Revelations: The Theory of Prof. Isaac

There are things in this world we were never supposed to realize, things working behind the veil of reality, playing with the perceived natural order.  For our minds, for reasons unknown to us uses only a portion of its own potential having set its own boundaries inside reality perhaps to save us from our own madness and insanity.  We continue to play with perception and expand what was never meant to be expanded and explore the outer reaches of our minds capabilities.  One day however we will all discover a world we so wise-fully ignored in ignorance and be forced to bargain for our sanity in the face of wicked evil things.  We will purge whatever rational thoughts we had with the suffocating feeling of inevitability and as time passes, we will ignorantly expand the boundaries of our minds.  We will be able to perceive more the world that was always there pulling at the strings of superstition and madness.  Crawling over the skin of our brains with pointy crabby fingers, toying with our perception and we will finally know what the eerie feeling of when something didn't feel quite right meant, what the goosebumps on your skin was for, we will realize it was this world of horrible things playing with our sanity.

I also would be in ignorance of these boundaries if not for the passing of an old professor and close friend.  I came into possession of certain belongings with many curious oddities.  Professor Isaac had been like a father to me always looking out for my well being and helping me along in college.  He never had a son so I felt closer perhaps because he viewed me as the son he never had.  He was a very decorated and weathered historian and throughout his lifetime had traveled the world many times over.  In the event of his passing however he left me some very curious things in his research and manuscripts.  He was in the midst of an unfinished personal project that I have also become intrigued with.

The more I have delved further into those spaces Prof. Isaac had explored before me, spaces that did not like visitors I felt perhaps the passing of Prof. Isaac was not as natural as the doctors had claimed.  He was in good health at the time of his passing and the doctor's found no specific medical reason for his untimely death just the futile explanation that his heart had stopped.  He was 65 years old and they blamed it on old age.  I have never quite accepted that answer, for Prof. Isaac had always eaten healthy and exercised daily.  It just didn't quite add up.  A curious death yes but even more curious were his seemingly wild findings and theories of this personal project of his.

It began with him exploring the realm of dreams, an area of study he was never interested in for he thought all sciences were grounded in reality and fact, measurable things.  Dreams weren't measurable and there was no real way to judge them, however Prof. Isaac had began exploring the possibility that he was wrong about dreams and what they could mean.  According to his journal, he had a frequent visitor come to his home and discuss his dreams with Prof. Isaac.  His name was William and beyond his discussions with Prof. Isaac, didn't  seem very extraordinary.  He was a farm hand from one of the local orchards.  According to the notes, he grew up home schooled and barely had a high school education.  He was 20 years of age and didn't appear to have any kind of impressive background of any sort in theology, anthropology, or even philosophy. Why would Prof. Isaac be interested in this man's dreams?

Professor Isaac's notes didn't say how exactly he came across William but did say it was through a mutual friend.  I can't imagine who that would be.  At first, it appeared Prof. Isaac took a skeptical eye to this young man and his dreams.  William described an unnatural ability to paint and draw with exact precision and detail symbols from his dreams.  He didn't know how he was able to do it because he had never been a good drawer let alone painter but somehow the skills necessary for his ability were unlocked and the symbols were oozing out of William with an unnatural yearning to be painted.  He couldn't quite understand it and neither could Prof. Isaac.  The rather specific detail and seemingly natural ability to transpose the symbols right before  Prof. Isaac's eyes won over his curiosity.

William's dreams didn't just consist of just symbols however, he would dream of nightmarish cities that glowed green and had towering monoliths erected at every corner.  The streets had streams of foreign murky liquid with that same liquid trickling down from the walls.  It was always night and the sky had an ominous green glow to it and the stars seemed closer and brighter.  The moon took a quarter of the night sky with waves of blue and green and red streaming passed it.  All the buildings lining the streets were short and square built with huge rectangular stones but toward the center of the city laid a huge pyramid built with massive square blocks.  William would always walk toward the pyramid in his dreams and could see symbols and hieroglyphs on the walls of the buildings.  The streets were always empty but he could hear whispers from every corner as if some unknown society were watching him walk their streets.  Once getting to the pyramid is where his dream always ended but with each subsequent occurrence of the dream he had new symbols to be painted and drawn.

He duplicated the symbols he saw very vividly for Prof. Isaac on a piece of paper and one symbol in particular caught his eye.  It was of pyramids inside a square frame, three of them with what appeared to be a reptilian creature in front, a dragon with a human body and the head of a snake winding up in a half 'S' shape. Prof. Isaac found it curious because he had seen it before in South America in a tribe deep in the Amazon.  He said it represented a trinity unity of mythical creature, man and that of the evil being, the snake which in christian faith is the symbol for Satan.  The tribe viewed the symbol as the unity between man's fate and the inevitability of the world's destruction.   There was no escaping fate. Prof.  Isaac found it curious that this tribe had also developed most of their culture's beliefs around the idea that dreams were another layer of reality and contained hidden messages for us to decipher in order to save one's soul after the destruction of the world.  Their characters and form of art had incorporated symbols they claimed were extracted straight from their dreams and this man William who had never left the state had dreamt of the same symbols.  How could this be?

I had become very intrigued indeed for whatever peeked Prof. Isaac's interests was definitely something worth exploring.  William had become a regular visitor for Prof. Isaac and continued to bring new drawings and paintings from his dreams for him to analyze.  It was as if though Prof. Isaac knew something before meeting William and was testing a theory with these dream symbols.  Why else would he be analyzing these symbols of William's so closely?  Based solely on curiosity was not enough to have William come so frequently.  I don't know what Prof. Isaac might have known but whatever it was I also felt there were more to William's symbols than just coincidence.  I sought out William to try and further understand what Prof. Isaac knew.

William still lived alone in an apartment in the old part of the city.  When I arrived he asked me my business and I told him who I was in regards with Prof. Isaac and his interest displayed some intrigue.  For Prof. Isaac had also excited his curiosity about the strange symbols however, never explained the reason for the study to William and could offer no more insight I myself hadn't already obtained.  But in talking with him I was convinced of his sincerity about his dreams.  The way he spoke of them with terrifyingly vivid detail was unmistakable and almost made me shake at the terrible depictions brought to mind.  Horrible cities of square and rectangular blocks with geometry seemingly wrong in every visual sense.  Only perhaps a mind in madness could convey such imagery with such clarity.  He did speak of a faceless nameless thing that lumbered through the streets with the faint beating of long wings and the sound of clacking hoof steps. I shuttered to think what that may be and sought refuge in the thought that William couldn't transpose a horrible thing like that into reality, but somewhere deep felt a dread stirring in my stomach perhaps tempting me to believe this dream world did in fact exist and had a place in our reality.  Perhaps, as with the symbols there were other ways to transpose such things from dream to reality.

I returned to reading Professor Isaac's journals and manuscripts for there was much to read and labor over.  I finally made a connection with Prof. Isaac's unknown theory with the symbols and a short passage from one of his manuscripts describing the release of demons from another plane through sacrificial payments of souls.  It described a mysterious cult said to exist in the world in the shadows of history, soaked in subtly and secrecy collecting souls as payment throughout the last millenium to pay or open a gateway to our reality.  At first there didn't appear to be a connection with William's dream symbols until on I saw written on the margin "perhaps we see in dreams."  I believe Prof. Isaac may have been exploring the plausibility of using dreams as a window to see another plane of reality, perhaps one reserved for horrifying creatures and demons like that mass of horror with batting wings from William's dreams.  However, I found it very curious Prof. Isaac was entertaining such theories.  This felt too abstract and oneirological for Prof. Isaac.  Why would he be venturing down such absurd studies?  I almost gave up on the whole project until I read a certain entry in his journal concerning a conversation he had with a colleague named Charles.

I didn't know this man, but according to his journal Charles had a brother who was a lieutenant in law enforcement who had come across a supposed cult who had a connection with William's symbols. Upon being in Prof. Isaac's study, Charles saw the paintings of William's symbols and had seen similar symbols before from his brother. Charles explained that his brother the lieutenant had begun getting missing person's reports from his small town in alarming large numbers.  It had caused the local town folk to shudder in fear and demand action.  They believed there to be a faction of people doing coordinated abductions in the night.  There were reports of insane shouts and terrifying screams coming from the woods.  Some could hear the soul chilling chants of some unknown group of worshipers and the towns people couldn't take anymore.  So the lieutenant gathered all officers and ventured into the swamp backwoods. They had to travel by boat for there were no roads going where the screams of mercy were coming from.  Trekking through the murky water in silence, they could hear large fires and soul frightening chants.  They could see a reddish hellish glow from in between the trees and hear shrieks of horror.  These woods were believed by all the townsfolk for centuries to be haunted and cursed and the lieutenant and his men knew the legends.  Some of the men were trembling in fear at just the devilish sounds coming from over the trees.

What they found was something out of a nightmare.  They came upon a scene of worship of blood and sex and sacrifice.  The worshipers, this cult had the abducted people tied naked to wooden posts as each had a turn with leather straps whipping them until every piece of their flesh were bleeding.  Some were still screaming in agony while others were dead at the post still bleeding while still being whipped.  Around a large bonfire were others braying and writhing around in a monstrous showing of movement as they danced around the ring of bodies whipping and roaring.  There was a group of priests around what one officer called dancing devil flames chanting in some deep horrifying trance.  Others were having bloody sex with one another and some were throwing dead bodies into the fire.  There was an eight foot granite monolith on the far side of the horrific spectacle with a body hung head downward with a ring of worshipers jumping and roaring around it.

