Don’t sleep in the study of my parents house.
Entry 1 August 4th, 2018; 7:34am
I grew up in normal suburbs. Most of the houses were on the older side. But no more than 30-40 years. My parent’s house was nice and cute. The walls were painted a pale yellow that gave the place a perpetual autumn look. Even when it was cold it still felt warm. I never had any problems with the rest of the house. But there was always one room that just, never felt right.
The room always felt cold. Dark. My mom set the room up to be a study. A place to work on homework or crafts. Despite how nice the room became, with fancy bookshelves that lined the walls, a nice table in the center of the room, no one liked to stay in the room for long. Something about it was just off putting. I especially disliked the room. I always got a chilling feeling when I was in there.We blamed the oddness of the room on its location. It sat above the garage and wasn’t well inoculated. With it being lower temperatures most of the year, that’s why it was cold. It sat next to the front door, which with 8 people with very different schedules, the room was rarely quiet. The walls were painted a cold blue that seemed to absorb all the light. That’s why it was so dark.
But despite our reasoning, we still could not get past the oddness of it. The room would often become a mess. People would dump their half finished crafts, or supplies on the table rather than stay in there any longer to put them away. Resulting in it always being a mess.
Every few months or so my mom would grow tired of the mess and order one of us to spend our Saturday cleaning it. Whoever was assigned the room, though it should have only taken maybe 3 hours, would take the whole day. They would work for a bit, then leave. They’d forget they were tasked to clean the room until my mother reminded us. My mom, though being more on the strict end, never seemed to get as mad about us forgetting that we were meant to be working on the room.
It was as though, staying in the room for too long was more difficult than it should have been. And everyone seemed to know it.
Staying out of the room was easy until my sister decided to have a foreign exchange student come and stay with us for a month. We were all excited and looked forward to homing someone from Japan. But I would need to be moved out of my room and into the study for the month to make room for the student. I was apprehensive, but didn’t put up a fuss. My parents just set up the spare mattress on the floor, moving the table to the corner of the room. And moved my clothing into a portable set of drawers and toats. And thus, the month began.
I’ve had a hard time sleeping ever since I was a kid. Sounds from outside, or the house popping as it settled would wake me up throughout the night. My parents, at some point, gave me some earplugs from my dad’s work to help me sleep. They did wonders. My first night sleeping with them, I was out like a light. Woke up the next morning feeling the most rested I had in a while. After that I began to wear them, I had never had an issues. Aside from my ears occasionally getting angry with me and I’d have to give my ears a break for a night. Until I moved into the study for that month.
The first few nights, I felt uneasy. I just chalked it up to not being in my normal bed. And the room was brighter at night than I’m used to. The small window that sat in an indent in the room was lit with the bright orange street lamp. The angle of the window offered enough privacy, so my parents never felt the need to install curtains. With the blue walls, the feeling in the room was, creepy.The room was also where we stored the wifi router and the family computer. So there were lots of little blue lights that flashed and I could see them through my eyes as I tried to sleep.
I remember tossing and turning, and resting on covering my eyes with a blanket to get any sleep. But I still woke up throughout the night. I got up many times to use the bathroom, and just remained in the bathroom, dreading going back to bed. But eventually the cold of the night would make me long for the soft warm blankets, and I headed back to bed.
The first few nights were like this. But eventually I got used to the conditions, and seemed to get along with the room.
Until that night. I remember it vividly. My siblings and I and the exchange student stayed up after my parents watching tv. It was a Friday, and was the only night we were allowed to stay up so late. We would revel in it. We watched a strange movie about a woman who traveled in time and saved a man’s life who would have died in a bus crash. I found it really interesting. And as I fell asleep I reviewed the movie in my mind as I often did.
I’m not sure when I fell asleep. But my dream was the movie playing in my head again. I watched the characters walking around, talking about something, I don’t remember what. But I noticed something in the room with them that I had not before. There was a shadowy figure in the corner of the room. My mind told me it had been there the whole time, but I had just noticed it. I looked at it, trying to understand why it was there. I looked away from it, to watch the scene in my head, but when I looked back, it was closer. To me. The viewer. My eyes darted between it and the scene once more, and this time the figure was suddenly in my face. So close, like it was about to touch me. Fear surged through me. I could now make out the vague shapes of its face. It looked like it was screaming.
