Ann (49:51)
Hi, Derek and monsters. Among us fans, this is Anne calling from Texas. I wanted to tell you about something that happened to me, something that followed me home from a cabin up in Oregon about 25 years ago. I was married to someone different then, and he and I decided to go up to an area near Walla Walla Lake in Oregon and stay in a little cabin up there and, you know, just do some hiking and that kind of thing. So I found a little group of cabins and I think there were seven or eight of them. All of them were booked except for one. And so I booked that one. And I think we were going to stay about five nights. So long flight, you know, tiring day. We finally get there, get checked in, go on into our cabin. And right away I just felt off about the place. But I thought, well, maybe it's because it was sort of stuck in the 70s shag carpet, a lot of brass, just not real pretty or updated. Also, I felt like maybe I had a little cold or something like that coming on, so I didn't feel real great. So I just sort of attributed it to that. However, as we sort of walked around and checked it out, on the first floor there was two floors. The first floor was the living. It was very simple, living room, kitchen and a bathroom. And then there was an upstairs that you access through a little staircase. But it had one of those almost like an attic type door that you could close. It was a hole up in the ceiling so you could close it off. But up there was a bedroom with another separate tiny little bedroom, almost closet size next to it with a door separating the two. But in that door and then the door underneath the staircase, there was a lock on the outside of the door. And we thought, well, that's kind of strange. It was just one of those eye hook type locks, you know, just a little simple eye hook lock. And I thought, well, maybe the door hangs weird and doesn't stay closed. And so they do that to keep it closed. And I tested it out. Neither door did that. So that was kind of strange. My Husband thought it was a little weird, too. But anyway, he left to go into town to get some groceries. And I stayed behind to take a little nap, thinking it would make me feel better. Pushed up against the wall where that little staircase was, was a couch. So I laid down on that, fell into a very fitful sleep. I kept dreaming that there was something above me, looking down at me through that hole up in the ceiling. Just kept dreaming that. Just kept having the feeling that something was up there watching me. Anyway, husband came back. We wound up going out, doing a little hiking. Coming back, calling it kind of an early night. I went ahead and got ready for bed first and went on upstairs. We were going to sleep up there in the larger bedroom. And I laid down, and I just felt very uneasy. And my brother likes to tease me and say I have a ghost radar that works very well. I don't know if you call it that or not, but I do seem to sort of be able to sense when things are not quite right. Anyway, my ghost radar, if you want to call it that, was really pinging in the red up there. I just really did not feel comfortable up there. But I went ahead and laid down. Husband came up, laid down next to me. You know, getting settled in. We were very tired, and I scooted all the way up against him. I was laying flat on my back, very dark room. And I just had this sensation that something was going to get me and was hovering just above me. I felt a presence almost touching me. As if it was something hovering about an inch above me. Well, it freaked me out. I threw back the covers, and I was so scared. And you have to understand, that is not like me. I've had odd paranormal things happen to me my entire life, and they don't scare me. I don't react like most people do to those sorts of things. But I was very afraid in that moment. So afraid that I don't remember running down the little staircase. I pretty much just jumped down, jumped down to the first floor. And of course, my husband is up there. You know, what is going on? And I can see his feet from where I'm standing, because I've backed up, and he's shuffling around. He turns on the light, what are you doing down there? And I'm like, just come down here. Come down here. And in my head, like, the whole time I'm screaming in my head, get out of there. Get out of there. Get out of there. And I'm just so alarmed. And again, not like me at all. So finally he comes down the Stairs. He's thoroughly confused. He's got, you know, the blankets. He's got a pile of pillows. Like, what are you doing? I said, there's something not right up there. There's just something not right. So he comes down. Well, he's never seen me like this before because I've never acted like that before, because I've never felt like that before. I was so alarmed and almost hysterical with fear and fright and the sense of something is terribly wrong here. And so I was trying to explain that to him without sounding like a complete and total nut job. I just said, shut that door. Shut that little door. Shut it, shut it, shut it. And so he did. He scrambled up the stairs and shut the door. Well, he doesn't really believe in anything, but he saw my reaction, and he saw how afraid I was. And so that kind of made him a little bit afraid because. Not normal for me. So we wound up sleeping on the couch that night. It took me a long time to settle down, and I had all the lights on. We went out the next day. We tried to make a go of it. I think we spent one more night there again, downstairs, lights on. I just. I couldn't do it. We checked out early. Like I said, I think we were gonna spend at least five nights there. We checked out after two. And the lady that checked us out did not ask us why we were checking out early. She didn't seem surprised we were checking out