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- [00:00]
A
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A
Welcome to Otherworld. I'm your host, Jack Wagner. This episode takes place all the way back in 2010. And even though that's quite far in the past at this point, I'm pretty sure this experience still feels very fresh to the person you're about to hear from. And it's something they're still trying to figure out how to process. It happened to a woman named Athena, who is now 34 and has spent much of her career working in hospice care, which was really interesting to hear her talk about. You'll hear a little bit of that in the beginning, but the story itself takes place when she was in college and moved into a 120 year old house that was built in 1890 with a bunch of roommates. I remember this time in my own life. You're out on your own for the first time and often you end up living with either complete strangers or at least people who you don't know very well. In situations like that, it's easy to not be super comfortable in your own home. Everyone's trying to share the space, get along, not make waves, and also kind of get to know each other for the first time. All of that becomes very difficult for Athena at a certain point. Once strange things start happening in this house, specifically they're happening in her room and around her. To make matters worse, it becomes very hard to get some of these housemates to take any of it seriously. I thought this was such a great story. I really enjoyed speaking to Athena. I could tell this is something that she's still processing a bit. I also could tell that she was a little self conscious talking about this stuff. She would sometimes nervously apologize to me saying, sorry if I sound weird, which is always amusing to me when somebody says that. Because I hear so much stuff like this on a daily basis now I am the last person who is going to think anyone is weird for going through something like this. This episode is called Athena and you're listening to Otherworld.
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D
Hello, is this Bobby?
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A
Yes, it is at its core, the science you can't argue with.
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D
I'm storied about up in the sky.
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A
It's almost frustrating that it's happening.
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E
I'm literally, I'm going to die. Its limbs were just like wrong.
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D
It was just, just. Everybody moves back into the light, even if it takes them a minute.
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My name is Athena. I'm 34 years old. I am a clinical social worker. I'VE been working in hospice for the past several years. I live in Richmond, Virginia. I grew up right outside of the city, so I've been working in hospice for five years. And right now I'm actually. I've been. I'm on a sabbatical after the five years of hospice. I just needed kind of a break to experience life again after kind of being entrenched in death and dying.
- [06:31]
Five years in hospice, you know, you see death and dying every day. I kind of went into it because I knew it's kind of such a liminal space where you're not here, you're not there. It's the closest you can get to this kind of in between. I figured. And you do see that in hospice with patients at the end of life, I just think that it's such a sacred time, the dying process. So that's what drew me to it, kind of being in that space with other people. But, of course, seeing it every day, I think it takes a certain kind of person. And maybe I'm still growing into being that type of person that can stay grounded and still remember life outside of death. So I think people like me, I just needed a break because you really. It can be a lot.
- [07:30]
I had experiences, you know, like, I found that patients oftentimes knew when they were going to die. I mean, they're on hospice, of course, so they have an understanding that they have, you know, a limited amount of time. But, you know, there would be a patient I would see on a Friday who had dementia. And so they. I suppose they didn't really even have the understanding that they were going to die. But, you know, on Friday, I'd say, I'll see you on Monday. And they'd say, no, no, you won't. And I'll be like, what do you mean? And she, you know, this one patient, I remember her telling me, like, no, the train's coming. I'm packing my bags, and I'm going home. I'll be going home on Sunday. And, you know, she had dementia, so I'm just going along with it. Okay, we'll have a good trip. And she's like, yes, I haven't been home in a very long time. I'm excited to go and see my house. And she's describing the house that she's going to, and she's adamant that I won't see her again. And, you know, then come to find out, Sunday she passed away. Little things like that, you know, they'll always. Maybe they're nothing, but maybe they're something by chance. I have been there when people have died. I've been there, you know, moments after they've died when nobody has been, you know, no family or friends happened to be at the bedside. So. And anytime I was with a patient, you know, it could happen. But, yes, I have seen patients die. I can't say I would love to have experienced something profound. The most I've seen is, you know, this kind of elation on someone's face. You know, this kind of sense of there's something there and they're reaching out, and then they kind of just collapse into themselves and they're gone. As a younger person, I had never had any experiences, you know, with the paranormal. I was always curious, and I was open. I don't know if I should talk about religion, but as far as being exposed to any sort of organized religion, that type of belief system.
- [09:42]
Of an afterlife, never, or of any, you know, thing, it didn't really resonate with me, especially organized religion. It felt very fictional to me. And up to my 20s, when I was 20 years old, at the time of this experience, at that point, I would have described myself, I think, as spiritual. I became fascinated with this sense of, you know, the esoteric, the things that we can't explain. So I was definitely curious. I had used Ouija boards, as I remember, you know, I was seven, seven years old in the neighborhood with the neighborhood kids. And later in high school and, you know, just with friends. And it had moved, but there was never anything significant. And I walked away from it feeling like, you know, just questioning, was it me moving the planchette? Was it my friends? Was it not any of us? I will say there was never a time. And it wasn't many times. I'm talking, you know, maybe four times in my life prior that I had touched a Ouija board just in fun and games. I will say that I never felt good about touching it. You know, I never walked away feeling good about what I had done. But, you know, I would sleep peacefully. Then the world would go on, and I would forget about the experience.
- [11:08]
My experience starts, you know, it was August 2010. I was going to be 20 years old that fall. I had just moved into my first rental home with four other friends. It was our sophomore year of college here in Richmond. We were very excited. It was the house that we had been dreaming of, and more importantly, it was the neighborhood that we had been dreaming of. This neighborhood in particular, like most of Richmond, had the kind of historic charm to it. Our home in particular was built in 1890. So definitely the oldest home that I've ever lived in. And I'd say most likely the oldest house really any of us had lived in. It was a row house. So long, dark. Two bedrooms on the first floor and three bedrooms on the top floor. Interestingly enough, I chose a bedroom without any windows, so there was no natural light. For reasons that I can't understand, I chose that for myself. So overall, we were excited. I moved in, feeling at peace with the house. I didn't have any second guesses. We were just excited to be young and in our first home together. My roommates we had met freshman year. These aren't friends that I had known all my life. We were still developing a friendship.
