The Demons on the Fringe

we have all heard stories of guardian angels who are said to attend upon us at the most desperate of times to offer guidance but there seems to exist a strange contrast to these visitations for many people who are at their weakest and most vulnerable also report seeing dark entities whose intentions seem malevolent and sinister what are these demons on the fringe [Music] regardless of where mankind's many civilizations and religions originated there is a prevailing notion that death is not the end for us the belief in some form of afterlife is almost universally accepted amongst the

cultures of this world in almost every religion there are theoretical realms which mirror the christian concepts of heaven and hell with morality being the arbiter of our final destination all dependent on how we elect to live our lives and contained within those two opposing kingdoms there are escorts and emissaries waiting to usher the deceased onwards into the spirit world counterbalancing the depiction of angelic beings there are writings and drawings of far more malevolent entities dark creatures dispatched by their masters to lay claim to the souls of those who have been selected to continue their existence

in a place of purgatory and punishment there exist countless reports regarding the actions of such entities testimonies from those who claim to have survived attempts to remove them from the living world from witnesses involved in near-death experiences or others who have been present during the passing of those dearest to them and if such accounts are to be believed regardless of your own personal interpretation of heaven and hell it is clear that these beings are utterly indifferent to our wishes and desires be they evil in nature or mere servants to the instruction of a higher power

they will inevitably achieve their goal commonalities in the physical description of such beings across the ages make for troubling reading adding credence to the arguments that they have always moved amongst us claiming our loved ones features such as glowing red eyes horns and jet black skin seem too recurring across the various cultures to be mere coincidence and nowhere are such stories more prevalent than inside the corridors and side rooms of countless hospitals located around the globe where so many people find themselves in a kind of limbo when they are at their weakest and most vulnerable

sometimes receiving a visitor who is both unexpected and most definitely unwanted in late 2019 a british man in his late 60s named martin kirk was admitted to a hospital in staffordshire for heart surgery obviously due to the nature of the operation he was required to remain in hospital as an inpatient for several days after the procedure so that the doctors could monitor his recovery on the first night after the surgery had been completed martin awoke in his hospital bed dazed confused and in quite a lot of pain it took a few minutes to get his

bearings and remember exactly where he was although it was dark he had an overwhelming sense that someone else was with him in the small room and for some reason he did not feel safe or comfortable with that presence so vivid was this feeling that he reached across with a heavy arm and fumbled with the switches next to his head until he found the one that turned on the bedside lamps in the dim light he began to see movement in the shadows being cast against a nearby wall at the very edge of these shadows there was

a strange shimmering as if something was shifting around within them the more martin stared in bewilderment the more intense this movement became until something began to snake out from it onto the wall martin still feeling the effects of his anaesthesia found it difficult to move but seeing the strange phenomenon redoubled his efforts to find the emergency button as he pressed it the shadow immediately retreated and a nurse arrived shortly afterwards she was understanding that martin believed what he had seen and made a show of searching the area he had indicated when she found nothing she

left him with some words of reassurance stating that he had been heavily sedated and that this could sometimes cause hallucinations despite his overwhelming anxiety the surgery had taken its toll and he couldn't help falling back to sleep later that evening he was awoken by a faint tickling sensation on the calf of his right leg opening his eyes he was horrified to see a jet black hand snaking up from underneath the bed and touching his leg with its slender and clawed fingers screaming in terror martin kicked weakly at the appendage which promptly retracted with a great

and painful effort he managed to shuffle himself up into a sitting position and called the nurse in once again she left after telling him that there was nothing under the bed and that it was probably just a bad dream but he was so haunted by this experience that he remained awake for the rest of the night only allowing himself to sleep when daylight came the following evening terrified of what the darkness would bring martin tried to stay awake but such was the trauma of surgery and the fogginess of pain numbing medication that he inevitably fell

asleep when he awoke sometime later he found himself in complete darkness but again he felt that someone was nearby looking over towards the corner of the room he saw what looked like a pair of red eyes staring at him as his sight adjusted he soon saw the outline of a figure standing there he could not make out any features other than the bright red eyes which remained focused upon him suddenly he felt restricted looking down he could see several pairs of deformed hands coming up from under the bed grabbing at his limbs he could feel

their coldness through his bed sheets he could feel his heart pounding in his chest straining under the effort as he squirmed to free himself until finally he felt something like a sledgehammer blow to his chest and then everything went black when he awoke it was the afternoon of the following day one of the nurses informed him that his heart had stopped during the night and that they almost lost him for the rest of his stay martin continued to see dark shapes moving around inside his room but they kept their distance and gradually ceased to visit

him he rarely slept at night constantly terrified that they might return as soon as he was well enough he was discharged and he never saw those shadows again martin had never been particularly religious prior to his experience but has maintained since his stay in hospital that there is definitely a dark place to which the dead and dying are sometimes taken and that he worries about what he will see when he takes his final breath on this earth [Music] a similar story was related by an american woman named jessica martinez who was admitted to hospital in

the mid-2000s for a protracted period of essential medical treatment unlike martin jessica was placed on a ward with several other patients and as a result of her treatment found it difficult to get any meaningful amount of sleep as she lay in bed staring at her surroundings jessica had suddenly caught sight of an unexpected movement at the far end of the ward with all the other patients apparently asleep and no medical staff in sight she was curious as to what this movement might be and peered through the darkness in an effort to identify it at first