early. Nothing. Okay, well, anyway, I guess you could chalk that up, too. Oh, long day. Didn't feel well. Who knows? I don't know how you could, really, because like I said, that is not my nature at all to be that afraid of anything. So, whatever. We come home now. We'd been living in this apartment for about a year before we went away to Oregon. And when we came back, strange things started happening in that apartment. Whereas nothing had happened before then. Nothing at all. Just a normal place. Things would start disappearing, like my makeup of all weird things, hand towels. Strange things just would go missing and then show up in weird places. I had a cat at the time who slept with me. And to top it all off, my husband worked graveyard shift at that time. So I was alone most nights. So I would be sleeping. I would have the sensation or hear someone walking down the hallway and coming into the bedroom and standing at the end of the bed, that kind of shuffling carpet sound, like someone's feet shuffling on the carpet. I heard it a lot. And my cat also would react because he normally slept in the bed next to me. And he would also pick his head up and look where I was hearing the sound. So he always reacted to it as well. That was unnerving enough. And all the things disappearing and reappearing, that was strange, too. But the thing that really scared me was that there would be knocking on the headboard, not as I was drifting off. I had insomnia back then, really bad. I'd be laying there trying to go to sleep, and just a quick knock, knock, you know, next to my head on the headboard. I had no way to explain that. Sometimes it was just light tapping. That's how it started to where I just thought, oh, is that something outside? But then it got progressively louder. That happened about five or six times, and that was very unnerving to me. But the creepiest thing was that at least twice a week, I would have a nightmare about the cabin. And it was very similar each time I had it. But in each one, I would relive that fear. And I would wake up always somewhere between 3 and 3:30, you know, the witching hour. But always somewhere in there, wake up. And I would, in my head, be thinking, it's trying to come through. It's trying to come through my dream. And I know that doesn't make any sense, but that was my thought every time I had that dream. And like I said, it was at least twice a week. And I would be in a ball on the bed, just curled up, you know, really tense and afraid from this dream every time. This went on for about a year, and then it culminated one night, again with a nightmare. But this time it was so bad that as I was waking up curled in my little tight ball, I was wishing my mother was there. It sent me back into, like, this primal childhood. I'm afraid I want my mom sort of fear. As I was waking up, and in my head, I could hear this voice saying, it's come through, it's come through. Like, screaming at me, it's come through, it's come through. And I woke up, and I sat up. And most of the time when I had that nightmare, I would just wake up, shake it off as you do, and lay back down and, you know, eventually go back to sleep. But this time I woke up, and I felt like it had come through my dream and was there in the room with me. I had a very strong sense of a presence while my cat was sitting up in the bed and looking toward the corner of the room as well. So I scooped up my cat and I went out in the living room. And I thought, well, I'll just turn on the light and kind of walk around for a minute, get a drink of water, and, you know, it'll fade like nightmares do, and you go back to bed. But it wasn't fading at all. In fact, the feeling was getting stronger that there was something back there in my bedroom. And the word that kept coming to my mind was the word lair. L A I R Lair. Like something was back there in my bedroom. And I was very scared. I turned on the tv. I, you know, did all the tricks you do to kind of shake off a bed dream. And nothing was working. And I did not want to go back in my bedroom. I tried to call my husband at work, but he was hard to get hold of when he was at work. That was just the nature of his job. I didn't know who else to call. It was by then around 4 or 5 in the morning, I'd been up trying to shake this feeling off. And I didn't want to call and wake anyone up, of course, so I couldn't think of what to do. Well, my grandmother had a Bible. And when she passed, it was just one of the things that kind of got passed on to me. It was a beautiful old. A lot of illustrations and things in it. I wasn't particularly religious, but it was just there because it reminded me of my grandma. And so I picked that up and I just started saying the Lord's Prayer. And it was all I could think to do. And eventually the feeling did subside. I said the Lord's Prayer, I don't know, three or four times, something like that. And after that, I never had that dream again. And nothing happened in that apartment again. And so I'm still not a religious person. I'm a spiritual person because of all the things that have happened to me in my life. It's kind of hard for me not to believe in a spiritual realm and those sorts of things, angelic realms. But I don't know, that seems to have gotten rid of it or just culminated naturally and faded away on its own. I'm not sure. So I guess be careful what you bring home with you from vacation. The really weird thing is the thought of it's come through. Well, something was already there. Something had been, you know, kind of stalking me in my apartment already. So I don't know what the other it is that came through. One was already there and had been there about a year. And then the other one finally somehow came through in a dream. So, yeah. Sweet dreams tonight, everyone. Thanks, Derek. For all you do. Bye bye.
