The Psychology of Fear

Stormy Night

Before his students arrived the next morning Professor Henry had to make sure there were no traces of what he had been preparing for them the night before. As the students walked into the classroom he tried his best to give nothing away. He did not want them to have a clue what was about to hit them full force. He got the students seated and told them he was ready to begin. My name is Rebecca and ever since the night of May 13th, 2016 I have had a fear of storms.

Growing up I was never afraid of storms until" The Storm" blew in that night. It had been a perfectly sunny day, but that night a front was coming in and all heck broke lose. As the wind started to pick up you could hear the windowpanes rattling. I thought for sure that we were fixing to have a tornado, but to some extent it was worse than a tornado. As the wind began to get stronger the lights went out. This is the worst storm I had experienced in my life. I soon found out the storm was not the worst of it.

Within a half hour the wind died down and the rain began to slowly taper off, but something was not right. Usually after a storm you hear the frogs merrily croaking, but it was just dead silent outside. Sitting there in the dark with no sound whatsoever was terrifying. I could hear every little creak in the floor and it was pure torture. As I sat there trying to wait for the power to come back on there was a sudden banging sound coming from my attic. I could not imagine what would be making the sound and I was not about to walk up there to find out. As I sat there for what seemed like an eternity listening to a constant banging noise coming from my attic I noticed the room seemed to get even darker. I know that sounds strange, but it felt like the darkness was literally starting to take over even the small amount of light the earth had.My curiosity getting the best of me I walked over to the window by my front door. I looked out and not only was everything silent, but there seemed to be no light from the moon or stars.

Continuing to try to ride out the storm's aftermath a bad thought suddenly occurred to me. Usually my next door neighbor's dog would start barking at night, but I did not hear even one barking noise since the storm had started. Suddenly I was wondering if there was any life outside of mine. As I finished this thought I could hear the windowpanes rattling again, but what chilled me to the bone was that there was no breeze outside whatsoever now. I tried my best to remain calm, but something about this storm was different from all the rest. 

I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard a very loud scraping noise outside my window. Scared to death I grabbed my flashlight and shined it on the window. My heart nearly stopped when I caught the eyes of a creature that did not belong to this earth. He was staring at me and I knew by looking at him that he could break the window at any moment and rip me to shreds. As I stared at the creature to afraid to move, everything started to fade out. The next day I woke up in the hospital. The doctors said that I had apparently passed out and my next door neighbor had found me when she came to check on me.

I could not believe what had happened. Was it all a dream? Did the storm even occur? I had to know what had occurred the night before, so I asked my neighbor about it. She said," Yes, we did have a storm and it was a bad one. The lights went out and I think the storm even scared the animals, because they did not make any noise until this morning. Going home at least I knew my memories of last night were mostly true, but I still had to know whether the creature was real or not. As I looked around my house that's when I knew he was real alright. Looking at the side of my house I could only be grateful that his claws sank into my house and not me.

Since that night everytime it even remotely starts to storm I shutter with fear. I always wonder if the storm brought him with it and if it did would he be back to get me? As Rebecca finished her story the students were all feeling a deep chill. The thought of a creature that big and powerful coming for them frightened them. The Professor could not help but smile inside as the stories became scarier and his students were becoming more afraid. He made sure to keep from smiling and told his class it would be okay. He assured them that after the course was complete their fears would be contained and they would feel much better.