Submitted by scarymaxx t3_10rruer in nosleep

When my sister, Amy, was in 9th grade, her favorite math teacher, Mr. Marris, leapt from the top story of the humanities building and exploded on the pavement. He did it right as the lunch bell rang when the main quad was at its busiest.

Later, everyone would have a story: a description of the way his arms disengaged from his torso. A spot of his blood on a pair of Converse sneakers that landed from twenty feet away. Words Mr. Marris murmured as he descended through the air.

Ninety percent of it was lies. But high school kids had to entertain themselves somehow.

Of course, no one could top Amy. Amy told us all that she was being haunted. We thought it was a joke at first. She’d always been a little weird. Mommy’s little math genius who’d never been to a sleepover much less gone on a date.

As a seventh grader, Amy had memorized pi to 100 digits. By 8th, she was already taking classes at the high school. In 9th, she was the only freshman in Mr. Marris’s calculus class, and the only one with a perfect grade at the time of his fall.

A week after the fall, when Mr. Marris’s replacement came in, Amy spent the first hour of class staring into space and muttering to herself. Finally, after the sub was sufficiently creeped out, she asked Amy what she was saying.

He doesn’t like the way you’re teaching derivatives, Amy said quietly. You shouldn’t start with real world examples like acceleration and speed. Leave that for the physicists. Start with the pure theory like an actual mathematician, you fucking bitch.

If Jackson Poole was to be believed, she’d practically growled those last words like the chick in The Exorcist. But then again, he was stoned half the time and loved making shit up.

After Amy’s outburst, the sub decided to peace out, and the principal pulled Amy out of the class. My parents threw a fit, but the administration wiggled out of their crosshares by claiming Amy was too advanced and needed special accommodations.

The principal got a PhD student from the local college to come in for a couple of hours a week to work with Amy. But the guy freaked out after just a couple of sessions. Every new concept he introduced, Amy seemed to already know back and forth, despite the fact that she’d never read any of the textbooks.

I still have a copy of the email he sent the school with my parents cc’ed: There’s simply no way a 14 year old girl would be able to intuitively grasp Taylor and MacLuarin series through osmosis, sheer genius or even poking around on the internet. Worse, she claims that Mr. Marris is the one whispering answers to her, and that he doesn’t like my cologne. I feel threatened, and I don’t wish to continue in this position.

Of course, to my parents, the school was the problem. Their little genius was just too smart for the lazy administrators. At dinner, they muttered about lawsuits and taking the GED, applications to MIT and CalTech.

“They’re wrong, you know,” said Amy one day after mom and dad had cleared out. “I’m not that smart. He just won’t stop shouting the answers at me. And if I don’t repeat what he says, he gets so mad.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to be comforting. “I guess I didn’t realize you guys were that close.”

“We weren’t!” she shouted. Then, calming down a bit, she added. “You believe me, right? That he’s here? He says you don’t believe me.”

“I think you’ve been traumatized,” I said, careful with my words.

“He said you wouldn’t believe me,” Amy muttered. “He said no one would.”

As I tried to go to bed that night, I heard Amy’s soft snores drifting out from the room across the hall. It had been a long time since she’d gone to sleep before me.

It reminded me of when we were little girls and shared a bed. Back then, her room had been our room. When she had trouble sleeping, she’d stare nervously at the ceiling, conjuring invisible monsters, and I’d tell her stories to calm her down.

I guess we’d drifted apart since then. I still loved writing, but I wasn’t much of a student. At some point, people had decided I was average and she was the star, and those labels had just stuck, pushing us further and further apart over the years. And of course I still loved her, but it had all been shaded with resentment and hurt.

But now, in this moment, I just wanted her to be a star again. To be her old nerdy self. To be okay.

I walked over to check on her sleeping. That’s when I saw the brown book for the first time. She had it nuzzled under her arm as she slept. It smelled musty, and its bindings were cracking with age. Slowly, I crept over and removed it from under her arm.

Mathematica Imaginari read the title.

The book felt strangely warm to the touch, and something in me wanted to drop it. Still, I might have opened it if not for the fact that at that exact moment my sister’s mirror fell off the wall and shattered into a thousand pieces.

Amy woke with a start and looked at me with panicked eyes.

“My book,” she said, springing out of bed. She snatched it out of my hands. “You need to stay away from it,” she warned. “You wouldn’t understand it.”

It was only then that she realized she was standing on a shard of glass. She bent over and pulled it slowly out of her foot.

