I didn’t have a normal childhood. Despite such a unique claim, the abnormality that ended up defining my childhood only occupied a small portion of it. One night, to be specific.
When I was 9, my life changed forever. I was living in the house that my parents still live in now. The night was like any other - that was until something drastic happened.
I was just on the verge of sleep - that type of feeling where you’re conscious, yet dreaming - where your mind is filling your head with random thoughts, feelings and images, yet you’re not quite fully asleep. In this state, it’s common to have that ‘jumping’ sensation - this is because your body has fallen asleep too quickly, and your brain is sending a shockwave to your muscles to ensure you haven’t died. At least that’s what I’ve heard.
Before I knew it, I awoke to a thin ray of moonlight piercing my eyes, and a gentle scraping sound. My window and blinds had opened. I immediately looked up. The moonlight that now filled my small childhood bedroom illuminated enough for me to see what was happening - a man was entering my room through the window.
As he was putting his leg over the windowsill, the rest of his body still outside and unaware of what was happening inside, I quickly slammed my head onto my pillow and pretended to be asleep. I laid at such an angle so that I could still see most of my room, the floor being the exception. I opened my eyes the smallest amount I possibly could, and saw something that would change me forever - a man in a grey suit wearing a grey fedora had made his way into my room through my upstairs window. How he managed to go about doing this, I’m still not sure. I saw him duck his head, his legs already over the windowsill and resting on the foot of my bed, and push his way fully into my bedroom.
I shut my eyes. I was so scared I quite literally forgot how to breathe. Subtly, anyway. The only sound I could hear was the incredibly loud thumping of my heart beating in my ears. By the time I’d opened my eyes again, my window was shut, along with my blinds. I had to open my eyes wider this time, so that my pupils would dilate and I’d be able to see what was happening - the blinds being shut obscured my vision, as there was now no light in my bedroom. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could now see a tall, slender silhouette of a man in the corner of my room, where my door was.
I had never felt so sick. You know that feeling you get when you go over a bump, or when the roller coaster goes over a hill? That was the feeling I had. I cautiously observed him, as he stood in the corner of my room, his hands clasped behind his back, watching me. I could see his chest gently bouncing up and down as he breathed. I closed my eyes. At this point, I assumed it was a dream so I shut my eyes, and with great difficulty, I found myself asleep.
By the time I woke up the next morning, the man was gone. I found my window to be open slightly - about an inch or so. This told me that what’d happened hadn’t really been a dream - a man in a grey suit wearing a fedora had found his way through my window and into my bedroom.
I had many questions. Who was he? Why did he enter my room? Why did he come through my window and not the main entrance? At what point during the night did he leave? A million thoughts and possible answers flooded my brain.
Over the course of the next month or so, these thoughts persisted as the man continued to visit me every night. By the second or third week, I was no longer scared. In fact, I felt an odd sense of comfort when I heard my window start to slide open, or when I saw moonlight flood my room as he opened my blinds. By the third and fourth week, I would wait and stay awake for him to arrive. I was no longer scared of letting him see that I was aware of his presence - in fact, one night, he arrived and stood in the corner of my room with his hands clasped behind his back like he always did, he gave me a slight nod as though saying ‘hey, it’s me, your old friend slender-suit-man.’
I’m not sure exactly how long he’d been visiting me before this fateful night - I assume it was just under a month.
One night, I heard my window slide open. A hand curled under my blinds and he peeled them up, letting the usual array of moonlight flood my room. He slid in through my window, shut it behind him, and stood in the corner with his hands behind his back. Not a single thing about this routine had changed since the day I first saw him.
There was one thing that kept nibbling away at me, however - I could never make out his face. The shadow of his fedora somehow shielded any light from touching his face, so, in reality, I had no idea what he looked like.
Although that sense of comfort was still there, I believe that was mostly due to his consistency. If he hadn’t done the exact same thing each time, I would have continued to be worried sick. In fact, I felt that there was something deep inside of me that continued to trigger my fight or flight response, even when it was his umpteenth time visiting me.