- [12:43]
We move in to our home. It feels good. I'm at peace with the house, you know. It wasn't until our housewarming party, sometime in the first few weeks of moving in, that I experienced something out of the ordinary. I wouldn't say that it was something that concerned me, but it's our housewarming party. So, you know, imagine college. The house is full of people. The loud music, there are kegs. You know, it's college. I mentioned my bedroom was upstairs. I remember I was the first person to go to bed that night, which is very much me, you know, very typical of me. I wake up and at that time, I had an alarm clock. And that's the first thing I saw. It was 4am and I realize I woke up because the smoke detector, the alarm is going off in the room next door to me upstairs. I remember hearing kind of that wave of people move from below me downstairs through the hallway upstairs to that bedroom, and they're investigating and they take care of the noise. And then they all, you know, go back to the fun downstairs. This bedroom where the smoke alarm is going off, you know, there's no one in there. It's the furthest away from any action downstairs. I just didn't see why it would be set off. But it is an old house. And so at this time, I, you know, it. It was just something peculiar, you know, it's not. It was just a curiosity of like, oh, that's strange. And that would have been late August for a housewarming party. And those early weeks, early days. I remember it became common for us to kind of jokingly say, you know, oh, what if. Do you think the house is haunted? You know, it's an old house. What if, you know, it. It became a thing that all of us were kind of just saying and joking about. But there came a point where my roommate downstairs, she had her hardwood door slammed shut. I didn't witness it, only she did. And she relayed it to all of us. And so I remember that kind of being the catalyst for like, okay, maybe we should like, see what's going on maybe, you know, we started talking about a Ouija board, talking about, you know, which one of us have any of you used a Ouija board? And, and I don't remember. I think no one had used one except for myself. We were curious. They were kind of light heartedly skeptical, but kind of like, I don't know, it being Halloween and wanting to go on a hayride, like a haunted hayride, that was kind of the energy of like, this is fun. It's spooky. For me, it was fun and spooky, but the use of Ouija boards, it just never, it never really sat well with me, you know, it's not something I knew it wasn't all fun and games with Ouija boards. I felt like I was cautious. I would say I was cautious.
- [15:59]
So I just knew going into this, like, is this worth it? You know, like, is it worth it to feel that way? But ultimately, I mean, the fun, you know, swayed me. But my hard rule was that we just couldn't. I didn't want to use the Ouija board in the house. That was just. I didn't. I thought for some reason if we just keep it separate, you know, at the very least nothing will come come to harm us, you know, And I don't remember the conversations that, that centered around us sourcing a Ouija board. But somehow it came to be that I, I borrowed a Ouija board from a close friend. And this was like an antique, like hand carved Ouija board, which was beautiful, but also much more menacing than, you know, the glow in the dark kind that you find at the store. So we, we had the Ouija board and we set the date and the time for the Ouija board night. Like I said, the only hard rule was that I would not use it inside the house. So I compromised and we used it right on the front porch. I know we all, all five of us were present. It was just, you know, the normal stupid stuff that I had experienced when I was younger. You know, you ask generic questions and you're waiting to see if it's accurate. I remember we asked who the president was. You know, we would say, who was the president in 1914? And honestly, I don't know about most people, but I don't think any of us. We did not know the president those years. And this was before, right before smartphones were right at our fingertips. So it's something that we would Google later. And we did find it to be completely accurate. That session, I remember with the spirit entity, whatever it gave us his initials. And I only remember the first initial, W. My roommate Anna remembers that he. That it gave us a name, Walter. It knew where my roommate. I had a roommate, Anna. We asked it where her grandfather was buried, and we asked it where Anna's grandfather lives, because Anna's grandfather was from Richmond. And it knew the answers. Something that, I mean, I definitely didn't know the answer. I didn't know the address of her grandfather's home. This brought her this kind of sense of comfort, I think, when, you know, hearing that from this entity. I suppose it gave her comfort. I think in that moment, for me, I was still cautious about everything the Ouija board was saying. So we ended it so very uneventful. You know, I answered those simple questions, much like in my youth, when I was younger, these simple questions that you verify later and it's accurate, and then you'll wonder which one of us was moving it. The standard Ouija board stuff. We did ask the Ouija board in that session if it was responsible for the smoke alarm and the slammed door that I had mentioned. And it did claim ownership over those two things. So that was kind of spooky and interesting. But nothing, nothing, nothing wild happened during the Ouija board. Our first Ouija board session. I remember ending it. And, you know, everyone was kind of giddy, their jokes, it was all fun and games. I went to bed that night feeling very uneasy. And it was because I just couldn't get over that we had used it on our front porch. I. I just, I didn't have a good feeling. And that wasn't uncommon. Like I said, using the Ouija board, I just never walked away from it feeling good. So I had every hope, I had every reason to believe that, you know, this will be just like every other time you're freaked out for the first night or two. And then life goes on.
- [20:15]
I went to bed that night and I decided to keep my light on at my nightstand. Our house cat was in my bed with me. You know, that brought me comfort, thinking like, okay, this is a weird. I'm feeling a little weird about this experience, but the light's on, the cat's to my side, it's going to be all right. So I wake up wide eyed and much like the first experience with the smoke detector, the alarm. That one night I wake up to my clock, you know, in bright green. It's 4am Again, and I realize that I'm awake because there is the sound of rushing water coming from the hallway diagonal to my bedroom door. There was a bathroom. So I'm thinking, okay, there's rushing water coming from the bathroom. And as I'm kind of putting my thoughts together, my cat is. Our cat has woken up too and definitely is thinking the same thing that I'm thinking. You know, the cat hears exactly what I'm hearing. And right as I begin to feel kind of comforted that I'm not alone, she just bolts to my door at the crack of the door and looks to the left into the bathroom, and this hallway is completely dark. And then just darts to the right and runs downstairs. And I can track her movements because she has that little bell on her collar. So I'm thinking, okay, great, she must have seen or understood something and just darted in the opposite direction down the hall and then down the steps. I'm just thinking, okay, I'm not imagining this sound because the cat clearly has been spooked by something. There was a sense that there was a presence, you know, in the home, that I wasn't alone. And I was terrified because I'm thinking, we used the Ouija board last night. I went to bed feeling very uneasy. And now I'm awake at four in the morning and there is the sound of running water. And I don't understand why that would be. So I get up and I go to the bathroom, and I find that the noise that I had been hearing was the sink. The left. You know, it had the hot and cold taps, and both were just blasting. So the water had just been running on blast. And I'm thinking, okay, that's really strange. And I'm telling myself, okay, well, maybe, you know, maybe my roommate got up in the middle of the night and went to the bathroom and forgot to turn off the sink. So that morning I asked, you know, all my roommates if there was a chance maybe they went to the bathroom around four in the morning and forgot to turn off the sink. And everyone. There was no one that said they used that bathroom that night at that hour when that happened, I just felt very uneasy, but I wasn't yet willing to kind of sound the alarms. I felt scared, but it wasn't time yet to let myself kind of get carried away. So I just tried to stay optimistic, cautiously optimistic.
