For most of my life, I can hear them. It sounds stupid, I know, but I’ve been hearing voices since… well, forever, to be honest.
All of this started when I was only five-years-old. I was just starting kindergarten and I was looking forward to making friends at my new school. As I went over to my cubby, I heard a small voice.
Colton…
I looked around the classroom and I thought someone had heard my name. Yet the other kids didn’t seem to pay any attention to what I just heard and were either reading, playing, or drawing pictures.
Colton…
I didn’t know or understand where the voice was coming from and I began to get nervous. I immediately got my crayons and went over to a table to begin drawing pictures for the rest of the day. When Mom came over to pick up, she asked, “How was your first day of school? Did you make any friends?” I just nodded and said my day went fine while looking at the window.
I tried to put up with the voices for a few days at first. However, the voices only seemed to persist in bothering me and as days turned to weeks and weeks turned into months, I began to be afraid of the voices inside my head.
That’s when he began to appear in my dreams. He was very creepy and had a tall stout frame. He had a crooked smile that was too wide for his face, he had slits for eyes, and the man was draped in black robes that made him look like he was in some sort of cult or secret society.
I tried to scream or even get out of bed, but he came closer and closer until he was right near my bedside and said, “You are nothing, I am Him.”
Finally, I would wake up in a cold sweat with tears running down my face. It was horrifying. I tried to tell my parents about the voices and the robed man in my room. But they didn’t believe me and only said I was just trying to find an outlet for my ‘runaway imagination’ and told me to just ignore them.
By the time I turned thirteen, I was still dealing with the voices;however, they’ve become more cruel and mocking and my nightly visits with the robed man are now frequent.
One night, after one such sleep paralysis episode, I had had enough. So, while my mom and step-father were away, I went into the basement and set up a ritual I looked up online in order to banish these voices and that man from my life.
However, just as I was ready to finish the ritual, the lights around me began to flicker and the robed man showed up. He moved closer and closer to the salt circle I set up around me until he kicked away the salt.The next thing I knew, I began to be lifted up into the air and the last thing I heard before passing out was, “You think you’ve beaten me, Colton. But I’ll always be here.”