It was winter, and a fucking cold one at that. I was a fresh face to the mid-year intake of Victoria University - a nervously excited fish-out-of-water, plagued with some expected homesickness.
In my hometown of Arlie Beach, winter meant maybe a month of cool nights. A jumper in the morning. An extra blanket at bedtime. And, if you’re lucky, an evening campfire enchanted by the idea of toasted marshmallows and hot chocolate. But the winter of Melbourne was as harsh as the bare and twisted trees that lined the city streets. I couldn’t seem to pile on enough layers to keep my toes from freezing off. Some nights I would find myself jolting awake to my own shivering.
I had managed to find an affordable share house close to campus. I was given a small, musty, room snug enough only for a single bed and a small closet. The carpet flooring in every space, save the kitchen, was frayed and crusted, lifting at the sides to reveal grime-caked floorboards. The kitchen wasn’t any better, with wood flooring that was consistently, annoyingly damp to the touch. It was odd in another way too, in that it was the only place in the house to hold a slight, ripe meaty scent which lingered, as if the residence was located at the back of a butchery. No amount of window-opening, sweeping or mopping seemed to fix the problem - the scent remained.
I questioned my housemates if they noticed the smell too, which they did. But they shared the same sentiment as me; it wasn’t pungent enough to be concerning. This was a cheap place, after all.
I come from a family of six. Four hungry boys, including myself, and two loving parents who struggled to feed them. Growing up with brothers that preferred hunting, rugby and wrestling over any kind of considerate conversation presented its own, rough, challenges. Though despite our lack of regard, we actually did care for each other. It seemed rare in a small town where everyone I knew assumed a level of despise for their siblings. The fact was that I, on the other side of the country, missed my brothers. Especially James, the baby of the family, only 10. He would continue to grow and mature, despite my absence. The thought saddened me.
In my homesickness I would find my nights littered with dreams about my family. Bittersweet moments weaving in and out like a tapestry of nostalgia.
One night, I found myself dozing into a feverishly strange place. A sense of something familiar, yet sour, like the taste of birthday cake made with rancid butter. The realization was quick to hit - I was at school, or at least, some dream version of it. I was in the old hall of Block A - a worn down, red brick building with abandoned classrooms, boarded up and splattered with graffiti.
It’s hard to explain how I knew, but I was filled with the feeling that James was here, hiding somewhere, begging for me to come find him. It was then that I noticed I was lying in a hospital bed, which seemed, out of its own volition, to be pushing itself down the hall. The strangeness of it all should have been alarming, but it never actually felt as such.
The bed continued down the hall, passing each classroom, old paint flaking off each door. I wanted to peer through each passing window, ‘maybe James is hiding in one of these rooms’, I thought. But I couldn’t, the spaces between the windows boards were too grimed up.
The bed began to slow as it approached the end of the hall. It pulled up to the second last classroom. Where windows should have been was instead the continuation of crumbling red brick. There was also something different about the door - it lacked the flaking sky blue coat of the others. It was instead covered in a sheen of dull gray, smooth as if freshly painted. I propped my head up for a better look, and at the same time, the door silently swung inwards, revealing nothing but a deep, endless, black. Feeling a heaviness in my eyes, I rolled over and snuggled back into the bed - done with the hide-and-seek antics this dream was trying to exude from me. Within a moment I felt the subtle, familiar pressure of the mattress indenting behind me, as if someone else was climbing into bed. The weight of a pair of arms wrapped around me. I remember thinking, ‘James must have given up hiding. He must be tired too’. Unassumingly, I closed my eyes, and the dream was over.
As I woke, the immediate cold of the night air pressed my face. That was expected. But what wasn’t expected, I thought, was the strange sensation of hugging that was still around my body. This… pressure, that showed no signs of easing.
I tried to wriggle out of my sleeping position, but was met with a harsh resistance - a genuine physical restraint around my torso and arms. A shot of adrenaline kicked my heart as the thought struck, ‘This isn’t James’.