The fear was too much for the lieutenant and his officers for they froze in panic before taking action. Perhaps, the fear had caused some to hallucinate because there were reports from his men that they could hear the beating of large wings beyond the far trees and some saw shining eyes attached to a huge murky bulk of mass which flew up and disappeared in the night clouds in the sky.  I find it rather fantastic of them to have heard and seen such things but they did however notice a similar symbol on the worshiper's statues and posts.  Three pyramids with a dragon, man, snake unity in front, the same symbol from William's dreams and paintings.  If this lieutenant and his brother Charles were to be believed, then Prof. Isaac did have substance to his theories, as absurd as they may have sounded earlier to me.  I knew Prof. Isaac, he would not just trust the word of people he did not know.  He must have substantiated this story for him to use it as reliable information  He didn't leave the name or address of the lieutenant in the journal perhaps it was in his other belongings left at his home after his passing or I would have corroborated the story as well.  However, the coincidence of the symbols began to addict me and the more I pondered these correlations the more I also didn't believe it was mere coincidence but perhaps something more frighteningly real.  I began to open myself to the idea that these dream worlds were perhaps actually real and hidden in the back of my mind, that conceivably, the creature demons from these worlds were as well.  The horror of such a thought only increased when I retrieved a new journal from Prof. Isaac's home and read a curious entry.

My Brother Fred, Whom I Miss

When I was about fifteen my older brother Fred went off to college.  He was handicapped, paralyzed from the waist down from a weird accident when he was thirteen.  He had lost consciousness and somehow fell out of a closed window three stories up.  My family doesn't talk about the accident.  Since then, even though he was my older brother I had a self imposed responsibility to make sure he was always taken care of.  We had done everything together so when he finally left there was separation anxiety for me.

At college, Fred had gotten a dorm room to himself for the extra space for his wheelchair.  The first month he would call me every weekend for the family updates and just to chat.  I missed him and not having him around made things feel different but the phone calls helped.

One night sometime in the middle of the week he called late.  I was the only one still not in bed and answered the phone.  "Hello?"
"Brad, its Fred. Thank goodness someone answered. I'm freaking out a bit right now."  He sounded very unsettled and shaky.
"What's wrong Fred?"  I asked feeling a little distressed myself hearing him like that.  "Should I get mom?"
"No," he said abruptly, "I don't want her to worry.  Just needed to hear someone's voice from back home.  Good to hear you Brad."
"What's going on Fred?  You're acting really weird and kinda freakin' me out."  I really was freaking out because Fred had never been one to stress out like this.  I was getting worried for him with every passing second of the phone call.
"Nothing Brad.  Don't worry.  Its okay now.  I'm feeling better."  He let out a sigh of relief as if catching his own breath from a long run.  "Just had a weird occurrence, you know like the one we had as kids."  He was talking about the time we had camped out in a tent in the backyard when I was about eight and he was eleven I think.  We were telling ghost stories when the tent began to fill up with mist and we started to have trouble breathing.  We tried to unzip the flap and get out but it wouldn't open.  Then we began to hear a heavy breathing from the back of the tent like from a big animal.  I've only heard breathing like that when I was visiting my uncle's farm and we went up to the bulls; they snarled and huffed heavy and whatever it was in the tent with us that night it sounded just like those bulls. Fred pointed the flashlight to the back of the tent, his hands shaking uncontrollably making the batteries in the tube clatter against the plastic.  Then we saw it, two gusts of steam seemingly coming out of invisible nostrils.  It happened every time we heard a deep exhale from some invisible creature sitting inside the tent with us.  We started screaming and crying hysterically for our dad and finally he came out and opened the front flap and took us out.  We never shared the whole story with my parent's just told them we had gotten frightened of the dark.  It was just something Fred and I shared.

"What happened Fred?"  I said worried.  Nothing like this had happened to us since Fred's accident.
"I don't know if I should say, I think I've said too much already.  I can tell you're worried." His voice had distress laced within it.  I couldn't help but start to feel scared for Fred.
"Well, you have to tell me now.  If you don't that's worse than knowing, sitting here in the dark thinking about what could of happened.  Don't be an asshole, tell me."
"Okay, okay.  You're right.  This happened just a few moments before I called you.  I was about to go to sleep when my room started filling with mist like that night when we were kids, remember?  Anyway, it got really cold and I could see a blanket of soft mist forming on the floor.  That's when I heard it again Brad, that heavy breathing.  You remember right?  It was in my room again whatever it was.  I freaked out and got myself in my wheelchair and tried to leave the room but the door wouldn't open. I kept tugging and tugging but the knob wouldn't turn and the door just stayed shut."  His words at this point were completely soaked in fear and trembling.  He was still scared.  He paused and stayed silent for a few moments before I said anything.
"Then what happened Fred? Did it go away?"
"...yes, it just disappeared and the mist vanished.  I opened the door and came down here to the lobby, that's where I am right now calling you.  I needed to hear someone's voice from back home."

A few weeks passed after that phone call and I didn't tell my parents about what happened with Fred.  Maybe I regret that now because of what happened.  Perhaps, anything said would be in vain anyway.  I need to not carry those types of weights on my shoulders now.  He had asked me to keep it between us anyway, so I did.  But then Fred stopped calling.  We hadn't heard anything from him in a few weeks and figured he was busy with school.

Then one night I had a bizarre dream of a bull with glowing red eyes staring at me in a field dripping blood from its horns.  It kept snarling and stomping its hoof into the ground as if ready to charge at me but instead turned and walked away.  Then, behind it I saw an overturned wheelchair with Fred lying beside it.  He was gored through his stomach.  After that I wake up in a cold sweat.

The next day I had planned on calling Fred myself but instead came home with the phone ringing and I answered it.  It was Fred.
"Brad...is that you?" he said slowly like he was ill.
"Fred!" I said excitedly because it had been so long since I heard from him.  "What have you been doing? School getting busy, can't call your brother anymore?"
"I'm...I'm tired Brad." he said in a low raspy voice.  He didn't sound normal and there was some static interference when he talked.
"I bet you are, probably partying, I mean studying hard."
"Where...am I Brad?" he really sounded confused and worried.  I could hear the hint of fear and disillusion in his voice.  Something was wrong but I kept trying to keep the conversation light.
"What do you mean?  You're at college dumbass.  How am I supposed to know where you are?"  I didn't want him to know I was worried to hear him like that.
"They're...hurting me Brad," his voice was the saddest I had ever heard it before. It was sad, scared and confused all at the same time.  I got scared as well.
"Who is Fred? Who's hurting you?"  A bit of anger was welling up in my voice because I had always tried to take care of my older brother.
"It's dark...and cold.  I...I don't know where I am...Brad...I'm scared."
Then the phone hung up.  I tried calling back but no answer just ringing and ringing.  I told my mom what happened and we called the Resident Assistant to go check up on him since he wasn't answering his phone.  The R.A. called back telling us he couldn't get into the room because something was behind the door barring it from being opened.

We found out later Fred had barricaded himself in his room and had been dead for a week before the phone call.  He committed suicide in his room.  No one really believes I had the phone call with Fred because the doctors know the time of death.  They say I just made it up or it was a dream.  I'm beginning to try and convince myself it didn't happen either these days because of what it could mean.  I love my brother and I failed to watch out for him.  Deep in my bones I feel the horrifying truth but I keep telling myself there was nothing I could do. I just hope and wish and pray he is heaven.

Marriage

Katherine and Joel had been married for 9 years and the first five of those had been a dream.  But the marriage was tested as Joel had cheated on Katherine some time ago with his secretary and it nearly destroyed their ideal marriage.  It had taken years for them to completely overcome the adultery and for Katherine to trust Joel again, leaving them with no children in the aftermath.  Joel always talked about one day having kids but always in the distant future as if implying "one day"" would never arrive.  He knew kids were something Katherine wanted dearly but while never dismissing the idea of having children he wasn't ready and probably never would be.

Katherine had dropped the subject of children after the adultery because it was this misalignment in their marriage that led Joel to cheat in the first place.  She gave up the idea of kids for Joel because she wanted and needed him in her life.  They managed to salvage the marriage for a few more years but the strain of monotony and boredom eventually took its toll on Joel.  He began mingling with other female coworkers and coming home late making Katherine very jealous.  Katherine finally realized Joel would never be ready for children on his own.

Joel had disappeared from his job, family and friends for the next eight months.  No one could get in touch directly with Joel because Katherine would take all his messages and calls.  She was readily available whenever someone wanted to talk to Joel but he was seemingly never around when they came over.  It was another few more months before Joel's family finally intervened with the police.  They came with probable cause and had a warrant to search for Joel in the house.  They entered the home when Katherine wasn't there and found Joel naked bound and gagged upstairs to the bed.  The autopsy later showed he had been dead for a month but had vaginal residue on his penis not older than a day.  Katherine went missing after they searched the house but her last known sighting was a year later in a small nearby town with a baby in her arms.

Going to Parties

Quite a few years back I was studying abroad in Paris with my good friend Miles.  We had decided to partake in having other cultural experiences and thought Paris would be a great place to start.  We both needed to get away from our social scene, me being fresh out of a relationship needed a change in scenery and Miles was just looking for a new place to party and meet girls.  I was never much of party goer but did have the occasional beer but Miles loved going out and meeting new people.  I wasn't particularly good at socializing in unfamiliar environments, I was a bit socially awkward and even worse at talking to girls.  So every time Miles insisted I go out with him to some party I was instinctively hesitant.  Being around large groups of people I didn't know wasn't my idea of guaranteed fun.

I was fresh out of a relationship and still sulking in self loathing.  I must had reached my lowest point in self pity and desperation because when Miles came to me yet again with an invitation to some party from two girls he met on the street I said yes.  He was a natural at socializing with the opposite sex and seemed to always know what to say to a girl.  I guess Miles felt it was somehow under his umbrella of responsibilities to try and get me laid or at least out and drunk enough to talk to girls.

