Friday

I have to write about this here because if I tell anyone in my life they will not believe me. I need to purge myself of these memories, I must share them with you.

It began as I lay still and heavy in my old bed. It was not soft but I was drifting away to a place where I could dream. Then, the quite common unsettling occurrence happens where from my bed upon an ungodly hour, I could hear a loud screeching inhuman scream. A woman’s scream if it were to be replicated by a waterlogged and damaged robot voice box. A screeching as though a hoard of crows were to imitate a human upon their death. I feel as though everyone has heard a sound like this late at night. Thoughts begin to move through your head, thoughts like “it was just a car, or a fox, or a bird.” But you know the squeal was too loud and too unnatural for any of that. But you are only human, perhaps the world is full of things you do not know about.

I closed my eyes tighter and kept my body still. Paranoia that the sound was a trap made me not move. I thought if I moved then they would see me. The ones that made the trap. I pretended as though I were deep in slumber and didn’t hear such a noise. I hoped that I had control over the micro-movements of the muscles in my ear so that I could make them act like no noise had ever passed through. I cleared my mind. I know too many stories of banshees to disregard such an event. Never look outside.

But what happened next made my body start to sweat under my bedsheets as my ears and skin picked up a sound of movement next to my bedroom door. Behind me. I was facing the wall with my head buried into the mattress, playing pretend that I was not aware of what was happening. I was a statue as the old wood creaked in the dark corner next to the bedroom door. The door had not opened, but that did not mean nothing had entered, the world was full of science we do not understand. Something dragged against the dry wallpaper, making me sure that the sound was not just the house settling. In my mind I pictured someone standing there, in the shadow of the night, waiting for me to turn and see them.

Never in my mind did I consider this motion to be human. No scenario would allow it to be so. The door did not open, I was certain I didn’t hear it. So the attacker would have had to hide under my bed or somewhere else in the room. This did not happen, they appeared, at least it seemed to me, that they appeared in the dark corner behind me as though they had teleported there.

I quieted my breathing. It was not the first time that I conjured up some creature in the night from my imagination, however it was only this time that I could hear it standing on the loose planks of wood, and shuffling quietly against my wall. Time was spent making believe that I was asleep. Ghosts do not attack sleeping people, they only scare the awake. Time was spent with the skin on my back awaiting the swift descent of a weapon upon me. Time was spent listening to the faint whispers of the night. And then, in time, the noises faded. My room was fully silent once again. I once again had the courage to deepen my breathing and shift the slight position of my fingers under my head. I had to turn my body to the corner of my room and peak a glimpse so I lifted and rotated my body as I thought a sleeping person would, without opening my eyes, and with a heavy and careless motion. I sat still now, waiting for more sounds of friction. None came.

The intruder was gone, I could only assume. I was facing the intruders location, so now I had to gather the strength and courage to open my eyes. But thankfully, once I had opened them and adjusted to the dark, nothing was there. Regardless of how fast my heart was beating, my eyes were not deceiving me and creating something from nothing in the darkness. I slipped my phone out from under my pillow and turned on the torch so that I could light the shadowy corner from where the movement came. Nothing was there. Although now I began to think that I had created the noises in my head, I still stood up to turn the light on and check and waved my arms around in the air around me to assure my mind. I was thinking that finally I could go back to bed, so I turned the light off again, but this time I turned on a little night light I had so that my mind won’t decide to play tricks on me anymore. If only it had worked. When I turned to my bed I saw A HAND reaching in from the open window which was above my pillow. I was on the third floor. It had long greyish fingers which were not recognisably human, more like a malnourished and hairless monkey.

I was frozen to the spot. What could I do? What would you have done? I felt as though my entire world were ending and all that I thought fabricated was now reality, all of the nightmares that only appeared in my mind, were now coming for me. Somehow they opened the window and reached in without me hearing anything. While I was checking for monsters in the corner, one was reaching down to my pillow without my knowledge. What if I had remained in my bed?

However I found out that not being in my bed did not save me from the nightmare. The grey arm began to extend as though it were robotic and not natural. My eyes darted quickly to the window, the nightlight in my room made it so I could not see the dark night outside. All but two glistening eyes which were reflecting the light from my room. It was close to the window, watching. The arm grew close to me until it cast a shadow over my face, blocking out the low light from my room. I could not move. My eyes closed as it began to grip at my face, before I felt it touch me, I must have passed out. The next thing I can recall is laying on a cold metallic floor, looking up at a cave like ceiling. I couldn’t sit up because of how weak I was in the moment. Anytime I moved I could feel the blood rush through my ears and my vision began to fade, so I could only lie still or I would lose consciousness.

A tall woman appeared above me, looking down into my face. She was pale and her eyes were black, there was no blood in her face like someone who is extremely ill. I noticed that her mouth did not move even slightly, nothing on her face moved except her black eyes. Dark like a dogs eyes.

I think of her face often. It appears in my mind from time to time, and I have an inclination to assume that when I think of her, she is thinking of me. This is just a fantasy of mine of course, I may have just been a subject of alien abduction, and discarded like livestock. I can no longer sleep at night when I am alone. I lay awake, waiting for it to return. I have felt different ever since.

When I woke in my room, I was on the floor, beside my bed, not where I was standing when the arm reached out to me. For a short time, I could not think in words, like my mind had been altered as it is when you first awake from a dream. I have visions of the earth from space, and I believe that a small part of me is still up there.

I do not know what happened to me, or what she was doing with me. This is all I can remember from Friday night. I know it was real, I know it had happened. Nobody will believe me if I were to tell them. All I know is to no longer disregard the bumps and scratches in the night.