3 MORE True Crazy ROOMMATE Stories

[Music] [Music] back in September of 2017 my girlfriend and I of 3 years ended up going through an extremely bitter breakup and since we were living together I boxed up my stuff and moved out on October 1st I stayed in a hotel for almost 2 weeks and working by day and then searching for apartments by night but most of the places I saw advertised online were in a word depressing my initial searches excluded all shared departments because I did not like the idea of having some random roommate But as time went by and my hotel

bill started creeping towards four figures I started dropping more and more of my search filters I started to seriously consider the possibility of having a roommate especially if I could meet them prior to moving in so so I could kind of assess if they were going to be a problem or not everyone I talked to on the phone seemed either sketchy unreliable or a combination of the two but then right when I'm about to give up I met Florian Florian was seeking a roommate to help pay the rent on his two-bedroom apartment in Bushwick and

when I clicked on the photos of his place I was shocked the apartment was really really nice kind of like a rustic Ware warehous type of vibe but all the fittings and Furniture looked brand new but the best thing was what Florian wrote in his little About Me section he'd written something like I work exclusively at night so you have the apartment to yourself in the evenings but I require complete silence during daylight hours I just started working from home at the time and complete silence in the day was exactly what I was looking for

I sent him a message we spoke on the phone and then I arranged to stop by the the apartment to talk face to face the place was even nicer in person and in many ways furrian seemed like the ideal roommate he was tall this skinny Estonian guy very dry and reserved and wore a dark turtleneck and glasses he said he was a filmmaker and was undertaking a project that exclusively involved night shoots hence why he'd be out of the apartment by Sundown he was a sober vegetarian but didn't mind if I kept meat or alcohol

in the apartment in fact he didn't seem to care what I did so long as I didn't smoke or make any noise whatsoever during the daytime after explaining my situation and why silence during the day was ideal I decided to test out his sense of humor and ask if he was a vampire he didn't laugh he didn't even crack a smile he just replied no as I said I'm a vegetarian and thankfully my attempt at humor didn't spoil my chances and since I volunteered my share of 3 months rent in advance he offered me the

room right there and then the following Monday I was moving my stuff into the apartment I had to wait until after 7:00 p.m. but with the help of a very flexible moving company I had everything moved in by 11: and by the end of the next day I was unpacked and settled in living with flan was like living with a ghost he kept his end of the staying silent deal by being a ninja whenever I was asleep and since sometimes I go to the gym or go grocery shopping around the time he left for work

we'd sometimes go days at a time without seeing each other I had a quiet place to work during the day and had someone who wouldn't infringe on his schedule or lifestyle while paying half the rent it was ideal really but sometimes furan was so quiet it was almost spooky I'd wake up head downstairs to make my coffee and walk into a spotless kitchen but then when I opened up the fridge there'd be a week's worth of vegetarian meal prep all boxed up and ready to go when the previous night there had been nothing but a

few beers in my leftover box of halal cart Street meets I know that might sound like a weird thing to complain about but I'm not even really complaining about it I guess what I'm trying to say is that was the closest thing to a red flag I ever got with flurrying and I kind of wish there had been more to go on and so for the first 7 to 8 weeks I lived in a state of almost complete Bliss this I'd somehow managed a clean break for my ex-girlfriend so although it still bothered me somewhat

it wasn't like she was blowing up my phone and she certainly didn't know where to find me and then having my brand new Uber quiet super Gucci workspace with its minimalist decor and monochrome color scheme made it very easy to pour myself into my projects find my peace and just sort of move on I'd found the perfect temporary living Arrangement or at least I thought I had one day I finished work at around 5:00 walked down the block to get some noodles from The Good Old Canton place then when I was walking back to the

apartment I felt my cell phone buzzing in my pocket it was flurrying and when I answered the call he asked me in his typically dry tone for a favor the location that they had in mind for that night's shoot was in his words unavailable and to avoid having to reschedule the entire shoot furrian wanted to know he could use the apartment he was very apologetic promised it to be a one-time only thing but told me that I'd have either to vacate my apartment for the evening or remain in my bedroom for the duration of the

