Hello there.
My name is Daniel, I am an architecture student in Bucharest, Romania. I write this to ask for your help, something seems to be after me. My girlfriends Ilinca is gone for about a week, what got her seem to be coming for me. I see that many people have unbelievable, supernatural experiences and share them in here, so this could be the right place.
Me and Ilinca were both students on the Architecture and Town Planning in Bucharest, we were suppose to graduate together. We have been together for about an year, things were getting serious. We were thinking very seriously on getting married after graduation, especially since we were hoping in founding in our own business, with some help from my parents. Fortunately, the issue of student debt in the US it is not present in here.
Me and Ilinca seemed, in many aspects, just the average young people. Both as individuals, and as a couple. We never stand out in neither good or bad ways. In a way, this was true. Yet, something made Ilinca special. She had automatonophobia since childhood. This means she had an irrational fear of statues and other figures that represent life sized human shapes, like mannequins. It was much worse as a child, now she was much better. We could sit and sip a beer next to a statue in public, during the day fairly easy, but she would never be able to sleep in a room where a mannequin or even a small statue like a bust would be present. Most of the time it was no real inconvenience, until recently.
We were dreaming in our rented apartment pretty peacefully one night, when Ilinca woke up from a nightmare, hyperventilating and covered in sweat. I took her in my arms and said: ”It is ok, it was just a dream…” She looked scarred at the window for a few seconds, in disbelief, then turned to me and started to calm down. ”Babbler” she said. ”The Babbler send the statues for me.” I embraced her and said: ”Just a dream.” We, eventually, got back to sleep.
A few days later, Ilinca woke up again, in the same way. This time, she got up the bed and went to the window fast and looked for about a minute. It was harder to calm her down this time and get back to bed.
Days went by, nothing out of the ordinary. Until Ilinca called me, she was kinda afraid: ”I felt it. Again. How I felt in dreams. But I was awake.” This made me really concerned for her mental health. Later that evening, we had a long talk. She remember the ”flavor” of fear she had when she came close to a statue or a mannequin as a child, a type of panic. She felt something similar during the dreams I have already talked about, and she knew someone or something called the Babbler was behind something with statues. Sounded like psychosis or schizophrenia to me, I waited for her to come home and talk.
She looked changed, in a way. I have waited for her to talk, she started by explicitly telling me what happened during all day, in much detail as possible, somehow rambling. From what she said, I picked up some anxiety moments that build up gradually, from thoughts regarding statues and that Babbler thing. And it was not about statues in general, but regarding certain statues that appeared in the last years in Bucharest, in a certain style that looked like mud, although it was clearly bronze. The characters looked thin and sickly. They did not have a classic, human-like shape, or a post-modern one, but like sick, somewhat monstrous humanoids. Some of them were not clear who they were suppose to represent or why. Ilinca kept thinking of them, that is something wrong with them. I decided to take her, I did not know how I shall succeed this, the next day to the psychiatrist.
The next night Ilinca wake me up screaming. For a few seconds, I thought that outside there was a storm, because it seemed branches from the tree outside the window hit the glass. In a few seconds, I realized this was not the case. No rain, no wind. Just a calm night. Ilinca hyperventilated in panic. My blood went cold a bit, but I thought there should be a reasonable explanation. I calmed down Ilinca, but I begun to wonder if the psychiatrist was the best solution. I was not ready to accept yet that was something real going on regarding what Ilinca was experiencing. I mean, that strange paradoxical state when you are not ready to admit it to yourself out load, but you begun to act according to it on a concrete level. Ever since it happened, I kept thinking that, if I took Ilinca to the psychiatrist, perhaps she would have been locked up safe, or perhaps not…
Me and Ilinca went for a long walk the next day, filled with awkward talk and silence. We lost time, I guess, Ilinca look unstable. We should have done something, not just rambling and walking around in chaotic manners. Especially me, since I was suppose to be the stable one. Night came and we were stay walking in downtown Bucharest, on old, small streets yet. Soon after, Ilinca started to shake and her shaking increased slowly. It was like a fog was on our minds. preventing us from taking lucid, rational action. But yet, looking back, I still do not know what we could we had done.
At one point, I do not know how late it was, we heard a screech, not very far away. Something set it apart from the rest of the city noises. Ilinca whispered: ”A statue.” We started to move away slowly, I think I knew unconsciously we need to move away slowly from predators, not run, and Ilinca just followed me, being too weak to act on her own. But this is probably stupid, because that rule applies to predators that are animals, not unknown beings of unknown origin.
