Stolen Tongues

Stolen Tongues began as a story posted in a Reddit community dedicated to horror, a subreddit called r/nosleep. In these subreddits, members can share content and interact with others’ content, offering feedback or simply discussing whatever topic unites them. These communities are created and maintained by members, who set the group’s rules. In r/nosleep, users post their own short horror stories, which must be written as though they were true; this is, in fact, the community’s main rule. The r/nosleep subreddit has even inspired a popular podcast called The NoSleep Podcast.

According to the subreddit’s current rules, “all stories on r/nosleep must be framed as scary personal experiences where something scary happened to your Main Character. They all must be in first person point-of-view and be in either past or present tense” (“Revised Guidelines for nosleep Effective January 17, 2025.” Reddit). True to the r/nosleep rules, Stolen Tongues is a first-person encounter, and the main character and narrator’s name is Felix Blackwell. The fact that “Felix Blackwell” is also the author’s name adds to the impression that the story is true, heightening its realism and boosting its fear factor.

In addition, main characters cannot be “dead or in a coma or incapacitated/incarcerated by the end of the post/story,” nor can the main character be an animal, an inanimate object, or posting from the past or future (“Revised Guidelines for nosleep Effective January 17, 2025”).