The Haunting of Self [Part I]

Dear Nathaniel,

I just want to preface this email by saying that what you are about to read is 100% true. Believe me or not, what's written down is a true occurrence that happened just this morning. I believe you’re an expert on this subject matter and I want your help to clear out my confusion.

About three weeks ago, I moved into a new house that was built back in the 1950s, if I remember correctly. It’s a very old house that, like any other house that manages to live this long, has a bunch of stories surrounding it. I’m normally not one who gets scared easily, so staying here alone wasn’t going to bother me anyways. Luckily, for more than two weeks of living here, I had two friends rooming with me too, as they were looking for an apartment (they had just moved to the city) and I offered my spare room to share until they could find a new one.

They found a nice little apartment the second week after we moved into the house and moved out a couple of days later while I was at work. I had specifically mentioned to one of them who had the front door key to leave it on the counter when they left so that I could get it back from them. When I returned home from work, I found that the key wasn’t there, as they’d forgotten to leave it when they moved out. That wasn’t a problem, and I wasn’t concerned as I had the back door to get in and out of the house, and the friend apologetically promised to get it back to me the next day.

Fast forward to the next evening, I decided to fire up some movies, sipping on my soda and enjoying my first night alone in my new house. I waited for my friend to come by and drop the key off while I watched movies, but he didn’t stop by. After texting him, he said that his new flatmate had to stay late at work, and since he had the car, he couldn’t drop the key off that night. He promised to bring it by first thing in the morning before he went to work at around 5 AM. Fair enough, I thought.

After finishing up my last movie for the night, I went to bed, saving the cleanup for the morning. I ended up having a rather vivid, concerning nightmare.

So, in my dream, I was laying in bed with someone, who I oddly felt a strange special connection to. It was very dark, but the moonlight peeking through the curtains was bright enough and I was able to see where everything was. I heard the sound of clothes falling on the floor (we all know what that sounds like), so I sat up and looked down the room where the bathroom was. Clothes were piled up in front of the bathroom door. I remember being baffled as to why and how they were there, and I believed that they had either fallen there or were tossed off the wardrobe.

That was about the point at which I heard a woman’s voice beside me whisper, "I'm scared!"

“Don’t worry, it’s probably nothing,” I replied. We decided to get up and move to another part of the house, away from the bedroom. On our way out, I happened to take a peek down the hall, and some… creature peeked around the corner of the hall door. It was some shadowy figure, and I could tell that it had no hair on its head, and my brain made me assume it had long lanky limbs, with its fingers touching its face, attempting to hide itself from my gaze for whatever reason. What really freaked me out was that this thing moved so unnaturally. It moved as if it had no skeletal structure, yet appeared to stand tall and firm. When my eyes fell on it, it suddenly started jerking back and forth, as if panicked.

“Get out, creature!” I screamed. “Leave! You don’t belong here!” And the more I yelled at it, the more it seemed to frantically jerk around, as if it were stuck. I ran toward the thing while screaming at it, and it was almost at my grasp when it slipped outside the door. I opened the door and flipped the switch, only to find the room empty.

That’s when I woke up.

I remember being so shaken that I was too afraid to open my eyes in fear that I would see something standing next to me if I did. I was sweaty all over, and felt as if my body wasn’t truly mine. Then, recollecting my senses I comforted myself that it was just a dream. I reached out to the remote and turned on the TV to take my mind off of the nightmare. I remember checking my phone. 4:27 AM.

After about 15-20 minutes of aimlessly flicking through channels, traces of sleep finally touched my eyes. I turned the TV off and closed my eyes.

About ten minutes pass, and I remember being in a state of dreamy haze when out of the corner of my eye, I could make out a figure that resembled Ava, my Turkish Angora who usually sleeps with me, perked up. She was staring intently at me, fiercely meowing, tail firmly straight and up as if she was gearing to attack. I wanted to tell her to stop, but what escaped my mouth sounded more like deep painful wailing. I then made out what sounded like a hazy knocking. About 20-30 minutes must have passed without me having any recollection of my actions, when I found myself sweaty in my bed again.

Another dream? I tossed and turned without daring to open my eyes before finally falling asleep again.