I wound up disappearing into my room after that whole deal, having had enough of whatever was going on in his room. As long as it stayed there, that was fine with me.
And so I went back to my room, where I sat on the floor in front of my radio, as usual, and stewed. It’s what I was always doing. Brooding, and stewing. About life. I was always brooding about everything that was wrong with my life. Because I had no working car, and was stuck way out in Rancho Santa Margarita, the middle of boring nowhere, with no way to get out and go anywhere except for the buses. Had absolutely no money, that’s how bad things were financially, and completely hated my day job with a passion, but was trapped and had to keep working there… because again, I had no money and no car, and it was a bus ride away.
Side note about the day job situation – I was working full time as a front desk/administrative assistant for the branch office of a real estate agency specializing in high end mansions, especially in Coto de Caza and Dove Canyon. This was literally “Real Housewives of Orange County” territory, which launched several years after I’d left. An original cast member of the show worked in this exact office as an agent during the six months I was there, so we overlapped. Though I never spoke to her directly, since I only actually saw her there in person once, at a company meeting. She was one of the only agents there who actually had an onsite office, though she pretty much never came in. She was already D-level famous while working there as an agent, her hayday having been back in the 80s, which is why I think she was given preferential treatment with the office. After the show launched and I saw it in the media, and saw that she was in it, I was just like OH MY GOD!!!!! HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!!!!! Meanwhile two other MAJOR cast members of the show worked out of the San Juan Capistrano office, also as agents. This job would go down for me as being the absolute worst place I’ve ever worked at for the next fourteen years, finally upstaged in 2014 by an even worse place in Boca Raton, FL.
The thing that made it so bad was the head woman/agent in charge, whom I’ll anonymously refer to as M___, as well as the women who worked in the office. What’s funny is that during my interview, when everybody was so nice and friendly, they had warned me about the potential for the agents to be very…..demanding, to put it mildly, with troubled personalities. When in reality it was the women giving me this warning who wound up being the problem. I wound up getting on with all the agents just fine, whether male or female, no problems there. The agents just wanted to be taken care of, and so long as you did that, which I did and did well, then they’d love you. The office women though? Cold, disdainful……and jealous. Something I didn’t realize and fully understand until years later. There was no getting a compliment out of them.
Lot to say about it, but I didn’t realize that my 25 year old self naturally had so much of what these crazy bitches wanted, but no longer had…and maybe never had even in their best days of youth. Long, naturally thick hair, dyed strawberry blonde, versus fake extensions; 5’3” and 105 pounds without trying, able to eat anything I wanted, no dieting required. Perfect teeth – no caps and veneers. Perfect skin and healthy looking face in general requiring next to no makeup – no wrinkles, zits/acne, enlarged pores or discolored spots. There’s a reason I was hired on the spot….but my personality and background didn’t match them, at all. I may as well have been a literal alien from another planet. These women ran in circles I didn’t understand, the extremely rich of southern California, overlapping with Hollywood, where image and looks is absolutely everything, and where every female they cross paths with is sized up and scrutinized with competitive jealousy.
Once I was brought on the weird 180 happened, and after that it was constant passive aggressive Mean Girls from Hell from the women in the office, like nothing I’d ever experienced at another job. M___, who was not only my boss, but who oversaw the entire branch, didn’t speak a real word to me for almost the entire first three months I was there, other than to tersely say “good morning” to me while whizzing past up the stairs every day clutching her paperwork, avoiding eye contact. Not even kidding. Who does that?? O.o Friendly in the interview, then total switcheroo starting on my first day, leaving me to figure out the job on my own, with no feedback or input. And no matter how well I did, and how much I figured out and took on, no matter how many compliments the agents gave about me (one of the agents even hired me to work in her home a few times helping her host her personal parties) it didn’t matter. There was no getting a compliment or positive acknowledgment of anything out of the office women, whether it was my boss, or Debbie and Dawn who did whatever they did, I forget, or Lee, the Asian lady head of Marketing. With them it was fake “nice”…….then Jeckyl and Hyde switch to cold and mean, getting in weird little swipes and jabs at me, which yeah, was hurtful. I couldn’t understand why they would keep switching on me like that, pretending to be “friendly” one day, then the next acting like they hated me. The only decent people in the office other than C__ (M___’s son, whom we’ll be returning to later with a vengence O.o :D ) were the Escrow department, who were actually cool. (In fact it was Sydney in Escrow, this hot blonde, blue eyed chick in her 30s, who wondered, deadly serious, why I was struggling so much with work/money, and didn’t just go find myself a Sugar Daddy. She was like, You could EASILY get a rich guy to take care of you, look at you! Meanwhile I just stared at her, completely baffled, like Whaaat? um…..okay……. O.o Still baffled about that to this day. ;D I’ll never forget what it felt like to be there, in that moment, looking at her, listening to her, telling me I could easily go get myself some rich Orange County/L.A. Sugar Daddy, and trying to reconcile that with how I saw my own self. And how far away that was from “WHO I AM” on a soul level. That is NOT “WHO I AM.” I know who I am on a cosmically/density expansive soul level….which apparently does NOT match what I looked like as a human female in my 20s in the year 2000. Who I am/was on a soul level was something more androgynous. Completely removed from gender. Yet liking guys while I’m “here.” And having had multiple boyfriends. So it’s weird. Hence the “huh?!?” bafflement. I never saw myself in the same category as those hot chicks who can effortlessly land rich dudes. But this moment with Sydney clued me in as to how the rest of the world viewed me.)
