The Crawlspace is a Creepypasta written by Kaitie H. It is a cautionary tale told by a young woman, who whilst on a student aboard programme in Rome, had a terrifying experience involving the mysterious crawlspace in the apartment she was staying in.
Not to be confused with the 1986 Slasher Movie Crawlspace (though they've both got creepy crawlspaces).
Can be read here
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Contains examples of:
- All of the Other Reindeer: Downplayed with the narrator. Although her roommates aren't unkind to her, she does admit to feeling like a bit of an outsider because they were already all friends prior to the trip, while she's a stranger. The narrator also tends to be more cautious and anxious about things compared to the other three. This only becomes more pronounced later in the story, as the other girls clearly don't believe the narrator that there's something seriously wrong with the apartment, with Stephanie even calling her "a nutcase" after the creature nearly got the narrator. Her roommates generally avoid her after that, thinking she's mentally unstable or just not reacting well to being away from home for so long. The narrator's sense of isolation from the other girls is likely why she doesn't try harder to convince them of the truth.
- Being Watched: The narrator gets this feeling a lot whenever she uses the master bathroom, which is where the door leading to the crawlspace is located. She feels not only that she’s being watched, but that whatever it is watching her is "angry" at her. Turns out, she’s right.
- Bit Character: Alisha and Lindsay don't get many lines or much in the way of individual characterization; they're almost indistinguishable from each other. Stephanie gets a bit more prominence because she shares a room with the narrator and is the one she interacts with the most.
- Bittersweet Ending: The narrator gets away to safety, but is left with the guilt that she couldn't save her roommates, who disappeared without trace a few weeks after she left. The creature is also likely still at large and might even have escaped the apartment to seek further prey.
- Cassandra Truth: No one believes the narrator about the creature and her roommates seem to think she’s having some sort of breakdown. She’s the only one who escapes in the end.
- Creepy Blue Eyes: The malevolent creature from the crawlspace is said to have disturbing bluish eyes, once the narrator gets a better look at it.
- Darkness Equals Death: The creature only seems to come out at night and apparently prefers the dark (the last time that the narrator spots it is in the very early morning when the sun hasn't even risen) although it’s not confirmed if it never comes out during the day.
- Foregone Conclusion: Due to the narrative being framed as the narrator telling the reader a true story that occurred last summer, we know that narrator at least got away from the apartment relatively unscathed. What we don't know is exactly what happened at the apartment the narrator wants to warn us about, nor what happened to the narrator's roommates.
- For the Evulz: A possible explanation for the creature’s behavior. Although it’s free to do as it pleases, it doesn’t do anything vicious at first. It just seems to be watching and waiting, messing with the characters instead of doing anything evil. You can take that to mean that it’s toying with them and enjoying it.
- Good Parents: Surprisingly for a horror story, the narrator’s parents. Though confused, they agree to let their daughter come home early when she begs them to and are understanding. Just as well, considering what happened to her roommates...
- Hell Is That Noise: The horrible cracking sounds the creature’s limbs make when it moves and the sound of it running about the apartment.
- Idiot Ball: One has to wonder why the narrator didn't show her roommates the picture she took of the creature to prove her story? Then again, considering their Genre Blindness throughout the story, they may just have dismissed it as a trick of the light or the narrator trying to mess with them, but you would've thought she'd have at least tried? It sticks out because the narrator is actually pretty smart throughout the story.
- Missing Child: Teenagers Alisha, Lindsay and Stephanie vanish without a trace whilst on the foreign exchange trip, never to be seen again. The narrator counts herself lucky she got out of there sharpish, or she would've vanished along with them.
- Monster Delay: The narrator (and the reader) doesn't get a good look at the creature until right near the end of the story, and even then, she can't make out everything because it's dark.
- Mundane Luxury: The girls are amazed to find that the apartment contains a washing and drying machine, which is an incredibly rare thing to find in Rome, and the narrator muses that exchange students often have to wash their clothes by hand in the sink and hang them up to dry. While the other girls are excited, such a luxury item only adds more fuel to the narrator's concern about why this massive apartment with multiple furnishings was so cheap to rent.
- Never Found the Body: Stephanie, Alisha and Lindsay went missing soon after the narrator fled back to America, and no trace of them was ever found, though the narrator is convinced they are dead.
- No Name Given: The narrator and her tour director are not named.
- Nothing Is Scarier: The story is all the more terrifying for what's left unexplained. We never find out what exactly the creature is, where it comes from, how it (supposedly) ended up sealed in the crawlspace, and what might have happened to previous inhabitants of the apartment that led to the landlord offering such a low rent. Nor do we find out what happened to the narrator’s roommates, who simply disappeared (although the narrator is pretty certain they’re all dead and it's heavily implied the creature was involved).
- Oh, Crap!:
- The narrator’s reaction when she sees a face in the photograph she took of the crawlspace.
- When the narrator hears the creature coming towards their bedroom and realises Stephanie forgot to bolt the door after using the bathroom.
- Properly Paranoid: The narrator is immediately suspicious of such a large apartment in a prime location being so cheap, and wouldn't have chosen to stay there at all if her roommates hadn't insisted. Her concern rises further when they get to the apartment and see how big it is in real life, as well as wondering why so many relative luxuries (like a washer/dryer and a master bathroom) are included. She starts locking her bedroom door when she realises there’s something sinister lurking in the apartment and immediately makes plans to leave when the creature tries to enter their room.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: The exchange programme supervisor - though he doesn’t believe her, he allows the narrator to fly home early after seeing how distressed she is.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: The narrator arranges to fly home early when she realises there’s something evil in the apartment. Unfortunately, her roommates don’t follow her example...
- Sealed Evil in a Can: The creature apparently lives in the crawlspace, the entrance of which is a small, locked door in the master bathroom. Of course, the girls just had to open it, didn’t they?
- Sole Survivor: The narrator is the only one out of the four people staying in the apartment to survive the story, since she escapes back to America as soon as she can, unwittingly leaving the others to their fate.
- Too Dumb to Live: The narrator’s roommates. A nice and relatively large three-bedroom apartment in one of the most desirable and expensive areas of Rome is so cheap that four college students can afford to rent it for three months? Seems sound. There’s a small door leading to a crawlspace which was intentionally blocked off by the owner? Let’s open it! Our roommate has been hearing something moving about in the crawlspace and the door opens by itself? Probably a pigeon that flew in. Something tried to come in our flatmate’s room at night and it wasn’t any of us? She’s probably just going crazy and imagining things. They all end up disappearing, presumably killed by the creature.
