Shadowing Practice: 3 True Snapchat Horror Stories Animated - Learn English Speaking with Video

I barely put my phone on the nightstand after posting the first snap of Nina

and me together when my bedroom window shattered.

My phone clattered to the floor, and I flinched as my ex, Rebecca, crawled inside, looking like an angry bull.

Where's homewrecker Aaron?

Rebecca?

What the hell?

Get out!

I'm asking one last time.

Where is that bitch?

I met Rebecca at a college fest.

She was in the music program and actually had a pretty decent voice.

I asked her out, and by the time the weekend was over, we were official.

The first few months were great.

We clicked on everything.

She loved hanging out with my friends and was already hinting at a long-term relationship.

But around the one-year mark, things started to fall apart.

I landed an internship at an architecture firm downtown, and she started getting super anxious when I wasn't around.

I kept telling her work was hectic, but nothing helped.

She'd call me five times in a row if I didn't answer once, and eventually, she even started calling my co-workers.

When she thought I was asleep, she'd go through my phone.

I tried talking to her and setting some boundaries, but it would only stick for a week before she'd slide right back.

That Valentine's Day, Rebecca wanted me to take off work for a trip to Miami she'd planned, but I was gunning for a full-time offer and told her I couldn't make it happen.

She completely lost it, trashing the apartment and screaming that I was choosing my job over her.

I told her I was done with the drama and ended it right then.

As expected, she didn't handle it well.

She texted all my friends and tried to humiliate me in ways I wouldn't want to remember, but after a few weeks of being ignored,

she finally went dark, and I actually had an impression she was over it.

By September, I'd started seeing Nina from work.

Compared to Rebecca, she was a breath of fresh air.

About two weeks in, I posted a photo of us on Snapchat.

I took it while dining at this rooftop bar.

I felt like things were finally clicking into place.

I had no idea Rebecca was still watching me from a burner account and that she was about to break in.

Rebecca, get out or I'm calling 911!

I warned her.

How dare you go behind my back!

You think I wouldn't find out?

I'll show you!

She shoved past me, tearing through the living room and screaming insults about Nina.

I scrambled after her, yelling for her to stop, but she ignored me completely.

She stormed into the kitchen and started flinging silverware across the floor.

Seriously, Rebecca, get the hell out of my apartment.

We are nothing.

I stepped in front of her.

She stood still for a second and blinked, looking shocked that I'd actually stand my ground.

I was heaving, hoping she'd maybe break down and run.

Instead, she started clapping and giggling like a maniac.

Suddenly, she lunged.

She grabbed the box cutter from the table and drove it into my forearm.

Pain exploded up my arm and I screamed.

Now tell me this is nothing!

She hissed, yanking it out and shoving it back.

Blood dripped from the deep cut.

I was in shock, stumbling back against the wall.

But she wasn't done.

She kicked me in the calf and while I doubled over, she bolted toward the basement to tear up my storage unit.

I fought to catch my breath before I somehow limped to the bedroom to grab my phone.

I was dialing 911, but she was already out the door by the time the operator answered.

I got four stitches, filed a police report, and took out a restraining order the next morning.

When the cops questioned her, she denied ever being there.

Of course, the hallway camera in my building had been spray-painted over earlier that week, so I had zero footage and nothing to show for it but my arm.

I really thought the restraining order would stop her.

But three weeks later, the snaps started up again.

There was me leaving my apartment at 8 in the morning, shot from across the street and at the gym, taken through the parking lot window.

She even captured me walking into Nina's building across town.

Every snap came from a fresh burner account without texts or bitmojis.

I knew the game she was playing.

She just wanted to make sure she'd be in the back of my mind 24-7.

I brought every single screenshot to the detective

that he just told me to keep documenting and said it was tough to prosecute without something more direct.

I hated hearing that.

One morning, I checked Snapchat, half expecting to get another snap from the street.

Instead, I got a photo of a bedroom wall with my picture pinned to the center.

It was surrounded by candles and other stuff I didn't want to look at too hard.

The caption read, I'm going to get you back very soon.

I rushed back to the police with everything.

They went to her place and did a tour, but they said it looked totally normal.

There were no shrines or anything.

Either she'd scrubbed it before they got there, or she was running this out of a place nobody would ever find out.

By the time they tried to trace the account, it was already dead.

She's been quiet for weeks now.

Nina even felt safe enough to move back to her own place.

I've stopped obsessively scanning the street every single morning, though I still catch myself doing it half the time anyway.

I don't know if she's finally moving on, or if she's just getting smarter about how she does this.

Honestly, I don't know which one scares me more.