I immediately became buddies with the only other admin in the office, a nice girl named Shannon who was a couple of years younger than me and worked in the Marketing department. We even hung out outside of work together a couple of times. However the women in the office treated her awful, no surprise, and she was driven out shortly after I started. But this is all important to note because it will come into play later on. I’ve watched a lot of clips on YouTube of RHOC, because it completely brings me back to this time period…but not in a good way. I know what that world and those people are like, and that exact specific area of Coto and Dove Canyon, because I was smack in the middle of it, working for those just like them. For that reason it’s interesting to watch some clips from time to time to give me the “creepy nostalgic shudders.” Interestingly enough this wasn’t the only time in life I would wind up working for or around the extremely rich and sometimes famous. I’ve had several more jobs along the way, both in south Florida, including a high end yachting brokerage firm on the Intracoastal Waterway in Fort Lauderdale, and a well known construction company that builds extremely high end, multi-million dollar mansions, filled with top of the line everything imported from around the world, and sometimes owned by famous people/celebrities. Neither of those jobs were the new “worst job ever” though that was mentioned earlier. But life has put me in situations of being around the poorest of the poor and the richest of the rich, and where I myself was so poor I didn’t have any food or a dollar to spare and was technically homeless at one point, and then later on rolling in dough. I’ve been up and down and back and forth and seen and experienced all sides of it. I think that was the plan though when incarnating….I wanted to experience the Full Safari, you could say. ;)
But with regards to me sitting around stewing every day about this very unhappy job and life situation….Joe began warning me about it. He kept telling me, “You gotta stop doing this. You have to stop sitting here in the same spot, every day, like, grrrrrrrrrr….” He imitated me, frowning, stewing and brooding. “You gotta stop. You’re gonna rip open a window…”
“No I’m not!” I laughed it off.
“Yes, you are. I’m telling you. I know about these things. If you keep doing what you’re doing, then sooner or later, you’re gonna rip open a window. It’s not a matter of IF. But WHEN. You gotta stop. Get up, move around, do something else, go somewhere. Just don’t be sitting there, every day, pissed off, thinking about things.” (On a side note, it was weird how there were rare times like this where Joe could sound so….mature, normal, wise and concerned. Mixed in amongst his criminal mayhem, calculated manipulations, cold indifference and times of total mental case behavior.)
“Yeah, whatever.” I blew him off. I was positive that I was incapable of such things. I’d never opened a window before. But now, after 26 years, I was going to be able to do this? riiiiiiiight.
During this same time period of “stewing and brewing,” on a non-paranormal related side note, after months of Joe shamelessly mooching off of me and no end in sight, having no impetus on his end to make any efforts for anything, I finally flipped the fuck out and verbally kicked his ass one day. A whole shit kicking rant that exploded out of nowhere, that’s it, the final straw. It was after he was pulling his usual manipulative shenanigans, when he knows he’s really starting to skate on thin ice…..so he starts “working it” in terms of pulling out the charming, sincere sounding but manipulative “talk.”
In this specific instance it was this whole speech that basically said, paraphrase, how we’re both in this situation together. He started pacing around while frowning to really convey the whole “I take this so seriously” attitude, while going on about how “it’s a ‘we’ thing,” both of us in the same boat, both of us victims in this “we” thing that’s going on, and how we have to stick together…..and that’s where I just lost it. I was finally starting to really notice how he could switch like that when needed, and just pull out the fake sincere manipulative shenanigans. All talk, no action. Smooth talking bullshit to get you pacified….then back to his shameless mooching. Stick together? Translation – “keep paying my way in life so I don’t have to work or do anything.” :/
“It’s a ‘we’ thing?!? What the fuck are you TALKING about?!? This isn’t a ‘we’ thing! It’s NEVER been a ‘we’ thing! It’s always been a YOU thing! It’s all about YOU, all the time! Me always doing everything for YOU!!! You never contribute a dime!!! You do NOTHING!!! All you do is take!!! I do everything!!! So don’t give me this shit about how it’s a ‘WE’ thing! It’s NEVER been a we thing!!!!” Just lost it, in a way that I hadn’t since he’d been back to SoCal. He just stared at me bug eyed from across the room, not arguing back. I went on, yelling at him that he was going to get a damn job!!! even if it means he has to take two buses each way!!! and get up at 5 in the morning!!! Enough’s enough!!! Because it was his own fault that he destroyed the car I gave him and hadn’t been able to get a job!!! blah blah blah!!!
