotWorse worse than that,]] while still thinking that it did them good. [[http://www.theblaze.com/stories/extremely-disturbing-video-claims-to-show-texas-judge-savagely-whipping-daughter-with-belt/ here]] is an example of one of the articles and the comments. Some of these people even go as far to blame this girl for the abuse she suffered through, [[InsaneTrollLogic claiming that she set him up just to provoke a beating and was faking her cries.]] The fact that people can see obvious abuse and still find ways to blame the victim is absolutely horrifying.
** 3. He was a family law judge who dealt with child abuse cases of all things. He had denounced the testimonies of children, claiming they were fantasizers, [[HarsherInHindsight no we know why.]]
** 4. The daughter in question had cerebral palsy and almost all sources on the abuse scandal don't bother to mention it and/or gloss over it. Given the examples of people who ''[[OffingTheOffspring murdered]]'' [[OffingTheOffspring their disabled children]] and have had people defend their actions, it's pretty much safe to say that somehow, the abuse of a disabled person matters less than that of a nondisabled person in the exact same situation in they eyes of the writers of the sources that omitted this fact.
* They have [[CureYourGays straight camps]]. Places people are sent, told their way of live is wrong, and taught how to lie about who they are so they are accepted by society. Parents actually send their children to these places for being curious.
** What happened to institutionalized GLBT individuals in years past. That's not FridgeHorror, that is HighOctaneNightmareFuel of the highest order and seriously [[UsefulNotes/{{Trigger}} triggering]] to many people -- but think of how many people were sent to these things, not ''just'' out of their parents and caretakers' bigotry, but because ''that was the reigning medical opinion''. It wasn't just a bunch of fundamentalist nuts turning over their gay, transgender and gender-nonconforming kids so they could expect grandkids. These people were scared... and they thought they were doing the right thing. Their pastors, their doctors and teachers and trusted family friends thought they were doing the right thing too. Subjecting their children and loved ones to ''hellish'' treatment to "fix" them, turning them over into the hands of people who would beat them, rape them, starve them and mistreat them until they were "[[CameBackWrong well]]" or [[BuryYourGays dead]] or [[AndIMustScream physically compromised]] -- [[HeroicBSOD most certainly traumatized]] -- [[FateWorseThanDeath for life]]. To make them normal. Safe, healthy, sane, good. Someone you loved might have done that to you.
* Book banning controversies. Sounds geeky in text but they can get freakin' ''brutal''. For example there was this giant controversy in Panama City about a book (I think it was ''I Am the Cheese'') that people wanted removed from the shelves. When a group of teachers and an IntrepidReporter tried to defend the book, how do they get repaid? By receiving threatening phonecalls, death threats, letterbombs, and one of them almost getting her house burned down. Worse still, [[TheFundamentalist the people contending this book]] ''[[CassandraTruth accused them of lying, or even doing these horrible things to themselves to gain sympathy]]''. And to think, all of this trouble is over a ''book''. Thank God the author of the book set the record straight or [[FridgeHorror who knows what could have happened]]...
** These accusations of lying are textbook example of denialism. Imagine that kind of logic: Jews are evil, The Holocaust did not happen and they deserved it anwyay... you know the drill.
* Spontaneous Human Combustion. Imagine one minute you're enjoying life, then out of the freaking blue you're engulfed in a burning fire without warning and will likely burn to death without even knowing what hit you.
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAMfCG6nn1w ADHD friendly example]].
* Not as horrifying as some things here but... [[http://i.imgur.com/dcEI5.jpg]] this. A girl in a wheelchair is STABBED by a "friend". With a FORK.
* You know TheExorcismOfEmilyRose was loosely based on a true story, right? [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr-IdHU3A5M Here is ACTUAL AUDIO of the exorcism session it was based on]]. Just don't make the mistake of watching it before bed or while suffering emotional problems...
* Cracked are really good at these! Most commenters agree that of [[http://www.cracked.com/article_19705_the-5-most-spectacular-landscapes-earth-that-murder-you.html The 5 Most Spectacular Landscapes on Earth (That Murder You)]], the creepiest one is #3, the Bolton Strid. You'll never see forest streams the same way again.
* Do a Google Image search on "trypophobia." You know what? Don't. You've probably had enough NightmareFuel for one day.
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You've done it! You've made it through all these pages of mind-numbing horror. What more can be said? As you go about your day and try not to break down, try to remember to do one thing: [[LifeOfBrian Always look on the bright side of life...]]
[[SweetDreamsFuel But you all probably need]] [[Heartwarming/RealLife these links.]] [[http://www.cuteroulette.com And this one for good measure.]]
[[/folder]]
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[[folder: RLNF Accidents and General Body Horror]]
* The Nikki Catsouras case. How would you like to lose any loved one, never mind your own child, and then two weeks later recieve an email from a complete stranger with a picture showing [[AdultFear YOUR OWN CHILD'S MANGLED REMAINS??]] Worse, the photos were leaked by members of the ''California Highway Patrol.''
* Gore websites. While they will not be linked here due to FamilyFriendly policy, they feature violent and painful deaths and injuries, often to cater to people's fetishes.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_ulcer Jungle Rot]], otherwise known as a Tropical Ulcer. An infected scratch in the jungle, and your entire body starts to erode.
* There's a ton of outer space horrors that come in mind. Two more notable are pressurization failure (e.g., a hole in your space suit) and life support failure.
* In ''AmericasBestDanceCrew'', the crew the Ringmasters. They were already grotesque to begin with, their gimmick being unsightly flexibility, but their challenge during Britney Spears week was to create the illusion of gigantic performers. So what did they do? They wore hoodies and somehow came up with [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ringmasters.JPG these monstrosities.]] Or perhaps [[http://www.mtv.com/videos/americas-best-dance-crew-season-3-ep-3-britney-challenge/1603283/playlist.jhtml seeing them in motion will have a stronger effect]] (the fifth section, about 30 minutes in)? (And by the way, their song was "[[CircusOfFear Circus]]."
* Charla Nash. The victim of a chimpanzee attack. [[SchmuckBait Good god, ]]'''''[[SchmuckBait do not ]]'''''[[SchmuckBait look up photos from Google of her face from her appearance on Oprah. As a matter of fact, it's not advisable that you look up any article about her appearance on Oprah, considering that that article might inadvertently have photos of her face]]. Absolutely horrifying. The lady's arms were ''literally'' ripped and pulled off, her eyes, eyelids as well as her lips... she looks almost like Pale Man from ''PansLabyrinth'', except more horrifying in that she actually has a huge, bloody hole in the middle of her face.
* The "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin#Diving_bell_accident Byford Dolphin diving bell accident]]". Just the description about what happened to the bodies (including [[spoiler:gas bubbles [[EyeScream forming in the eye tissue]]]]) is enough to cause shivers. Sure, the victims probably died instantly and painlessly, but can you imagine having to clean up or autopsy one of these corpses? The people in charge of that must have been scarred for life.
** Subsequent investigation by forensic pathologists determined that diver D4, being exposed to the highest pressure gradient, exploded with violence due to the rapid and massive expansion of internal gases. All of his thoracic and abdominal organs, and even his thoracic spine, were ejected, as were all his limbs. [...] Chunks of his body were found scattered about the rig.
* There was a story about a girl in India whose hair was caught in a machine which ended up separating her face from her head. They then showed you both the girl with her musculature exposed, and [[http://health.discovery.com/centers/plasticsurgery/facetransplant/gallery/face2_h.jpg the face, in two pieces, resting on the plastic bag the girl's mother brought it in.]]
* William Harvey. A very important 17th century scientist, who made his biological discoveries in horrifying ways. Some of his highlights include performing unanaesthetised dissections on live animals, and draining all of the blood from most of a person's vessels into one vein, making that one vein swell up like a balloon.
* You want to teach kids not to smoke cigarettes? Have them visit with someone who's had a laryngectomy.
* Spontaneous Human Combustion. It's highly unsettling to think that one day you could burn to death from the inside out for ''no apparent reason'', with nothing left but a big black spot, a pile of burnt oily mess and bone, and maybe a leg or two sticking out. Crematoria use furnaces of up to 1000°C to burn human bodies - but in cases of SHC, only materials above and next to what's left of you will be burned. Images of victims' charred remains can be found, but having a few gallons of BrainBleach handy would be highly advisable if you plan to search for them. There are more than enough [[http://anomalyinfo.com/articles/sa00013.php?page=SHC examples]] that have ''no explanation whatsoever.''
* At the time, [[TheCaligula Nero]]'s use of Christians as gladiator bait didn't catch much attention in Rome. That wasn't particularly unusual, and they were convenient scapegoats for the Great Fire. What ''did'' catch attention was the extreme cruelty of [[http://www.oriensjournal.com/11edit.html the spectacle he made of it]], including the "innovative" use of their living bodies as candles to provide light for it.
* Fires in general, nightclub fires in particular, like [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIetpe_KAJU&feature=related the Station Night Club,]] Happy Land, or Coconut Grove. The notion of burning is scary enough, the notion of dying of smoke inhalation is scary enough .... but the thing that gets you is how ''fast'' it all happens. The smoke buildup [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxiOXZ55hbc&feature=related in this video]] goes from "minor" to "completely consuming the room" in a minute and a half. In that time, the people in the crowd go from oblivious - to mildly concerned - to complete, involuntary all-consuming panic, behaving like stampeding animals, as the vast majority of them succumb to the smoke.
* Being in a DUI crash and that [[http://web.archive.org/web/20030201093613/www.austin360.com/aas/specialreports/jacqui this]] can easily happen to anyone is pure NightmareFuel.
* A car rammed into a carrier truck at a red light, causing a bunch of incredibly corrosive acid to spill out and wash across tarmac for twenty meters or so. (This was probably back in the 80s or something because of the truck's poor protection.) Anyway, some spilled over the woman in the car, and she started screaming. The truck driver leaned out of his window and began to scream as loudly as possible "Get back, get the fuck back!" (This was only partly necessary, as most people had run to a safer area when they saw the tarmac start to bubble.) So one onlooker started shouting "Why is nobody going to help her?!" The rest of the bystanders tried to reassure the onlooker, but she broke free and started to run across the acid to the woman in the car. Within a few seconds, it had eaten through the soles of her shoes and then her feet. The woman fell over from the pain, face-first into the acid. Then she started to roll around in agony, after which point she passed out.
* A whole host of birth defects:
** Anencephaly: literally no or very little brain matter.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetus_in_fetu fetus in fetu]]'', a medical condition where a developing fetus envelops his/her identical twin - and the enveloped twin develops inside as a parasite! Naturally, being a television documentary, it was complete with pictures of the removed twin, which looked like a shrunken head with a proportioned body.
** ConjoinedTwins. Being physically attached to your sibling in one of a dozen different ways. You could be attached by just a little flap of skin, or share an entire body from the neck down. And if they don't die soon after being born, many are usually subjected to surgical separation where, more often then not one or both, will die.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy Lobotomies.]] The first lobotomies were lengthy, costly operations that were as precise as possible for the 1930s. Then Walter Freeman found the ice-picks in his freezer, remembered the bone behind our eyes is quite thin, hammered a couple into someone's head and jiggled them about a bit to get pretty much the same effect. The goal of these operations was to get people out of mental institutions - not necessarily well, just well ''enough''...at first. As lobotomies first became popular then were progressively considered barbaric operations, Walter Freeman felt the pressure to prove they were indeed a medical breakthrough. An operation once reserved for an absolute last resort in the treatment of severe mental illness was eventually performed on unruly children. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Dully Meet one.]] The history of lobotomies fuels more nightmares than the thought of the actual operation, since it's a prime example of how humanity sucks in many, many areas and how few of those we keep an eye on to this day. Freeman used to perform lobotomies with a showman's attitude, sometimes shoving in two ice picks at once. He even accidentally killed a man by briefly leaving the ice picks in while he went looking for a camera. The inventor ''won the Nobel Prize for Medicine''.
** Poor Rosemary Kennedy had the misfortune of being the "slow one" in a family full of ambitious, gifted children (experts think she had an IQ of around 90). The pressure of trying to measure up to her more sophisticated siblings caused her to act out and ultimately her parents ended up having a doctor perform brain surgery on her at the age of 23 to curb her mood swings. He succeeded...in reducing her mind to that of a literal infant, a state she remained in until she died at the age of 86. One wonders if the Kennedy family would have been a lot happier if Papa Joe hadn't been so hellbent on creating his own dynasty.
---> ''We went through the top of the head, I think she was awake. She had a mild tranquilizer. I made a surgical incision in the brain through the skull. It was near the front. It was on both sides. "We just made a small incision, no more than an inch." The instrument Dr. Watts used looked like a butter knife. He swung it up and down to cut brain tissue. "We put an instrument inside," he said. As Dr. Watts cut, Dr. Freeman put questions to Rosemary. For example, he asked her to recite the Lord's Prayer or sing "God Bless America" or count backwards. ... "We made an estimate on how far to cut based on how she responded." ... When she began to become incoherent, they stopped.''
** One of the things that make it really frightening is how the media whitewash lobotomies to a state of numb mindlessness. If only. Imagine being able to remember caring, feeling, thinking as you do now, and then that just... stops, but the rest of you knows it and keeps on going.
** In fact, most of what passed for cutting-edge psychiatric treatment until very recently is more than a little terrifying. Someone behaving badly? Brain surgery time! Lobotomies are one of the best examples, but the entire medical profession prior to the last fifty years or so is pretty creepy. As for the pharmacological industry before the FDA - just don't go there.
* Dentists. Or anything tooth-related. due to the immense amount of nerves and pain-related receptors.
* Oral surgery in general (wisdom teeth, root canals) is horrifying. Even perfectly normal, ostensibly non-horrifying procedures can be incredibly painful, like tooth removal and getting braces. The feeling of a dentist grabbing your tooth and jerking it back and forth until it comes out is incredibly creepy even when you've had a lot of anaesthetic and can't feel any pain. The mouth is also one of the worst-feeling areas when subjected to local anaesthetic, for some reason. Just recovering from something and having to put up with a big numb rubbery mouth, and the drooling you end up subconsciously doing sometimes.
* The two books published about [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_farm the Body Farm]]. Mixed in with the fascinating descriptions and applications of forensic science is a high dose of {{Body Horror}} as you learn in excruciating detail exactly what happens to a human body after death. But the worst parts by far are all the descriptions the horrible ways real people have died in certain cases. (No photos are included; you won't need them.) Especially the explosion at the illegal fireworks operation. ''Her brain fell out''...
** StephenFry was "lucky" enough to be granted access to it during his documentary on the US. As a special bonus he claims ''to have never seen a dead body before'' and his tour guide admits she has gotten into the habit of [[{{Bones}} figuring out what people's skulls look like]] under their skin.
* Anesthesia awareness. You wake up during surgery, but you can't communicate. Happens to 20,000 people a year.
* Faces Of Meth - what methamphetamine abuse and its consequences (hallucinations, poverty, poor nutrition, poisoning from the chemicals in the drug) do to people's appearance over time.
* Tapeworms. The bad part about pork tape worms isn't the aspect of living in your small intestine stealing your nutrients... but actually the fact that if you eat their eggs instead of their immature form they can circulate throughout your body and implant themselves on whatever random tissue they land on. Unfortunately they often decide to land on brain tissue and can cause permanent brain damage.
** ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea_worms Guinea worms]].'' Parasitic disease in general.
* Abortion. Pro-life, pro-choice, doesn't matter, the basic concept is still ''sucking the baby/mass of cells/what have you out of the uterus with a giant vacuum.''
* What would happen to you if you were exposed into the vacuum of space without space gear. You will wish that one and a half minute of remaining life were much, much shorter. In the absence of atmospheric pressure, water will spontaneously convert into vapor, which would cause the moisture in a victim's mouth and eyes to quickly boil away. The same effect would cause water in the muscles and soft tissues of the body to evaporate, prompting some parts of the body to swell to twice their usual size after a few moments. In the absence of air pressure the gas exchange of the lungs works in reverse, dumping oxygen out of the blood and accelerating the oxygen-starved state known as hypoxia. After about ten seconds a victim will experience loss of vision and impaired judgment, and the cooling effect of evaporation will lower the temperature in the victim's mouth and nose to near-freezing. Unconsciousness and convulsions would follow several seconds later, and a blue discoloration of the skin called cyanosis would become evident. At this point the victim would be floating in a blue, bloated, unresponsive stupor, but their brain would remain undamaged and their heart would continue to beat. Without intervention in those first ninety seconds, the blood pressure would fall sufficiently that the blood itself would begin to boil, and the heart would stop beating. As a side bonus, with no bacteria present, your frozen, non-decomposing body will drift off into space for millions or perhaps billions of years if left untouched.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_decapitation Internal decapitation]]. It's [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin pretty much what its name would imply]], and it's ''the very definition'' of this trope.
* There's this video floating around on the Internet, a public service announcement made by a Middle Eastern country where two men jump off a bridge into water. The bridge isn't too high (about 20-30 feet). One of the men makes it. The other? He slips at the last second only to have his face smash against the corner of a concrete pier at the bottom. The later show him in the emergency room, [[spoiler: with his face split open and still alive]].
* Elevator FailsafeFailure. Example: that Japanese guy who got his head ripped off by a elevator with faulty sensors. And the other passenger was trapped in the car with the severed head for an hour. Or in Italy, June 2009: during a heavy rainstorm, an old woman rode her elevator down to her cellar. Too bad the cellar was flooded. The elevator stopped when it touched the water, then the flood got worse, and worse, and worse...she drowned in there. In Brazil, all elevators have warnings "before entering through the elevator doors, please check that the elevator car is on the current floor",
* Ectopic pregnancy. The fertilized egg doesn't make it to the uterus and starts growing "inside" the fallopian tube. The [[http://www.bodiestheexhibition.com/ Bodies Exhibition]] had the plasticized, dissected reproductive organs of a woman who had died from an ectopic pregnancy, complete with a little walnut-sized fetus thing still in the fallopian tube. In a rare few cases of ectopic pregnancy, the zygote will actually ''fall out'' of the fallopian tube and attach itself to a random spot in the abdominal cavity... usually an organ. Said organ will proceed to suffer severe damage as the placenta grows -- and the placenta is much more likely to grow to a larger size than it would in a normal ectopic pregnancy, thanks to not being stuck inside a non-elastic tube. Some of these pregnancies have actually lasted to full term. Incidentally, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cord_%26_Placenta.jpg this]] is what a placenta looks like at nine months. Sweet dreams, ladies.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_cutting Female genital mutilation]], or FGM.
