A Visit from the Night Hag
This story takes places around 11 years ago when I was 22.
The night began like any other. I had already endured the hour long over crowded train journey home from work, followed by the further gruelling thirty minute uphill walk from the train station to my house. I worked in retail at the time and having been on my feet for a busy 8 hour shift, I was looking forward to climbing in to bed and getting some well deserved rest. Well, that was the plan anyway…
I stirred from my sleep around 2:00am by the sound of my bedroom door opening. My older brother slept in the room opposite mine and I assumed it was him coming in to my room for some reason; And I was correct, sort of. My brother, or at least a figure that represented my brother, was standing in the doorway staring at me. I say the figure “represented” him because in the best way I can describe it, it was as if this figure both existed, and equally didn’t exist; On one hand I could see it, make out features and facial expressions, but at the same time it was like I could not see anything more than a transparent energy that I recognised as my brother, with no discernible features whatsoever. Without sitting up and still in a bit of a heavy-eyed daze, I asked the figure “What do you want?”. There was no response; instead it just looked at me and began moving further in to my doorway as a sinister atmosphere rose up all around me. Without walking, yet not floating, the figure moved closer towards my bed, and I noticed the face had begun to morph and change: It was my face now.
I was wide awake now and began realising how vivid all this was. It wasn’t a dream. I tried to get out bed, but before I could move the figure was on top of me and had pinned my arms down on my pillow either side of my head. I tried to move the rest of my body to throw this thing off me but I couldn’t move a muscle, it was like my body had been turned to stone, and it was then that I really began to panic. “Get off me!” I yelled, and to my horror it spoke, but not in response to my demands, instead it spoke exactly in time with me, mimicking me in a deeper, monotonous, emotionless voice. It knew exactly what I was going to say and each time said it with me, creating a chilling harmonisation between our voices. I began to struggle to get free, desperately trying to raise my arms to push it away, but much like it mimicked my voice, it also pushed back against my hands with equal force.
At this point I was the most scared I have ever been in my life, I was beginning to struggle to breathe and every time I tried to scream or shout for help, all that came out of my throat was a barely audible whistle, as if my voice had been completely removed. I continued my fight, wanting nothing more than to sit up and break free, and after what felt like a lifetime I could feel my arms raising slowly. I took as deep a breath as I could and with a final roar I pushed my way all the way up and through the entity, until I was sitting bolt upright in my bed.
I was alone. My room was deathly silent and my bedroom door, which the figure had opened, was now closed. I sat there in a state of shock for about fifteen minutes, trying to make sense of what the hell just happened. “Was it just a nightmare?” I asked myself. It was too vivid to be a nightmare, but I didn’t want to believe it was real either. Eventually I laid back down, and within an hour I had drifted back off to sleep.
The next day I woke up quite early despite the disturbance, but I had the day off work anyway so decided to spend it relaxing and generally trying to forget what had happened the night before. The day ended, night came, and I headed to bed around midnight, naturally wary of what had happened the previous night, but determined not to let it keep me awake.
It was between 2:00am-3:00am when I woke up again. I remember I was having quite a lucid dream that had begun to turn dark, and I managed to wake myself up from it before it turned in to a full blown nightmare. Unfortunately the nightmare had just begun.
I saw a figure sitting at the end of my bed, however this time it was a lot more vivid, and in fact almost entirely solid compared to the previous night. I immediately recognised the figure as my old best friend from high school; a guy called Mike. He was just sitting there, his head cocked half to the side, staring at me. Still not fully aware what was going on, I sat up and asked what he was doing there, but he didn’t respond, instead his eyes widened maniacally and he began pulling a sinister Cheshire Cat grin, before violently shaking and thrashing his head around. I started to panic and began shouting to my brother in the next room for help, but again no words came out. So I started punching and clawing this figure of “Mike”, doing anything I could to make the him…or it go away. The flesh and muscle began to tear away from it’s face as I attacked it as viciously as possible and I closed my eyes to avoid seeing the gory sight before me, whilst I continued to lash out. Eventually I opened my eyes again. Nothing. I was sitting up in bed, arms outstretched still thrashing about, and I was completely alone in the darkness.
This time I woke my brother up, I needed to talk to someone to make sure I was definitely awake, and more importantly safe. I explained to my brother what had happened, and we also talked about the previous nights incident as well. He noted my account of the first night was very similar to his experiences with Sleep Paralysis, telling me about several occasions where he had also woken up completely paralysed, and would hear and see all kinds of crazy things, albeit none as horrific as what I saw; The next day I decided to read up a bit on Sleep Paralysis, concentrating mostly on potential causes, concluding that stress was likely a major contributing factor to what I was going through, and reading further I found several accounts from sufferers that were almost identical to mine, but the stories I specifically found interesting were the stories of “The Night Hag”; a malevolent creature that according to old Folklore would paralyse their victims by sitting on their chests, or would simply sit at the foot of their beds, of which both scenarios I had experienced.
The knowledge that both incidents were nothing more than sleep paralysis offered a lot of comfort, I slept a lot easier knowing there was no chance I had actually been targeted by something paranormal, and despite a few bad dreams over the next few nights, I did not have any more episodes like the previous two.
Since then I have not had any more experience with Sleep Paralysis, which I am more than grateful for. And despite having a completely reasonable explanation for the events over a decade ago, it still chills me to remember and think about what happened.
I can honestly say I will never forget my visits from The Night Hag.