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William Dalphin is an American author who began contributing short-form horror stories to the Nosleep subreddit on Reddit in February of 2011. His first tale, "She Found Her Way Into My Home" was one of several that were the basis for the Nosleep forum being converted into one dedicated solely to writing.

He has since shared numerous stories on Reddit, many of which have been narrated on The Nosleep Podcast and Chilling Talesfor Dark Nights, as well as countless individual YouTube creators. Several stories have been shared as Creepypasta, including "She Found Her Way Into My Home", "A Game of Flashlight Tag", "We Don't Talk About Sarah", and "The Crawling House on Black Pond Road".

In August of 2017, in a collaboration with Craig Groshek of Chilling Talesfor Dark Nights, he published a collection of stories from over the years, fully illustrated by Emily Holt as an homage to the work of Stephen Gammell's illustrations in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. The book, "Don't Look Away", can be purchased on Amazon.

Due to the number of pseudonyms he writes under, a maintained list of his Reddit submissions can be found on his Nosleep Wiki Entry.

Since February of 2019, he has worked almost exclusively on the Lily Madwhip series.


His Most Commonly Referenced Works Include:


William Dalphin's work provides examples of:

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    #-E 
  • Ambiguous Ending: Many of Dalphin's stories are open-ended, either leaving the narrator's fate a mystery or any explanation of the events up to the reader's determination.
  • Anachronic Order: The story of "The Jack Monster" repeatedly jumps backward and forward in time between the narrator helping his sick father and his memories of growing up with him.
  • Anti-Climax: The narrator of "She Found Her Way Into My Home" sees the terrifying visage of a woman in gray staring at him from the bedroom door. He eventually goes to sleep.
  • Asshole Victim: In "Two Stories of the Haunted Cave", Carl's friend Turkish is the epitome of this. You don't feel the slightest bit of regret that he ends up as a prop.
    • Jasper from "The Well Went Bad on the Pierson Farm" is kind of a douche, but what happens to him isn't fully explained.
  • Bad People Abuse Animals: Turkish from "Two Stories of the Haunted Cave" brags about burying a cat up to its head in his lawn and mowing over it.
  • Big Creepy-Crawlies: The eponymous house from "The Crawling House on Black Pond Road" has a gigantic insect nest covering the bottom of it's foundation.
  • Bloody Horror: As you would expect from horror stories, this isn't uncommon.
    • "An Unexpected Guest" ends with the narrator's friend's wife finding her aunt's decapitated head in her uncle's bloody bedroom.
    • The roommate from "A Conclusive Demonstration" guts herself in front of the narrator as part of a government mind-control project.
    • The narrator's father in "The Jack Monster" doesn't even see it coming, but we get a description of the aftermath.
    • "The Ant King" doesn't hold anything back, going into gruesome detail as ants chew their way out of Brandon from the inside
  • Body Horror: Aaron experiences this first-hand when things go wrong with "Aaron's Magic Boxx".
  • Camping Episode: A number of stories are set during camp-outs or at a cabin in the woods, including: "The Cross By the Railroad Tracks", "The Eye in the Knothole", "One Mean Grip", and "Bdellophobia".
  • Character Title: "Olivia" and "Molly".
  • Creepy Basement: "The Jack Monster" is kept in the basement. The narrator is told to never go down there.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: This is a staple of many stories.
  • Cruel Twist Ending: "Hunger" isn't subtle about what's in the bag, the twist comes when you find out who's in the bag.
  • Death of a Child: In "Peek-a-boo" where the narrator can't seem to protect her babies from a malevolent spirit.
  • Don't Go in the Woods: It's safe to say that the woods are not the best place to hang out in any of Dalphin's stories.
    • "A Shortcut Through the Arboretum" leads to Haydee getting decapitated as part of a ritual to bring a wood carving to life.
    • "A Game of Flashlight Tag" has this as a rule during the eponymous game. Someone doesn't listen.
    • The narrator from "Will-O'-Wisps" is told by his grandfather not to go in the woods. Naturally he goes anyway.
  • Downer Ending: Many of the stories have this.
  • Driven to Suicide: Tom from "The Crawling House on Black Pond Road" shoots himself rather than surrender his will to the things inside him.
    • The entire plot of "Olivia" is a suicide note to the narrator.
    • The narrator's friend's uncle in "An Unexpected Guest" eventually hangs himself.
  • Eaten Alive: The narrator's friend from "The Crawling House on Black Pond Road" is eaten alive from the inside out by wasp larvae.
  • Evil Elevator: In "Why I Refuse To Work Late Anymore", a freight elevator in the office opens on its own, and the narrator hears rattling chains coming from within.
  • Evil Old Folks: It could be said that the friend's uncle in "An Unexpected Guest" is this.
    • "The Last Halloween" averts this when it's revealed that the kindly little old lady who seems to have gone mental is actually someone else wearing her face like a mask.
  • Eye Scream: The narrator's artist friend in "Beyond Vantablack" is told that one of his fellow artists tore her eyes out after seeing things in her art installation.

