That night, I decided to sing a version of Rue's Lullaby from the Hunger Games, that I'd found on the internet. I listened to the music through my headphones and watched the lyrics on the screen of my iPod, even though I knew them perfectly.
As I sang in the dark, I became aware of a shadow that seemed to slowly appear and disappear, in the far corner of the room. The shadow seemed to fade in and out of existance. The more I sang, the more visible the shadow became and once I'd finished singing, I decided perhaps I should try to communicate with it. Maybe it was a spirit of some sort.
"Is anyone there?" I asked, "Tap once for yes, twice for no," suddenly, there was a tap that echoed loudly throughout the room. "Are you a man? Once for yes, twice for no," two tapping noises soon followed. "Did you like my singing? Once for yes, twice for no"
I noticed the strange shadow seemed to nod as it faded in and out of existance and a knock soon followed. My heart hammered violently in my chest and I attempted to force myself to remain calm but it was hard. I was absolutely terrified.
"Well, if you want, I'll sing the same song for you tomorrow," I said, "but right now, its time for me to get some sleep, goodnight"
I forced myself to settle in bed and ignore the young presence I could feel in the room. But there was more than one presence that I could sense in the room. I seemed to also sense a male, a much old male, yet I couldn't see him.
Eventually, I managed to get to sleep, only to be awakened two hours later by the song playing on my iPod again. I wondered whether I'd forgotten to turn it off, and so I turned it off and went back to sleep. Several more hours passed and I was again, awakened but this time, it was because of a vivid nightmare. I had dreamt that my corpse was rotting in my bed and I'd only moved slightly, to see my entire hand engulfed in strange bugs which I'd attempted to shake off and had caused me to awaken. I decided what would be good for me was to go to the toilet and so I did but upon my returning, I heard it again. The sound of Rue's lullably playing from my iPod. Again, I turned it off and thought nothing of it.
But then a third time, I was woken by another nightmare. A vivid nightmare of a young, psychotic woman chasing me throughout the building before she found me hiding in a wardrobe and continued in hacking me into several pieces. When I awoke, I heard the same song playing through my headphones again and turned it off. It was the very last time that I woke up to hear the song playing that I got so sick of it, I took out my headphones and threw them across the room.
It was 8am sharp when I finally woke naturally, I turned over onto my opposite side and face the door to see my headphones lay neatly beside me. 'But didn't I throw them across the room?' I wondered silently, feeling absolutely terrified.