“Bad luck,” she said, looking dazed. “Seven years bad luck for both of us. Seven times seven is forty-nine. Times seven again is three hundred and forty three. Times seven again is two thousand, four-hundred and one. Times seven again is–”

I screamed for my parents.

After that, Amy took a turn for the worse. She’d take a pen and stand on a chair in her bedroom. Starting at the corner where the wall met the ceiling, she’d scribble impossibly complex formulas, sometimes including symbols I couldn’t identify even on a Google search.

“It’s a proof,” she tried to explain. “A proof of something that humans aren’t supposed to understand, I think. But he’s making me understand. He says we’ve lived in a house of straw called believe for millenia, and this will rewrite everything. The whole house is coming down. There are just so many numbers, though. Holding it all in my head… it’s so hard.”

She was crying as she spoke.

“He won’t stop talking. Won’t stop ranting. He never listens. He never shuts up.”

When we sent photos to professors at the local university, they dismissed it as numerical gibberish, a bucketful of meaningless equations.

“He’s making me do it,” said Amy, almost in tears one day when I asked her to stop. “He says we’ve got to bring the math from where he is back over here. He says his mind is open now. He says he’ll hurt you and mom and dad if I don’t do everything he says. Now I need you to call Professor McAddams at Princeton and tell him the following.”

“Amy–” I started to say. I noticed the brown book at her feet, and I quickly snatched it up.

“I don’t think you should have this anymore,” I said.

Her eyes grew wide and she lunged at me, trying to grab it back.

“Please,” she said. “He’ll make me hurt you. Please just leave before–”

“It’s all in your fucking head!” I shouted. “He’s not making you do anything!”

“Don’t you dare disobey me, you whore!” she shouted, and then she stabbed my hand so hard with the pen that the tip stuck out my palm.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, again and again. “He made me do it! You believe me, right? You have to believe me!”

After that, they had Amy committed on a 48 hour involuntary hold at the psych ward. I wanted to visit, but the doctors recommended against it.

At home, the pain in my hand seethed. My parents were exhausted and went to sleep early, but I just sat in Amy’s room. The brown book lay on the floor, a splotch of my blood still on it for where I’d been stabbed.

For a second, I was furious, thinking about the way she’d stabbed me, how angry she’d gotten. It was like I didn’t know her anymore. But the more I thought about it, the more I just missed her. I just wanted her back.

I picked up the brown book and took it to the stove. Then I put I turned on the burner and let the flames eat the whole cursed thing. The cover stunk and smoked as the flames consumed it. Before it fully went up, I swear it tried to move, edging its way away from the flames, but I put it back in place with a long fork. I kept watching it burn until the smoke alarm went off and my parents ran down panicked to check on me.

Back at school almost a month had passed, and the administration had just gotten its act together to start planning a memorial for Mr. Marris. Posters were up all over campus, complete with his school photo and a request for speakers who had touching memories to share.

I was walking down the hall when I saw Janet Cassidy rip down one of the posters and shove it in the trash.

“Not a fan?” I asked.

“Just forget it,” she said, heading down the stairs. But I followed.

“I thought everyone loved that guy,” I said. “He’s was like, everyone’s favorite math teacher.”

“Come on,” she said. “Don’t play dumb. You’re really going to make me say it?”

“Yeah?”

She shrugged. “He was tutoring me after school sophomore year and felt me up a little. He told me not to tell anyone, so I didn’t. I’d write him little love notes and imagine all kinds of crazy shit. Like how he’d leave his wife for me, and we could finally be officially a couple once I graduated.”

We came up to another poster, and she tore it from the wall, ripping it into pieces, letting them fall to the floor.

“Then one day I walked in. I’d brought him a coffee and asked him for a kiss. But he was busy reading this super old math book. He was muttering numbers, and then he wrote this crazy equation on the board. He asked me to help him solve it, but I wasn’t even in Algebra II yet. Then he called me a fucking stupid kid. I tried to hold his hand, and he basically shoved me off into a desk. That was kind of the end for us.”

“I told a couple of people about the whole thing, but no one believed me. Mr. Marris’s wife was smoking hot. Why would he bother with some ugly underclassmen. People said I didn’t even have boobs to grab, that sort of shit. Even my parents said I should just drop it. The worst part is he told me no one would believe me, and he was right. That without proof nothing I said mattered. Asshole.”

After two days, they let Amy out of the psych ward. Apparently, she’d been able to keep it together pretty well, and the doctors wrote the attack off as an isolated incident. They gave her the number of a therapist and sent her home.