It was something I wouldn’t have dared do back when he was still behaving as the raging lunatic “triggerhair temper” Joe. If I’d dared to so much as even question him back then about anything he did or didn’t do he would have melted down in a violent rage, as outlined earlier. But this was again, the New Joe. And this new, passive, docile Joe could tell that I meant business. So he immediately signed up with a staffing agency that specialized in blue collar manual labor. And immediately started getting assignments. Which yeah, required getting up before dawn and taking multiple buses out of Rancho into nearby areas like Foothill Ranch or Lake Forest. But he did it. I was actually surprised by his tenacity. They were mostly warehouse types of gigs, though he could never seem to keep any for long term. Kept quitting, acting like he had that luxury, or it was just temp assignments that would eventually run out. But at least there was intermittent money coming in. :/ But the idea of him landing some full time/40 hour a week gig that paid decently, and then managing to KEEP that gig indefinitely……it never actually happened in the entire two years he was back in my life between 2000-2002, in either SoCal or Portland.
Eventually I had my very first incident of something happening in my room. I awoke one Saturday morning at around 9:30 and was lying around in bed fully awake, but with my eyes closed, thinking about the things I needed to do that day. The sun was out, the day was bright and clear. I calculated bus times, and what stores I needed to go to, what things to do……..and that’s when I heard and felt it. The very distinct sound and feeling of somebody ever so gently sitting down next to me on the water bed bumpers. The vinyl made the noise of someone sitting on it. And I felt the presence. There was a person there, calmly and peacefully just sitting there, watching me.
My heart immediately began to race, and my body froze up, and without even having a chance for my logic to override my thoughts and come up with some explanation to deny it, I started thinking, over and over, no no no no no no no! leave me alone! leave me alone! leave me alone! leave me alone! Over and over I thought that, keeping my eyes squeezed shut, afraid to look. My body was still tense.
After a few seconds of unhospitality on my part, I felt like it was gone. I was able to slowly unfreeze, and eventually open my eyes and get up.
I didn’t mention it to Joe. As usual, I put it out of my head, because I continued to dismiss things that would happen.
Not until several weeks later when we were talking about the entities that would “blow through” his room, did the subject come up. I think I had asked if any of them were human, or if they were all “non-human”…and if they were non-human, then…what are they? Who are they? Or rather, who were they? Did they used to be alive? Are they like ghosts?
“I don’t know, but I know there’s at least one human one,” he said.
“Really?” I grinned, perking up, and leaning forward. “How do you know?? Have you ever had any experiences with it??”
“Yeah…”
“Really?? Like what?? What happens? Is it a male, or a female??”
“It’s female.”
“What does she do??”
“Not much. Usually she just sits on the edge of my bed.”
My mouth fell open. Because I remembered the gentle, calm presence sitting on the edge of my bed, several weeks earlier.
I told him about my experience with it, amazed that we had matching stories.
“Sometimes I talk with her,” he said.
“Really?!? You can talk with her?? What does she say??”
He got a self conscious look on his face, and hemmed and hawed about it for a bit, saying it was personal, and he didn’t want to talk about it, that it was between them. I kept bugging him though, Come ON! Just tell me something!
Finally, looking serious, he said, “I don’t know…She’s told me that I should be happier. That I should stop being so angry all the time. Because she can’t be happy. She’s trapped.”
How depressing.
And for awhile, that was the biggest thing to happen in my room. Activity continued to plague the rest of the apartment though.
And then came the night in November that Joe was attacked. And then me, and my attack which came several days after. And that’s when everything changed. What started out as light and amusing and cute entertainment went dark, very fast.
The night Joe was attacked, I woke up to hear him knocking frantically at my bedroom door, saying Carissa! Open the door! Open the door! Please! Carissa!
I woke up right away. Alarmed, I jumped up and yanked it open.
“What’s wrong?!?” I said. He stood there, in a pair of boxers, hugging himself and shivering with teeth chattering.
“Something attacked me!”
