Home Alone

Home Alone

For starters, I love to play League of Legends. Now bear with me, I know what most of you guys think of the game. And yeah I know, it has kind of a toxic community. Usually I’m playing the game in the evening after coming back home from my long and tiresome journey from the University.

I finally came home from my journey. Another one of those typical weekdays. My mom yelled after me in a mixture of Dutch and Turkish words to slow down and take it easy as I rushed upstairs. After a while I heard my mom calling me for diner. I responded that I’m in the middle of a game and that online games just simply can’t be paused. She wasn’t satisfied but decided to stop calling me nevertheless. I finished the game and went downstairs. The whole family was there. My father told me that he, my mother and my sisters would be leaving to Turkey in a couple of days to take care of some business. Something with the house we have over there. I would have loved to go with them. For more than one reason that is.

A couple of days later my family members left to Turkey. They would be back in 2 weeks. I brought them to the airport and drove back home. Coming home I had this strange feeling. The best way to describe it with my poor English would be that it was not pleasant and it brought me in a state of anxiety. Back then I thought it was perfectly normal though. After all I wasn’t home alone that much for longer than a couple of days. So I closed the door and went upstairs to play some more LoL.

After a while though, I thought I heard something downstairs. Some weird sounds. Initially I thought it was the cracking of the house. It's the wind and the sounds the house makes, I said to myself. It had to be that. However, just to be sure I went down and checked the rooms. Nothing. I don’t know if it was the anxiety or if it was something else, but I felt like I was being watched by someone or something. Feeling uncomfortable, I quickly made diner and went upstairs again.

Going upstairs was a bit difficult in the dark, but luckily the light on the attic had sensors and lit when something triggered the motion sensors. It had become late and I had forgotten about my prayers. As a Muslim I make prayers 5 times a day. I had to pray for the night so I went to the shower and cleaned up. After doing that I took my carpet and stretched it before me. I forgot to close my door as I was still thinking about that strange feeling I had before and those weird sounds I had heard.

I began my prayers and stood up straight. After a couple more lines of reciting, I knelt to the ground and was at the end of the prayer. In this state I sat on my knees on the carpet, looking straight forward. I somehow kept forgetting the last lines of my prayer which I usually say without even thinking one second. I just couldn’t remember them anymore and I was somehow frozen. At this moment, I felt an unfamiliar, strange breeze. It was like some window was left open and the wind past right past me. I was terrified for the obvious reasons, but I couldn’t manage to do anything. After a few seconds I felt like someone was sitting behind me. The breeze suddlenly stopped.

I wanted to check behind me just to be sure nothing was there. But I decided not to pay attention to it and continue my prayers. The anxiety almost overtook me when I suddenly noticed something from the corners of my eyes moving at the top of the stairs. It moved in just a fraction of a second, but I noticed it. Terrified I tried to keep calm and finish my prayers. I kept saying to myself, please let the light stay out, please let it stay out. And at that very moment, when I was at my peak of anxiety, when I was expecting the worst kind of scenarios one could imagine, nothing happened… absolutely nothing.

This made me even more anxious. I knew for sure something was there, at the top of the stairs, looking at me like a predator stalking its prey. I just knew It. I kept looking from the corners of my eyes to make sure I didn’t see anything moving. After a few more minutes, I remembered my lines again and finished my prayers. I decided to just go to bed and to forget about everything that happened.

The next day I went through my daily routine again. I went to the University and came back home. I did think of that night a lot during the next couple of days. To be fair, I asked my friends to come over so I wouldn’t feel so lonely and confined at home. This helped relieving the anxiety I had. Then that day came. I will never forget that day.

I was at the attic playing LoL again. Surprisingly I had teammates that weren’t complete baboons. During the last game I heard something again from downstairs. A familiar sound this time. It wasn’t clear at first and again I thought it would be the wind and the cracking of the house. But when I listened more closely, I heard my mother...

Somehow I heard her talking to my sisters. They were laughing and the conversation went on and on. I couldn’t believe my ears. They shouldn’t be talking, they shouldn’t be here at the first place! I just talked to them over the phone this afternoon. They are in Turkey! This couldn't be happening. Panic overtook me. Have I gone mad? After some time the sounds stopped. This was even more chilling then when I actually heard something. I decided to keep listening. Then I heard something faint, but it wasn’t clear at first. Then it became clear. Someone was calling me. After 3 or 4 times it struck me. It was my mothers voice. She was calling me for dinner. Even though it sounded just like her, there was something sinister about it. Something very dark and twisted. Whatever it was, it really tried to mimic my mother’s voice…

I closed my door and immediately called one of my best friends. In panic I asked him to come over fast. Initially I thought he would have laughed and would say I was crazy or some shit like that. But he was very serious and told me he would be there in just under half an hour. This didn’t take away the fear though. The doorbell rang a couple of minutes later. I ran downstairs and opened the door, knowing I would be somehow safe. He as really quick, it didn't even take him 5 minutes I thought to myself. Relieved, I opened to door. But no one was at the door. After waiting a couple of seconds I got cold and decided to close the door. I felt desolated.