When I noticed the scream, my ears began to ring. It wanted me to look away, but I knew if I did again, it would get to me. My instincts told me I couldn’t let that happen. I stared at it. Heart beating hard in my dreamer chest. The figure’s face began to contort more and more. Getting more angry. Its mouth getting wider than it should be able. My ears range louder and louder. So much it became unbearable. In that moment, I knew I was asleep and I desperately begged myself to wake up. But waking up felt like I was pushing through heavy, thick nothing. I was under water, heavy water and I needed to get to the top. But something was holding me down.
Finally the sound in my ears grew so loud that I finally woke up. My eyes shot open as I laid on my side. But despite being awake, the ringing continued. Loud and deafening. I pulled my ear plugs out, half wondering if the sound was external. But when I did, the sound seemed to get more quiet. It was still loud enough to hurt. I knew there was little I could do, so I just laid there, in pain, until the sound began to curb. I breathed in deep, and began to relax more. I started to notice the sound of the clock in the room. The ticking seemed to drown out the ringing. So I focused on it. The sound finally faded with the ticking and I drifted back to sleep.
I don’t remember my dreams after that.I woke up the next morning, feeling tired. My ears were back to normal. I remembered the face in my dreams. It haunted me. But the more awake I became, the more my mind drifted away from it, and I began to reason that it was just a weird dream.
You would think I would have thought more of this. But my mom struggles with dream paralysis. She had warned us that one day we may struggle with it too. She started having it when she was a teenager. And I was the right age. So I figured the new room and the odd movie and the timing had just triggered something that was always going to be triggered in me. The figure? My mom had described having the feeling of someone sitting on her chest, and desperately needing to get it off. I did a bit of research that morning, and learned about dream demons that would show up in dreams for those with dream paralysis. So I just chalked the figure and the ringing in my ears up to that.
The next few nights passed with nothing happening. This cemented the idea in my head that that was all it was. I had nothing to worry about.
After a few days, I had a dream where I was back at school. Or, my brain said it was school. It felt like school, but the building was all wrong. There were 4 floors, insead of 2. The commons where everyone would eat lunch was much taller and wider than in reality. Though in the dream I had not realized this yet. Just something I noticed in retrospect. But this dream had started as one of my many fantasies that I used to put myself asleep. I was at school when a supervillain showed up. And I was a secret super hero who they were hunting down. The dream meandered from the fantasy, but the setting remained. The concept of me needing to stop the villain remained. I wandered the school during class time, avoiding the teachers, looking for the villain.
I spotted them down the hall, and I made my plan to attack. As I approached the creature (that I now realize looked much like the lizard from the Amazing Spiderman movie), my ears started to ring again. At first, I thought little of it as I made my way to the lizard. Until it got loud enough that it started to drown out the ambient sound of the dream. I looked around, frantically at the corners in front of me. The sound grew louder and louder. There were more corners than I realized. Finally, I turned all the way around in a quick motion, and there it was. Its scream plain as day as it seemed to freeze in place. My heart pounded. I wanted to back away, look away. But I didn’t dare. It was so close. Only a few feet. Not as close as the first time, but I knew that was because I caught it sooner this time. Its face contorted again as it begged me to look away from it. I felt myself pushing through the feeling, trying to get the real me to respond and wake up. I needed to be awake NOW. Dream me started to hit her head. Maintaining eye contact.
Finally, dream me made enough movement, got my heart rate up enough, that my eyes opened. The ringing in my ears remained. I pulled out my ear plugs to listen to the clock. The sound faded faster this time to the ticking.
I lay there, heart beating. But I was tired. So tired. All I wanted to do was to fall back asleep. I remind myself that it was a dream demon, and by all means, I’m safe. I paid attention to the ticking of the clock again. It was soothing. I could hear the subtle bounce of the hand as it ticked to the next number on the face. Listened as it marked the time passing. My mind wandered, though, the ticking remained in my head. My thoughts timed to the ticking.