“Get in, come on!” I moved over to let him in. “Where’s the cat?!?” I was panicked, and squinted in the dark into his doorway, looking for her. The idea of Kitty left behind, alone, in that room, with something going on…I didn’t have to look far because as usual, she was right there. Followed Joe, going wherever we went, always our little shadow. She trotted in behind him, right on his heels.
Joe sunk down on the edge of my waterbed on the vinyl bumper, putting his face in his hands, trying to get his breath back. His breathing was labored like he’d been running or something. This was the only time I’ve ever seen him in this state. Fear, panic, being wild eyed, not in control…..none of that was Joe’s norm, to the point where it seemed like he was actually incapable of it. So this was definitely a first. I sat down next to him.
“What happened??” I asked.
He just looked up, eyes wide, mouth open a little, and shook his head back and forth in a daze. He finally started to explain what happened.
He had been awakened by this feeling of constriction. At first he thought he was tangled up in his sheets. He soon realized that wasn’t the case. What was in fact happening was that something was wrapped around him, completely around his torso and neck, under and over, leaving only his legs and arms free. And it was squeezing tighter and tighter and tighter on him. Squishing him, and cutting off his breathing. Realizing what was happening, Joe immediately started putting in the fight of his life. Started thrashing about with everything he had, full of rage and panic, but it didn’t work. That thing was latched on and going for it, giving Joe everything it had. It didn’t make any noise. Joe’s legs kicked violently and his arms flailed about, trying desperately to grapple for the edge of the bed, something, anything, to pull himself up. All the while, being unable to breathe. Then the thing would release it’s grip for a second, giving Joe just enough time to inhale a huge panic breath. Until the thing would go in for another round of squeeze and suffocate. This probably went on for up to five minutes, Joe estimates, but, he’s not entirely sure of the time duration. He wasn’t exactly focused on his clock.
Finally Joe tried another tactic out of sheer panic. Stopped putting out rage and violence. Put out a vibe of the pure opposite.
That’s when the thing dropped him. And made its first noise. Joe said it was a screeching noise, sort of like nails on a chalkboard. The noise faded out, and away. Joe was free to move, finally, and gasp for air. He immediately hurled himself towards the door, weakened and out of breath, to come hide in my room. And so here we were.
I felt bad for him…but as always, partly doubted the incident, looking for that logical explanations, that way to discredit it. That former atheist/skeptic always and forever present. I didn’t think that he was lying about it, I was just thinking more along the lines of a night terror, a bad dream. But not an entity that had just attacked him. But I believed that he believed it happened. But I didn’t fully 100% believe it myself, because I wasn’t there.
We talked about the incident for another half hour or so, analyzing it, trying to figure out what that thing was, and what it wanted exactly. Was it trying to kill him? Hurt him? If so, why? Out of rage? The sheer joy of it? Did it want to absorb his energy? And of course, I lectured Joe. I mean, there he is, encouraging these “static critters”, thinking it’s so cute watching them “play” and run in circles around his legs, and welcoming these other entities that are “just blowing through”…shit that’s tinkering with his radio equipment? Poking around his room?? Yanking him out of his body and astrally projecting him to some other world/plane of existence?? I mean, what the hell did he think was going to happen eventually???
I panicked that whatever it was, would make its way into MY room, and go after me.
Joe dismissed that suggestion, immediately turning arrogant. “It can’t. It has to go through ME. It can’t leave my room without going through me first.” He nodded, so sure of himself.
“How do you know everything about the paranormal? What, do you have some kind of Rule Book or something?” I stared at him, annoyed.
He said that he just knew, and that’s how it is. End of story, as far as he was concerned.
I didn’t buy it for one second. If something like THAT had happened, an attack, something actually physically going after him and harming him and suffocating him, then what the hell is stopping it from coming in my room?? What, WALLS? A door?? I don’t think so.
But nothing happened in my room the next night. Went to sleep, woke up in the morning, without incident. And not that I was exactly on edge, waiting for it. A big part of me still believed it was all probably a bad dream that he’d had. I hadn’t seen anything, so I couldn’t just automatically believe it.
The second night after the incident, I came home from another miserable day at my loathed job, flipped on my light, and attempted to relax and kick back, listening to my radio, changing, and forgetting about my day. Except my room didn’t feel right. At all. I couldn’t place what it was. All I knew was that not only did it not feel right, but it didn’t look right either. It had the appearance and feeling of these bad dreams I’d have as a kid…They were non-event bad dreams, dreams where I would be in my bedroom, at night, and my lights would be blazing, the room silent and calm…but yet, it didn’t look right. The vibe wasn’t of my room at all. And I’d be filled with this absolute terror. At something I couldn’t see. I’d be kneeling on my floor, gazing up at my lamp light, frozen, feeling like there was something there…invisible, behind me. I didn’t hear it, or see it. I just felt absolute paralyzing terror. And the room, though seeming to be normal, everything looking right on the surface…would no longer feel like my room. It’s hard to explain. But that’s exactly how I felt now. My room looked like my room, for all intents and purposes. All the same furnishings, knickknacks, clothes, CD’s, books…But it wasn’t my room, at all.
