Primal

The “paranormal” world is composed entirely of the nightmarish delusions of terrified and insecure humans around the world, enriched by centuries of cowards and uneducated bumpkins; people who would rather take stock in the undefined hullabaloo of “beings”, the metaphysical, the demons of their own minds, as opposed to the rationality and cold, hard truth of science and contemporary knowledge. None of that actually exists, there is nothing that we cannot explain or understand.

The primal human mind can be a powerful and terrifying entity.

I can say with utmost certainty that I am the most down-to-earth person you could possibly encounter. But after what I have seen and felt with my own eyes and body, I’m writing this more for my own sanity than anything else; perhaps there may be some kind of twisted solace for me in these words. But if there is indeed an underlying purpose for this document, some “moral” that may be conveyed to the rest of the world, it is to confirm that there are truly some things in this world that we humans, the supposed epitome of rational thought, have not yet understood, nor would we ever want to understand.

Reader, let me ask you now; what really terrifies you? When you read a scary story, is it really the words on this screen that scare you, the integration of several choice “spook” sentences into an otherwise rather bland and cliché narrative about a boy alone in the woods with a tall, faceless monster waiting to jump out from behind a tree?

Or is it something more.

Something intensely psychological, beyond the words that make you nervously check over your shoulder, peering through the darkness at the ajar closet door; when your perception of the physical world begins to turn on you. Something malevolent steals control of the synapses and signals firing off in the recesses of your brain, toying with your emotions. You are helpless. Primal hypersensitivity and rapid breathing take over. And sitting in the suddenly abnormally still, silent, cold darkness of your bedroom, you realize that you really are not as safe as you believe yourself to be. This is the insidious, cold realization, percolating down your neck in tendrils of pure frozen nerve sensation, that you may be in very real danger. Sitting alone in the silent darkness of your once-familiar room, the pale artificial light of a computer screen reflecting on your face, and God knows what else.
Maybe that is what this is to you; simply another scary story, isn’t it?

You could not be more mistaken. I could not be more serious.

I am a boy of nineteen, a teenager in all the various connotations of the word; a University engineering student with a penchant for alcohol, intelligent debate, and women.

Several days ago, I was at a house party with a buddy of mine, and as usual, we got to drinking and fraternizing with much mirth. Being the self-proclaimed intellectual I am at heart, however, I eventually found my way into a small group of individuals who were having a debate about ghosts, entities, demons, and the general subject of the paranormal and otherworldly in a rather inconspicuous corner of the room. In retrospect, it is possible that these fellows were even more drunk than I, because there is no other way that such a subject would arise so naturally in normal conversation in such an environment, and be spoken about with such excited and feverish fervor. There is also no other way that we could have so carelessly set off the events that shook me to my core and destroyed the rational world I had clung to for so long.

As I mentioned before, I had been raised to take no stock in anything that I could not see, touch, feel, or otherwise explain through rational thought and observation. As such, my automatic alcohol-fueled reaction to the conversation of this group of paranormal worshippers was to completely put down and argue against their stupidly misguided bullshit stories and beliefs. And, since I wasn’t the only one drunk and preaching my beliefs in that group, I got a lot of retaliation and threats. Nothing truly malicious though.

Until one guy stepped up to my face, alcohol permeating every word, and amidst the din of the party challenged me to step into the unlit restroom, stare myself in the eye of the sink mirror’s reflection, and “summon Satan in my own place.” These are the words he said to me.

Now, you may think that there’s some kind of chant or mantra that you’re supposed to utter to make something like this happen; it brings to mind the classic party gags of “Bloody Mary,” or the “Butcher in the bathtub,” or whatever. But this was not it.

What I was told to do was to look into a mirror and simply concentrate on the intention to summon something from the other side, in my own place. Whatever that meant, I knew not then.

I am sorry to say that I know now.

I of course agreed, with much jeering and cheering, if only to prove a point. I was ushered into the designated bathroom, and the door was quickly shut behind me.

Instantly my world shrank into a claustrophobic and pungent box of muffled amped radio pop, regurgitated svedka, and the sounds of sex-crazed teenagers; my brain shocked my body into an instant of panic as my physical world changed so suddenly. But after that instant, I was calm. My eyes adjusted quickly. I perceived a toilet that would no doubt be filthy if illuminated, but in this combination of blurred atmosphere and alcohol it appeared to me merely as a blob of gurgling yellow porcelain. The wallpaper peeled in a pool of sickly light from a dirt-stained window. The sink was directly opposite me.

I stepped up to it, leaning my weight on my hands as they grasped the wet metal of the sink’s handles, and stared into my own reflected eyes with a sigh. My thoughts wandered as my physical eyes locked with identical metaphysical ones in the mirror. It was too dark to see any real emotion or intent in them, but I stared into those shadow eyes anyway. At this time, I felt no fear at all.