Turning back, I felt like someone was following me. Again I got that same feeling I had a couple of days before. That feeling of being watched from the dark. That strange and extraordinary breeze blowing past me. Those weird sounds of cracking. Then the chatter began. I heard my sister’s voice calling me. 'Why don’t u look back?'. 'It’s me, your sister, we have missed you'. Then my mother’s voice began sounding to my ears. I was frozen once again. She said things like, 'Look, I’ve made your favorite dinner, don’t u wanto eat son, you look so hungry'. The crazy part was that it actually smelled like dinner as well. I was literally petrified. Rock solid I stood there in the dark. Then the voices began sounding angrier and seemed like they lost their patience. The whispers began sounding louder and louder. Suddenly a loud and deep voice yelled. 'LOOK AT ME, NOW'. It felt like something was right beside me all of a sudden. I closed my eyes and dared not to look. I knew something was there and wanted me to look at it. I knew it wanted me to acknowledge its existence.

It continued to scream like an animal that needed to put out of its misery. Like someone or something being eaten alive. I tried to walk, first slowly and then faster and faster. Finally I ran to the stairs and managed to get a glance at what was following me. What I saw that day still hunts me in my nightmares to this day on. Never in my life had I seen such darkness full of hatred and despise looking straight into my soul. Pure evil with two pockets of void where you would expect his eyes to be.

Looking at me, its disfigured head got a sinister smile. It kept looking straight at me, knowing it had cornered its prey. I cried out of fear and ran upstairs. Hearing the voices of my mom and sisters calling me back as I was running to my room. Then the loud voice began once again. 'STOP, NOW!'.

Once upstairs I wanted to close my door. If only to have a small sense of safety, even if it was just a door that was closed. But I couldn’t get myself to close that door. Whatever that was making those sounds, was coming closer. Slowing down as it drew near to the opening between the stairs and my room.

Then I saw it.

First I saw his twisted arms reaching for the top of the stairs. Feeling for some open space to grab onto. His arms looked like that of some big filthy animal, muscled and able to crush a human if it wanted to. Its sharp claws cut through a portion of the top of the stairs as it tried to get a firm grip to pull himself up. Strangely the sensors of the light at the attic didn’t respond to him or what he did and I couldn’t see the thing clearly. The light of my room went out as well.

Then suddenly, in a fraction of a second, it brought its face very close to mine. I searched for a reflection of myself in his dark eye pockets, but all I saw was the deep dark void. Dark mucus was dripping out of the corners of his mounth.

I stood there, watching, not able to do anything.

It started to talk to me. It explained how it became disfigured. The gruesome scenes it told me were nothing like I had heard ever before. It didn’t speak in any language known to me. It didn’t need sound to convey his messages to me. I just felt what he was saying. He forced me to respond multiple times, but I was too afraid. I finally started to answer his questions. He asked me if I had seen or felt strange things before. I replied with simple yes and no answers. He was angry with me and in a loud voice he yelled: 'WHY DID YOU NOT LOOK AT ME THEN'. It got even more impatient and opened its mouth and showed me the rows of differently shaped sharp teeth. The smell was unbearable. The best way to describe it was a composition of the smell of rotting fish and corpses being burned.

'This is the end', I thought to myself. It had to be the end. Why did this have to happen to me. What did I do wrong?. Different questions raced through my mind while looking at that disgusting thing before me, narrowing the field I could see with his void.

Then, to my surprise, It slowly closed his mouth. He looked at me again, with his disfigured head and terrifying eyes. This time however I could see a glimmer of light deep within the void. Like the flame of a candle. It whispered something. ‘Not Today’. After whispering his last words to me, he slowly backed and crawled back like a vile animal, back into the darkness. He kept looking at me with that sinister smile on his face. Slowly but surely he disappeared into the dark. The whispers and cracking stopped after he was gone. The doorbell rang and I rushed to open the door. In shock I saw my friend and he came inside. I told him what happened. He thought I went crazy, but It didn’t matter. It was over now and I finally felt better. The next few days I stayed at my friends place.

This incident happened to me a few days ago. I haven’t really experienced anything like this after that. I still think a lot about that day though. I still feel very, very uncomfortable whenever I am downstairs at night.

Writing this gives me some kind of relief. My family will be home in a couple of days now. Being able to convey my experience with this ‘thing’, feels good. I am almost at the end of writing this and somehow I feel like I am being watched. It's still the shock I think from that day. I am feeling the breeze again. Maybe it’s just in my head. it is time for me to close my laptop and head down. My mom is calling me for dinner and she sounds like she is hungry.