This thing that happened to me is one of those experiences that one just can’t get out of their head, much less the heart, and sharing it here seems like my only way to maybe give a bit of a relief to my mind.
First of all, I must say I don’t have schizophrenia; because this is going to sound very schizo (I do have depression, though), secondly, this might sound like a cringy 17 year old teenager love story, but trust me it’s not, I am someone who’s been emotionally tired for many years and don’t have time for little games, however, this thing that happened to me, truly took an insane twist, and it still creeps me out to this day.
So, I’ve seen paranormal stuff before, like in 2021 when I saw a black spot shaped like a sun spinning on my wall once a week, then faces all around me. Fortunately, that never happened again, something I actually posted on reddit once.
The thing is, last year, I changed my schedule to the day schedule at my school after spending my whole life waking up at 6 am and coming back home at 1 pm. Due to this depression stuff, I found comfort in going to school at 1 pm and coming back at like 7 to 8 pm, which is basically the time of the day I feel the most alive, especially around night. So, I loved the fact that I was coming back home at night, with all the city lights and all; I started to enjoy it a lot.
One May night, I was at the bus stop minding my own business with a couple of friends, and I noticed this girl from a distance. She had blonde hair, quite below her shoulders, and black-framed glasses. She was wearing all black, sort of like… tactical? The only colorful thing on her was a little yellow plastic water bottle to the side of her bag. She was staring at me, but I couldn’t see her face properly due to vision problems (at the time, I didn’t wear glasses). I got excited that someone like her, whom I also found attractive, had noticed me. So, I started messaging my brother-like friend on Discord about her and how much I wanted to approach. But, as the shy guy I was and still kinda am, I was afraid to approach. Every time I tried, after an average of 20 minutes of procrastination, her bus arrived like nothing, and she was gone in a matter of seconds. So, I kept trying every night to finally approach her. The only way I was able to recognize her every night was by her glasses. At the time, YouTube had, for some reason, recommended me that 80s song by Billy Idol, “Eyes Without a Face.” I started to listen to it because I found it cute and poetic that the title actually matched the whole thing going on with me and that mysterious girl.
And like that, I started getting a really messed-up obsession towards her. I started wondering where she came from. She obviously had a school bag, so she had to be from one of the three schools in the area. So, I started literally breaking into the websites and getting student lists and all, even waiting at the front gates at night. I was never able to see her. The least thing I could think was my own school because I never saw her there. Plus, that did not stop me from also checking my own school too. (All this kept going on for months.)
This girl, for some reason, simply just “spawned” right there at the bus stop. Despite where I was staring all night, I was never able to see her coming from any street. As soon as I got distracted and then looked back, she was there, just standing there facing away from me. One night I sneaked out of school and spent three entire hours waiting at the bus stop, looking everywhere, and still I was not able to see her coming. I looked back, and she was there, and as always, instantly hopped in her bus before I could even try anything.
This thing started to get frustrating for me, and I started to sneak a small bottle of whiskey into my school because I thought alcohol would calm me down a bit, and I would be able to finally approach and talk for once. However, that one friend I mentioned, whom we’ll call Thomas, kept joking about her not being real and me being crazy over all the depressive stuff I experienced for years. It obviously started as a joke, but it kinda transcended into being a possibility because things kept getting stranger.
The night of September 13th was the night, and I was like, “Screw it.” So, I skipped my history class, acting sick, and almost ran my way to the bus stop at 18:30 because that was the time I saw her there. It was a strange night; everything seemed quieter than average, almost no cars on the street, quite foggy, barely anyone around. It was really cold and windy too. It really got that dystopian and desolate sort of night thing, with a touch of something I can only describe as “cleanliness and smoothness,” for some reason.
It was her alone, waiting for the bus, and another guy at the back who was just minding his own business there. So I’m like, “I’mma warm up by first asking the time to this one lad right here.” I asked him the time; he told me the time, then I gave him the typical “Good, thanks.” So, unconsciously, I walked my way to the girl. I didn’t even think about it, and I gave a gentle touch to her arm. She turned around with a sort of surprised face, which at the time I instantly got a feeling of “Well… she might not be the prettiest, though.” Her teeth were a bit crooked, but more than that, I didn’t care that much. Her eyes were green, but for some reason, they looked yellow, like an owl (could’ve been the lighting, though). But more than that, her face just seemed a bit odd for me and it reminded me of something I couldn’t fully figure out.
So we had a nice conversation despite her being a bit confused and scared at first.
Me: “Hey, what’s your classroom number?”
Her: “4°12, why?”
(that classroom number confirmed she was from my school, the biggest plot twist ever)
Me: “Yeah, I’m from that same school too. I saw you here some days ago; you had tactical boots like mine, and I really liked it.”