- [23:56]
But I couldn't help but feel that it was Connected to our Ouija board use. That night prior.
- [24:04]
I didn't want to bring too much energy to it because I had this sense that the more energy you put into something, maybe the bigger it gets. So I was just trying to keep my composure.
- [24:17]
Which leads to, you know, just to be safe. That day, after I had discovered the faucet on, I had decided to just clear the energy of my bedroom. I thought, okay, everything's fine. I had some sage. You know, I am no professional, but I knew that. Why don't I just light this, kind of clear the energy, all will be well. This is just something extra I can do to make myself feel better. I did like an impromptu prayer. You know, kind of like universe, spirit, God, anything. Please bless and protect this space. Like fill it with light and love. You know, something very generic.
- [25:03]
I remember setting the burning sage on my fireplace mantle in my bedroom. My bedroom had, you know, an old mantle. And I head to the bathroom to get ready for work. So I'm in the bathroom, you know, just like brushing my teeth, putting some makeup on, and I go to leave and I can't get out of the bathroom. I'm stuck. I think there's this initial panic because I understand there's. There's no real way to get out of the bathroom. You know, there's a small, small window that would. That's not an option. I'm wondering if there's someone home. You know, initially I'm thinking, who? Is there someone even home? I don't have my phone with me in the bathroom. I mean, I had lit the sage. Now I'm locked in the bathroom. I don't understand. I was confused. It was just a really strange feeling. And I would say I had this kind of adrenaline rush of like, what's going on? And shortly after, three roommates arrive. I can hear them come into the house below and they shuffle upstairs. And it's like a full 45 minute ordeal of them trying to get me out of the bathroom and eventually having to take the door off its hinges because there's just no other way of getting me out. At this point, I would say I'm about an hour late to work and I drive to work. At this point, it kind of hits me. I'm feeling weird. I'm feeling, like I said, this adrenaline rush. I'm beginning to think of the connection between the sage in my bedroom and this event. Like this is beginning to feel like I'm living in a movie, which I hadn't. I had never experienced and had not anticipated. And that's, you know, when things really began, I'd say.
- [27:12]
A
All right, we'll be right back after this quick break.
- [27:23]
This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. As the days start getting shorter, things can start to feel heavier. It's darker earlier, everyone's busy, and it's easy to drift into your own little world. But this season, BetterHelp is encouraging everyone to reach out. Check in on your friends. Text somebody you haven't seen in a while. For me, that was an old friend I used to see every week. I finally reached out, and after we talked, I caught myself thinking, why didn't I do that sooner? It's the same feeling people describe when they finally try therapy. Sometimes that first step is the hardest part, but it's worth it. BetterHelp makes that step a little easier. They'll match you with a licensed therapist based on your needs, so you could focus on what actually matters, finding support. And if your first match isn't the right fit, you could switch at any time. With over 30,000 therapists and more than 5 million people served, BetterHelp is one of the world's largest online therapy platforms. And it works. This month, don't wait to reach out. Whether you're checking in on a friend or reaching out to a therapist yourself, BetterHelp is making it easier to take that first step. Our listeners get 10% off their first month@betterhelp.com Otherworld that's better. HP.com Otherworld what's up?
- [28:32]
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- [32:35]
At this point, of course.
- [32:38]
Nothing, these events, nothing had affected my roommates. You know, they were just observers. You know, they had. They were just observers to these things. And it was me that it seemed to target with these two big events. And so my roommates remained, you know, pretty skeptical. They. They were. It was still kind of fun and games. Anna, I'd say, still had that kind of. She. Anna was empathetic to my fear because at this point I. I was afraid. She understood that something didn't feel quite right. But from my perspective, she was still leaning into, you know, that. That whatever this was, the. Whatever the Ouija board was, it had that information about her grandfather. So she. She felt some sense of connection.
- [33:32]
So we decided to use the Ouija board again. When I really think about it, there was this part of me that wanted to. I wanted my roommates to believe these events. So I thought using the Ouija board would get them to that place. I thought maybe if we used it to some point, they'd see it's not a game. Because I was very much beginning to feel like this wasn't a game. With this Ouija board session. We again, we asked it about the water and we asked it about the bathroom. And it took ownership over those events and said it, you know, it had turned on the water, it had locked me in the bathroom. It mentioned that it was angry that I had used the sage in my bedroom. And we also asked the random questions like we had the first time. We would say, you know, very simple. We would say, are you upset because Athena lit sage? And it would say, yes. You know, we would say, do you like Athena? No.
- [34:43]
When I was using the Ouija board in those moments, I wasn't. Those weren't the moments that I was most afraid. You know, it didn't feel good, but it just. It was an event that was happening to me. And it was always when I walked away that it really settled. But in the moment of using a Ouija board, it just was something happening and I was in it, if that makes sense. So it would say these things about me, and I just. I just. Yeah, I was there for it. But we also continue to ask the stupid questions. You know, I Remember in particular we asked what movie was produced in 1959 by Marilyn Monroe or what movie was she in? And it said the correct answer, Some Like It Hot. We had to Google it to know that it was correct. But that's just an example that there was still stupid things mixed in. So life continued. I tried to keep my balance, ignore it. I had this feeling that attention gives it more power. So really at this point, the only source of comfort I had was my mom, who believed the experiences that I was having. And she would have the same advice at that time, you know, don't give it attention and definitely don't touch the Ouija board again. So I, at this point, I don't think I realized this was just the kind of the beginning because the next days that unraveled, you know, they just, I. It was just a never ending sense of fear and disbelief with this string of events that would occur. And this is only a span of two to three weeks, you know.
