I am going to start by telling that I have always believed in the supernatural and through my childhood I have seen unexplained things that can sometimes be considered hauntings. But what happened to me during the summer of 2014 is the definition of supernatural activity.
I was in my second year of high school and was enjoying the last time left of our summer vacation, which in Sweden is ten weeks long so I landed in that state when you actually miss school, friends and such.
I have been sleeping oddly bad for a teenager, especially on a holiday. But it wasn't just getting enough shut-eyes no, the peculiar was the pattern. I would go to bed around eleven- twelve pm and wake up three times during the night. First time 03:15, next time 06:25 and finally 09:55, five minutes before my alarm. This happened to me around two to three weeks and of course it bugged me. I tried everything, everything in my power to figure out what was causing these odd sleep-pattern. I tried setting my alarm to just before I would wake up, but I would always wake up at the same time, 03:15, 06:25 and 09:55. I tried going to bed later and earlier, I even tried to stay up the whole night. Nothing worked. The oddest thing though wasn't that I for some unexplained reason woke up these odd hours, no it was the feeling right after when I opened my eyes. The feeling of total defencelessness. Like I was a wounded deer surrounded by a pack of wolves, that crept closer and closer with every breath I took. This feeling of being completely defenceless mixed with a feeling of shame, like I stood naked in front of millions of people and they saw through me, every last thing. My secrets, my flaws, all my little awkward and ashamed moments, thoughts and feelings.
That feeling was the strangest, the mixture of defenceless and shame all piled up in my stomach but only for a few microseconds before my eyes adjusted to the dark. Then it was gone like it never happened. I would have just discarded that feeling, but it happens all the time I woke up. I tried to speak with my father about it but he has always been a critic of everything. He just assumed it was because of me sleeping when I shouldn't and stuff like that. And I actually went with it, because if you are in a situation when weird things happen, unexplainable things even. Then the mind reaches for the reasonable explanation, "Why live in a world full of danger and fear when you can live in one where everything is great".
Oddly after that little chat with my dad it stopped... I didn't wake up in the middle of the night nor felt the same mixture of feelings again and actually went with the explanation that I was just sleeping weird or something. This kept on going for a few days until he happened.
I remember the day perfectly like it's been wedged in my mind. It was an ordinary day the day before me, my twin brother and some few friends were going to the city for a few days in some orthodox camp where there would be a lot of speakers talking about all sorts of things, so with the weather being nice we decided to head there and receive some new knowledge. We would leave early the next day and I, who have never been able to sleep in a car, thought a good night's rest would help me along and went to bed around nine pm. I remember falling asleep quite early and thought to myself how great all this is going to be. That was before I woke up.
The sweat was dripping from my back, my head was pounding like my brain was trying to break through my skull. And that damn feeling again, defencelessness and shame but now also the feeling of being watched like the walls was staring at me.
“I have been sleeping fine for days now, and this decide to happen now?” I was thinking this as I opened my eyes and automatically drew my view to the door. Someone was standing in front of my door with their back against me… A weird bluish glow was illuminating the room and the person was thin, real thin. They weren't wearing a shirt nor shoes, just a pair of worn grey sweatpants. Their back was bent and I could see the spine and vertebrae almost piercing through the skin. The person was just standing there staring into the door. In my sleepy state I lifted my head from my pillow and said "Hey, get out of here!". Then they turned to me and I saw that it was a man, an old man. His face was pale with eyes tired and blank. The top of his head had this bald spot but other than that, his head was covered in long grown hair. His arms that were hanging by his sides were as thin as the rest of him, He looked at me but more as a blind man looked at one. Our eyes lock on for a few seconds before he gently turns around and vanishes. I don't know if he opened the door or went through it, he just vanished and with him the weird bluish gloom. I dropped my head on the pillow and closed my eyes. I don't know if I woke up or simply just opened my eyes but I flew up in my bed and yelled out into the darkness "What the fuck was that!", I couldn't fall asleep after that, I didn't want to either. I just sat staring at the door the rest of the night.