Turning the radio on for familiarity and voices and music and comfort actually only ended up magnifying this. It made the room seem even more distorted and out of whack. The lighting was all messed up…even though it was my regular lamp. It just looked off. Wrong. I’m looking back at it right now, trying to pinpoint what exactly was off about the lighting…The only thing I can really come up with is that it was almost like it was just a little too bright. Maybe even the color too, the hue slightly off from the norm, a little more yellowy than normal. [ Note added in: Several years later I would be reading the C’s channeling material which mentions 4th density bleed throughs appearing as a yellow colored tint to us humans. VERY interesting….)
Feeling tense and apprehensive, and horrifically tired, I decided to crawl onto my bed and take a nap. I was just so drained, but I didn’t know why. I left my light on during my nap, and the radio. Which was bizarre. I can’t normally sleep with such a distraction going on. Bright light? The radio? Usually, no way. It was like subconsciously I needed as many things as possible filling up the room, making it more safe. I fell into an extremely uneasy sleep, with bizarre dreams. Tossing, turning, drifting in and out of consciousness, with the various radio talk shows coming in to my hearing, then fading out again, into another strange, uneasy set of dreams, under the unnaturally bright and glaring and hostile looking lighting of my lamp.
Finally at 7:30, I couldn’t take it anymore. I was so uneasy and apprehensive and even scared, that I had to get the hell out. I didn’t know why. I didn’t stop to think. I just wanted out. NOW. I got up, brushed my hair, brushed my teeth, threw on my shoes, grabbed my backpack, and bailed out into the chilly and clear night air. I left my light on.
I was completely out of it, and totally feeling messed up in the head, in this groggy but uneasy daze. But it felt good to be out, walking, and feeling the refreshing air. I immediately felt 100% safer and better once I left the apartment. Just get me the hell away from here. For as long as possible. That’s seriously how I felt. I didn’t want to be home. I didn’t want to go back there, and intended to stay out and away for as long as I could.
Cars, headlights, street lamps, stores in the nearby plaza, traffic, noise, people, “bustling” life since it was only 7:30. (as “bustling” as Rancho of all places can be.) It felt great.
I got a bite to eat, never snapping out of my groggy daze. Then I went to Crown Books, one plaza over. Stayed as long as I could, until they closed at 10. And only reluctantly left. And when I did, I realized that was it. Everything was closed now. That’s Rancho for you.
I took the long route home, the back end route via Antonio Parkway, to postpone going home. And if there had been something else open later, I would’ve gone there too. And if there had been something open all night, I would’ve just avoided going home for the rest of the night. But there wasn’t. This was Rancho. And so I had to go home finally. I arrived back at 10:30.
My light was still on, my room waiting as I left it. But still not right, not by a longshot.
Uneasy, I just picked up where I left off before…Sleep. Changed, turned off the light, and crashed out under the covers.
Woke up the next morning, without incident.
Went to work. Led my life. Came home. Had a better night then the previous one. Nothing unusual that stood out. The false sense of security. When the enemy retreats temporarily and makes you think the coast is clear. Before they swoop in and strike.
Went to bed, not feeling anything bad or malicious. Fell into a good sleep.
Until I was awakened at 4 am, by Kitty. She was completely flipping out, like a spaz. Running around my water bed bumpers, digging her claws into the bumpers for more attention…she knew I hated that. (that’s how smart she was…..she’d notice any little reaction I had to anything, good or bad, and made notes of it, and then utilized it later. :D In this case continually pausing to dig her claws in to the vinyl, while looking at me with wild eyes, because she knew that was guaranteed to get me to pay attention/focus in on her.) Jump down onto the floor, spaz around the room like a nut, back up onto the bed…around the bumpers, onto my headboard, back around the bumpers. She’s been known to be active in the middle of the night sometimes, but not this bad. This was the worst I’d ever seen her carry on at this hour.
I scooped her up and put her out in the living room, and closed my door. I need my sleep. I had to be up in a few hours. In retrospect I had no idea that her behavior was indicative of something MAJORLY wrong/bad being in the vicinity. She was still relatively new in our lives, I hadn’t learned all of her behaviors yet, and especially with regards to any paranormal activity. But I definitely learned from this incident – Kitty acting like that is a head’s up that I probably need to clear out, ASAP.