I was fiddling with my camera settings to get a better shot

when I saw something move behind the bush on my screen.

I zoomed in and completely froze.

My throat had gone so dry I could barely speak.

My best friend who had been messing with Snapchat filters for the past 10 minutes snapped her head up.

She looked at me before following my gaze.

Her eyes widened.

Unaware of our presence, the man continued dragging the woman deeper into the woods.

He was tall and built like a bull.

The woman seemed to be in her mid-twenties and was totally limp.

Her feet dragged through the grass behind her.

Before I could even move, Darla started recording, following him.

She muttered something about needing to get the scene clear before doing anything.

Are you crazy?

100

I hissed, scrambling after her.

101

She didn't even look at me and kept adjusting her lens.

102

Suddenly, the guy stopped, dropped his backpack, and pulled out a roll of duct tape and some rope.

103

My stomach dropped.

104

Dardless, stop!

105

He kidnapped her!

106

We have to call 911 right now!

107

She glanced at me, annoyed, like I was interrupting something important.

108

And miss this?

109

This is going to be huge, and we're getting actual evidence.

110

Just give it ten minutes.

111

We get the footage, then we call.

112

I stared at her, horrified.

113

Have you lost your mind?

114

She promised it wouldn't take more than ten minutes.

115

Against every instinct I had, I stayed.

116

I didn't know it yet, but I was making a mistake that could have been the last of our lives.

117

But I loved and trusted Darla.

118

She had been my best friend since middle school.

119

She lived two blocks away, and every Saturday that wasn't gray, she'd drag me out to Riverside Park for snaps.

120

She had this photography account with a few thousand followers on Snapchat and was obsessed with chasing the golden hour.

121

I mostly tagged along because it was usually a nice way to kill an evening.

122

We'd grab snacks at the park entrance, wander the lake path, and I'd scroll through my phone while she snapped photos and asked for my opinion.

123

That Saturday in April, we were about an hour into our usual loop, way out by the tree line.

124

The light was hitting everything just right, so I pulled out my phone to snap a few shots of my own.

125

That's when I saw the man dragging the woman behind the bushes.

126

Darla, enough!

127

I hissed, my heart slamming against my ribs.

128

We have to call 911.

129

My thumb hovered over the 911 dialer.

130

Wait!

131

Darla snatched it up.

132

Just one more minute.

133

We need proof, or nobody's going to believe us.

134

We crept through the bushes, watching from 20 feet away.

135

He was methodical, like he was doing yard work.

136

He pulled out tape and rope.

137

The woman on the ground didn't move.

138

Darla was live streaming.

139

Her phone was lighting up with DMs and people screaming at her to call the cops.

140

The numbers were insane.

141

Darla, stop.

142

We're calling now.

143

One more minute.

144

Just as I reached for my phone, the guy looked up and our eyes met.

145

He blinked and before I could even gasp, he was on us.

146

Darla shrieked and bolted, but I was too slow.

147

He covered the distance in a heartbeat and grabbed my arm.

148

Yanking me back, he shoved me into the dirt and pinned my wrist with his knee.

149

The next thing I knew, he had a knife to my throat.

150

Drop it!

151

He barked.

152

I let my phone fall into the dirt.

153

My heart was going a mile a minute.

154

I couldn't know what to do.

155

He started talking trash about how my friend had ditched me

156

and saying some really sick stuff about what he was going to do next.

157

I was shaking so hard I could barely move.

158

I was crying, begging him to just let me go and promising I wouldn't say a word to anyone.

159

Now where's the fun in that?

160

He sneered.

161

About time, the woman on the ground started to wake up.

162

I saw her eyes open and she realized what was happening.

163

She started trying to crawl away, being as quiet as possible.

164

but he hurt her anyway.

165

He spun around and before she could bolt he caught her and shoved the knife in her ribs.

166

I screamed.

167

He backhanded me to shut me up and went after her again.

168

There was blood everywhere.

169

It got all over my shirt and his hands.

170

The woman looked like she was trying to scream but no sound was coming out.

171

He dropped her like she was a piece of trash and turned back to me, grabbing me by my hair.

172

He had the knife inches from my neck when a gunshot went off from the hedge.

173

He stumbled back.

174

It didn't even register what happened until I saw Darla standing there with two cops.

175

One of them still had his gun aimed right at the guy.

176

She'd sprinted all the way to the park entrance and found a patrol car.

177

She actually made it in time.

178

Turns out the guy was David Winskin.

179

He was a drug addict and the woman's stepbrother and had been trying to extort money from his stepfather.

180

When the dad didn't take him seriously, David lost it and kidnapped her on her way home from work.