** Genital mutilation in general
* ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stick_shaker The eerie sound of the stick shaker can be heard in the black box recording on the doomed ice-covered Air Florida flight 90 that stalled and crashed into the Potomac river near Washington DC in 1982.]]''[[http://www.airdisaster.com/download2/af90.shtml that recording]]. Oh, and [[ItGotWorse if that's not bad enough]], one can actually hear the plane's explosive impact, too.
** This still pales in comparison to [[http://www.airdisaster.com/download2/jal123.shtml the JAL-123 recording]]. The constant beeping, the desperate shouts of the crew, the ground proximity warning system ("Pull up!... Pull up!... Pull up!"), the sound of two impacts... it's 55 seconds of pure despair. "We're going down, Larry(?)"..."I KNOW!", preceding the BOOM, is more jarring than the sound of the stick shaker.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_585 United Airlines Flight 585]]. Suddenly and without warning, the aircraft rolled to the right and began to pitch downward, nose first. Nine seconds later, they crashed into Widefield Park at 4g. There were no survivors. And it all happened in nine seconds. The cockpit transcript from those nine seconds can be found in the [[http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/2001/AAR0101.pdf aircraft accident report]], on pages 177-178, and it is chilling. [[YourMileageMayVary Your mileage may vary]] as to whether it's more or less chilling to read the normal conversations that make up most of the transcript, knowing what's going to happen at the end. The worst part is, this happened while the plane was on its ''final approach to the runway''. Just a minute or two longer and they would've been fine. Imagine you're the captain or co-pilot, on a normal domestic flight from Denver to Colorado Springs. You're on your final approach to the runway. Imagine the mounting anticipation and sense of relief you would feel, knowing you'll be on the ground again in a few short minutes. Maybe you'll grab a coffee. Then you can check into a hotel and finally relax. And then suddenly you're hurtling towards the ground with nine seconds to live. Nine seconds of pure terror, of screaming and swearing as you try desperately to regain control.
** A similar thing happened to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USAir_Flight_427 USAir Flight 427]] three-and-a-half years later. Once again, no survivors. Except that this time, there were 132 onboard instead of 25, and the uncontrolled descent lasted ''twenty-eight seconds''.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUhGVpP8hCwThe 911 call from the Twin Towers]] ''as they collapsed.'' Being trapped on a top floor and slowly suffocating while calling 911 and basically being told '''they can't do anything''' to save you. Not to mention having the tower go down while you're inside it. Not to mention how the person on the other end must have felt, having to listen to those men beg for help and '''listen to them die.''' The entire thing is beyond horrifying.
* Amniocentesis. A long needle is inserted into a pregnant woman's belly, through the wall of her uterus to draw out a sample of amniotic fluid. (This can be dangerous to the fetus if it is stuck by the needle accidentally; may lead to miscarriage.) The idea is to get fetal cells to test for genetic diseases and disorders. (Thus usually done for older moms, or moms who have a high-risk of problems. An alternative exists, but it isn't much better (it can still cause miscarriage, and it's still scary), where a tube is inserted through the vagina and cervix and a small chunk of placenta is taken.
* Pelvic exams and the horrifying TurnedUpToEleven pelvic exam known as a colposcopy. (Usually done in cases where the woman has had two consecutive abnormal Pap smears, or when she's been raped (and they have reason to believe she sustained more serious internal injuries during the attack). That one may involve biopsies and weird tests involving iodine. Kind of like a vaginal alien probe, but not by aliens.
* ECRP. Hoo boy. This is ''really'' simplifying here, but if some or all of the 4 bile ducts in the liver are blocked, they go in and ''drill through'' the blocked ducts to unblock them in an attempt to salvage liver function. It's very painful, and they can't put the patient out completely because his/her cooperation is needed. It can cause internal bleeding, infection, and pancreatitis as well. (Which is why it's no longer done as a diagnostic procedure as it formerly was; it's too dangerous for that. It's only used for therapeutic purposes.)
* Pancreatitis itself. Imagine the worst pain you can ever imagine traveling through the upper abdomen and shooting its way to the back. Imagine living life feeling extremely nauseated and dehydrated all at once, so that one has to live by an extremely restricted diet AND try to get as much water as necessary without throwing up the water one has consumed. Now imagine trying to live as normal a life as one can with such a disorder ravaging one's body, including going so far as to be permanently fed via IV if that's what it takes to keep the "writhing on the floor of your bathroom or bedroom while curled up in a ball"-level pain away.
* The end results of a human gas turbine ingestion accident. It pretty much defines the ChunkySalsaRule. For those who have more intestinal fortitude, read on. [[spoiler: Imagine, if you will, the inner nacelle of an aircraft engine, and massive fan within. Now spread a chunky paste of redness about eight inches around the front and back of the fan, glued to the nacelle. Scatter some bits and pieces up to a hundred feet behind the engine for added effect. Now realise that that chunky red mess was a ''person''.]]
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectal_prolapse Rectal prolapse.]] This is also featured from ChuckPalahniuk's creepypasta ''Guts''. Cracked's description really takes the cake(spoiler'd because it ''will'' keep you up at night): [[spoiler: It is a weakening of the ligaments that hold your intestines together, and in the worst case scenario, your intestine comes loose and hangs out your anus.]] Possibly the worst thing is that you don't have to do anything particularly dangerous or extreme to have this happen. All you have to do is what many people consider to be normal procedure in this situation.
* Günther Wallraff describes in his book ''Ganz Unten'' ("Lowest of the Low") a horrific case in a West German steel mill where a Turkish immigrant steelworker had stumbled at work in a steel mill and fallen in a blast furnace. His body had been incinerated completely - the kinsfolks were presented a symbolical piece of metal containing
* Historical torture:
** Crucifixion. They tied or nailed your hands and feet that way so that you had to stand up to able to breathe. Once you lost the energy to stand, you would collapse, at which point you couldn't breathe and had to pull yourself up to breathe again and collapse then you'd collapse again and again and again ... a proper crucifixion could take three days to kill someone.
** A medieval French favorite is quartering. Tie four horses to each limb of the victim's body, then whip the horses. For an added bonus, the torturers would give the victim a last drink so they could watch the liquid pour out of their exposed entrails. Not to be confused with the even more horrifying English punishment known as drawing and quartering, where the condemned is dragged across the filthy, bumpy, trash-strewn roads to the place of execution by a horse, he is hanged but cut down while still alive, his "privy member" [[GroinAttack is cut off]], his belly is slit open and he is forced to watch as they pull out his intestines and burn them in front of his face, and then they hack off his head, cut his body into four quarters, and distribute them among various places where he performed treasonous or seditious acts.
** Scalping. Which, by the way, was not done by Native American tribes but ''to'' them by US soldiers.
** One Native American tribe favored burying a man up to his neck, covering his head with honey, and waiting for the ants to come.
** A basic one but still painful: [[BurnTheWitch burning at the stake]].
** "Carving the blood eagle," a particularly {{squick}}tastic Viking method of killing which consisted of cutting and breaking the victim's ribs so they resembled bird wings, pulling out the lungs, and then salting the wounds that were left behind to make death ''even more painful than it already was.''
** Edward II was thought to be gay, and this was back in the 1300s when homosexuality was a sin. A group of nobles killed him by anally raping him with a hot iron rod.
* Then there are the more humane ways forms of execution... except when they go wrong.
** Beheaded with a an axe that isn't sharp. Sometimes it took as many as fifty blows.
** Just ask Catherine Howard.
** Same with a dull guillotine. Imagine hearing the sound of it falling, feeling the pain, and then hearing "[[ItGotWorse Pull it back up and try again]]."
** Lethal injection every so often goes wrong, and you are quite aware of the pain but you can't scream or move.
** To help with the electric chair, they would put a sponge on the victim's forehead. The sponge is meant to be placed under the electrode cap to help conduct the current and ensure a quick death in the chair. StephenKing's ''TheGreenMile'' has a particularly horrific and nasty scene that was based on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_chair#First_executions the very first execution by electric chair]], where said sponge wasn't used.
** Hanging, if done wrong, does not snap your neck -- you suffocate. You have to drop the victim at least fifteen feet or so for a quick death. This is particularly common with people attempting to commit suicide. There's also the exact opposite problem. The mathematics for performing a proper long drop is fairly simple, but occasionally back in the day they would mess up. If the rope is too long, the person will be decapitated [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KetchumDecapitated.jpg like this fellow by the name of Tom Ketchum]]. They forgot to recalculate his weight after he gained weight while in prison. After the botched hanging of Eva Dugan, Arizona switched to the "more humane" method of execution by gas chamber.
* From an old radio announcement: ''"This is the sound of a train hitting a person: ...chugga-chugga, chugga-chugga, chugga-CHUGGA, CHUGGA-CHUGGA, CHUGGA-CHUGGA, CHUGGA-CHUGGA, CHUGGA-chugga, chugga-chugga, chugga-chugga..."''
* JohnFKennedy's assassination. It was the same as any other headshot, really, but it happened in BROAD DAYLIGHT in front of many, many people, ''children'' included. And don't even get us started on the ''autopsy''...
* A test pilot who bailed out of a plane at supersonic speed in the '50s; his entire body inflated to ''twice its size'', his eyeballs swelled to the size of Major League baseballs, and ''six feet of his lower intestine protruded out''-yet he somehow survived.
* The [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Yfd_7jrnMk gruesome]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM6v-43-1PU effects]] of the Russian heroin substitute 'Krokodil' called so because the users skin and flesh turns green and becomes horribly gangrenous, before it rots off revealing fresh bone without any blood. It is made from codeine extracted from codeine medication and mixed with cleaning solvents, which is why the average lifespan of the user is less than a year. How someone could not take themselves to hospital the moment they started feeling decomposition in their limbs is amazing, but [[BodyHorror how any human could even survive that level of injury without succumbing to sepsis or shock is incredible.]]
* [[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001355 Hypokalemic Periodic Paralysis Disorder]]. It doesn't sound too bad, but YOU try waking up one morning not being able to move your arms or legs without feeling like you're tearing the muscles from the bone or not having the ability to grip anything (thus leading to an inability to button your own pants) because your blood potassium levels have dropped. Even more horrifying is that while the condition is genetic, the effects are activated by something as simple as eating too much pizza the night before.
* Hydrofluoric acid accidents. Even chemistry geeks are deathly scared of that stuff, as it not only eats through pretty much anything (including glass), but causes severe tissue necrosis. It also etches bones, and slows or stops the victim's heart through rapid loss of blood calcium. Direct skin contact with even a small amount is usually fatal. And it doesn't react well with flesh, so you don't have any obvious acid burns to tip you off that you got some on you. Just an unpleasant itching or tingling.
* Let's talk about a few suicide methods that aren't as painless or reliable as most people think.
** Overdosing on medication. As simple as going to sleep? Haha, yeah right. More like hours of projectile vomiting once your stomach starts to reject the medication, and a host of other horrifying symptoms (which ones you experience depends on the medication you took) including but not limited to: Loud ringing in the ears (very common, and much more distressing than you might think), temporary deafness, temporary blindness, seizures, intense burning or itching of the skin, severe stomach pain, GI bleeding, hallucinations, paranoia, panic attacks, loss of muscle control, loss of bowel and bladder control, hyperventilating, fast or slow heartbeat (both of which you can feel), difficulty breathing, coma and, of course, death (rarely). At the hospital, you'll be forced to drink liquid charcoal, a nasty concoction that tastes like you're drinking mud (complete with gritty bits -- ever ate a sandwich at the beach, and accidentally got sand in it?), and usually makes you vomit even more. [=ODing=] is rarely fatal, but can cause permanent damage to the organs and brain. You might also have your stomach pumped, depending on what you took and how much, or how long ago.
** Tylenol, a common method of OD, is particularly nasty. The person feels icky for a few hours after taking it, but shows no major symptoms at first. The person may start to feel better later in the day, believing that they're going to be okay and failing to seek medical treatment. Big, BIG mistake. 24 to 48 hours later, liver failure begins to set in. The nausea returns, cranked UpToEleven, as well as INTENSE pain. No, really, the pain is utterly horrible, as in you feel as though your liver is expanding due to being stuffed full of shards of glass. Ever had gall stones? If so, it's like that, but even worse. Your skin turns yellow, and toxins build up throughout your body, which brings about all kinds of painful symptoms. If you wind up needing a liver transplant, you might be rejected by the donor committee due to being suicidal.
** Aspirin, another common one, makes you very nauseated; causes very, very loud ringing in the ears, and makes them feel as if they're stuffed with cotton; feeling disconnected with reality, which is disturbing; in extreme cases, bleeding in the GI tract due to ''eating away at the inside of the stomach''; seizures; a very fast heart beat; hyperventilating, as your body attempts to expel excess carbon dioxide in the blood; low blood sugar; potential edema (swelling) in the brain; and a host of other symptoms.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSRI SSRIs]] are near impossible to OD on. Fatally, that is. Instead what happens is that your brain goes nuts from the overdose of serotonin, which is not as pleasant as it sounds. Some of the symptoms include profuse vomiting, diarrhea, hallucinations, rapid heartbeat, shivering, sweating, tremors, and coma. In short, you probably won't die, but you'll feel like you are--and probably wish you had for a few days.
** Gunshot to the head. Even pointblank, to the forehead, temple or [[AteHisGun in the mouth]], [[TisOnlyABulletInTheBrain these are survivable]]. Sure, brain-damage is likely, but that doesn't automatically kill a person. A large number of people who attempt suicide via gun accidentally blow off part of their face, but manage to live. One may end up drowning in their own blood because they've destroyed their nasal cavity -- hardly an easy death. Since the body is almost guaranteed to flinch by reflex in response to the gun going off, there's a very good chance that one will miss the brain entirely. Or they might hit it, but only in an area that affects higher reasoning, leaving them alive, but paralyzed, mentally challenged, or both. Yes, yes, ''[[RealityIsUnrealistic you don't even need the seat of your soul and personality to live.]]'' See also one of the most famous cases of surviving this kind of brain trauma, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage Phineas Gage]]. If you use a certain kind of gun/ammo with bullets that aren't strong enough to penetrate the skull, you can have the bullet hit the back of your skull and bounce off, ricocheting around your brain and slicing it up. Likewise, gunshots to other parts of the body often miss the organ being aimed for, leaving the person to bleed to death or disabled. Those who aim for the heart may miss and hit the lungs instead, for instance. This effectively causes a person to drown in their own blood.
** Cutting the wrists. Definitely not as easy as sliding a knife across your arm. To even be effective, a person has to hack their way down through tendons and muscle to reach the artery, which takes time. NOT painless, NOT quick and scary as hell. Even if one successfully cuts open the artery and does all the things people do to prevent clotting, they're probably not going to die (even if they're not found by anyone after they pass out). It will, however, leave an enormous scar down the arm, as well as permanent nerve damage and less flexibility in the skin, leading to a constant feeling of 'tightness' in the arm.
** Hanging. This can certainly kill a person, but not always painlessly. Suicide victims rarely succeed in breaking their own neck, which would cause an instant death. Instead, they hang there, slowly asphyxiating. The pain is excessive (imagine your entire body being held up by a noose around your neck), not to mention the sheer panic one experiences -- survival instinct kicks in automatically, even if the person really does want to kill their self, as they hang there and die. Plus, if they're rescued before they die, brain damage is a very likely possibility. Oh, the corpse of a hanging victim is not very nice to look at, what with the bloated face, the tongue sticking out, the burst capillaries in the eyes and the blood pooling in their legs and forearms.
** Drowning. Panicking under water is not a fun way to die, and inhaling water is painful.
** To sum it all up:
---> ''Razors pain you;
---> Rivers are damp;
---> Acids stain you;
---> And drugs cause cramp.
---> Guns aren't lawful;
---> Nooses give;
---> Gas smells awful;
---> You might as well live.''
----> -- Dorothy Parker
* A recent psychological study indicates that the idea that deals the worst response (from a handful given to test subjects) is [[spoiler: Pointy objects being pushed through the smallest holes in the body, namely the [[FreudWasRight nipples]]]] Try to think about that and NOT get chills.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlequin_fetus Harlequin fetuses]]. Just...''ick''.
* Seeing your own bones or blood after an injury.
* [[http://sometimes-interesting.com/2011/06/29/over-200-dead-bodies-on-mount-everest/ There are over 200 dead bodies littering Mt. Everest.]] Above a certain point, it is unsafe to bring them down, so they are pretty much left to waste away.
* The physical effects of bulimic and anorexic behavior.
[[/folder]]
----
[[folder: RLNF Animals]]
[[quoteright:345:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/angler_fish.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:345:Hey kids, remember that [[NightmareFuel scary part]] in FindingNemo? Well, fish like that are really out there. And this one ain't the worst of it...]]
->[[http://www.cracked.com/funny-5588-hybrid-animals/ "Apparently, Nature evolved humans so that she would have something to scream at all of her other creations."]]\\
-- ''{{Cracked}}''
-> "DAMN, NATURE! YOU SCARY!"
-->--''{{Family Guy}}''
Some animals just make anything better. Others, [[NightmareFuel make anything scary]].
TV tropes would like to remind you that the animals listed are just that: animals, not horrible monsters that should be [[KillItWithFire killed with fire]]. They are also not really after your blood. Except for the blood sucking ones.
Note to All Tropers: Enough with the side conversations on this page, take it to the discussion boards. And make sure your entry isn't already here before you add: there's already a lot of bugs, for instance.
See also EverythingsWorseWithBears. [[EverythingsWorseWithBees And bees]]. [[EverythingsEvenWorseWithSharks And sharks]].
----
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder: Extinct]]
* TwoWords: ''[[TyrannosaurusRex Tyrannosaurus rex'']]. To put it bluntly, we're talking about an animal that was 36-42 feet long, 11 feet tall, weighed 6 tons, and had razor-sharp serrated teeth that could grow to the size of a banana. Oh, and it gets even better. The jaws of a T-rex were strong enough to crush bone and are considered one of the strongest sets of jaws known to ever exist in the animal kingdom (Only the prehistoric fish, Dunkleosteus, had a stronger bite). Be thankful it's extinct.
** ''T. Rex'' definitely was a badass. But it was hardly alone in being NightmareFuel. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Largesttheropods.svg See this chart?]] Yeah, I'm glad those thing's aren't around anymore.
** [[ItGotWorse It gets worse.]] There's now evidence that suggests that T.rex could run fast. So, now you got a 42 ft long, 6 ton predator that may have been able to run up to 20 mph and had bone-crushing jaws.
** [[RuleOfThree It gets even worse.]] There's evidence that Tyrannosaurus Rexes ''hunted in packs''. [[ZergRush Sending the faster juveniles up ahead]] to herd the prey into the jaws of the adults.
*** [[JurassicPark Mustgofastermustgofastermustgofaster...]]
** [[OverlyLongGag It gets worse.]] Paleontologists think they could grow even ''larger'' than 42 feet. There could be [[BeyondTheImpossible a 50 foot specimen buried out there, or even a 60 foot!]]
* ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalania Everyone, meet Megalania]]'', the gigantic prehistoric cousin of the Komodo Dragon. Again, be thankful its extinct
** There have been reports of a komodo dragon like lizard in the Indonesian islands, but 2 or 3 times it's size. It's now a cryptozoological animal.
* There once lived a prehistoric crocodile known as ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinosuchus Deinosuchus]]'' (the name itself means "terrible crocodile") that was estimated to have been 30 to 50 feet long and weighed up to nine tons, with a bite force [[UpToEleven even greater than T. rex]], which ate ''dinosaurs''. Have fun swimming, kids.
** Similarly: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcosuchus Sarcosuchus]], [[FanNickname a.k.a.]] "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Supercroc]]." This time, you can't even take solace in the off-chance the size might be overestimated, because some very complete skeletons have been found.
* What about ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkleosteus Dunkleosteus]]''? This big fish had a bite force of over 8,000 pounds per inch (greater than TyrannosaurusRex!) on the tip of its teeth[[hottip:*:Technically, they're extensions of the jaws, not teeth.]]. The worst part? Its hunting tactic was to open its mouth so quickly as to suck in prey moving in due to the pressure change - so you would be sucked into a gape that could chop pretty much anything in half and you wouldn't be able to escape.
** It doesn't help that it looks roughly like a [[StarWars Rancor]] crossed with a gigantic piranha.
* Marsupial lions. Ice Age Australia's answer to the Sabre-tooth cats. The biggest, Thylacoleo, was about the size of a large cougar, and could disembowel prey with its claws, and deigned to rip off limbs in favour of [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/07/sci_nat_enl_1169658723/html/1.stm snipping them off with its teeth]]. It also apparently dropped from trees onto its prey. Even scarier, it ''may still exist.''
** So wait, drop bears actually existed?
** At least they look somewhat cute and cuddly, being cats, still. They aren't as lethal, but having a coconut crab do a paradrop on your head is pretty freakish. Especially if it whacks you with said coconut before hand.
*** They're not cats. A better comparison would be giant killer wombats (or maybe even ''[[KillerRabbit koalas]]'') with sickle clawed thumbs. Yes, that's right, marsupial lions come from the "herbivore" side of the marsupial family tree.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastric-brooding_frog Gastric-brooding Frogs.]] ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. [[{{Squick}} Ew]].
** They've been gone for a while, actually... we drove them to extinction back in the eighties. At least all you easily-disgusted folks can rejoice now.
*** Except the Pharmaceutical Industry, who, realising that young frog's ability to suppress the digestive fluids of its parent could've yielded potentially life-saving drugs, are not exactly rejoicing. They're offering big bucks to anyone who can capture a live one, which it doesn't look like is gonna happen.
*** Unless of course, zombie frogs.
* Mosasaurs. Enormous, carnivorous, aquatic lizards that hunt in packs. Fortunately, they're extinct now, but they were seriously scary.
** It doesn't help that one mosasaur fossil was found with the remains of [[BigEater a shark, a seabird, a bony fish and another mosasaur the size of an alligator]] in its stomach area.
* ''{{Megalodon}}''. Prehistoric shark with a mouth a grown man could stand up in. Extrapolating from its fossilized jaws, paleontologists have estimated it to be around 50 to 60 feet long. A creature that big would probably eat ''adult whales''. And if that wasn't scary enough, if it was anything like its smaller modern cousin, the Great White Shark, it could ''breach like a whale''. Imagine, if you will, a shark the size of a Greyhound bus taking to the air with a whale in its mouth. Sweet dreams....
** [[{{Jaws}} We're gonna need a bigger boat.]]
** It's called a polaris breach, for those interested. Great whites aren't the only creature in the sea to do it, but are certainly the most deadly. The last run of Shark Week on the DiscoveryChannel showcased what seal nightmares are made of.
** Of course, the proper NightmareRetardant for that would be the [[SoBadItsGood not-so-classic]] JohnBarrowman flick ''Shark Attack 3: Megalodon''. Then you will never be able to hear that creature's name without giggling.
** Speaking of sharks breaching the surface [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skYRZ_-RXtk&feature=related]]
** One of the nature channels has recently been airing trailers suggesting that ''Megalodon'' might actually still be out there. Think about ''that'' for a while.
*** The book "Meg" by Steve Alten is about exactly that. But, in that it escapes and proceeds to rape the oceanic world. With its teeth.
** How big were these? They made the fearsome Great White Shark look tiny. They made the [[GentleGiant not-so-fearsome]] (but massive) ''Whale Shark'' look tiny.
*** Here's a [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Megalodon_scale1.png chart]] for comparison. The green one is a great white. The red one is ''conservative'' estimate for a megalodon.
** You know how museums have that tendency to put animal jaws on the floor and basically go, "Hey, guys, look how easily this thing could eat you?" Well, this one had freaking ''Megalodon'' jaws. Looking into a pair of jaws that are about half your size again is...disconcerting to say the least.
*** Think about it that way: A great white will have a bony meal out of you. For that thing? ''You're a pretzel.'
** Speaking of large sea animals, scientists have recently found the skull of a large whale similar to the sperm whale about sixty feet long with tusk-like teeth about fourteen inches long. They were thought to have eaten other whales and the fangs would've ripped out huge chunks of the unfortunate victims. Their given name? ''[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Leviathan]] [[Literature/MobyDick melvillei]]''.
*** It also lived alongside ''Megalodon''. Two giant ocean predators with mouths bristling with teeth, one a lone ambush assassin and the other a pack-hunting determinater. And evidence shows ''Megalodon'' and ''Leviathan'' preyed on each other.
** Speaking of EverythingsEvenWorseWithSharks, meet ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicoprion Helicoprion]]'' and ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edestus Edestus]]''. Those ''jaws''...
* Dromaeosaurs (better known as "Raptors" to your average person...Ya know, like ''Velociraptor'', ''Utahraptor'', ''Deinonychus'', etc.) are quite terrifying when one thinks about it. Sure, a good number of species are small, but they also have razor-sharp claws and teeth, a pair of huge scythe-like talons on their hind feet, and its been theorized that several species were highly intelligent social predators.
** Try most. At the very least ''Deinonychus'', the bugger who inspired the monstrous raptors of Jurassic Park, hunted in packs. And while many people consider dinosaurs to be less bad ass with feathers, well, there is a little something called Wing-Assisted-Incline-Flight or something. Quails use it. It allows them to run up straight inclines. Ladies and gentlemen, we have [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot Spider-Raptor]].
*** There isn't any conclusive evidence of them ''hunting'' in groups ''per se''. A group of "raptors" scavenging or mobbing (as opposed to the coordinated group hunting we see in canids) is [[ScienceMarchesOn just as if not more likely]]. But when it comes down to being ripped apart by a dozen [[FeatheredFiend feathered fiends]] the unfortunate prey item probably doesn't care about the difference.
*** Speaking of extinct, feathery deathbringers, let me introduce you to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phorusrhacidae the Terror Birds]]. Basically like a [[FinalFantasy Chocobo]] except they actually existed. And could probably rip apart anything they damn well wanted to, including ''horses''.
**** Jesus, that thing looks like a devil dodo (doesn't seem to be any direct relation, though). And one subfamily is named ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanis Titanis]]'', because of how big it was.
*** Here's a flying menace for you. Meet the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wm7FqZVirI=text Haast's Eagle]]. This raptor was large and powerful enough to take down moas with ease. And it existed when humans started settling in New Zealand. It was a bird DESIGNED TO KILL PEOPLE.
*** [[ItGotWorse It gets worse. Much worse.]] Recent studies suggest that ''Sinornithosaurus millenii'', a small dromaeosaur that lived in Asia, was venomous. That's right, not only were "Raptors" intelligent, fast, and had razor-sharp claws...but now they're poisonous. OhCrap...
**** It's said that the evidence is weak on that one, so you don't ''really'' have to worry about venomous "raptors". Yet. And, fortunately they weren't as intelligent as [[JurassicPark some movies]] show; they couldn't have held a candle in the intelligence department to nearly all modern birds. Also, there were in fact many, many other dinosaurs (including the comparatively much larger ''[[TyrannosaurusRex Tyrannosaurus rex]]'') that were ''better'' adapted for running than the dromaeosaurids. Chances are they could still run faster than ''you'', however. And any cassowary will tell you that you don't have to be the most intelligent birdbrain to be scary... Not to mention, dromaeosaurids may have been good at climbing trees.
**** They may have vomited [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellet_(ornithology) food pellets]] like owls, which is either NightmareRetardant or NauseaFuel.
**** ItGotWorse: Some of them (or at least [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahonavis this one]]) could ''fly''. You ''better'' run.
**** Oh yes, and they got big. Look at [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Utahraptor_scale.png this size chart]] for ''Utahraptor''. The green is a ''conservative'' estimate of its size.
**** Try Megaraptor. Utahraptor has nothing on these things. Go find a ruler. That is the space between the sickle claw's tip and where it connects to the toe.
* Sea Scorpions. Can you imagine an amphibious scorpion the size of a crocodile? I can't without getting the willies.
* Entelodonts. Take a wild boar or a javelina, and give it steroids. A lot of steroids. Enough to make it the size of a bull or rhinoceros. Now, strip off most of its fur, and change its teeth from that of an omnivore into things designed to shear and tear flesh. And take away most of its omnivorous tendencies. Pure carnivore baby. Not to mention that they were the first animals to develop the traditional artiodactyl-style hoof, which made them incredibly fast. Oh yeah, and they ate rhinos on a regular basis.
* Holy shit, ''Andrewsarchus''. [[http://ssjgarfield.deviantart.com/art/Andrewsarchus-62918294 Just....Andrewsarchus]]. It's hard to believe this beast belonged to a family closely related to even-toed artiodactyls (think deer, sheep, and cattle), since its gigantic head alone was over three feet long and it was the largest carnivorous land mammal that walked the Earth. This page from the manga "Eden no Ori" [[http://www.mangafox.com/manga/eden_no_ori/v01/c003/12.html sums up its size quite nicely]].
* ''[[http://www.flickr.com/photos/markwitton/2465048793/in/set-72057594082038974/ Hatzegopteryx]]'' may not look physically terrifying, but once [[FridgeHorror you realise some things]] you would be thankful things like that are extinct. First of all, it was basically like a giant stork in habits, catching prey with the beak. In Hatzegi's case, a beak longer than the jaws of the largest theropod dinosaurs (aka T. rex had a shorter snout). And that pterosaurs was taller than a giraffe. Considering birds like herons can swallow things as proportionally big as rabbits, and since reptilian (including avian) esophagi are very tough (turkeys can swallow blades and not suffer ill effects), Hatzegopteryx could easily grab a person with the jaws, swallow him/her alive and you wouldn't even be able to fight back, only to find your doom at the digestive juices.
* [[http://www.nunoxei.com/images/Tasmanian_tiger.gif The Tasmanian Tiger]], which can distend its jaws far beyond the capabilities of those of any animal other than a snake. I am considering a campaign to Tasmania to make sure that there aren't any more alive, because they could apparently swim...
** Apparently, thanks to advancements in technology, it could be possible to bring the species back. They're attempting this now. You're welcome.
* The Permian Extinction. The worst extinction event in the history of earth. The closest life ever came to ceasing to exist all together. Over 90% of all species on earth vanished. It gets even more disturbing when you hear the details. Of all the dozens groups of reptiles, only a handful survived. Synapsids: aka, “mammal-like reptiles”. The missing link between mammals and reptiles. These creatures basically ruled the earth, very diverse. Both tiny creatures, and mega fauna rivaling the dinosaurs and mammals after them. The only ones who survived where tiny burrowing creatures who eventually became mammals. Anapsids: There used to be 100s of different kinds of armored reptiles roaming around. Only the turtles survived. Archosaurs: The common ancestor of birds, dinosaurs, crocodilians, and pterosaurs. Before the extinction they where tiny scavengers. Afterwards they exploded from lack of completion. Lepidosauria: The Ancestors of lizards and snakes. Sphenodontia: The Ancestors of modern tuataras. Of all the Amphibians that evolved since they first left the ocean, only the Lissamphibia survived. Crocodilians where only able to become crocodilians because the giant Croc-like Amphibians died out. Reptilomorphs aka, “reptile-like amphibians.” The missing link, and the most successful group of amphibians at the time, Where completely wiped out. Trilobites: some of the oldest and most successful ocean life at the time. More successful than fish. Completely wiped out. Insects didn’t make it out okay either. All six-winged insects vanished. Their cousins, the non-insect Hexapods vanished, except the wood lice. Fossil evidence shows that for almost a million years after the extinction, the most common form of life on earth was ''fungus''. The icing on the cake? Unlike the Dinosaurs and the massive impact Crater, scientists have '''''NO CLUE''''' what caused it, or if it could ever happen again. There is not a shread of evidence of anything that could have caused it on earth, leading some to theorize it was a local supernova, but the truth is we have no idea.
** The current most likely theory is that all the landmasses coming together caused widespread "desertification", quite literally turning vast amounts of what was previously rainforest and swampland into arid, nasty environments few creatures could adapt to. The oceans weren't safe, either; with only one landmass, currents settled and the oceans stagnated. Almost every ocean-going creature ''suffocated'' due to lack of oxygen. Other theories include a flood basalt, which is basically a supervolcanic eruption that lasts centuries. There's no word to describe just how insanly nightmarish a flood basalt eruption is. First the name. It causes a litteral flood of basaltic rock over the area it happens. Next how it occurs. Triggered by the massive tectonic stress brought about by a single landmass subducting ocean plates on all sides, a massive chunk of the earth's crust crumbles off and falls into the mantle. This forces the magma upwards to the surface. How big is it? Well the largest volacano on earth today is the size of Hawaii's large island. The Permian flood basalt, the Siberian traps are the size of the continental United States. And the eruption lasted for 100s, if not 1000s of years nonstop. What happens after it's done? Aside from the aformentioned flood of basalt, imagine all that volcanic gas. Now imagine that gas is methane, one of the most potent green house gases that occur on earth. Now imagine not only the sun's heat, but the volcanic heat trapped in the atmosphere at the same time. The allways popular "huge asteroid" is another theory, as is [[ApocalypseWow a local supernova]]. My favorite theory is that the single landmass and single ocean caused the planet to become tidally locked, meaning one side always facing the sun, one side always facing away. The kicker? The numbers don't really add up in any model.
*** [[WildMassGuessing Or it could be]] [[TakeAThirdOption ALL]] [[NoKillLikeOverkill of them]].
*** It was obviously [[MassEffect The Reapers]].
* Of course some of the creatures that the Permian Extinction got rid of where pretty scary.
** Mammal like reptiles? Here's an image for you. Picture a creature with neither fur nor scales, the jaw of a crocodile with the teeth of a saber-cat. Now imagine it's the size of rhino, and has fully upright legs built for running. Ladies and gentlemen, [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Inostrancevia_4DB.jpg meet the Gorgonopsids!]]
** Reptile like amphibians? You're probably thinking "Come on! What's a frog gonna do?" [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prionosuchus this guy ain't no frog!]]
** Of course some of the Archosaurs that replaced them were scary too. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postosuchus meet Postosuchus.]] Best described as a fully upright 15 foot long land crocodile.
* The [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes Titanoboa]]. A snake that grew up to 15 meters in length and, come on, it's called the ''[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Titan]]''oboa! So, it's kind of like taking your average boa constrictor or anaconda, whatever, and drilling it up to eleven. Be thankful it no longer exists.
* During the Carboniferous era, we had ''Meganeura'', a dragonfly the size of an eagle and ''Arthropluera'', a millepede that's 6 feet long. SIX FEET LONG!
* Wow, I'm surprised no one's mentioned ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinosaurus Spinosaurus]]'' yet! Take a crocodile, give it plenty of steroids, give it a six-foot high sail on its back and put it on two legs. Scared yet? Here's something for you. See [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Largesttheropods.svg this chart]]? ''Spinosaurus'' is red. ''TyrannosaurusRex'' is ''the purple one''.
** Luckily, Spinosaurus has it's fair share of NightmareRetardant. Spinosaurus primarily ate fish, so T.rex would probably kill one most of the time, if they were to fight. It wasn't a super predator like it's often portrayed as.
** That said, it is also thought to have taken down medium sized prey as well. So that means it would probably be eating grisly bears if it were still alive. Not to mention this fish it ate could very well have been ''sharks''.
*** it dies if you make it ''[[WeaksauceWeakness roll over]]'' [[EpicFail since of said fin]] being evolution's crowning [[IdiotBall]]
* Of course! How could [[{{Tropers/Spinosegnosaurus77}} I]] forget ''Deinocheirus''? Its eight-foot long arm and hand bones were found in 1970 (the creature's name means "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast terrible hand]]"). Nothing else from the creature has been found yet, and those arms have been a mystery ever since. If it's any help, their owner would have to be ''tyrannosaur-sized at the very least.'' [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Deinocheirus_hands.jpg Have a look]] and make up your own mind about the creature.
* [[http://dinosaurs.wikia.com/wiki/Therizinosaurus Therizinosaurus]]. On the one hand, it was an herbivore and probably wouldn't see you as food. On the other hand...It had 3 ''foot'' long claws on its hands which it used to defend itself agaisnt predators.
* ''Carnotaurus''. The name means "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast meat-eating bull]]". [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Carnotaurus_DB_2.jpg Here's a picture]]. The tiny arms acting as NightmareRetardant for you? Okay, let me fix that; while the bite force of the ''Carnotaurus'' was believed to be less than that of ''Allosarurus'', it's been theorized that they made up for that by beating their upper jaws against their prey like a ''[[PrecisionFStrike fucking]] [[AxCrazy hatchet]]''.
* Large ceratopsians like ''Triceratops'' and ''Styracosaurus''. We usually don't think of them as scary due to being [[HerbivoresAreFriendly herbivores]], however, an adult could gore a tyrannosaur to death with those giant horns, let alone a human. Also, ceratopsians may [[http://www.flickr.com/photos/markwitton/522293984 have been omnivores]], not herbivores.
* ''Stegosaurus''. A dinosaur the size of an elephant with a built-in medieval flail and a brain so small it probably indiscriminately whacked anything that crossed it's path. But as bad as ''Stegosaurus'' was, it has nothing on the pure demonic nightmare fuel that is ''[[http://www.kentrosaurus.org/nova_phot042.jpg Kentrosaurus]]''.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Living]]
* Ladies and gentlemen, [[http://www.wolaver.org/animals/Hatchetfish.jpg the hatchet fish.]]
