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Welcome to Scary Story Podcast. How do we know that our dreams are only
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dreams? And if they're more than that, how do we keep them only
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in our minds? My name is Edwin, and here it's a scary story.
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I was surprised at how easily the door opened after being sealed for so
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long, but it was just how I had imagined it happening, although time
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had taken its toll on it, and you could tell the old wooden staircase
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right in the middle, dirt stuck in between the crevices and spiderwebs, completely
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empty by now catching only dust, no signs of life. Yet I had
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walked by it many times before, as a kid running past it to catch
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the ice cream truck that sped by way too fast, and then as a
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teenager looking for a place to stop and think for a bit after school.
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Sometimes I needed that, and then I needed it again after some time,
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Having recently dropped out of college, The thought of being at the front steps
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of an enormous house in the middle of a dying neighborhood offered some perspective.
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I could sit there and think this house had seen families come and go,
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cars changing in models, and colors, fashion trends, the fires in eighty
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seven and the closing of Western High School just one block away. This house
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was stuck in a town and I wanted to get away from, and was
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now forced to live in again. The house never had a choice. Despite
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all those decades of watching us silently empty, few people had ever seen it
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from the inside. One of the inspectors hired by the family who owned the
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property had been in there once the family changed their mind and decided to keep
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it. The inspector left the door open that day and I stepped into the
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front yard to take a peek inside along with my two best friends. Unimpressed,
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but to me it seemed like the perfect spot to disappear for a bit,
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and all I ever wanted to do was to go back. It took
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a bit for me to get the courage to walk up to the front door
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and open it, so, of course, I picked the quietest time to
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do so, when no one was around, at two thirty in the morning,
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when I had just gotten off my shift at the warehouse. Thankfully,
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the moon was out, shining bright on the dried up gardens that surrounded it.
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The large windows let the blue light shine on the inside too. There
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were no locks, not even the front gate used them, but it was
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kept closed. Even as a teen I needed to unlatch the gate to get
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up to the front steps. The floors were strong, made out of wood,
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just how you imagine a place to be in the movies. A large
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ceiling lap, not quite a chandelier, but close enough. A large dining
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room before you got to the kitchen on the right, and to the left
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was a large living room area with a single person couch by the fireplace.
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It was the only piece of furniture in the whole house, and I was
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glad it was so. It was places like those that I looked for.
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There was always something to think about. A busy mind, my friends used
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to say. I used to have thoughts about what we were doing here and
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why, and what was a point of everything, what we got to choose,
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and what was just how it was supposed to be relax they would say
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to me, thinking sorting things out was as close as I would get to
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relaxing. And it happened in places like those, and only in my dreams.
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But right now there was a chance to experience this now, after many
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years, I walked up to the first steps of that staircase and looked up.
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It turned to the right in a strange angle, leading straight to the
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landing on the second floor. I could clearly see the next steps in the
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staircase, the solid handrails not moving a fraction of a centimeter as my grip
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tightened around it after every step. The staircase itself had been used. Not
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sure when, since all of my life I had seen the house completely empty,
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but the squeak seemed to fade the higher you would go, as if
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those who had entered had given up on the climb to the second floor,
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with only a few making it all the way to the top. I stopped
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halfway up, myself, only turning around to admire the large windows on the
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side of the house, the moonlight coming from the left wall windows beaming right
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at that couch. Perhaps a bit too poetic, I know, but the
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place really did seem magnificent to me. Even the smell, something I can
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still remember, was pleasant, like a flower shot, but dark and cold.
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I walked up a little bit more, just four more steps to reach
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the top, when I thought I heard something, a sound so faint I
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would have missed it had it matched the timing on my steps against the floorboard.
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A froze midstep, and I remember smiling at the thought that the house
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might still be alive despite it looking dead from the outside. Then I realized
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I was there by myself in a large five or six bedroom home and a
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piece of property so large that I had to wonder if the neighbors would be
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able to hear me scream if I needed to. I set those thoughts aside
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and kept climbing. The place was even more beautiful from the top. The
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guardrails to stop you from falling to the bare floorboards were visible, with a
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very specific area free of dust, with the markings you leave behind when you
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take the dust with you on your hands, the kind of markings you leave
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when you frequent a certain spot. Someone had been there, and I got
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scared and booked it down to stairs and out the door, not looking back
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for a single second. But in my dreams about the house, it was
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a different story. I had them frequently. After my visit, I walked
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to the hallway, the darkest part of the house on that second floor.