- [36:30]
So the following days it got to a point where things were happening in the house that I had to have Anna sleep in the bed with me. The electricity would just flash on and off, on and off, you know, at 4 in the morning, just for no reason. No storm, no wind. And at this point, there was never a night that I wasn't sleeping without my bedside table or my bedside light on. But I would wake up, I would know the electricity was flashing on and off. Because my printer in my bedroom, every time it's disconnected from, you know, electricity, it kind of restarts itself and makes that sound kind of with the paper. So I'd wake up to hear that printer. And I remember nights of just like running through my room and the feeling of kind of that feeling like you're in a club. Because it's so dark in my room that when the lights go off, you know, it's pitch black. So the lights flashing on and off as I'm running through the room, I just remember that feeling, the fear I felt in those moments. There was one night I remember waking up and hearing this kind of terrible cough. Like it sounded like someone downstairs was coughing. And they were. It sounded like someone was dying. And in my head I'm thinking, okay, it's my roommate directly below me. Is she okay? This cough is unlike anything I've heard before. And I think, you know, now being 34, as a good roommate, I probably run downstairs. But at 20, I'm like, I'll give it another minute and if she doesn't stop, I'll go check on her. And then, you know, it wouldn't stop. So another minute would go by, and I'd be lazy. So I'm like, I'll give it another minute, you know? So it's just this cough that I can't explain. It's so deep and guttural. And eventually it does stop and I go to bed, but the next day, I don't even mention it. And my roommate downstairs mentions it, like, hey, who was that coughing upstairs? I heard a cough laughing. And I'm like, no, no, no. I heard it from downstairs. And they're like, no, we thought it was you upstairs. And so it was just this string of events that were happening that couldn't really be explained.
- [38:51]
I was having these dreams, and I had a reoccurring dream of this entity coming at me in my sleep. And I would kind of, you know, bolt awake. And there was a second dream that I was having repetitively throughout these days of a man outside my bedroom door, seated, clinging his knees to his chest and rocking back and forth and sobbing and sobbing so loud that I would kind of jolt awake from his sobs. In my dreams, you know, he's rocking back and forth, just sobbing.
- [39:27]
All these things were happening, little things that maybe wouldn't mean anything by themselves, but the energy was becoming more and more charged to me like this. I was becoming more and more afraid as these events were unfolding. I think up to this point, you know, I knew I was the consistent target of all these events. You know, like my roommates. None of this was really affecting them. Yes, they could acknowledge the electricity went off and they heard the coughs, but.
- [40:04]
Nothing could phase them in the way that it was affecting me, if that makes sense. So they.
- [40:12]
I would say from my perspective, they remained skeptical. It was still kind of fun and games when the electricity went off. It was kind of like when you're at camp or something and, you know, the lights are off and it's. It's fun, but the life goes on. And for me, it was something more ominous. I think. There's no words to describe the sense of a reality shift that was happening to me. It's as if, like, the sky is blue, and all of a sudden you learn the sky is actually red. It's kind of like your world turns upside down. You have been living this life that was normal an instant. You are now living in a new reality. And I so desperately wanted to go back to that old reality where I was just naive and I didn't believe in these kind of things. And it Felt like I was trapped, like I'd never get back there.
- [41:12]
At this point with these events that had happened. I just felt like there was this wedge between myself and my roommates. I was, the isolation was growing. I felt like we were living in two different realities. I was beginning to feel like I was in a movie. You know, with all the events that had happened, I couldn't understand why everything was happening to me. Nothing was happening to my roommates outside of Anna. And it definitely had a sense, like I mentioned, like something was off, but I was in it, you know, and it felt like everyone else was just on the outskirts, observing. And I wasn't really sure how to get myself out of this because, I mean, like, with, you have a pest problem, you call pest control. You, you have a plumbing problem, you call a plumber. Like, who, what, what do I do to, to not feel this way anymore? You know? And do you, do you call it priests? Like, I, I, I have no connection to any, I have no affiliation with any church. I, I was just. And anyways, even if I did, I was thinking, I tried this age and look where that got me. So I was just kind of, I was feeling on edge, but I still tried. There was 20% of me that still tried to look at things through a rational perspective because most of those things, they were very real to me. But, you know, someone else could say, there's an explanation. So I tried my, my hardest to cling to that rationale. Maybe everything's okay. Like, everything's going to be okay. And that can, you know, I tried to hold on to that belief until this one. You know, one weekend. I remember it was very slow, it was quiet. I decided, you know, going along with my normal life, trying to stay balanced, I was going to clean my bedroom. So I know that three roommates were in a room next door to me watching a movie in bed. I can remember the sounds and their laughter. They're in there, relaxed. I run downstairs and I have to pass the living room and a bedroom to get to the kitchen where the cleaning supplies are under the sink. So I run downstairs and I pass the living room. I see the remaining roommate on the couch, you know, very focused on an art project. She doesn't even look up at me. And I get to the kitchen, I grab, you know, some Windex and, like, dust spray. I was going to be dusting. And I head back upstairs to my bedroom, and I know I was at the very top of the steps of the stairs, and I realized I forgot a trash bag. So I mean, immediately I just set the things down and ran back downstairs to the kitchen. And I get to the kitchen, and I get there and I see that all the cabinets in the kitchen are open.
- [44:14]
The fridge, the oven, every drawer, every cabinet. And I'm just. I felt like I was in a movie, if that makes sense. There was no going back from that because everything else could have been explained, but I knew I. I had been so fast, you know, 30 seconds I was gone from this kitchen, and I'm back, and there's just no, there's nothing that can explain the cabinets being open. I really felt this kind of doom, you know, when you think about explanations.
- [44:57]
Thinking about how many cabinets there are. 10 cabinets, at least five drawers. And then the microwave and the oven and the fridge. I know three roommates were upstairs. I know the remaining roommate was in the living room. And there's no way she could have hopped up and opened all those things without me getting a glimpse of her. It was 30 seconds. I ran back downstairs to get to the kitchen. I knew while maybe everything else prior could maybe be explained away, there was nothing that could explain seeing the cabinets open when I was there and had been gone for 30 seconds with all the roommates accounted for.
- [45:48]
I can only describe the feeling as wanting to scream.
- [45:53]
A
I.