“You burned the book,” she said when I tried to go in to her room to talk with her.

“I thought maybe it would help,” I said. “I just want you to be better.”

“Don’t you get it?” she asked. “It doesn’t matter. He has his own copy over there. He’s going to keep reading it to me. He’s going to keep read it until the numbers take me, just like they took him”

“Amy,” I said. “Mr. Marris is dead. He’s not talking to you. Please. Please come back to me. I just want things to be like they were.”

“He’s laughing at you now,” she said. “He said you set off the smoke alarm. He said now our parents think you’re crazy too.”

“Fuck you,” I said, slamming the door behind me.

We all tried to pretend everything was normal.

Amy even went back to school, but of course by then the rumor mill was going full speed. The abuse was endless.

“So does Mr. Marris watch you go to the bathroom?”

“What’s 2,758 x 9999?”

“Does his wife know he’s with you instead of her?”

“None of them believe me,” said Amy at lunch, crying hot tears that fell from her face all the way down to her lap. “Why won’t anyone believe me?”

I said nothing, staring at my wounded hand.

“Do you know Janet Cassidy,” I asked, but by the Amy was already walking. She marched past the picnic tables and up the stairwell, muttering to herself.

No, I’m done talking to you. I’m done. You can get yourself a new girl. I’m done. I’m done I’m done I’m done!

I started after her, but she was going faster now, taking the stairs two at a time, counting them as she went. She sprinted up, three, four flights of stairs and then up to the roof. I could barely breathe as I tried to catch up to her. Finally, I emerged onto the roof myself to see her standing fifty feet away at the ledge overlooking the quad.

“Wait!” I shouted. “Don’t do this, Amy. I love you! Please don’t do this. I love you so much.”

“I don’t care if you love me,” she shouted back. She leaned out into the space above the quad. If not for the wind blowing her back, I think she might have a fallen right then. “Plenty of people love me! I don’t need that!”

“He’s waiting for me down there,” she shouted. “He’s got a pen all picked out. He says I’ll be holding it for all eternity, writing for him. Holding his fucking pen!”

And then, suddenly, the words burst out of me. “I believe you.”

She blinked away tears.

“No you don’t,” she said. “Don’t lie. You think I’m fucking crazy.”

I took a step toward her.

“I believe you,” I said again, and I meant it. I knew there was no evidence. No way to ever prove it. But I knew she needed someone to believe her. And so that’s what I gave her.

As I said the words again, she fell to her knees sobbing. I ran to her and held her in my arms, just like I had when she was a little wiggly toddler, and all she wanted was for me to hug her.

“I felt so alone,” she said.

I looked around. “Is he here right now?”

Amy blinked her eyes and looked around, confused.

“It’s the strangest thing,” she said. “He’s gone.”

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Comments

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rainlikeice t1_j6xjx19 wrote

I’m glad it wasn’t too late for your sister! You should proceed carefully. You don’t know for sure if he’s gone or just moved to someone else.

189

N4meless_44 t1_j6xz11d wrote

that was a way too close of a call im glad shes alright, has she recovered? hows she doing?

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scarymaxx OP t1_j6xzg0u wrote

She's mostly back to her old self. The hardest part has been everyone else, to be honest, still treating her like she's crazy. Hopefully that goes away over time. On the good side, she actually did learn a ton of advanced math over the course of the ordeal, and she's been working with some new tutors online that are helping her continue to grow.

94

karmadovernater t1_j6y8jfr wrote

Wonder if it is supernatural or she's Schizophrenic. As the voices tell you to do stuff exactly like she's hearing. Esp to hurt others. But being believed would make them go. For now.... If its a genuine ghost. He was definitely giving your sister some mental abuse. Feeling all alone. Isolating her and what not. Wonder if those numbers fucked him up. Those that seek power are usually succumbed by it and can't handle it at all.

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Shiroiiko t1_j6yhtjs wrote

Now I'd like to know more about math from the other side...

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MizzCroft t1_j6yrwon wrote

He was a piece of absolute crap! Total monster in a human body! DISGUSTING

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CathrynMcCoy t1_j6ysbp1 wrote

I think you guys need to find out who posses Mr. Marris before he jumped. I guess nobody believed him, so he jumped to end it and just made it worse. To break the curse, find out who had this possession before. This must have started somewhere.