Then the air of the room changed. Everything became still. I laid there in silence, confused, before I heard a loud bang from downstairs. Something breaking. I looked over at the man in the suit, whose hands were now by his side. It was almost scary to see him standing in any other position excluding the one where his hands were behind his back. He turned on a 180 degree axis, grabbed the door handle, twisted it and pulled it open. He stuck his head out. He then pulled his head back in and quietly shut the door. We were there in darkness for a few seconds, before we heard footsteps coming up the stairs. This was when I started freaking out. I began to scream, but before any sound could come out, the man in the suit held up one finger to his face, as though advising me to be quiet.
We heard footsteps approaching my door. The man in the suit swiftly walked over to my bed, helped me up and swept me behind him. We quickly and quietly made our way towards his corner. He seemed perfectly calm.
We saw the door handle twist - and the door slowly opened.
A silhouette of a man appeared in our vision, and we saw a long cylindrical item in his hand - it looked as though it could have been a knife. The atmosphere tightened a second later when he spoke.
‘Sorry kid. This isn’t going to end well for you.’ He slowly raised the object in his hand.
Within the span of half a second, the man in the suit drew a gun from the inside of his blazer, placed a hand over my ear and shot the man in the doorway.
By the time I was done holding my ears and staring at the ground, silently crying, I turned around to see the man in the suit was gone. My window was wide open, and the wind from the outside was making my curtains flail desperately. I looked back at my doorway and the intruder was lying on the ground with a bullet hole in his side. Then, in that moment, I realised that had the man in the suit not been there, I would have been dead. I saw my mum come out of her room, look at my body and her eyes widened. I think she saw something in the intruder’s face that neither me nor the man in the suit could see. I screamed.
18 Years Later
‘You’re so immature.’ I said with a slight hint of venom in my voice. ‘How many times have I told you this story? And how many times has it ended up in a debate of some kind?’
‘Every time.’ He said with a smile on his face. God, I hated that smile. Especially when it was in the context of this argument. ‘I just find it funny how long you’ve been telling me this joke, and you still expect me to believe it.’
‘The joke isn’t in my story, it’s in your name.’ I said with a giggle. ‘At least my parents didn’t hate me so much they decided to name me Hercules.’
‘Shut up!’ He said in response. ‘And your parents do hate you.’
‘Too far, man.’ I said seriously. ‘Hercules, I’m not kidding. Please believe me. I get it sounds crazy, and I know I say this every time but you have to believe me. Why would I make this up? Why do you think the man who broke into my house had a bullet wound?’
‘He shot himself?’ He said, as though it was the most obvious conclusion. ‘That’s literally what the police report determined. Trauma affects people in different ways, one of the most obvious examples being memory. I think you’ve created this as a coping mechanism.’
I sighed. There was no point. Who the hell was going to believe this story? I know what I saw, and I know it was true, and yet the story that emerged sounded so fabricated.
For the past 18 years, there has barely been a day that’s gone by where I haven’t thought about the man in the suit. The man who saved my life, and the man who I hadn’t seen since that fateful night.
‘Tab, please.’
I stumbled home that night. I hated trying to tell Hercules about what happened. I really have no one else in my life - my parents and I have had a really rocky relationship ever since our house was broken into, and I don’t blame them. So much legal stuff went down that I still have no idea about, and I’m sure that as many times as they want to deny it, they at least partly blame me for it.
I just remember a barrage of police at my house, discussing the origins of the unknown intruder. They classified him as a ‘John Doe,’ since he had no records or known family members.
I opened my door and over-armed my keys and phone onto my bed. I threw myself down next to them. I laid there for a moment, thinking about the man in the suit and searching for ways in which I could possibly find him again.
I fell asleep that night with the man in the suit still on my mind. I needed to see what he was up to, and why he was in my room for those several weeks. These questions flooded my brain the entire night.