- [45:54]
D
Like I mentioned before, I had felt the reality shift, but the cabinets broke me in a different way because it felt so tangible. Nothing had felt so physical for some reason. Like, cabinets had opened, and to me, that just felt like a hand had reached out from beyond. I don't.
- [46:21]
A bathroom door getting stuck is one thing, right? It's. You can't really see it being. I don't. It doesn't feel the same as seeing something physically done, like cabinets are open. And you cannot describe it.
- [46:37]
Knowing that I was the only one that was experiencing these events at this point, I felt very targeted. And reality, like everything breaks. Everything that you knew that you thought you knew breaks. It's one thing paying money to see a scary movie and you go home and you continue on with your life, but it's another when you are starring in the scary movie. And I just couldn't wrap my mind around that.
- [47:10]
At that point, I was.
- [47:14]
I left. I went upstairs. I didn't say anything. I just was kind of numb. I left the kitchen. I go upstairs and continue what I'm doing. Kind of like in this state of mind of just rolling through the motions, like I am just going to keep doing what I was doing now and pretend like that didn't Just happen. And I remember going about my business in my room, trying to do my best to act normal, you know, feel normal and just clean what I set out to do. And I hear my roommate downstairs at some point, you know, kind of yell, guys, like, what's up with the kitchen? Who did this? And I hear them all scramble, and then I come out and I explain, you know, I found it like that when I came to get supplies. But for me, at this point, I am not too excited to share my experiences because I know that, you know, they're not looking at it the same way as I am. It doesn't affect them in the same way. So it was almost like I didn't even want to waste my energy. Like, yes, that happened. What am I going to do? I have much bigger fish to fry here than kind of explain, you know, the situation to them.
- [48:33]
At that point, you know, I say, it wasn't me. And they say, okay, well, it wasn't me. And I'm just like, exactly. I didn't expect it was any of you. From my perspective, the energy was, ooh, this is weird. Like, how weird? How. How. That's strange. And. And to me, it wasn't funny anymore, you know, yes, it's strange. Yes, it's unexplainable. I feel like this is not okay. Whereas from my perspective, I feel like they thought, okay, let's just keep this ball rolling. They didn't mind using the Ouija board again. They wanted to keep kind of tugging at the strings and seeing what would happen. But at the end of the day, they could go to sleep and be like, it's all. You know, it's. It's not really real. You know, that was the energy that I felt in the house, the wedge between myself and my roommates. I was getting more and more frustrated because we would engage with the Ouija board. We had done this. We were all to blame for what was happening, myself included. But it was just so isolating to feel alone. In my experience, it was getting to the point where, like, I was looking over my shoulder, you know, this was affecting my sleep.
- [50:01]
I couldn't be alone in rooms. It was affecting me to such a degree that living with people, living with friends that weren't experiencing that in this way, that is what was becoming increasingly isolating.
- [50:23]
So my roommates once again had suggested, okay, well, let's use the Ouija board again. When are we going to use it again? And at this point, I'm just very much defeated. I feel like we've reached Rock Bottom, how much worse can things really get? So I'm just kind of swept into it as well. Looking back, I'm thinking, you know, why.
- [50:47]
I should have stayed away. I don't know if it would have helped, but at that time, I thought that their interest in even wanting to use it was an invitation to maybe, you know, maybe they would get to a point where they could understand these experiences for what they were. Not just fun and games, but something that was darker and denser and not friendly even, you know, because all these things, there wasn't this sense that this was something good. I wanted to get them to a place where they understood that. And I thought that the Ouija board at the very least could do that. So I. We had the Ouija board. I allowed it in the living room because, like I said, I felt defeated. There wasn't any going back from here. The thing is, this situation, this session felt different than the last sessions. You know, we were asking questions, and it wasn't responding to the questions like usual. It got to a point where, you know, we'd ask, did you open the kitchen cabinets? And instead of responding, it would go to one and then the letter X. And, you know, we're like, what's going on? I don't know what this means. We'd ask the next question, whatever. I don't remember the questions we asked, but it would go to 2x. So it was counting by the end, you know, it was going 1x. We'd ask a new question 2x. We asked a new question 3x. By the time we reached 5x, you know, we weren't even asking a question anymore. And it was going by itself. We're touching it, but without being asked, it's going to 6x and then 7x. And I don't know what that means, but I didn't like it. So I just moved the planchette to goodbye and ended the session. I couldn't explain what the counting meant, but I just. It didn't feel good and I didn't know what it meant. And I just. Something really didn't feel right to me after this session.
- [53:05]
Shortly after this Ouija board session where it counted down, we had a house party on a Friday night. I know I was working that night. I come home. I was very much afraid. I just got a sense that something was awry. I couldn't explain it. I get home, I'm not. If I put myself back into this night, I remember arriving home and being very much not in the mood for a party, you know, it's college. Imagine the hallways. The rooms are filled with strangers. I just was not in the headspace to have a good time. But regardless, I head upstairs to my bedroom. There's a few people there that, you know, are there because of me. You know, I had told them, you know, you can come over tonight. So I just had, you know, a small group in my own bedroom. And so they're just hanging out in my room. It's a large room in each corner. You know, lots of side conversations going on. And I'm on my bed with a childhood friend of mine that, you know, we were very good childhood friends through middle school and then high school, but our paths had gone different ways, so we hadn't really connected since early high school school. But there she was, you know, at this party of mine. It's also important to say that at this time, I could not share what was happening in my house very easily, you know, to friends. Like, it's not something that I would share. And not because I was afraid of being ridiculed, but because I felt like I needed to whisper it. I didn't want to draw attention to it. So it's not something that I easily spoke about. So for me to tell her, I trusted her. But I was, I remember, kind of whispering it. So I'm telling her, you know, everything from. From the start to that point, everything that had happened. And I know we're both seated on my bed. No one's around us. You know, everyone else is in the other corners of the room doing their own thing. No one's listening to this conversation I'm having with Kate. And my arms are crossed, and I'm sitting. My legs are crossed on the bed. My arms are crossed. I had spoken the story to Kate. I had just said, we need to do something to get rid of this. And I feel this pain on the backside of my right arm. And it feels, you know, like a burning, like a stabilization slash burn. Enough to where I pause a moment just to twist my arm around to see what was causing the kind of. The burn stab sensation. And it was a scratch, you know, like what a very deep fingernail scratch would look like. And it was bleeding, you know, it was dripping blood.
