I was 19 and living in my first apartment
with my best friend since childhood. He had the larger room due to
having a TV (this was 1999 when most cheap TVs were as deep as they were
wide) and this was where we socialized a bit every night before bed,
smoking a bit, telling old stories or reading bits of comics to each
other.
We'd both experienced strange things, but always tried to come up with rational explanations. We were fascinated with the unexplained, but our once youthful open minds were becoming more skeptical. The TV turns off? Glitch with the energy saving setting. The lights turning on when we're out? Someone left the lights on obviously. The dark shadows that appeared WITHIN the shadows in the corners of our room? Just our overactive imaginations. The pressure on the corner of our beds in the middle of the night as if a 100+ pound person just sat down? I...don't know.
Tonight it was drawing near midnight and I had work the next day so I went in to say goodnight. My friend has the lights off and is watching the Christian channel. Neither of us were religious: it was a period in time we were exploring our belief systems. He watching for entertainment purposes, much like an atheist might read a Chick tract. Onscreen the televangelist was talking to a young woman who claimed to have played Dungeons and Dragons so much as a child that her character's patron god, whom she claimed was real, had taken control of her soul. This was almost as laughable as the fake tongues she was roaring as he did an "exorcist" on "Baal".
We laughed together and I went to bed.
When I woke up my skin felt strangely warm and itchy. Like I had fallen asleep in a pile of my own shaven hair. I went into the bathroom with just a pair of boxers on and FROZE. My breath caught in my throat and my first thought was that I was dreaming. I immediately went into my friend's room, who was sitting in the chair by the window, preparing a "cigarette" for that day. His eyes bulged as he looked at me there in my boxers.
From my neck to my ankles, nearly every inch of me was covered in short slashes. Hundreds. Bright red, beads of dried blood at the corners. Not thick, just scratched deep enough to leave a bloody red mark.
I went to work that day, we worked together and he immediately informed the kindly, motherly middle-aged women we worked with of what had happened. They had a thousand questions, but no solutions. I had to show my marks to each one and they exchanged looks, almost non-verbally saying "this isn't real, they're pranking us, the little shits" but also "if this is real, I'm praying hard tonight".
Did I scratch myself? No, my nails were freshly clipped. I tested each finger, every surface of the nail, to see if I could make more than just a light, dry mark and I couldn't. I also realized while testing my nails that some of the marks were in positions I myself could not reach.
Did I sleep on something? I checked my bed and there was nothing sharp in it - I checked the floor around my bed and nothing.
The roommate? Possibly, but to this day he insists he did not do it and that it's a story he likes to tell other people. If he did I find it strange that he was able to draw blood hundreds of times without me waking up. He would also have a light to do it, since I slept in the pitch black in those days and wouldn't that have woken me?
What happened I'll never know. I do sometimes think it may have been a warning from a deity that doesn't appreciate being mocked. But sometimes I also wonder if it was a "hello" from Baal, just a wink and a scratch to let me know that there are other things in the pitch black that we don't know about...
We'd both experienced strange things, but always tried to come up with rational explanations. We were fascinated with the unexplained, but our once youthful open minds were becoming more skeptical. The TV turns off? Glitch with the energy saving setting. The lights turning on when we're out? Someone left the lights on obviously. The dark shadows that appeared WITHIN the shadows in the corners of our room? Just our overactive imaginations. The pressure on the corner of our beds in the middle of the night as if a 100+ pound person just sat down? I...don't know.
Tonight it was drawing near midnight and I had work the next day so I went in to say goodnight. My friend has the lights off and is watching the Christian channel. Neither of us were religious: it was a period in time we were exploring our belief systems. He watching for entertainment purposes, much like an atheist might read a Chick tract. Onscreen the televangelist was talking to a young woman who claimed to have played Dungeons and Dragons so much as a child that her character's patron god, whom she claimed was real, had taken control of her soul. This was almost as laughable as the fake tongues she was roaring as he did an "exorcist" on "Baal".
We laughed together and I went to bed.
When I woke up my skin felt strangely warm and itchy. Like I had fallen asleep in a pile of my own shaven hair. I went into the bathroom with just a pair of boxers on and FROZE. My breath caught in my throat and my first thought was that I was dreaming. I immediately went into my friend's room, who was sitting in the chair by the window, preparing a "cigarette" for that day. His eyes bulged as he looked at me there in my boxers.
From my neck to my ankles, nearly every inch of me was covered in short slashes. Hundreds. Bright red, beads of dried blood at the corners. Not thick, just scratched deep enough to leave a bloody red mark.
I went to work that day, we worked together and he immediately informed the kindly, motherly middle-aged women we worked with of what had happened. They had a thousand questions, but no solutions. I had to show my marks to each one and they exchanged looks, almost non-verbally saying "this isn't real, they're pranking us, the little shits" but also "if this is real, I'm praying hard tonight".
Did I scratch myself? No, my nails were freshly clipped. I tested each finger, every surface of the nail, to see if I could make more than just a light, dry mark and I couldn't. I also realized while testing my nails that some of the marks were in positions I myself could not reach.
Did I sleep on something? I checked my bed and there was nothing sharp in it - I checked the floor around my bed and nothing.
The roommate? Possibly, but to this day he insists he did not do it and that it's a story he likes to tell other people. If he did I find it strange that he was able to draw blood hundreds of times without me waking up. He would also have a light to do it, since I slept in the pitch black in those days and wouldn't that have woken me?
What happened I'll never know. I do sometimes think it may have been a warning from a deity that doesn't appreciate being mocked. But sometimes I also wonder if it was a "hello" from Baal, just a wink and a scratch to let me know that there are other things in the pitch black that we don't know about...
By Ryan Aiits
Source:Quora
No comments:
Post a Comment