As poorly written as this story is, it’s based on true events, without sugar coating or adding any extra excitment here is what happened to me (Victoria).

I was staying with my grandmother when it started very early one July morning.  After a long day I went to bed and was awoken around 3 a.m. out of a dreamless sleep to find my room felt colder than usual.  The only problem with this was the fact I was living in the Caribbean at the time, and in the summer rainfall and the ocean breeze was the only two things that lowered the temperature. There wasn’t a steady supply of ocean breeze or rainfall that year, and to make matters worse my grandmother didn’t have air conditioning.  Living in a warmer climate one would think that ceiling fans would be included in the apartment’s decor, but they weren’t so we had to rely on upright fans. I recall that the days were hot leaving residual warmth still lingering in the air long after sun set. The concrete wallsof the apartment also added another level to this warmth as they trapped heat which was released into the rooms durng the night, so it was bazaar when I awoke to a temperature that was abnormally cooler than usual.

Feeling this cold air I opened my eyes to a dark room and saw hints of blue lights coming from the street light outside. Laying on my back I looked around using only my eyes then tried to grab for my covers.  At that moment I felt a strange weakness in my hands that stopped me from moving. I tried again to grab for something to cover my body, but I couldn’t move.  After my second attempt at moving my body, I grew scared as I found that my body was numb. My eyes and ears were the only functioning part of me so I scanned the room while quietly listening for sound.  As I laid there trying to move and scream all at once, I started blinked vigorously until something popped into my memory. This thought came from something my grandmother once said about the devil sitting on a person’s chest.  As usual I thought my grandmother was being silly, but the way she described it perfectly described what was happening to me at that moment.  When that thought came to mind, I grew worried and I hoped that the devil wouldn’t make an appearance that morning.  Fear took hold of me as I willed myself to get up or scream, but I couldn’t.

The longer I was in this state, the more fearful I became of seeing the devil so I closed my eyes just in case he was about to climb on my chest and look dead in the eyes. Just then a clip from Rosemary’s Baby popped into my consciousness, and the images of the devil’s eyes came to me. Seconds after I started remembering all these things, I was released from the strange hold and left wondering what was really going on.  I didn’t think much of this incident and gladly assumed that perhaps my body was too tried to move.

Weeks after that incident something else happened. I couldn’t remember the exact time frame, but I knew it happened a few weeks after my 3 a.m. awakening. It was a normal Friday evening, and my brother was off visiting our cousins who lived less than 5 miles away.  My brother was a loyal gamer who toted his PlayStation, game controllers, and games around in a book bag. He often seek refuge in the company of other teenage boys playing games well into the early hours of the morning. That Friday afternoon he got home from work around 2 p.m., then left the apartment an hour after he arrived. He showered, ate and then packed his bag, and started his walk to our uncle’s house. He left around 3 p.m. and by 6 p.m. I got a sudden urge to call and check on him. This was strange because I was never very considerate of my brother’s wellbeing especially when he was off playing video games.  I remember telling him that if he was going to say out playing after 9 p.m. he was better off staying overnight or having our uncle drive him home.  Our uncle worked at a luxury hotel, and on the weekends he had an extra job as a card dealer at the casino. My brother and cousins loved this because they had longer intervals of gaming without adult interruption. After my first call that evening I called again at 8 p.m. and repeated the same sentiments to him.  I had no real idea why I was doing this, all I knew was that I was having a deep urge to do it and a growing feeling of anxiety towards him being out that late which was unusual. Being out late was something he often did, even while living in the bad neighborhood my grandmother occupied. Then when 9 p.m. came around I called him again and told him not to walk home, but I had a feeling that he wasn’t paying attention to me.  At the same time I didn’t truly know why I was telling him this and why I had a growing feeling of worry.  The only way I could describe it was like having something nag at you, but you couldn’t truly understand what it was. It was a mixture of having butterflies in my tummy and a worry on your mind all at once. I felt hopeless because I couldn’t tell where the worry and anxiety was coming from. I only could conclude that it started spontaneously three hours after he left the apartment. As the night process it grow into a feeling I couldn’t quiet distinguish, and only could explain as queer anxiousness mixed with an unknown excitement.

As the hours progressed into night, and then the night turned into something mysterious my worry for him grew.  After 10 p.m. I gave up watching movies and slipped into the same bed I was paralyzed in weeks earlier. For a while, I tossed and turned but it didn’t take me long to fall asleep.  Then all of a sudden I heard a cluster of knocks that woke me some time after 3 a.m. That night I couldn’t remember dreaming, and while more than two hours elapsed from the time I placed my head on the pillow, it felt as if I had recently closed my eyes only to have them open to the sound of loud knocks at the front door.  My grandmother reached the door first and pulled it open wide enough to expose my brother standing there looking like a ghost crossed his path. He had a look of fear on his face and was covered in sweat while trying to pant out words. After he entered the apartment, we learned that he was robbed at gun point for his book bag containing his PlayStation and games. As I listened to this I couldn’t help but angrily tell him that I called him a number of times that night and worried him not to walk home. I wasn’t sure if he was paying attention to me or even took the time to realize that I was uncommonly concerned for him hours before.

After I let it settle in, I pondered on how and why I became so anxious about him in the first place. The morning he got robbed was no different from any other time he spent at our cousin’s home playing game. I locked this event in my memory and tried to rationalize my queer feelings that unknowingly allowed me to predict an event that I couldn’t figure out myself. How and why this happen I would never know, but this became the cornerstone of similar events to come.

To be continued…