“My life has always been plagued by something I can’t see or feel. It’s always around, giving me the worst circumstances it can. I don’t know how I’m even still alive.
I don’t remember much of my childhood, and most of it was explained to me by the police. My mom was my only caretaker after my dad left, and she was insanely religious. She would hit me and perform exorcisms because she thought I had the devil in me.
I got out of that hellhole thanks to our neighbors, who called the police because they heard 8-year old me begging and screaming for my mom to ‘stop’.
None of my foster parents kept me for long, and I never was adopted. I didn’t have family or friends because everyone avoided me, and they still do. I was dangerous to them because I would lash out. Once in elementary school I tried to stab a kid with scissors, but I don’t even remember that happening. Just another thing the police told me after.
Now I’m suddenly 18 and I basically give up on trying for college. No guide for me and a criminal record which looked bad for the jobs I applied to.
Somehow I got work in some off brand department store, which paid enough for me to eat and get enough money for a place to sleep.
That place is where I am now, and the streets were better. I had found the apartment with the lowest rent in my area, and I got in as soon as I could. It looked like an abandoned retirement home. The wallpaper was marked with cigarette smoke, and the bedsheets were stained yellow. The room looked as if it would glow in the dark under a blacklight.
The first night was unbearable. Some ignorant druggie downstairs was blasting music, making sleep next to impossible. Finally it shut off around 2 am, but that’s when I heard it. The sound of something shuffling around in the vents.
I was ready to cry at that point, but soon the tears turned to anger as I loosened the screws on the vent cover with my fingernails and threw it on the floor.
The noise of something scuttling against metal echoed from deep inside the vent, yet I couldn’t feel a draft. It wasn’t long before I noticed the noise was getting louder. I rummaged through the cupboards looking for something to seal the vent with, and I found some medical adhesive in a medical kit. I smeared it all over the sides of the vent and pressed it on the wall, hoping it would stay in place.
The next morning I woke, unsure if yesterday was a dream when the stench of death hit me. I plugged my nose and darted my gaze over to the vent. The cover had been seemingly ripped off and the vent was leaking blood down the wallpaper and onto the hardwood floor.
I grabbed a phone and ran out of the room, quickly dialing the landlady’s number. I’m sure he received calls all the time about the quality of the rooms, but the assumption of my ‘situation’ being a big deal was right because she immediately agreed to call an exterminator.
The landlady and exterminator arrived at my door standing side to side. I let them in and directed them to the vent.
I stood back with the landlady by the door while the exterminator approached the vent. We watched as he reached his arm in as far as he could, and pulled out what looked like a rodent.
As I took a closer look at what was held in his hands, I felt a wave of nausea overcome me. It was a rat with its tail removed and bloodied bite marks covering its body. I immediately rushed to the nearest sink and vomited a chunky substance into it. I wiped my mouth in absolute disgust as I watched it drain down the sink.
A sense of worry and dread filled the air as we spoke outside the apartment. The landlady immediately offered me a new apartment far away from my current one, and I gladly accepted. She said she had seen rats in the building before, but they were never found as bloodied corpses.
The new place looked the same, and the vent was in the exact spot as my old bedroom. I couldn’t help but think of how they were easily connected, and how whatever killed that rat could probably find me again.
The next night was much better, and I could no longer hear any outside disturbances. Still, the vent loomed over me as I drifted off to sleep. For a second I thought I could hear the faint sound of scratching as I slipped in and out of consciousness.
I woke up with sharp pains in my leg. I immediately threw back the covers, and what I saw made me panic.
About 4 bite marks ran up and down my leg, and all of them had broken the skin. I hobbled out of the now blood soaked covers and searched for a medical kit like the one I had found before. I winced in pain as I wrapped gauze around my wound. I thought about all the infections I could’ve gotten from whatever the creature was that bit me. If it had killed that rat, it could’ve killed me.
I checked the vent and just like earlier, the cover was on the floor and the screws used to hold it were scattered around next to it. I am planning to walk to the nearest urgent care, but it’s a far walk and I’m already light-headed. I don’t know what to do and I’m at the point of tears.”
I am the psychologist currently looking after the author of this story. Penelope recounted her stay on her laptop, which was found in her apartment by the cops.
Penelope made it to the urgent care and reportedly was looking very ill. She was rushed in as soon as possible and she wearily explained her issue. The doctor examined her wounds and explained to Penelope that an animal hadn’t bitten her, a human had.
Upon hearing this, something visibly switched in Penelope. Her mouth slowly opened and she remained unresponsive for a few seconds, before Penelope jumped up and attacked the doctor. She sank her teeth into his neck and bit off pieces of his flesh. She was quickly pulled away by several nurses, but she tried attacking them too. The doctor was pronounced dead as Penelope was arrested by police.
While she was sleeping or going through extreme stress, Penelope would switch in behavior. She would become violent and cannibalistic, being a danger to others and herself.
The bite marks seen on Penelope’s leg matched her own DNA. The truly most disturbing thing found, however, was the chunks of flesh and the pieces of rat tail found in her stomach.
I am currently trying to diagnose Penelope. She has extremely fast changes in behavior and she experiences severe amnesia after these changes end. Her trial is this tuesday, and hopefully I can prove she is not guilty by reason of insanity.