We had no car, didn't know anyone specific at the party save for the two girls Miles had met on the street and just a general area of where the party was but none of this stopped or even dimmed his spirits.  I on the other hand had that hint of regret by the second bus ride creeping out from the back of my mind. When I broke up with my girlfriend I didn't have many friends but Miles had always been there for me and having him then pushing me to get out was something I really appreciated even if I was being a stick in the mud.

After being half lost for almost an hour, Miles told me about how beautiful these two girls he had met earlier were and just seeing them at this party would be worth going.  My thought process wasn't like Miles, I didn't really think I would have any kind of shot with women as beautiful as Miles had described but I didn't stop myself from thinking that maybe there was perhaps a girl there that would like to talk with me.  I kept my hopes up.

Finally, we found the party when we saw people mingling outside with drinks in their hands outside the front door.  We figured that must be the place.  We kindly walked passed them towards the door.  I barely made eye contact with any of them but Miles said hi to all of them like he had known them for years.  We knocked on the door and one of the girls Miles had met earlier answered and she was even more beautiful than Miles had described.  She was maybe 26 or 27 with smooth pale skin and not a single blemish.  She was wearing crimson red lipstick and had a perfect smile with perfect white teeth.  She had short black hair and her eyes were a light tan brown.  Her body was lean but curvy and toned, she was wearing a skin tight black dress that rode high on her legs.  She was beautiful and sexy and way out of my league.  Upon seeing her, the regret I had earlier for coming melted away.

She invited us in with that perfect smile and showed us to the kitchen where they had beer, vodka, rum, gin, and everything in between.  Her and Miles were already flirting with each other and seemed to already have a connection.  I couldn't believe it, we hadn't been here five minutes and Miles already had her attention.  I was always slightly jealous that he could do that so easily.  I grabbed a beer and poured it into a red cup.

I don't remember the name of the woman but she made us feel very welcomed even though we didn't know a single person there.  She introduced us to a few people and finally introduced me to her other friend Claudia whom Miles had already met earlier that day on the street.  Miles and the other woman left me and Claudia and disappeared upstairs.   It was so easy for him I thought and now I was here with this other beautiful girl with the social skills of an awkward penguin.  Claudia was equally as beautiful as her friend but had long brown hair up in a ponytail with her bangs hanging over the side of her face.  Her eyes were the same light tan brown and she also had the smoothest pale skin I had ever seen.  She wasn't wearing any lipstick but had a lip gloss on that made her lips glisten in the low light of the party.

At first we both just stood there being polite with one another and with every passing second of awkward silence I could feel the disinterest in her eyes growing.  I took a gulp of beer and gave it my best shot at small talk.  "So, is this your friend's place?"  I couldn't think of anything interesting thing to say.  She replied, "yes, this is her place."  With every uninteresting thing I said I took a gulp of beer hoping this liquid courage of mine would somehow miraculously make me more interesting or at least drunk enough not to care.  Either way I could feel the lameness of my words as they left my mouth and with every gulp I tried to swallow my embarrassment.  In that moment I wish I were more like Miles.  I felt like a total loser.

I finally gave up on trying to find something she liked to talk about and just started talking about something I liked and I began with horror movies.  I gave myself a phantom slap to the forehead as if I was watching myself from a distance. I began talking about how much I loved all the old 80s cheesy B and C horror movies.  I told her my favorite horror icon was Freddy Krueger for his personality and loved how Michael Myers was the purest form of evil for its simplistic portrayal.  I began geeking out on her but I didn't really care anymore because I figured I would probably never see her again anyway.  She did indulge me for a bit and gave me some of her favorite movies.  Then somewhere we got on the subject of Vampires and she turned a bit serious.  I asked her one important question on the subject, if she liked Twilight and she replied no and right then knew she was special.  She looked at me in a peculiar way and said, "vampires are not portrayed accurately on film."  I found that to be interesting because I felt the same way but the way she said it felt more than just her opinion.  I attempted to make a joke and asked her how many vampires she knew.  Her face turned from a peculiar gaze to a dead serious stare.  She stared at me with frozen eyes for a moment and I thought, oh great I had blown it, I made fun of her opinion.

I was about to say something else when I heard a blood curling screaming from upstairs.  I turned around and saw Miles running down the stairs holding his neck.  I rushed over to him and asked him what happened but he just grabbed me and pulled me to the front door.  I looked back for Claudia in the kitchen and saw her still sitting there with that cold dead stare.  I looked quickly to the top of the stairs and see the other woman standing there staring down at Miles and I with that same dead frozen stare.  We make it outside and through the people.  We run for a few blocks with Miles tugging at my arm.  We stop to catch our breaths for a few moments and I look at Miles and his face was washed over in fear.  He was scared beyond his wits.  He removed his hand from his neck and there was a small amount of blood and some bruises.  I told him we should to get him to a hospital to get that checked out and sanitized and he agreed.  I asked him what happened again and he just looked at me trembling wildly with eyes chilled in fear and terror and could only mutter out "...sh...sh......she......"  I decided it wasn't important and we should get to an ER sooner rather than later.

As we were walking we began to hear something in the trees above us.  It sounded like something was jumping from tree to tree following us as we kept moving.  We looked up and saw the trees swaying and drifting side to side.  We started to run but whatever was in the trees kept moving with us and began moving faster.  Then we heard another one in the trees ahead of us.  We continued to run and could hear something heavy land on the branches inside the trees.  We looked up and the trees were shaking violently and the leaves began to fall all around us.  We started sprinting until the air in our lungs began to burn.  We must have ran a few miles before we saw the hospital.  We did a dead sprint with everything we had left to the doors.  Once we got to the front step I looked back and could still see leaves falling to the ground.  Miles was treated for his wounds and let go that same night.  However, a month later he disappeared and left all his belongings behind.  Since that night, I have not seen Miles in over five years.

Skyrim

This was a freaky thing that just happened to me while playing Skyrim again.  After watching "Game of Thrones" I was in the mood for some Skyrim action.  I have it for the xbox so I put it in and begin a new profile.  I play for a few days and get passed where *spoiler: Skjor gets killed by the Silver Hand.  I take his armor and use it as my own because its free and its the best I have that early in the game.  I did it the first time I played through and figured why not do it again.

A few days and numerous side quests later I was wandering the countryside when I see a naked character headed straight toward me moving straight through trees and terrain as if they weren't there.  I get closer and see that it must be some kind of glitch because the person is half sticking out of the ground with only his torso showing and its head faced upward toward the sky frozen but moving.  Then I realize its Skjor.  I follow him for a while and realize his half naked body is headed back to Whiterun.  I think nothing of it, just a glitch. Later in the game I go back to Jorrvaskr where Skjor is not only alive and naked but still giving me the same lines about proving myself to the Companions.  I look it up and find out its a common glitch with that character but don't really find a specific cause for it.  However what happened next I'm not so sure was a glitch.

Days later after playing a few hours making iron daggers and increasing my enchantment skill I save while in Winterhold and turn off my xbox and head to bed.  Later that night I wake up to low sounding bass.  I listen for a moment and it sounds like low pounding drums.  At first I thought it was coming from my neighbor upstairs but then recognize its the drums from the main menu of Skyrim.  I figured someone was playing Skyrim late night.  I struggled to get back to sleep and I then hear Skjor's voice talking about how the Dragonborn still has to prove himself.  This time it distinctely sounded like it came from my living room.  So I get up to check it out and see a soft glow on the wall from around the corner from my television.  I turn the corner and see my t.v. not only on but with Skjor standing close to the screen naked staring silently.  My xbox had turned back on and my character had also gone back to Jrrovaskr and was staring at Skjor but it really felt like he was staring at me through the screen.  I was about to turn it off when I see a shadowy figure move out of the corner of the living room towards the television and disappear behind it.  I don't know how my television turned on or how my character had returned to Jrrovaskr but I turned it off and don't plan on playing Skyrim anytime soon.

Cassette Tapes

About a year ago I was living with a buddy, I'll call him Seth, in an old apartment complex.  We both were fresh out of college and figured we'd save some money and room up together.  The place didn't look rundown or anything but it definitely had that old 70s look to it.  The wallpaper looked like it hadn't been change since that decade and everything had that tint of yellow on it making it feel like the apartment had passed its prime long ago.  The doors were flimsy but the walls looked pretty sturdy.  It was cheap and we didn't really care how it looked because it wasn't a permanent thing, we just needed a place to live so without much investigating we took it and signed the lease.

It was maybe a week later that we found some old audio cassette tapes, you know the type that held only audio, stashed in a shoebox in one of the overhead compartments in Seth's closet.  They looked pretty old like they had been there a while.  I was real curious to hear what songs were on them because that's what people usually put on them.  Perhaps they belonged to the person who lived here before us I thought.  Whatever the case I wanted to hear some vintage old school music.  However, neither one of us had a stereo that played cassette tapes but I found one at Goodwill for a buck.  We set the tapes aside for a few days and finally sat down to listen to them on the weekend over some drinks.  We were going to make it into a drinking game and see how many songs we could recognize.

When we started playing the tapes, it wasn't music that flooded the speakers but instead weird ritualistic chants in a language I didn't understand.  At first I thought it was a recording of someone's religious worship for church or something but it sounded way more sinister than that.  Seth and I just stared wide eyed at the stereo for a few moments trying to comprehend what we were listening to and finally we broke the tension by nervously giggling.  What the hell were we listening to?  It was just one man's voice reciting what sounded like religious chants of worship.  The voice was low and deep and had intent and purpose.  It didn't sound like someone was just reciting something written but instead like there was a reason for every word.  Instead of turning it off right away we let it play for a while with neither one of us admitting it was kind of creeping us out.

