The beginning of Nyctophobia

Some habits of us last for a life time, while some change drastically or even turn into extreme opposite, after some incidents.

Till I was 23, I was never ever afraid of darkness. I mean I didn’t have any problem roaming in terrace alone, even at 2am midnight, in a new moon day. It started when I was in 10^th and had to study late night. I used to sleep at 7pm and then get up at 12 and then study. Sometimes I went to terrace to study. I didn’t know what fear was…. Till….

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I used to be in this hostel, which was attached to a convent. It had acres of land around it and there were missing compound walls too. We also didn’t have a security guard. Our room was very small and congested and stuffy with almost zero air-flow. It was a single room, turned into double, by pushing two cots into the place of one, naturally for more profit. As me and my roomie were thin, we could move around with less banging into each other. But whenever a third person came into the room, it was trouble. One of us had to “fly over the beds” which meant, to walk over the cots to reach outside. I am not exaggerating, the room was that small.

As it was Onam holidays, most of the girls had gone home, including my roomie. I was working and didn’t have holidays. I was alone and was enjoying that tiny room to all by myself. I usually sleep with my head near the window, but that night somehow I slept the opposite way. My feet were near the window. And above all, I forgot to latch the window, I had just closed it.

At 4am (later I checked the clock), I felt uncomfortable in sleep and opened my eyes, to find a man towering over me, looking me with intent eyes. He was silently staring at me. My brain went numb.

Where am I?

How came a man, in my room?

What was he doing?

What did he do, to me?

Didn’t I put the latch? …..

A thousand questions popped inside my head. I was literally frozen. As the room was tiny, the man seemed to be inside my room, but in fact he was outside my room, standing up on my window, which made him tower over me. So in my dazed feeling, I didn’t see the window bars that separated us. For me, it was just like he inside my room. A scream was caught inside my throat and I couldn’t move my body. Seconds passed by. And then he made a move. That movement of him shook me out of my numbness. In a fraction of a second, I just sprang from bed, went near the man (yes, I went near the man!!), banged the windows close, and ran away from my room, all the time screaming at the top of my voice. Actually the sound of my scream made me realize that I was still alive!

I couldn’t stop myself from screaming for the next 10 minutes. My scream echoed all thru the convent and sisters came running to hostel (in their nightclothes without veil!). I couldn’t talk. My throat was sore, cos my scream was so much high pitched! After half an hr, and after 3 glasses of water, finally I could speak. Of course, sisters didn’t care. They told that it was common that men/thieves came to girls’ hostel (!). They scolded me for not putting the window latch.

That morning, I went home and told dad my experience and he wanted me to move into another secure hostel.

But things didn’t end there.

I became paranoid of windows. Once I had gone to bed, I started checking closed (and latched) windows every 5 minutes, even at home. I would imagine latch coming lose from windows and go again to check it. I started screaming saying that I saw shadows moving thru windows. Amma lost sleep cos of my daily screaming. So she asked me not to close my room, so that she can check on me. That caused more trouble, cos I started screaming when she came to my room, to check, even in my sleep. I could sense her “footsteps”. This phenomenon lasted for over a year, and later lost its intensity. But never could I go to terrace alone after 7pm, again. I was always thinking of someone lurking behind my shadows.

Later I heard that my experience became a story in hostel, to be told when girls didn’t put latch on their windows!!!

Even now, I am scared of darkness. And I know my fear-less days of solitude in terrace are gone forever now. Thanks to that strange psycho!

And to think that I am even writing a blog on him!!