This used to happen to me quite often when I was younger, but lately I have had “different” experiences. To start with, I would like to say that this is all true. Everything I write here is fact, and you don’t have to believe me.

The first time I remember anything happening was when I was about 3 or 4 years old. My parents had guests over and they were sitting outside in the lapa (a type of grass-roofed patio type thing we have in South Africa) and I was playing in the living room. While I was playing with my Legos, the lights started to dim (this was before dimmer switches) and I got a strong feeling of nausea. Naturally I was freaked out; so I bolted for the back door and out onto the porch.

Right at the edge of the porch I came to a sudden halt as something landed on my face. I don’t remember seeing anything at all, as in everything went black, but I could feel though; it felt like the legs of a large spider (maybe a huge daddy long-legs) were moving around on my face. For those of you unfamiliar with it, the daddy long-legs is a tiny spider with very long and thin legs. This sensation was accompanied by the inability to move at all.

The little legs found my lips, and forced my mouth open with a gentle but undeniable force, and I felt the legs moving into my mouth and throat. Suddenly the legs were gone and my body kept on running to my mom as if it hadn’t just been frozen. Strangely though, I was calm by the time I reached my mother, and I merely started playing with the dogs while the adults talked.

After this time I started having a recurring nightmare:

I was sitting alone in the middle of my parents’ bed, but the room was far bigger than I could remember. The feeling of blind panic and nausea would hit me just before a large leopard stalked in through the door (only this “leopard’s” limbs were all wrong, too long and too muscular; with no tail and a strange elongated head). This creature would calmly walk toward me, and as it neared I would fade into a different scene; my body was no longer there, but I was aware of a serenely calm line, and I took comfort in its simple beauty. The problem was that the more I wanted the line to remain calm, the more it would freak out; until all I could see and feel was a chaotic storm of fear and madness. I would wake screaming, and my parents would come running. This happened almost every night up to when I was 13.

While this was going on, I remember that one night while lying in my bed I was awakened by a strange presence. My eyes opened quickly and I saw a small creature standing by my bed; it had my hand held in one of its little hands; stroking it with the other. This creature was covered in thick brown fur, and built like a tiny human. Short claws sprouted from its fingers, and its face was made up of a wide mouth, no nose and two very large eyes (deep green eyes). It noticed that I had awakened, and proceeded to pull at me; trying to pull me from my bed. I screamed in terror and panic as I fought back until I heard the heavy footsteps of my father rushing to my room. The creature bolted into the shadows as my father came into the room.

I believe this was a tokoloshe (a creature that lives in Africa, like a mischievous or malevolent spirit that can apparently only be seen by children).

The dreams stopped on my thirteenth birthday (I remember it was to the day), and I started to regain a sort of normal sleeping pattern. This was until the “experiences” started some months later. I would wake in the dead of night; drenched in a cold sweat and with an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. This would be followed by the sound of my bedroom door opening and the sensation of someone light coming to sit on me as I lay there. I always slept facing the wall, and when this started happening I lacked the courage to open my eyes; much less turn around. This “experience” would last for a few minutes before the presence would get up and leave. I would immediately feel its absence and switch on my bedside lamp to look at the spot where I felt it; it had left the spot of my duvet smooth (like the mark you make from sitting on a made up bed).

I remember it becoming a very frequent event, and I tried to rationalize it; so I decided that it must be my guardian angel (I was religious at the time). The visitations came to a climax one night when I woke to the sound of my door opening in the night, and the presence returned to its perch atop me, but this night it was followed in by something big. This thing walked through my room, and its footsteps sounded like trees falling down. My father was a big guy, but I knew the weight behind the sound of his footsteps, and this was easily three to four times heavier. This thing stomped to my closet, pulled one of its doors off the hinges and proceeded to scatter all my clothes across my room before stomping back out of the room. My “angel” followed it out of the room, and I fell asleep crying into my pillow (I was a tough kid, but this had rocked me to the core).

The next day I demanded to be taken to see a priest, and my mother found a priest that had apparently had experience in dealing with demons. The priest and I talked for a while, and eventually it came to the topic of my “angel”; I told him what happened and how it would make me feel, and he told me that it was no angel.

Angels do not go out of their way to scare you.

He then prayed for me, and taught me how to bless my room and said that if they returned again, I should command them to leave. That night I got my chance; my door opened as usual, and the being came to its perch. I mustered what courage I could and told it (in a weak and trembling voice) to be gone and never return. I felt it turn atop me as if to obverse what was going on, and I felt my courage grow (it had responded to me, and I felt stronger). I repeated my command with more steel in my voice, and I could feel the being get off me. That’s when I sat up and shouted at it to leave me alone once and for all; it left quickly, and I was sitting alone in my room until one of my parents came in to ask if I was ok. I was better than ok, I was victorious and free!

For several nights after I had banished my “angel” I could hear a mournful singing coming from the hall outside of my room. Bolstered by my recent victory I strutted from my room and stood in the hallway listening. The song was beautiful, but to this day I have heard nothing more mournful. The darkness seemed deeper at the end of the hall, and I felt my resolve weaken as it grew to swallow more and more of the hallway. I turned and ran to the other end of the hallway (my parents’ bedroom) and burst in just as the darkness engulfed the whole hall. The singing was much closer now, but it was unable to follow through the doorway.

I woke my father and told him someone was in the house; he got his gun and went to investigate. The darkness had stopped singing when I started waking my father. I went with him out into the house, and the darkness retreated as we approached. Naturally he found no signs of people in the house apart from us.

That was the last time I saw or heard my “angel”.

Since then fresh terrors have visited me, and even attacked friends of mine.

I still fear the dark though; I know my “angel” waits just at the edges of my control, just waiting to get a chance to return.