I was a new students a southern Lehigh high school in Pennsylvania going into my junior year of high school not knowing anyone was really rough everyone obviously had their friend group sorted out by then the worst part was lunchtime though my school wouldn't let juniors leave for lunch only seniors so I had to eat in the cafeteria I was dreading it because I knew I'd have no one to sit with and I didn't want to force myself into a random table when lunch time finally came however I walked into the cafeteria with my tray of
food looking for a place to sit every single table was taken I didn't even have the option of sitting alone but there was one table in the corner of the cafeteria with only two kids sitting at it that was the least intimidating spot to sit so I walked over and asked if I could sit there they both looked at each other and one of them said yeah I noticed upon sitting down that the two were identical twins they looked like they were partially of Hispanic heritage but they didn't have accents they honestly seemed alright they
introduced themselves as Antonio and Bruno and they had a conversation with me they invited me to hang out with them after school and honestly I figured why not had to start off somewhere as far as making friends I got their numbers and after school I went home to drop off all my stuff shortly after I got a text from Bruno telling me he and his brother were planning on hanging out he told me to meet them around 9:00 that night at the nearby cemetery that was like a ten minute walk from my house he said
there was a cool hangout spot near there plus the first day of school was on a Friday so we had off the next day I had nothing to do so I said yeah I'm down when the time came Bruno texted me one more time asking if I was still coming I said yeah I'm gonna leave in a few and confirmed we were meeting on the road by the cemetery he said yeah so I began my walk in the dark to the cemetery the longer I walked the more I thought about my home move and being
the new kid in high school thinking about the fact that I was literally walking to a cemetery at night to hang out with two kids I just met but anyway I got to the little road next to the cemetery and asked Bruno where they were he started typing right away and he said they were in the woods hanging by a small lake that they wanted to show me then he promptly sent his location so I made my way into the woods pushing branches out of my way using my tiny phone flashlight as my only light
I started calling for Bruno and Antonio as I felt like I was close enough according to the location he sent me at least suddenly I heard footsteps so I stopped definitely footsteps approaching me they were very low and slow they called out that they better not be trying to scare me well they weren't answering me though I decided this was stupid I turned and started walking back towards the road those footsteps I mentioned earlier they turned from quiet and slow to fast and before I could even react someone had their nails digging into my neck
effectively choking me I heard a familiar voice screaming grab em grab em I managed to break free from the sword of the chokehold and sprinted towards the road I know they followed me until the tree line by the road I was faster than them and I could run for miles and that's what I did I ran straight home and told my parents they considered calling the cops but I thought it would be better to get pictures of the nail marks on my neck and reported to the school the next day that's what we did and
with the help of the text that I got from Bruno I was able to get the two students expelled my parents made me block both their numbers I didn't exactly argue with that though my parents wanted me to confirm that these kids didn't know where we lived and I told them simply not as far as I know so anyway one night about a week later I woke up to my room feeling really cold I heard the sound of wind blowing into my room and I looked at the window to see it was slid completely open
I wondered if my mom came in to open it but that would make absolutely no sense it was like 50 degrees out that night I walked over to it and looked down below a few feet below my bedroom window there's a part of the exterior of my house that comes out word creating a sort of ledge underneath my window that my father always told me to jump on to in case of the fire I shut my window and walked over to my parents bedroom I gently knocked and opened the door and my mom groggily asked
what I had to ask her if she opened my window she sat up saying no why I told her no louder more concerned voice now that my window was opened all the way by somebody she started shaking my dad to wake him up and go check my room with me but when he woke up he told me to grow up and go back to sleep I left my parents door open as I walked back down the hall to my room and I picked up on something that I'm surprised I picked up on my door it
seemed to be half shut now as opposed to completely open when I left I pushed the door open just a little bit so I could get a look through the crack and see if you know someone was behind the door even though I had the thought of the possibility I never could have actually expected to see it there was someone hiding behind my door I screamed for my dad like a little girl I screamed so loud I'm sure could be heard three doors down and my door suddenly slammed shut just as my dad came rushing
out of his room over to me I screamed there's people in my room so he barged into the room and turned the light on at that moment we saw the leg of a person jumping out my window my dad ran to the window then downstairs and out the front door to attempt to chase them down but he came back a few minutes later out of breath saying he didn't see anyone full of energy and fear my sward had to be those twins that I got expelled my dad called the police and I had to talk
to them when they arrived explaining the whole story back to the incident in the woods my father backed up my story but without proof of who entered they said there wasn't anything they could do they merely ordered us to lock the doors and consider installing cameras outside as positive I am that it was either one of or both of those twins in my room after getting through a solid couple months of sleeping in fear nothing to this nature ever happened again looking back now I don't know why I was so willing to meet these kids
