The Story of Mr. Widemouth, a Creepypasta That Toys with Nostalgia

The best horror often finds us unsure of what’s real, questioning everything – and that’s certainly true of the Mr Widemouth creepypasta. A tiny, anonymous Internet story that feels like a perfect encapsulation of the creepypasta genre, Mr Widemouth is, at its heart, a story about childhood and memory. The events of our youth become blurry and sometimes sinister as we age, and it’s in that liminal realm that our titular character exists.

But, more importantly than that, the Mr Widemouth creepypasta is just what you expect: creepy. This mini piece of digital fiction makes a surprisingly potent punch, and its namesake antagonist has become something of a popular villain on the Internet. (Okay, he may not be quite at Slenderman’s level, but DeviantArt doesn’t lie.) Let’s take a look at the story and all there is to know about Mr Widemouth.

The Mr Widemouth Creepypasta Story

The story begins anonymously. We are introduced to the narrator by way of them seemingly reminiscing. They begin talking about their childhood, about how they moved around a ton as a kid, and about how most of their memories are fuzzy aside from “one set of memories which remains as clear as glass, as though they were just made yesterday.” Oh, do tell!

From here, they launch into the juicy details.

They were living in a tiny town in Maine as a five-year-old when they were diagnosed with mono, leaving them very sick and bed-ridden. Naturally, they became incredibly bored, entertaining themselves with books. They then nonchalantly mention Mr Widemouth for the first time – “I don’t exactly recall how I met Mr Widemouth,” they say.

Their description of him is relatively brief and drained of detail. They mention that he is a “small creature” with a huge mouth that dwarfs his other features. After suggesting that he looks like a Furby, it’s revealed that they can communicate with Mr Widemouth.

Mr. Widemouth, is that you? Photo by Dan Brickley

The two of them begin to become friends as the narrator struggles with isolation. As you might expect, they keep Mr Widemouth from their parents.

Although he seems harmless enough, things start to go south when Mr Widemouth begins to suggest different games for them to play. The first is an imagination game where they jump from the window together to an invisible trampoline below – if they just believe hard enough, they’ll bounce back up! Uh, no thanks. The next game involves the poor kid learning how to juggle. Mr Widemouth provides knives for them to practice with. Once again, they’re too smart to fall for it, and Mr Widemouth begins to grow angry with them, skulking under their bed.

As time goes on, they realize this creature may not have their best interests in mind. Simultaneously, their condition gets better, and they’re allowed to go outside again! They step out into their yard and see Mr Widemouth who leads them to a path in the woods. He says he has brought many of his friends – all children – to this same spot at the end of the path, and that the narrator will one day go to the end of the path with him.

Luckily, that never happens. Instead, the narrator and their family end up moving houses, and they drive away from their tiny community in Maine early one morning. When the narrator looks back, they see Mr Widemouth in the window, waving sadly with a knife in his hand.

The narrator returns to the home as an adult, but they find that it has burned to the ground. Mr Widemouth is nowhere to be found. They decide on a whim to walk down the path in the forest that their one-time friend told them about. At the end of the path is a cemetery, one filled with tombstones denoting the graves of children.

What is the Meaning of the Mr Widemouth Story?

The story of Mr Widemouth is a seriously freaky one, and that’s partially due to the fact that nothing really happens. There’s no overt violence, there’s no gore – there’s just the implied evil intentions of this weird, uncanny creature. That’s where the genius of this story lies. The readers are then forced to imagine its intentions and its past. Hell, we’re even forced to imagine Mr Widemouth’s appearance, for the most part.

But what is the meaning here? Are we meant to check under our own beds for Mr Widemouth every night? Should we be scouring our childhood memories to see if we ever interacted with this terrifying villain?

Well, no. There’s not really a concrete meaning of the Mr Widemouth creepypasta. Instead, we’re left with something a bit more vague. Although the narrator presents their memories as something that truly happened, we have multiple reasons to doubt them. Not only were they five years old, but they were also very sick. Mr Widemouth easily could have been a twisted fever dream of theirs. Additionally, they were socially isolated; as they drive away from their house, their dad mentions settling down so that the poor kid can finally make some friends. Needless to say, Mr Widemouth very well could have been their own creepy imaginary pal.

But here’s the thing: we’ll never know whether he was real or not, and neither will the fictitious narrator. The way that the story plays upon nostalgia is incredibly potent simply because we all have odd memories like this – those weird, unbelievable memories from childhood that we stuff into the deepest corners of our psyches. In a way, we all have our own Mr Widemouth. Hopefully yours is less creepy than this one, though….

Mr Widemouth Sightings

There are a lot of creepypasta villains out there that seem to bleed into the real world. As an example, Slenderman has been seen multiple times in real life, with many Youtube videos even claiming to have caught him on camera. (We’ll let you decide how legit these videos are.) These sightings aren’t always fun and games, either. There was a very real stabbing that took place in 2014 where children claimed to be working for Slenderman. Yeah… disturbing stuff.

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Mr Widemouth, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have any similar sightings outside of the Internet. There aren’t really any stories on the Internet – credible or not – that feature anyone claiming to have run across our Furby-like frenemy IRL. Hey, the Mr Widemouth creepypasta did end with the creature seemingly disappearing when the house went up in flames.

Perhaps the more realistic explanation for why Mr Widemouth hasn’t ever been seen is because he was just a figment of the narrator’s mind, the results of an overactive imagination further stimulated by sickness and isolation. There are many accounts out there, though, of other children having similar (and very creepy) hallucinations and imaginary friends. Just do some reading on shadow people to see what I’m talking about. Those horror movies where a kid casually mentions seeing something that shouldn’t be there? They aren’t that unrealistic, it turns out. Kids really do see ghosts. Cue the music.

So, no, there aren’t really any Mr Widemouth sightings. But there are many sightings out there of people’s own unique versions of Mr Widemouth, their own creepy, imaginary creatures. And that’s close enough, really.

Main illustration by Mark Bishop on Unsplash

Last Updated on October 19, 2022.