Soon I was in a room full of clocks, ticking. I was replacing the batteries of my alarm clock. I snapped the back into place and placed it on the table. A soft ticking sound, that matched the rhythm of the others, started from it. I smiled, feeling satisfied with my work. I placed the alarm clock on the shelf where I knew it belonged. I was hungry. I wanted some food. I made my way out of the workshop into the outside world. It was bright, and there was green plant life everywhere. I walked up a path that led to the kitchen.
As I headed to the kitchen though, I realized that I had forgotten my pocket watch. It was important that I grabbed it. So I turned back to get it. But the path was different now. The workshop was farther away. And shaped much smaller than it had been before. I felt a little irritated, but made my way back to the shop. I could hear the ticking of the shop as I was about to open the door. Hand on the doorknob, and it started again. The ringing. I was more aware of it this time. Or was it louder this time to start? I wasn’t sure. I looked around me, side to side. Looking around the walls of the small shop. The sound grew again. Anxiety filled me as I tried to look around more. But I realized that for some reason, I could only look from side to side. I knew I needed to look behind me, but I couldn’t move that way. I pushed towards one side, gaining some leeway, but stopped again. I tried the other way, I gained more. I tried back the other way, and again I gained. The sound hurt my ears now, I was almost out of time. Finally, a large burst of effort, and I spun around, and came nose to nose with the figure. I almost screamed out, but froze instead. It was close. Too close. I began working to wake myself up again. But this time the water, the feeling was stronger. The weight that kept me asleep was much heavier than it was before. I struggled against it.
As I did, for the first time, I saw the figure start to move. It was just its hand. But it was moving it. Slowly towards me. Holding out a finger. I pushed harder, and harder. Just as the finger was about to touch me and the sound, I’m sure, was making my ears bleed, my real eyes shot open.
I faced the door. And for a second as I awoke, the figure was standing over me. Its hand nearly touching me. But I blinked and it disappeared. Thoroughly freaked out now, I got up from my bed, grabbed my blanket and decided I was going to sit on the couch and refuse to go back to sleep. I sat on the couch for what felt like hours. Looking around me. Looking at every dark corner of the room. But the feeling of terror seemed to be dampened by leaving the room. My fear slowly faded. Until I woke up the next morning to my dad turning on the light. I sat up on the couch, realizing I’d fallen asleep like that.
My dad looked at me confused. He asked me why I was out there so early. I just told him I had a hard time sleeping. I didn’t think he would believe me if I told him the truth. He shrugged and began making himself breakfast. I sat there, happy for the company, even if we were both quiet.
After that incident, I couldn’t bring myself to sleep in that room. But my parents would get angry with me for sleeping on the couch. So I set an alarm to just before my dad was up, and spent the nights on the couch. I didn’t have more sleep paralysis doing this. When the fear faded more, I once again chalked it up to the weird sleeping conditions of the room.
After the month was up, I went back to sleeping in my own bed. That was the first and last exchange student that displaced me. I was glad for it too. I didn’t want to be doomed to sleeping in that room again.
This all happened when I was about 12 years old. So the memories of it, faded. I started my first year of college. When I left, my parents converted my and my sister’s old room, as she was older and had moved out a year before me, to an upstairs office for my dad. He now worked from home more, and needed a space where he wouldn’t be bothered. The study was left vacant.
During college, thanks to external factors in my life I don’t find relevant to this, I became extremely depressed. I could do little about it for lack of funds and proper health care. So I did my best to cope with it. I finished my first year miraculously only failing 1 of the classes. I didn’t have the funds to stay in my college town and decided to head back home for the summer and fall months while I was off track. I got a job at a warehouse where I spent most of my days. The mind numbing work of the place did not help my mental state. My dad now using my old room as a workplace, I was put in the Study.
