Sometimes the shortest tales are also the scariest — and the fact that today’s creepypasta is still being heavily shared across multiple social media, after more than eight years online, is a testament to that notion.

This story is claimed to be derived from the actual testimony of an unnamed male patient currently residing in a hospital for the criminally insane. Variations on this man’s tale have been circulated in creepypasta form on Reddit since 2008, but the alleged source transcript, upon which the most popular version is based, is said to have been found more than a decade earlier.

The patient in question was tried and convicted for the brutal murder of his four-year-old daughter, and suspected (but not charged, due to lack of evidence) in the disappearance and presumed death of his wife. The crime was believed to have taken place precisely 20 years ago — Sunday, July 14, 1996.

The most-shared version of the man’s testimony omits any names involved in the case — though in some variations, the man claims his daughter was named “Angela.” For the sake of convenience, We’ll call her that today.

It all began when the man was awakened by Angela that fateful Sunday morning, at 3:23 am. She was standing at the side of the bed, shivering slightly in the shadows, her eyes darting back and forth nervously.

“Daddy, I had a bad dream,” the girl said, almost inaudibly.

The man struggled to waken himself, his eyes still unfocused in the darkness. “Do you want to climb into bed and tell me about it?” he asked her.

“No,” she replied, her voice barely above a whisper. She didn’t sound like she was sleepwalking; it seemed she was trying to avoid being heard.

“Why not, sweetie?” the man asked quietly, trying not to disturb his sleeping wife.

He looked more closely at his daughter, feeling her forehead to determine if she might be feverish. But she didn’t appear to be physically ill… she just looked terrified.

“Because, in my dream,” Angela whispered, “when I told you about the dream… the thing wearing Mommy’s skin woke up.”

In his semi-conscious state, it took the man a few seconds to process what his daughter had just said.

But he soon found himself fully awake, and felt a deep chill course through his body, when the covers next to him began to shift…