The First House That I Can Remember

I've moved around a lot during my life. And many times I have noticed weird things. This is the first home I have memory of. I was there from age four until age nine. I lived in a two story apartment in Brentwood, and not much ever seemed out of the ordinary. Except the upstairs of the house. Mainly just the room I slept in. The whole time I lived there I was terrified of the window of that room. Once my bed was moved next to it, and I refused to sleep there. I even begged to change rooms. I never went upstairs alone.

Now I will tell a few stories about the room. Whenever it was dark, I would only stay in the room if I was already in bed, and the one time the light went out on me I had bolted downstairs faster than the light could exit the room. While I was in bed, the only thing I could ever see was the window, which discomforting light seemed to flow out of, no matter how dark it was outside. And I had a nightmare or two where something pulled me through the window. But my clearest memory of the room's creepiness occurred one day when I was supposed to be cleaning it.

My parents sent me up there alone, which was bad enough, and I had to stay up there for a while. But a few minutes after I had entered I started hearing things. It sounded like someones heartbeat, and was getting louder with each beat. Despite the room's large size, claustrophobia began to set in and I began to panic. I charged downstairs pretty quickly to find my angry parents, but they were better than that room. They were mad and told me to go back in and clean my room. I told them what happened, but they ignored it, thinking I was just a dumb kid, or thinking I was trying to get out of it. But I was adamant. I would not go back in without somebody else. Eventually they accepted it and let me clean it later. But I still continued to sleep in that room, and I have kept my insomnia ever since. I also grew a bit stronger.

If I had been in that room alone more often I probably would have more to tell you, but it terrified me. My family was the first to live there, but the field that my window faced may have had some dead bodies buried there, or the field the apartments were built on. Maybe it was in my room because things like it love me. Who knows? Marsh Creek Apartments, Brentwood California.