I nervously laughed it off and made myself a drink.  Seth on the other hand seemed more interested by it than I did.  He stared at the stereo intently listening as if trying to figure out the purpose of this man's chant.  "What if the guy who lived here before us left these? That's some creepy shit.  What is he even saying?"  he asked.  I couldn't answer any of those questions I just knew that this man's voice was starting to get under my skin.  I was about to turn it off when Seth recognized a phrase; quid pro quo.  I also recognized it, it meant something for something.  This guy was speaking Latin, a dead language.  Why would anyone be chanting in Latin?  Seth had taken a Latin language course as an elective his senior year so now his curiosity had really been peaked.  Having barely passed that class however, he couldn't really understand anything this man was saying.  I on the other hand didn't want to hear anymore of it and turned it off.  Seth seemed upset I did that, he was still very curious what the meaning of those tapes were and what the man was saying. I didn't care either way what this guy's intent was because I had reached my limit of creepiness for one night.  I told Seth we should probably get rid of the tapes but he insisted on keeping them.  In that one listen Seth's curiosity had become an urge he couldn't ignore.

A week later I come home from work and could hear that creepy old man's voice from the tapes emanating from the living room.  I slowly walk toward the source and turn the corner to see Seth sitting on the couch intently listening with his head tilted back on the head rest.  I asked him what he was doing and why was he listening to those awful tapes again.  He told me he's been trying to translate them.  I told him I couldn't care less what that man was saying and wanted those tapes gone.  He just laughed at me and mocked me by saying I was acting like a scared little girl.  He sat me down on the couch and showed me a pad of paper with weird words scribbled on them.  They were Latin words and he had written their meanings next to them. He pointed to two in particular.  He said, "look at these two words, they keep popping up in the recordings.  Infensus and solvo, they mean hostile and release.  This guy says it more than once.  Seems important don't you think?"  I didn't really care I thought.  I told him those tapes were bad news and if we kept messing with them it was going to lead nowhere but with him wasting a huge amount of his time.  Seth just avoided my opinion and began telling me that he believed that the man on the tapes was trying to speak with spirits, maybe hostile ones, and tried to exchange something for them to come to him perhaps for his soul because Seth had also heard the word 'animus' on the tapes which meant soul.

I didn't know what to say but I was getting thoroughly freaked out and told Seth that we should just get rid of these tapes especially if someone is literally trying to sell their soul to evil spirits and that whoever is on these tapes might come back looking for them.  I really just wanted Seth to forget about them but he couldn't let it go, his curiosity had taken over and was really putting a strain on me.

A few weeks pass and it appeared as if Seth had pulled back a bit on his curiosity with those tapes and figuring out its message.  I was a little relieved I hadn't had to hear anymore about those terrible cassette tapes but then one night I was woken up by that man's voice from the tapes chanting something and abruptly as I had heard it, it was gone.  I got up and headed over to Seth's room to see if he was awake and I could see light coming from out of the bottom of his door.  I knock but he doesn't answer.  I knock again a little harder and Seth finally opens the door.  "I'm sorry did I wake you up?" he said.  I looked passed him and could see he had headphones jacked into the stereo and I could see he had the tapes playing.  He had accidentally pulled the headphone jack out blaring the man's voice out of the speakers.  I realized in that moment that Seth hadn't given up on these tapes at all but had been listening to them probably every night.  I asked him what he was doing but he just diverted my question and began telling me more about his deciphered  message but I didn't want to hear any of it and went back to bed annoyed.  That night I had a dream that ominous detached eyes were staring at me in my room from the ceiling.  I didn't get much sleep that night.

Maybe a month passes and Seth became a hermit, never coming out of his room, we hardly talk, I don't ever see him eat.  He basically became a stranger to me but I figured as long as he kept paying his rent I didn't care, I would out last the lease and move out.  One day when Seth had no choice but to go to work I decided I would clean the apartment.  At first I didn't want to go into Seth's room since his door was closed but after I had cleaned the living room and walked by it again, it was open.  I took a peak into the room and it was a mess. There were hundreds of papers scattered all over the floor with notes scribbled on them.  I kept seeing the phrase "did he realize it?" written on the sheets of paper.  He had more notes tacked on the walls and post it notes all around his computer and desk.  He had become obsessed with these tapes and it was freaking me out.  Later that night when he came back from work I confronted him about it.  He said it was none of my business what he did on his own time.  He was right, he could do whatever he wanted with his own time but I couldn't help but feel eerily uncomfortable with him researching those tapes but he didn't really care anymore what I thought.

After our confrontation a few days later I wake up in the middle of the night with that eerie feeling that someone is watching me.  I looked to my bedroom door which was closed and saw a figure of a shadowy person standing there in the corner.  At first I thought it was Seth and called out to him but got no response.  I immediately got annoyed and raised my voice, "Seth man, you're being really creepy, get the hell out!"  Again no answer.  I was angry now and yelled "Seth! Get Out!"  That's when Seth replied from the other room.  My eyes bulged and widened with cold fear and my stomach sank to the ground.  I yelled for Seth to come into my room that there was someone in here.  He rushed over and opened the door and the dark figure disappeared.  I didn't know if my eyes were playing tricks on me or what but I knew that something didn't feel right. Seth had a worried look on his face as well but didn't say why that night.

A few days later, I came home to the front door broken into.  The door handle and lock were completely busted open.  I walked into the apartment very slowly and looked around and see Seth standing in the hallway looking around at the floor.  I asked him what happened as if wasn't obvious omeone had trashed the place.  Our things were thrown everywhere, our dishes were broken, the furniture was turned over but nothing was missing.  Nothing except the tapes.  Seth knew it because that's what he had been looking for when I got home.  He hadn't even called the police yet he was so intent on finding those tapes.  I was about to call the authorities when Seth looked at me with a fear in his face I had never seen before.  There was a dread creeping from behind his eyes and I knew something else was wrong.

He finally came clean about something he did.  His face no longer could hide the lies of how deep he had gone with these tapes.  He told me he had recorded the tapes to his computer to convert them to mp3s and catalog them.  But once he got them on his computer they weren't the same audio anymore.  It was violent sounds, dreadful noises that were chaotic and horrifying.  It was sounds on top of sounds with horrible hidden screams in the background from, he said, monsters.  I looked at him curiously, had he really lost it?  Monsters?  He didn't know how else to describe it, it was pure chaos and that's not all.  He also told me that something had been released from the tapes when he recorded them.  He said when he was listening to those chaotic sounds back on his computer a small window popped onscreen in the center, just black like a DOS window.  Then two digitized eyes opened and looked at Seth.  He said he was consumed by pure fear in that moment and jumped away from the computer but the eyes would follow him around the room.  Then after a few moments the eyes looked down at the tapes and they morphed into a smile and the window closed.  I felt knots of dread forming in my throat. I didn't know what to do.  Was it true?  I couldn't believe it.  Then Seth showed me the audio.  At first I was hesitant to hear it but finally gave in and he played it back for me.  It was as horrible as Seth had described, pure chaos.  He tried to delete them but to no avail, he even formatted his hard drive but they were still there.  We couldn't get rid of them but as time passed neither one of us wanted to anymore.

Slowly the madness from this new audio crept into my every thought and is consuming me still.  I can't unhear the chaos that I listened to.  Seth had become docile and lifeless.  Fear it seemed had conquered his mind and there was nothing anyone could do for him.  He sat most days blank face staring at the ceiling.  I on the other hand am trying to battle for my sanity.  Everyday is an epic struggle to not hear the audio but I slowly find myself going to the computer and playing it back.  Its the only way I can satisfy that urge, like an itch you can't scratch.  I keep playing it and playing it.  The more I listen to it the more I realize it has chosen me.  I wish it hadn't but I have no choice anymore, if your soul is ripe for the taking it will consume you.  I fear I am damned, I have fought with myself to share this audio but it has spread itself no matter and my mind is too weak.  I can't deny the urges anymore.  Its all I feel and the chaos is all I hear.  I have to share the Chaos.

Letters from Joseph

Hi,
When I was twelve I had a best friend named Joseph.  We used to play in the woods together four blocks from the neighborhood.  Playing together made the cold autumn days go by a little easier.  Joseph was the greatest, he was so cool and always knew the right things to say.  I was a tender fat little kid that didn't have many friends but Joseph showed me that I didn't need any one else beside him.  I used to always want to play 'war' using sticks for guns but Joseph never wanted to play that, said that was a kids game and he was too old to play that.  He always wanted to hang around that shed deep in the woods.  No one else knew where it was beside us.  I never went in it because Joseph didn't let me.  Even though I didn't like playing there I did mostly what Joseph wanted.

One autumn day, Joseph decided it was time for him to share his secrets with me but to do that we needed to become blood brothers.  At first I was hesitant because I didn't know what it meant or how to do it but he explained it to me.  We had to cut our hands and let the blood exchange as we put pressure on it by clasping them together.  I didn't like the idea of hurting myself but the blood didn't bother me.  So we did it.

Joseph felt like now he could tell me why he loved that shed so much.  He told me that's where he kept all his secrets and only his most trusted friends could enter.  I was thrilled because now I was Joseph's blood brother and I was allowed to enter his shed and learn his secrets.  We walked deep into the woods, crunching on leaves with our foot steps as we delved further into the orange autumn day of the woods.  I was excited to see what secrets he would show me.

