That sounds idiotic, right? Everyone knows vampires aren’t real, but hear me out.
It started about a year ago when my old roommate decided to move in with his girlfriend without any warning. His name was on the lease too, and I could have just forfeited my half of the deposit and found a cheaper place, but that’s really hard to do on short notice, especially in the middle of a semester. So, I put out ads everywhere I could think of online and around campus for a new roommate, not really expecting much.
To my initial delight I got a nibble within a week. She was a quiet grad student who’d had some sort of falling out with her own roommate and needed a place to land. Perfect! Or so I thought. She moved in and covered her half of the expenses when bills came due at the start of the next month. It looked like I managed to dodge a bullet, and maybe in my relief at not being evicted I ignored a few signs I should have picked up on.
You see, I almost never saw my roommate. She stayed locked up in her room most days when I was home. Though I occasionally bumped into her watching something on our shared TV late at night. Her explanations were reasonable. Night shift work as a medical intern, sleep schedules, all that seemed legit.
She was really weird about mirrors though. She doesn’t have a single one in her room, which is odd, for a girl. Nor does she ever keep any food in the fridge. She doesn’t have any cookware. She never has friends over. All of these things I could write off somehow, if it weren’t for the dreams.
You see, I keep having this recurring dream, about once or twice a month. I wake up with her perched on the corner of my bed. In these dreams the room is utterly black - I sleep with blackout curtains drawn because of an obnoxiously bright street lamp outside my window - but somehow I know she’s there. I never say anything to her, she just slithers under the covers with me, and her body is cold! Then she talks to me in a low voice, speaking words I can never seem to remember in the morning, and she kisses my neck, and that cold feeling explodes through my whole body! Then I wake up.
That’s it. I know, it’s freaky! I’m always a little groggy and lethargic after I have one of those dreams. Thirsty too, like, working-in-the-hot-sun-sweating-like-a-pig-all-day, thirsty. And the chronic fatigue has only gotten worse. After I fainted at work one night my boss insisted that I make a doctor’s appointment. Guess what they found: Anemia.
My family has no history of anemia, none. The doctors can’t explain it, they just put me on a regimen of iron supplements and called it good.
I’ve tried to ask her to move out, but whenever I talk to her I always seem to forget the purpose of the conversation and get sidetracked on something she wants to talk about instead, and then I go to bed having forgot about the whole thing, until the next time I have one of the dreams.
I think I might be loosing my mind, either that, or my roommate really is what I think she is. I want to move out. I’ve even packed my stuff up a couple times, only to wake up the next morning with everything back in its place wondering if I only dreamed about packing. One night I just got in my car and drove as far as I could before sleep got the better of me and I had to pull off the highway. The next morning I woke up parked at the curb outside my apartment. I’d write that one off as a weird dream too, if it weren’t for the credit card statement that has me getting gas in a town about three hours drive from where I live on the night in question. That could just be credit card fraud, except I know that it isn’t.
I’ve tried telling people about what’s going on, but no one ever believes me. Family, friends, they all think it’s some kind of joke, or an hallucination on my part. Especially after they meet my roommate. Everyone likes her, even though she’s weird. I even like her, though I’m scared to death of her. I find myself waking up in the middle of the night lately with the insane urge to go out and talk to her. I know where she’ll be, I can hear the TV turned to low volume in the other room. Some nights I succeed in resisting, but most I end up getting up and sitting with her until near dawn when she heads to bed.
It’s gotten to where I can’t force myself to tell people about my fears anymore. Even writing this all out on an anonymous forum is hard to do. When I think about including any personally identifying details though, I can’t make myself do it. My fingers simply refuse to type that information out. I don’t think I’d be able to write as much as I have, except that I think my feeble attempts to get away amuse her somehow.
I can’t escape her anymore. I need help, but I know no one is going to help me. I feel like, like I should just accept my fate. One of these nights I’ll be the one perched on her bed and then it will all be over. I know it somehow. I won’t want to escape then. I’ll be completely hers until I’m dead, or maybe worse.
I’ve written my story out three times now. And each time I found some reason to delete it rather than posting. I’m not going to hit discard this time, though. I will not do it!
If you’re reading this, please, try to find some way of helping me! I don’t know how you’d do it. I can’t know. If I actually believed that someone could, I don’t think I would be able write this much. I want to delete it, but I’m going to hit post before I talk myself out of it again.
Edit: update