The New Apartment nosleep

I recently moved into my first apartment with two of my friends, and strange things have been happening since day one. I know it sounds so terribly cliché but please, hear me out. My name is Sam, by the way, and I attend my local university, oh and nice to meet you! I didn’t suspect that anything paranormal could be happening in the building, seeing how it is fairly a new building that was recently renovated; and before it was the current apartment complex, it was a restaurant (an awesome pizza shop, that for some reason went out of business). My roommates and I have been living in the complex for close to five months now. Throughout this time, I had noticed that quite a few things that were out of the ordinary. But, I told myself to write them off due to the nature of three guys living in the same apartment. Though through the days, the occurrences seem to mount up, and after what happened last night I can question this any longer.

Before moving in, one of my roommates, Riah, was told by the property manager that this place used to be a women’s mental ward. Riah and I shared an interest in the paranormal but had never had any actual experiences. On the other hand, Lee, my other roommate doesn’t believe in anything, a true skeptic. When I tried to bring attention to what I was seeing, they did nothing. Scoffed it off and said it might be neighbors, saying that I have an overactive imagination. Constant shrugging and disbelief was what greeted me I asked them to listen. Trying to brush off the feeling, I told myself that part of it might be due to the way the apartment was designed. When you come in the front door, you seem the common area. In there is only one small window letting light in. Since we faced away from the sun we would never get direct sunlight, meaning we always have to have overhead lights on. For the first few months, I never noticed the effect it had on me, the lack of sunlight. Both Lee and Riah thought that I was starting to go stir crazy due to the lack of activity that I was having. Knowing that I was growing anxious did not help as my course load began to pile up, I refused to leave except to attend classes. In my room however, it seemed that I got the luck of the draw. My room had two large windows and a single small one. These windows looked out at the parking lot. The problem with that was that the light always flooded in from the street lamps outside and never left me in the dark. There were often many nights I would wake up to the sound of car doors slamming and seeing silhouettes pass by my windows. This was one of the first major things I would notice. Used to living out in a rural area, I had never dealt with this before. It surprised me by the amount of people who would come and go in the night. At first it was difficult to adjust, but after two weeks I wouldn’t think twice about it. On occasion, there were nights where I would awake to no sound. My breathing would weigh down the room echoing like an empty amphitheater. Some of those nights I would look up and see a shadow standing outside my window. The first few times I saw this, I thought nothing of, told myself it was a trick of the light. But as this grew more frequent I started to question it. The next time, my blood ran cold. Snapping out of sleep fully awake, I felt watched, caged. Looking up, I could see there was a person standing, unmoving, outside of my window. As the minutes passed they did not even as much as sway. Two things raced through my mind. Either to stay in my bed and wait the person out as they continued to watch me, or to get up and catch them in the act. I decided the latter.

Ever so slowly, I pulled myself to the edge of my bed, knowing full and well that if this thing was watching me IT would know what I was doing. I slipped one leg off the bed, and tried to quietly roll onto the floor, however I slipped and fell onto the floor. I looked up just in time to see the shadow darting away. I rushed to the window but saw no one outside. Adrenaline rushed and in a futile attempt to catch the person, I ran. Bursting through my bedroom door, and then the unlocked front door, I sprinted for the street to see if I could catch a glimpse of the peeping tom as they ran away. The concrete outside felt like ice for some reason as I made my way to the parking lot. The complex is shaped like a U, and my apartment being the middle, I had to run around one of the sides. Hoping that this person was stupid enough to stay on the street I ran for it. As my feet hit the asphalt of the main road I looked both way frantically looking for the person, but no one was there.

That was one of the first things that took me by surprise about the place. I tried to brush it off, telling myself that it was mainly women who lived in the complex and that the person probably thought I was one of them. Despite now, the constant fear that sat in at night that someone would be watching me, I started to become extremely paranoid. For some reasons, both of my roommates did not hear me that night and had remained asleep. I was by far too freaked out to tell them what had happened, knowing all too well that they either wouldn’t believe me, or would make fun of me for what happened. Following that, the next thing I knew sleep became one hour naps during the day and staying up all night, keeping the lights off and hiding between the spaces where the windows could not see. I began to see things. Telling myself that I was hallucinating wasn’t much help. At least, I thought they were hallucinations. During the day I would see shadows dart in and out through the apartment, and I’d find that drawers and cabinets open even though moment ago they closed. The most prominent of these hallucinations was that of the spider.