When we got to the shed Joseph had to unlock a huge heavy lock he kept on the door.  The door was heavy and creaked a lot when he opened it.  The shed was really dark.  Joseph turned on a gas lamp he kept inside and as my eyes adjusted I could see blood smeared on the wooden walls.  There were jars with tinted yellow liquid and body parts in them resting on the shelves.  Heavy hooks were hanging from the ceiling and on the work table there were fingers separated from hands.  The far wall had pieces of arms and legs nailed to it.

I felt lucky to be seeing this.  I asked Joseph what was in the small jars with the body parts and he said vinegar.  He was soaking the meat in vinegar for flavor and tenderness he said.  I looked around curiously and felt proud of myself to be here with Joseph.  I considered this a great privilege.  I was Joseph's blood brother and I did whatever he wanted.  Once he started gutting me at my neck to my belly I felt as if I had been released and given freedom.  He thrust the knife into my neck at a perfect downward 45 degree angle and sliced down my belly.  He then hung me upside down on one those heavy hooks hanging from the ceiling to bleed me out.  He then started scraping a thin layer of my skin off to remove most of the small hair and boiled my head to soften the hard tufts of hair on my scalp so he could cut it off easier.

I bled out quickly for Joseph and didn't give him any sour meat.  He removed my internal organs, my fat and my head.  He cut off my head first to allow any residual blood to drain.  He first made a cut all the way across the back of my neck, right at the backbone's initial joint.  Then he severed my windpipe so that my head could drop forward for easy removal.  He continued cutting around my ears, to my eyes, and to my jawbone, he cut me like that so my head could come free but leave my jowls on my body.

Next he stuck his knife deep into my front neck wound with its point against my backbone and cut upward, using the blade to split my breastbone and divide the rib cage.  He opened me up and cut through the wall of my bell letting my innards fall forward.  They were still attached however by muscle and stomach lining.  He cut it away and started to cut into my lean meat and fat.  The best parts of me.  I was looking very delicious for Joseph.  I had plenty of good tender meat on my fat little body and I did not disappoint.

He cut me into pieces and slices of prime cut and wrapped them all in butcher paper.  After he finished collecting his meat, Joseph locked up his shed and went back to his van and headed to his apartment where he put me in a pan with potatoes, carrots, chicken broth and other vegetables. He used the tougher cuts of my meat and slowed cooked it over low heat.  The lower heat melts the tough connections between muscle fibers leaving him with tender meat that flaked at his fork.  I was every bit delicious as Joseph had hoped.  He prepared me as a dinner for royalty, I felt so honored.  He ate me on his best dinner plate under a candle lit table and had a glass of '87 pinot noir.  After he finished eating me he saved the rest for the week.  The next day he will head back to the school where he drives the school buses.  Joseph ate extravagantly for a few weeks with the meat I provided.  Once finished with me he'll write another one of these letters telling how delicious the next one was.  There are plenty more because Joseph's gotta eat and Emily was so delicious as well, her story will be next.  Sincerely, Joseph.

Afraid of the Dark?

The eerie blackness that blankets our eyes contains so much of our fears.  Every noise accentuated, menacing, maddening, to the point it all its own has created an eerie feeling.  Perhaps in the dark you don't realize someone is watching you, maybe from behind you, maybe through your window, but somewhere, you just know it in your bones.  That feeling crawls to the back of your neck. The darkness that is draped over your entire existence starts manifesting your fears, letting you hear the whispers from the corners of your room you never knew were there, letting you feel the cool touch of someone's hand on your shoulder you know isn't there and you question yourself because the darkness is everywhere you look.

You ask what is real and what isn't but these questions no longer matter because in the darkness the eerie black that fills every corner of your room, everything you fear exists. Everything you are scared to experience begins to manifest itself inside a blackness of pure terror. Your mind starts to wander to the deep recesses of where horror and dread live and you begin to see the flashes of thoughts you so want to ignore.  All your fears are alive.

The darkness begins to construct our fears to fruition and mocks us from within our own existence reaching far into that black that exists to remind us how much we fear to turn off the lights. And every ghost story you've ever heard starts rushing to the forefront of your mind, annoying you to be remembered. It doesn't matter if you believe the stories because in the darkness, none of that matters because those sounds never go away. Those eyes in the window stare at you forever. The cold chill of something standing beside you will forever exist right beneath your skin, taunting you to look, daring you. That darkness you sleep in will always be there to blanket you and remind you why you're afraid of the dark. Fear the unknown? Fear the thoughts that creep in from the depths of darkness. Be wary of the eyes you feel stare at you from behind the blanket of darkness, because they will always be there waiting for you. Be afraid of the dark.

My Soul for a Soul

I have debated whether or not to write this for my soul is damned either way, that I am sure.  The threads of my reality are unraveling and I fear my mind has wandered too far from sanity to ever find its way back.  There are things that exist beyond the here and now, terrible sinister things that exist beyond the edges of madness, beyond the most horrible of things.  Things that are happening to us that we are not aware that make our very souls cry out in pain.  Because time, I have come to understand is an illusion for pain and suffering.

Over the course of this past year all my reasoning, my sanity, my very grip on reality has come into question and although I have tried to stay strong, this is all too frightening for me to handle on my own.  About a year ago I was still working, still talking to people, still able to look into mirrors.  Back then I wasn't scared of the dark, wasn't scared of the moving shadows with no owner on the walls.

I used to wake up in the morning about when the night started clearing for day.  Although now, I only sleep during the day and only if I am able to sleep.  I used to go through my morning routine, go to work and come home, watch t.v. and browse the internet for a while.  I had a printer I rarely used because it had no ink and everything I needed to print I did at work anyway.

One morning, as I was going through my routine still wiping the sleep from my eyes I noticed a paper laying in the printer tray, face down.  I went over to the paper and turned it over, there was nothing on it but three dots on the bottom right corner.  It looked like an ellipsis. At first I thought that was really strange and since it still had paper I chalked it up to maybe the printer printed a tester page or something.  I found it strange however, that this was the fist time it did something like that since I got it.  I threw the paper away and went on with my day.

It wasn't until three days later that my printer had another occurrence.  This time I was about to walk out to leave for work and I heard the printer click on and start printing something.  I went back to the printer in my living room and saw a piece of paper laying in its tray.  I grabbed it and on it read "Don't you understand?"  I became very alarmed this time.  I couldn't understand how it could print that and with no ink.  At that moment, a heavy eerie feeling washed over me, almost like an epiphany of dread and I realized I felt like someone was watching me just then.  I unplugged the printer and left for work, figured I'd deal with it when I got back and store it away.  The whole day at work I was unsettled, couldn't focus and for some reason could hear whispering all day around my cubicle.  Just felt uncomfortable all day.  Some of my co-workers could see I was concerned so they invited me for some drinks after work.  I could use a beer I thought so I went.

When I got home I was quite a bit away from sober and forgot about the printer, just went straight to bed.  Later that night I woke up thirsty and went to the kitchen for some water.  I could smell burning and just then noticed a soft red glow coming from the living room.  At first I thought something had caught fire because the smell was so apparent but realized the printer was on, glowing one of its red lights.  I thought I had unplugged it.  I checked the outlet, it was clearly plugged in.  I figured I must have unplugged the wrong cord, but there were no other cords unplugged.  Again that heavy feeling of dread came over me, this time overwhelmingly to the point I was having trouble breathing.  I made sure to unplug the printer and tried to get some sleep.  The burning smell had dissipated after the red light went out.  All night I wrestled with the dread and couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching me lay in bed.  I left my light on that night.

In the morning while I was getting ready I noticed another paper in the tray.  I figured I might have not noticed it last night since it was dark and I was tired and afraid.  I grabbed it and turned it over and it read "...I am in hell..." This time I was terrified.  That horrible feeling of dread returned.  I took the printer and all the cords and put it away in the hallway closet.  All day that phrase "...I am in hell..." kept repeating itself in my head.  I told a friend about what happened but felt those judgmental eyes of disbelief.  I started to hear more whispers throughout the days, feeling like people were judging me, talking about me behind my back.  I kept my fears to myself, figured I'd rather handle it myself than have people look down on me.  Perhaps a mistake in hindsight.

A few weeks later I was woken up in the middle of the night, maybe around 2am, to electronic noises coming from the hallway.  I got up quickly and grabbed the nearest thing as a weapon.  I went into the hallway and quickly realized it was coming from the closet.  I swung open the door and saw my printer printing papers, hundreds of them.  A series of phrases were printed over and over again thousands of times.  "Don't you understand? I am in hell.  Don't let me go back...." I began to smell and taste the copper of blood in my nostrils and then my nose started bleeding.  I rushed to the kitchen for a paper towel and on my way noticed a pair of eyes staring at me through the blinds.  I live on the third floor.  I ran over to the window and the eyes vanished.  I realized then that someone maybe really had been watching me this whole time.  There was no way someone could have been outside my window on the third floor.  I was scared.

After that night I went to the dump and threw away the printer.  I didn't want it near me or in the alley by the dumpster or by where I lived, just wanted it gone.  I kept these things to myself but now I wish perhaps I had fought for my sanity sooner.  This is when the nightmares started.

For weeks on end I couldn't sleep because of these nightmares where I was literally being burned alive inside a lake of fire.  Everything was getting worse.  I was losing my grip.  One night I woke up with the haunting urge to go to the living room computer.  The screen was on but black.  In the top left corner of the screen in white text read "Don't you understand?  I am in hell.  Don't let me go back...." And it began repeating itself over and over again like hundreds of lines of code scrolling upward.  Then one of the blinds moved and I ran over to it and looked down into the back alley and in the darkness I could see someone crouched down by the dumpster looking up at me.  I couldn't see a face or any distinguishable features.  My heart shot through with terror.  I contacted the police the next day but they couldn't help because there had been no wrong doing.  Just a man and his insecurities slowly eroding, slowly venturing into madness.

