So, this is a story that I’d like to get off my chest.
Ever since I can remember, I have been afraid of the dark. Till this day, I still struggle with this fear. The earliest memory I have was when I was 7 years old. I was living in a small suburban town in Long Island, New York. The town always stood out to me, especially at night. It had this ominous feeling about it which at first, fascinated me.
I remember walking around my old neighbourhood when I was a kid. The streets were quiet, no out, everyone inside their respected homes. I’m not sure why I was out, but when I was little, I like the idea that was adventure. Connected myself to Indiana Jones, and other action like figures. To me, being outside at night made me “adventurous”.
The street lights lit the surrounding areas brighter than the night sky ever could.
At first, my walks around the neighbourhood at night wasn’t anything special. I was a kid that struggled with stress, so walking around at night was very soothing for my mind. But one night, something was different. The air was dense and fog rolled in which at the time, didn’t affect my ambition to walk around. Until it got to the point where I couldn’t see.
Like blinded by this fog, couldn’t even see the street lights anymore. I stopped, collected myself and just wanted to run home. Before I could even do anything, voices began yelling! Like screaming out loud but nothing projected towards me. It was coming from these houses that I was around. I can’t remember exactly what they were saying but it almost felt like I was ease dropping in at multiple houses at once.
People were yelling and screaming at personal matters. I remember them feeling personal because I didn’t have any attachment to these people. The weird thing about hearing all of these conversations but I was the only one outside, in the fog, hearing all this. It made absolutely no since. It made me feel scared and I specifically wanted my mom to come and find me. But at last she didn’t.
I was by myself, running away from these houses that surrounded me and made my way through this dense fog on route to my house. I was rounding this corner and was making my way back towards my street. I remember passing this one house. I actually knew the people who lived in this house. I heard them panicking. Like freaking the fuck out and all of a sudden, the wind picked up then the power in that house went out.
Complete darkness, the house with the fog in the dark terrified me. I ended up screaming at the house. Hello? I said, Is everything ok? Please say something, I iterated. But nothing. Complete silence and I decided fuck it! I booked back home. Running as fast as I could, I made it home. Went straight to my room.
Now things were weird once I arrived home. My mom was asleep. I remember leaving, I truly remember this, the time I left was 5:40pm. This was in autumn in new york, so the day were getting shorter, which explains it being dark so early. What didn’t make since was I was out for 8 hours. It was 1:40 am. It didn’t make any since.
The experience that was my walk through my neighbourhood only felt like 20 minutes. It all happened extremely fast. The fog, the voices coming from the homes, the pitch black house. How did 8 hours go by? This wasn’t answered.
Throughout my childhood, I would have these “moments”. They would be short but substantial to my personal well being. I started having nightmares. Kept waking about around 1- 2 in the morning from nightmares. During the day, I would go to elementary school and see weird figures in the bushlands near my school.
I felt like I was going mad. I was hearing things and waking up in the middle of the night. I developed trust issues and anger issues. I didn’t have a lot of friends and lots of kids assumed I was crazy, and/or stupid. I told others but felt like there was this disconnect with me. The town I lived in began to terrify me.
The first incident I had was when I was 7 years old. Now I was a little bit older and was remembering a lot of the dreams I was having. Some were about bullies and how they made fun of me and would physically beat me in these dreams. Others, well, it was like something was manipulating my dreams.
One day, I was walking, I was in the town centre. In my old town, there was a lake called argyle. It had a walking trail that connected neighbourhood’s with the rest of the village, in the middle, there was this lake. The lake wasn’t deep at all, hardly enough to drown. But one interesting thing about this lake is it led to a waterfall. That night when I was a 11, ended up at this waterfall.
I sat there for a while just thinking. Speculating about the past. Things were arising inside of me. Emotions began to flood through and I was stressed. The waterfall I was siting near began to get louder. Then it was all I could hear. No one else was around again. I was all by myself and this time, fog began to come out of the waterfall. It looked more misty, and it went over the whole lake.
Then, a figure appeared. It was on the the other side of the lake and it was watching me. It didn’t speak. Only looked but it said enough to me which made me feel afraid. It had these eyes, they were gold. I looked at it from where I was sitting, it began to scream like torched birds. I started crying. I felt weak, and was going to die. The screams reminded me of what I heard from the house. Complete panic and disorder within myself.
After the screaming ended, I ended up seeing people walking. I wasn’t alone outside anymore. It was late and the town was a lively town, many people were out. Walking, drinking, and socializing. I ended walking home that night in distrust of what I was seeing.
I didn’t sleep anymore. I kept the tv on in my room because I was scared of the silence and darkness.