    F-J 
  • Fate Worse than Death: The other artists in "Beyond Vantablack" suffer this.
  • Forbidden Zone: "A Room of Pitch Black", "The Devil Lives on Old Mill Road", "A Game of Flashlight Tag", "Will-O'-Wisps".
  • The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: It's suggested that the entirety of "A Conclusive Demonstration" is one step in preparing the reader for the same mind-control process that the narrator and her roommate went through.
  • Friendly Ghost: The eponymous friend in "Olivia" is this.
  • Genre Blindness: It goes without question that if any of the characters knew they were in a horror story, they'd have acted differently.
    • "The Jack Monster" averts this to a degree when the narrator is told as a child that there is a monster in the basement and spends his life never going down there. Of course, the story exists because he finally went down there as an adult.
  • Ghostly Goals: Many of the ghosts in Dalphin's stories seem to exist solely to torment or kill people.
    • The woman in gray in "She Found Her Way Into My Home" seems to be there solely to torment the narrator, even favoring staring at him all night over others in the house. It's never explained what her intent is.
    • A rare aversion occurs in "Olivia", where the ghost of the narrator's best friend visits him to say goodbye before moving on to the afterlife.
  • Ghost Story: "The Cross by the Railroad Tracks" concerns an old campfire legend turning out to be more true that the narrator originally thought.
    • "Bedtime Stories" features a pair of tales told by a child, one of which is eerily similar to the Mexican folktale of La Llorona.
    • As to be expected from a horror writer, many of the stories are themselves ghost stories.
  • Goodbye, Cruel World!: "Olivia" is basically one long suicide note that the titular character wrote to the narrator.
    • The father in "Painting of a Hallway" and it's follow-up "All Doors Lead to the Hallway" ends the story by declaring that he is going to face the monster, with the expectation that he will not return.
  • Harassing Phone Call: The narrator in "Why I Refuse to Work Late Anymore" receives a phone call that declares the time over and over again. When it can't reach him on his line, it calls the phone one desk over.
  • Government Conspiracy: The roommate in "A Conclusive Demonstration" takes part in an experiment which is potentially funded by the government to mind control people remotely.
  • Grand Theft Me: It's highly implied that the narrator's friend in "The Crawling House on Black Pond Road" kills himself because he's losing control of his body to the larva inside him.
    • The roommate and narrator in "A Conclusive Demonstration".
  • Half the Man He Used to Be: The narrator's friend in "The Cross By the Railroad Tracks" is ripped in half by a vengeful ghost.
  • Halloween Episode: At least three tales take place on or around Halloween: "The Last Halloween", "A Shortcut Through the Arboretum" and "The Body on Main Street".
  • Haunted House: While there's heavy implication early on that "The Crawling House on Black Pond Road" is haunted by the ghost of Tom's suicidal aunt, the story averts this when it's revealed that the house's true problem is a serious bug infestation.
    • "Less Than One Night in a Dead Man's House" features a house that is as haunted as they come.
    • After the events of "An Unexpected Guest", the narrator tells of returning to the house only once before, and hearing the cries of the uncle outside his door.
    • Several other stories are ambiguous enough to possibly involve haunted houses.
  • Hillbilly Horrors: "The Eye in the Knothole", "Will-O'-Wisps", and "Uncle Wallace's Shack".
  • Humans Are the Real Monsters: The plot twist/revelation at the end of "A Tiller of the Ground" brings to question the way the father enforces the rules in his household.
    • Although "The Jack Monster" appears to play this straight at first, it's averted when it's revealed that the man tied up in the basement actually is a monster.
  • I See Dead People: This is the entire point of "She Found Her Way Into My Home", "The Crystal Egg", "The Ashland Express", and "Olivia".

