Hello, my dark darlings. I'm Marquia, and this is the Something Scary podcast. To our veteran listeners and those sheltering in the dark with us for the first time, welcome.

Everyone needs to work, but we all do it for different reasons. Some get jobs wherever they can to pay the bills.

Others are lucky enough to work in pursuit of a passion, regardless of why you work.

It pays to put in the time in effort to excel at whatever you do.

Otherwise, you could end up being worked to death.

First, an Uber driver who must pick up a frightening passenger, followed by a telemarketer

who gets in too deep with a customer, then a ballerina willing to rehearse herself to death.

Finally, in our featured story, a video game developer tries to survive crunch time.

I receive hundreds of creepy story submissions every single week, and of those, the scariest ones, make it into our podcast, along with the story that we've chosen to animate and post over at YouTube.com slash snarled.

If you have a tale you're dying to share, send me an email at something scary at snarl.com.

So, want to hear something scary?

Worked to death.

Projecting your own fears and anxieties onto others won't make the reality of your situation go away.

When your guilt becomes too much, you only have yourself to fear.

Like in this story, inspired by Brian. Owen drove along the narrow,

decrepit road, feeling uneasy about this path in the dark. He was only hoping his Google

maps had enough service to get him to the location to pick up his next Uber passenger.

A cloud of mist hung in the air, and it looked like it was about to storm on this abandoned road.

It was reminiscent of a stereotypical horror film, he chuckled to himself, trying to suppress his anxiety.

He couldn't quite shake the feeling that something was watching him with a voyeuristic intent.

In an attempt to change the mood, he turned up the volume on the radio,

hoping that it would drown out the little voice in his head,

...