6

princessvapeypoo t1_j6zfy5s wrote

What a dick. But thanks to you, he failed to isolate your sister, which what he seemed to have needed in order to continue. I hope things continue to improve, and I'm glad this didn't have a tragic ending.

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simulatislacrimis t1_j6zjx1f wrote

Ah, the creep managed to be abusive both in life AND in the afterlife. Fuck him.

Sometimes, all it takes really is for one person to believe what you’re saying. I’m glad that person was you. And I’m sure your sister and Janet are glad too.

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oreganocactus t1_j6zkc1f wrote

Taylor/Maclaurian series are not that out of a 14 yr old's scope haha

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techlecticwtch t1_j6zklx7 wrote

I have my comprehensive exam in math tomorrow. Well, if I fail at least my prof won't haunt me. I hope Amy shows this guy she's better at math and at life. And may he rest in all the unsolvable problems and improvable theorems.

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A_Discord_Pro t1_j6zu7b0 wrote

this makes me realize i shouldn't be a nerd at all

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Lightwalker666 t1_j70dgof wrote

Hmmmm. I suck at math so I'm good there. There's more there, though. You realize this right? like: Dude dies. Haunts your sister, starts talking interdimensional math and reality and shit, then suddenly "disappears" when you tell her you believe her? I recommend talking to allllllll the theoretical physicists and relativity and whatever else math people you can get to plus allllll the supernatural experts you can find. Creep or not (fk him for perving on a kid btw) it sounds like he found... something

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Mo3inaz t1_j70p67j wrote

It sounds like just like with the previous girl, he found a different type of control. Wonder if that brown book was his confession through some sort of mathematical code or process. Kinda like the zodiac killer, it’s all in the “key”

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S4njay t1_j70sgkw wrote

Wait, your believing her was enough for the guy to finally go away? Wow!

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clownind t1_j72f9au wrote

The way they teach kids math nowadays is truly a nightmare.

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Independent_Long9457 t1_j72smw5 wrote

Yo how can I get ahold of Mr. Marris for my calc test today... you think the proctors will notice if I smuggle in a oujia board?

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newbieboi_inthehouse t1_j72wz0o wrote

Your love for your sister broke the nerdy math teacher's curse just like in fairytales. I am glad that you freed your sister from that despicable math teacher.

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Veelex t1_j759xa1 wrote

Wait...where did he go?! Someone finally believed that there is no proof, meaning that evil equation can never be solved. That's a big brain way to break a curse.

Edit: clarity

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Animal_Eyes t1_j873yo9 wrote

I agree, well I'd like to see what those keylontic science people have to say about this.

There is an author by the name of Jon Vermillion who may have something to say about this.

If I had the funds and personal relationship, if she was of age and willing and of the same curiosity; I would pay for her to have professional banishing done by my instructor, to see if she can recall or if we can get the mediating spirit (not the dude, but the madness/entity) under some kind of containment.

See the thing that happens is that with these higher dimensional type manifestations, they are tapped into some kind of issue that exists in the visual processing/ light going out of the eyeball sort of deal that is commensurate with the physics of the universe. Basically; a part of the human soul that is physical is the perceptive apparatus, I-e the electricity / light of the soul.

However the true nature of human beings and sentience is a step before which is our symbolic intelligence, you can think of it as subtle patterning that simply exists as a by product of chaos, not causally interlinked, but more like fluid dynamics, completely chaotic and yet a single sentience. So this chaos essentially has the raw quantum materials for connective mediums to build which eventually create physical systems and thus time. But the in between point has some sort of wound in the way biological systems "see" which is to say the way the "light," see what was already engineered before it could "see." (an example would be to imagine if double speak existed in a perceptual visual manner, thus a whole bunch of context would get lost)

This wound is the whole point of anything like this, it's the subject matter of pretty much any geometrically based occultism, the old greek animistic schools of thought, hermeticism etc. There are new pioneers which essentially are breaking down the problem and focus on shadow work, with the intent to discover which geometric systems are actually safe for an upgrade processes.

Point is though this ghost is definitely into that sort of thing, and a lot of people on that spectrum may or may not be trying to heal this wound. You never know, they could be trying to save us, or just another doomed soul with its hand stuck in a tree fucking with the brains for who knows what end.
Without any context from the original material we aren't gonna have a clue.

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AllTheCreatures t1_j8gld72 wrote

That's how it goes with fundamentally weak people like that. They prey on children and the powerless. The second they see their victim gain even one ally, start to grow even a little stronger, they turn and run.

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