** This fish makes '''the Exorcist''' look like a puppy.
*** [[TheExorcist Max von Sydow?]]
** I take your hatchet fish and raise it with [[http://iliketowastemytime.com/sites/default/files/viperfish_deadly_deep_predator2.jpg the viper fish]]. '''SWEET JESUS, WHY DOES THAT THING EXIST?!'''
** I see your viper fish (and wish I didn't) and raise you a [[http://www.petsfoto.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Fangtooth-Fish2.jpg fangtooth]]. It's just a mouth with fins.
** [[OverlyLongGag I see all of your fish]] and raise you a [[http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lhpzj1cH5m1qgduswo1_500.jpg snaggletooth]]. It looks like it dines on souls.
* You will never be able to look at a lizard the same way after my bio teacher showed us this.
** Warning: Not for the faint of heart! [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0ThAWmEk7U Monitor]]
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jppNHoksheY Here's another one for good measure]]
** Ugh, you can hear it screaming from within its gullet!
** If anything stotats would better quality [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWIW-MDZa_8 in that department.]]
* This [[http://www.ilovemyjournal.com/media/1/SamUgliestDogLulu_sm.jpg dog]].
** That dog died a few years go. It was blind for quite some time; the joke was that it got its sight back, looked in a mirror and dropped dead of shock.
** To be clear, the dog was voted "Ugliest Dog In The World." Before its death, it was a 15-year-old Chinese hairless crested. Its eyes are white becaus it's blind.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjRSlnJ1rA4 Goblin sharks]] have protrusible jaws. Creepy!
** a bit less terrifying: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdJRb7lVoGc&feature=related
* Earthworms and parasitic tapeworms (and hookworms). I can't even look at them prior to screaming and running away.
** Why are Earthworms scary? Appearances maybe, but they're one of the best creatures out there, helping fertilize soil and such. It even has a digestive system, and respiratory system and circulatory system. It's a pretty humane creature. Tapeworms on the other hand are horrifiying, trying to suck out your nutrients without giving anything back and worst of all, it can [[BodyHorror GROW 8 METERS LONG IN YOUR VERY OWN BODY!! HOLY!!]]
** Ascaris worms (you know, the ones in your intestines that looked like slimy living pasta, and can actually accumulate as a bolus to be an [[EldritchAbomination eldritch perversion]] against the Holy FlyingSpaghettiMonster, and whose eggs are ''fucking microscopic'')
*** It's even worse with the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracunculiasis Guinea Worm]]. Seriously, this worm is really a NightmareFuel, every major health organization vowed to push it to extinction.
**** You see the Guinea worm is native to Africa, the ecosystem that humans evolved in. As such they prey exclusively on humans, and where thus introduced to other places by traveling with (read inside) humans. The reason Africa's such a [[DeathWorld nasty place]] is because it's humanity's natural habitat, and thus creatures evolved there with humans in mind, where as other continents are nicer because we're invasive species in those environments. While this has led to some good things (the honey guide bird evolved symbiotic behavior with humans, it leads us to the beehive, we get the honey, they get the larva), mostly it just amounts to creatures that can kill us. In other words, it's what environmentalists are asking for when they say humans should "live in harmony with nature". Just keep that in mind.
*** The fact that many people don't know that there's a worm living inside them makes them extremely scary. Parasitic worms were voted the #1 Most Extreme Horror in ''TheMostExtreme'' series.
* Three Words: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dermatobia_hominis Human Botfly Larvae]]. Disturbing and literally sickening to see one being removed: true. Now try ''not'' imagining hearing chewing inside your head if you ever discover one embedded in your scalp.
* Yuck, what a thick, puffy tongue this fish has... Wait, it's got ''beady little eyes!'' [[http://www.entomologia.org/bugs_in_the_news/Cymothoa_exigua.jpg picture OHMYGODTHATSNOTATONGUE!]]
*** Sounds like some sicko's LiteralMinded parody of [[LordOfTheRings Grima Wormtongue]].
*** It may or may not help the [[BodyHorror OHGODOHGOD]] factor to note that the isopod doesn't actually make life any more difficult for the fish. Because it sits where the tongue was, the fish can still eat just fine. Still, Jesus ''God'' is it creepy.
** And then there's [[http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7927 this]] little guy... "Let's go swimming. I insist."
** Also, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoids#Insects real-life]] [[{{Aliens}} Xenomorphs]]. Sweet dreams!
** Think about it this way. On the wiki page, it listed fictional parasitic insects, including little old Uroborus and Las Plagas. Imagine what would happen if these guys evolved a little. You have a stomach ache...is it just bad food, or did an enemy dose you with a little...Uroborus.
** Well, you'd certainly know if you started growing tentacles yeck... those Uroboros tentacles are all slimey and deadly (goddamn Wesker)
* Certain species of snake. Also certain members of the spider order such as Tarantula, black widow, and the trapdoor spider.
** Don't worry; be [[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5199409/British-scientists-study-Hawaiian-happy-face-spider.html happy]]!
** What's just as frightening is their venom, and more specifically, what that venom can do to a person. Some kinds, if they don't kill you, [[BodyHorror cause the skin around the bite to rot]], [[AndIMustScream paralyze and slowly suffocate you]] or (depending on the nature of the neurotoxin) cause seizures, make your blood congeal in your veins... So kids, if you see a snake in your yard, ''stay the fuck away from it, and for the love of Christ, DON'T PICK IT UP!''
** Did someone say [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySXCdcnKBgg trapdoor spider?]] (Not safe for arachnophobes)
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikz7x5NRM2c here]] is a video of an island full of snakes. "one snake for every pace you walk". It doesn't help that they are some of the most venemous snakes in the world.
** Back to the subject of snakes, even if you're not scared of them, [[http://www.diamondreptile.com/pricelist.htm#venomous how easy it is to buy and own some of the most venomous ones in the world should be enough to skeeve you out.]]
* Scorpions.
* Back to spiders - some of them are social, weaving common webs of many spiders. How many can they be? Anelosimus Eximius, for instance, bands into colonies of up to 50 000 spiders. I'll let that sink in.
* Think about the things that [[EverythingsBetterWithPenguins penguins]] have to go through when they expect a chick. The mother goes out to find food, leaving the fathers behind to look after the egg and keep it warm, ''or else the egg will crack and the contents will become frozen solid, [[TearJerker killing the baby]].''
** To make matters worse, while the mother penguin looks for food, they are at risk of being eaten by predators such as leopard seals. Sometimes it's not just the mother that gets eaten, but her unborn chick, too! Scared yet?
* Some creatures that live in the ocean. The king of them all is the great white shark with its SlasherSmile and vicious nature. Then there's piranhas that can ''render any living creature- even a cow to a skeleton within seconds'' (Although they can only do this when practically starved to death) They're still fierce scavengers though. Then there's the anglerfish.
** How about the [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1322118/Jeremy-Wades-goliath-tigerfish-British-fisherman-grapples-giant-piranha.html goliath tigerfish]]? Take a piranha and scale it up to 5 feet long.
** Great whites hunt like freaking serial killers, according to some recent studies. This just makes them even more terrifying.
*** Here's something. Recently, off the eastern coast of Australia (where else?), fishermen pulled a 3 metre (10 foot) great white shark onboard their boat. That's a good size, as great whites go, but the shark was dead, so that wasn't a problem. What was a problem was that the shark had been BITTEN CLEAN IN HALF BY SOMETHING TWICE AS LARGE. And this is just near a very popular swimming beach. Just have a think about that for a bit. Who wants to go swimming?
** On the subject of "Some creatures that live in the ocean," witness [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloop this]] article from TheOtherWiki. "The source of the sound remains unknown...it matches the audio profile of a living creature but there is no known animal that could have produced the sound...If the sound did come from an animal, it would reportedly have to be several times the size of the largest known animal on Earth, the Blue Whale." Real-life Cloverfield monster, anyone? Gaaahhhh. [[CaptainBlacksoul I]] am getting creeped out just posting this.
*** Just for reasons of balance, this from the same wiki: "An oft repeated claim is that it matches the audio profile of a living creature though this view is primarily held by cryptozoologists and is not popular among mainstream scientists."
*** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloop#Analysis This is no longer true]]. A current look at the article actually has several cited references to an NOAA marine oceanographer saying that it is likely animal in nature...
*** What gets me is that where the sound was located is very close to where the city of [[CthulhuMythos R'lyeh]] is supposed to be located.
*** The file that's usually played is the sped up one. Just try listening to it [[http://www.bloopwatch.org/bloop_realtime.wav slowed down to realtime]]. (Large File.)
* The things that go on inside you. Also, "Beauty is skin deep" is a horrible lie if you use a microscope.
* The [[OrificeInvasion Candiru]]. According to the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candiru page on them]] in ThatOtherWiki, Candiru hunt other fish by sensing the urea coming from a fish's gills. The opened urethra during urination is big enough for a candiru to get inside. It can be easily avoided by wearing a bathing suit while in the river. Or by not swimming and urinating in Amazon river at the same time.
** What about its relative, the Candiru-Acù? Victims are eaten alive, from the inside out, by up to 100 of the fish. And by 'eaten alive', I mean 'completely hollowed out'.
* Have fun reading the Cracked article of [[http://www.cracked.com/article_15816_5-most-horrifying-bugs-in-world.html The 5 Most Horrifying Bugs in the World]].
** The giant bees attacking the normal bees was pretty much just DemonicSpider vs GoddamnBats.
* Cracked articles, eh? Then we just have to mention [[http://www.cracked.com/article_17579_7-terrifying-giant-versions-disgusting-critters.html 7 Terrifying Giant Versions of Disgusting Critters]].
* Cracked articles just [[http://www.cracked.com/article/125_13-real-animals-lifted-directly-out-your-nightmares.html add 13 creatures to nightmare]]...
* Some wasps are particularly evil. Known as parasitoid wasps, they will find a live caterpillar, temporarily paralyze it, lay eggs inside the body, and allow them to hatch. The larvae will then take control of the caterpillar by devouring unnecessary organs, modifying its glands, and directly manipulating its nervous system. The host is ordered to do nothing but eat and eat until it's ten times the size of a normal caterpillar. After a set amount of time, the larvae mature and then burrow their way out of the still living animal in order to infect new hosts with their own eggs. The caterpillar has been so infected by the wasp's hormones that even as it's dying it's forced to weave the wasps a cocoon and attack any predators who threaten them. If that won't give you cold sweats, nothing will.
*** Yep, parasitic wasps inspired ''Film/{{Alien}}''. Strange but true. Even Darwin was freaked out by them, saying, [[GodIsEvil 'I'm not quite sure I can believe in a benevolent God after studying the life-cycle of this creature.']]
*** [[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/05/photogalleries/in-the-womb-animal-pictures/photo3.html Video!]]
*** The TEETH! Holy shit on a stick, the TEETH! And how did they film on the inside of the poor caterpillar!? UGH!
*** Oh, but it gets better! People all over the world ''breed'' these little bastards on special farms and send them out to specially destroy caterpillars that eat timber. That's right. We're endorsing these parasitic monstrosities and having them take out creatures whose only crime was feeding themselves. [[HumansAreBastards Do I even need to say it?]]
**** I think [[Manga/{{Bleach}} Szayel]] was based with the parasitic wasp in mind.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_cockroach_wasp Meet the Emerald Wasp.]] It doesn't just knock out a cockroach and put an egg on it; it chemically lobotomizes the roach, remote controls it to its nest, rips off its feelers, and then lays an egg on it.
** Yellowjackets: Other wasps only eat insects. Yellowjackets [[ExtremeOmnivore eat everything]]! If you ever got buzzed during a barbecue, it was probably them. And you were probably right to freak out; they have ''the'' HairTriggerTemper of the insect world. Not as bad as Africanized killer bees, but they make up for it by being EVERYWHERE. They are the most common species of wasp in the world. And, possibly, the most intelligent. The freakiest thing? As I mentioned before, they buzz barbecues, because THEY EAT MEAT. They are CARRION EATERS. And unlike ''other'' scavengers, being so small, the lack of meat on our bones compared to other animals does not deter them. I read somewhere that there's a certain cycle of insects that appear when a body is dumped in the wilderness. Guess which ones show up to ''[[ToServeMan consume thy flesh]]''!
* Yep, hornets in Australia too. Helicopter gunships of the insect world, and their reproductive strategy is straight out of ''{{Aliens}}''. Even the most diehard arachnophile would be [[{{Squick}} squicked]] watching a hornet drag a full-size huntsman spider into its burrow. [[NightmareFuel Alive, paralysed and impregnated with hornet eggs.]]
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_giant_hornet Asian Giant Hornet.]] It can outrun you. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L54exo8JTUs&feature=related 30 of these can eradicate an entire hive of 30,000 bees.]] ''It has flesh-dissolving venom''. Quoted from Cracked:
--->"It's the size of your thumb and it can spray flesh-melting poison. We really wish we were making that up for, you know, dramatic effect because goddamn, what a terrible thing a three-inch acid-shooting hornet would be, you know? Oh, hey, did we mention it shoots it into your eyes? Or that the poison also has a pheromone cocktail in it that'll call every hornet in the hive to come over and sting you until you are no longer alive? Think you can outrun it? It can fly 50 miles in a day. It'd be nice to say something reassuring at this point, like "Don't worry, they only live on top of really tall mountains where nobody wants to live," but no, they live all over the goddamned place, including outside Tokyo. Forty people die like that every year, each of them horribly".
*** If you're afraid of the Asian giant hornet, just think about these little guys: I present [[http://homepage3.nifty.com/jhb/english/hyoushi.jpg Apis cerana japonica]], the Japanese honeybee. Almost cute, isn't it? Asian giant hornets can decimate colonies of European honeybees with ease even though they are outnumbered hundreds of times over, but Japanese honeybees have an interesting defense: they swarm over the invading hornets, to the point where the hornet can't even move, and vibrate their flight muscles, which causes the temperature in the center of this dog- er, ''beepile'', to pass 47 degress Celsius. The honeybees can endure this heat, the hornet cannot. They are essentially roasted alive. It's a [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome CMoA]] for the Japanese honeybees, and a NightmareFuel death for the hornets.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepsis_wasp Pepsis Wasp, aka Tarantula Hawk]], so called because ''it eats tarantulas''. Not only that, its sting, while not that hazardous, is so painful, all you can do is lie down and '''''scream'''''.
* The stag beetle is so-named for the large, antler-like mandibles possessed by the males of many species. It [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stag_beetle easily qualifies as nightmare fuel]] for the same reason. Worse, they're big, some around four inches long. They usually don't harm people, though.
** In Japan, they're even collected and kept as pets. If you're not used to insects larger than the size of your thumb, you should stay away. YMMV though.
* An even more horrifying creature with comparatively large jaws is the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antlion antlion]]--if you're an ant, since they're not very big. Adults are relatively unremarkable, dragonfly-like insects, but the young are lethal predators that dig pits in the sand, waiting at bottom of the pit to eat whatever insects fall in with their big jaws. If God wanted to write a horror story and market it towards arthropods, I can think of few better ideas.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solifugae Solifugids, also known as camel spiders, though they aren't spiders.]] Do I even need to explain this? Possibly the most traumatizing, monstrous arachnids ever, which, given what we know about arachnids in general, says a lot.
** Want to know something creepier? While they generally don't attack humans, they use hair as nesting materials, so one of the things they do to sleeping humans is creep up on them and snip off locks of hair like some demented stalker...
* The goddamn Surinam toad. It's an amphibian that embeds its eggs in its back... and eventually, its young ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCayq56wHSA rip themselves fully-formed from their mother's skin]]''. Yeah, it's perfectly natural, but just the ''thought'' of it happening to a human being...
* Komodo Dragons. Though they have both venom and septic saliva, they [[ScienceMarchesOn are not believed to play an important role in predation]] and the idea that they will deliberately envenomate/infect their prey and wait for it to die arose from skepticism from scientists at the turn of the century towards the idea that [[ReptilesAreAbhorrent a mere reptile could dominate an entire ecosystem]]. The truth is a lot less convoluted. The Komodo Dragon is a cunning ambush hunter that takes down prey with good old fashioned brute force; they're basically land-crocodiles. Though Komodo Dragons have jaw muscles weaker than a housecat's, their teeth are razor sharp and their neck muscles are enormously powerful, allowing them to easily dispatch prey with slashing bites that cause the victim to die from blood-loss and shock within seconds. Smaller prey (such as deer and wild boar) are swept off their feet by a blow from the dragon's [[WhipItGood whiplike tail]], and then seized, instantly killed via thrashing, and are often swallowed whole. To contend with larger prey, such as Water Buffalo, the Dragon will bring the animal down by lascerating its achilles tendon so it can't run away, and then disembowel it. The animal is eaten while it's still alive.
** Komodo Dragons have also been known to harass pregnant deer, startling them into aborting their unborn offspring. The Dragon can then help itself to a meal of [[NauseaFuel placenta and tender fetal-meat.]]
* Crocodiles. Damn ''crocodiles''. Nightmarish appearance, fast, invisible in a foot of muddy water. Many varieties consider humans to be prey. They can [[PrimalFear drag you under the water]] in about two second and eat you. They are ''intelligent'' and can learn human routines. They will wait a week to get a bite of you. ''Those eyes!''
** It gets ''even better''. Crocodiles are capable of moving twice their body length in a single second. It's not uncommon to hear tales of someone being taken so quickly that you could double-take and miss it. In fact, one story where a famous American model got eaten was unusual because ''they actually had the chance to see it coming''.
** Don't think it can get any worse? Well, [[ItGotWorse it just did.]] Meet [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_%28crocodile%29 Gustave]], a 22 ft long 2,000 pound Nile Crocodile who is notorious for killing and eating over 300 people.
*** Oh, and did we mention? [[ThisIsSparta He's! Still!]] '''[[ThisIsSparta ALIVE!]]''' That's right, Gustave is still lurking in Africa waiting for his next victim.
*** There's also the fact that his body is ridden with scars from bullet wounds. Three on his side and one ''on his head''. Not only is he a giant killer crocodile, he's an ''unstoppable'' giant killer crocodile.
*** The "most recent" sighting was back in 2008. If that was the most recent, how are we to know he hasn't been spotted since? Has he been killing his witnesses, and no one's noticed?
* The [[http://www.laweekly.com/2008-07-31/news/rathouse-of-the-palisades/ Palisades Rathouse]] might qualify as nightmare fuel. Incidentally it also provides two examples of the CrazyCatLady trope who have obsessed over a different animal...
** [[http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,685045,00.html The Mülheim Cobra house!]] OK, just one cobra, but they literally teared apart the innards of the house, and ''still'' couldn't find the damn snake. Volunteers for one night in there please raise their hands!
