The Lost Soul

Growing up in my parents’ house there were always weird things happening. They used to tell me stories from before I was born of strange noises, feelings, incessant knocking from behind the walls, and apparitions that were frequent in the house. Naturally, because of these stories, I grew up accepting the fact that weird things happened and never really thought anything of them. There were a few nights, however, that things got a little too weird.

One night was particularly frightening. I was about 6 years old, and my dad had just finished reading a story to me. We said goodnight, he tucked me in, switched the light off, and closed my door. This was the usual bedtime process in our house, after which I would lay awake thinking about normal kid stuff until I fell asleep. On this particular night, as soon my dad closed the door, an eerie silence fell over the room. There was no sound, no movement, and the shadows seemed darker than usual. It was as if the life had been taken out of the room.

I stared out at the emptiness for what seemed like hours. The walls began to stretch and the room grew long. I continued staring, waiting. I was waiting for something, someone, anything. There was finally movement. The street light outside my window started flickering. The shadows danced on the walls as if demons were taunting my soul. Then blackness set in. The street light was out and suddenly my room was dark. The only light came from the sliver of a tiny moon that hung in the sky. The emptiness had returned.

Out of the darkness came a violent gust of wind. It swirled around my bed as if I were the center of a tornado, my lights flickered, the blinds on the windows rattled. I screamed but there was no sound. The wind kept swirling, and swirling, until it stopped as abruptly as it had begun. I was once again in the vast, empty, silent darkness that was my room.

I was so frightened I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. I just sat there frozen. Then I heard footsteps. At first I thought they were my parents, and I started to feel relieved. They must have heard my screams, and the wind. They were coming to save me from this nightmare. I soon realized that the nightmare was just beginning; and the footsteps were coming from inside the room.

They started by the door, and slowly crept closer until they stopped at the foot of my bed. I noticed that the temperature in the room had begun to fall; I could now see my breath. Then suddenly, I felt a weight by my feet and saw an impression in the covers. It was as if someone had sat down on my bed.

I screamed as loud as I could “GO AWAY!” and the depression disappeared. I thought for a moment that maybe I had made whatever was in my room leave, but I sat awake on guard just in case. Time slowly trickled by and the footsteps started again. I threw the covers over my head to hide, hoping that the nightmare would end. Violently, the bed began to shake. I felt hands grabbing at me through the covers. I screamed as loud as I could, but again no sound came out. Suddenly, the covers shot off of my bed and it stopped shaking. I sat there cold and exposed, too terrified to even think.

Gradually, a shadow crept out from the darkest corner of my room. It revealed itself slowly, and I began to make out an outline of a person. The more it exposed itself the more I could tell that it was an elderly woman. Someone I had never met, never known, I knew it wasn’t a relative. She had scraggly white hair, a tattered nightgown, and an extremely dismal expression. I suddenly felt her emotions, and a disheartening depression fell over me. Her eyes pierced through the darkness and stared directly into my soul. We were connected for a moment, and I felt the agony that she was feeling. I felt the unsettling sorrow that her troubled soul was going through. I could tell she was lost.

She moved towards my bed and sat at my feet, I realized the depression from earlier was her. There was a calming sense of compassion and I was no longer scared. A lighter more benevolent feeling encompassed the room. She sat for a moment peering into the distance before she turned and looked at me. She managed to struggle through her misery and a painful, unnerving smile grew across her face. She then slowly stood up, wandered toward the window and disappeared.

The room was silent, and I sat for a second quietly struggling to make sense of what I had just witnessed. The streetlight flickered and once again its light graced my walls. I carefully got up and gathered my sheets from the floor. I gazed out the window in hopes to see the woman, but she was nowhere to be found. I slowly crawled back onto my bed, covered myself with my sheets and closed my eyes. In an instant, I was awoken by bright sunlight flooding my room. It was morning again, and I soon remembered what had transpired the previous night.

Words can’t explain exactly what I had felt, and I can only do my very best to explain the story of my nightmare; but in reality no-one will ever know exactly what I had experienced that night. The woman I saw never paid another visit, however, I still think of her to this day. I hope that somehow she was able to find happiness and is no longer lost, miserably drifting through this realm.