A few days later my phone had a missed call and a voicemail was left.  As I began to play it, shouts and screams flooded my ear and I dropped the phone.  It turned itself on speaker and I could hear what sounded like thousands of people screaming out in pain.  Pure horrific terror in their screams.  I stood there horrified for about ten seconds until the screaming gave way to garbled, hysterical crying and groans that slowly were overtaken by the sounds of spilling meat and tearing flesh.  I never again used my phone.

I began unplugging all my electronics; computer, t.v., microwave, anything that needed to be plugged in.  Then one night I woke up with my bedroom television turned on to a static channel.  I stared at it for few moments and I could hear something coming from it mixed in with the static sound.  Almost like really low screams, agonizing screams.  Again I got that feeling of dread only this time it felt far more sinister like something rather than someone was watching me this time.

I could barely sleep at this point.  I was still having the nightmares and every night even though every single electrical appliance was unplugged I could still feel like something was on in my apartment.  I kept only my lights on.  I was too frightened of the dark and the night because every night I still felt something was watching me.  Leaving the light on felt like I could fight the dark but I was sorely mistaken.

I had lost my job due to poor performance and lack of attendance.  I could barely function let alone hold a job.  Then one day I found my computer screen on with a black screen and a blinking cursor. It began typing "You will be cast into the lake of fire...I know this for our soul has been forsaken..." That's when I lost the little sanity I had left.  I started laughing maniacally and yelling at the walls in hysterical laughter asking it what it wanted from me as if the answer would come melting through the walls and appear.  I started crying hysterically and fell to the ground.  Then the t.v. turned on with static erupting from the speakers.  Then silence.  Then a video started playing; close up shots of red, bloody flesh being torn apart, people moaning sexually and painfully, slabs of meat were writhing and moving and sliding past each other.  Couldn't see where one piece of flesh ended and another began.  Then black.  I was shaking uncontrollably.  Then another video popped on screen.

It was me talking into the screen as if I was recording myself.  I was a mess, my face was pale and sunken in with dark rings around my eyes.  There were deep scratches on my face; some seemed fresh and others were old dried up scabs.  My head had bald spots from where hair had been torn out.  I could see my apartment in the background, windows taped up with red plastic.  Items all thrown about on the floor.  I kept mumbling incomprehensible things.  It looked like I hadn't slept or eaten for days.  There were weird symbols on the walls, satanic looking symbols in red paint, candles lit and certain phrases written all over.  Then as if looking right at me through the screen I told myself "Don't you understand?  I am in hell.  Don't let me go back..."

I have no solace in writing this and telling you because my soul is already damned, that much I am sure.  There are far more sinister things that linger around in the dark than what we perceive in our reality I fear; far more horrible things a person shouldn't witness that can bend the mind into horrifying shapes from where there is no coming back.  I fear for far more than just my life but for my very salvation.

My real Father

This happened about a year ago and my family is still upset and freaked out by it, we still don't have a definite explanation.

One day I get a call from my sister complaining to me that she didn't appreciate the call I gave her at 3 in the morning the previous night just to breath into the phone.  I told her I never called her but she said it was my number that showed up on her called i.d.  She said it woke the baby up and that it was a sick joke and to never do it again. No matter how many times I told her I never called she wouldn't believe me.  I checked my call history and sure enough my phone had made a phone call to her at 3 in the morning.

Later I get a voicemail from a a private number.  I check it and at first its just breathing and I'm about to hang up but then some man's voice says "you looked so peaceful sleeping. I gave your sister a call but I don't think she appreciated me calling though."  I got really frightened.  Had someone come into my room just to use my phone?  It didn't make any sense.  I didn't tell my sister at first, I didn't want her to worry with her taking care of the baby and all, I just kept it to myself for a few days.

Then I got a call from my sister's number a few days later.  I answer it and at first its just breathing and I think its my sister trying to get me back for the other night but then his voice came through low and deep, "your sister has your mother's eyes," he said.  "Who is this?" I asked.  "Your father Thomas," and hangs up.  At first I was confused because my dad's name is Michael so now I'm kinda creeped out.  I immediately call back over and over but everytime it went straight to voicemail.  With every call I make that goes to voicemail my mind wanders further into scary thoughts like maybe someone was at my sister's house that wasn't supposed to or maybe something has happened.  I get freaked out and decide I'm just going to go over to her house since I live about 15 minutes away anyway.  I jump into my car and rush over to her house.  I bang on the front door and my sister finally opens it.  I was relieved but she looked like she had no clue why I was visiting.  I asked her about the phone call but she was completely oblivious to it and her husband was at work, it was just her and the baby at the house.  I told her what happened but she told me that her phone was sitting right in front of her on the coffee table the whole time.  I grabbed it and scrolled through the history and there it was, a call made to my phone.  Someone must have been here without her knowing and made the call, no matter how impossible it sounded.

Later that day, my mom came over to my sister's house and we told her about the whole thing.  After the creepy phone call I just kept having crazy thoughts and needed answers.  I just wanted to ask just for the sake of not having any unasked questions, I wanted to know if we were adopted.  My mom said of course not, we were her flesh and blood.  That relieved me a bit but then I asked if Michael was my biological father and at first she looked uncomfortable that I asked and I was about to drop it when she said that there's something she's been wanting to tell us for years.  She finally came clean and told us that Michael wasn't our biological father.  I asked who was and she said his name was Thomas.  I was a little perplexed about why she had kept it a secret for so long.  She told me that our father was an abusive alcoholic and that this guy who called couldn't possibly be our father.  I asked why and she said because he had been dead for 27 years, he killed himself shortly after my sister was born.  We have never gotten another call from him since then but coincidentally we realized my sister gave birth to her baby 27 years to the day of his suicide and named her baby Tom.

Visitors

I don't know if I'm being paranoid but recent events have me on the very edges of mental anguish and I need answers.  I find myself asking myself what goes on while I sleep, while we all sleep?  If this is happening to me maybe its happening to others that aren't even aware of it just like I was.  What hidden horrors do we escape witnessing while our eyes are closed that are more horrifying than any of our nightmares?  I feel the answer is terrifying ignorance because consider yourself lucky you still think the world sleeps.  I don't know where it goes when we close our eyes but I do know the world doesn't ever go to sleep.

I don't know how long this has been going on but it wasn't until recently that things began revealing themselves to me.  I used to live alone and never had a serious enough relationship that anyone would ever sleep over.  There was a long stretch of years where I slept alone so when I started having these nightmares that's all I thought they were, nightmares.

I would dream of me getting abducted out of my bed at night; getting taken out of my window against my will by gray disembodied muscular hands pulling at my face and legs, fingers digging into my cheeks and behind my lips.  I would wake up once I had gotten carried out my window always in a cold sweat.  The nightmares scared me while I was having them but I didn't give them any after thought since I just thought it was a weird reoccurring nightmare.  Most nights I would just go back to sleep.

That was until I found myself finally getting into a serious relationship and she began sleeping over.  The first couple of times she slept over I had no nightmares, no weird dreams, nothing.  It wasn't until maybe the fifth or sixth time she slept over that I had my reoccurring nightmare again.  After getting carried out my window against my will I woke up just like all the other times.  To me it was like as if nothing had happened, just me waking up to a nightmare but my girlfriend witnessed something quite different.

She told me I woke up her up by bolting straight upright into a sitting position, my eyes wide open with a look of pure terror and panic in them.  My mouth open, outstretched to its limit like I was screaming at the top of my lungs but with no sound escaping my mouth.  Then I started breathing heavily and very rapidly almost like I was hyper ventilating then coming to a sudden stop.  I slowly turned my head to my girlfriend looking at her with huge bulging eyes and giant black dilated pupils.  I said to her in a low raspy shaky voice "why are you hurting me?"  then I start moaning deeply like I was in horrible pain.  The veins in my neck were bulging out and my hands were clenching the sheets into balls in my fists.  She said it lasted about a minute of me writhing around in bed like someone was harming me in unthinkable ways with no way to help me.

It was a horrifying experience for her and for me hearing her recount the tale to me with that look of pure helplessness in her face; it quickly became clear that this might have been going on for a long time without me knowing, probably every time I have had my nightmare.  That realization of knowing there was a completely other experience to these nightmares that I was never aware of filled me with pure horror and dreadful knots.

At first I was embarrassed about the whole thing having my girlfriend witness it but she was more concerned why an adult would be having night terrors and why I thought someone was hurting me?  We checked my body for any bruises to see if I hurt myself in my own thrashing then my girlfriend noticed a flat horizontal scar about two inches long on my back below the base of my neck in the center going across my spine.  She asked me if I ever had a any surgeries and I told her no.  It was strange to have such a perfectly straight scar on my back and in that location.  I've never had any operations or any kind of serious injuries.  It looked healed and appeared like it had been there a while.  We both came to the conclusion it was from some time I hurt myself that I couldn't remember.

We went on with our lives normally for a while hoping my reoccurring nightmares wouldn't happen again, we were wrong.  One night when my girlfriend was sleeping at her place I had my nightmare again.  I remember clawing at the edges of my window and getting taken out and waking up as if nothing had happened but I knew better now.  A cold shiver of panic crawled its way slowly up my spine, I could feel it right beneath the skin.  I kept this occurrence to myself since I was already too embarrassed my girlfriend had to experience the other one.

She eventually found out the next night anyway when she saw four bruises on my lower back.  They looked like small orbs in a small arc shape, four of them.  At first I freaked out because I thought it could be blood clots then she made a weird observation that they looked like fingertips.  She then put her hand on top of them and if she had a larger sized hand they would have matched almost perfectly with her thumb, index, middle and ring fingers.  I told her she was crazy and I made a doctor's appointment to get checked out.

