Grim

This story takes place in the autumn of 2001 when I was 17.

I had lived in this house since I was 7 years old. To better understand what caused this strange and extremely eerie manifestation, I will have to briefly summarize my life and childhood. It is, in my opinion, the seed that led to the growth of something in which to this day causes me to look over my shoulder each night before drifting off to Neverland.

I can remember that day almost precisely. I was 5 at the time, and blamed myself for it all. My mother had gone to work earlier that day, and a blonde lady had come by with her 2 children. I knew nothing of romance and commitment at that age, and didn't consider it odd when her youngest child Lisa ran up to me with the exciting news of, ("Guess what?" "Guess what?") "What?" ("My mommy and your daddy were kissing!") I am somewhat ashamed to say we both giggled a bit.

Lisa (also 5, the same age as I) made this out to seem as something big, great and exciting! It's no wonder then, that when my mother had returned from work I simply had to let her in on this huge and exciting thing. My mother hit the roof! "He what....?!!!" I then remember my father shouting so that I felt like a little breakable statue, too afraid to breathe. I felt it was my fault, that blame was placed on me for something I had no idea had been wrong.

Needless to say, we moved away from him into a tiny trailer park, just my mother and I all on our own. I often threw tantrums, wondering why I couldn't see my father, and cried alot. I remember becoming very quiet after this, very pained within my soul.

My mother eventually met someone new who provided a better home for us with more stability, but inside I remained the same.

As I grew older with these things I never bothered to process, I also grew to be bullied. My teenage years were rough. I drank until numbed, and always searched for love, while always feeling very unloved and somewhat martyred. I trusted people, and was continuously being walked upon. I felt that at the age of 17 my dignity was destroyed, and that in truth maybe love is only a fairy tale, and that is when it happened!

I had been feeling especially off balance that week. My mother and I were having communication breakdowns, and everything was just wrong. It began with these extremely vivid nightmares of these dark, hovering, evil creatures with no discernable faces to make out. In these dreams, they would hover around hospital beds of a dying victim, or I would wake up feeling smothered by one. The only way to describe them is to say that they were grim reapers.

Shadows without faces, masked in gloom, they would terrify me in my subconscious, (the dream state). I had never had dreams that were so vivid and reacurring. They finally came to an end one night when as I lay in the dream state, they circled around me, tearing, clawing and trying to steal away my breath.

I awoke in a cold sweat, catching my breath, feeling the comfort of my sheets. And, as I looked ahead, there was one hovering in front of my closet doors! I again started feeling as if I couldn't breathe. I thought that it would vanish by rubbing my eyes, but when it didn't I became panic stricken. I wanted to scream. I could feel myself screaming inside. The last thing that I remember was this dark figure stretching out his arms as if to say, "Come with me."

It felt like forever, but eventually I got to my feet and ran, making tracks out of my room. After having rubbed my eyes twice, I know for a fact that this was not a dream. You can question my sanity, fine by me. Yet, I know and you don't! I was there.

I still glance over my shoulder every night, but haven't seen it since.