* The [[http://www.livt.net/Clt/Ani/Cho/Mam/Ivr/ivr011.jpg solenodon]], a relative of the mole and shrew, [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Hispaniola_solenodon.jpg can be quite creepy]] or [[http://photos-513.ll.facebook.com/photos-ll-sf2p/v193/223/46/693786513/n693786513_654583_4434.jpg unsettling]]. That is, until you see the [[http://jay.kusnetz.net/pics4ext/almiqui.jpg cuban]] [[http://pikaia.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/solenodon_cubanus.jpg variety]]. Should I add that all solenodons have a poisonous bite?
* Sea urchins. Just ... motherfarking ''sea urchins''. They are living, breathing balls of spines which live on the ocean floor. Many of them live close to the shore and it's hard to see underwater, so inevitably some unlucky beachgoers will end up stepping on one. This results in a badly injured foot and a visit to the hospital.
** Hey, just imagine if some wacky mad scientists gave them brains...and a hatred of humanity! TRIBBLES OF DOOOOOOOOOOM. Though honestly death-by-urchin can very easily also extend into ridiculous Narm.
** It gets worse. Because sea urchin spines are made of calcite, they snap easily because of the alignment of the calcite crystals, leaving part of it wedged in your open wound. The best way to deal with it? ''Push the spine right into your body''. The calcite will dissolve in your bloodstream and the wound will heal normally. Have fun, kids.
*** The way this is usually accomplished is by breaking off the parts of the spines that are still outside the skin and crushing the parts that are embedded with something blunt and sturdy (a rock works fine if there's nothing else to hand) to break them up and drive them a bit deeper. It's painful, but not completely horrific. However, the ocean [[CaptainObvious being full of living stuff]] as it is, these kind of injuries do have a tendency to get infected. A good way to counteract that is by sterilizing the injury somehow.
* Jaguars. They're both awesome and freaky because they kill their prey by ''biting through its skull''. Their jaws are powerful enough to crack open a glyptodon's skull. And for those of you who don't know paleontology, glyptodonts are essentially mammalian versions of a panzer tank. Google it and see. Do '''NOT''' tick off kitty!
* Big Cats, fierce predators with strong jaws, razor-sharp claws, huge strength (a tiger could knock you unconcius with one swipe of it's paw), super speed and stealth (if a big cat stalked you in a remote area, you wouldn't see it until it was too late). Some big cats have been known to kill buffaloes, rhinos, hippos, pythons, crocodiles, wolves and even bears. To make things worse, big cat attacks are on the rise.
* Allow me to introduce you to the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldt_Squid Dosidicus gigas]]: the Humboldt squid, growing up to seven feet long and, alone among the invertebrates, ''hunting prey in packs of as many as 1200 individuals''. Their tentacles are lined with ''teeth'', they feed on each other when wounded or frenzied, they are ''highly'' aggressive against unfamiliar objects, they attack humans on a regular basis, and their natural habitat ranges from the Tierra del Fuego to coastal California ''and spreading north''. And you thought it was safe to go back in the water...
** Ocean acidification seems to be killing them off, though.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_squid Colossal Squid]]. They have GIANT HOOKS on their tentacles, which they can rotate 180 degrees. And they are up to 46 feet long.
** Cephalopods in general. As awesome as I think they are, they are also damn creepy. They're smart. Really, really smart for invertebrates. Most intelligent creatures are birds and mammals, which are pretty similar to us in terms of body structure and biology. But cephalopods are completely alien. The thought of something like that being as smart as a dog is strange. If they would be sapient, what would they think? Most likely [[BlueAndOrangeMorality we couldn't comprehend it at all]]. To think modern culture can pervert such beings.....
*** [[ItGotWorse Fun fact!]] Cephalopods have one large central brain in their head... plus one smaller brain for '''each of it's arms.''' So that's 9 brains for an octopus, 11 for a squid. The (now extinct) ammonites had 12 arms, meaning 13 brains. And then there's the eyes...
*** Weird fact about cephalopods: cuttlefish are exellent at blending into their environment by changing their colours to match their background. The thing is, they're also colourblind. How the hell do they know what colour they should change to?
*** Cuttlefish in general are chalk full of RuleOfCool. The flamboyant cuttlefish has very poorly developed fins/whatever. So instead of swimming it uses them to -walk- on the ocean floor. The broad club cuttlefish meanwhile will use it's color changing ability to visually stun/hypnotize uncooperative prey. Though octopi generally get the better known as being intelligent, cuttlefish are much more consistent and equally intelligent. They're capable of learning - not just basic behaviourist conditioning (bell rings, do this action) but things like symbolic learning (a plastic tree in the tub means the exit with the stripe [which will change exit between tests] over it is the exit, remember, symbolic learning is the basis for ''written language''). Other species of cuttlefish functionally breed for intelligence; the biggest and strongest cuttlefish will try to regularly mate with the females but the females (who can control which sperm to use) are much more likely to use the sperm of smaller males that manage to mate with them. How do these smaller males get by the larger ones? They disguise themselves as female cuttlefish and walk right in the front door. They have the potential to be the {{Magnificent Bastard}}s of the sea.
* [[http://naamah-darling.livejournal.com/348604.html The saga of Rapemouse.]] If that's not enough, then the various anecdotes of cute animal cannibalism and brutality in the comments will be.
** For instance, pulling a spinal cord out of a blood and gore splattered rat cage because ''that was all that was left'', or watching some hamsters playing in a cage except for one that seemed to be sleeping...until one bumped it and the head was all that was there. If you think small, cute rodents are gentler than carnivorous cats and dogs, think again. Life is cheap at the bottom of the food chain, especially when you only live about three years.
** Also, the comments mention Reaver Furries, which is about the only thing more nightmare-fuelly than regular Reavers.
* Leopards. These cats are like ninjas. They have been know to crawl into houses, kill humans as they sleep, and drag them off into the night--without waking up anyone else.
* [[http://media.ebaumsworld.com/picture/emmakate/coconut_crab.jpg The Coconut Crab.]] In addition to being the largest arthropod on land, they're ludicrously strong. Strong enough to lift 64 pounds and smash coconuts open, in fact. And they can climb trees. They tend to actually shy away from humans, but if you manage to piss one off, chances are you will get hurt. Very, very badly.
*** What's even worse is the fact that it takes a flamethrower to kill one.
*** ItGotWorse...again. These buggers may have been responsible for the fact that [[NeverFoundTheBody they never found]] AmeliaEarhart's body. Some researchers are floating a theory that she ran out of fuel and ditched on a desert island, only to succumb to thirst or hunger at some point. On a HistoryChannel TV special, the team left a pig carcass out for the many crabs on the island...and they showed a high-speed shot of them swarming over the body, which was picked clean in about an hour. Brrrr.
* Any number of deep-sea creatures could fall under this, really. [[http://www.bogleech.com/bio-deep.html Let me show you them.]]
** How do you make giant isopods 100000x more scary? [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h4VuvC8KCk Time-lapse photography.]]
*** I feel this is an unfair bias against deep sea life. For in the end, can we not all gain some wisdom from the noble [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9t7E4amWDqI deep sea anglerfish]]?
*** Interesting thing about anglerfish. A male or female anglerfish cannot reach maturity on their own; instead, a male (or several), will latch onto the much larger female anglerfish. Pretty much any organ the male has that aren't his reproductive ones atrophy away, and it just becomes a protrusion on the female's body that produces sperm.
* Just the sight of the [[http://www.bogleech.com/nature/mammal-molerat3.jpg naked molerat]] is typically enough to unnerve people. Did I mention that in order to better navigate in their crowded underground tunnels, they can ''turn almost entirely around in their own skin?''
** No. The most disturbing this about naked moles rats is that there actually exists a species of ''mammals'' that live in [[BeePeople eusocial colonies]].
* A good number of invertebrates fit into this trope. I was thoroughly disgusted during an exam in invertebrate taxonomy which involved identifying live specimens. The one that has become burned into the brain was a hideous little asymmetrical thing with ridges going along its twisted curled up body with a number of thin long white tentacles coming out of it in random places. That question was marked wrong because I just couldn't bear looking at it long enough to identify it.
** And then there is the Class Polychaeta, belonging to the annelid worm family. The most notorious of these are the sand worms which burrow through the beaches of many coastlines. Segmented worms, up to 3 metres in length, with little moving bristles on the sides of each of their segments, a pair of large eyes that bulge from its front segment, and large jaws that are capable of nipping off a finger. Among the coastlines that they call home: The one that I happen to live near.
** [[SpongebobSquarePants Sponges and starfish]] aren't scary, as they're mostly harmless, but [[NightmareFuel/SpongebobSquarePants then again]]...
*** Oh really? What about the [[http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2327/2479130477_b32b348314.jpg Sun Starfish?]]
* The Irukandji Jellyfish, the most deadly jellyfish in the world. Just one brush with this thing will leave you reeling with the effects of Irukandji syndrome, a horrific condition that leaves you suffering not only every unpleasant symptom under the sun, but even ''a feeling of impending doom'' so bad that some patients are so certain they're going to die ''they ask the doctors to kill them to get it over with.'' (Probably the closest thing to [[HarryPotter Dementors]] there is.) And the worst part? [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Irukandji-jellyfish-queensland-australia.jpg THEY'RE SO RIDICULOUSLY TINY THEY'RE PRACTICALLY INVISIBLE.]]
** Not quite the deadliest though, some other jellies have stings that can kill an adult in a matter of hours. Irukandji is generally not lethal.
*** No, they'll just make you wish you they were. "Every unpleasant symptom under the sun" includes excruciating pain in various parts of the body, and wikipedia sez: "There is no known antidote for venom that has already entered the body. Morphine will not help reduce the pain." FUCK YOU, AUSTRALIA! D:
*** One person even said that'd he would've preferred getting stung by the ([[DemonicSpiders infamous]]) Box Jellyfish than an Irukandji, simply because "either you recover in 20 minutes or you die."
*** There's an account of an Irukandji victim who was pulled from the surf. After carefully removing the jellyfish remains from the now unconscious man's legs, he was dosed with painkillers and taken away to hospital. Even unconscious and Morphine'd to the eyeballs, ''he was still screaming in agony the entire time.''
* COCKROACH.
** They don't do ANYTHING, except spread diseases, and be creepy. And live without heads.
*** The problem with cockroaches is, they're too used to living like us. Grooming habits? check. Living in vast colonies? check. Capable of surviving anything? check... Capable of scaring the living piss out of any other creature in their midst? check. They're the only creature that humans seem to be universally afraid of, cause they aren't afraid of us. Unless you turn on the lights.
*** Plus, they ''smell''. Name another insect that leaves behind slimy nests in your smoke alarms and such. Pantry moths and spiders are downright civilized houseguests.
** Actually it's the tiny German cockroaches that are really scary, because you ''know'' they're living in your walls and eating your food and breeding like, um, rabbits. And until they invented Combat traps, it used to be, once you saw one, your house was doomed, there'd eventually be German cockroaches crawling out of the peeling paint when you scrape it. The giant, 2-inch scaled up cockroaches aren't as disturbing because they usually don't live indoors, they just come inside for warmth. Except on the Gulf coast where the giant cockroaches live in the house and fly around. Including when you're in the shower.
** THAT CRUNCHING NOISE MAKE IT STOP.
*** [[Film/MenInBlack Damn decent of you.]]
** They may be technically harmless, but that thing about waking up with a cockroach in your ear? Yeah, not just an urban legend. They won't lay eggs in your brain or even hurt you whatsoever if they do it, but do they ''need'' to?
* The [[http://chasenoface.blogspot.com/ cat without a face]]. Shudder.
** [[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_mtxIjWA73qM/SdQDMF4XiyI/AAAAAAAACO4/zZRWuAwySPI/s1600-h/IMG_0734.JPG That is the most horrifying thing I've seen in a long time]]. If I was that cat I would be like "Kill Me!"
** While we're at it, take a look at [[http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/cyclopes.asp this]]. Something about [[CuteKitten cats]].
* Tiger and nurse sharks cannibalise their siblings in the womb, eating their way through until they're the only one. Does anyone else find that absolutely horrifying?
** Actually sometimes happens with human babies instinctually, though I forget the medical term. Made worse because instead of eating, it's more like ABSORBING.
*** It's a type of chimerism; one fetus does absorb the other.
*** The technical scientific term is [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetus_in_fetu Fetus-in-Fetu.]]
* Type 'Rat King' into any search engine and prepare to throw up. Seriously.
** [[http://www.weird-encyclopedia.com/rat-king.php Yeah...]] Ew...
* Sphinx cats, e.g. Mr Bigglesworth in ''Austin Powers''. Argh!
** YMMV, but they're actually not as [[UglyCute disturbingly old-man-wrinkly or hairless]] as they seem, however, and are usually a pretty outgoing and friendly breed besides. It's kind of like petting a warm, purring shammy [[ShapedLikeItself shaped like a cat.]]
* Pick an Australian wild animal. Any of them. There's a good chance it can maim and/or kill you.
** Yes, this includes [[{{Discworld}} the sheep]].
*** Really, the best advice you can give a tourist visiting Australia is that, yes, the rumours are true. If it has less than two legs, or four or more legs, than it can, and will likely attempt, to kill you. Avoid at all costs. Even the cute ones, like wombats and koalas, are vicious up close.
* The sea louse. It reproduces by having a male draging five or so females into a burrow, impregnating them, and the females contain the eggs inside their body, where the larva hatch and ''eat her from the inside out''. As if pregnancy wasn't scary enough!
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leucochloridium_variae Leucochloridium variae]] is a parasite that specializes in making [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWB_COSUXMw Zombie Snails]]. The NatGeo clip on YouTube doesn't even come close to some of the more gruesome depictions I've seen of this on some nature shows.
* I saw a Discovery Channel special on wild pigs in America and how some of them might be descended from imported Eurasian wild boars. They won't eat you, but you would not want to come across one in the wild. And their population in America and Eurasia is spreading.
** Trying to avoid wild boars in their natural habitat is all fine and good, but sometimes [[http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/818514-wild-boar-runs-amok-in-office the boars come to YOUR natural habitat]]!
** Domestic pigs are dangerous enough. There's a reason why everyone acted with such concern when Dorothy fell into the pig pen.
* The mouth of the sea lamprey. Some people photoshop these onto various body parts and think that it's FUNNY.
** That's not the worst of it. They don't have jaws, you see, making them incapable of biting things. Thus, in order to feed, they ''latch onto the side of a fish and suck out its innards''.
* Since the sea is really just one giant unexplored part of the earth, we usually find creatures there that seem a little... Off. When I was young, I visited a certain beach a low tide. Walking along the seaweed, I saw loads of fishes, shrimps, sea cucumbers, clams and the like trapped in puddles. But then there was this huge rock that seemed out of place. I came closer and saw that it was covered in holes. Then, all of the sudden, these black eyes perched on black stalks came out of the holes and stared at me, then they quickly retreated. To this day, I'm still looking for that rock.
** Perhaps it was a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonefish Stonefish]]? They're very rock-like, and have protruding black eyes. Deadly venomous, too.
* Bees ([[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall my God]]) and any similar insect (wasps, hornets, etc.). I have been terrified of them since my mother was stung in the armpit while trying to protect me from one. And Africanized (or "killer") bees, previously unable to withstand cooler climates, are now managing to creep farther north as they become more resistant to cold. Sweet mercy, I hope they never make it to Pennsylvania...
** I'm right there with you, man...it makes me appreciate these 5 degree winters...
* Three words: Brain eating amoeba.
** As in this article on [[http://www.cracked.com/article_17173_7-terrifying-creatures-youll-never-see-coming_p2.html Cracked.]] It's #1 on the list, and for good reason...
* A lot of cryptids. Especially the [[http://www.bukisa.com/articles/66811_ten-ridiculously-awesome-cryptids Mothman and the Momo]].
* ''Sacculina''. When it infects a crab, it hooks into its shell and spreads tendrils throughout the body. Then it releases feminising hormones, so that even male crabs act like female ones. Then it basically uses the crab (which is sterilised by this procedure) as a puppet, right down to releasing its own spawn when the crab tries to spread its own offspring. This goes on for the rest of the crab's miserable existence, reduced to basically a puppet of a little blob of flesh descended from a barnacle.
* [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Macrocheira_kaempferi.jpg The Japanese Giant Spider Crab]] is the largest of all athropods, with a legspan of 4 meters, weighing up to 20kg and they have a life expectancy of 100 years, which means they actually lived in Ancient Japan.
** How can you miss that they are also known as [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast corpse crabs]] due to their habit of feeding on the bodies of the drowned?
* How does this section not yet have the [[http://bpwidgets.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/golden-orb-weaver-eating-bird-231x300.jpg golden orb weaver]] spider? (Warning: click at your own risk.) A spider so large it ''eats birds''. Fortunately, its toxic is not fatal to humans, except possibly when seeing one causes a heart attack.
** Surprise surprise, it's Australian.
* While they, of course, are totally unable to do this to anything larger than an insect, spiders of the ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uloboridae Uloboridae]]'' family, that lack venom glands, kill their prey wrapping them in large amounts of silk and so tightly that the pressure breaks their joints and even their exoeskeleton. Later, the spider releases over the cocoon with the unfortunate prey inside gastric fluids that kill the victim and dissolve its innards [[NightmareFuel entering where the silk has broken through]], so the spider can suck the fluids.
* Tasmanian DEVILS are called devils for a reason. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SU44KwIfBXM
* Dolphins may look all cute, doing flips with their little grins but they can be huge dicks. Males will gang up and rape a female dolphin or harass the calves of other dolphins and whales until they die. I read a story about how a dolphin that lived in a harbour would lure seagulls to the water with fish then drown them just for fun.
** And that's just the start. Just check their entry on [[http://www.cracked.com/article_15853_the-6-cutest-animals-that-can-still-destroy-you.html this]] list. What's that? They kill randomly kill their own young, just so the mother won't be preoccupied with them and can have sex? Ok, Ok, not as extreme and example as it could be... after all, ''most'' animals do that anyway. But then again, only humans and dolphins are known to go out of their way to kill animals ''just for giggles''.
** Also, they masturbate with each others blowholes. Y'know, the bit they use to breath n stuff, an equivalent to our noses. Imagine having someone get off by forcing their knob up your nose. just ew.
* [[http://www.cracked.com/funny-163-australia/ Everything in this Cracked.com article]]. Seriously, Australia...are you trying to give everyone nightmares?
** There's a reason it started as a penal colony.
*** Makes the insane amounts of bravery seen at Gallipoli(and elsewhere) a bit more understandable, don't it?
* Pick up a beautiful shell in any beach except Australia, odds are you'll take it home and make it a nice souvenir. Pick up a beautiful shell in any beach in Australia, odds are it'll shoot a poisionous harpoon at you!