Some strange footsteps were heard coming closer and closer. We speed up slowly, trying to get closer to a boulevard. Things were already late at night, there were a few people around, most likely those things attack when there are few people around. We got close to a boulevard, when we heard something that seemed to be a weird voice somewhere, not far behind us. We turned around and so it. A large statue, one of the new statues Ilinca was obsessed with it. A pretty large one, it had a big hat on the head, somewhat sunken, yet somewhat red eyes, mouth was opening, and the left hand, with some long fingers, was in the air. It opened its mouth slowly and it begun to bring some similar sounds with the ones we just heard. We snapped and started running. Towards the boulevard, then on it. We kept running, running and running. Those footsteps were still heard behind, closer and closer, yet that thing was not accelerating at all.
We stopped near a group of people on the sidewalk, stopped and looked behind. They looked at us like we were mad or on drugs. No sign of the statue. We could not dare to leave them, but we could not find the words to talk. Eventually, they gave us an awkward look and left us. It did not make any sense to follow them, but we walk on, slowly, on the boulevard. We eventually reached our rented place. We fell asleep and woke up very late. Someone called on the phone earlier, I rejected the call, and got back to sleep, I did not felt capable of answering. Ilinca looked more sicklier then ever. After she woke up, she just stared blankly. During our sleep, she babbled the name of Babbler in agony.
”They are coming for me. Nothing we can do. The next night is the last.” she said on quite voice. I took her in my arms and replied: ”No, they will not.” I was lying. I begun to feel like her. I felt like the previous night was suppose to be the last one for Ilinca, but we managed to escape. One comforting thought was that, if we manage to escape once, we could do it once more. How long, I did not knew. No one will believe us, we do not knew what those things were and how could they be defeated. Like a shadow was creeping onto our souls. After several hours of talk, we decided to spend the next night to one of my friends, because it was clear those things knew where we were.
I have managed to convince my friend, after a long talk. He probably thought I was crazy, exactly how I did about Ilinca at first. Unfortunately, his rented apartment was still pretty close to the downtown areas where the statues were. This is one of the most stupid things, we could have just left the city. But that kind of shadow was on my mind, probably on Ilinca„s mind as well and we could not see such an obvious solution. Like we were intoxicated with something.
Night came. I kept Ilinca in my arms, on the couch. Nothing was outside, and she fell asleep. Then I fell asleep. I do not know how much it took, we woke up by window tapping. We looked at the window and a large and thin statue of a women with a big hat was blocking the light from the orange street lights. We both stared in terror. In a matter of seconds, the thing broke the window and brought a huge, bronze hand inside the room, with huge fingers towards Ilinca. The eyes were sunken and red, and from the mouth that low vibration sounds we already knew started to be heard. Ilinca screamed: ”I am going out of this place! Now!” She broke away from my arms and ran towards the door. I followed her outside the apartment, then outside the building. I did not knew what else either. Our chances already were really slim now.
Ilinca was running chaotically, I followed. All I could hear from her, at one point, was that the Babbler is getting close on her. The shadow was on our hearts and minds. Panic, despair and a sense of futility was over me, more and more. We saw two statues from the right, one from the left. On the right it was the statue of the thin woman that was on our window, on the left a statue of a fat man wearing a topper was coming. We heart their steps and from their mouth they gave out those muffled, low frequency sounds, almost like silent screams, like silent howling. Not just their eyes seemed red, but also the interior of their mouths.
We kept on running without a target, partially in circles. Ilinca lost it already, and I followed into her lost state. We already saw other statues, two male and one female. One of the male statues was the massive one we saw the night before. It seemed they were playing with us, making us go into a smaller and smaller area. I do not know how much I was aware of it when it happened but, when I look back now, it gets more clear. Finally, one of the female statues and the large male statues trapped us from the two sides of a small street with buildings that were tall enough to block our entrance into a yard. Yet, Ilinca tried, with no success, to climb a fence and get into a yard. It did the same. The statues were getting closer. Fear was getting stronger as seconds passed. I was able to climb the fence and, on top of it, tried to help Ilinca get up too. She was hyperventilating on an unimaginable scale, her eyes was open wide, sweat covered her face and hair and the teeth was crunching. She was able to grab my hand, but the massive, male statue reached her and grabbed her legs. She screamed unhumanly as this happened, the statue took her with its immense power in its arms like Ilinca was made of cardboard. It locked her into its arms and brought her to its mouth. Her last desperate scream was covered by a scream of my own. I fell from the fence into the sidewalk and all went dark.
I woke up a few days later in a hospital. I suffered multiple fractures. In all that pain, I was able to ask what happened. They found me fallen on the sidewalk, Ilinca was not found at all. Police think we were on some drugs, but the tests came out non-conclusive. When I got out of this hospital, there was no freedom, as I will be moved to a psychiatry hospital for people with serious illness, I do not know if I would ever came out of there. I still have my phone on me, my brother brought it to me. I do not know how long I shall still have it.
But I do not think I shall reach the psychiatry hospital. Last night, close to morning, I heard a small tap on the window. I knew that tapping pretty well. This means it is just a question of time. One day, maybe two. I really do not know what can be done. I do not know what they are. I see no way out. Shall I just accept my fate?