During summers past, I was very fond of keeping my windows open to cool the interior of the house down during the day and even the night. And at night, the underlying whisper of a gentle, wafting breeze coupled with the lulling hum of insects did wonders for my sleep.
To give you all a sense of where I slept, it was in the finished, massive basement of my parents' home. My solitary, closed bedroom was off in one corner by one of the outer walls of the home and I had a singular, small, ground-level window above my bed. Often times, while I could not view outside due to the angle and the thick curtains, I would relish the sight of the pale moonlight filtering through the bottom of the curtains.
One night a few years ago, at the age of nineteen, I was drifting somewhere between sleep and consciousness, vague thoughts of what to do tomorrow lingering in my mind. At the same time, I was, of course, absently listening to the outdoors as well. The sounds were all what I regularly heard: the curtains shuffling near imperceptibly from a breeze, crickets attempting to find a mate with their sweet music, and the leaves of tree canopies scraping against one another from the wind. That was, until, my sleep was thoroughly interrupted by a foreign sound.
Animals in this area were not entirely uncommon. I had, after all, resided in what could be called “the middle of nowhere.” I was on a gravel back road and all the few homes on that street were at least a quarter of a mile apart. Animals like black bears, coyotes, foxes, and the like would routinely seek either our refuse or an unsuspecting small animal, like our chickens. Usually, though, they did not bother to come near the house and they left any open windows alone.
But this animal evidently didn’t want to.
Abruptly, I was sufficiently torn from my half-sleep to listen to continuous heavy, bestial breathing. And, based on the breathing, I could only surmise the animal was large, perhaps bear-sized even. I would have simply closed the window above my bed, but whatever it was had its snout or maw against the screen because its breathing was so loud. My throat clenched and my heart nearly stopped the more I listened. I was a deer in headlights and I could only manage to lie there, hoping that it would just go away.
…It did.
I heard the shuffle of grass being disturbed and what I had assumed to be paws setting themselves before the breathing faded away in to the night. I was left in peace it seemed, though not even the normal, comforting sounds of outside could put me back to sleep.
In the early morning, after a bleary few hours of fitful sleep, I checked the area outside my window just before I went to work and found… nothing. Frustrated, I set my jaw, told myself I got worked up over a curious bear or something, and went to work. I went to bed the following night after a completely uneventful day of work. That time, though, I was off from work the next day, so I hadn’t concerned with putting myself to sleep early. I remember simply laying in bed, scrolling mindlessly through my smartphone, when it started up again. Breathing, slow, steady, and heavy. Up against the screen. I swallowed hard and did my best to focus on the soft glow of my phone screen.
This time, it didn’t simply go away. This time, a voice followed.
( Now, as a note, I am pulling this all from memory from a few years ago. Whether or not it spoke these exact words or I did such and such exact action, I don’t recall. But the first two words it said I will always remember. )
“Young one.”
Two words, simple and spoken deliberately. I noticed immediately that the voice itself was neither male nor female in tone, though it was somewhat deep and rough. I inhaled almost inaudibly and was thoroughly questioning my sanity internally. Of course, the voice did not stop there.
“Do not attempt to ignore me.”
Oh God. That’s all I could think as I felt my blood run cold. At the same time, though, I somehow croaked out, “Okay.”
Its voice came again in that slow thoughtfulness, “Good.” There was a pause. I couldn’t hear any crickets. “I have a request. Bring unto me a large quantity of water chilled by ice. Leave it outside. Do not bother seeking me. You will not enjoy the result if you do.”
Confusion poked through my fear. A creature of some variety was speaking through my window and asking for… ice water. I briefly debated on running into a deeper part of the house to hide, but who knows if the windows or doors of the house would hold against a creature of its imagined size.
“Do not flee. I will know.” There was something of a weighted, tired sigh-like exhale through its snout following that, and I heard it adjusting itself outside the window.
Holy shit. Okay, all right. I don’t know what the in the hell I did after, to be honest. My memory of that night was somewhat clouded by being so scared out of my pajama pants that I don’t even remember how exactly I managed the will to carry myself up the stairs to the kitchen. After that, though, I did remember grabbing a large soup pot from the cabinet and watching the water flow in to fill it. I had tapped my foot involuntarily from my fiery nerves until the pot filled with what I hoped was enough water, and then threw in a few handfuls of ice from the refrigerator.
Only when did I get to the front door did I realize how absolutely insane this all was and the water inside the pot was trembling considerably from how hard I was shaking.
Whatever, just do it and go back to bed and pretend nothing ever happened. I repeated this mantra over and again in my head as I slipped on flip flops and juggled the full, heavy pot to open the front door.
Outside felt stark. Being on my family home’s familiar porch did not feel the same. The air seemed laden with… something. Something that made the hair on the back of my neck and arms raise and my blood once again run as cold as the water in the pot. I swallowed and couldn’t even try to look around. My head just wouldn’t move. How did I know that the thing wouldn’t just round the corner and murder me on the spot? How did I know this wasn’t just some ruse? Was if this was some cruel prank by some bored idiot a mile down the road? I mean, if it was, it was pretty screwed up.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and just walked forward. I know. I’m dumb, right? Listening to whatever that was? I was also kind of tired from work. I was also even younger than I was now. I don’t know. I’ll make up a litany of excuses for it if I have to. But I did what I did.
I nearly threw the water pot onto the stone slab in front of the stairs to the porch I was so ready to finish being outside. I practically tripped up the stairs getting back inside. My body was probably in flight response back then, doing whatever it could to return to the indoors. And with the damnable task finally complete, heart beating in my throat, I rushed back to my bed.
There was no breathing outside my window.
I just want to add at the bottom here I've had multiple run-ins with this... uh, thing. You all seem generally interested in the weird, maybe even the macabre, so I thought to share the first two times this happened. I can post more in the future, I suppose.
Submitted January 16, 2016 at 01:35AM by Nilhin http://ift.tt/1RqwP5F nosleep
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