in the woods at night I should have realized in the cafeteria in that day that they looked like trouble and I should have stayed away [Music] freshman year of high school 2007 gym class last period we had a substitute gym teacher where the stormiest days of the year he was an older man not a senior citizen but gray maybe 55 to 60 he took attendance when he passed me he did a double-take at me which I found a bit uncomfortable not to float my own boat but I always understood I looked older and really good
for a freshman in high school the sub told us to get into our volleyball teams and he disappeared into the hall by the locker rooms for a while 40 minutes went by and the period was over it was time for us to get changed and go home I got into the locker room that for some reason my locker wasn't opening I tried my usual combination over and over and over it wouldn't click open though I had to go to the sub and let him know to ask for my combination again I figured maybe the combo
just slipped from my mind for some reason the sub told me to give him a few minutes and he'd get the list of Locker combos I waited outside the office and out he finally came with a book in his hands open to a specific page he walked into the girls locker room with me which I didn't expect him to do the locker room was basically empty now with one girl finishing up changing he walked over to my locker and tried the combination written down on the paper it didn't work no matter how many times he
tried it each time he tried it and failed he would look at me and laugh I would force myself to laugh along to be polite when it started getting weird put his hand on my shoulder as he said we'll figure this out he tried the combination again with his hand still on my shoulder and it didn't work again I felt his hand slowly started inching down from my shoulder to my lower back I pushed myself away and grab my bag saying it's okay I'm late for my bus he tried to combo in the locker one
more time and it opened he smiled and walked away I waited till I heard the locker room door shut and I proceeded to getting changed quickly when suddenly the room went dark I finished pulling up my pants and shoved my locker in the dark I threw on my backpack and started walking to the back exit of the locker room which led outside I feared that the sub would be waiting right by the door for me I got predatory vibes from him when I got to the end of that specific aisle of lockers I was in
I was in the intersection of two rows I'd have to turn down left to get to the exit door but still naturally I had to look right to make sure that it was clear there was a little light seeping in from one single rectangular window that sat under the ceiling it was enough enough for me to see him peeking at me from around the wall of lockers so that's when I ran for the exit door he came over behind me saying wait wait wait it's not what it looks like I ran outside into the rain
off the campus of the high school and walked the rest of the way home giving me time to reflect on what happened by the time I got home soaking wet it came to me that he most likely changed my locker combination somehow as a way of getting alone with me locker room as for what he could have possibly been planning to do when he cut the lights I never wanted to imagine honestly I was too emotionally scared and quite frankly embarrassed to tell anyone about it not even my parents were friends it was something I
just kept to myself all these years because truthfully I just don't feel comfortable telling people when I was in high school I was in the band and my school band was basically in eza it was either that or kustra or chorus so I went with band anyhow our band teacher mr. Nicholson had the grading system set up so that as long as you attended class and once your weekly lessons you got an A sadly towards the end of one quarter I was missing two lessons because of that my grade was a B I went to
him after class to ask if I could make up the lessons and even though he seemed reluctant he said he would let me come in during a lunch period and practice in one of the downstairs storage rooms to get credit for a lesson I was more than happy with that because realistically I would probably just play games on my phone anyway instead of actually practicing I arrived to the music room during my lunch period the next day so I took my saxophone and headed down the stairs outside the music room towards the basement area for
the music department it was always kind of creepy down there because absolutely no one besides the music teachers would go down there usually and the lights were kind of shitty I had only been down there a couple times before that day but anyway I walked down the hallway and on either side were a bunch of doors that led into small maybe seven by seven feet rooms all these rooms were used for storing things like chairs music stands spare instruments Christmas decorations and whatever I stepped into one of the rooms and shut the door I set
up my music on one of the stands in the room just in case mr. Nicholson were to come down to check on me but really I didn't plan on actually playing I started playing games on my phone and then flick darkness like as dark as it could get - my phone screen I looked over to the light switch to the room just instinctively flicked it up and down a few times but that did nothing I stumbled as I got up from the sea to open the door to more darkness I held my phone out in
front of me to light up this little hallway even if it was just barely I think I had like an iPhone 3 or something those old ones didn't have flashlights but anyway that little late for my phone was enough to see one of the doors open near the end of the hall and I heard something being dragged in that room like one of the big plastic containers there was also manic breathing followed by animal-like grunting then I saw a big plastic container being pushed out of that room into the hallway as I saw this I
