I returned home and just went on with life as always. Nothing particularly interesting happened until that night. It was pretty late when I was in the middle of my nightly routine of doing my CF treatments and playing few video games before bed. I was sitting at my desk, playing World of Warcraft as I waited for my vest treatment to finish up. As I was sitting there, totally focused on playing my game, I saw my mom come into my room in my peripheral vision. Looking back, I've realized that her figure was too tall and dark for what I saw to actually be Mom, but at the time, I just assumed she needed something from me, and turned around in my seat to see what was up. As soon as I looked directly at her, she was gone. There was nothing standing where I believed I saw someone standing there. 

I knew it was strange. I knew I saw someone standing there, and they couldn't have left so quickly without me noticing. But, as soon as I turned in my chair, which took less than a second, and looked in the direction of the figure I saw was still standing in my peripheral vision just before I turned around in my chair, the figure was gone. 

I figured I was just seeing things, and went back to playing video games. Barely even a minute had passed before I noticed the exact same thing walk into my peripheral vision again. And, once again, I turned around to see what it wanted, still believing it was just Mom. But, when I turned to face it yet again, it had vanished into thin air yet again. 

I was a little put-off by this, but not yet worried. I was just curious. So, I got up just to make sure I was the only one awake in the house. When I opened up my bedroom door, I was greeted by a completely dark basement. I flicked on the basement lights, headed upstairs to the main level, discovered that all of the lights were off up there too. So, I turned on the main level lights and stared up the stairs to the second floor. My mom's bedroom door was closed and every light upstairs was turned off. Because it was late and knew I Mom was fast asleep in her room, I turned off all of the lights and headed back to my bedroom. 

It didn't hit me until after I'd sat back down and resumed playing video games, that something seriously strange had just happened. I rarely, if ever, hallucinated anything, and if I did, it was because I was very, very tired. But, that evening, I'd made the mistake of drinking a couple of caffeinated sodas, and I was naturally a night owl, so I wasn't tired at all. I was actually a little jittery. It didn't make sense that I'd hallucinate anything. I was sure it was possible, but it was very unlikely and unusual. I decided to crawl into bed as soon as I completed my vest treatment, because I didn't want to deal with the growing anxiety that I was seriously going insane. 

Once in bed, I was still too awake to fall asleep. I cracked open a book and began to read it, hoping to tire myself out a lot more quickly. I was reading for awhile when I saw a shadow, about the size of a medium-sized dog, move from my bedroom door to under my bed, again in my peripheral vision. However, I'd seen it a lot more clearly than I saw the previous shadow, since the only thing between my eyes and that figure was a book, and I'd watched the figure directly as it slid under my bed. 

I knew it wasn't my own dog. My dog was sleeping on my bed with me. Also, I had drawers under my bed. Nothing wider than an inch could fit under there. Yet, I did see something pretty large slide under my bed. Still, just to be sure the matrix hadn't glitched so badly that my clothes were no longer stored under my bed, and I had another pet dog that liked to sleep under my bed, I got up to confirm that nothing substantial had changed. The drawers were still under my bed. My dog was still asleep on my bed. And, the rest of the house was dark and empty. Nothing was there. Nothing at all. 

Finally, I remembered what my therapist told me about spiritual warfare and how to deal with weird shit. At first, I was tempted to scoff at that again. It was stupid in my mind. I still didn't believe that literal demons actually existed, or had any power to do anything on earth if they did. But, then I realized that I'd gone through the trouble of sweeping the house and checking under my bed just to reassure myself that I was, in fact, alone and the only one awake. Not only that, but I did get sprayed in the back of the head by some water earlier that morning, and I did experience other weird things earlier that week. So, why not finish everything off with a quick, out loud prayer, banishing the supposed demon back to hell where it came from. So, reluctantly and in a very quiet, monotone voice I said, "Alright. If there's anything here that is trying to bother me, in the name of Jesus Christ I command you to leave me alone."

With that, I crawled back into bed, turned out the lights, and fell asleep.