I had just moved into a women’s refuge in a city that I had never been to before. The reasons for moving there was to simply move away from an abusive partner and to try to start my life over again. It was a friendly little set up which housed women and women with children from all walks of life that needed the chance to start their lives over.
There was a communal kitchen, laundry, dining room and TV room; though every resident had their own rooms. Depending on the situation you were living there depended on the facilities you were given; if you were a family then you had a larger room than single women. There was no garden or outside space for the children to play due to being so close the city centre, so the children ended up playing on computers games hour after hour. Mainly because the mothers were too scared to leave the house in case they were spotted by people who had hurt them in the past.
My room was one of the basic set ups; it had a single bed, wardrobe, chest of drawers with a sink and mirror. To be honest I had more in my prison cell than I did here, though there was more freedom here of course. There were only two keys to every person’s room, the resident had one and the staff had a back up key.
This was the first time that I had been away from the heroin that I was addicted to with no professional support to help me come off the drugs (mainly because I was too scared to admit I had a habit), so I went through the withdrawals alone. After a couple of weeks of detoxing I felt finally free of the drug and was able to move on with my life, stop being dependant on something that was so awful.
Though one night something strange happened; something that I still cannot explain to this day. I don’t even think it falls under the category of a waking nightmare, though I’ll let you decide and give me your thoughts.
This one night I was fast asleep in my room when I was suddenly awoken by the sound of my door being unlocked. I froze; something inside me said that I shouldn’t look to see who was opening the door as I would be too afraid to deal with the sight that would be before me.
There was gentle shuffling of feet as this person crossed the floor and walked over to my bed. Still I was too scared and didn’t want to listen to these noises.
The side of my bed where my back was facing started to feel as though it were being pressed down, there was someone there. Again, I couldn’t role over to see what was there.
Then there was the feeling of someone breathing over my neck, they were leaning over me looking at my scared little face. The smell was enough to make me not want to know what was there.
I simply froze; too scared to do anything about this person who could have been there to hurt me; damage me; take my life from me. All I could do was lay there and let whatever was going to happen to me go ahead, regardless of whether I lost my life or not.
Then it all went blank.
Next thing I knew was that it was the morning and what ever happened was over. I had never been through anything like this before, so was in shock at what had gone on. I remember looking down at my wrists, where I wore several of those beaded bracelets that were held together by string or elastic and noticed that they were not there anymore.
I hunted the room thinking that as they were beaded and I’d ripped them off overnight that there would be some trace of them being there. I pulled the bed out, tossed the sheets and even moved the furniture to see if they were behind them.
Nothing; there was no sign of these bracelets anywhere. Where could they have gone to? If this ‘thing’ that had lent over me and scared my half to death had taken them then it must have been real. Though all the signs of the experience I felt that night had led to it being a waking nightmare.
The mystery still has never been resolved.
I have had waking nightmares since this event with a similar scenario of something leaning over me; though never where some physical object had been removed from my body.