I fell back to sleep again and had some dumb dream, then was awakened again one hour later, at 5 am, by a really strange noise in my room. It was coming from over my head, up by the ceiling, to the right.
I lay there on my stomach, face smushed into my pillow, facing the wall to my left. My left eye popped open. I listened, confused.
The only way I can describe the noise is to say it resembled a crackling, popping noise, similar to cellophane, even a little electric-like. So like an electrified, crinkling cellophane. Puzzled, but undeterred, I drifted back to sleep. See, fat people have their food. I have my sleep. And unless it’s a fire happening, I’m going back to bed.
The noise stopped.
A minute or so later, I heard it again. I woke up, again. Listening in the dark, puzzled. Still could not place this odd noise, this sort of popping and crackling electrically charged/cellophane noise. Now it was off to the left, and still up by the ceiling. I racked my brain to place it, but it was the first time in my adult years that there was something completely brand spanking new happening. I felt like my brain was slamming into a wall, unable to process the information as a result. You don’t realize how much of what you experience on a day-to-day basis relies solely on the fact that it’s something you’ve already experienced before – and so that neural connection has been established.
So I closed my eyes, bewildered. I didn’t drift off to sleep this time. I was wide awake, listening to this, from behind closed lids.
Now this mystery noise started coming from all over the ceiling area, traveling back and forth, left to right, front to back, crisscrossing my entire ceiling, getting louder and picking up speed, right over my head. And it was so obnoxious at this point that I popped open my eyes again and flipped over onto my back thinking, WHAT the HELL? completely confused, squinting up at the semi-darkness, trying to see the source of this noise. (The only light coming in was from light posts outside, drifting in through my closed blinds.)
I never even made it to the point where I would logically think to turn on the light, never even got to the next step, because right then, as I laid there on my back frowning and confused, searching the darkness, something swooped down and in on to me from the left. Screeching and squealing the whole time like this hideous nails on a chalkboard/high pitched feedback noise squeal.
My eyes became saucers and I gasped, seeing this pitch black shapeless form coming in on me, screeching and squealing. It went right for me, wrapping itself around my torso – from the underside up – like a burrito, overwhelming me with the way it felt and sounded. It was this tingly energy….but not in a good way. It was pure negativity, and a bizarre sensation, this buzzing, tingly energy, wrapped around me, in contact with me, this other form, thing, being, whatever the hell it was. Another brand new experience. Nothing I’ve ever felt before. And it was restraining me. I didn’t feel painful constriction. There was no pain at all in fact. Just the feeling of being held into place. And everything I’m describing here all went down in a matter of seconds…boom, boom, boom, one event after the next, overlapping, but all happening very quickly, even though it reads as if it were a lot longer.
Laying there on my back I could flail my arms and legs about, they were still free. It was only my torso area that was completely wrapped and restrained. A human’s most vulnerable part. Limbs are expendable, and not necessary for existence. But the torso houses everything that’s vital for human survival and continuation. All compacted into one little targeted area.
I sat up, straining with arms extended in front of me, taking another big frightened gasp as I tried to get out of my bed. But it pulled me back down, like Where do you think YOU’RE going? I fell back into my bed, slapping onto the water bed mattress. oh god, HERE we go, I thought calmly, feeling all the tingly electrical energy still wrapped up around me. The black colored energy form was lying in bed with me, wrapped around me, and I could hear its continuous squealing/nails on a chalkboard screech.
Very calm. Wasn’t panicked. All my panic just dissipated away as soon as it pulled me back down. I just gave up. Literally, going belly up you could say. I figured it was now going to start squeezing me and suffocating me like it did to Joe. I figured that I was going to die now. And I honestly didn’t care, either. oh well, I thought. I mean, there was no way I was even going to try to fight this thing. From what Joe had described, it was incredibly strong. And if it was all that he could do to fight it off, then forget it, there was no way I could put up as good a fight. I didn’t want to die some torturous, strung out painful death, fighting a losing battle as I’m squeezed and suffocated to death, fuck that.
Went belly up. Here, take me. Do it quick, get it over with.
And as I lay there, accepting my fate, my only thoughts were of…me. Just me, who I am, me, the essence of me, who I am as a person. Who Carissa is/was in this life. Not in words, with adjectives, and not with images of my life “flashing before my eyes.” Just a feeling in general, of what kind of person I managed to become in this life. My entire essence. Taking one final look back as I was about to be leaving this life and body for good. And it was a positive, peaceful emotion. All this came to me in probably one or two seconds while lying there, calmly accepting my fate, and filled with the emotions of all that I am as a person.