* I recently watched a heron snatch a live duckling and swallow it whole. I'll never look at herons the same way again. Imagine how they would look from a duck or fish's point of view; a towering, unearthly thin body, long, spear-like beak, wide, staring eyes... Yeesh, it seems scarier than a T. rex, if mainly for that, long, uncanny neck (predators are supposed to be bulky and muscular-looking, right?) and the farking beak. Except for the eyes, of course, they almost seem like the terrifying mass-production EVA's from ''EndOfEvangelion''. FeatheredFiend, indeed.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankebetsu_brown_bear_incident The Sankebetsu brown bear incident.]]
* For anyone who does not like flying, stinging insects, [[http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Owgxo0uCZXA/SwFLFDQHvZI/AAAAAAAAAQo/zytdSa_xq_M/s1600/lebah+maluku+2.jpg Wallace's Giant Bee]]. The thing has mandibles most beetles would envy. It's endangered, though, so you will probably never see one in person. Some tropers (like me) are almost relieved.
* How's this for a creature that's kinda scary, the Ribeiroia ondatrae (and the name is it's good part), it's a kind of worm that crawls into a tadpole, and then when the thing hits puberty, it screws up it's transformation to a full frog, so it grows extra limbs and it's original ones get misshapen quite often as well, imagine going through puberty, and then waking up one day, with your knees bent the wrong way, and your tighs folded the other way, with an extra pair of smaller legs next to your genitalia.
** And the reason why it does this? Because it needs to get into a bird next, and a frog with lots of weird misshapen legs has lots of movement that's more likely to catch the eye of a predatory bird, and makes it harder for the frog to get away. So imagine that you woke up like that, and it was so that when a giant monster came around to eat you, you'd basically have a giant "EAT ME" sign on your back and couldn't get away.
* Take a box jellyfish, give it eyes, and you get [[http://www.bogleech.com/nature/cnido-cuboeyes1.jpg this]]. There's something very unsettling about that thing.
* The Goliath Tiger Fish. Google these monstrosities, and Jaws will take a backseat in your nightmares.
* I went on a nature hike where the guide gave a harrowing description of being stung by a caterpillar under the fingernail while on a hike, which soon left him in far too much pain to do the tour he had scheduled that day. After doing reserach, he discovered that this caterpillar was particularly venemous, and he would have died not long after he managed to get back to town for medical attention.
** Well, at least caterpillars are too cute for anybody to stay mad at them. Wait, no, [[http://files.myfrogbag.com/xut0p0/1207065073j5iEqv3.jpg I take that back]].
* The way Cuttlefish eat. Slowly approaching........SNAP!
* Earwigs. ''Earwigs.'' They look like they have pincers on both ends, so you can't tell if they're coming or going, they squeeze into little tiny cracks in ''your'' bedroom, and if you have an older sibling, chances are pretty good you believed they're called that because they actually crawl into your ears and lay eggs (they don't, thank God). I would give 98% of the animals and bugs on this page a big hug, but between the fear of artificial ear-semination and having the little beasties ''repeatedly'' jump out of corn husks at her while harvesting as a kid, I'm quite ready for that can of Raid.
* I don't know why elephants haven't been mentioned. Male African elephants are aggressively territorial, but in musth, the elephants mating season, their testosterone skyrockets to about ''SIXTY'' times the normal amount, making the worst case of human roid rage look like a baby pitching a fit in comparison. Combine that with the average weight of a male being about 11000 pounds, roughly 5 1/2 tons, almost all of it muscle, and a running speed of about 25-30 miles an hour. Taking into account how many people get killed by these living tanks each year, it's pretty horrifying to think how quickly a circus can turn into a nightmare.
* Ladies and Gentlemen, I introduce to you, [[http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/02_03/snakehead_468x278.jpg the Snakehead]]. This terrifying beastie, which is more dangerous than a piranha is considered unique among fish because it has the ability to breathe air and walk on land. I repeat it has the ability to ''walk on land''!
** Snakeheads aren't the most [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONhBy9uGdgs graceful things out of water though,]] but they're terrifying in water.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCgbYnNAbSM Transformer Owl]]--A YouTube video showing a certain breed of African owl and its reactions to predators of different sizes. ("Awww. it looks so cute! Ooh, they're placing a medium sized owl in front of it and it's puffing itself up as a defense mechanism. Now it looks even ''more'' cute! Awwwwww! Now they're placing a really ''big'' owl in front of it and [[GrotesqueCute OHMIGOD! WHAT THE HOLY HELL IS IT DOING!?]] [[NightmareFace THAT'S NOT RIGHT!!!]] [[BodyHorror AUUUUUGHHHHHHH!!!!]] I WANT MY MOMMY!!!!!!")
** The second "transformation" Is it trying to immitate a Lynx, or some other cat. Still distrubing though.
*** In its natural habitat, it probably would have helped it blend into tree trunks by hiding the eyes and making the profile slimmer. Compare the potoo or tawny frogmouth.
* [[{{HellIsThatNoise}} Rabbits scream.]]
** Only when they're in danger (not that that makes it any better).
** They can also aggressively attack humans. Think that was just a Monty Python joke?
* Spiders always make me (admittedly a very camp bisexual) scream. and not in a good way...
** You will never look at a red hourglass the same way again
* How do we not mention hyenas?! Strong bite force, vicious temper, and have been known to attack people.
** Most people think of a Hyena's laugh as a funny thing - we even have a [[TheHyena trope]] for it. Now imagine you're alone in the savanna at night, and [[HellIsThatNoise you hear that laughter coming from all around you]]. And this is coming from a troper who LIKES hyenas!
** And on a different level: [[ExoticEquipment "The external genitalia of females closely resemble those of males: the 15 cm (6 inch) clitoris is similar in shape and position to a penis, and is capable of erection."]] YMMV on whether this is NightmareFuel on its own, but they have to give birth through that.
* Hippos. They look cute, but they have the temper to make a {{Tsundere}} look like a YamatoNadeshiko. They are responsible for the deaths of more people than even crocodiles! And just look at those tusks! I wonder why that little girl in a Christmas song wanted one so badly.
** Plus, if you merely annoy them, they'll spray you with their feces. Whole different kind of nightmare fuel there.
*** A hippo's breath smells so foul it can scare other animals off.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookie_cutter_shark Cookiecutter sharks.]] Don't let the cute name fool you; you will NOT get any tasty baked goods from these fuckers. They are only half a metre long, but feed on other much larger predators like dolphins and seals. How? They lure them in by swimming around pretending to be normal fish, wait for them to come in for a snack and then ''take as many bites out of the unsuspecting creature as they can before it gets away.'' And just [[http://www.aasharks.com/types-of-sharks/cookiecutter-shark-picture-02.jpg LOOK AT THOSE TEETH.]] They were first dicovered after the US Navy started noticing perfectly round holes appearing in the neoprene covers of the sonar domes on their ''submarines''.
* You like puppies? Well, Ivan Palov's experiments will make you bite your nails and squirm. In the course of studying animal psychology, most of the the test subject were put into such a condition that just scream Mengele. Case in [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSrIkUXwsNk point]]
* Centipedes and millipedes. DEAR GOD. Why do these creatures exist? Creepy crawly, creepy crawly. . .
** Millipedes are cute. Somehow, upping the number of legs even further causes it to [[CrossesTheLineTwice Cross The Line Twice]]. Plus, they don't eat each other and potentially you. The same cannot be said for the giant centipede...
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAL7r7zvKDw House centipedes.]] Also known as [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRpbb6qsMB4 geji-geji]] or cave centipedes or hearth centipedes (because they crawl out of your fireplace and up the wall at 50 miles an hour like something out of a horror film). They have a million legs, each over an inch long, enough to look like a 3-inch long hairy moustache, and if you attack one, the legs come off and keep moving. Due to their speed and agility, they're totally not afraid of falling off a wall and running over your face... The good news is, they're very shy and they only eat insects, so they're considered lucky, like other things that come out of your fireplace (crickets, Santa Claus...) They only bite when cornered. And they mostly come at night... mostly. Hearth crickets, which look like some sort of evil cave cricket, are also dam' ugly.
** According to various bloggers, they are [[MemeticMutation "the only thing that scares the hell]] [[ImageBoards out of /b/"]].
** Here's another [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Scutigera_coleoptrata.JPG pic]]. [[SchmuckBait Go ahead. Enlarge the image]].
* Moray eels have a ''[[http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/08/moray_eels_attack_with_second_pair_of_alien-style_jaws.php second pair]]'' of jaws behind their teeth to grasp their prey. That's right. They eat {{Alien}}-style!
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eTzYEUW_0g Pelicans.]]
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qQzas739ic Nightmare Retardant]]
* I'm not disturbed by lobsters or crabs in and of themselves, but I'm terrified of the thought of eating them.
* I'm pretty sure Cracked won't sleep peacefully until the rest of us can't. Behold! [[http://www.cracked.com/article_18641_7-terrifying-prehistoric-creatures-that-are-still-around.html 7 Terrifying Prehistoric Creatures (That Are Still Around)]] With such wonders as:
** A fucking deep sea shark '''with a circular saw for a jaw.'''
** God damned giant-ass Stingrays '''the diameter of a VW Beetle.'''
** Some sort of unholy '''Dragon/Shark/Zombie/300-toothed-saw.'''
** Proof that there is no loving god, a cross between '''an alligator and a gar''' that is decent enough to live in swamps where they can reach you.
** A cute 'lil gecko '''the size of a human child.'''
** A "prehistoric, three-eyed, hell-shrimp".
** "The closest thing we have to genuine Lovecraftian elder gods": "'''condoms full of teeth'''".
* The way the meat, egg, and dairy industries treat animals, as seen in [[http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-513747926833909134# this video]].
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IWN8UGDyC0 The Foie Gras industry]] [[TearJerker kills female ducklings on the day they hatch.]]
** As for the males, [[SarcasmMode don't worry!]] [[ItGetsWorse It gets worse!]] Imagine being trapped in a unsanitary cage for a month [[http://media.portland.indymedia.org/images/2008/08/378473.jpg being force-fed coarse cornmeal through a metal pipe.]] And when you think you can throw it all up afterwards, you fail and either [[UpToEleven become even more cramped in the cage]] or die from the sheer amount of food inside you. That's what its like to be a Foie Gras duck ''before the slaughterhouse,'' kids.
*** While the foie gras industry is horrible, CO2 gas is considered an acceptable, humane way of killing mass quantities of animals. Of course, you're supposed to make sure they're dead before dumping them into garbage cans. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ--faib7to Grinding them up while they're alive]] is also considered acceptable and reasonably humane(because it's instantaneous). As opposed to just dropping them outside to freeze and/or starve to death.
* [[http://www.cracked.com/article/109_natures-6-most-diabolical-predators Another article from Cracked concerning the evils of nature]]. None of these are threat to humans; however, the fact that nature would spawn such sadistic and clever predators is a tad unnerving (and one of those is a ''plant''). The pictures don't help either (the ones with the beetle grubs and the assassin bug actually made me shudder). And the entries start out with the POV of the ''prey''. Oh, and arachnophobes should steer clear of this article. Just saying.
** Cracked should have it's own HONF page.
* Coconut Crabs and Japanese Spider Crabs. Not fun stumbling on pictures of the former when all you were doing was innocently looking up information on New Caledonia. The latter? Thanks, Alton Brown.
* Wasps, especially yellow jackets and hornets. I recently had a nightmare about there being a nest in the mailbox. And have you read any news stories about "super-sized" nests? This nightmare scenario happens more often in real life than you think.
** The grand champion of nightmare fuel-errific stinging insects is the Japanese Giant Hornet. I dare you to search on YouTube. 2 inches long, and its lethal venom dissolves human flesh. And its horrifying helicopter-like buzz.
** The fine folks at Cracked bring you the Giant Hornet (and more!) in [[http://www.cracked.com/article_15816_5-most-horrifying-bugs-in-world.html The 5 Most Horrifying Bugs.]]
** Not allergic to bees? You don't die in 60 seconds on one sting if you don't recieve medical care? '''You don't know shit about being afraid of bees.'''
* Two words: Box Jellyfish.
** Cone [[strike:shells]] snails. Blue-ringed octopi. Recommendation: '''stay the hell out of the water in [[LandDownunder Australia]]'''.
*** Even worse (and, in a twisted way, cooler) are the facts that the cone snail hurts about as much as a bee sting, the octopus ''doesn't hurt at all'', and both of them use the poison Tetrodotoxin, for which there. Is. No. Cure.
**** (Insert Herpes Commercial BGM here) ...but there IS a treatment. Aggressive life support (i.e., intubation and ventilation) started near or before onset of symptoms, stomach pumping if ingested, IV fluids, and certain drugs (alpha adrenergic agonists and anticholinesterases, for those interested) can get a person through the time until the toxin is out of the body; if they survive 24 hours, chances are they'll make it.
*** And there's no cure or treatment for cone snail poison, either. If you are bitten, you can pretty much kiss your ass goodbye.
** If that's so, that would simply apply to the whole area of Indo-Pacific. Here's a saccharine-sweet addition: ''Synanceia verrucosa'', (in)formally known as Stonefish. Armed with one of the most powerful fish toxins and can easily induce even the most stoic bruisers into gasping sobs. A fair trip to the reef flats of [[EastIndies Indonesia]] can yield at least an encounter or two, if your eyes are sharp enough to see them.
*** In case you don't appreciate how hard it is to see a stonefish, look at [[http://fishindex.blogspot.com/2008/06/stonefish-most-venomous-fish-in-world.html this.]] That's right. These fish are ''invisible''.
** While we're on the subject of deadly creatures found on one of Australia's greatest tourist attractions, the GREAT BARRIER REEF, we seem to have forgotten sea snakes and sting rays. Seventeen species of sea snake are on the GBR, ''all'' of which are fatally poisonous, but generally easy-going as long as they stay in the water. And sting-rays are really in the same boat: docile until provoked (ie, stepped on or trapped between a legend and a camera).
** You're not much better out of the water in Oz, either. The Australian Outback is a damn scary place. I learned that after reading BillBryson's ''In a Sunburned Country''. 120-degree temperatures, spinifex bushes (they have hypodermic-like tips that ''break off'' and become lodged in your skin, inviting flies and infection), all manner of poisonous snakes and scorpions, and did I mention the flies? Bryson's book has a lovely anecdote about how one of the outback explorers brought a camel along which got such a bad bite that ''they were scooping out maggots with a coffee cup''. When a ''camel'' starts suffering in a desert, you know you're in a damn nasty place.
*** The [[FluffyTheTerrible Teddy Bear Cholla]], a cactus found in the southwestern US and northern Mexico, is similar to the aforementioned bushes. The needles come off very easily, and are barbed, meaning that with movement, they move through one's body. I remember a guide talking about how a needle got into the sole of his foot, and ended up working its way out of the top of his foot.
**** Oh, that's ''far'' from the worst of it. Cholla is a very odd plant in that it's segmented; it's shaped a bit like [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Opuntia_bigelovii_2.jpeg a demented balloon animal]]. Those little segments will all break off at the slightest provocation; the plant spreads when they're carried somewhere else and take root. In practical terms, this means you have a decent chance of having an entire 3-inch-long length of cactus attach itself to your leg. The stuff is also sometimes called "jumping cactus," because due to that habit of falling apart and the way human reflexes work, you often won't feel the sting from the thorns until a fraction of a second after you've already moved away, making it seem like the hellish little thing actually ''jumped across the intervening space to attach itself to your skin''. Also, the reason for the name? The thorns are ''clear'' and so numerous and fine that from a distance the damn stuff [[LightIsNotGood looks fluffy or glowy]]. So yeah, ridiculous numbers of wickedly barbed, needle-sharp, hair-thin, near-invisible thorns that'll brush off at the slightest provocation, appear to leap gaps, and hurt like the dickens. And god help you if your ''dog'' gets into the stuff...
** Sydney Funnelweb. A literal real-life DemonicSpider.
*** And it ''still'' [[ItGotWorse gets worse]] - Sydney Funnelwebs are only the ''second'' most dangerous variety of the spider. Their fantastically badass cousins, who inhabit [[CutesyNameTown Orchid Beach]] on Fraser Island, are [[UpToEleven even more venomous]] and there are a lot more of them per square metre. And the kicker? Go to Orchid Beach today and there stands the decaying remains of a ''holiday resort.'' I wonder why they abandoned it...
* [[http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12840743/porks_dirty_secret_the_nations_top_hog_producer_is_also_one_of_americas_worst_polluters Hog farming.]]
-->The lagoons [holding ponds for pig manure, urine, blood, afterbirth, and stillborn piglets] themselves are so viscous and venomous that if someone falls in it is foolish to try to save him. A few years ago, a truck driver in Oklahoma was transferring pig shit to a lagoon when he and his truck went over the side. It took almost three weeks to recover his body. In 1992, when a worker making repairs to a lagoon in Minnesota began to choke to death on the fumes, another worker dived in after him, and they died the same death. In another instance, a worker who was repairing a lagoon in Michigan was overcome by the fumes and fell in. His fifteen-year-old nephew dived in to save him but was overcome, the worker's cousin went in to save the teenager but was overcome, the worker's older brother dived in to save them but was overcome, and then the worker's father dived in. They all died in pig shit.
** As a permaculture and self-sufficiency enthusiast, ''all'' industrial-scale farming qualifies for me.
* [[http://www.wheredopuppiescomefrom.com/ Puppy mills.]] Ever wondered where those adorable puppies in pet store windows come from? Well it turns out they're farmed, much like battery hens. That's right, there are battery farms ''for puppies''. The dogs are kept in cages their entire lives and forced to breed continuously, sometimes until ''their uteruses fall out.'' Because the dog breeding industry has little regulation, the law does not require these dogs to ever receive vet care, any kind of human contact, or, y'know ever be let out of their cages. Oh, and there are also kitten, bird, rabbit and ferret mills. Good luck ever looking at a pet store the same way again. Moral of the story? Always, always, '''always''' adopt from an animal shelter. '''Seriously.''' For those who absolutely '''must''' have a pure-breed of some kind, at least go to a breeder directly where you can see the mother.
** I, a dog-loving troper, find this news to be more of a {{Tear Jerker}} than nightmare fuel.
** You'll never see a dog for sale in a pet shop in the UK; almost all are bought directly from breeders or owners whose pets have had a litter. The RSPCA and Scottish SPCA take a very dim view of puppy farming.
** America is starting to get on this, unfortunately approaching it by punishing legitimate breeders and people who show dogs.
** There are also pure-breed rescue places if you want a particular kind of pure-breed cat or dog. Sometimes the official clubs for those animals run the rescue and adoption services also.
** This places a whole new and somber, if not sinister, spin on [[{{Peanuts}} Snoopy's]] puppyhood at the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm.