- [56:06]
I couldn't care less about the pain. I was in, you know, immediate shock about what would have caused this. You know, my. The pain was just. I wasn't even thinking about the pain at this point. I'm just. My whole heart sunk into my stomach. I kept my arm twisted around, you know, it didn't Leave our sight. You know, I had it kind of on display between the two of us. And as we looked down at it, we're looking at each other, we're looking down at it. Hank and I, we watched the scratch and the blood kind of fade before our eyes. And all that's left is kind of this dark bruise on my arm. Just a bruise. There's no blood. There's no scratch. What had been a definitive scratch, like, you could see three marks, you know, three deep red marks. It all faded away. And it was just a bruise. You know, it's bleeding. It's actively bleeding. Nothing. You know, you didn't need a tourniquet. It was actively bleeding, not dripping. So I had been touching the blood throughout, and, you know, it was blood you feel on your fingertips. Blood. You can't mistake that, right? But while it started to fade is when my panic was settling in of like, wait, what's happening? So I'm. I'm continuing to touch the blood that's slowly starting to kind of fade away. And it's on my fingers. I can feel the. The blood, the texture, but it's. It's disappearing on my fingertips. You know, it's kind of like just fading before my eyes. It's there and then it's not. If I was shocked before when I saw the initial scratch, this sent me completely over the edge, seeing it evaporate right before us, you know, she's speechless. Her eyes are wide. I felt like I was in a horror movie, and there I was, trapped. No one could have convinced me otherwise in that moment. And I'm looking at Kate's face, and that's only making it worse because I know she sees what I see. And I'm kind of. I remember just kind of being. I was in a state of shock. That is where I reached my breaking point. And I am sobbing in front of everyone. I'm just. You know, I am sobbing, and. And she's just kind of dumbfounded. And she is equally kind of like, in awe and shock, and just her eyes are wide, and that scares me even more. You know, I was happy that she believed and she was there to witness, but to have a witness what that meant, you know, I had wanted that all along for someone to understand and believe me, but. But it's like everything culminated to this point. It just made it so real. There was no going back from this moment. It felt dark. It felt evil. And what did that mean for me?
- [59:12]
My name is Kate.
- [59:14]
G
I met Athena in middle school, and we were really good Friends up until maybe my junior year in high school, we grew up in different counties, and I think we just kind of grew apart a little bit. But then I actually ran into her at her own party. Yeah, I was in her bedroom, and she kind of pulled me aside. And of course, we were excited to see each other, and we must have, you know, caught up. But I remember her pulling me aside, and she was a little frantic and kind of freaked out. And she was just excited, I think, to just talk to someone that she had a close relationship with. She was telling me about her experiences at this house and that her roommates at the time weren't very supportive. She was having encounters with ghosts, and they weren't pleasant ones. And I remember consoling her. And as she was telling me this story, she kind of reached back to the back of her arm, said she was having some pain. And there were these blatant scratches on the back of her arm. They were red and kind of looked like when a dog kind of jumps up and scratches you, and there's kind of like beads of blood. And she was really freaked out, and she was like, I think they're mad that I'm talking about this. And then I just remember she was just, like, kind of frantic, and we were talking about what was going on. She's like, are you seeing this? Are you seeing what I'm seeing? I'm like, yes, I see what you see. She looks back at her arm, and it's just gone. Which is bizarre. I don't, to this day, don't know what that was, But I swear, like, I saw it, too. And it was very confusing because we both were like, did we see that? But we both saw it. But, yeah, Then after that, I think I don't remember much what happened that. But she was just really freaked out.
- [61:28]
D
I apologize to Kay. I'm losing my words. I'm saying, you know, I've got to go. I've got to go. I don't know where I'm going, but I've got to go. And I tell her, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I've got to go. And I get everyone out of my room. And, you know, everyone's kind of. They're like, what I remember their faces of kind of like, but we're here for a party, you know, at least in my room. I'm like, the party's done in my room. So everybody out. And I frantically start packing a bag, because in my mind, I am not returning. I don't know I don't know how, I don't know what needs to happen. I don't know what my future entails. But I'm not coming back. At least I'm not coming back without my mom or somebody to get me out of here. And so I remember I packed a bag and the rest of the night was just so chaotic. And if there's anything about me, I'm not a chaotic person. I like order, I don't lose things. But that night, everything went wrong. You know, I'm packed up, I'm thinking, okay, I don't remember what time it was, but I know it was late enough to where I wouldn't go home to my mom's house. You know, it was about a 20 minute drive to get to my mom's house. And it was late enough to where I knew, like, I can't do that to my mom. So I had decided I'd spend the night at a friend's house, you know, down the street. So I have my bag, I lost my keys, my car keys. That never happened. So I'm frantically, you know, I'm crying, I'm looking for my keys. I remember a moment of my, one of my roommates seeing me cry and I just, there was such a disconnect. I felt how crazy I knew I looked in that moment. I go to leave and the police are outside. I looking back, I suppose it was for some sort of noise ordinance. So another roommate is on the front porch talking to the police. And I'm looking at the police, I'm looking at it happen. And I'm thinking like, I have much bigger problems than, you know, police. I was in such a different world at this moment that I could not even, I couldn't even bother with the police. And I just, I left, I went to my friend's house, I spent the night, I wake up the next morning and I realized that, you know, I had packed a bag, but I had forgotten my work clothes. And I needed, I was working that night, so I couldn't just go home to my mom's house first. I needed to return to the house to get work clothes. And so I mustered you know, the energy. It's daylight at least. And I get back to the house, I go straight to my room. I had locked it up that night prior when everyone left my room. I get back to the room and being me, which is so me, I'm thinking, well, if I'm gonna leave, I at least I'm gonna clean up after the party, which is so me, because Everyone, they didn't have time, you know, they had left their red solo cups all around my room. So I'm thinking, I'm just gonna clean up the cups and I'm gonna grab my clothes and I'm gonna leave. And I start to go, I'm picking up the cups and I'm realizing that each cup is filled with like five, ten dead flies. And I'm picking up each cup. I mean, I see one cup, it's got flies. I'm thinking, okay, that's strange. I'm picking up a second cup, more flies, a third. And the panic, it's just, it's all coming back to me. The same feelings that I had the night prior. That panic inducing, fright, the doom. I'm speechless. You know, I'm thinking, this is early mid October. Then there's no fly problem. We hadn't had a fly problem. There's no windows in my room. The door had been shut and locked. I couldn't find any explanation. You know, it's the same feelings from the night coming back to me where I just am having trouble kind of breathing, to be honest. Like, I. I've got to get out of there. So I head straight to my mom's house. That weekend I stayed with my mom. I stayed there. And, you know, at this point, I can't be alone. You know, I go to work that night and it was a restaurant. And I remember, you know, with restaurants working, you have the walk in freezers, you know, where you have to go grab things. And, you know, I specifically remember being in the cold walk in and just feeling panic. I couldn't be in places like that alone. That's the point I had reached to where I felt this kind of fear. I couldn't be alone. And for the first time since, you know.