Now, this thing I saw, it came one last time. It was Christmas a year later. I was with my mom when I saw it. It was standing right outside my door. I looked at it and screamed at the top of my lungs. My mom was telling me to calm down. She didn’t see it. In fact, she was aware for quite sometime of my encounters with the environment it this town. She said, there isn’t anything out there and there was nothing to be afraid of. She asked me to relax and sleep with her if I felt scared.
This thing I saw, it lurked at night, it brought out this weird town that I did not recognize. At night, it was like it was an alternate reality. It was filled with loud noises but no bodies to fill them. Only one body came about and that was this figure. The one with the golden eyes.
Growing up afterwards was difficult. My friends just thought I had a wicked imagination. Honestly I thought I did too. I pushed back in my memories. Tried to forget about these moments I had. All the loud horrific noises and fog, I treated them like fantasy. All of my nightmares were just bad dreams. I tried to move forwards but it wasn’t easy.
I got into fights at school and was in constant fight or flight mode. I didn’t listen to any authority figures and started to create divides between myself and others. I began abusing pills and binge eating. The struggle with my mental state was at an all time high. It was a difficult childhood because I dealt with conflicting emotions and didn’t know what exactly was real.
I found comfort in video games. It kept me inside and away from the outdoors. I quit sports and design my room to keep me there. Had all my favourite posters and three monitors connecting to my gaming computer to keep myself happy. Also became a movie buff. Fell in love with movies because I was able to resonate a lot with specific genres like horror and thrillers.
I didn’t want anything to do with the town I was living in because of all of my bad memories. The figure didn’t visit me in my teenage years but I felt like being on alert. Had my room as my safe space to retreat to when things outside got scary.
As the years went on, I began to hear stories. The town I lived in was filled with horrific people. Pedophiles, rapists, and abusers, some even taught at the schools I went to! Kids were abused by their parents, some traumatized for life and had no choice but to escape. Other kids committed suicide. Lots of these stories I heard were from conversations through the town. Parents got together and discussed these matters. Kids talked about it in school.
These matters were interesting me. I ended up speaking about these issues I heard with a guidance consoler. He was tough to talk to because every time I brought up a certain incident, he did not give me the full story. He knew a lot about the things people would do in this town because it was a very small town. People knew one another and the school I went to was not that big.
I was curious about a few of these stories. Because I wanted to know when exactly did some of these events happen? Like if correlated with the specific experiences I had when I was younger. Example, the screams from these houses I walked past. It made me wonder. I asked around and would talk to people. But the more I discussed certain traumatic incidents, the more depressed I became.
People can be extremely cruel. Terrible things are happening each moment and it’s not glamorous. I truly felt bad for some of these experiences people have had. Some were just kids that had tough parent relationships. They would be punished for reasons that just seemed to be blown out of proportion.
Like one person I talked to, will not say his name but his mom was screaming at him in a corner and held him there by the neck! He had to push her off and threaten her with a knife!
Another girl was molested by her soccer coach because she looked more “mature” than her fellow peers. The pain, embarrassment she felt was horrific.
I was left with numerous stories that made me feel sick. A part of me feels deeply connected to a lot of people that lived in that town. Like I knew them too well but was always afraid to reach out because I was terrified. What I was seeing didn’t make since at the times. Looking back, it felt as if I heard the screams of suffering people.
I was a kid that was afraid. Afraid of the town I lived in, couldn’t walk down a street by myself without the thought of someone or something watching me. Now looking back, I wasn’t the only one who lived like that. A part of me wishes I was a bit more nice because I was a very closed off person and didn’t really start reaching out towards others until my senior year in high school.
By then, I was just ready to leave. I knew from a young age that I was going to separate. Get as far away from this town. It’s the type of town that looks nice on the outside but has it’s fair share of dark corners. Those corners were filled with dark energy that attracted people to do terrible things.
Till this day, the dark feels ominous to me. I can’t sleep without some sort of light on.
My mom and I both moved out of the town. She was also fed up with the social hierarchy that existed. She ended up telling me that she felt small and was considered weak for being a single-mother. I felt bad for her and we both knew that living here was coming to an end. My mom moved east of New York, and met her new husband. I so happy for her. For myself, I wanted to get as far as I could from this town.
I went to college but ended up dropping out. Instead I moved to Australia where I now reside. Life is different and I’ve grown a lot since then. Though I have my moments where I remember specific things. One of them being the “thing” with the gold eyes. I haven’t scene it in 13 years but still pops in my memories from time to time.
I hope for all the people that have gone through tough times in that town are now striving. For the ones that torment, hope they are rotting.