I should be sleeping right now. I should just get off my laptop and go to bed. I have to get up early tomorrow and finish off my class work before my last design lecture tomorrow; I can’t miss another day of school. The holidays are almost here… I just need some rest.
But instead I’m here writing this to you because I’m scared. There’s no point in pretending I’m not. I could sit here and tell you that I’m not afraid, that I’m just sharing my story because it’s unusual and worth retelling. But I won’t pretend. Yes I am scared.
We moved into this house about 4 months ago. It’s our first proper house together, my boyfriend and I, and the rent isn’t bad. We chose it because it was peaceful. When you step onto the property all outside noise is eliminated. It’s eerily quiet, and I loved that when we first got here. The place is surrounded by trees and bushes, but there are never any birds. It has a nice deck though, and plenty of space. The previous tenants had acted weirdly when we came to visit, but we didn’t think much of it really.
The first unsettling thing happened on the night I moved in. I was staying here alone and my boyfriend was to join me here the next day. I was sleeping on a futon in the living room (no bed yet) and I was dozing off. The lights were out and my mind started to wander a bit. Suddenly I heard a scuttling in the ceiling. I was instantly alert, my body tense, did I just hear that? About 10 seconds later I heard scratching noises, much louder than the scuttling. I knew it was most likely a rat or something, but I had to sleep with the light on that night. I’m not the kind of girl to get freaked out by rodents in a ceiling, but something about it just seemed off. Despite the fact that I was exhausted from moving house, I didn’t get much rest that night.
The scuttling and scratching had been happening every night, and only at night. Usually from about 2-3am onwards, sometimes earlier. I stopped getting freaked out about it after a while, and having my boyfriend around did make it less scary. He won’t admit it but I can tell it freaks him out too sometimes. It’s occurred to me recently that the sounds are too loud to come from a rat. Even a big one. We live in New Zealand so the only other mammal it could be is a possum. We checked all around the outside of the house though, and there isn’t anywhere that possums could be getting in and out. In the hallway there’s a poorly closed-off manhole leading to the ceiling, and we’ve talked about going up there to see what’s going on. I’m ashamed to admit this but we’re just avoiding it because it’s all kinds of creepy and anyone who’s seen a horror movie knows not to inspect that shit.
We have 2 six month old kittens, two little brothers named Caesar and Okami. They’re the sweetest and most chilled out cats we’ve ever known. Whenever we hear the noises in the ceiling they get really interested and meow at the sounds. Nothing unusual really.
A few of hours ago I was going into the bedroom to put my electric blanket on and turn on the heater. It’s been really cold lately, and that part of the house can get absolutely freezing. It was pitch black in the hallway and I wasn’t going to bother turning on the light, I would just turn on the bedside lamp when I got into the bedroom. I heard a weird noise as I approached my room, but then suddenly it stopped. Confused, I walked into the bedroom and got frightened so bad I just about screamed. A loud hissing noise was coming from the centre of the room. I turned on the light instantly, only to find one of our cats. He was standing on the bed, back arched, all his fur puffed up. He’d never hissed at us before, even when we were walking around in the dark. But he wasn’t hissing at me. I went over to try and comfort him, and he just started growling at the wardrobe. Now I was freaked out. Nervously, I opened the wardrobe to look inside. It was empty.
Now I’m not really sure how to explain what happened next, but I’ll do my best. I started getting this really strong feeling that there was someone behind me. Every time I would turn around, there was nothing. There was nothing under the bed, nothing behind the door, nothing around the corner, nothing in that dark space that’s partially hidden by the drawers. But no matter how many times I reassured myself that there was no one in the room with me, I couldn’t shake that feeling. So I quickly closed the curtains, turned on the heater and the electric blanket, scooped up Caesar from the bed and went back to the living room after turning out the light again.
After about 10-15 minutes I went back in the turn off the heater so the room wouldn’t get too hot. Before I turned the light on again I noticed how much light was coming in from outside, even through the curtains. I walked across the dark room to look out the window. I peeked out and was greeted by a full moon. Or almost full, it was hard to tell. I noticed movement in the bushes outside the window. The thing about the garden outside that window is that it’s completely overgrown and if you were standing in it, your head would hardly be visible. It’s just a mess of tall bushes and vines. You also can’t get to it unless you go all the way around our property, so we never see anything in there. Startled, I jumped back and the curtains fell closed again. My hands were shaking as I turned on the bedroom light and crossed the room back to the window. My heart was pounding. I was filled with dread at the thought of looking outside again. It could have been anything out there, but I was absolutely certain that whatever was outside was not a good thing. I don’t know why. I just knew. In one swift movement I opened the curtains and the light from the bedroom illuminated the garden outside. But I didn’t see anything but her.
She was crouched over, kneeling on the bushes (I have no fucking idea how), her skin was a pale grey colour and covered in sores or some kind of rash. I didn’t see much of her face but she was looking at me. Her clothes were basically rags, hanging off her skeletal body. Her fingers were long and bony, I could see them clearly because her hands were slightly outstretched. Her fingernails were very long and sharp, and the ends of her fingers were stained black. Or dark red. I’m not sure. She snarled at me, exposing her sharp and rotting teeth, and shielded her eyes from the light. Her hair was long and looked like it had been blonde once, but was now dark, matted and filled with dust and dirt. This part is the hardest thing to talk about. Right then everything disappeared and all I could see was darkness. I was blind. I couldn’t hear anything. I’m not sure how much time passed when I was like that, it was really disorienting and extremely disturbing. And I couldn’t get the image of the girl out of my head. After what seemed like a long time, my senses returned and the girl was gone. I didn’t know what to do, so I closed the curtains again and left the room. I joined my boyfriend in the living room.
"Holy shit, are you alright?" He asked when he saw me. I guess I looked pretty freaked out.
I just told him I wasn’t feeling well and wanted to watch netflix on the couch with him. For some reason I didn’t feel like I could tell him. I don’t know what it was. I just didn’t want to have to talk about it I guess. I was determined to believe that my mind was playing tricks. So we watched a few episodes of something. I’m not even sure what it was. I wasn’t watching.
My boyfriend went to bed not long ago. I’m staying up because I don’t want to close my eyes. I can hear the scuttling again. And I think I know what it is.
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Credits to: photofreecreepypasta
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