    K-O 
  • Light Is Not Good: The eponymous "Will-O'-Wisps" are ghostly lights that lead the unwary to their doom.
  • Lost in the Maize: "It Came From the Cornfield" and "A Tiller of the Ground" both briefly feature the narrator getting lost in a cornfield.
  • Mundane Ghost Story: Although it appears to avert this at first,"The Crawling House on Black Pond Road" plays this straight when it's revealed that the cause of all the story's horrifying events is a gigantic insect nest built under the house.
    • "The Jack Monster" actually plays this trope straight and subverts it three times in a row, when the father says there's a monster in the basement and the evidence supports it, the monster turns out to be a man he chained up in the basement, then it turns out the man is a shape-shifting monster.
  • Never Trust a Title: The narrator of "We Don't Talk About Sarah" spends the entire story talking about Sarah.
  • Not-So-Imaginary Friend: The daughter's mysterious story-teller in "Bedtime Stories".
    • "The Man in the Attic" at first appears to be a child's imagination... until the babysitter investigates the attic.
  • No Ending: Read on it's own, "She Found Her Way Into My Home" comes across as a plea for help by the narrator that is never resolved.
    • The sequels, "Bedtime Stories" and "It's In the Blood" don't even fully resolve themselves, let alone the original story.
  • No Party Like a Donner Party: "Hunger" makes little effort to hide the mystery of what happened in the elevator. The true mystery is who it happened to.

    P-S 
  • Paranormal Episode: More often than not, a story will feature a paranormal event of some variety.
  • Portal Door: "Painting of a Hallway" (and it's follow-up, "All Doors Lead to the Hallway") features a painting full of doors that connect to real doors, allowing the monster in the painting access to the real world.
  • Punch-Clock Villain: The unseen antagonist of "A Conclusive Demonstration" is merely demoing their latest technological breakthrough to someone else.
    • It's uncertain if the company Demtronics in "Beyond Vanta Black" is malevolent in nature or simply experimenting with things beyond their understanding.
  • Questioning Title?: Original Title: "Have You Seen This Painting of A Hallway?"
    • "Do You Have A Moment To Talk About Our Lord Bacchus?"
  • Random Events Plot: The narrator of "She Found Her Way Into My Home", "Bedtime Stories", "It's In the Blood", "It Came From the Corn Field" and "The Basement" is the same individual dealing with completely separate events.
  • Rapid-Fire "No!": Uttered by the narrator of "The Hobbit Hole" after all the lights go out in the hallway he's in.
  • Real After All: "Olivia" could be simply hallucinating the ghost of her dead boyfriend... except at the end, the narrator see's Olivia's ghost.
  • Red Herring: The aunt's suicide in "The Crawling House on Black Pond Road" is something of a red herring, leading the reader to believe that the story is going to be about a haunted house.
  • Scary Flashlight Face: The narrator of "A Game of Flashlight Tag" watches his neighbor get murdered while a flashlight is held under her face.
  • Sir Swears-a-Lot: The narrator of "The Crawling House on Black Pond Road" goes on an expletive-laden rant after waking up in a sleeping bug full of bugs.
  • Snuff Film: Not surprisingly, "I Watched Your Father's Snuff Film" features a snuff film.
  • Somewhere, an Entomologist Is Crying: Not surprisingly, the insects featured in "The Crawling House on Black Pond Road" and "The Ant King" do not behave in a realistic manner.
  • Stealth Sequel: It's never outright stated, but "Bedtime Stories", "It's In the Blood", "It Came From the Corn Field" and "The Basement" are all sequels (and prequels) to "She Found Her Way Into My Home".
  • Succubi and Incubi: "The Devil Lives on Old Mill Road" features a woman who may be a succubus, or possibly the devil in disguise.
  • Survivor Guilt: The narrators of "The Ant King" and "Painting of a Hallway" feel this after the loss of their families.

    T-Z 


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