Back to the Wall

I've always been afraid of the dark...

As a child, I was always afraid of the dark. Not because of the darkness itself per-say, but because of what might be in it. My imagination cooked up all sorts of things from the boogeyman inside my closet and under my bed, ghosts, black figures, to the objects that would move in the night. I never really got over that fear.

Despite this, whenever I would invite friends over we would always play hide and seek in the dark. This particular game was during the last sleepover I would ever have. Being eighteen and having finished school I was prepared to ship off to college and move on with my life. That being said, so were my friends. So, for old-times sake, they came over and spent the night. Now, I don’t have many friends, maybe at most four. All four of whom were over.

The premise of this game was simple. The person who was tagged as ‘it’ stood in front of the printer in the hallway, which was the only source of light when all bulbs had faded to black, and counted to twenty. Everyone who was not ‘it’ tried to hide in the pitch black. We would use pillows to create shapes in an attempt to fake-out the hunter, cover ourselves in blankets so we weren’t entirely seen, and even the basic strategy of hiding behind chairs and couches, and when particularly strapped for a hiding place just crouching in a corner that was darker than the rest.

My parents weren’t home but they knew of the sleepover so we didn’t really have to worry about any loud noise we might make. This night we’d gone through about six rounds, in the middle of our seventh when I decided to have a bit of fun. My hiding place of choice this round was in my bathtub that also doubled as a shower. Standing with my back to the wall, facing the shower head, hidden by the open sliding doors. This spot was terrible, everyone who hid here got caught, but I figured what the hell.

I could hear my friend walking about the kitchen, their feet on the tile and then laughter as they found my one friend who was apparently just sat in the corner of the cabinets beneath the counter because they ran out of spots. I got up, sneaking to the spot behind my bathroom door. I pulled on a robe that I had hanging and then moved to the middle of my bathroom in front of the open doors. I hung my head letting my hair fall over my face before looking up just enough to see the hallway.

Meaning, that against the cream tile on the walls behind me, whom-ever found me would just see a dark, long haired silhouette in what looked to be a cloak. I stayed there until one friend walked in. They saw me and immediately let out a shrill scream. After a couple moments of relishing in my successful scare I started laughing.

She flipped on the light and she was practically in tears, having trouble breathing, and her hands shaking. She always had been a bit of a scaredy-cat, which only made it that much more fantastic to me. I ceased laughter shortly after realizing her state and everyone else rushed to see what had happened.

“Christ, calm down, it wasn’t that bad. It was just me. Are you okay?” I said, moving my hair back with my hand and walking over to wrap my arms around her. Everyone else just seemed to be a bit confused. Her response made my blood run cold.

She whispered through her shaky breathing, in a trembling voice filled with true terror. “It wasn’t you, it was what was behind you.” I froze, pulling away slowly to look at her, my own voice now afraid.

“What?”

After that the game ceased and we all sat down in my lit room. She never did tell me what she had seen, she refused any time I brought it up. I had trouble sleeping that night. What had been behind me that had scared her so profoundly?

I was always hyper-aware of what was around me after that. Paranoia picking at my brain. I felt like I was being followed, watched, like there was always something behind me. It soon got so bad that I began keeping my back to the walls around me. Had it been a one time thing? Was it always there? I didn’t know. In a sense, I didn’t want to know.

But the paranoia eventually became unbearable. I began locking myself away in my room for longer and longer periods of time. I never did go to college but I did move out. Even in my new apartment though, I didn’t feel safe. I didn’t feel alone. I’ve been like this for a long time now, I don’t pay much attention to time anymore.

Since then, I’ve holed up in my room. As much as it hurts for me to admit, I’m scared. I feel like I’m losing it. I haven’t left my room in almost a week. I’ve eaten whatever chips I’d tossed in here, and drank whatever had sat on my bedside table but I never got up from my bed. I kept my back pressed to the corner of my wall. After a day or two of not moving I began to hear scratching from behind me. From the wall.

I don’t know if it’s a hallucination from my sleep deprivation, I don’t know if it’s just my neighbors, and I don’t know if it’s that thing my friend saw that night; whatever it might have been. But what I do know is that I’ll probably die here. How- I couldn’t tell you. Exhaustion, starvation, dehydration, suicide, another option I would rather not talk about...

I’m writing all of this down now, posting so that other people know what has happened. So that others will know, when I’m gone, what it might be. Maybe I’m crazy. It’s a real possibility, but I don’t know for sure. What I do know is that the scratching will eventually get to me, both literally and metaphorically. It’ll drive me crazy or whatever it may be really will get me. I want you to know, I want you to be careful. If you start feeling like there’s something behind you, it’s best you don’t turn around and that you start keeping your back to the wall.