I’m going to try to explain the scarier one. I’ve only told two people about this because I worry people will think I’m insane, but here goes. Sorry about length, it’s a hard story to explain.

It was around the time of the cemetery incident, maybe six months later, when this started. I was at church on a Wednesday night. My family was really religious, so I spent a lot of time there, and it felt as comfortable to be there as it did in my own living room. My parents had dropped me off early so they could get some errands done, but I didn’t care. I didn’t see anyone else there yet, but I headed back to my classroom for the night and was hanging out. I got bored after a bit, because there’s only so many times you can review your bible memorization homework. It occurred to me that I had been in the classroom across the hall that Monday and seen a bed of irises outside the window that were about to bloom, and I had wondered what color they were, so I walked over there to look.

The other classroom was set up lecture-style with a podium at the far side of the room next to the window and rows of chairs facing it. I went down to the window and was looking out - the irises had bloomed and they were that really dark purple color.

Suddenly, I knew I was being watched. And whatever was watching me, I was scared of it. All my hair stood up, and I felt like I couldn’t move. I don’t know how to explain it, but there was something sitting in the chairs behind me.

It felt like it took forever for me to be able to turn around, but it was probably only a few seconds. I looked at the chairs, and they were empty. But then, something happened and this is the hard thing to explain. It was like a filter dropped into place for me and I could “see” on a different level what was there, like a heat vision overlay, but with color. And it was terrifying. There was this large thing sitting there, arms crossed, looking at me. And I swear to God, it saw me seeing it, and it grinned at me.

I don’t know how I got out of there. I was so afraid of that thing and its long arms looked like they could grab me if I tried to get past along the aisle. I must have run. I ran back to my classroom and held my bible and prayed that it wouldn’t follow me. I couldn’t believe what I had seen, couldn’t even wrap my brain around it. Eventually I heard voices and other people coming to class and I realized I couldn’t tell anyone, they’d think I was a liar or making it up. So I tried to look normal and put it out of my mind.

I didn’t see it again for a while, and I was trying to forget about it. But one night, I was at the church alone early again, and I was walking back to my classroom when I saw it. It was hanging out in the lobby, and it was standing this time. It was so tall, and its arms were so long with these long fingers. And it saw me.

I was panicking, but the sanctuary was right there, and I thought, ‘sanctuaries are holy, whatever that thing is can’t come in there’ so I bolted in through the door and ran down to the altar. I turned around to look back toward the door, and saw it swing open as it walked in. It walked down a few rows and sat down by the aisle, looking at me.

And at that point, I was absolutely terrified. Whatever it was, it opened the door, so it was real. And it was in the sanctuary, so there was nowhere it couldn’t go. I was there for a long time, crying and shaking, but I eventually went up one of the side aisles and out a side exit and ran as fast as I could away from there. I waited outside the church for a while until I saw someone else from my class coming in and stuck close to them.

That thing started waiting for me every week. Sometimes in the lobby, sometimes in the hallway back to my classroom. I couldn’t tell anyone, because they’d think I was crazy or lying. I never saw it leave the building, so I think it was stuck there. It wouldn’t bother me if I was with other people, so I started only going places where there were other people. When I was alone, it would chase me, but it never actually touched me. But being near it filled me with this insane primal fear and I would feel like my heart was going to stop.

When I was 12, I was sent to a class at church to find out what my spiritual gifts were, and the pastor said that I had the gift of Discernment of Spirits. Depending on your denomination and church, that might be interpreted as anything from having a good sense of what a person is feeling and knowing the truth behind what they’re saying to a way more literal interpretation that you can see angels and demons. After that, I prayed so hard for God to take away my gift. Because whatever that thing was, I didn’t want to see it.

My family moved out of state when I was 13, so I don’t know if that thing is still there or if I can still see it. I don’t want to find out.