turned off my phone screen I went back into the room I was just in I shut the door so quietly I don't know what exactly I was thinking in that moment that I decided to hide but I think the strange sounds I was hearing from this person mixed with a random blackout made me wary of staying in that hallway whoever that was it was blocking the stairs though and of course I got no reception down in that little basement area all I felt comfortable doing was sitting in that room and waiting for the lights to
hopefully turn back on but the light seemed like they were never gonna turn back on so I decided I would try and get back upstairs again I quietly opened the door with my phone in front of me for light then I stepped into the hall i inched up a little closer to the stairs and I heard something again I quickly crept into the next closest room with the door open and shut it I still didn't know what I was hiding from could it have been a staff member or a janitor at that point the only
reason I had of thinking it wasn't was because they only appeared down there after the lights turned off I stood in that room in complete darkness only listening and waiting for another sound from outside but you know how when you're in a room with someone even if you don't necessarily hear them you can kind of just sense their presence that's suddenly the feeling I got standing in that pitch-black room I lifted my shaking hand up and press the home button on my phone to turn on the screen just for half a second that was enough
to see someone standing in the corner of this little storage room three feet away from me I pretended I didn't see anything but it was too late it's what I heard breaking the silence then a hand patted my shoulder twice and started squeezing it I basically dough for the doorknob struggling to find it at first but pulling the door open when I did the man in the room with me tried pushing the door shut after I opened it but I was already out I ran up the stairs and out the door to the main level
of the music hall where the lights were still on I ran to mr. Nicholson to tell him out of breath he called security to check the basement section of the music hall but security came back upstairs and said besides a bunch of music equipment moved around there wasn't anyone down there the rest of the period mr. Nicholson canceled his flute lesson and I sat there in the room with him and five flute players explaining the whole story in detail without cameras in the music hall there was no way of catching whoever went down there and
killed the power for the basement it seemed that he was trying to steal expensive music equipment and where God knows what else the next day I was called into the dean's office to give my story of what happened and the rest is history [Music] one night my friends and I hatched a genius plan we'd sneak into the high school basement through one of the windows I was broken and never fixed the thing about this window you'd have to hop a short metal gate surrounding the outside staircase leading to the basement not that it would effectively
stop anyone but it added that extra barrier that makes you feel like you're really doing something devious when you crossed over it we made sure there weren't any security cars anywhere nearby and hop the gate crawling in through the window proved difficult considering we had to boost ourselves up then crawl through an insanely skinny opening but once we were in we were in we kind of dispersed from each other to explore different areas one thing was for sure the basement of the school was a mess and anything but interesting there was little light one small
white light was on in a far corner and the exit sign light actually produced more light than you'd think I was looking around when I saw one of my friends in front of me he whispered let's go upstairs so I followed him upstairs and he opened the door up to the main hallway of the school everything was dark I always thought there were at least some lights left on in the school at night but no not a single light was on and all that really stood out as far as the eye could see were the
various exit signs glowing red I followed my friend down the hall and remembered saying dude this is really creepy and he replied back but I realized he was right who knew if somebody else could be in the building besides my friends and I little did I know just yet I followed my friends at the bathroom and he went into one of the stalls I whispered hurry up I waited for a while then my phone started to ring I picked up and it was one of my friends Chris he asked where the hell did you go
I set him upstairs with either Roland or Brandon he said what do you mean they're with me and right after both Brendon and Roland said hi apparently on speakerphone I stuttered the word I and stopped trying to think straight then there was a laughing coming from installed not the laugh of any of my friends I looked up at the stall there was someone looking over it at me probably standing on the toilet I screamed holy over and over into the phone as I left the bathroom shortly after I was out I heard the stall door
slam shut I tried to run back to the basement in the dark but it wasn't too easy to find in the dark luckily I managed to find it so I started to scream their names as I ran down the stairs I screamed gogo when they answered and we one by one jumped off some kind of bucket onto the window ledge and crawled back outside I was the first one out though afraid that person from the bathroom was following when we were all outside I explained to them out of breath while also laughing now that I
felt safe with all of them next to me I guess we were loud or something though because as we all just started looking around at the whole school building and all the classroom windows in one of the downstairs windows was someone with their hands pressed up on the glass he could only see maybe half their face I said that's got to be him as Roland ushered us to get the hell out of there we ran until we were off the premises of the school and that was that we came up with a lot of possible
explanations but none of them really made sense obviously we never did anything like that again though [Music]
