If I Die Before I Wake

From shadowy figures and chilling whispers to a creature running at her in the dark. Her childhood home was a nightmare she couldn't wake up from. My name is Edwin, and here is Caitlyn. It's true scary story. I grew up in Ohio. Growing up there, I was always told that Ohio was the most haunted state in the US. Apparently we had around one hundred and eleven supposedly haunted locations. Basically, if you wanted an amusement park, you'd have to take a bit of a drive, but if you wanted a haunted location, you'd probably have to drive right down the road. And that was normal growing up there. I grew up learning about the paranormal. My mother even told me I grew up around it before I was even aware. I was told everything about life and death, angels and demons, and my mom even gave me a teddy bear that spoke of prayer. Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray my Lord my soul to keep, and if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord. My soul to take. The prayer scared me some nights thinking about why I went wake up the next morning, and some nights. It felt protected no matter what. My mom told me stories about how someone in the family had passed away and she used to wear cat shaped glasses. Apparently, during my birthday party, a balloon had flowed to the ceiling and I had pointed to it and said to my mother there was a lady with quote unquote quainty glasses. Quoting it. My mother cried that day. I don't remember this event, but I remember when it first started, noticing that something was off. I grew up in a house that had two rooms. My parents had to sleep in the living room on the couch, while my siblings and I shared the rooms upstairs. Us three girls had to share a room while my brother had his own. The house had two bathrooms, one usable and one knot, And in the bathroom that was not usable, there was this huge metal thing in the center of the bathroom. My mom explained that it was possibly an old sewing machine that got left behind. But when I tell you that this room was made of nightmares, I meant it had cracked old piles, one window, and no working lights at all, and it was always dark in there, just a room you did not want. To go into. My parents did make it off limits, but children will be children. I remember laying in bed and being able to see that bathroom entrance from my bedroom. A part of me always believed I saw a figure and a pop hat standing there. Imagine that as a child, a man figure just standing at your doorway next to the bathroom that always scared you. Along with this, my mother telling me I saw a man with a large mark on his face next to my bed. When I was going to sleep. I don't recall this either, but apparently I was very shaken by it. I started crying. My uncle was babysitting. As kids, we were allowed on the computer for thirty minutes to play that one pinball game on the old computer in the dining room. I was a kid, so I was always losing the game but having fun while doing it. But this night was different. I lost, like in Norman I, but a pop up window had to appeared and I thought my game had crashed. But I don't remember what the message had said to me. I remember, though, seeing a pixelated demon head opening closing its. Mouth while an awful noise plate. It was dark and deep laughter. That became so immensely and loudly distorted that you could barely tells laugh. I screamed and ran for my uncle, who was already on his way. I was so shaken by this as well. I slept against him on the couch to my favorite TV show. At the time, I chalk this up to be possibly a computer virus. It was the early two thousands. Viruses were going crazy. At that time. You see, I like to try to debunk it. I want to be a rational person, but sometimes there are things that we can't rationalize. There's another time where I was walking down the stairs at night and I saw a shadow of a man getting closer to me. But when I expect to see the man, as the shadow approaches, only my cat walks by instead, with no man in sight. Another time, my dad invited his brother over, and as the adults played cards and board games, my sister and I were upstairs singing to our Disney Princess radio. Out of nowhere, we heard a bang. Upon looking at the window, we saw a hand. The fingers and palms were all different callers. We could hear all the adults downstairs, my uncle, my dad, and my mother. We didn't own a ladder, and my dad and uncle walked around the house multiple times. While my mother consoled us. That's when I realized I wasn't imagining things, because my sister saw it too, And from that point on things got more aggressive and more terrifying, more physical. We had a small hole in the wall against the stairs, and for some reason, being a kid, I stuck a pencil into it. I did have an eerie feeling about it at the time. I blew it off, and then something grabbed it. I remember the pencil being yanked so hard my body hit the wall, and as I yanked it back, whatever it was yanked. Harder until I eventually let go. Because I was scared. I debated looking in the hole, but decided against it. Rats or mice can't tug on stuff that hard, and I can't rationalize it. Maybe my father was on the other side working on the wall, but no, this hole was pitch black. I would have seen the exit hole had there been one. I remember playing paddy Cake on those very same stairs with my older sister. Suddenly she did not fall, she did not sleep, She got pushed and tumbled down three stairs. Her nose was bleeding, and my father immediately out of me, thinking I had pushed her my big sister had defended me. She looked shocked and pale, but she never spoke about it after that. I thought that would be the climax of it all. But I was wrong, because this memory here will always make me believe in the paranormal, no matter who tells me it was just an over imagination incident. I know and remember fully what happened that night. When I was little, I loved snuggling to my mother, so I would go downstairs and. Sleep with her on the couch. I remember being so happy and excited, like I always was when I got to sleep with my mom after waking up halfway through the night. But going down the stairs, I stopped near the bottom. I thought maybe the dogs my parents had to keep for my dad's cousin was eating. He was outside in the shed where he could go outside and take care of his business or go inside and sleep against this big care beard stuff animal I'd given him that nye. Pats could not make this noise. Imagine hearing someone eat sloppy, messy, like whatever they were eating was something wet. Imagine foods like spaghetti, enchiladas, things like that, and someone wolfing it down as if they were on a time limit. Smacking, lips, slurping, chewing with mouth open, mouthful type of noises. But I knew this wasn't human immediately. I knew why because imagine the sounds with aggressive noises too, grunts, growls, heavy