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Only a single window was at the end of it. It was like a
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mission. I needed to walk to the end and begin from there. I
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looked behind me. Something had moved again. If I waited just a few
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more seconds at that very moment, I would have given up and ran down
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the stairs. But I don't know what would get into me that I would
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simply look at the window and follow along with the sound of my shoes against
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the floor, completely ignoring the wide open doors next to me. I would
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get a chance to walk back and peek inside, just not then. I
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needed to see what was beyond the hallway. Besides, what if I saw
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something I didn't want to see just yet. I passed the first door on
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my left. It must have been a bathroom. I kept walking with the
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feeling that the walls were closing in on me, although when I think back
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on it, it all made sense. A feeling of being watched is sometimes
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very similar a certain lack of privacy that you feel the play is about to
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squeeze you in something you can't control. I walked passing by a door on
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the right, someone breathing, sleeping. I thought I just kept walking.
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Then I heard whispers. I was walking so fast. At this point everything
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became a blur as I rushed by five more doors, finally ending at a
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smaller one at the end. This one was shut and right next to the
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window. It had no door knob, but instead a handle to pull it
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open. I simply grabbed onto it and it opened almost by itself. In
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my dreams, I would look back down the hallway and freeze as I saw
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a figures at the end of it. I don't know what would get into
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me right then, but I managed to push myself in deeper into the house.
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As I went into the dark room, I had no windows, no
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more doors, but two steps in I felt a step in front of me.
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There were no handrails, just a wall to guide me up to a
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small beam of blue light at the top another window. I would step one,
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two, three steps up and it became clear there was another floor.
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I would keep climbing until I saw boxes, then two chairs and a mattress
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by one of the windows. The space was much smaller up there. The
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ceiling was closing into the walls on opposite sides. I knew right then that
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I was in the attic. My heart was still pounding when I thought of
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the reason why I was up there, and how I would have to go
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back after who or what I had just seen. Despite my fascination with the
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howls, I was still coherent. I could think part of me. Knew
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it was unsafe, knew that perhaps it wouldn't kill me. But being up
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there alone was something I was only able to do on a whim, not
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something I could repeat or plan out. But then I heard the footsteps that
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were coming up to the attic. No matter how much I think about it,
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I can't change it. But I know what I should have done in
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these dreams. I needed to look for something to protect myself with, or
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run to a window and scream. But instead I would just wait. The
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footsteps would get closer and closer, and soon I would see the shape coming
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up the staircase, a man walking up to me, stopping as soon as
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the top part of his body became visible, and I would be frozen in
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place. I used to wake up at this point every single time, this
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man walking up the stairs, standing there looking at me. I can go
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as far as to say that I would see his chest puff up as he
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got ready to speak, and that's where the dream would end. Part two
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of the dream House is coming up right after this stay with me. For
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years, I kept dreaming of this house I used to walk by when I
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was a kid, and whenever I would bring it up to anyone, if
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the conversation got into talking about dreams, they would say that, yes,
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it was weird, but to not make it such a big deal. I
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kept thinking that the dream had to mean something, that this man that climbed
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up to the attic was trying to tell me something, or that the house
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had a secret that I needed to find out. It was tough not to
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think about it so much. This whole thing had been going on for years,
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and the dream came almost consistently once per week. Then just out of
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curiosity. In a late night Internet search, This was much later. By
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this time I had already gotten married and had a kid, I stumbled upon
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a video that talked about dream journals and logs. The video was trying to
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sell a template to keep track of your dreams, accompanied by some app but
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I figured I could just do it myself, so I grabbed one of my
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notebooks and got to work. The task was easy. All I needed to
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do was to write down, scribble or voice record as fast as I could
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what my dream was as soon as I would wake up. No detail spared
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unless I forgot it. Of course that was fine, but it would be
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something that I would have to improve on as I started to jot down my
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idea as much faster speed was the name of the game. Here. Every
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three to five dreams I was to read through them, expand on them if
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I had any recollection about the dreams themselves, and then write down any connection.
