I’ve been feeling pretty on edge for awhile for no reasons I can come up with. I haven’t had much time to write. In fact, I’m actually typing this on my phone while I wait for my mom to finish her therapy appointment. I'll copy and paste it into my blog when I get home.

Anyway, for the last week or so, weird stuff’s been happening. I’ve been misplacing a lot of things, or at least I think I’ve been anyway. I’m pretty notorious for irritating myself by forgetting where I put stuff. But last week it was getting outrageous. I’d put something down, turn my back for a minute, and then when I’d turn back around it would be moved or just completely gone without a trace. Then I’d find the lost object moved to someplace I know I didn’t bring it. I found a clean spoon in my bathroom sink a few days ago, which was ridiculous because I never bring anything from the kitchen into the bathroom, and my brother knows better than to do that. He wasn’t even around. I’ve been home alone while my mom’s been at work and my brother’s been at camp, so I know they aren’t the ones taking my things and putting them in weird places. They never actually did that in the first place.

My jeep keys also went missing, which was particularly annoying because Clarke was coming by to get them so he could drive my jeep back to his house (the whole house deal fell through, so Clarke and his roommates won’t be homeless, but they’re back to square one). I keep my jeep keys attached to a white lanyard and either on or in my nightstand when they aren’t clipped to my wallet. I ended up finding them in my wet laundry after they took a ride in the washer. At least my keys were clean. But I was confused because they were nowhere near my laundry, and I saw them on my nightstand, clipped to my wallet, as I was carrying my laundry basket away. I was also irritated, because Clarke had to leave right away and now I have to wait another month to see my jeep again.

Then, I started hearing my mom come home early while I’m home alone. The sound of the door opening and closing, and her high heels clicking on the tile above me are unmistakable. But when I’ve gone upstairs to greet her, the front door would be locked, the dog would be asleep on the couch, and I’d quickly discover I’ve been home alone the whole time. This never scared me. In fact I just shrugged my shoulders and went back down to my room to resume what I was doing, thinking I was just hearing the house settle or the wind, even though the wind and old house noises don’t sound anything like my mom coming home, let alone exactly like her.

While this stuff so far could be shrugged off, it’s been escalating to the point I can’t shrug it off anymore. Early last night, shortly after I had dinner and took my dog outside, I was sitting at my laptop doing my treatments and playing World of Warcraft as usual. I wasn’t tired at all. In fact, I made the mistake of drinking a large bottle of kombucha, which is made with green tea, shortly after I finished my nebulizer for the night. So I was sitting there wide awake, doing my vest, playing WoW, trying to get myself tired enough to lay down, when a huge dark shadow passed by the corner of my eye. It was dark, solid, and human-shaped, and blocked some of the light by my bed. I paused my game and looked over there, but there was nothing. I even got up and checked around my room and the the rest of the house, to see if my mom was up. But the whole house was dark, and I was completely alone. I was definitely put off by this, because what I saw looked just like a person. I quickly forgot about it and went back to my desk, thinking my eyes were just playing tricks on me. A few moments later, I saw it again. This time I looked over towards my bed right away, but there was nothing there. Once again, I got up and checked around the house, and found nothing.

At this point, I just didn’t want to deal with whatever this shadow thing was, so I closed out my video game, shut my laptop, turned off the lights, and started reading a book with the light from my desk lamp. While I was finishing up a chapter in Steven Rinella’s memoir, I saw what looked like a black german shepherd run past the wall adjacent to me, and slide under my bed.

Now I was nervous, but at the same time, I was very puzzled. My drawers are under my bed, so it’s impossible for anything other than a spider to crawl under there. My dog (who is very small compared to a german shepherd) was still asleep on the foot of my bed, so it couldn’t have possibly been him. Regardless, I got out of bed and looked all around for this black german shepherd thing. I even pulled open my drawers, just to make sure nothing was in there, even though I knew it was impossible for something as big as that shadow to fit inside my drawers without disturbing my recently reorganized laundry. This black shadow couldn’t have gone anywhere else in my room without me noticing. My door was shut, my drawers were undisturbed, my closet was still closed, and there was no wind to blow anything around and make shadows. In fact, there was nothing that could make such a large, solid shadow anywhere. No bugs, no animals, no objects, no wind, no cars driving by (I’m too far underground for headlights to cast shadows in my room anyway), nothing.

So, I just said a prayer out loud, commanding whatever the hell was there to leave me alone in the name of Christ, and went back to reading my book. The rest of my night was comfortable and uneventful.