An attempt to yell out for help was met with the strained, silent vapor of my breath. I tried again. Nothing, not even a groan.
I had never fully aligned with the christian beliefs my parents tried to instill. But in the moment, prayer definitely felt like the right thing to do. I closed my eyes and tried to form some kind of panicked plea. My thoughts were a whir of frenzied tensions, bubbling around in a desperate attempt to align with something holy, something powerful.
I remember words forming at the end of the prayer, something along the lines of, “…in Jesus’ name, be gone!”
As soon as the sentence formed, I felt the tension release. I inhaled immediately, and took a few moments to steady my breathing.
I could move again.
As I sat up out of bed, an unusual chill licked my back. I reached behind and ran my hand under my thermals. It was wet - literally dripping with sweat, despite the night air. In an effort to soothe my manic sense of disbelief, I glanced back down the bed, half expecting to see something.
Nothing.
I exhaled silently, gratefully, fleetingly. As my vision adjusted to the moon-dimmed scene of my fitted bed sheet, another shot of adrenaline pulsed into my heart. Something was there, or at least had been. Next to the obvious creases of where my body had been laying was another set of ruffled folds in the cotton, almost identical in general shape, if not considerably larger. In fact, whatever was there was considerably heavier too, as the folds were accentuated by some quite obvious depressions in the mattress.
“Fuck this”, I remember whispering to myself. I snatched my blankets off the bed and made straight for the communal living room, slamming the door behind me, probably too loud. I didn’t care. I sat bundled up on the couch, alert.
Not half a minute later, the right door of the neighboring bedroom clicked open quietly. Out walked Safina, one of the housemates, who’s eye-bagged face presented expected levels of irritance. We didn’t really know each other. A pang of guilt nestled its way into my chest.
“What the fuck happened?” She whispered. And then surprisingly, “Are you okay?”
I explained the events with as much sensibility as my exhaustion could allow, yet fully aware how unreal the situation probably seemed.
“Can I see your bed?” she finally asked. My eyes widened.
“You actually believe me?”
“I don’t not believe you.” She paused. “You’re clearly upset, but I’m curious. I’ll even go in alone.”
I agreed and let her into the room, keeping the door wide open. She spent a good few minutes surveying the cramped space, flicking the lamp on and off. But mostly, she gazed at the bed, not saying anything. Before long she returned, closing the door behind her.
“Take a photo of your sheets before you mess them up again. Even with that, though, I doubt other people are gonna believe you.” Safina’s voice carried a sad, yet comforting tinge of understanding.
“I don’t think I wanna sleep in there again.” I exhaled, remembering my own fatigue.
“Neither would I,” she replied, “If it wasn’t like two degrees outside I would have run out the damn house.”
I couldn’t muster the energy to share in her quiet chuckle, instead butchering something of a smile that would have been an attempt to empathize. Safina seemed amused, slowly starting back to her room.
“Oh, by the way,” she continued, “Buy some sage asap. And burn it in your room.”
I stood there, kind of dazed. Safina lowered her voice, “Trust me. It’ll help.”
I nodded with a faux sense of assurance, and made back to the bundle of blankets on the couch. Safina shut her door, and that was that.
With graduation in two weeks, I should be feeling thrilled. Energetic perhaps, excited at the least. The pressure has never left, though.
I feel it sometimes as I lay in bed, sinking into the mattress around me.
I feel it when I’m in the bathroom. The floorboards quietly creaking behind me, as if someone’s standing there.
I feel it in the kitchen on a quiet night. Like invisible eyes watching me through every door and window, never blinking.
I feel it even when I go home to visit family - a cool breath across my neck when I’m alone watching TV, disrupting any sense of safety.
I feel it in my ears as I drift into sleep. A fleeting whisper of my name, just enough to stir me. Tightening my chest. Thumping in my heart. Refusing to fade.
It feels so putrid, so awful, so endless. But of course I can never actually see anything.
That’s the worst part.