I woke up in a panic, something that has been happening a lot lately. My dreams - well, more like nightmares - have been getting more realistic, like they are going to come to fruition at any moment. I never thought I would be put in a position, at almost thirty years old, to be on the brink of a psychotic snap.
I force myself out of bed, staying as quiet as possible so as to not wake my roommates. The hospital is always quiet at this time of night. There are no clocks to be seen except for one in the nurse’s office and one in the alcove, right outside the nurse’s station. I don’t need a clock to tell me what time it is though, as these “dreams” happen at the same time every night. I walk down toward the alcove with my notebook and pen in hand. “3am writing session?” The nurse asked as I walked past the door of the nurse’s station. I nodded, still shaking the grogginess of sleep out of my head so I could focus on what I was getting ready to write.
Most of the time I couldn’t remember the scenes I had just dreamt about, so I would write whatever I was feeling, or something random, depending on my night. For some reason though, this particular night, I remembered the nightmare. I sat down in my normal spot, getting myself as comfortable as possible in the hard, heavy, plastic chairs. Pen poised to write, I saw something out of the corner of my eye heading past me toward the tv room. I looked up at the nurses and techs to see if they had noticed, but they didn’t even pick their heads up from what they were looking at.
After a minute of watching the nurses and turning my head to see if whoever, or whatever, I saw would come back the other way, nothing happened. I turned my head back to my notebook, finally starting to write my story when I noticed the shadow figure that had passed before walking the other way, right past the nurse’s station. I checked again to see if they would notice, and yet again, nothing. I closed my notebook and got up to follow whoever was walking by. I stayed a little behind, trying not to alert whoever it was, but as they turned into the sunroom at the end of the hall, they turned their head to look at me. The face was a black smoke with eyes as red as blood. The body changed to have the same smokey appearance as the face. It lifted what I presume to be a hand and clearly waved me to it, wanting me to follow into the sunroom.
I started to move toward it, thinking that nothing could happen as there were cameras everywhere. I was walking slowly and as I got closer, the shadow moved into the sunroom, seeming to be moving backward. I made it to the doorway, put one step inside and suddenly felt like I was freezing. I dropped my notebook there in the doorway and wrapped my arms around myself to keep warm. I took another step into the sunroom. That is the last thing I remember before waking up in my hospital bed with a tech sitting and watching me. “Wha…what happened?” I asked the tech, hoping it would jog some memories. “You don’t remember?” The tech asked me, looking concerned. “No,” I said.
The tech left the room for a moment to go get one of the nurses, leaving me with nothing but my thoughts. Presumably before putting me in bed, they took everything but a blanket and pillow. I must have done something bad if I didn’t even get sheets or any of my other belongings, like my clothes or a toothbrush. My nurse came into the room saying “nice to see you awake, do you remember anything from last night?” I told her everything I remembered - how I woke up at 3am, went to sit in the alcove to write, kept seeing the shadow figure and then, nothing after stepping into the sunroom. The nurse looked at me and I could see in her face how worried she was.
“What happened to me? Why did I wake up on full suicide watch? What did I do?” I fired the questions out in quick succession, not allowing time for answers between. I was on the verge of a panic attack when the nurse finally started to answer my questions. “Well, we aren’t sure of exactly what happened to you, but when you got into the sunroom, you started throwing yourself against the walls and windows, seemingly trying to break one of the windows. You became a danger to yourself, that’s why we had to put you on full watch.” I sat silently, stunned by what the nurse just told me, then realizing how many bruises I had, specifically on my arms and sides. Was the shadow responsible for this?
“You dropped your notebook in the doorway of the sunroom, so we have it back in the nurse’s station. You seem to be ok now so we will drop your watch to 15 minute checks.” The nurse turned and walked out of the room. Should I tell the tech about the show figure having the deep red eyes and that I feel like that’s what made me do what I did? I still had so many questions, but I was too shocked and tired to ask anything else right now. I laid back down and went back to sleep, hoping I would have some peaceful sleep, at least for a little while.
After what only felt like a few minutes, I woke up to see that it was dark out again, so I knew it was sometime at night. At least this time I didn’t wake up from a dream or nightmare. I got up and headed out to the nurse’s station to get my notebook, maybe writing about it would help. I stopped and asked for my notebook and took up my spot in the alcove, determined to ignore the shadow figure if it decided to make another appearance tonight. Looking at the clock, I noted it was only 11:30pm, then I started writing everything I remembered from the night before.
