I know this isn’t the type of place to ask for help, but I’ve run out of options.
I was going through some of my old photos one night. I scrolled slowly for hours looking back into old memories I had forgotten. I’ve been on my own for so long that I started to forget significant parts of my childhood. Memories I’d like to keep forever, thankfully stored away inside a digital time capsule. Eventually, after many hours of the endless finger swipe, I reached the bottom; to see the very first picture I ever saved to this grand archive of mine. The picture was old, and clearly from a different time, when cameras weren’t nearly as good as they are today. In the picture, my mother was holding me up high on her shoulders, above an iron gate. How this photo got online is a mystery to me. We didn’t have social media or smartphones back then, so it confused me as to how a physical photograph made it into my online archive. I eventually deduced I was around five years old in this picture, as the slight memory of this event returned.
It was a sweet sight, but a random one; one that seemed out of place from the usual pictures that I saved. A grainy filter coated the picture; you can see only the backs of the two of us, facing the opposite direction. My mother was pointing her finger between the open space of the metal bars we stood behind. What she was pointing at I didn’t know at first. I couldn’t see any facial expressions, but little me seemed very excited to be on top of the world like that, stretching my arms as high as I could, like some kind of anime character. I would soon find out, that this picture was the beginning of a new horror I would experience throughout my entire life without ever knowing it. Something whispered to me in my mind; a curiosity I honestly should have brushed off. Why is this here?
We were standing outside of a graveyard; visiting an old relative I had now forgotten.
I noticed towards the direction that my mother was pointing, a person standing on top of a tiny green hill overlooking the rest of the graveyard. She was very far away, but just close enough that I could make out her outfit and general look. Her hair dangled down to the ground. I’ve never seen anyone’s hair be that long in my life. In the pitch-black void, her frizzy, unruly black hair seemed like spectral threads, almost suspending her in an eerie, weightless dance.
She wasn’t wearing any shoes and dawned a long white nightgown that was too big for her body. Making out any facial features was impossible, but what I understood immediately was that she was looking directly at us. Weird, but not enough at first to ring up any alarm bells.
A strange anomaly in a childhood photo. That’s what I thought. Upon discovering this photo, more were added to my library. And I mean they were added right after I viewed this first picture and swiped out. Curious, I decided to go deeper. As I continued scrolling, I couldn’t help but notice these additional photographs were also from my childhood. Pictures that otherwise would have no ability to make it to my computer. In each of them, the same woman was captured, her presence subtly etched somewhere in the background. Going through the photos, the woman began to get further and further away as I became younger. Eventually, she was no longer there. This fact in mind, I started to investigate more recent photos to see if the woman appeared again at any point. Sure as shit, I found her. A photograph from my college graduation, showed me with a wide smile, standing in front of the University’s arched bridge that linked the dorms to the campus. At first glance, it seemed like a typical picture, but there she was, the mysterious woman, positioned on the bridge high above, gazing directly at the camera. It was the first image in which I could discern her face. Her eyes, deep-set and as expansive as baseballs, remained wide open, unblinkingly attentive. It was as though this woman possessed eyes that didn’t require the respite of blinking, devoid of eyelids. Intrigued, I decided to backtrack through my photo collection, and my suspicions were validated. With each passing snapshot, the woman in question drew nearer to me as time unfolded. This discovery made me nothing but paranoid.
There was a sense that I was no longer safe, now that I was aware of this entity that had been following me since I was a child. I didn’t want to do what I did next, but somehow I managed to do it regardless of my feelings. The revelation I was about to uncover would send me into the spiral I currently reside in. I took a look at my most recent picture. It was taken one week ago. The picture was of me standing in my bedroom with a white tux on, wearing a perfectly solid red tie. Obviously, I was checking myself out before my fraternity’s winter formal. The terrifying thing was….she was there. She wasn’t just there, she was right fucking behind me. Her face was in perfect view, and twice as shocking as I initially analyzed. Her eyes….Jesus fuck they were massive, taking up about 70% of her face. She didn’t even look human. Her body stood 8 feet tall above my 5”11 body. The top of her back leaned forward above me, her neck sinuously elongated like a nightmarish serpent, arched as far as it could stretch, surpassing the length of my own arm. She stared down at me with a look of pure disgust and malice; like I was prey waiting to be devoured. Her eyes were pitch black, completely devoid of any life or emotion. The black threads that dangled to the ground rested upon my shoulder. The white night gown was ruined, with rips and tears throughout the entire piece revealing a badly scarred and burned chest. Brown stains coated the dress; what I assume to be dried blood.
I don’t know about you guys, but from what I know about ghosts or demons, they like blood, especially if it’s trying to frighten you. Maybe showing the way they were when they died. The dried blood; it was almost as if she had been like this for an extremely long time….like she was alive. Alive and unseen. I know that’s something trivial when talking about the supernatural, but I couldn’t help but point that out. Another disturbing feature was how skinny and long her face was, with her jaw stretching all the way down to her chest. Her face is burned into my eyelids. Every time I close my eyes I see that face staring right at me.
I tried to research as much as I could about this woman, but couldn’t find anything about who she might be. No urban legends or myths about her, no internet stories or creepy pastas. I genuinely am terrified for myself. I’m even more scared to ever take a picture again. If she was getting closer in every picture I took, and she was right behind me in the most recent one, that means the next photo I take could result in me coming face to face with whatever this thing is. If anyone has any tips on who this woman might be, please let me know. There was just a tap at my window, and I could have sworn I saw someone staring at me, but I honestly think it was my head playing tricks. There’s also this hum. It started not too long after I discovered the first photograph. It’s subtle but it’s there, and it’s continuous. It might just be the tinnitus but I’ve never heard anything like this before. Anyway, if anyone else has seen a woman like I described in their photos, please, I need help.