Short Scary Stories

Out of Body Experience.

My life ended in mid-December, the 17th to be exact. I survived a little after that, but that was the last day I lived freely.

I was goofing off on the internet that day, kind of flicking through my newsfeed, reading interesting news stories, that sort of thing. Sometime after one thirty, I found an article on lucid dreaming and out of body experiences.

I skimmed through the article. The author mentioned astral projections and plane walking a couple of times, and other similar terms. I’m not a hardcore naturalist who believes that everything has a natural explanation, but telepathically visiting alternate planes seems far-fetched, especially when it comes from someone trying to sell you something. Still, I was interested. It sounded similar to lucid dreaming, which I’d had fun with once or twice. I thought of them as just a biological glitch.

It’s not like it’d be a challenge to find how-to guides for out of body experiences on the internet, so I won’t bother being super-secretive about it. The goal of out of body experiences is to get your body to go to sleep while retaining consciousness. When you go to sleep, your brain shuts off movement signals to the physical body so that you don’t hurt yourself while you dream. Out of body experiences utilize this feature of the brain to make mind think it’s moving while keeping the body stationary.

The concept arrested my mind. I couldn’t let it go, and I found myself looking forward to the night. I waited for the day to pass, and when night came, I set up safety measures; if something did go wrong, I didn’t want to be stuck in dreamland for an eternity. I set my alarm for an hour after I planned to have my out of body experience, so I wouldn’t be stuck for too long. Hopefully the sound would bring me back to my body in case I couldn’t get back.

So at eleven o’clock, I went to bed and slept. I had trouble falling asleep, but eventually I dropped off. I slept for a few hours, then woke up and went through the process of getting an out-of-body experience. Once I was ready, I took a few seconds to collect my thoughts, then tried pulling myself out of my body.

Once I started forcing myself to move, my perspective altered, and I could see myself from the side as though through a different set of eyes. I could still see with my eyes, but I had a second view from an outside perspective, watching myself. I could still feel my body, but it was distant. I forced myself to sit up and to my delight, I felt myself moving but my body remained still. Through my outside view, I could see a ghost detaching itself from my body. I was elated.

My pleased surprise only lasted a few seconds before I felt my body freeze. Just as I realized that my trick had really worked and that I had no control over my body, an amorphous red cloud filled my vision. It hovered over me for a second, then disappeared as I inhaled.

My body reacted instantly and began seizing up. The spasms made all of my muscles clench, relax, and clench again. In my trance I think I counted four convulsions every second, but I’m not sure how long they really lasted. It was terrifying; I knew I’d set my alarm clock for ninety minutes after I’d begun my lucid dream, but I couldn’t last that long. At the rate I was convulsing, it would only be a few minutes before my heart gave out.

The red cloud obscured my vision, both from the outside perspective and through my eyes, and even worse, I was paralyzed. I tried to force myself back into my body to stop my seizure, but I couldn’t get in. Then I heard the voice.

It was like a grating rumble rasping deep in its chest, but it also had an animal quality, burning with anger. Not a shrieking fury, but slow, deliberate menace.

“My…Name…Is…”

The voice filled me with terror. I wanted to run as far from it as I could get, but I was frozen. Names had power. I didn’t want to hear it, I didn’t want to know it. Just as it spoke its name, I shouted my own name through my convulsions, drowning its voice out. It stopped speaking, as though surprised it had been interrupted. It growled softly as the red smoke began to dissipate, and I fell into my body again. My seizure stopped and I woke up.