** It gets worse when you're working at a shelter that rescues these puppy mill dogs. I've seen dogs with severe PTSD (There's no other word f,or it), dogs with no teeth, dogs with fur so matted that it's literally coming off their bodies, dogs who are blind, dogs with their ears hacked off...
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A7gBS3QiqA This video]] showing the use of "Henderson Castration Tools". Insert the sac into the clamp, put the clamp in a variable speed drill and spin about 20 times until the cord fractures and the balls come right off. Especially nice is the scene where they inject anesthetic into the horse's testicles.
* While watching the ''Planet Earth'' series, I got to the part about jungles. Now, up until then there have been predator-prey chases, which are understandable, they're necessary. But then we get to the part about the parasitical fungi that can literally cause a ZombieApocalypse for an ant colony. They even showed the fungus [[BodyHorror growing from the ant's head]]. In time-lapse. On ''Blu-Ray''. An then there are the other pics of various other insects. AHHHHH!!!
** Oh yeah, didn't they say something like "one species of fungus that specializes in each individual insect to prevent competion"? so for every species of insect on the rainforest, there's a species of this fungus just for that insect?
* The Cane Toad is well known in the scientific community for 2 reasons. One is for being one of the worst invasive species on earth. The other? It engages in necrophillia more than any other species on earth. Not just with other cane toads either. Birds, mammals, snakes, lizards, other amphibians, you name it.
** Besides looking ugly and spreading like a plague, it EATS CORPSES,Its HIGHLY POISONOUS and its FUCKING BIG. Its regarded as a pest that should be neutralized.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_badger The honey badger]]. A member of the ''Mustelidae'' family, which includes weasels, stoats, minks, martens, otters, sea otters, badgers, polecats, and the wolverine. We all know how BadAss and scary they can be. The honey badger takes it UpToEleven. It's skin is thick and tough enough that it's nearly impossible to penetrate it even with arrows and spears. It can turn around in its skin with ease. It is a tireless and determined predator, and it will eat ''anything'' it can find and overpower. It has extremely few predators, and even the king of beasts himself would prefer to face an angry bull elephant than a pissed-off honey badger. One took the food right out of a puff adder's mouth (the second-most dangerous snake in Africa after the black mamba), then proceeded to kill the snake, receiving a few bites in the process. Halfway through eating the snake, the venom took effect and the badger passed out. A couple of hours later, the badger woke up and ''immediately began finishing off his interrupted meal'' with no problem. Oh, and their preferred method of fighting larger predators? [[BodyHorror They go for the genitals]].
* Although EverythingsBetterWithPlatypi, everything is '''''WAY''''' worse with their venom. Sadly, it's not lethal. Instead, it incapacitates the victims and [[AndIMustScream LEAVES THEM IN PAIN SO EXCRUCIATING THAT NOT EVEN MORPHINE DOES ANYTHING]].
** Quoth ''{{Cracked}}'': "The platypus is God's way of saying, 'I made this thing out of scraps left on the floor and it can still fucking cripple you.'"
* My biology class was made of this. Examples: Delivery of pig fetuses for human anatomy class, teacher showing us a cow's eye, and more, but I will only tell the most horrific event that had occured to me.
** One day while going into the the locked storage door, a friend told me to look for a "cat." I looked in the back of a room and found a {{Squick}} inducing nightmare, a cat opened up, as if ready for surgery, with all organs visible and had a expression of howling pain. I ran out of class that day
* I'm surprised no one's mentioned chimpanzees. They may look cute and cuddly when they're babies, but they are absolute ''assholes'' when fully grown. There's a reason most primatologists only work with juveniles--adults can grow to be about 5'4" and are ''extremely'' dangerous. They're at least twice as strong as humans, and when they attack, they go for the face and genitals.
** There have been reports of chimpanzes snatching young childeren and draging them off into the wilderness. Guess what happend next..
* Meet the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_wandering_spider Brazilian wandering]] [[http://www-tc.pbs.org/wnet/nature/files//home/wnetwp/webroot/wnet/wp-content/blogs.dir/3/files/2008/10/8.jpg spider]], certified by Guinness as the most venomous spider on Earth. (Arachnaphobes should [[SchmuckBait not click]] that second link.) It lives all over South America, and has occasionally traveled all over the world in shipments of [[http://tizona.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/brazilian_wandering_spider1.jpg bananas]]. They've wound up in all kinds of grocery markets, and even [[http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200505/s1357179.htm hospitals]]. The thing can wind up with a five-inch leg span, and in South America tend to inhabit rather well-populated areas. Because they're wanderers, they like to hide during the day rather than build webs--in enclosed, dark spaces. Like under your bed, or in your closet, or the cupboard under the sink.
* Ever seen an angry horse before? [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rapa_das_bestas_sabucedo_2_jpereira.jpg Here you go]].
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqDjRCHyjTY Mike the Headless Chicken]] anyone?
* Bull sharks. While most sharks will only attack when threatened or as a case of mistaken identity, these sharks have been known to attack people without any provocation whatsoever. Don't believe me? [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pjbH5OuBc4 Here's proof]]. But what's worse than a hyper-aggressive shark with no qualms about mauling a human? Try one that goes into ''freshwater''. They aren't just in there accidentally, they have adapted to swim in freshwater and have been found hundreds of miles inland. These sharks have been found in the Mississippi, the Congo, Zambezi, Ganges, Amazon, Euphrates and Tigris rivers among others. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_Shore_shark_attacks_of_1916 The Jersey Shore Shark Attacks]], the inspiration for ''{{Jaws}}'' is now largely believed to have been the work of a ''single bull shark''.
* Frogs and Toads. First of all, there are poison dart frogs, which can kill you just by touching you. Venom oozes through the pores on their skin. But that's not the worst of it. See, all the other frogs have voracious appetites. They will pretty much eat anything they can jam into their mouths and (hopefully for their sake) swallow. And the larger the frog, the larger the prey. The largest frogs eat ''mice''. And bullfrogs? They can jump straight out of the water at a bird passing over their pond, catch them in mid-air and swallow them. There is very little reason to doubt that a frog twice the size of a person would swallow that person ''whole'' if it ever laid eyes on it.
** Speaking of frogs, there is a type of beetle that has been found to suck the life right out of frogs as seen [[http://bogleech.com/bio-epomis.htm here]].
** Poison dart frogs, unlike venomous and even some other poisonous animals, are ''not at all poisonous'' in captivity, because their poison is synthesized from their diet in the wild. There are captive-bred poison dart frogs in the pet trade, which is no surprise, because apart from the poison, they're ''adorable''.
* Tiger beetles. They don't harm humans, but just imagine what it would be like if you were it's prey and the last thing you saw was [[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_vXzN1osDLC0/S_lIu6CTJHI/AAAAAAAAAIQ/VN33T6GZujs/s1600/TIGERBEETLE+1.jpg THIS]]. It would also be moving at you at 5 miles an hour, which relative to it's body weight would be like watching as a fully-grown man armed with hedge-clippers comes running at you at ''480 miles per hour''!
%% Please keep the humans example at the bottom of the folder as a [[TheStinger stinger]].
* Face eating Northern in the middle of the lake (Northern= toothed, evil fish). My cousin made a joke about it when I was 6. I had a nightmare that bodies with faces chewed down to the bone washed up on the shore. I couldn't bring myself to swim out too deep for years.
* A reporter on the ''BBC World Service'' tells the story of a couple who visited an Eskimo village in Alaska, and excitedly got to see a live polar bear, and when they got there, were horrified to watch as it was killed in front of their eyes.
** On the subject of polar bears. Remember that scene in ''[[StarWars The Empire Strikes Back]]'' where Luke gets ambushed by the Wampa? Literally comes out of nowhere and nearly caves his head in? That's what polar bears do in ''real life''. They cover up their snouts and eyes as prey approaches or as they stalk it, then suddenly spring up and hit it before it even knows what's collapsed it's skull. The best part? Polar bears are one of the few bear species that actively seek out humans as prey.
* [[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QibpmJvBDQU/TazL8C-DodI/AAAAAAAAAEw/cr6oaCFId4s/s1600/zvK9C.jpg This is what a maggot looks like under a microscope]].
* Birds of prey when they catch animals. That animal will be carried for who-knows-how-long, in terror the whole time knowing what's about to happen, to a nest with baby birds. These babies will then slowly eat it ALIVE. It's much more merciful if the animal is killed before it gets to the nest but that doesn't happen all that much...
* It's not an animal, but the full run of carnivorous plants apply. They are truly nefarious traps, which when you read about them sound like something Jigsaw might come up with if he was a botanist. Venus Flytraps are pressure-activated cages. Pitcher plants are impossible-to-escape acid-bottomed pits. Flypaper plants are sticky traps, where the prey dies of exhaustion, starvation or suffocation. Lobster-trap plants allow prey to come in, but keep it from getting out with inward-pointing barbs. The craziest, though, has to be the aquatic bladderworts. They pump out ions to generate a partial vacuum. The plant keeps this vacuum behind a leafy "door". When an aquatic insect comes along and touches a trigger hair, the "door" swings open and the vacuum sucks the insect inside. It's a ''lever-operated vacuum trap''. Thankfully, none of them fall into the ManEatingPlant category.
* Parrots can be very intimidating on their own. However, many people find them cute and great to have as pets. Then, some species as they get older can really put people into a state of fear. The birds, if not properly trained from a young age (and being incredibly intelligent), can start taking advantage of their owner. They'll make loud noises for your constant attention, they'll become aggressive and mean-spirited (especially cockatoos and macaws), and they'll throw a temper fit when you don't give them what they want. Also, placing them in a cage doesn't always do the trick as many of them can figure out how to escape. Even worse is that some of the larger parrots have strong enough jaws to chew their own cage, even when ''it is stainless steel''. Usually the only solution is to give the bird up to a rescue agency, which can result in the bird becoming depressed because of the loss of it's companion (the owner). This is why it is usually custom for a salesperson of parrots to make sure the customer thinks ''long'' and ''hard'' about this decision.
* I can't believe noone's mentioned Primates yet, gorillas espessially. Those things are monsters that can easily rip someone in two. And don't get me started on Chimpanzees. For example if they're smiling at you, you'd better run like hell, 'cause he ain't happy to see you.
** Fortunately, a lot of the great apes are actually quite calm, so long as you do not provoke them. They can hurt you, but they typically resort only to posturing. But chimpanzees? Whereas a gorilla will mostly beat his chest and make a show to get you to leave, chimpanzees may go out of their way to murder your ass ''for the hell of it''. Once, a group of "problem chimps" escaped from a primate sanctuary in Sierra Leone and came across a cab. The passenger in the cab managed to get out when the chimps got to it and decided to attack. The driver? Well let's just say that "pulled apart" barely described it.
* Spiders that spin 82 foot webs and leeches that saw their way through your rectum. And that's just the first two entries.
** http://www.cracked.com/article_19719_6-terrifying-new-creatures-science-just-discovered.html?wa_user1=1&wa_user2=Science&wa_user3=article&wa_user4=feature_module
* [[FeatheredFiend The cassowary]]. Sure, it doesn't look very dangerous, but a well placed kick from it can criple an adult, and it [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dcQO6Zb8Eg roars and growls]].
[[/folder]]
[[folder: The Most Dangerous Animal Of Them All]]
* [[HumansAreBastards Humans]]. Inhabiting much of the planet's land mass, they often kill each other and many other species for fun. And they have nukes.
** Considering that there are few animals who kill off members of their own species: humans are truly the most dangerous animal of all, endangering everything on the planet, including other humans. And we're not only talking about genocidal dictators or terrorists like Hitler, Stalin, Bin Laden, Mao, Djenghis Khan, Attilla the Hun, Pol Pot,... On a huge industrial scale humans are rapidly destroying their own environment by destroying and poisoning nature's life sources, thus putting the survival of all mankind in danger for future generations!
*** The Mosquito begs to differ. They have killed 45 billion people. To put this in perspective, they have ''killed more humans then every recorded war ever fought'', and ''more than half the number of people that ever lived''.
** You mean ''literally'' more than every recorded war ever fought? As in, from [[http://ancienthistory.about.com/b/2003/07/15/the-first-war-ever-recorded.htm the war between Sumer and Elam in 2700 B.C.]] to ''now''!?
**** Consider that, to a mosquito, a [[HumansAreCthulhu human is a mountain-sized torch]]. Mosquitoes [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu are total badasses.]]
*** Plus, there is also the idea that at least mosquitoes have a reason to suck blood, if they don't get the proper nutrients from blood, the eggs inside of them will die.
* How's about this to keep you up at night? Right now, we are currently living in one of the largest mass extinctions of life on Earth, rivaled only by the Great Dying. Take a guess as to what scientists think is causing [[YouBastard it]]. Humans can cause much, ''much'' more disease, destruction, and death then just about any other animal ''known on the planet.''Heck, we have the power to destroy much of the planet with nukes.
[[/folder]]
----
[[folder: RLNF Cosmic Horror, Eschatology and What Comes After]]
--> ''[[HopeSpot "You lot, you spend all your time thinking about dying, like you're gonna get killed by eggs, or beef, or global warming, or asteroids. But you never take time to imagine the impossible.]] Like maybe you survive."''
-->--'''The Doctor''', ''Series/DoctorWho''
--> ''"Nobody likes us 'big picture' people."''
-->--'''Calvin''', ''CalvinAndHobbes''
----
!!Please take all debate to the discussion page.
Do not post just to disprove a theory or to add NightmareRetardant. Both of them are {{natter}} here! Take all debate to the discussion page.
[[foldercontrol]]
%%
%% Do not post just to disprove a theory or to add NightmareRetardant. Both of them are {{natter}} here!
%%
[[folder:The Afterlife and Other Eternal Life scenarios]]
* WhoWantsToLiveForever.
* [[TakeAThirdOption Different option]]: We figure out how to upload our consciousness to a super computer and live millions of eternities in a mere few years, if that, and after exhausting every possible reality we can think of, end ourselves knowing that we have truly lived, willing to accept what happens, whether that is eternal life or nothingness.
** Alternate nightmare fuel? If that's a possible outcome, it's also possible that we've already done this. Every consciousness now exists on a supercomputer. This entire world and our entire lives are simply one of the aforementioned simulated existences. If we're lucky, it's multiplayer, and all of us happen to be sharing in this specific experience. If we're not lucky, only one person in the whole of existence is 'real'. The rest of us are simulated and meaningless, we have no way of knowing who the 'real' person is and therefore who our world revolves around and due to the implied desire (for a 'clean' experience) inherent in simulating an entire life for the experience of living it, he/she probably doesn't know either.
* What if there IS an afterlife? What if you were such a bad person that finally meets death? Yep. You're going to hell, and suffering for eternity in the most painful ways possible that you wouldn't if you were alive.
* There are [[FateWorseThanDeath things that will make you wish you were dead]] you say? Satan and Hell says hi right to that statement before proving that statement completely wrong.
* Singularitarians belive that cessation of existence is the worst possible outcome imaginable. Death is an obstacle to be conquered, rather than an inevitability to which we should all sheepishly submit.
* The concept of oblivion brings horror... the concept of infinity eternity brings horror... Did the cosmos become some sort of [[EldritchAbomination horror elemental]] when I wasn't looking? (Maybe this is where {{Gnosticism}}'s concept of an inept and/or malicious Demiurge gets its appeal...)
* The Rapture, and all other apocalyptic beliefs. In the US alone, 40% of the population believes that Jesus will return ''in their lifetime''. Stop and think about that for a second. At any given moment, a very, very large percentage of the human population believes that it's okay to run through resources at lightning speed, making no plans to invest in alternative energy, because their chosen deity (this isn't just limited to Christians) is going to come back and make everything all right. The same goes for things like curing disease, battling starvation and ending war.
** And that's not even getting into the Rapture cults who believe that war, famine and disease are all signs that Jesus is about to return, and view such events with thinly veiled joy.
* Suppose you are the only sentient, sapient being in the entire universe. The universe was created simply for your own amusement. Sounds wonderful, no? Actually, this means everyone you know and love ceases to exist the moment you don't see or hear or experience them in any way. Sitting in your living room right now? That is the entire universe at the moment, because why bother rendering the rest of space and time when the only being in existence, you, is reading TVTropes? All of history was fabricated so you would believe other people are thinking, intelligent humans. But they aren't. Only you exist.
** On the flip side of this, imagine that you aren't a sentient, sapient being; that someone else is. This person truly experiences reality. Everything you feel and experience is a grossly dumbed down and simplified version of true perception. Your brain is hideously slow, your eyes only see three primary colors instead of their twelve, you only exist in three dimensions instead of fourteen. [[CosmicHorrorStory This "god" is enormously superior to everything you could ever hope to be. They go about the world experiencing reality, while the rest of us literally are just here for their amusement.]]
*** The scariest thing is that, while the first suggestion denies itself (that would make us our own God), the second may be true and we may be only a toy to the rest of the people around us. It would explain a lot, be less scary and still manage to make you feel like an awful piece of crap and trash.
*** A combination of the two is even more frightening, such as starting out as the first and through some process ended up as the latter. Where the price of godhood is a hallucination where only you exist, while interacting with others means always being at the mercy of a collective-consciousness empowered by everyone's rejected omnipotence. Knowing that, even at the height of your power, you could never compete with the cumulative power of everyone else.
* The idea of [[TheNothingAfterDeath there being no afterlife]] has caused me to stay awake crying one night, and then put me into a depression.
** I can add to that: What if you get Alzheimer's Disease and there IS an afterlife? What if the soul that is allowed to go to heaven is that of you as a husk of a person, instead of the you throughout the rest of your life? Spending Eternity™ as only a husk of yourself, and everything that made you YOU gone, is rather unnerving...
** Or alternately, you can also worry about what happens if there ''is'' an [[AndIMustScream afterlife?]]
* The idea of [[AndIMustScream eternal punishment in Hell]] is pretty horrific enough, but the Calvinist belief of predestination actually makes this [[BeyondTheImpossible even more terrifying]]. How? According to Calvinist theologians, God picks and chooses who to save and who to damn. This [[FridgeHorror implies]] that God created some people for the sole purpose of being sent to Hell, [[YouCantFightFate and there's nothing that they can do about it.]] Fortunately, not many people believe in this, but the idea is horrifying enough.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Dying]]
* Let's face it ladies and gentlemen. There's a reason why so many people fear death and consider it to be the worst fate...IT'S A FUCKING TERRIFYING THOUGHT! [[CessationOfExistence Say that there is NO afterlife. Yep. pitch black darkness with nothing going on at all.]]