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It was intense, and soon I happened to find a forum online where
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people talked about their dream world, the places they would visit, and their
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dreams. For some they were commonplaces or entire cities, schools, places where
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they worked. For others, like one of the users that I ended up
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talking to the most, it was about an RV very specific place where she
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used to live along with her mom. Others would dream of places they had
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never visited or could not possibly exist in real life, But anyway, I
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wrote down everything. The very same reason why I can go into so much
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detail about my dreams now is because of the journal entries I completed. Back
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then. It would be the same house I would go in. It would
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be unlocked, and then I would walk around the place, climb up the
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stairs and then down the hallway. I would work my way up to the
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attic, and then I could see someone coming up there. Every single time
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I would freeze, and no matter how hard I try to pay attention to
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the man who would climb up the stairs, I was still end up waking
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up right before he started to speak. And it got to the point where
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I would wake up tired and still try to write down the exact same dream,
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sometimes attempting to draw out the layout of the house, the silhouette of
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the man, or even just how the dark hallway appeared in my dream.
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One time, while talking with my wife's about this dream, she knew and
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understood very well. By this point, she asked why I hadn't just gone
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to visit the house already. Maybe there was something for me there, after
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all, the actual house was only a couple of cities over. It wasn't
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fear that I was feeling, not quite nervous or anxious either, but this
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strange sense of curiosity when I thought about visiting the house in real life.
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Yes I liked the house, and yes I thought about it a lot growing
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up. Sometimes dreams to me were better where they were in my mind and
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nowhere else. My mistake had been writing them down, making them real.
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I enjoyed my time away, getting lost in thoughts. It was like I
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could shut off the world and go into one I made up completely. I
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thought that by going into the actual house I would get rid of that.
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But one Friday night, well Saturday morning, technically, I found myself there,
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walking up to the house in the middle of the night. In a
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mix of dejauvus and real memories. I was ready to finally figure this out.
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As I pushed open the door to get into this house, it was
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unlocked after all those years, the same chair in the living room, the
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empty dining room to the right. I walked up the stairs, following what
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I thought where my own footsteps in the dust from all those years ago.
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Until I reached the second floor. I looked at the guardrails and then down
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the dark hallway, the same morning I had dreamed about for years. I
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didn't want to give much thought to what I was about to do, and
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instead chose to walk down the hallway all the way to the window. My
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heart started pounding once I saw the small door without the door knob right at
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the end. This thing had only been there in my dreams up until that
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point. I held my breath as I turned back toward the start of the
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hallway, but felt the sense of relief when I saw no one there.
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The doors along the hallway were wide open, with the dim light of the
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moon shining into them, offering tiny streaks of bluish white light against the bare
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wooden floors, six stripes in total. Still, I wasn't going to risk
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it, as I started rushing back toward the staircase, passing by every door
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without looking, wondering if any of the answers I wanted were in there.
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I got to the top of the stairs and made my way down, rushing
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toward the front door, before stopping to take one last look at that couch,
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the one for a single person in the living room, the place that
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was supposed to be mine, for me to think and let my mind wander.
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That's when I heard the footsteps. I wasn't going to be in there
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for one more second, and instead rushed past the door and shut it behind
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me. I ran to the car, locked it and waited for the figure
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or anything to show up through the windows on the side of the house.
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For the two hours I was there, my eyes fixed on it, the
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same house I had seen for many years in my dreams there was no movement.
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So this day I still have those dreams of the attic, the figure
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walking up the steps, but I kept the questions in my mind, the
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answers of which still roam in the house. And maybe one day, when
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I want the dreams gone, I'll visit again. Scary Story Podcast is written
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and produced by me Edwin Kovarujaz. To listen without ads, try out scary
00:17:40
Plus over on scaryplus dot com. It's linked in the description of this episode.
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If you have questions about the stories, including this one, find me
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on TikTok and Instagram. I'm at Edwin Cove. That's E d w I
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nco V. But I'll also lead to everything in the description of this episode,
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so if you're on YouTube, follow the show. The link is just
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YouTube dot com slash Scary Story Podcast, again linked in the description. Give
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me a follow to help us grow on there anyway. Thank you very much
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for listening. Keep it scary everyone, See you soon.