The house my family and I grew up in was a really disturbing place. Completely normal-looking both inside and out, and yet the feel of the interior was never quite right. Even though it isn’t true, the most correct way that I feel for describing the house is that the dust refused to settle - even the dust wanted to be far away.
We all experienced the simple scares: doors opening or closing; lights turning off and on; unceasing footfalls throughout the house with nobody else around; finding items moved without anyone to offer explanation.
And then there were the singular events that went beyond: watching the radio tuning itself up and down the FM band, then the light turning itself off, then the physical attack; the shower curtain pulling itself open in an otherwise vacant room; drawers and cabinets opening themselves to cause a moment’s terror.
All of this and more I simply grew up with. They were generally causes of alarm and confusion, rarely raw fear. But when I was 16, one night went so far beyond what I’d grown to ignore finally convinced me that the house itself was evil, and that I needed to escape forever.
I had already been forced out of my room. I wasn’t allowed to sleep upstairs at all. I tried sleeping in the kitchen but it found me there. The basement was no refuge. Night after night I fought against sleep and scrambled to find a safe corner where I might hide. Hell, I even slept in the dog kennel and the kitchen pantry.
Finally, I settled on the front living room. Up until this decision I had not considered it an option, seeing as the stairs leading up ended in the living room, and in the dark silence of those nights I would lay awake, staring up and into that miserable little void that pressed down into my space. But nothing happened. I convinced myself that the living room, with its peaceful view of the outside world beyond and silvery glow of the moon as a night light…. I convinced myself that this room was safe.
A few nights went by. The family cat, Scamper, put aside our longstanding rivalry and deemed me worthy to be her bed. This interaction would be our first and last experience with one another. She and I had been enemies for ten years prior to this, always scrambling to be not-quite-the-littlest-family-member.
Of course the worst would come after all of this. Of course I should have seen it coming.
As memories tend to go, I don’t remember the events leading up to this culmination. My memory begins with the lamp already turned off, Scamper already kneading away on my chest. And then it starts. It starts with her. Her ears prick up, her hair pulls tight, her claws come forth and grip my chest. She hisses at nothing, her attention focusing entirely upon the staircase. Just a single moment later and I am slammed by the same emotion that seems to have hit her: terrified.
At no time before and no time sense have I felt it appropriate to describe anything in the way I am about to describe this. A presence of pure, radiating evil came down those stairs and into that living room. (I am tearing up while writing this. Seriously.) As I felt it come into the room, Scamper screamed and tried to leap off of me and run away… but I couldn’t let her. I didn’t have the courage to face this attack alone, so I grabbed her in my arms and squeezed her to my chest, completely oblivious to her scratching and biting.
The presence came closer. I couldn’t see it, I couldn’t hear it, but I tasted it, I smelled it, I felt it. What it did goes beyond words (or I just don’t have the right ones)… for that entire night, I was tortured in my mind and in my heart; I was forced to watch and bear witness to the absolute most horrific actions capable by man… I saw murders and rapes and eating and burning and bodies and blood everywhere all the time and fires and ropes and bombs over and over and over. I couldn’t fall asleep, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t even cry.
And then it was morning, it was over. I didn’t talk for a few days. And then I told my mom about it and convinced her it was about time to move. I’ve never been back.
Credit to Reddit user menace64
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