shoot I told him it was no problem especially if it was just a one-time deal then told him that I'd meet him back at the apartment about an hour later flan arrives with his two friends one guy and one girl and they have a bunch of what appear to be equipment bags with them them the girl was small and attractive and the guy was a little bit overweight and balding and despite being American both shared Flan's sort of art hipster Vibe and were just as quiet and reserved as he was once they were ready to

set up I grabbed my laptop and stuff and then started walking up to my room the apartment had a small second floor when flurry and asked if we could talk in private I invited him into my room asked him what he wanted to talk about and for the first time since I'd known him furrian had some semblance of emotion on his face furrian looked unusually concerned as he explained how some might consider his project to be quote unusual it required complete immersion on the part of the cast and crew which was why under no circumstance

was I to leave my bedroom during the shoot and this was around 8:00 p.m. and I was due to sleep at around 11: so I had no problem retiring to my room to play some Civ or just watch Netflix until dozed off now flurry and said that that was good because the shoot was going on until about 1:00 in the morning obviously I wasn't all that excited at the prospect of having my sleep Disturbed but that led flurry and to ask if I had a good pair of earplugs or some headphones that I could use

to drown out the noise but then that got me thinking what kind of noise was he talking about I half jokingly asked if he was making an adult movie down there and in his typical dry fashion he said no that was not the kind of movie he was making and my curiosity was pretty truly peaked at this point so I asked him what kind of noises I could expect to hear and in response flurry and told me something I'll never forget he told me you might hear some things that might frighten or disturb you but

I can assure you no matter what you hear it is merely a simulation and there's no reason for you to be alarmed I asked furrian if he was making some kind of horror movie and he said no it wasn't a horror movie as such but it did contain elements which some people might associate with horror films apparently this is why it was so important that I wear headphones or earplugs otherwise I might not be able to sleep I told him as long as there wasn't any screaming we'd be fine and that's when flurry and asked

again if I wouldn't be happier just vacating the apartment until 1:00 a.m. honestly I was waiting too tired to head out to some bar and force myself to stay awake until 1 and since I had a good pair of noise cancelling headphones that I could use I figured I'd just Brave the noise and at worse stay up until the small hours watching movies extra loud until the shoot finally finished and the plan worked perfectly for a while and for the first hour or so I didn't even have to switch on the noise cancelling setting on

my headset I actually had it switched to ambient aware because by that point I was honestly so curious as to what kind of noises flurry and was worried about me hearing I figured there'd be yelling probably some Screaming after Flur and's soft admission and I just severely underestimated the kind of Screams I'd be hearing as well as the effect they'd have on me now I've been playing Civ 5 for about an hour and change before I started to hear the first noises coming from downstairs it was the sound of a woman sobbing like these drawn

out uhhuh uhhuh uh-huh sounds and since furan had already told me that she was an actress the sound only made me uncomfortable not frightened or disturbed and I switched my headphones to noise cancelling and turned up the background music on my game and found the combination instantly drowned out the sobbing noises I think that lasted for maybe 20 to 30 minutes until eventually I started to hear another kind of sound one so loud it started to cut through the noise cancelling feature on my headphones I reached up to the speaker covering my right ear lifted

it up and then instantaneously recoiled when I heard the sound that I'd been shielded from the girl downstairs actress or not was letting out the single most blood curdling scream I've ever heard I could hear the exact moment she ran out of breath as the scream kind of weakened and died and then she started up again right after with yet another earsplitting Screech she did this over and over and at one one point I clearly heard someone yelling louder at her but I couldn't tell if it was flurrying or his friend I knew it wasn't

for real I knew it was just an act but there was something about that lady's scream that set my teeth on edge I could only sit there listening to it for a minute or two before I secured my headphones over my ears and just pumped up the volume on my laptop even further and tried my best to forget it was even happening I tried my best to just focus on playing this game but I could still hear those on a chalkboard style screams and they might have been very faint but I could still hear them

if I focused my attention on them over the music coming from my headphones the only way to completely drown them out by then was to boost up my volume of my headphones to like 100 but that got so loud that it started to actually hurt my ears so it wasn't sustainable for more than a few minutes before I had to lower the volume again thankfully the screams had petered out altogether by the time it came to lowering my headphone volume and I got to spend the next few minutes in relative peace before I suddenly started