Once at the doctor's he told me they would run some tests, do some blood work and take x-rays.  I asked him about my scar and he told me the same thing I thought, that I maybe hurt myself.  He did say he would x-ray that area as well.  A week passes and I get called back in for the results.  he told me everything looked good and I was in good health but that there was something strange found in one of the x-rays.  Underneath my scar there appeared to be two foreign metal objects embedded and he couldn't tell what it was specifically.  It looked like bb pellets at each end of the scar.  He wanted to do a minor operation and get them out.  At first I was hesitant, just something about going under the knife really put me in an uncomfortable place and it felt more than just some kind of phobia fear.  He told me that down the line there is some possibility that these foreign objects could cause some sort of problems and it would be best to take them out now.  I finally agreed.  I was scheduled for a quick in and out procedure a few weeks later.

In the time before my procedure I had my nightmare two more times.  My girlfriend was there to experience one of them again.  She told me this time I was moaning out in deep painful moans "stop, please stop, it hurts, please, stop!" That freaked me out.  These dreams were starting to have real world affects on me and the people around me and there was seemingly nothing I could do about it.  I felt so helpless.  The other nightmare was like all the others since my girlfriend wasn't there to witness anything.  Gray disembodied arms pulled me out of my bed and through my window and I would wake up after that.

Finally my doctor's appointment arrived and I went in to have the objects removed.  Afterward the doctor said the operation went well, no complications but that he did find four bb like pellets instead of just the two he saw in the x-rays a few weeks earlier.  He said the x-rays must have not picked up the other two at the time.  I began to dwell on why there were four instead of two and a creepy thought crawled out of the back of my head; maybe those metal pellets were put there since last time.  As soon as my mind wandered into that avenue of possibility there was no going back and a cold shiver of fear ran up and down my spine like spider legs beneath my skin.  I could imagine a cold gray sharp knife opening my skin and someone or something placing those pellets there.  I had to find out what these pellets were.

I took them to a university research department where I had a friend that worked there to get them analyzed.  My girlfriend was completely on board in supporting me.  The  research faculty were more than happy to help me and run some tests.  I came back a few days later and they told me that the analysis was inconclusive.  The pellets were found to be no particular known metal on Earth but did have common characteristics to Gadolinium but that was a rare earth metal and had no business being buried in my back under my skin.  What was it doing there?  It was a weird metal that they couldn't quite match with anything but they were excited to do some more research on it so I left the four metal pellets there with them.

The next couple of weeks were horrible for me.  The nightmares were getting much worse now and there was more happening in them also.  I remember seeing blinding lights overhead, gray walls that moved like water and dark shadows within them.  The nightmares wouldn't end anymore with me getting taken out my window, I would be dragged on my stomach and watch as the watery walls pass me.  I'd claw at the gray water-like walls but never able to grab or feel anything.  My girlfriend was starting to feel the mental strain of these insistent nightmares.

Finally it all reached a breaking point one night when my girlfriend woke up to find me missing from bed.  She freaked out and found me outside sitting on the curb blank face still asleep and in some kind of trance.  She finally got me to wake up.  My feet were cut up like I had been running bare foot for miles.  They had glass and rocks embedded in them.  My back was full of those tiny four arced bruises.  We finally decided that I needed to see a therapist to find out what was causing my night terrors.

After months of no real progress with the therapist he was unable to get me to remember any deep embedded memories that I was blocking out.  He said that maybe perhaps something traumatic happened when I was a child and is finally having an affect on me as an adult and I'm blocking out those memories.  He finally convinced me for him to bring in a hypnotist to see if he could somehow open up those memories and uproot something deep down.  He set up an appointment and my girlfriend and I went to see him at my therapist's office.  After we all got acquainted with one another the hypnotist put me under.

I don't really remember all that much of what was said but I do remember the images that I saw and from what I can understand it was quite a horrifying experience for me.  My girlfriend re-told the experience to me.

Once I went under the therapist asked me to go back to the most recent night I had my nightmare.  "What do you see?" he asked in a calm tone.

"I'm closing my eyes and getting ready to fall to sleep," I told him in a relaxed monotone voice, breathing slowly and calmly.  "I'm tired.  It was a long day."

"Good, fall to sleep."

"I can see darkness.  I'm very relaxed.  What was that?!" I said very startled.

"What do you see?"  the therapist said with slight alarm in his voice as if I startled him as well.

"I can see the arms pulling me away again.  They're reaching underneath me and lifting me.  I'm getting taken out of my window.  I can't stop them!"  My voice was trembling a bit now.  "They're too strong!  I'm outside my window now.  My eyes are opened now and I can see someone."

"Who? Who can you see?" he asks me calmly slowly trying to pull out every piece of information he can.

"I can see them standing at my window staring at me lie in bed."

"Is it the arms? Is that what you see?"

"No. This isn't the dream.  This is real.  Someone is watching me through my window," my voice was slowly starting  to get louder and panic was creeping through. "I don't know who they are but they come visit me.  I've seen them before but I forget.  I don't know how I forget but I do."

"Are they the ones with the arms?" he said calmly.

"Yes, but this isn't a dream anymore.  They come get me at night.  They take me.  Oh no!" I said in a panic, "they're in here now!  I can see them opening my bedroom door,"  my voice was in a panic now.

"Its ok, you're here with friends.  We won't let anything bad happen to you.  What happens after they enter your bedroom?"

"I can hear them talking to each other but they don't have any mouths.  They're all standing over me around my bed talking in clicks and slurs but I can hear it inside my head.  They're not looking at me but each other.  Their skin is gray and dark and has bumps all over it like dry wall.  I don't see any hair on their head or arms. I'm trying to move but for some reason I can't, I can only move my eyes."  every word was an epic struggle for me to muster.

"What are they doing now?"  the hypnotist said still fishing for information.

"Their long gray muscular arms are underneath me now, touching me and not in a gentle way.  I can feel their cold hard fingertips on my back fishing around for something.  I'm really scared.  I don't know what they're doing," my voice was trembling at every other word.  "One is leaning into my face, I looked at it in the eye, oh my god!  Their eyes, they're all black.  I can see my whole reflection in them.  They're huge oblong orbs of black.  It looks angry, I can see the muscles in its brow curl.  They flipped me over.  They're fingers are under my skin, I can't .....AHHHH!!"  then I start screaming in agony.  The hypnotist tries to take me out of my trance but I keep yelling.  "AHHH!!! Can you hear that?! They're inside my head!  It hurts so bad!  What is that?!  AHHH!!"

The hypnotist tries again to take me out of my trance but I continue to scream out in pain yelling something about a  series of sharp sounds piercing through my brain.  I told the hypnotist I couldn't see any of them anymore but I knew they were still there because I could feel them playing around under my skin.  It didn't feel like I was in my bed anymore but instead it felt like I was laying on something cold and hard.

Then finally the hypnotist got me to come out of the trance.  I was exhausted and almost crying.  I couldn't remember any of the conversation with the hypnotist but I definitely could remember everything I saw and felt very vividly.  Those things the hypnotist unlocked haunts me to this day.  Everyone else isn't quite convinced any of those things I saw really happened but I know what I felt and my feelings say they were real.  It  actually happened, I'm convinced.

Later, I went back to the university to see if they could tell me anything new about the metal pellets and apparently after a week of running tests on them, they dissolved into nothing right before their eyes, like it was a time release capsule they said.  Those pellets felt like they held only more questions but now that they are gone I feel maybe some answers went with them.

I'm too scared to sleep these days because of my nightmares but more importantly because I don't know what hidden horrors lurk when I close my eyes.  I just know that the world doesn't ever go to sleep and there are things out there that leave more questions than answers.  Things we were never meant to see.  I don't know what happened to me and others would have me convinced it wasn't real but I know what I saw and felt and oh god, those feelings of pure raw horror and fear, they were real.  I know something happened, that I'm sure of.  My doctor says I'm suffering from adult night terrors with hallucinations but just the other day I found another scar I never had before.

Telemarketers

I think I may never answer a phone again.  Information is too easily obtained these days and what happened to me a couple of nights ago has me thoroughly scared beyond my wits.  There are too many devices that store too much information about anything and anyone in this age and that has me too unsettled to think about how much of me exists in the digital plane without me knowing.

About a week ago I kept getting phone calls from weird numbers.  The numbers looked like they were from telemarketers. At first it didn't bother me just a phone call to ignore but I started getting the calls when I was asleep.  I use my phone as an alarm clock so I keep it on at night; so this really aggravated me that some dumb telemarketer thought it was necessary to call me at those hours.

The next day while at work I don't usually keep my phone on me,  I just kept it in my purse on vibrate and don't catch up any of my missed calls or texts until lunch or after my shift.  When I got off, my phone had 27 missed calls.  At first I thought it was an emergency with my family but I quickly scrolled through the numbers and saw they weren't any phone numbers I recognized and a lot of them had area codes not even in my state.  Then I figured telemarketers or dialing bots or something like that.  At this point I was really agitated now.  I couldn't believe they would call me that many times.  Why wouldn't they just give up?

I went home annoyed and flustered so I hopped into the shower.  After I got out, while blow drying my hair I heard my phone ringing.  The display said "private" so I didn't answer it, I continued to dry my hair.  A few minutes later after I was done my phone began ringing again, it was a private number again so this time I thought maybe it was someone I knew and they were trying to get a hold of me.  I answered, "Hello?"  but there was no answer on the other end.  I repeated myself but again nothing.  Then finally whoever was on the other end hung up the phone.  I found it a little curious that no one answered but I didn't give it any after thought.

