To this day, I remember this paranormal encounter vividly, even though it has been a decade since it happened. I know it’s gonna sound like a classic scene out of a horror film, but I swear this 100% happened to me. It’s not something I think about often, but when it does cross my mind, it still sends shivers down my spine.
It was the year 2012, and I was in my early 20s. I had just moved into a tiny apartment in the outskirts of Milan, Italy. It was a thirty-minute drive from the city and the area was mostly fields and patches of forest with a couple of small towns scattered here and there. The drive back from the city at night was always creepy, especially in the fall when it would get foggy on top of it all. I swear I’ve seen weird things, if not in the fog then in the shadows of the trees. If you’ve ever lived in a countryside or rural area like this, you know it gets DARK dark at night, and the vibe is just different than in the city.
The apartment was only two rooms and a bathroom, and it didn’t have a kitchen, but it was right above the garage that was included in the rent, and the rent, boy oh boy, the rent was a steal. In the manner of the sad and starving artist life, I had just broken up with my ex and decided to pour all my love into a rescue kitten instead. The little fluff was so tiny at the beginning, he couldn’t jump or climb onto my bed, so I decided to sleep on the couch in the living room. The couch was made of fabric which the little guy was able to claw into and climb up and down on his own.
A few nights passed until it happened out of the blue. It was in the dead of night, and I was fast asleep on the couch with my kitty next to me, snuggled up under a big and cozy blanket and laying on my back. I somewhat woke up because I felt the blanket slowly being pulled off of me and upward. I was still in that waking up but half-asleep state, and I hadn’t opened my eyes yet, so when I reached out my arms to grab the blanket, it was more out of a reaction rather than a conscious decision.
But as soon as I grabbed onto the blanket to pull it back towards me, a force of what felt like a tonne came pushing down on me. I couldn’t move, I felt hot and cold at the same time, and I was way too scared and paralyzed to open my eyes. It felt like I was trapped under this force forever, when in reality, it was probably just a couple of seconds. It ended as abruptly as it started. The weight had lifted, but I still couldn’t decide if I was feeling hot or cold, but I was sweating for sure.
Still with my eyes closed and the blanket now pulled up to my neck, I slowly turned onto my side and was searching for my cat. When my hand touched his fur, I finally had the courage to open my eyes and check on him. My sweet baby angel was snoozing deep and without a care in the world. This was the only thing that calmed me down about what just happened. Cats pick up on bad things, and the fact that my kitty wasn’t bothered at all by what just had happened to me whilst laying next to him, it couldn’t have been that bad, could it?
Regardless, after that encounter, I didn’t sleep for a couple of days, except for short naps during the daytime. At night, I kept all the lights on, and I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched, or that someone or something was lurking around that I couldn’t see visibly. But I felt it in the back of my neck; you know the spot where you can feel the chills when something is off.
To calm my anxiety, I contacted a medium who taught me how to protect myself, but I kept wondering what the reason for the haunting was. For starters, why do ghosts pull on bedsheets at all? Was the entity tied to an object in my apartment, like the couch I slept on that was a hand-me-down from my dad’s neighbors. Or perhaps the car parked in the garage beneath my living room that belonged to my deceased grandfather. Could it have been my grandpa, or was it something far more sinister visiting me that night?
As a result, I moved out soon after the events of that night, but on my last day there, I discovered the truth. I finally took a stroll past the little patch of forest beside my building. I had always wondered where the path led, but from my balcony, I could only see the trees, never the graveyard they encapsulated. I couldn’t believe that I had been living next door to the dead the entire time…