I woke up the next morning and conducted research throughout the entire day. For the next two and a half weeks, I would wake up, browse the internet on information about sightings of him, news reports on the murder and other topics of this nature. I never found anything solid.
At this point I was concerned about my mental health. I had barely left my apartment for those two weeks. Any calls I’d receive would ring out. Any texts I’d receive would endure an unintentionally nasty response, from me. I was worried that I was becoming obsessed with the man in the suit.
Hercules had ties into some lab that was downtown. A few years back, he’d had an apprenticeship there. He’d mentioned at some point that they used to specialise in hypnosis therapy, except it was super secret and all of the information about it was under wraps. He would tell me about people who would come in and be cured of all types of problems. It was rumoured that they’d achieved things like curing pervasive mental problems, treating chronic health conditions, time travel and memory removal. The last one was the one that I was focused on. I was so sick of thinking about the man in the suit - I just wanted the memory of him, and the memory of that entire night gone. Since he worked there a few years ago, maybe I could contact him and see what he knows?
I texted him, even though it was half past twelve at night. The message read: ‘Hey man, hope you’re well. Sorry I haven’t called you back. Was just wondering if you still had any info on that lab you did that apprenticeship at a few years back? Would really appreciate it. Catch you soon man.’
I turned my phone off and put it on my desk. I went to sleep that night as soon as my head hit the pillow.
I woke up the next morning with a headache. I got up, had a glass of water and returned to my room to check my phone. I checked my messages. I saw a message in response from Hercules - an address. Along with it was a message that said, ‘I don’t know what you’re doing, but good luck with it. You might not be as lucky this time to have a man in a suit come and save you.’ He had two skull emojis next to it as though it was the funniest thing ever.
I entered the address into google maps, got dressed and headed into my car.
After an hour or so of driving, I heard the magical ‘You have reached your destination,’ chime from my phone as I pulled up in front of a large menacing building. I turned my car off. From the inside of my car, I could see two entrances - one was way past me to my left, which had a rotating door. There were two extremely tall and muscular men with earpieces on either side of it. One entrance was nearly directly in front of me, slightly to the right, that had ‘Staff Only,’ on it, written in bold writing. Due to the lack of guards and the absence of the chance of me getting my ass handed to me in a fight, I chose the door to the right.
I walked over to it, turned the handle and gave it a gentle push. Like clockwork, the door swung open and I was granted access. I assumed it was unlocked for fire exit safety reasons.
I found myself to be in a stairwell, which reinforced my theory on the fire safety door. As I gazed around, I found that there was one flight of stairs to my left that went upwards, and one to my right that went downwards. This meant that the stairs to the right would take you underground. I followed the stairs down for what seemed like hours. I was walking down stairs for so long I started to feel exhausted. Eventually, however, I reached a landing and a door that said, “WARNING: CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION INSIDE. DO NOT ENTER WITHOUT A LEVEL 4 PASS.”
I didn’t know what the hell a level four pass meant, so I tried to kick down the door. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work. I saw a scanner next to the door, which I’d assumed scanned the level four passes and unlocked the door. I ran back upstairs again, which took an excruciatingly long time. I did this to find a more populated area, so that I could hopefully find and use a pass. Upon finding myself back in front of the door in which I entered, I went up the flight of stairs on the left and found myself in a hallway. I opened a random door in the hallway and emerged in a large empty office area.
I searched around for passes. There were hooks on each cubicle that most people had their passes hanging on - most of them were either level one or level two. I found one that was level three, but that still didn’t help me. I searched for another ten minutes before I finally found one - a level four pass, in the pocket of a grey blazer hanging on the back of a chair. I quickly ran back down the stairs, nearly tumbling down every few minutes. I nearly threw up by the time I’d reached the bottom due to the amount of exercise I was getting. I scanned the level four pass, and with a satisfying “click,” the door unlocked. I grabbed the handle, twisted it and pulled on it.
