I Met the Devil (A Recollection)

At around 3:45am on December 4th, 2015, I had the single most terrifying experience of my life. Allow me to paint the picture for a moment before I dive into the story.

I sleep with a box fan pointing toward my bed. There's no light on in my home, as I decided to sleep in pitch black, which I fall in and out of love with at random. There's a small (lol "small") pile of clothes near the bed, and the bedroom door is cracked open roughly two inches. The bathroom is offshoot from my bedroom, and that door is wide open.

I awaken to the sound of someone creaking the door open. I do not open my eyes because I believe I'm probably just bringing my conscious back into gear. As I lay facing the door, I try to wait out the noise, thinking again that I'm probably just feeling the cognitive dissonance of waking up abruptly.

The noise of the door settles, and I think I'm in the clear. However, as soon as the sound of the doors ceased, the sound of clothes being ruffled by my bed began. I immediately felt an overwhelming anxiety that someone is watching me, digging through my things. And then, the fan shuts off, and comes back on, kinda of like if the power went out.

My mind races as I try to piece together how they got in, who they are, and what their intent is while in my home at the witching hour. I decide to open my eyes. They might as well be glued shut. As I try to pry them open, I can feel the muscles in my eyelids being metaphysically held shut.

In my mind, I begin to process how I should approach the situation. I go through the motions of what this person can do to me if I just lie here, pretending to sleep, as well as what would happen if I surprise him by jumping out of the bed. Being the foolish hero I perceive myself to be, I opt to jump out of bed, tackle the person, and hopefully beat him into submission.

Eyes closed, I muster all of my will and try to lift myself from bed... Nothing. No movement. A reflexive pulse in the muscles in my neck and shoulders do nothing to propel me from bed. My legs and feet tense up, yet there is nothing happening physically aside from tremors in my body.

I immediately realize the force I'm feeling is shoving me down into the bed, and the only thing I have left, I believe, is my voice, so I decide to yell out. In my mind, I practice saying "GET OFF OF ME!" I repeat this once or twice in different ways before I attempt to yell.

I begin to speak, and my vocal chords tremble, unable to form the words I am hearing in my head. I'm captive in my own body, incapable of defending myself during an invasion. FEAR has frozen me to the bed. I try to speak one more time...

"GET..... OFF.....ME..." is what I can muster, taking some ten or so seconds to repeat the sentence aloud. I have finally given the perp the understanding that I'm awake, knowing he's in my room, and I've had enough. As soon as the last word leaves my lips, my eyes jut open. I see nothing. Quite literally, I can see nothing. The room is jet black.

I know where I'm at in space, so I can see the corner of my dresser from where my head is resting, but I have no understanding of what's happening near the door to the bed.

As well as my eyes, my bodily functions have returned to me. I can feel that I'm no longer frozen to the bed, or being pressed down telekinetically. I decide the only option I have is to go back to my original plan and jump up to tackle the person invading my home.

I sit straight up in the bed, taking no more than 1 second to achieve vertical from the prone horizontal. I look directly toward the door as I reach the peak of my movement. Nothing. The door is still cracked. I grab my phone, turn it on the brightest setting, and I begin exploring my home.

The bathroom is empty. The living room is empty. The kitchen is empty. Everything that was in place when I laid down to rest last night is still in place. The noise I heard was nothing. The fear I felt was nothing. The house was empty. And yet, the force I felt pressing me into my stiff mattress is still with me right now. I can feel it in my neck, and my shoulders. I feel the compressing of my will in my heart, and a tremendous confusion in my mind.

On that night, I was visited by a darkness that I've not felt since.