She started to get comfortable and smiled, also started touching her hair and all.
Her: “Oh yeah, I got many boots.”
Me: “You were also wearing all black. I really liked it; you looked like a police officer!”
Her: “You also dress well too!”
Then we started talking about school stuff, such as things we’d like to study in college. I started talking about politics and psychology and she told me that yeah, I really seem to be into that
Then the so-famous bus that I had so much bad blood for arrived, and she told me that she had to go because the bus was coming. So I shook her hand and told her my name in a “oh wait, before you leave!” tone.
She just smiled at me and said nothing as I held her hand; then she just hopped into the bus and left. I was so happy and stared at the guy who I previously asked the time. He stared back with a smirk, but it was not what you’d expect but instead a sort of weirded-out type of smirk, which I didn’t care that much about. So I was just too happy to stand inside a bus, so I decided to walk home. I couldn’t stop twitching and smiling, almost felt like I was containing an animal urge of wanting to jump and run and do crazy chaotic stuff.
So when I’m home, I DM this guy Thomas about what just happened. He was happy for me, so I’m back into thinking about that one thing her face reminded me of, but I couldn’t remember… then it hit me.
I DM this guy:
“She literally looked like that one Japanese creepypasta face; let me find the name.”
“Ahemobarbus Henocied.”
And I send him a photo of the monster; he literally worried and replied, “What the hell are you on?”, when I read that message I just felt like the whole mood change and it became serious, I was kinda messing around with the fact that she looked like that then I just came to realization that this is simply not okay, However, I was still being dead serious; she literally looked like that monster, her face was almost a replica of that thing, specially when she first turned around when I touched her arm.
The difference were her glasses and the dark blonde hair.
And this is when the thing gets interesting.
Since that night, I was never able to see her again, not even once, to this day.
I started getting obsessed, this time with finding her, from waiting at the front gate the whole day to the radical point of having to find not so “legal” ways of getting into my school’s database and checking for the 4°12 class, of which I got access to the student lists and I was never able to find anyone who looked like her on social media or anything; I even waited outside that class and still, nothing. I spent what was left of that year researching and researching like a never-ending loop. School ended, and I just couldn’t believe what the hell I spent an entire year on. I walked my way back home at night; then once I reached my front yard, I simply laid on the ground with a legit thousand-yard stare and fell asleep there. It honestly felt like the ending of a movie.
After three months of constant overthinking, obsession, and planning, school came back, and I was back on track trying to find her. Same story; couldn’t. I even spoke to people from the three schools around the area; they said that classroom does not exist except in my school and that they also never saw someone who looked like her. I also started not going to school at 1 pm but 6 am, waiting at the front door before they even open yet, just to check if she was in the morning schedule (so I could confirm any “I’ll change to morning schedule so I don’t see this creep ever again” type of thing). Still, never saw her in the morning either, not day, not night, no nothing. The only thing I remember was one day, at 1 pm, I was waiting at the bus stop in case I saw her leaving from the morning schedule, and from a distance, I saw a girl walking into the woods with a yellow jacket just like the one she wore the night I talked to her. So I crossed the road, got into the woods, but I lost her, so I kept getting deeper into the woods; it was about to rain, and I simply got a bad feeling and walked back into the road as fast as I could.
Months and months after craziness, nihilism, nostalgia, anxiety, and a growing anger, I remembered, “I might not be so crazy now that I think about it. I used to see her talking to friends! She was not so alone then; I need to find those people and ask them.”
I remembered it was four people; only two remained this year. I approached one of the guys, I described her to him, every single detail, the glasses, hair, and classroom, and I even mentioned two names of people I thought could be her.
“I’ve never met someone like that.”
Genuinely felt like my soul left my body when I heard that.
Then some days later, I am with a close friend from school who I told about all this, as we joke about all this crazy stuff, I tell him about both of us approaching the other remaining friend and experiencing his response. So we both reach the other guy as this one was decisive because the day I talked to her, I saw them talking at the bus stop as he left right before I arrived, so it was definitely it. So again,
“I’ve never met someone like that.”
Both me and my friend couldn’t believe it, we stared at each other like ‘‘hell no’’, he kinda found it funny, but deep inside I felt destroyed and scared at the same time. I just couldn’t and still can’t believe what the hell is going on.
When I came back home, I started researching the bus route (the one bus she used to take) and realized that, to add up, it literally passes by a graveyard.
Ghost or just myself having lost mind mind, I still got her in my heart since that September night from last year, and I hope that in case of a ghost, she’s resting well now that I broke whatever curse she had by making her happy on complimenting her outfit. Because she truly seemed happy and impressed that someone noticed her. I still can remember to this day the way she touched her hair and smiled at me.
For me, that song ‘‘Eyes without a face’’, now means more than just a song.