181

The woman survived.

182

She was in surgery for hours and lost a lot of blood, but she's okay now.

183

Darla and I spent the whole night at the station giving statements.

184

When my parents picked me up, my mom didn't say a word, but she held my hand like she was scared I'd disappear.

185

The detective told us the Snapchat video was good evidence, but it was really stupid of us.

186

He said that the time spent filming instead of calling 911 was time they could have used

187

and helped us avoid all that blood and injuries.

188

Darla kept apologizing for weeks over her foolishness, crying about how that one minute could have cost me my life.

189

She's right, but I feel just as responsible.

190

I could have just called 911 myself.

191

I could have saved that woman and myself a lot of trouble.

192

It was stupid of me, and it could have ended a lot worse.

193

But I can't go back and change it.

194

I have to live with it my whole life.

195

And I've learned.

196

I was still half asleep in bed at 7 when my phone buzzed with a Snapchat notification.

197

I grabbed it, hoping for a cute text from the guy in my econ class, or maybe a meme from Becca or Jade.

198

Instead, a video popped up.

199

It was only 15 seconds long, filmed in the dark, with the camera slowly panning across the room.

200

Dread crawled up as I watched.

201

My throat tightened with each passing second, and heart started racing.

202

I recognized the curtains, the ring light on the table, and that aesthetic poster pulled off from Pinterest immediately.

203

I held my breath while the camera panned slowly to the figure sitting on the bed.

204

A painted red toe came in the frame first, followed by some blonde curls, and finally, the face.

205

I shrieked, fumbling and dropping the phone on the duvet as I jolted upright.

206

It was me.

207

Someone had been inside my apartment while I was asleep and filmed me.

208

I'd been at Caldwell for about a year.

209

Being a junior on financial aid meant my life was grinding through my accounting degree and working two campus jobs.

210

I lived in a third-floor studio with a keypad lock on campus.

211

And until two weeks ago, my biggest stress was to maintain my grades

212

so I could uphold the scholarship and making sure my assignments were in on time.

213

The first snap came on a weekend at 7.05pm.

214

I was stuck in a massive study session, trying to fix a balance sheet error.

215

Suddenly, my phone chimed with a Snapchat notification.

216

I picked it up.

217

It was a snap from a throwaway account called Your Reflection.

218

I opened it and froze.

219

It was a photo of me, taken from the foot of my bed at 2am.

220

I tried to reply, but there was nothing except for a default bitmoji.

221

I asked the person who it was, but didn't get any reply.

222

I tried getting more details about the account, but it only had a bitmoji and nothing else.

223

I panicked, thinking maybe a creep had broken in or something and hurriedly rang the building management.

224

By the time they arrived, I changed my keypad code and checked every window, but all of them were already bolted.

225

I told them I received a snap somebody had taken from within my room.

226

They checked the building's CCTV, but it didn't seem like anyone had entered.

227

I tried to convince myself it was just a sick prank by a friend, maybe Jade.

228

She had a YouTube channel where she posted stupid prank videos once in a while.

229

So I called her.

230

You kidding?

231

Why would I ever do something so silly?

232

Uh, I'm sorry.

233

I just thought maybe you'd want content or something.

234

You serious?

235

Babe, my pranks are always harmless.

236

I swear it's not me.

237

I wanted to believe her.

238

Midterms were fast approaching, and I'd almost forgotten about them.

239

But on a Wednesday evening while I was studying, 7.05 p.m hit again, and another snap pinged in.

240

This time, it was me in the bathtub.

241

My hands started shaking.

242

I called campus police right away, and they didn't find a thing when they searched the place.

243

Since the snap was a one-time view, I had zero proof to show them.

244

One of the officers even had the nerve to ask if I was on something.

245

I told him that was completely insane.

246

Over lunch, I vented to Becca and Jade.

247

Becca was clearly worried, but Jade just tilted her head and asked if I'd been under a lot of stress.

248

What do you mean?

249

It happens to me all the time during finals.

250

I lose track of whether I've eaten or showered.

251

You've been stressed about midterms because of your scholarship, so maybe...

252

I told her I was prepared and, while worried, I knew I'd keep my grades up.

253

She nodded, but I could tell she didn't buy it.

254

The third snap arrived the next night at the exact same time.

255

This time, it showed me at my desk at 2.47am.

256

By the fourth snap, I was barely sleeping.

257

I put tape over my laptop camera, bought a doorstop alarm, and started sleeping with the lights on.

258

It didn't matter, though.

259

The fifth one came anyway.

260

After that, I didn't waste a second ordering a hidden camera from Amazon.

261

I set it up on my bookshelf, aiming it right at my bed.