breathing. And then, to top it off, I heard cracking, like whatever it was eating had bones. It was snapping, crunching and eating it. I thought my parents had died. I had to do something, and in my brain I had to see what was happening, what if my parents needed help. Looking back, I don't know if I was curious or just brave. I felt electricity shoot through my nerves by this sound alone. I don't know what made me investigate further, other than my parents possibly being in danger. I needed to have answers. I stood in front of the living. Room doorway, trying to strain my eyes to see anything in the pitch black room, and I stood. There were fell minutes, and then I heard it. A grunt, an abrupt, confused, short grunt, as if it acknowledged me, as if it didn't know I was standing there, and I was caught at the wrong. Place, wrong time. There was this deafening pause I couldn't even hear my heart pounding, but I felt it my breath pitched. If I stayed perfectly. Still, I would be okay that maybe if I didn't move a muscle, whatever this thing was couldn't see me or hear me, maybe. It would leave me alone. Maybe I could leave and get help or pull someone. I don't know. All I knew at the time was not to move and to not make a peep my heart. I'm sure it was pounding so hard someone could easily feel it. I truly thought this was how I was going to die. And then running. It was running. I could hear it rapidly coming at me in the darkness. I knew it was dangerous. I knew it could outrun me. I stayed perfectly still. My eyes kept looking through the light switch in front of me. The noise was hypnotizing alone, It's all I could focus on, and then deafening as it got closer and closer. It was running on board lanies. I could hear that much snarling and growling about me. Again. I have no clue what came over me to actually move, but I remember why I did it. I can only describe it as a mother's love and a trust with her child. My mom pulled me multiple times paranormal hates lights, even gave me a night light in my room after finding out about all the stories I told her. I trusted my mother and I didn't know what else to do. Right as I could hear it nearing doorway, I lunged forward and flicked the light on. Nothing. All the noises stopped. It was silent. My eyes adjusted to the light as I stared in every note, trying to find anything that would scream danger to me. But nothing. Even as a little girl, I wanted to rationalize this. My father was sleeping on the floor, my mother sleeping on the couch, undisturbed, both sleeping peacefully. No scratch marks in the carpet and empty pizza box, door lock, no animals, TV off remote on the side. Table, absolutely nothing. I turned off the light. I didn't want to wake my parents, but I stood there in case I heard it again beside. I ran over to my mother and climbed on top of her as fast as I could, bearing myself against her body as I tried to sleep, and eventually, somehow I did. After that incident, all those things stopped. I grew up and never really spoke about it unless talking about paranormals. I will always hold. These memories fond in my heart, and despite growing out of these beliefs I saw into adulthood, I will also always be fond of my mom's loyalty to her faith and teaching me as a young girl. To this day, she's still. Religious and speaks to me about that faith. I spoke to her about growing up in that house where it all started for me. I wanted to hear her point of view now that I was adult and I can understand better. I started off by telling her that my earliest memory I could recall was seemingly crawling on the floor and everything had a yellow tent to it, and I was heading to a bowl on the ground and I heard a high pitched dog bark. She was shocked and confirmed that she remembered that day too. Apparently I had a habit of trying to eat out of the hospital, and the small dog we had named Sassy chased after me and actually tried to attack me over it. She was shocked. I remember that. It's what I believe my first conscience memory. I told her I remember other stuff and went. On about the paranormal things. She one hundred percent agrees with me. Her and my father. Actually, my father, I don't believe was a believer of the paranormal until we lived in that house, and she confirmed and stated we lived in a haunted house and that paranormal things happened to them as well. Remember the man by my bed with the mark on his face and neck earlier in the story, My parents believed that was my grandfather. To night, my grandfather had a birthmark on his cheek down to his neck. I saw the photos. My grandfather died before I was born. My father was only seventeen when he lost them. That was really rough for my father. He was a hard working man. He had five children. He was very work motivated. He was a family guy, and I wish I would have gotten to meet him, I really do. My dad always says he was like the father that you'd count on, you know. And my mother said there was a breaking point and she was streaked out that she came home and she was yelling at the house, like just yelling, like we get it. If you're worried about your grandbabies, they're okay, stop worrying about them. They're protected, they're safe, they're this and just yelling out to any spirit that's listening, hoping it's my grandfather. And if she was able to tell him, hey, they're okay, stop all this, he'd be able to, like, rest easy. I remember my. Mom explained to me that she went to a pastor to seek advice. I know she told me that the advice she did receive did help. But upon hearing this, I wonder if my grandpa was checking on us in the shadow of the man. What if that was him without me noticing. I wonder what he would have thought of me? And how do you truly come to visit us if he were hurting about having to see us in a spiritual way rather than physical. I wonder if he still checks on us every now and then. I wonder if any of our loved ones I lost check on us, if they're able to, and where they are now. One thing I cannot shake is that night. I can find comfort in my mother's explanation, but pushing my sister along with the memory, I can't forget that couldn't be my grandpa, And to this day I. Don't know what it could have been. But whatever's on the other side, I don't think I want to know what it was. Now. I'm all grown up, move out of state, and I'm in a relationship. And despite these events not happening since then, in the back of my head, I always remind myself that when I walk to the bathroom at mind, when I'm home alone with my girlfriend's at work, when I least expect it as I enter a room, what if it comes back. To share your true story with our community, head on over to true scarystory dot com and fill out the form. Everybody gets a response to get in touch with me. You can find links to everything in the description of this episode. Thank you very much for listening. Keep it scary everyone, See you soon.