After two weeks passed without incident of a peeping tom, I decided I should try and get myself back on a normal sleep schedule. I decided to go to sleep at 8pm, so that I could get a lot of sleep. Unfortunately, it resulted in waking up at 1:08 am. I cleared my eyes of the sleep that hung over them, and saw a spider crawling along the wall. It scurried in a strange rhythm as it worked its way along the beige colored wall. As it moved it started to fade, literally start to disappear and blend into the wall. I then realized what I was seeing and went to smack it, but by it was gone. I promptly started dragging my hand across the wall making sure that I wasn’t being fooled. I then turned on the lights in my room and continued to search, but just as before, found nothing. I tried to tell myself that happened because of the lack of sleep, but I couldn’t seem to shake the feeling something was wrong. The opening and closing of the drawers would happen. There was a time when I was sitting in the common room where I was watching Netflix, watching Scrubs, trying to relax after a very long day of school. The scene had just ended, and I could hear shaking behind me. I turned around and one of the drawers fling open and some of the silverware flying out. Chills went down my spine. Then, the cabinet below the sink opened up. Next was the dishwasher. I heard the little click on the handle, releasing the door to it and it fell down to the floor. Lastly, I watched as the refrigerator door open. I took a deep breath and did possibly the worst thing I could have done in that situation. I decided that I was going to get up and close everything. Now I know what you must be thinking, “ARE YOU STUPID? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? THAT IS POSSIBLY THE WORST DECISION YOU COULD DO. CLEARLY SOMETHING IS GOING ON HERE!” Even though I studied the paranormal, I was not quite sure what to do. I thought that if I acted like nothing was wrong, it would leave me alone. I exhaled and approached the kitchen area. Hands shaking, but straight-faced, I closed each in the order it was opened. When I closed the refrigerator, I heard that sounded like a voice say, “You are not welcome.” It sounded hollow, as if it was an echo of a whisper. I could feel my whole body begin to shake and I closed my eyes for a moment. I decided this was enough, I was going to tell my roommates.

From that point on I always left something making noise, whether it was a TV, my laptop or my phone. Thinking back I’m surprised I didn’t piss myself when I heard that, voice. It seemed like days and I counted out minutes before both Riah and Lee returned. Lee came home first and I told him that I needed to talk him with Riah about something. He put his hand on my shoulder and had a concerned look on his face. “Are you alright, I know you haven’t been sleeping well, and I can see it on your face.” He said. I just looked at him for a moment, wanting to tell him everything that had happened, the shadow, the spider, the drawers, and the voice. “I’m alright. Yeah, sleep has been rough, but it is from the work. I just need to talk to you and Riah about it when he gets back.” I said hearing a quivering within my voice. Another hour or so passed before Riah returned and I asked them to sit down on the couch.

“Look, I know this sounds crazy, but I think something is wrong here,” I started. Lee and Riah looked at each other confused. Riah went to speak, but I cut him off, “- You might think that I’m losing it, but I’m not. I know what I saw, I KNOW WHAT I SAW. I’VE SPENT THE LAST MONTH AND A HALF LIVING IN FEAR!!!” Riah looked confused, and Lee looked like he was trying to hold back from laughing. “I assume it’s because we haven’t cleaned and you feel like you are living in a pig sty or something like that.” Lee said while chuckling. Riah sighed and looked at me and said, “What do you think is going on?” My head dropped and I said under my breath, “I, I think—that maybe this place is haunted…” There was a brief moment of silence, and for just part of a second I thought they believed me. The room erupted in laughter from both of them. “Haunted? Dude, I thought you were losing sleep, but it seems more like you are losing it. You are fucking crazy!” Lee said through laughter. “What you think it’s haunted because of what the property manager told me? Sam, dude, you have to realize he was trying to make the place sound appealing to me because we had talked about some of those fake-ass ghost tv shows.” Riah said. I began to shake. I tried to calm myself down, but it did not do much for me, so I told them what had been happening to me. Although the more I told them the more they laughed and continued to deny that anything was happening. I thought that when I told them about the voice, I was sure they would snap out of it, but it seemed to make it worse. By that point Riah was lying across the entire couch, and Lee was on the floor in tears from laughter. Frustrated, I turned and walked toward my room, closing and locking the door behind me. I whispered under my breath, “I wish they would understand what I’m going through. I wish someone could do something about it.” The words slipped out as an accident, meaning to say that I wish I could do something about it. Then I heard the sound of something scraping against wood.

I looked over to the other side of my room realizing something that I overlooked that could have started all of this. On top of a side table sat a wooden 2-sided game board. One side had a Ouija-styled spirit communication board, and the other side had checkers. On the Ouija were the letters a-z, numbers 0-9, yes, no, good bye, and the word MYSTIC across the top. Along the sides of the board was a picture of snake tamers and pictures of stars. I had picked it up in my hometown from a second hand shop and had owned it for well over three years and never had a problem with it. I didn’t even own a planchette to use with it, nor did I have anything in my room to use to communicate. I always thought of them as shams from all the stories I was told. As I looked closer, I saw a guitar pick slide across the board and it stopped on the word ‘yes’. I looked across the room to my guitar, and the pick was missing.

Submitted October 11, 2014 at 03:50AM by WeLeftTheCpt http://ift.tt/1so3FrG nosleep