I'm not crazy, I swear I'm not…. It all started at the age of 13. I was the average reclusive teenager. I stayed inside on the computer writing fan fictions and watching any kind of anime I could find on the internet. My grades were far from good growing up. The only classes I had good grades in were art, science, and creative writing. I didn't have many friends and I was far from popular. I was more on the verge of nonexistence now that I think of it. The few friends I had were all in the special education class. Once I hit high school my friends and I had different lunch hours, so to spare myself the anxiety of eating by myself I would often skip lunch and go to the library where the librarian would let me sit in her office and read. My favorite books were about dragons.
My sophomore year is when things started to get strange. I started having weird flashbacks to my early childhood during class. They started out as oddly neutral ones. Memories of the summers I spent on my uncles farm up in Wisconsin. Others were small snippets from my time in daycare. They were harmless memories until one day I was history boredly doodling in my notebook when I had a flashback that terrified me. I was four years old and still living with my mother in a shaudy rundown trailer in the dregs of the Oklahoma mountains. It was fall, around thanksgiving I can see it all so clearly even as I tell it to you now. My kitten had gotten out of the trailer and I was running to catch her. She ran into this old, decrepit barn somewhere off on a neighbor's property.
It was late in the evening. The warm golden glow of the setting sun shone down through the autumn leaves and down upon the hard-rocky ground. The ground beneath my feet crunched with each step I took. My face was burning slightly from the chill November air. I followed her into the barn and she ran to the end slipping out though a small hole under a table. I crawl under the table and looked to see if I could fit through, but I was too big. Suddenly I heard a muffled sound coming from behind me. I turned to see a girl about what I assume to be 17 with short straight blond hair and brown eyes. She was restrained to a table with worn leather straps. Her eyes were full of fear as she looked down at me from the table. I was about to run outside and get my mom when I heard the heavy slamming of a large wooden door. Scared I hid under a table that was covered with a thick translucent plastic. Across from me under the table that the girl was tied to was an oval mirror with my reflection staring back at me.
I held my breath as the heavy sound of boots striking the hard-wooden floor. I couldn't see his face but I remember he wore large boots blue jeans and a green flannel shirt that was sloppily tucked into his pants. I couldn't see his face since he had his back turned to me but he had long curly, dark hair. He took out a sharp looking knife and I covered my eyes afraid to look. She screamed for a bit but then went silent with a slight gurgling noise. I closed my eyes as tears streamed down my face. Suddenly I opened my eye and the man was bent over looking me directly in the eyes. He had dark almost black eyes and a lumberjack beard. I screamed falling backwards in my chair and hit my head on the desk behind me.
I was in the classroom and everyone was looking at me. In the back of my mind I heard the man's voice. It was deep and scratchy "if you tell anyone, I will do the same to you, rode." I don't know how he knew my name. The teacher helped me up and took me to the nurse's office. I was sent home that day. I never had the flashback after that. During my sophomore year of college, I started to have nightmares. One that really stood out was a dream where I was on a trail ride with a bunch of kids, but we were going down the highway. Suddenly it was nightfall and raining. On the bridge were two cranes with large nets on the ends of their hooks. They dropped the nets into the water and when they were pulled up there was all kinds of trash in them. When the net was dropped, it opened to reveal a pile of bodies mixed within the trash. They were placed onto a table. Standing next to the table was a little girl no older than five. She had tightly curled blonde hair and soaking wet clothes. I called to her saying that she should come over to me where I would keep her safe. I woke up and saw the girl standing at the foot of my bed in front of my vanity mirror. I turned on the lights and she was gone.
I looked around my room terrified. Over the next few days I could feel something watching me from the mirrors in my house. Soon I began to feel myself being watched from other reflective surfaces. I covered all mirrors and reflective objects in my house with cloths. As the days grew to weeks I could hear whispering coming from behind the clothed surfaces. If there was anything I learned from watching horror movies it was to never respond to creepy disembodied voices. I ignored then and plugged in my iPod to drown out the noises. As long as I kept them in the voices would leave me alone. One day I was in my video production class with my earphones in and working on my assignments with the other students. There was a thunderstorm outside. It didn't bother me, until the lights went out, there were no windows in the room so it was pitch black and I felt an impending doom looming over me. All I remember is screaming and thrashing on the floor as I felt some tearing at my skin. The next thing I remember are the teacher and some of the students holding my hands and feet down firmly. EMS responders entered the room and gave me a shot that knocked me out. When I woke up I was being wheeled down a hallway on a hospital bed. I tried to sit up but I was restrained by thick straps that kept me flat against the bed. I was wheeled into a room with bared windows and dirty glass panes.
I looked out to see drops of rain rolling down the glass. Then I could swear I saw the girl standing outside the window, but her eyes were rolled back into her head and her skin was a bluish grey with black spider veins that were literally crawling all over her body. I panicked and thrashed trying to get free. I don't remember hoe but I had gotten free of my restraints. The door opened and I saw me as a little girl standing next to the scary man from my memories. "It's time to take your medicine." He said and held up a syringe. I picked up the trashcan and threw it at him. He dropped the needle and it slid in my direction I quickly grabbed it and jabbed the man in the neck with it. I rushed to the door but saw six more of him standing there ready to catch me. I slam the door shut and started kicking the window. The glass shattered and stuck into my skin, but I didn't care. I was just small enough to slip out through the bars on the window and ran deep into the night ignoring the onslaught of freezing rain and the glass digging deeper into my feet.
I came across a woman my age and similar in appearance. I knocked her out and switched clothes with her. Now I live in a small apartment in a quiet small town away from any big cities. I have changed my name and have been doing fine. The voices still haunt me but I haven't seen the horrifying apparitions that haunted me so long ago. I do feel bad for the people I had hurt but, I'm safe now and I will always be safe.