This happened back when I was in 9th grade, about six years ago. I had a best friend, let’s call her Ashley. She didn’t have the easiest life growing up, and things around her always felt… off. She lived in Wisconsin, and when she was just 8, her house caught fire. She made it out with her dad and brother, but tragically, her mom and two younger sisters didn’t survive.
Ashley always talked about feeling like something was following her. It wasn’t just a vague feeling either. Late at night, when I’d be on the phone with her, I’d hear her scream suddenly, followed by a loud thud. Then, she’d come to school the next day with these bright red handprints on her ankle, like something yanked her off her bed in the middle of the night.
At first, I thought maybe it was her dad or brother, but after spending weeks at her house, I ruled that out. They were either too out of it or too lazy to even get off the couch. Whatever was happening to her wasn’t coming from them.
Weird things happened every time I stayed over. I’d go to the kitchen for water late at night, turn off the light, walk halfway down the hall, and suddenly the light would flick back on. Every time I’d spin around, no one was there. The only switch was at the edge of the kitchen, and there was no way anyone could have flicked it on without me seeing them.
Then one night, things got really messed up.
Ashley, our friend Eli, and I were hanging out at Eli’s place. Ashley had fallen asleep, her head in my lap while Eli and I watched TV. Everything seemed normal until about an hour into her sleep. She started to feel cold. Really cold. I covered her with a blanket, but it didn’t help. Then, without warning, she shot up, gasping for air like she had been drowning. She stood up and walked out of the room without saying a word. Eli and I were confused but didn’t think too much of it at first.
A minute later, Ashley came back—but she was holding a butcher’s knife. She stood at the door, just staring at us. I swear, her face was blank, like she wasn’t even really there. Eli and I started to freak out.
Eli asked, “Dude, what do we do? You and her always talk about this stuff. Do we line the door with salt or something?”
I was just as panicked, “I don’t know! Maybe! Just do it!”
So Eli grabbed salt and started lining the doorway and windows. But Ashley hadn’t moved. She just stood there, staring with that knife in her hand. Then, suddenly, she started chanting. It wasn’t English, and it wasn’t anything I recognized. Latin maybe? Or something worse?
That’s when she turned to the wall and started stabbing it, over and over, still chanting in that creepy voice. Eli and I were frozen in place, too shocked to move. Then, just as suddenly as she started, she stopped. She dropped the knife and collapsed to the floor.
Eli’s brother, Jake, woke up and came out of his room, confused by all the noise. “What the hell is going on?”
Eli quickly shouted, “Get back in your room, Jake! Stay back!”
But Jake didn’t listen. He moved toward Ashley, and as soon as he did, she turned and locked eyes with him. He freaked out, ran to the bathroom, and slammed the door shut. Ashley followed, scratching at the bathroom door like an animal trying to claw her way inside. The scratching went on for a full five minutes before she finally stopped.
Then she turned and stared directly at Eli. Her voice cracked as she screamed his name, over and over, “ELI! ELI! ELI!”
Eli started crying, completely lost. She was 5’2″ and barely 110 lbs, but somehow, she blew the salt away from the doorway like it was nothing. Then, she crawled—backwards—into the room. She yanked a recliner out of her way with ease, picked up a necklace she had lost a week before, and crawled backwards out of the house.
We were in total shock. It was like time stopped. For thirty minutes, we didn’t move, didn’t say a word. When I finally pulled myself together, I ran out after her. Jake and Eli followed, but we couldn’t find her anywhere. We searched for an hour before going back inside, completely confused and scared.
It was almost 3 a.m. by then. We tried calling her dad, but no answer. The three of us gathered in Eli’s room, too shaken to think straight. At some point, we fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion.
I woke up first the next morning and walked down the hallway toward the kitchen. As I turned the corner, I noticed the front door was wide open. And there, lying asleep on the threshold, was Ashley.
I woke her up, and she freaked out, asking how she got there. The last thing she remembered was falling asleep with her head in my lap while we watched TV.
She didn’t remember anything. Not the chanting, the knife, the scratching—none of it.
To this day, I’m not sure if we encountered a demon, a jinn, or something even darker. All I know is that after that night, I didn’t spend another night under the same roof as Ashley for a long, long time.