she saw nothing then as she watched on a slender shape suddenly unfurled itself from the shadows and slowly made its way across the room its outline was blurry but she could see the definite contours of her head arms and legs as it wandered from one end of the ward to the other it was a brief sighting but she was disturbed by how slowly and deliberately it moved and it was tall at least eight feet finally it passed out of the doorway and down the corridor out of sight leaving a stunned jessica in a terrified silence

nothing else took place that night but over the coming days she began to notice more of these shadowy figures moving around the hospital she would observe them out of the corner of her eye traveling along the hospital corridors and slipping into rooms through doors that were only open ajar the doors never moved they simply slid through the cracks however the most disturbing aspect of her visions was when she would observe them wander onto the ward and then bend down to whisper in people's ears the other patients doctors and nurses apparently couldn't see them as they

didn't react to their presence whatsoever they never approached jessica herself or gave any indication that they knew she could see them one evening she saw one of these entities bending over the patient opposite apparently whispering in their ear and within a few seconds they had cried out and sat up in their bed as if awaking from a terrible nightmare the figure had then casually wandered out into the corridor jessica could only wonder what these beings were whispering to these people but the thought chilled her to the bone when she was well enough to leave hospital

about a week later she shared her experiences with her family who told her that they were most likely just side effects from the pain relief she had been given in the aftermath of her surgery but she disagreed saying that apart from some sleep deprivation she was in full control of her faculties another account involving such entities came from an anonymous nurse working palliative care at a hospice in scotland she wrote about her experience in an online nursing forum and was shocked when other nurses also wrote that they had either heard similar stories from their colleagues

or experienced such things for themselves the author described how an elderly patient had been admitted to her care who was expected to pass away within the month it was the nurse's job to ensure that the woman was as comfortable as possible during her final days but she found that this particular lady spent very little time awake and instead slept for lengthy periods of time one morning the nurse was doing her rounds when she heard a pain screen coming from room 2b in which the new patient had been sleeping she hurried over and opened the door

to find the patient sitting upright in bed mumbling about a dark shape which had tried to drag her away the nurse calmed and reassured the patient as best she could but even as she began to relax she repeated over and over don't let the darkness take me she sat with the older woman for an hour or so before she fell back into a deep sleep and then left the room little did she know that this would be the last time she saw the old woman alive several hours later she had been sharing a coffee with

another nurse when they were disturbed by the sound of a heart monitor flatlining and being broadcast to them at the nurses station it was coming from room 2b putting down her mug and hurrying across the corridor she opened the door to see a dark shape next to the patient's bed what looked like an arm was reaching down from what she assumed was its torso with its hand disappearing into the older woman's chest where her heart was situated the nurse took a step back in shock and then run forwards out of concern for her patient at

which point the shape promptly dissipated attempts were made to resuscitate the old woman but unfortunately to no avail the nurse couldn't quite believe what she had seen as she had entered the room in her post she did entertain the idea that it was a momentary visual anomaly but she couldn't shake the feeling that something else was afoot given the fact that her patient had mentioned the dark shape prior to her passing when she spoke to her colleagues about it some of them confirmed that they had seen similar figures around the hospice and in particular next

to the patient's beds at or at least close to the time of their death others on the forum also shared this experience especially those who worked in palliative care much like the assumption made by the family of jessica martinez such experiences are almost universally put down to the effects of medication on the human brain patients undergoing lengthy and serious procedures such as heart surgery will often be exposed to large amounts of powerful drugs like morphine which can cause hallucinations and other emotional side effects these visions can be caused by a hormone imbalance in the brain

even in milder painkillers which do not list hallucinations as a possible side effect the patient is already experiencing a large amount of stress and anxiety as a result of their admission to hospital their bodies have experienced trauma and all these factors acting together could result in some sort of mental divergence those involved may find it difficult to process simple movements such as an insect in flight or a curtain caught in a draft and their minds may create phantom shapes or elements to justify the movement this could go some way to explain why such visions are

a regular occurrence within a hospital environment but how do we explain instances where the staff who are not on any form of medication have also reported seeing these entities cultures such as the ancient egyptians believed in the existence of demons and theorized that these entities targeted specific areas and points within the body they believed that there were key parts of the human nervous system designed to combat evil similar to chakra points or energy intersections when a person was close to death it was believed these points became weaker and less functional and it was at this

time that a demon would attack and take control of the person's body shutting it down and then taking their soul as such ancient egyptian medicine centered around the various channels which circulated through the human body and efforts were made to keep these channels and energy intersections free from interference which would otherwise allow an entity to exploit such an obstruction and use it to cause death with this in mind it may come as no surprise that patients of heart surgery in particular report seeing these so-called demons more than any other and subscribers to the concept of

chakra points would argue that it's because the heart chakra the body's main energy intersection has been severely disrupted it is perhaps interesting that religious belief seems to play little part in the existence of these proposed entities regardless of whether those involved accept the existence of a higher power encounters with these so-called demons take place across the world irrespective of the culture and faith of those involved in any case whether these beings are real or imagined they are no less terrifying to the person seeing them if they are imagined it is still an extremely disturbing vision

to experience and maybe we need to investigate why so many people have such similar hallucinations however if they are real well that is another story [Music] entirely so [Music] [Music] uh [Music] [Music] so [Music] bedtimes