“If you accidentally see another you in real life, you’d better run away immediately or the worst will come”.
That was the last sentence in a story on Reddit that I read a couple of days ago. It was like a warning but honestly, I didn’t believe in it even though I read and heard a lot of stories about how people’s lives turned into a complete nightmare after encountering “another them”.
But hardly did I know, that I was going to be a victim of a terrifying event that happened just a few days later. I still remember that it was a Sunday morning and I decided to go jogging in the nearby park.
I didn’t understand why I came down to that decision because I was not the type of person who enjoyed doing exercise, let alone getting up so early like this. That not only surprised me but also my wife as well. She looked at me, said nothing then giggled while shaking her head gently before getting back to sleep.
I was a bit hesitant at first when realizing that it was still really dark from the outside despite the fact that there were a lot of light poles illuminating the surroundings. However, it was my ego and motivation that kicked in and pushed my body to move. I gently closed the door after kissing goodbye to my lovely wife.
I had just started jogging for a few minutes, suddenly there was a chill running down my spine as my gut told me that I was being followed.
As I was walking, footsteps kept echoing from the back as if there was not just me stepping on the dirt path. I was not sure whether my brain was playing a trick on me but the sense of someone or something’s presence kept increasingly haunting me. Then, I turned around out of the blue, and to my relief, I saw nothing, just me and a few cars parked outside. I immediately got rid of those silly thoughts and kept going.
After a couple of minutes, I was now here in the park. As I could see, there were already a few people here and that made me feel more comfortable. But that time didn’t remain for long as I turned into a smaller path which led to somewhere that I had no idea because this was the first time that I was jogging in here
Everything got a bit brighter as the sun was peaking up, but that feeling, an unsafe feeling within me was rising as I sensed the presence of someone following me again.
I kept jogging and once again, turned around out of the blue. To my surprise, there was no sign of that stalker who was following me from the beginning to now, I wonder if I was just imagining. I looked around one more time to make sure that there was really no one following me, and as I was about to turn around and kept going ahead. I picked up on a figure standing behind those trees.
The figure was the same height as me, It was dark at that time but I could slightly see the face and the hairstyle thanks to the light from the light pole nearby. I was so shocked when realizing that the one standing there was me, that person who looked exactly like me from the face, hairstyle to the outfit.
At that point, my mind went blank, I didn’t know what to do, just be frozen there. All I could hear was my heart trembling wildly in my chest. The thing got even creepier when there was a light from somewhere catching my eyes. It was nowhere far because the light was the reflection of a knife which was being held in the hand of that “me”. It looked at me with a grin on its face. I shouted out loud:
“Hey, what are you doing?”
“Don’t you come any closer to me or I’ll call the police”
I could see no emotion on that face. It was my face but not my face because the face looked really pale, with no sign of emotion. It looked as if it was just a face mask of my face.
And that person just put it on and appeared in front of me. I was confused, I don’t know what did that thing want from me. I couldn’t hide my confusion mixed with anger:
“What do you want from me?“
“And why do you keep following me?”
I kept looking at that face, and suddenly it responded back:
“dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead”
The response from that thing scared me to death. It held up the knife and started chasing me. Without hesitation, I ran, just ran, kept running for my life because I don’t want to die like that.
I was running and trying my best to shout as loud as I can but unfortunately, there was no one around that path. I was in deep desperation when knowing for sure that my life would end here today. I kept running and praying:
“God, please help me, please”
I didn’t know how long I kept running like that and out of nowhere. When I was on the verge of surrender to my fate, I eventually saw light at the other end of the road. I knew that God had answered to my prayer. Once I got out of that scary path, I immediately looked for help but people around just looked at me with confusion until an old man slowly came to me and asked:
“young man, what was going on?”
“Are you okay?”
I was still in shock and scare to the point that my whole body was uncontrollably shivering. But still, I could utter some words:
“Someone was trying to kill me. That person was right there, right in that path”
The old man said:
“Someone was trying to kill you, but I saw no one chasing you. I only saw you running out of that path”
I asked with confusion:
“What? Only me? No way. That thing was right behind me.”
The old man gently said:
“I don’t have reason to lie to you. The only person that I saw running out of that path was you”
He kept saying:
“I’ll call the police for you. They might be able to help you with it”
After a while, the police came. I told them the same thing that I said to the old man. They told me to calm down and let them handle it. After a few hours of searching the whole area, the police couldn’t find anyone that was like my description. They told me to come to the therapist but I told them that I was not lying. There was a person trying to murder me.
They didn’t believe me and advised me that I should meet a therapist for treatment. I was left with shock and anger and confusion. I didn’t know and wondered if that person was real or if it was just a hallucination.
But I didn’t have any history of mental illness and my life didn’t have any bad things happen which could make me have any kind of mental illness. I couldn’t do anything but leave for home.
On the way home, I still couldn’t believe what just happened to me and still didn’t understand why people didn’t see that person and how did that thing disappear so fast. I came home and my wife asked me:
“How was the jog, babe?”
I looked at my wife for a moment and then told her everything. Everything that happened to me that day. After telling her, she gave me a hug and told me that everything would be alright.
It’s been almost five years since that day and I still live very well and happily with my wife and with 2 kids. I’m still living in that area.
It seems that everything is still going normally until two days ago, that feeling came to me again. I am not sure whether that thing is still in the area or not. But I hope that that thing is now gone because if it’s not I don’t dare to imagine what it will do to me and my family.