* I would like to assert that Danny Elfman said it best:
---->No one beats [Death] at his game\\
For very long but just the same\\
Who cares, there's no place safe to hide\\
Nowhere to run--no time to cry\\
So celebrate while you still can\\
'Cause any second it may end\\
And when it's all been said and done\\
Better that you had some fun\\
Instead of hiding in a shell\\
Why make your life a living hell?\\
So drink a toast, and down the cup\\
And drink to bones that turn to dust ('cause)\\
No one (x13)\\
No one lives forever!! (hey!)
* Then there's [[http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html Isaac Asimov's]] contribution to this problem, with a TwistEnding.
* This was Nietzsche's whole point in his part of the dialogue of western philosophy. Reality exists. So do we. We assume we are special. We're probably not. All human experience has been spent in the attempt to formulate truth so we don't have to contemplate the horror of being without reason. [[NietzscheWannabe Lots of people]] get the ultimate point behind this stance wrong though; Mr. Nietzsche wanted us to honestly and totally accept life as causa sui, and to wholly embrace it without the interference of human rationalization. Now, he admits that that's a pretty fucked up way to live and describes it as the "Will to Die" and states pretty explicitly that it is no way shameful to prefer self-generated "truth" in order to be happy. Also, the EternalRecurrence (the idea that all time repeats endlessly, much like the Quantum Immortality example below, but with each repeat being identical to the one before) to some is HighOctaneNightmareFuel (WhoWantsToLiveForever is bad enough, but being forced to see your own same mistakes over and over again is a cosmic AndIMustScream, especially if said mistakes are [[MindRape traumatic]]) while Nietzsche views it as the ultimate affirmation of life.
---->What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.' [Nietzsche, F. The Gay Science, §341]
* The simple fact that [[NothingIsScarier NOBODY KNOWS]] what happens after you die, nor can the human mind comprehend it.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The End of Civilization As We Know It]]
* At several points in Earth's history, worldwide volcanic eruptions wiped out upwards of 98% of all species on the planet. This could conceivably happen again at any time. If it's not volcanic fury that gets us, it'll be a meteor or some other sudden event that can be predicted but not prevented. The ones killed initially will be the lucky ones. The rest will be left to starve to death.
* Our sun is too small to go nova. What ''will'' happen is that it'll run out of fuel, swell into a Red Giant and ''engulf the Earth as it expands.'' Popular science says that won't happen for a good 5 billion years, but it's still a fun thought to entertain.
** Altough human life on Earth will become unbearable in much less time than that, because the sun is constantly expanding, it won't just suddenly swell in to a giant ball - altough the process gets progressively faster in time. In approximately 100 million years it is thought to be too warm for modern day humans to live, and in 500 million years, the temperatures on Earth reach levels such as that oceans will boil away.
* Watch ''Life After People''.
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBtHICMmDJk Which]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBNLl7T3EIw&feature=related can]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLlJBHhE2Hw&feature=related be]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4GTRab56_A&feature=related seen]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YM_rsu2CcsI&feature=related right]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHrlkoVlUFQ&feature=related here.]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSjRG-VJhWg&feature=related Watch]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPA3ocklQf4&feature=related nature]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4g4hV3Mmlg&feature=related fight back.]]
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XDbcMND7fY&feature=related Better]] version.
* Hardin's "Tragedy of the Commons" and how often I've seen that behaviour. You can try it this Halloween. Put a bowl of candy out for the trick-or-treaters. There's nothing preventing the ones who aren't accompanied by adults from overturning the ''entire bowl'' into their bag and leaving nothing left for everyone else. What makes this scary? It doesn't ''just'' apply to Halloween Candy. Which is particularly chilling when you think about how much society depends on fossil fuels, and how quickly we go through them. Regardless of one's stance on climate change, no one can deny that fossil fuels are going to become an issue in the future when we start running low... unless they believe that there won't ''be'' any future, which brings us to another bit of nightmare fuel...
* Watch the History Channel or Discovery Channel, eventually they'll have a "How the world ends" special. If you're religious, the History Channel provides you with plenty of cases of prophecies coming true. If you're the scientific nut, you're treated to many scientific ways the world will end including the super volcano at Yellowstone bringing nuclear winter on its own, a Deep Impact or Armageddon worthy asteroid impact, and the infamous Large Hadron Collider making exotic particles or micro-black holes. Doubly worse for the religious as the scientific ways the world will end are in fact, very possible. Especially the asteroid (we have a higher chance of impact than you getting struck by lightning).
* There's a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_caldera super volcano underneath Yellowstone.]] If it explodes, it's predicted that the entire United States will be covered in at least few centimeters of ash (in areas farthest away from the volcano), cars and planes won't function since the ash is finer and heavier than snow (causing all the engines to clog), and the ash in the atmosphere will block out the sun for several years. [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Oh, and it's overdue for its next eruption.]] At least scientists speculate that [[ApocalypseHow humanity itself won't necessarily go extinct, just that civilization as we know it might end.]]
** Yellowstone is possibly peanuts compared to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory Lake Toba, which has almost once wiped out humanity]] - the human gene pool was presumably once down to only about ten thousand individuals - and that's the optimistic estimate, the more pessimistic one has humanity dodging a bullet with a mere 1,000 individuals left.
* Care to know how the world and/or humanity might end? Go to [[http://www.exitmundi.nl/exitmundi.htm Exit Mundi]]. Excellent, witty, and sometimes disturbing reads. My personal favorite? "Eternity".
* Solar storms. Solar storm of 1859 resulted in things like "Telegraph pylons threw sparks and telegraph paper spontaneously caught fire."
* Two more potential ticking {{depopulation bomb}}s: Mass infertility due to pollution, malnutrition/undernourishment, obesity, etc. (many kids may die before their parents). We're seeing some of the effects already.
* With the possibility of a "zombie virus" able to be genetically engineered, WorldWarZ might actually happen.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The End of the Universe]]
* Before start reading this section, go to [[http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html Atomic Rockets]] Have fun realising just how stuck we really are on this miserable rock.
* Antimatter. Mixing matter (ex: the universe) and antimatter can lead to the annihilation of both.
** The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strangelet Strangelet]] is no better.
*** And while Antimatter functions like a [[YinYangBomb Yin Yang Bomb]], causing the immediate annihilation of both matter and antimatter into a crapton of energy, Strangelets function like [[TheVirus The Virus]], converting more and more baryonic (normal) matter into strange matter. It could theoretically take just a single strangelet to set off a chain reaction that results in the entire earth becoming one massive, hot ball of strange matter.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_fate_of_the_universe The ultimate fate of the universe]].
* Given that the Cosmological Constant seems to be stronger in one direction of the universe and weaker in another, it's very likely that at one point along the spectrum a vacuum metastability event has already occurred or will soon. But the universe won't be instantly obliterated; the collapse would propagate at the speed of light and you'd never see it coming. Comforting, yes?
* Here's a fun thought: the solar system is not completely stable, but only metastable. It may happen, sometime in the next few million years, that Mercury and Venus could pass close enough to one another that their mutual gravitation messes up their orbits, in turn messing up the orbits of the other inner planets. So Earth might crash into another planet, get thrown into the sun, or get flung off into interstellar space.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_decay Proton decay]]. Currently hypothetical, but it may be that in the truly deep depths of infinite time there won't be any matter left - just photons (red-shifted to almost nothing), neutrinos (don't interact in any meaningful way), and a vanishingly thin haze of electron/positron pairs that haven't quite got around to annihilating each other yet. Oh, and whatever it is that Dark Matter turns out to be... assuming it doesn't decay too.
** Please note that while the above is the most likely scenario, the mass/energy-being-created-out-of-practically-nothing vacuum fluctuations will always be around as long as space itself exists. Given the unlimited amount of time ahead of us, if there's the slightest chance of those actually creating something useful, then that will come to pass eventually.
* Speaking of celestial bodies and whatnot- Black holes. They are scary as hell when you really get into what they are and what, precisely, they are doing. They warp the fabric of space-time. They are absolutely huge, they eat everything, and you can't even see them unless there's a backdrop of, say, interstellar gas to provide a contrast. If one should happen to drift in the direction of our planet -and this is, in fact, entirely possible-, even if we saw it coming years in advance, there would be nothing we could do about it. [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption You do not stop a black hole.]] Plus, once you cross the event horizon, you are not ever coming back. And although it's unknown what, exactly, happens inside a black hole (though there are plenty of theories), it's safe to assume that it's probably something fairly horrible. If there are in fact RealLife [[CosmicHorror Cosmic Horrors]], they are probably black holes.
** The cosmic/dev/null.
** There's proof that, to an observer, somebody falling into a black hole will freeze just outside of the event horizon. That could mean that, just outside of the event horizon, [[FateWorseThanDeath YOU freeze]] and are trapped there, frozen in time, [[AndIMustScream forever.]]
** There's also these Einstein-Rosen bridges in them that lead to a mirror universe, but of course not without completely destroying you upon entering. An additional twist to this curious mirror universe is Roy Kerr's idea of rotating black holes that don't have infinite gravity at an area and could maybe be possible to go inside. Coming closer to one gives you a "house of mirrors" effect according to Michio Kaku's book titled ''Hyperspace''. So you drive a spaceship to a rotating black hole and pray you enter it from the right spot and suddenly start seeing many copies of your ship from the window until you run into one that's real and from another universe.
** Read through the following [[http://casa.colorado.edu/~ajsh/dive.html website]] and witness the animations. Though simple projections (with some artistic license), the website's animations give a fair idea about what happens near and inside a black hole. It might take some time to wrap your mind around (especially if English is not your native language), but once you unlock the fundamental idea behind the theory, it is a truly scary and amazing journey.
**And [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI9CvipHl_c#t=1m24s here's]] a video which attempts to show (with the help of a sort-of-realistic background) what we'd actually see if we were to spiral down into a black hole. (Go to 6:15 if you want to skip the commentary.) "Bizarre" doesn't even begin to describe it.
* Speaking of black holes, the current scientific theory that there is a supermassive black hole at the center of every galaxy. That means all matter in the universe is just circling one of several great cosmic drains. We're living on an eddy, being very slowly pulled into an inescapable vortex. Eventually our planet, our solar system, EVERYTHING, will be sucked down the drain and just blinked out of existence. Eventually there will be nothing but a great ravenous hole in the fabric of reality...and there's nothing we can do about it.
* Deep time. The fact that when you think about a long enough stretch of time, everything will die. Not only that, but that our current understanding of the universe implies that with enough time everything in existence will be converted into ever more widely scattered heat energy. That ultimately, it's not just that you will die, or that the human race will die, but that anything that could possibly show that either of those ever even existed will cease to be, ''and there is nothing you can do about it''.
* Gamma Ray Bursts. When huge, dying stars are consumed from within by black holes they release vast amounts of energy at very near the speed of light. In a matter of seconds, some of these blasts of energy can exceed the amount of energy that our sun will release in its entire lifetime. If one of these hit the planet then we'd probably all die before we knew what had happened. Even if one passed too close it would be like every place on one side of the planet being hit by a nuclear missile at once, and the other side of the planet dealing with the resulting wall of fire and death. The real problem is that these bursts are basically impossible to predict, and even if we could there's absolutely nothing we could do about it. The entire planet could die a horrible, fiery death within minutes of you reading this.
** WR 104. Aimed right towards us. [[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/03/03/wr-104-a-nearby-gamma-ray-burst Have a nice day.]]
* You know how the Universe just loves scaring the crap out of us planetside? What with all the Big Crunch, Supermassive Black Holes, Gargantuan Death Rays and rogue stars out there already, you feel the need to throw MOLECULAR WINDSTORMS at us! Allow me to explain, picture a Galaxy, any galaxy. Now picture something not unlike a hurricane that will rip all the molecules out of the Galaxy, leaving it sterile. These windstorms strip planets, stars, even nebulas bare of molecules. And here we are afraid of rogue black holes....
* The sounds of Saturn: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C6lymtHG60
** This is what our own planet sounds like from outer space: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AVHXMLDvWA&feature=player_embedded
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporal_paradox#Temporal_merging_hypothesis One theory]] as to how temporal paradoxes would resolve themselves is that once a temporal paradox occurred, this universe would be obliterated and be replaced with a new one with a different timeline that can accommodate whatever created the paradox. But we wouldn't be aware of it, because our universe would otherwise be exactly the same. Maybe it just happened. Maybe it just happened again.
** Or maybe our entire universe IS a replacement for sorting out a paradox, and we're just in one segment of history leading up to the creation of that paradox. It could be caused by some other civilization millions of light years away from us, and it might happen again. Humanity and everything we've created would be obliterated because of something that doesn't even know we exist. The nature of the paradox might mean we'd never be recreated again.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Humans in relation to the Universe]]
* This is basically the whole point of the CosmicHorrorStory genre as HPLovecraft envisioned it. See the genre page for details.
* Take the time to actually contemplate the vast, absurd distances between just, say, the Earth and the Moon. Then try to contemplate the Earth and another planet, or the Earth and the sun. Or the sun and another star. Your brain may start hurting and crying in fear at a glimpse of the true meaning of such a size, just the thought of all that emptiness...
** [[http://sizeofworldse.ytmnd.com/ This YTMND]] says it better than I could.
*** And it doesn't even end there. These supergiants aren't anything special, since there are billions of stars within a single galaxy. In 2003, astronomers photographed a random area of the sky measuring 11 square arc minutes, which is about as much as holding a sheet of paper 1 meter away from you and peeking through a hole 1mm x 1mm in size. To catch even extremely faint light sources, the film was exposed for a total of almost 300 hours. And in the end [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Hubble_ultra_deep_field_high_rez_edit1.jpg they ended up with this picture]].
**** [[spoiler:It shows about 10.000 Galaxies, each of them containing billions of stars. To photograph the entire sky, you'd need about 13 million photographs like this.]]
** Behold the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPm3QVKlBJg Powers of Ten.]] The Universe on both a macro and micro scale is almost incomprehensible.
* Scientists had only recently witnessed a distant supernova that had occurred '''11 billion years ago'''. With that being said, he thought this meant that there's nothing out there in the Universe, right this very minute.
* There's always the possibility that we're ''not'' alone, and the vastness of space includes the possibility of untold, fascinating new lifeforms.
* [[http://primaxstudio.com/stuff/scale_of_universe/ This]] is an interactive scale of the universe, from things human-sized (including humans), up to the Universe itself, and back down to the fabric of spacetime itself, and absolutely everything in between. Very informative and interesting... and highly haunting.
** Even more, the scale used has things such as cells and bacteria towards the ''middle''. Meaning that humans are on the large end of the scale. Think about that for a moment, and how there are things much bigger than humans. Think how a being the size of a cell would perceive the very human it inhabits, let alone the rest of the Universe.
** [[http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/589217/ Here is an updated version of the scale made by the same guy.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The Nature of Reality]]
* Quantum Immortality. Since our consciousness is evenly spread along an infinite number of nearly identical universes, from our subjective point of view we will always survive life or death situations as long as there is even a tiny chance of survival, since we will only continue to be aware in the universes where we were saved. While this does mean that we would all reach an age where we would be hospitalized because it would no longer be possible for our bodies to function by themselves, we would hardly be alone in this. There are plenty of people like this in the world, and, since there is a limit to the human life expectancy, sooner or later we would be [[CriticalExistenceFailure dead in every universe]]
** Actually, the odds are even worse than that. As we age the chances of death in the following year increase by a larger amount, but never quite to 1. What's more, beyond a certain age there's evidence that the increase slows back down again. All we know is that there isn't anyone, in this universe, who has survived thousands of years. You know why? This one's ''yours''. (Actually, no, this one's mine. Get your own universe.)
* Consider the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics]] - within the endlessly bifurcating alternate universes every possible thing happens.
[[/folder]]
----
[[HighOctaneNightmareFuel/RealLife Ready for more]], or do you [[SweetDreamsFuel need]] [[TroperTales/HeartwarmingMoments a]] [[Heartwarming/RealLife break]]?
[[/folder]]
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Changed line(s) 1,19 (click to see context) from:
Geek.
Metalhead.
Shy guy.
Possibly the chosen one.
Probably isn't.
* I live in Eastbourne, which is as sucky as seaside towns get.
* I'm a hardcore gamer - PC and DS, plus emulators for the retro stuff ^_^
* I'm a metalhead
* I don't drink, smoke or do drugs. I go through phases as to whether or not I associate with the straight edge movement; at the moment I do.
* I'm anti-drug and anti-abusive drinking - unfortunately the junkies and alcohol abusers aren't.
* I'm an atheist, which obviously means I eat babies.
* I'm an anime fan.
* I'm a film buff.
* I enjoy photography.
* I'm a vocalist, guitarist and songwriter for a hardcore/post-metal project which is going to be called Sundowner. I don't know what form, if any, this project will end up taking. I used to be a death metal writer and vocalist as well.
* I Know kung-fu.
* I like those Channel 4 ads where the 4 appears from a bunch of conveniently floating debris.
* My friends mean more to me than anything in the world.
Metalhead.
Shy guy.
Possibly the chosen one.
Probably isn't.
* I live in Eastbourne, which is as sucky as seaside towns get.
* I'm a hardcore gamer - PC and DS, plus emulators for the retro stuff ^_^
* I'm a metalhead
* I don't drink, smoke or do drugs. I go through phases as to whether or not I associate with the straight edge movement; at the moment I do.
* I'm anti-drug and anti-abusive drinking - unfortunately the junkies and alcohol abusers aren't.
* I'm an atheist, which obviously means I eat babies.
* I'm an anime fan.
* I'm a film buff.
* I enjoy photography.
* I'm a vocalist, guitarist and songwriter for a hardcore/post-metal project which is going to be called Sundowner. I don't know what form, if any, this project will end up taking. I used to be a death metal writer and vocalist as well.
* I Know kung-fu.
* I like those Channel 4 ads where the 4 appears from a bunch of conveniently floating debris.
* My friends mean more to me than anything in the world.
to:
Metalhead.
Shy guy.
Possibly the chosen one.
Probably isn't.
* I live in Eastbourne, which is as sucky as seaside towns get.
* I'm a hardcore gamer - PC and DS, plus emulators for the retro stuff ^_^
* I'm a metalhead
* I don't drink, smoke or do drugs. I go through phases as to whether or not I associate with the straight edge movement; at the moment I do.
* I'm anti-drug and anti-abusive drinking - unfortunately the junkies and alcohol abusers aren't.
* I'm an atheist, which obviously means I eat babies.
* I'm an anime fan.
* I'm a film buff.
* I enjoy photography.
* I'm a vocalist, guitarist and songwriter for a hardcore/post-metal project which is going to be called Sundowner. I don't know what form, if any, this project will end up taking. I used to be a death metal writer and vocalist as well.
* I Know kung-fu.
*
I like
* My friends mean more to me than anything in the world.