262

I didn't tell anyone about it.

263

I spent three days watching the footage, but there was nothing.

264

By the fourth morning, I was so exhausted, I barely wanted to check the footage, but I did it anyway.

265

I scrolled through hours of me sleeping peacefully.

266

I was about to shut it off when the video shifted it.

267

At 3.12am, I sat up, moving with a jarring stiffness.

268

I didn't look confused.

269

I stumbled to my desk and pulled my old spare phone out of the corner drawer.

270

I shoved it into a pile of books at a weird tilted angle.

271

I fumbled around with the screen, hitting record before I sent the clip.

272

I walked back, collapsed onto the bed, and passed out again.

273

My eyes were open the whole time, but my face was completely blank.

274

I rewatched the clip a dozen times, hoping I'd see something that proved it wasn't me, but the clip didn't change.

275

I called Dr. Okafor the next day.

276

Jade had mentioned him a while back.

277

It took several weeks of sessions and tests before he could confirm it was a dissociative episode caused by extreme academic stress.

278

He said it's more common than people think and totally manageable.

279

We've been working on it for about four months.

280

I'm better at spotting the triggers now and my sleep schedule is rigid.

281

I haven't gotten a snap from your reflection in six weeks.

282

But I still keep that camera on the bookshelf because the worst part wasn't the creepy messages.

283

It was realizing that while I was dead asleep, my body was up and moving around as if I were there, but there was nobody home behind my eyes.

284

Thank you.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “3 True Snapchat Horror Stories Animated”. This video has 284 sentences and 3103 words to shadow. The speech runs for 18:35. The speaker talks at a natural 167 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. Only 77% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.

Key vocabulary in this video

The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
scream verb	/skɹiːm/	To cry out with a shrill voice; to utter a sudden, sharp outcry, or shrill, loud cry, as in fright or extreme pain; to screech, to shriek.
shove verb	/ʃʌv/	To push, especially roughly or with force.
bolt noun	/boʊlt/	A (usually) metal fastener consisting of a cylindrical body that is threaded, with a larger head on one end. It can be inserted into an unthreaded hole up to…
hiss verb	/hɪs/	To make a hiss, a sibilant sound of air escaping.
crawl verb	/kɹɔːl/	To move by dragging one's body along or close to a surface, like a worm or insect, or on one's hands and knees, like a human baby.
bookshelf noun	/ˈbʊkˌʃɛlf/	A shelf or shelves for storing books for easy visual reference.
keypad noun	/ˈkiːpæd/	A small board with keys primarily used for tactile input into a machine.
kidnap verb	/ˈkɪdnæp/	To seize or detain a person unlawfully and move or conceal them; sometimes for ransom.
midterm adjective	/ˈmɪdˌtɚm/	Halfway through a term, or roughly so.
restrain verb	/ɹɪˈstɹeɪn/	To control or keep in check.
shriek verb	/ʃɹiːk/	To utter a loud, sharp, shrill sound or cry, as do some birds and beasts; to scream, as in a sudden fright, in horror or anguish.
stumble verb	/ˈstʌmbəl/	To trip or fall; to walk clumsily.
yank verb	/ˈjæŋk/	To pull (something) with a quick, strong action.
burner noun	/ˈbɝnɚ/	An element on a kitchen stove, hob, or cooktop that generates localized heat for cooking.
rib noun	/ɹɪb/	Any of a series of long curved bones occurring in 12 pairs in humans and other animals and extending from the spine to or toward the sternum.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
pull out verb		To withdraw; especially of military forces; to retreat.
find out verb		To discover, as by asking or investigating.
get out verb		To leave or escape.
break down verb		To stop functioning.
come out verb	/ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/	To be discovered; to be revealed.
double over verb		To bend over deeply at the waist.
fall apart verb		To disintegrate, to break into pieces.
go back verb		To return to a place or state after having been there at a previous time.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

I'm asking one last time.
You think I wouldn't find out?
Honestly, I don't know which one scares me more.
Have you lost your mind?
Why would I ever do something so silly?

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	was done · being ignored · wasn't done
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	I've stopped · I've learned · I've eaten
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	friend who had · person who it

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 66 contractions and reduced forms, such as didn't, I'd, she'd. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: thumb /ˈθʌm/, aesthetic /ɛsˈθɛ.tɪk/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: shove /ʃʌv/, bookshelf /ˈbʊkˌʃɛlf/, shriek /ʃɹiːk/, notification /ˌnoʊtɪfɪˈkeɪʃn̩/, scholarship /ˈskɑːləɹʃɪp/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like scream, shove, bolt.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

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