I had long forgotten my previous experience, and my parents had made an effort to make the room feel more like a room. My dad, having worked with electrical, had learned that the room was so dark because the power to the light fixture could not handle a brighter bulb. So they made efforts, by adding about 5 lamps, to make the room brighter. It still remained cold however. Not much that could be done there.
I dreaded sleeping in the room a little. But, my fear was a child’s. And I was no longer a child. I needed to get over it. Face my fear. Then I’ll see that the room is just in a weird place, and it was fine. This is what I told myself at least. But my fear, still nawed at the back of my brain. Not caring much for my health, I would stay up late, watching videos. Playing mobile games. Until early morning when I’d finally let myself sleep for a few hours before getting up and going back to my job.
The first of the new incidents happened about a week into sleeping in the room. I was so tired from work that day, and the many chores my parents had piled on me, I dozed off while watching some video about zoology. My dream was dull, stressful. Not like the ones I had when I was younger. I was trying to get to work on time, but couldn’t seem to grab everything I needed. My car had no walls, and eventually had no engine and I had to push the car to work by running. I had no time to put on my shoes, so I ran on the cold wet asphalt.
That’s when I heard it. For the first time in years. The ringing. Even in my dream, I felt surprised. The old child’s fear filled me as my eyes darted around. The car was gone, my stuff too. I stood on the cold wet street, alone. I live in Washington state, so all the roads where I live are lined by forest. I looked between each tree. The sound got louder, I spotted the figure, not too far from me. It was in the trees, just looking at me. It was too far to see, but I knew its face well. Luckily, it was not hard this time to wake myself up.
I looked at the darkened phone screen. My ear hurt from the way I laid on my earbud. But the ringing was gone. I blinked. Sat up, looking around. It was dark. The street lamp’s light made a pattern of the window’s lattice on the floor. I sighed, and turned on some calming music and laid back down.
I slept as well as I could the rest of that night. And again, nothing happened for the next few nights. I maintained my routine of keeping myself up too late. I would nap on the couch when I got home from work to make up for the lost sleep. But part of me, the stubborn part of me, refused to spend the nights on the couch like I had as a kid. Just stay awake until the seeming window of danger passed.
I do think I was largely this reckless because at this point in my life, I don’t actively want to die, but enough of me does. It’s enough that I didn’t care much about my safety. Plus, I still believed the room was just, odd, and nothing more. The lighting, the wifi router. Many had said that wifi has weird signals that make it hard for people to sleep. So I’ve heard. Maybe being so close to the router was kicking this off.
It’s funny how far the human brain will go to stop you from believing what is right in front of you when you don’t want it to be real. Confirmation bias, I guess. We like to be safe in our world view, not realizing that it is harming us more than it’s helping.
The last night it happened again, it was like the first. I was having a dream where I was stressing that I had forgotten about one of my classes all semester and was now trying to make up for all the work on a single day. I sat in my room, sorting through my homework, fruitlessly trying to find the syllabus so I knew what assignments I needed to complete. When the ringing started up again. I looked around again. Fear rising in me like usual. And my eyes locked on the figure who stood in my closet. Its face I could make out a little. I started pushing on the mass that kept me asleep, but this time, felt exhausted. I just wanted to sleep in peace. Like every time before, my waking brain began to take over. But I started to wonder why I was bothering to fight. I didn’t know for sure that this thing was dangerous. I thought, my fear of it keeps it alive. I glanced away. When my eyes returned, seconds later, it was out of the closet, now in the middle of the floor. I stood by my desk. Perhaps if I let it get to me, it would go away. I let a feeling of calm wash over me, though part of my brain still fought. And I glanced away again. Now it was nose to nose with me. My heart beat. It was just a dream. I knew it was. I shouldn’t have, but I did. I just closed my eyes as I saw its screaming face start to contort. Letting the loud sound of the ringing in my ears wash over me. I felt something take over me. And in my closed eyes, it’s face didn’t disappear. It’s scream, turned slowly into a smile. The ringing pitched out as a high screeching sound. And I woke up.