And that’s when it dropped me, and went silent.
I snapped back to attention, turned to it, like, Huh?! no longer feeling the icky tingly electrical feeling wrapped around me and restraining me, nor hearing that hideous screeching noise. But it was still there though…this pitch black, shapeless patchy looking stuff, slowly retreating away from me across the bed, breaking up into pieces.
I scrambled up, to the left, reaching out to pull myself up and off the bed to run for the door. I had to actually pass through this retreating black patchy stuff on the bed in order to do it. I didn’t care. I couldn’t feel it though when I did this.
I burst through the door, out to the hallway, and banged on Joe’s door. I could see the pink glow from his neon Marlboro sign coming from his room. He was up and about, as he often was, with his screwy semi-nocturnal schedule.
He yanked open the door, staring at me dead pan.
“What?” he demanded. Now see, THAT’S the friendly Joe I’d come to know so well. ;) :/ His usual surly self.
I just stared up at him, smiling a little weird, and looking frazzled. I figured he’d know what was going on.
“WHAT??” he demanded, because I was just standing there, looking goofy.
“Now it was my turn for something to attack me.”
He just stared at me. Looked backwards, over his shoulder into his room. Back to me.
“Nothing’s been going on in HERE tonight,” he shrugged nonchalantly.
I realized that he was so convinced that this “thing” couldn’t leave his room without going through him that he wasn’t believing me right now.
“No, I’m serious Joe, I think something just attacked me! It may have been a dream, but I don’t think so…”
He stared at me some more. Finally, exasperated, he opened his door all the way and came out to investigate. I followed.
He pushed open my door slowly and stood in the doorway, looking in, checking out my room.
I could see in too, and what I saw was a bunch of that black patchy dust stuff over by my computer, in the air.
His demeanor instantly changed the second he looked into my room. No longer annoyed and irritated, instead becoming serious and concerned.
“Your room definitely has negative energy in it right now.”
“Can you see it?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“What does it look like?” I wondered if he was seeing the same stuff I was seeing.
“Black patchy dust.”
Holy shit. He used the same exact three words I used to describe it.
“Where do you see it?!”
He pointed straight ahead. “Right there. By your computer.”
“That’s EXACTLY what I saw! It’s exactly how I described it!”
So it wasn’t a dream after all.
Joe slowly entered my room, investigating some more, as I sat down on the edge of my water bed. He walked over towards my computer, but didn’t go fully up to it. Stopped, then turned to slowly head back towards the door.
Then he glanced upwards to the area above my doorway, his eyes suddenly getting big, mouth opening a little.
“What??” I demanded, not liking that look. I knew he was seeing something. And I knew exactly what he was seeing. And I was daring him to say it.
He glanced at me, eyes still a little wide.
He closed his mouth, posture slumped a little bit, looked away, tried to play it down. “Nothing.”
I squinted at him, giving him one of my grrrrrrrrrrrr looks. I knew what that was all about, but it wasn’t something we talked about until about a month later. Because deep down, I wasn’t ready to hear it.
At any rate, I wasn’t going to just go back to bed now after that. Joe sat next to me on the edge of the bed and hung out with me for awhile. I told him the whole story of how it happened, how it sounded, how it felt, what it did, and what it was like. About how Kitty was reacting to it an hour before it happened, spazzing out the worst I’d ever seen. I was confused at the differences in what happened to him, versus what happened to me. With Joe, the thing had been silent until the very end, and only then did it emit that hideous screeching nails on a chalkboard squeal, when it was defeated. With me, it was screeching from the get-go…
“Like it was already messed up, and was going for it anyway. Like a kamikaze mission,” I joked.
“That’s exactly it,” Joe said, seriously. “I fucked it up when it came after me, I did some serious damage. Some serious damage. It recuperated for a few days, then it went for it again. At this point it’s very weak. Especially now, after another failed attack. I just think what would’ve happened had it gone after you first…”
He glanced at me, looking nervous at the thought. “If I hadn’t gotten to it first, and damaged it…” He didn’t finish the thought.
“Yeah, it just dropped me, didn’t even try to do to me what it did to you.”
“That’s because I did damage to it. It’s weak. I almost killed it. And that’s what scares me, that it’s so weak and it’s still trying, it’s going after you now. It’s desperate, and that’s not good.”
“What does it want??”
“I don’t know. A body? You have to understand what it’s like when you don’t have a body. You’re floating around out there, on this big empty highway, and the next exit isn’t for another hundred miles, and you’re running out of gas, and food. You’re on E. And you’re desperate. You don’t understand what it’s like. Whatever it is, it’s dying. And it needs a body.”