- [66:29]
Since I was a child, I slept with my mom in bed. I couldn't be alone. I slept with her. I think this is where it segues into this idea that, you know, the reality of it all, that I couldn't go back, but, like, I couldn't not go back. You know, like, I was in a lease for a year, so the lease wasn't up until the following August. I wasn't, oh, what am I going to do? Find somebody to move in and take over my lease? What would that look like? I wasn't really in a position where I felt great about, you know, my parents helping me with rent for a home that I'm not living at. You know, that didn't feel great either. It just, I had to go back. And we had to figure out a way where I could do that and feel safe and comfortable living in the house again. So we decided that the only way was to do a full kind of house blessing. And I think it's important. You know, looking back, I didn't include my mom. I remember this fear. I was very aware of including my mom in this situation, Even being at her house and sleeping with her in the bed those first nights. Like, I. I didn't do any of that without this incredible sense of guilt, because I felt like I was including her in something that I didn't want her to be involved with. I didn't want her associated with the house. I. Whatever this was, I didn't want it connecting to my mom. I. I felt very much guilty including my mom, but at the same time, I didn't have. I didn't see any other way. So at a certain point, shortly after this, I had gone back to the house, and it was decided that my mom, in concert with my. With my grandmother, who was remote, would do a cleansing of the house. So my mom would physically be there doing a cleansing, and my grandma, who lived about six hours away, would do something remotely to cleanse the energy of the house, whatever it was. My mom, I would say, is very rooted, grounded in her quiet faith in the other world, I guess, you know, in God. My grandmother is more elusive and always had felt elusive to me. She didn't live in Richmond. She lived six hours away. She's not somebody that we saw at this point. I hadn't seen her in over a decade. Say I was a preteen. The last time I saw my grandmother, she just had this mystery about her. She's not someone that I understood her belief system, but yet she somehow knew what to do in a situation like this. And she's not somebody that I communicated with about what was going on in my house. It was my mom and her kind of talking behind the scenes to hear that they would do this. It brought me comfort. But more than anything, I think I was afraid for my mom's safety. That was my fear. You know, it's not like my mom had done this before. She had never, you know, casually. She had spoken of the use of sage to kind of clear a space, but she had never.
- [69:52]
Done any sort of spirit cleansing. You know, I was very afraid for her safety. I remember being self conscious, you know, like having my mom there. What do my roommates think? You know, because she came, you know, she's got a Bible.
- [70:10]
She knows the Phrases. She's saying the prayers. She comes and goes room to room with the sage as well, and blesses each and every quarter, including all of my roommates rooms. And I'm nervous. I am wondering. I mean, this had to work because there just was no other way. I couldn't live like this.
- [70:33]
You know, they clear the house. My understanding is they spoke on the phone before my mom did it, they spoke after. I didn't get mixed up into, you know, their plan or what they thought. I just needed them to do it, you know, that's what I was thinking. So my mom comes and she cleanses, quietly, respectfully, she cleanses the house. And it was quiet for the first time. It was quiet and it felt quiet. Of course, it took days, weeks to kind of settle into the space again and be okay living there. Because now we had reached, you know, the end of October.
- [71:20]
I remember those weeks after it felt okay, not great. And I just chalked that up. I was never going to be 100% okay in that house. There's nothing that could convince me to just pretend like nothing had ever happened. But I went along. I went about my life the best I could. And the relationship with my roommates, we did not talk about it anymore because it was clear. And I remember this feeling. It was just clear. The best comparison, I think, is with politics. At a certain point, sometimes you just decide not to. To bring up politics because you know you're going to disagree. That's the kind of feeling I had back then, like, better just not to talk about this again. And even when my mom had come to cleanse the house, it's not even something that I made it. I didn't even talk to them about it. I just got a quick like, hey, my mom's coming. Is that okay? Cool. You know, it just at that point had become something that we better. It's best just not to speak about it anymore. And so that's how I existed going forward. And eventually, you know, the wedge that I had felt dissipated and things got back to a normal pace. And we all just quietly didn't talk about the experiences that I had or how that had shaped our relationship in the beginning of our stay in this house. But the one thing that did remain for me in the house was this fear that I had with the stairs. I didn't like the stairs. And it was this specific part of the stairs, you know, that little kind of staircase. I believe it's called a spandrel space. Kind of like that Harry Potter space. I just didn't like it. I just got the sense that. I can't explain it, but it was the same feeling I had about everything else that happened earlier. The earlier weeks, the experiences that I had had. I got that feeling with this space. And I know there was no real reason for that because there had been nothing that happened that was connected to the stairs. But my fear manifested in the way that I would walk up the stairs. You know, like, I always ran. I didn't like being on the stairs. It wasn't until two years later, I was 22, I was just about to graduate from college, and I thought, you know, I'm an adult. Why don't I. Why don't I see my grandmother? You know, why don't I should develop. Why don't I have a better connection with my grandmother if she's only six hours away? So I decided to drive up and see her in southwest Virginia. And so early on in my stay there, for the first time, we talk about my experience. And I'm telling her, you know, I'm describing everything like, you know. You know, this was real. What happened, happened to me was real. And she. As chaotic as my sentences were coming out, and frantic, you know, she's just so. So unfazed. And she says, I know. I know these things happened. And I am asking, you know, what was it? What could it. What exactly was it? Was it a spirit? Was it some. Was it a ghost? Was it a man, a woman, what? And she just simply says, it wasn't of this earth. And, you know, she's just so unfazed and so simple about it. And I say, okay, well, how did you get rid of it? What'd you do? I know my mom was there with the Bible and the prayers and the blessings and the sage. What were you doing remotely? Like, how does that work? And she just said she had her ways. And. And that's when I ask, you know, how did you do it? Like, how did you get rid of it? You know? And she says, I didn't. And then I just kind of. I was shocked when she said, I didn't. I didn't get rid of it. And I was like, what do you mean? You know, I lived there for a year. Nothing happened to me. Where was the disconnect? My mom told me I was safe, I didn't have to worry. And she describes that this entity wasn't of this earth and it was too connected to this house, so it could not be banished completely, but it had been banished just below the staircase and could do no harm to me while I was there. And I just, I. I always knew. That's what I said, you know, I always knew. I remember thinking like, I am years too late, like, where have I been? Why don't I know more? Like, who are you?
