Wasn’t really sure where to post this, as some subreddits can be quite stingy with their rules, but this one seemed fine for weird/inexplicable happenings. Hope it’s ok with the mod team.
Anyways, my friend has been experiencing these very weird events at his house. We don’t live in the same country anymore, so we’ve only been talking through Discord. I’m not really sure how to formulate this properly, but I’ll do my best.
Let’s start with some context.
Background
I’ll use a fictional name for my buddy for privacy reasons. He doesn’t really know I’m posting this, and didn’t want to write anything himself. Let’s call him Andrew.
Andrew and I went to school together in the late 90s and throughout most of the 2000s. We’re in Europe, not the US, by the way. Anyways, we didn’t really hit it off in the beginning, since he honestly was a bit of a bully, but after a few weeks we warmed up to each other, and have been friends since. He wasn’t too crazy or anything, just bumping into other kids on purpose, calling them names, and so on.
Eventually, I discovered that his dad passed away (fuck cancer) a couple of years before in the mid 90s, which I suppose sort of explains his behavior when we first met. As we grew up, his “bullyness” went away. He became more like one of the quiet kids, and I got to see more and more of his creative side. We played together a lot, although Andrew always refused any sleep overs, with a poor excuse at the ready. That used to seem strange to me, but now I understand why. I’ll explain later.
Andrew enjoyed drawing and was pretty good at it, really. He’d draw these really awesome settings that looked straight out of a videogame, like alien landscapes and underground mazes. I remember he sucked at drawing people, who always looked like a blurry mess as he tried to cover up his mistakes, but I still think he was great! He was always so excited to show me and our friend group his latest piece, and then proceeded to share lore from some obscure game or book that had inspired him, although for the most part we had no idea what he was talking about.
Damn, sorry for rambling. I’ll try and keep it to the point.
Once we were done with school, we ended up pursuing different educations in different faculties. While I went with something more boring and technical, Andrew pursued art; an education with graphic design in the mix, and a splice of marketing. Knowing Andrew, he probably didn’t care too much about the marketing bit, he just wanted to draw.
We still hung out together every now and again, going to the cinema, the beach, playing games, etc. but as we all know: people sometimes drift apart for no other reason than life just goes on.
We started seeing each other less and less. I ended up moving to a different country, while Andrew stayed with his mom. He still lives there. We’re around our late 20s/ early 30s now, but with everything being so damn expensive these days, it pays off to live with family. Unfortunately, Andrew never really finished that art education, and now works in the tourism industry. He said once that the money is ok, and even more so if the tips are generous. He became more of a loner with time, never really having a girlfriend or anything, and spending most of his alone time at home playing videogames.
I haven’t seen Andrew in about 5-6 years now, but we used to write each other a little bit in Discord. The older I get, the less games I play, but I still keep an eye on Discord and other gaming media to keep in touch with friends. Well, actually, Andrew hadn’t really written anything in the last couple of years (neither had I, to be fair), until a week ago, after the Easter holidays. Boy, I was really not expecting what he wrote…
—
First Event
At first, I actually smiled when I saw that the notification was from Andrew. I was genuinely happy to hear from him, but then got this overwhelming sense of guilt for not having written him in the last couple of years. I could have at least said Merry Christmas, Happy Easter, and that type of stuff, which honestly in my view is more about keeping the connection with the other person than it is about the holiday itself.
Andrew started by apologizing because he didn’t want to bother me about something so trivial, but he really didn’t have anyone else to share this with, and apparently his mom didn’t believe him. I wrote back not to worry, and just share whatever was going on in his mind. It sure didn’t seem trivial to him.
That little message appeared on top of the chatbox that Andrew was typing something… then disappeared, then appeared again, then gone, and this continued for a while until eventually a huge block of text came through. I’m not going to copy and paste it, though, but this is the gist of what he wrote:
Andrew was quite sure that there was someone else living in his house. According to him, it’d started a few months ago, only he hadn’t realized it… but in retrospect, it made sense. A dirty dish here, some food missing there, a closed door that was now open, a shadow over there, etc. His mom always denied knowledge of anything, so Andrew assumed it was either stress or some variation of lucid dreaming. Maybe a combination of both? Made sense to me.
And then it got worse.