I, of course, do not recall exactly how long this continued for; nobody ever would be able to in a situation like this. It seems to me that, in moments of high adrenaline and rush, sense of time becomes distorted and in retrospect, only the jarring moments of euphoria or horror of an experience are vividly recalled without any reference to any sort of chronological flow of events. Not to mention that I was very drunk and very sleepy; probably shouldn’t have downed that eighth shot of Grey Goose so greedily.

That is why I do not recall exactly when I felt it, or exactly when I saw it; I only recall the sensation of panic and shock I felt when it happened.

…reader, do you know what true fear is? Do you really know it? At that moment, I did.

My reflection, face covered in shadow except for my lips and nostrils, was still my own. But it was not me. It was my nineteen year old frame, but not dressed in the flannel, jeans, and drink-stained frat shoes that I remember seeing in the mirror seemingly moments before.

It was my naked body, completely naked; every inch and section so familiar to me, down to the small pockets of fat and muscle. But its face was something that only the darkest, most twisted mind could possibly comprehend, and even then, not to entirety. It was an image of me that was deeply violating, deeply disturbing, primal and terrifying. Its lips had been curled back into a leer that penetrated my core with a nerve-deadening cold. And its eyes, cold and dead as they were in that lightless place, bore into my own with an illuminated, deathly, supernatural intelligence far beyond my own mortal one. It knew me so well, the depth of its knowledge seemed to transcend anything I was capable of understanding; I felt absolutely powerless.

It was not me. Oh God, but it was me. And it wanted me so badly. It wanted to possess me. To murder me and take my place.

The sight of its pale, familiar form and those God-forsaken eyes scared me, yes.

But what actually instilled pure terror in me was the knowledge that this thing was, indeed, me… a perfectly flawed, primal version of myself.

It is this that stood before me, long before its time, long before it should have had its brief instant in our world, but still in the mirror. And the sensation that rocked my body in undulating waves of panic and despair, standing alone in that dark bathroom; that is what I call true fear.

My brain wanted to throw my body back, away from this thing in the mirror, but I instead involuntarily pitched forward sharply and vomited explosively into the sink; I saw my naked body in the mirror mimic my motion, but instead, it simply dry retched. No alcohol left its lips because it had no physical body to put the stuff into.

It was only then that my knees gave, and my body slumped to the ground; I had one last fleeting view of the thing as it also buckled, falling in a sickly slumped motion to the ground, its dead eyes locked onto mine, before my chin connected with the hard marble of the basin edge and I hit the dirty ground of the bathroom. I lost consciousness instantly, the terror of the moment still sharp. It was such a horrible feeling.

I woke up with my buddy peering down at me, a sea of faces reflecting expressions ranging from amusement to mild concern. The music had been turned off. The group that had issued me the challenge in the first place was regarding me from some distance. I began to sob. It was too much for me.
I believe after that, the paramedics were called and the party disbanded as the house was bathed in the flashing of emergency vehicle lights and the car headlights of concerned neighbors.

It has been a week since that night. I am no longer afraid, but I am still very shaken. I have thought deeply about the experience, and it is from these ruminations that I have come to the conclusions and theories of what I saw in that mirror on that night; but then again, there are many other factors and forces at play here that I doubt I can possibly understand in my still weakened state of mind. I still use my bathroom normally, and I do not fear my reflection; I am far too rationally-minded and sober to be so silly.
The human being is really a self-centered specimen. Beneath the guise of society’s standards, virtues and commandments we dictate ourselves to strive for, there will always be a moment where a truly ugly version of ourselves comes out; a primal, evil being that we are terrified to acknowledge. It is a presence of its own, something we desperately bury deep within ourselves for the entirety of our brief existences, and scream to stay away from us, to our dying breath, when it finally can claim us for just a moment in our death throes before our consciences depart and the body becomes a home to nothing at all.

We live our lives trying to be good human beings, to accomplish wealth in both familial relationships and financial security. We just try to be the opposite of bad. I’ve come to believe that, in a sense, it becomes our pursuit in life to deny this creature possession of our body until the moment we die, when we simply cannot deny it anymore.

“The ‘paranormal’ world is composed entirely of the nightmarish delusions of terrified and insecure humans around the world, enriched by centuries of cowards and uneducated bumpkins; people who would rather take stock in the undefined hullabaloo of “beings”, the metaphysical, the demons of their own minds, as opposed to the rationality and cold, hard truth of science and contemporary knowledge. None of that actually exists, there is nothing that we cannot explain or understand.”

For nineteen years, this has been my attitude towards the paranormal.

I do not trust in these words any longer.

Credit To – SD