Fast forward to the day we arrived at the camp, it was the evening after and we checked into the hotel we were going to spend our nights in. We got three rooms, one for me and my brother, the biggest actually, it had a huge twin bed in the middle of the room facing the window and the bathroom was big too, shaped like a rectangle with the shower on the far end of the room. This is important because what happened before we were about to get something to eat. I decided to take a quick shower because I spent six hours inside of a car and the rest of the time in the hot sun. The shower was well needed, just what I needed to clear my head. Afterwards I did the usual, I dried myself but that was when I realised the light in the bathroom wasn't on. It wasn't like it shut off and I was standing in complete darkness, no. I was staring at the light switch and it was turned off, but the room wasn't dark. In fact it was glowing like a candle, but bluish. I turned around with the towel around my waist and he was there. Standing behind the half open shower curtains staring at me, he was standing behind it peeking through, like a kid trying to scare someone. He did not talk nor move. He didn’t do anything but stare with his mouth half opened. At first I thought I was frozen in place like I couldn't move but that was until the shower curtains moved aside a bit, not much just simply a few inches. If I would be in any other situation I would discard it as the hangers acting up or a light breeze. But now when I stood face to face with my own god damn nightmare clear awake I realised he must be more than my own imagination or my mind acting up and when those shower curtains moved I didn't hesitate to turn around and leap at the door handle, throwing that door open like my life was being threatened. I didn't go back inside the whole night.
Well, while that really did freak me out I still had to eat so we went to the closest "open" food place there was, which in this case was a McDonalds. I, who isn't such a big fan of fast food in general, had to swallow my pride and eat a burger. We sat by a small table, there weren't a lot of people in there, just one or two tables. We were having one of our famous conversations about absolutely nothing and I was in the middle of explaining why my cause was the best one, like a debate. But I couldn't concentrate because every time someone else would speak a weird muffled voice from the back of the room would speak in their mouths. But really quiet, I couldn't figure out what they were saying but it always spoke when someone else spoke. I couldn't concentrate on the subject at hand because this damn voice was mumbling. Eventually I couldn't take it anymore and screamed out "Shut up!" The whole place went silent and I just sat there staring blankly out into space ashamed of my own voice. My friends already knew about my little "incident" in the bathroom so they knew something was wrong. We just kept on eating with some minor conversations until it was time to get back.
Fast forward to the second night, the last night we would spend there. I, who is a pro at cards, won the large bed in the middle of the room and my brother slept on a mattress. I have been sleeping great until last night, when I awoke in a cold sweat with the room spinning around me. First I thought I was drunk or drugged but that was until I saw the only place that wasn't a messed up blur was the window right in front of me. The moon was peeking in and I saw the outline of a person standing outside the window. I knew this was the man because we were six stories up, no one could stand on a ledge that simply didn't exist. I didn’t see a face just the outline of him in the moonlight but I knew it was him and for the first time I actually felt threatened by his presence like he wanted to hurt me. If I would close my eyes he would be the last thing I saw. So I sat there having this staring contest with this thing until the sun rose and the moon went back behind the roofs and with it the man.
As you could realise this really stressed me out in the end. I couldn't keep my eyes up for more than five minutes but luckily this was our last day here and I would be in a car for the next six hours. Some rest was indeed needed. The ride home was uneventful and we were home around eleven pm. I got to bed almost immediately and when I awoke the sun was down but my room wasn't dark. No, it was blue... He, the man that has been haunting me and terrorising me for the last couple of days, stood in my room but not by the door this time he was on my bed staring down at me. He was hunched over and stared right into my soul. I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't do anything but stare into those damn eyes. I never experienced sleep paralysis before but this was not far beyond that. It felt like days before the sun peeked over the old barn roof and the man finally decided it was enough and left me to my own fears.
I told my mom about this a couple of days prior and she, who also believes in the supernatural and experienced some unexplained things herself, stopped me afterwards and asked a very odd question, "was he tall? And did he have a scar on his left cheek?" I was baffled by the question but simply answered yes, remembering the scar. It crossed his jaw line down to his left cheek. Her face turned white and she swallowed hard before she got up and came back with an old photo album. Her hands wouldn't stop shaking when she searched through it. She showed me a picture of an old man standing by a river, he was wearing a dark suit with far too short arms. Even through the thick fabric I could see his bones sticking out through the shoulders. And that face, I could never forget that face, pale, tired with a cold look in his eyes.
She said he was her dad, my grandfather, who I never met. He killed himself. They found him hanging in the barn by one of the old wooden beams. I don't know what he wants, I haven't seen him since that last time in my room but I know by experience that if a ghost knows you can see them, if you interact with them they never leave you because they know they can fuck with you. I don't feel like he is hanging over my shoulder or anything but I still wake up sometimes in the middle of the night staring at my door waiting for him to stand there, staring back and starting this whole thing all over again…
R.J Rosengrim