Symptoms:
read the list sitting at the end of my hospital bed. I was admitted a week ago to the ER, only waking up after three days of a medically induced coma. I was hardly human when I came in. I was screaming my lungs out, waving a knife at the EMTs that found me. They had to pin me to the ground and heavily sedate me to transport me to the hospital safely. That’s what I heard from the nurses, anyway.
My brain is still fuzzy after waking up, but I have some recollection of that night the EMTs fought me to the hospital; I saw someone through my living room window that night. Someone that I thought was a friend anyway, standing outside of my home in the dark. Under a street lamp. I could see only a small illuminated part of his head. He was staring directly at me, at the same time, I could hear his voice speaking with no lips to connect the sound to. My brain seemed to accept this, regardless of how strange that sounds now that I’m typing it. I would look away periodically, unbothered by the sight I saw before me, and continued with my nightly activities. Every time that I looked back he would be somewhere else outside my window. My brain thought there was no issue with that. Except when I turned around again and he’s inside my house.
My brain decided it was time to panic now, triggering my fight-or-flight response. I grabbed my kitchen knife out of its holder, called 911, and swung back and forth repeatedly. Not registering in my head that I wasn’t achieving any progress. My friend quickly turned into the EMT responders, but there was no difference to me. I was confused and scared. That leads us back to a week later when I’m in the hospital. After reviewing my story and the EMTs’ stories, the doctor helping me diagnosed me with schizophrenia and gave me the proper medication for it. They told me to continue taking antipsychotics once I left the hospital. I rejected their offer however, as I wouldn’t be able to continue paying for it once I left. They suggested that I go to therapy to learn to deal with my condition which I was glad to start. Only a few sessions in after getting released from the hospital and I was already feeling much better about my condition.
I live with my hallucinations now, understanding they are not real. I was told by my therapist that it was a good idea to take pictures of any hallucination I thought were real to tell if they were or not. This method worked extremely well and kept me reassured. Things were better, I was better. Life continued and I went to many events with this condition, weddings, parties, and vacations. One place however, I will never forget. Three of my friends were all visiting a town over from me, in a town of less than 700 people. They rented a cabin for the few days they were there, and they sent me an invite,
“Its been a while, why don’t you have a few drinks with us. Meet us at this address:”
I was excited to see them after so long, so I went. We hung out, bought drinks, all’s well that ends well. But the second night I was there, things became worse. I went out with my friends hunting, which looking back on it, wasn’t the greatest idea all things considered, with my condition, and there being no cell service. We went on regardless, deep into the woods with only our rifles, also bringing night gear so we didn’t have to turn back halfway through the day. As it turned to night, we put on our gear to continue. Two hours later, I saw someone standing in the distance. They were extremely bright eyes through the night vision so I took off my night vision headset and took a long exposure photo in that direction, it took around 20 seconds to see that the my hallucination was no hallucination and showed in the photo. I quickly put my night vision headset back on.
There was no longer eyes visible where I saw them previously so I called out to my friends who were all in close proximity of me. Understandably, they were freaked out about this and decided to watch each other’s back as we moved slowly towards the direction of the cabin. This didn’t last long when one of my friends spotted something sprinting towards us, we all split off, running in every direction. It was every man for themselves but I could still hear running behind me. The person that I saw earlier was now chasing me down. Through every step I heard, there was an echo only a few yards behind. Inevitably, I tripped on a root, and time seemed to stop for a moment. I did the only thing I thought of doing to protect myself mid-fall, which was to draw my rifle and shoot. I fired with no hesitation, I could hear the person drop to the dirt.
Upon inspection, this person was not the unidentified one I saw in the trees, it was my friend who had followed me after the initial scare. I had shot my friend. He yelled out in agony, holding pressure around his wound. I would’ve stuck around to help him further but I knew the screaming alerted whoever was trying to get to us so I stuck a decently sized stick in his mouth so he would stop screaming, and I hid him in the leaves and brush that was around him so he wouldn’t be found. Afterwards I booked it in another direction, at this point I was all turned around. There was no sense of knowing how far I was from the cabin but I knew I couldn’t contact anyone with there being no service available. I sat down at the bottom of a tree and covered my legs in foliage hoping I wouldn’t be found at least until I caught my breath. I heard rustling and murmuring every few seconds which kept me on edge, though I knew it was only my schizophrenia.
I continued on after a few minutes, this time cautiously traversing through the woods, looking for past landmarks that I remembered on the way in to the woods. I could eventually see light coming from the cabin. Within about 40 feet of the cabin, I hear rustling behind me, then running. I ran for the cabin and I locked myself in. I could hear the voice of my friend on the other side of the door. I was relieved for a moment, going to unlock the door, but I stopped myself. It seemed off to me. I looked out the side window of the cabin, the one facing the woods. I saw that same friend out there, symbolling to me to stay quiet. My brain was trying to get me killed and yet, I couldn’t stop myself from reaching to unlock that door.
The person kicked the loose door open and lunged at me pushing me to the floor. He had a knife in his right hand, attempting to plunge it into my neck. I resisted with all of my strength. Becoming weaker by the second, the knife came closer and closer to me. I began to feel the cold blade pierce my skin. As it did, the window shattered and I was suddenly freed. My friend saw the the person enter the cabin and he swiftly loaded his rifle to protect me. He fired and hit the intruder through the side of his skull instantly killing him.
Afterward, I got up and stayed there in awe for a minute. Staring at the lifeless corpse that, just a second ago, was trying to end me. My friend came rushing inside to make sure I was still alive. I learned after the fact that my other two friends were recovered in the woods after a short investigation, both survived.