A little later that same night I was watching television and I got another phone call, this time from one of those strange telemarketer looking numbers.  All the frustration I tried to wash away earlier with my shower came rushing back.  I was trying to watch a show and they were calling me at late hours now.  I just ignored it.  But about fifteen minutes later, they called back.  This time I answered really annoyed and I was going to give this poor schmoe a piece of my mind.

"Yes?!" I said in a particularly frustrated tone.  At first there was no answer but just something that sounded like deep breathing.  It went on for a few moments.  Finally annoyed I answered again.

"Hello!  Are you going to answer or just stay silent like an idiot?  Isn't this your job, to talk to the person you're calling or to be a mindless drone to bother people for useless crap?  I mean is this even considered a job?  Jobs imply a use of a brain doesn't it?  Hello?! Anyone there?"  I was about to hang up when he suddenly started talking.

"I'm sorry you feel this way Ma'am.  I'm in between real jobs and need money right now so I do my best to swallow my dignity and support myself."

I felt a little bad after hearing him say that, it was maybe the first genuine telemarketer I've ever heard.

"I know its annoying that I'm calling this late.  People have lives I understand but if I don't call....well you understand my plight."

I felt a little remorseful, sounded like he was having a bad day as well, "I'm sorry I snapped at you, I know its not your fault in particular, it wasn't you who has been calling me all day.  I just have been getting calls from telemarketers all day and you just happen to be the one I snap at."

"I understand," he said, "No need to explain yourself.  It was pretty annoying of me to call so many times."

"Wait?" my face curled with confusion, "Did you just say you were the one that has been calling me all day?"

"Well, yes, except the one from your mother, that one wasn't me.  You didn't pick up while you were at work.  So I called back...a few times," he said with snark in his voice as if this situation were not becoming creepy at all.  How did he know my mother called me?

"Why in the hell are you being so creepy and bothering me like this, calling my phone so many times?  Aren't you guys supposed to move on to a new number?"  I was starting to becoming angry all over again but a little unsettled by the whole thing as well.

"Well, I should, but you're so damn pretty that I couldn't help myself," he said in a very dry way as if by some ungodly law of nature he was justified to be this creepy.

"You're creeping me out man, this is becoming really uncomfortable.  I want to talk to your supervisor." My skin was starting to crawl with goosebumps.  I was still more annoyed than anything but there was a small inkling of fear starting to grow deep in my stomach.

"Actually, I run my own telemarketing business and I am the supervisor, the boss and CEO baby.  What would you like to talk about?" The way he said baby made me fill with disgust.  It sounded disrespectful the way he said it.  I didn't like the tone he was having with me.

"I don't want you to call me anymore or I'll call the police and tell them you're harassing me." I felt like I was overreacting when I said that but I'd rather scare this guy with threats to get him to leave me alone.

"Oh no, not the police!  I better stop calling but that wouldn't be any fun now would it," the way he was mocking me was starting to freak me out. "The ringing would stop but I wouldn't stop watching you honey."  When he said that a heavy rock of dread dropped deep in my stomach.  A cold shiver of fear covered my whole body leaving goosebumps in its wake.

"Excuse me?"

"How about this?  I'll stop calling you if you stand naked by your window right now," holy hell I thought, could this guy see me?  The fear that was slowly creeping out of my stomach had now infested every inch of me and I was having trouble keeping my voice steady.

"What the hell?  You can see my window?  I'm calling the police right now asshole."

I hung up the phone and called the police. My hands were shaking. They came over and I explained everything and gave them the numbers.  They said since nothing happened on the premises there wasn't really anything they could do.  They said they would have a patrol car come by the area a few times that night and they would try and see if they could figure out what telemarketing business the numbers were from this way I could file a complaint and if the harassment continued I could press charges. I felt better knowing that and also that a patrol car was in the area.

After they left I did get another call from a private number.  I ignored it.  The next day I was a little nervous and unsettled about the conversation I had the night before.  I couldn't shake the feeling of that guy watching my window at night.  I felt like my privacy had been invaded greatly and I didn't know how to get it back.

After work I noticed I had a missed call from a weird number and it had left a voicemail. I was almost too scared to check it.  It was from the police saying they ran the number through some traces but the numbers came back from all over the United States with basically no way of knowing where this guy actually called from. The numbers weren't associated with any telemarketing business so it was a dead end. They said most likely since none of the numbers were near where I lived that this guy was just playing with my head.  I thought it was nice of them to actually follow up on the numbers most stations wouldn't give it a second thought.

So I decided the next day I would change my number instead, seemed like an over reaction but I was still feeling very uneasy about the whole situation.  Later that night I called one of my good friends to tell him all about this creepy guy.  We talked for about fifteen minutes when he walked into a deadzone and we got disconnected.  I waited a moment for him to call back and so when it rang I immediately answered it.

"I timed that perfectly didn't I.  Who were you talking to?  Oh, did you answer because you thought I was them?"  He laughed and somewhere in my stomach a cold feeling of shock and fear came crawling out.

"Why are you bothering me?  Just leave me alone!"  This time the fear immediately crawled out of the pit of my stomach.

"Why don't you call the cops again?  I knew they wouldn't be able to trace anything.  They're cops, they get paid to protect and serve their paychecks.  Do you think they really cared about you being creeped out by some creepy guy on the phone? What did you expect of them, to rush out all squad cars and search high and low and they would find me, some guy with a phone sitting alone in some warehouse making phone calls pleasuring himself?  I think I'm a little more prepared than that.  Well, I do like pleasuring myself and you are definitely a cutie.  Why don't you just unlock your door and make this easier?"

A knot of dread balled up in my throat.  I was hoping this guy would just be bluffing about being so near.  I remember what the cops said about the numbers not being from anywhere near but that didn't comfort me.  I figured maybe if I got him to talk more that I could get some information for the police.

"What the hell do you want from me?"  I was trying to act like I wasn't afraid but my hands were shaking and I could barely keep my voice from trembling.  Something about the way this guy talked to me really crawled under my skin.  I would have hung up on him immediately but I felt like I could outsmart him and have him give up telling me something that would let the cops find him.

"I don't want anything..." he paused for a second, "too extravagant.  Right now I just want your mouth on my penis.  I have it out for you, just unlock your door." Him talking about his penis filled me with complete disgust.

"You must think I'm an idiot.  First, if you were near you would already be in here.  Secondly, why would I just unlock my door and let some guy with a tiny penis inside my apartment.  You're clearly a sick son of a bitch and if you keep harassing me the police will find you psycho path."  I was stretching my courage but I felt like if I didn't back down at this point that maybe he would get discouraged about toying with my emotions.  I was rationalizing with the idea that he was lying about seeing me and being near.  If I could just intimidate him with the fact I would keep calling the police maybe he would leave me alone.

"You know its not nice to insult someone especially when you don't know if the person you're insulting is in fact a psycho path.  Plus, I'm not scared of the police.  I know what I'm doing, been doing it a long time honey and you aren't going to be the one to outsmart me.  You'll see, I'll get what I want."  The tone in his voice was like that of  an arrogant man telling a child how he's way better at hide and seek.

"Ill never give you anything you pervert!" anger started peeking back in and I held on to it as much as I could.

"Now now, stop with the name calling.  I already warned you about that." I hated the way he talked down to me.

"If you don't like it then you can just leave me alone because I've got plenty other unflattering names to call you." I realized the conversation might not be going anywhere and that I just might be enticing him to continue.

"How about you call them to my face?  Unlock your door."  My anger vanished every time he told me to unlock my door.

"If you come near me I'll smash your face in with a baseball bat!" I tried really hard to intimidate him.

"Wow, that's pretty violent.  Now who's acting like a psycho path? Just indulge me for a second.  Are you curious where I really am?

I stayed silent, now I could possibly get some information for the police.  I figured I'd stay on the phone a little longer.

"Answer me when I'm talking to you!"  His voice growled like an animals. It chilled me to my bones.

"Just tell me already if you're going to tell me."

"Well first, let me tell about your friends. They have a lot of numbers in their contacts don't they.  Lots of friends for me to choose from.  Lots of people to have fun with.  How about you?  Do you want to be friends with me?" Why was he telling me this?  Is this how he got my number?  I knew then this was going nowhere.

"I would never be friends with you and I think this has gone on long enough." I was about to hang up the phone.

"Hold on, don't you want to know how to find me?"

I wanted to hang up but there was a part of me that was hoping he would just say something useful.

"Where are you then?"

"I'm in your other room."

My heart sank.  I froze with pure horror as my eyes widened with fear.  I could feel the sickness of fear crawl out of my belly and reach through every inch of my core.  I had a quick decision to make, I could either run outside and leave my apartment or check the other bedroom.  Then I thought this might be some attempt to get me outside where he could actually be waiting.  But if he was in my room I couldn't stay inside.  I didn't know what to do.  Finally I decided on a simple solution hoping it would work.  After a few moments of me frozen in terror I hung up my phone and re-dialed the number he called from.  The numbers dialed one by one and finally I heard a ringing in my speaker.  After a fraction of a second of lag from the ring in my phone I heard a ringing coming from my other bedroom.  Bolts of fear shot up through my spine and my fight or flight instincts took over.  I immediately ran out the front door and to the neighbors.  I called the police and had them come, they searched my apartment and found nothing.  Just the window in the bedroom open.

I changed my number after that but I still got a text message the other day from a strange number saying "I'll see you around ;-)"  I don't think I'll ever answer a phone again.  The very thought of this guy still out there chills me to my bones knowing he got my number somehow through someone else's phone leads me to believe he has all my contacts as well.  I don't know if he's done with me or if he's chosen someone else but I just hope he doesn't find your number.