My whole body felt strange. At first, it was small, an energy across my whole body. But then it turned into a burning itching pain, under my skin. I rubbed my arms, my legs. Nothing could stop it. I sat up in bed, cold sweats beading down my brow. My eyes fell on the corner of the room. And there the figure was. Smiling at me. But I was awake. Wide awake. I know the difference. I have lucid dreamed enough in my life to know the difference. I locked my eyes on the figure. My very skin felt like it was going to melt off. I grabbed my phone, hoping, and turned on the screen, pointed it at the figure. It disappeared.
I sighed, thinking I was safe. The feeling in my skin remained. I blinked, and turned the screen off. When I did, the figure was standing by the foot of my bed. I nearly screamed, but just scrambled out of bed, keeping my eyes on it. I felt tears welling in my eyes. I backed against the door. Turning the handle I stepped into the hall. The feeling in my skin disappeared the second I crossed the threshold. I tripped over the slightly raised tile floor from the carpeted room. Falling back on the cold hard tile. Horrified, I propped myself back up, looking at the door, and there it stood, just inside the door. Smiling at me. I didn’t know what to do. If I could move. If I did, would it get out? I didn’t know, but I had to keep it where it was. I stayed like that for so long. My bones and my muscles hurt, but I didn’t dare look away. The room grew brighter as the sun came up. And as it did, the figure faded. I’m not sure if it is still in the room, and I just can’t see it or not.
It is Saturday. No one got up for a few hours. I stretched my aching bones. I’m sure I’ll have bruised elbows that I won’t be able to explain. I got myself a bowl of cereal and just stared at it. It was hard to deny that what happened last night was real. Otherwise I truly am crazy. But if I am, why only in that room?
My family moved about the house, working to clean as we did most Saturdays. I slipped into the study carefully to grab new clothes. Mere minutes in there, I felt the burning, crawling feeling on my skin and got out of there as fast as I could.
Throughout the day, I have been evaluating what to do. I can’t go back into the room for long. But all of my belongings are in there. And eventually, someone else would need to go in there. I feel dread. Hopeless. I have nowhere to go. And if I try to explain what happened no one will believe me. I wouldn’t.
A thought of lighting the room up in flames, or claiming there is a gas leak in the room to keep people out came to mind. But then the repair men would have to be in there for long. With that thing. I don’t think fire would kill it either. I don’t know what to do.
Entry 2 August 4th, 2018; 11:47pm
It’s night now. I have been sitting in the living room, debating my choices. I regret letting it touch me. It’s like the stories I’ve heard, of people who jump off bridges, wanting to die. But just after they leep, they regret it. And landing in the safety net is a welcome surprise. But this is not a bridge, and there are no safety nets.
Ultimately, I have decided that I will be the one to face it. I let it into this world, I should be the one to suffer the consequences. I don’t want anyone, especially my siblings, getting hurt because of me.
If I never write again, assume I’m dead. Or replaced or who knows what will happen to me.
Bye for now. I guess.
Entry 3 August 28th, 2018; 1:16pm
Hi. I’m Jane’s younger sister. I’m going through her computer to see if I can find anything. Jane has been missing for several weeks now. We don’t know where she went. We assumed she ran away, she was really struggling. I wish I could have talked to her more.
But reading this. I guess, now I know, something. Jane, why did you go back in? I’ve slept in the study before, and I saw that thing in my dream too. I would have believed you. Maybe we could’ve convinced Mom and Dad to let you sleep in my room. We could have done something.I miss you sis. Please come back.Entry 4 November 8th, 2018; 5:15am
We sold the house, and are moving out today. Moving to a new state for my dad’s work. I have been in that room a few times since she disappeared. And I’ve felt her there, like she’s watching me. But I turn to look, and I don’t see anything.
I don’t think my sister is coming back.
Entry 5 January 31st, 2024; 1:57pm
It’s been a while. I’ve accepted that my sister is gone. But I wanted to share her last words with, anyone that will read them. I did my best to fix her spelling, she was dyslexic, so there was a lot to fix.
I’m worried about the new owners of my parents old house. If you read this and you bought a house in a Washington suburb, and you have a weird feeling in the room by the door, don’t sleep in there.