I felt the shadow figure before I saw it as the temperature of the air seemed to drop a few degrees instantly. I kept my eyes trained on my notebook, though I had stopped writing. After a few moments, I felt eyes staring at me. Though I still didn’t want to move my eyes from my notebook, I chanced a look up to the nurse’s station. They all had their eyes trained on whatever they were working on at the time and didn’t seem to notice me looking at them. I turned my head slightly and saw the shadow figure, through my peripheral vision, standing at the opening of the hallway, staring at me. I tried to wave down the nurses in the station but they didn’t look up once.
I looked up at the clock and, with a chilling realization, it said 3:00. Where did the last three and a half hours go? I tried my best to avoid looking over at the shadow figure that was peering a hole through me it seemed. After resisting for what seemed like forever, I finally looked at the blood-red eyes. The next thing I knew, I was awake back in my bed, back on full suicide watch. What the hell was happening? It was like every time I looked into the shadow figure’s eyes, I blacked out and didn’t remember anything after making that contact. I didn’t even bother to ask what happened, I knew it had something to do with the shadow figure and that’s all I needed to know.
I spent the next couple of days and nights staying in my room aside from meals, hoping the shadow figure would leave me alone, and it did. Maybe, just maybe, it was going to leave me alone going forward. After making myself stay in my room for two nights, the third night, I followed my former routine of going into the alcove to write after being woken up from my nightmares. It was 3am, the normal time, when I felt the sudden drop in temperature and felt eyes on me once again. This time, instead of trying to stay seated and ignoring the figure, I got up, avoiding eye contact and told the nurses that it was back, the thing that was making me do whatever I was doing to end up on suicide watch.
They looked at me, then scanned the floor to see if they could see anything like what I was telling them. They, obviously, didn’t see anything, but looked concerned about me. The psych ward was the best place to be though, if you’re starting to hallucinate. I was hoping that’s all this was, a hallucination. Instead of making eye contact or following the figure, I chose to go back to my room and climb under the covers, hoping that the figure would then leave me alone. I was wrong, so incredibly wrong.
I hid under my blanket, but I could feel eyes watching me, wanting to suck me in and make me do something damaging. I squeezed my eyes closed as tight as possible, laid facing the wall and kept the blanket over my head until I heard the door opening, one of the nurses coming in to check on me. There was a noise I didn’t recognize, then a small thump. I uncovered my head and looked out to the room. The shadow figure was standing over something on the floor that, after a moment, I realized was the nurse. If it had the power to kill, why was it toying with me? That’s when I realized my hands were covered in blood and it was all over my bed, and there were footprints leading from the nursed dead body to my bed. Now I knew what the shadow figure was doing to me, it was setting me up to kill people. It wasn’t strong enough on its own to actually kill anyone, but it could make others do its bidding.
I climbed out of bed and ran down the hall to the nurse’s station and told them what happened, saying that I think I killed the nurse but I didn’t remember getting out of my bed when she came to my room. I told them how I remembered feeling eyes staring at me, and knew that the shadow figure was in my room before the nurse came in but I hadn’t even uncovered my head until I heard a thud of the nurse’s body hitting the floor, then I looked out and saw blood on my hands and my bed, and saw that there were bloody footprints leading to my bed.
Security arrived a short time later, followed by the police. They asked many questions and went through all the video feeds. They saw me go into my room, followed by what they thought was my shadow, then the nurse entered. The angle they had showed the nurse just inside the door and then laying on the floor of my room but saw no movement in the darkness beyond. I was arrested that night, being charged with the murder of the nurse. The only way to write this was to send it in letters to a friend and have them write it out for me. My trial is in a couple of months and I plan to prove my innocence. As I am writing this final letter, I can feel eyes boring a hold through me and I know that shadow figure has found me, I’m just too afraid to look around and find out for sure.
There is a chance that I won’t be around that much longer, so here is a warning to all of you. If you see a dark figure in your peripheral vision and no one else seems to notice it, DO NOT follow it, or you may end up accused of murder. Or you may end up dead yourself.