Ever since his dad passed away, Andrew had been diagnosed with a weak bladder, or nervous bladder (not sure what the technical term is); which basically means that he has to pee every 4-5 hours. It was worse when he was young, since he’d accidentally wet the bed a few times. (No sleep overs, remember?) But now as a grown up, there’d been some semblance of control, so he’d have to get up in the middle of the night to urinate. And then a few weeks back, during these toilet night-visits, he started catching glimpses of something that he called “the stranger”.
It was always at night, and seen from the corner of his eye; a blurry, dark silhouette sitting on the couch, or standing somewhere in the room. When Andrew turned to face it, it was gone.
Initially, like I wrote earlier, he disregarded it as half-dream nonsense, but in the last weeks over Easter, everything started falling into place (according to him). He’d then decided to write me, to get some sort of a “reality check”.
Then he wrote about the first big event.
Andrew was standing in front of the toilet to pee (lights off), when he heard, right by his ear, a mouth smacking sound, that quick inhale just before someone is about to say something. At the same time, there was a gentle touch on his shoulder on the same side. Andrew jumped, of course, and let out a scream while turning to face whatever was supposedly there. But, you guessed it, there was nothing.
I didn’t know what to tell Andrew. I honestly felt sorry for him. He must have been dealing with a ton of stress at work or something. I asked him why he was so sure it was a stranger living in the house, and he said that the doors were locked, so there was no way anyone could have gotten in. When I asked Andrew where the stranger had gone then, he had no answer.
I tried to appeal to his sense of reason, telling him he was probably too tired and needed to relax. It could also have been his mom sleep walking or something. It took some convincing, but eventually it seemed I got through to him. I thought that’d be the end of it, but three days later, Andrew wrote me again.
—
Second Event
In the nights following our last conversation, Andrew had started turning the lights on whenever he had to get up in the night to use the toilet. Fortunately, that seemed to calm him down somewhat, because he said he’d stop seeing and hearing the stranger. I was about to type something positive and encouraging when he wrote a new message almost immediately.
Andrew arrived home late two nights ago. Working in the tourism industry means dealing with odd hours sometimes, so he ended up coming home after midnight. He’d started turning on the lights on the way to his room (quiet as not to awake his mom) but when he got there, he saw something that froze him to his core. Someone was sleeping on his bed. The shape under the covers was clear, although he hadn’t turned on the light yet. (There was still some light coming from the corridor behind him) He could even hear the stranger breathing, which according to Andrew reminded him of an animal; a weird guttural, almost painful, breathing. When courage came and he flipped on the light switch, the shape vanished. Andrew even said that he saw the covers “deflating”, as whatever was there ceased to be. He went to sleep with the light on that night.
I remember feeling useless and wanting nothing but to comfort my friend, but it wasn’t over yet. Andrew continued typing.
—
Third Event
On the same night he’d found the stranger sleeping on his bed (two nights ago) he’d gone to sleep with the light on. As usual, he woke up to use the toilet in the middle of the night, but when he did, someone had turned the light off. He swears he’d left it on when he went to sleep and that his mom would never turn it off.
However, there was a weird feeling of… nostalgia? that drove Andrew to the toilet in the darkness of his home; he couldn’t really explain it. Maybe he wanted to see what would happen?
Once again, he stood in front of the toilet, when he felt a hand on his shoulder and someone about to say something in his ear. This time, he did not turn, but from the corner of his eye could see a blur over his shoulder. The voice spoke, a rough male whisper, verging on mockery, but with frightening intent and certainty:
You can never escape. Even when you cannot see me, I see you.
Instincts took over, and Andrew finally turned around. The stranger was gone. There was nothing.
(That’s the best translation I can make of what Andrew said the stranger whispered, since English is not our mother language.)
I tried to appeal to his reason and comfort him once again, but nothing seemed to work. Eventually, he stopped writing back, and I wondered when I’d hear from Andrew again.
—
Last Message
Today I received another message from him.
Andrew seemed obsessed with the stranger (I’m sparing you from the weird ramblings, like a nightmare he’d had where he was trapped with the stranger inside his house, and all doors and windows were gone), and said he had an idea on how to confront “him”. Whatever that idea was, he was going to try it tonight. I have no idea what he meant, and by the time I asked, Andrew had already logged out.
I suppose I’ll give you an update tomorrow when Andrew tells me what happened.
—
Let me be clear: I’m simply relying what happened as Andrew is wording it. I actually think he should probably see a doctor because whatever he’s dealing with seems serious. I’ve told him this in nicer words, of course, but being in a different country limits my actions.
Thanks for reading. It helps to share. I’ll give an update when Andrew writes back.