I found myself to be in a massive expanse of machinery and wiring. The room would have had to have been the size of a mid-size stadium. I stood in the doorway speechless at the dimensions of the room. I was surrounded by complex equipment, most of which I hadn’t a clue of its purpose. From the doorway, I could see something in the centre that looked almost like a portable toilet. This rectangular prism had hundreds, if not thousands, of wires coming out from it at every angle. Upon closer inspection, the object was a lot more fancy than a portable toilet - in fact, it looked polished and modern, and had an area to stand in the interior that wasn’t obscured by a toilet. Barely enough room for one person.
I pumped my fist in the air upon realising the magnitude of my success. After a brief observation, I found a keypad next to it, which, like the door, had a scanner with a sticker on it that said ‘Level 4 Pass Only.’ I scanned my pass on it. There were already settings that had been entered on the hypnosis box that had remained there since its last usage that I’d decided to leave as they were.
After several minutes of torturous anticipation and gently winking colours coming from the interior, everything went black.
I woke up laying down inside of the box. I got up shakily, using the walls of the box to help me up.
I cautiously pushed open the door and looked around. Nothing was different. I was still in the same room, exiting the same box, feeling the same amount of uncertainty.
I closed the door to the box behind me before processing what had just happened. I definitely still had the memory of that night - if anything, it had merely revitalised it. I skulked my way out of the room, sad and confused. How had it not worked?
I made my way up the seemingly infinite staircase and out onto the landing. Next to the exit was a small newspaper stand - I grabbed today’s paper, rolled it up and made my way to my car.
I sat in my car for a few minutes. The fact that the house and that night was most of what I’d thought about for the past two weeks, I felt an unexplainable urge to confront these memories and see if I can’t get over them.
I plunged my key into my car and heard my engine purr. I stepped on the gas pedal.
By the time I arrived, it was nighttime. I hadn’t been there in several years, since my parents and I barely talked. In fact, now that I was seeing it in person, it looked so similar to how it was back then.
During my minutes reminiscing and observing my house from the exterior, I heard a sound slightly to my right. An extremely distant sound - one that I wouldn’t have even picked up on, had it not been for the silence of the neighbourhood.
In an attempt to locate the source of the sound, my eyes landed on my bedroom window. What I saw next made my stomach drop through the floor.
The leg of a man in grey pants had just disappeared into my old bedroom. I had instant butterflies. He was back! Just when I was visiting my old house, he was back!
My parents never locked their doors. We didn’t live in a quiet town by any means, just one that didn’t have much crime. No one in the neighbourhood locked their doors.
I ran through the main entrance and into the house. As I was making my way to the stairs, in my euphoria, I accidentally bumped into a flower pot. It made a loud crashing sound.
I made my way up the stairs, incredibly nervous to be seeing the man in the suit again for the first time in 18 years. I stood there outside my bedroom door for a while, gathering strength and trying to fight off nerves.
After several minutes, I walked up to my childhood bedroom door, twisted the handle and gently pushed the door open.
In front of me was a tall, slender man in a suit with a child standing behind him. The smile dropped from my face. Instantly, it hit me.
The presets on the hypnosis machine clearly didn’t remove memories. It must have dilated time. Within that split second, I felt every atom on my body tense up. I felt the exact same fear that I’d felt that night 18 years ago. A million thoughts were racing through my brain - none of which I could process in time to somehow utilise in this situation. Then, the realisation finally set in.
‘Sorry kid. This isn’t going to end well for you.’ Was all I could muster out, tears in my eyes. I went to raise my hands in peace, but I didn’t make it all the way.
I saw him quickly draw his hand into the blazer of his suit and pull out a shiny revolver. Something else was in his pocket that almost fell out.
A gunshot rang out, and both me and the child fell to the ground almost instantly.
I laid there, my hands over my ribs, where the bullet had penetrated. My hands, my shirt, everything - was covered in blood in mere seconds. From the ground, I looked up and made eye contact with the man in the suit.
As he looks at me, I see his face for the first time - a look of horror on it as he realises who he’s just killed.