- [76:15]
I think that unlocked this understanding that my grandmother had so many more layers than I ever knew about her. You know, she wasn't the cliche of a grandmother that makes you cookies.
- [76:29]
You know, she. She had an understanding and an awareness that I never understood. And I remember being gravitated towards that and wanting more of that. Looking back on this experience now at 34, the only way to describe it is, first of all, it took a long time to move past the fear and be able to even talk about it without guilt of retribution of some sort from whatever forces that may be. But now, at this age, I like to think that I'm a little stronger and mature and can stand my ground. And the way I think back to this experience is that I think in life, as we get older, things can feel black and white, they can feel boring. Things become more mundane as you kind of settle into your routine, your day to day. I think most people, definitely me, sometimes it can feel like, okay, what's the point of anything? You know, we live, we die, what's the point? And the way this has affected me and the way I see this experience now is that it's like this memory that I keep in my pocket and I take it out in moments like that and I'm able to. It's like I have this thing that happened that does remind me that there are things out there that we cannot explain and there's still wonder. And although it used to fill me with such dread and fear, now I think it is more awe that I feel because it's. How do you explain something like that?
- [78:19]
I don't know the words to describe what I felt. I think maybe some people would call it energy, some people might call it a demon, some people use the words evil.
- [78:33]
I don't know what it was, but I know that I experienced a darkness. And I know that the only thing that made it feel better was light. And that's all I know. But when you think of describing the world and the way the universe works and what does that mean? It just leaves me with so many questions that there's no answer for. And it makes me feel connected to the world in a much deeper way. Because of that.
- [79:09]
I. I think I appreciate the help from my mother and my grandmother. I just feel they. They are connected to something.
- [79:21]
You know, they are connected to something that I cannot explain.
- [79:26]
I.
- [79:29]
Yeah, I don't. I don't know how to describe.
- [79:33]
Hey, I'm sorry, Jack, I'm failing you. I'm trying to connect it, too. I'm trying to put a pretty bow on it. And that's the thing I fear with even sharing my story. Like, I know there isn't bookends to these things, and maybe no story has real bookends.
- [79:51]
It's just kind of like a splatter of events. And the moral of the story, Listen to your grandmother. I don't know. But I will say, connecting it to hospice. My experience in the darker moments where you do see suffering and sadness and grief and death and dying. This is an experience that I have drawn on more than one occasion in my mind to ground me back and help me remember that there's. This isn't just meaningless, because when you're in this constant rotation of death and that being inevitable, it begins to feel. It can feel like, what's the point? Like, this is. This is nothing but sadness, right? And I draw upon my experience to remember there's more. There has to be more. You know, it isn't just this endless cycle with no meaning behind it, because there's things that I cannot explain.
- [81:05]
A
Thank you to Athena for sharing her story. I'm not sure where to start with this one, because there was a lot going on. I think the first thing that stood out to me in this story was the fact that she lived in a windowless room. That just sounds very depressing and bizarre. I really hope she got some kind of discounted rent for that situation. Aside from the bad feng shui in her life, the things happening to Athena started out small, but ended up getting very extreme. I would personally find it easy to write off things like fire alarms or old locks acting weird. But the thing with the cabinets and then being cut by something and bleeding and then seeing the wound disappear before your eyes, that's completely insane. I don't think I've heard anything like that while making the show. On top of it, Hearing from her friend that saw it too and was able to back it up, that just adds a whole new level to this. I thought that part, obviously was really, really weird. It's one thing to see something strange or get a weird vibe in a room, but to be physically cut by something is very alarming. Luckily, Athena ended up getting an unexpected solution to all of this. A grandma with some sort of spiritual skill that Athena seemed to be unaware of. And honestly, from the sound of it, Grandma seems to have done this before, maybe even many times. Her explanation of having to banish this thing to just below the stairs seems oddly specific. Not something I'd imagine a casual practitioner would say, or a grandma just making something up to make you feel better. It's pretty obvious that she's done this in the past, but that detail about banishing whatever this was to right below the stairs does make a lot of sense considering the things that ended up happening to Athena near the end of all this. So thank you once again to Athena and Kate for sharing the story. And thank you to Athena's grandma for coming in and saving the day for Athena, while possibly making things very difficult for whoever ended up living on the first floor of that house after Athena and her friends moved out. Maybe I'll end up hearing from them one day as well. This episode was called Athena and you've been listening to Otherworld.
- [84:02]
Otherworld is executive produced and hosted by myself, Jack Wagner. Our producers are Theo Schaeffer, Theo Krantz, Haley Pearson and Nikki Cate Delgado. Our theme song is by Cobra Man. The soundtrack of this episode is by North Americans and Juice Jackal. Our artwork is by Cul de Sac Studios. Please show us your support by subscribing, leaving a five star review and telling your friends about the show. If you want to hear bonus episodes of Otherworld, you can become a patron@patreon.com Otherworld Our social media is Otherworldpod. Thank you to the team at Odysee. Leah Rees, Dennis, Maura Curran, Josefina Francis, Eric Donnelly, Kate Rose, Colin Gaynor and Hilary Schuff. Follow and listen to Otherworld now for free on the Odysee app or wherever you get your podcasts. And finally, if you or somebody you know has experienced something paranormal, supernatural or unexplained, you can send us your stories@storiesotherworldpod.com.
- [85:10]
H
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C
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