(Note: I’d love to know how “Joe” knew what that was like. Especially in light of what a very intuitive internet acquaintance would tell me years later, about “something negative taking over Joe’s body,” after “a switch was made.”)
I wasn’t so sure about that. “Yeah, so, then, why try and kill the body? That doesn’t make any sense Joe.”
“I don’t know, I’m just guessing. I’m not entirely sure either.”
And so it went, the way it would always be for as long as we lived there: No answers. We never had any clear cut answers for most of what was going on in that place.
I decided to go and get some breakfast at Carl’s Jr. across the way on the lake, since I was up now, and it was going on 6 am, so they’d be opening. Joe requested some hash browns and a large coffee, so off I went. What a contrast being outside, in the normal world, where the sun was rising, casting shadows on the purple brown tinted Saddleback mountains. The sky was crystal clear and blue, not a cloud in sight, and the air was warm and dry. Cars flew by, this way and that, off to their jobs, in the normal world. Then there was my existence.
After I brought our food back we sat on the floor of the living room/dining area and ate, and talked some more about the whole thing. Pondering explanations, possibilities for “Its” return, whatever “It” was. Then we finished up and went back to our rooms.
Under normal circumstances, once I’m up, I’m up, and awake, and ready to go, with energy. Especially when I’ve eaten, and have caffeine in my system, and especially when I’ve had seven hours of sleep already. Like what the case was then.
But despite the food, the seven hours of sleep and caffeine, it didn’t matter, I was wiped out. I literally crawled back onto my bed and crashed out. I had to be at work at 8 am. I didn’t give a crap though. I had zero energy. There was no way I could be getting ready for work. All I wanted to do was sleep for 24 hours straight.
Joe came knocking on my door at 7:55, and popped his head in, concerned. Which was completely unlike him. He was always very emotionally detached and hands-off. A lot of times just downright ornery and rude, as mentioned. He wasn’t the type to watch out for me or to care about my personal affairs and what I did or didn’t do. Exhausted, I lifted my head and mumbled, I was just taking a little nap……I’m up….
I dragged myself up and got ready for work. Well obviously, I was going to be late. Oh well. I caught the 8:30 bus, and exited at Empressa by 8:45. The day was bright and beautiful and warm, but I was so exhausted I couldn’t really appreciate it. I was literally dragging myself to work, feet shuffling along, eyes only half open, arms slack. Wishing to drink about five gallons of black coffee. Coffee was definitely the first thing I’d be going after once I got to work.
Coffee didn’t help though. I was still dragging around afterwards. And now, the pain was starting to kick in. I noticed it on the way up the stairs to the second floor. My hips of all things were absolutely killing me. I’ve never had hip problems before, so it shocked me. I even looked down at my hips, like, huh?? as I hobbled up the stairs, in pain. This was certainly new.
Then, about a half hour after that, I noticed the rib and back pain when I was back at my desk. I accidentally bumped myself as I was spinning around in my swivel chair. OW! I thought to myself, as I brushed my ribs. I felt severely bruised. I began tapping around my ribs. Ow! Ow! Ow! My whole ribcage felt like it should be a deep black and blue color, because I felt like I’d had the crap kicked out of me in a fight. I pressed my back and found the same to be true in that area also, and all along my sides. My entire mid-section in general was completely banged up. I glanced around to see if anyone was looking. Then I pulled up my shirt to take a look, seriously expecting to see black and blue marks. Nothing. I was puzzled at the lack of bruising, because it felt bruised, let me tell you.
I sat there, confused at my physical state. WHAT is going ON here? My rib cage and back feel bruised, I can hardly walk because my hips are killing me, so I’m hobbling about, and on top of that, I’m dragging around with no energy whatsoever…
wait a minute.
oh.
I was attacked this morning. By something that wrapped itself around my midsection…my ribs, chest, back, hips…and had attached itself to me…probably draining my energy, like we had theorized…
oh yeah, huh.
hello.
It was like a light bulb going off. Just cuz I’m so quick like that, you know. ;) To realize that the whole thing most likely wasn’t a dream, was even more of an eye opener. Because despite me and Joe’s “black patchy dust” matching descriptions, and all that, I still believed that it was all a dream, had to be, because come on, this shit isn’t real! It can’t be. That stuff only happens in the movies.
I’ve never before had hip problems before, or that feeling of my entire mid section being bruised, before then or since. The one and only time it ever happened to me was the morning that I was attacked. The pain ended up lasting a full 24 hours.
That’s something they don’t mention in the movies. But that was another thing…I’d wind up saying that to the people I’d end up telling my stories to…It’s not like in the movies…It doesn’t go the way it does in the movies…
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