to hear the sound of frantic begging creeping through the music in my ears once again I lifted my headphones and once again I heard some skin crawling L convincing acting from the lady downstairs only this time she wasn't screaming she was begging begging through tears and shallow breaths she kept saying no please no please God no and other variations on that theme and she did it non-stop for about 14 straight minutes I guess talking loudly was easier on her vocal cords than balls to the wall screaming but that allowed her to do it unceasingly for

way longer than she screamed for again I was thankful that I was able to just drown it out without deafening myself with the music from the game that I was playing but somehow all the begging got to me even worse than the screams did and I swear to God even with Flan's warning that the whole thing was just acting every fiber of my being wanted to make her stop I guess it bothered me in this sort of deep lizard brain kind of way something passed down from our ancestors that means when you hear someone begging

for their life or Screaming in agony it's impossible to just sit there and ignore it and that's why even when I couldn't hear the girl begging and sobbing anymore I could still sort of feel it you know now the screams came and went for another few hours then around 10:30 I decided to take a shower and to try and get some sleep both upstairs bedrooms were fitted with attached bathrooms another perk of living there so I got to drown out the noises with a podcast and running water while I got clean but then once I

got out of the shower there was a brief window where I had to get my hair dry before putting my headphones back on and in that time I heard the most disturbing desing thing yet I was still listening to my podcast and I'd picked probably the loudest person possible to listen to shout out to Tim Dylan but as I was drying my hair I started to hear what sounded like all three people chanting downstairs I was kind of curious as to what they were chanting so I walked over to my phone and lowered the volume

on my podcast and heard ha Satan hail Satan hail Satan getting louder and louder well they sure must have been Talent actors because they were giving in everything they had wailing those two words again and again like they were in total ecstasy I ended up lying on my bed headphones on blasting myself with some YouTube playlist called relaxing ambient music that ended up being neither relaxing nor ambient and when 1:00 a.m. rolled around and everything finally went quiet I literally whispered thank you Jesus out loud to myself before finally drifting off and the next morning

I felt kind of groggy after getting less than 6 hours sleep but as my brain booted up in the shower I remembered all the screaming and chanting from the night before I couldn't really be mad at flurrying because he'd warned me a whole two times to vacate the apartment and besides there were much worse things than him owing me a favor as I mentioned earlier flurrying and I rarely bumped into each other so it was days before I got a chance to ask him about the screaming and when I did he gave me about as

dry an answer as you can imagine he apologized profusely for the disturbance both literally and figuratively but was also quick to remind me of the warning I'd been given he said the screams in the chanting for what he called ADR or automated dialogue replacement which is basically when you dub audio over a movie to make it sound better no one was being threatened imitated or hurt in any way and the lady in question was just a very talented actress if the sound she made disturb me then it simply meant that she'd put in a good

performance and nothing more this was obviously quite reassuring I guess but my main objective was to get a second assurance that it wouldn't happen again and if it absolutely had to then to give me advanced warning so I could book a hotel or something and he agreed and I thanked him and that was that now not even two weeks went by before Florian asked me for a second favor I had a feeling it'd be related to using the apartment for his work and lo and behold I was right he opened his pitch by telling me

that he was more than happy to pay for a night in a hotel but that after a studio had pulled out on him he'd been left with nowhere to shoot I told him it wasn't necessary for him to pay for a room that I could maybe find a place to stay and even if I didn't I was perfectly happy to pay for my own hotel room furrian then gave me the date of his shoot which was a couple of days away on a Friday evening I happened to have been dating at the time and it

was just around the stage where it' be acceptable for me to propose a kind of Sleepover if you will and I proposed as such and she accepted so I had that Friday evening covered I had no reason whatsoever to return to my apartment and until of course I realized that I'd forgotten part of my laptop charger the plug part that connects to the little box thing and there'd be no starv together land party unless I return to the apartment to grab it I briefly considered proposing a movie date instead but the girl I was dating

had seemed super excited to play so I thought screw it and then caught the train back I figured it'd be an hour at most and then once I got back we could get down to our land date plus I called flurry and in advance and gave him prior notice that I needed to stop the shooting for all of 30 seconds maximum then be off the hook for any interruptions I texted Florian as I was walking to the subway then when he didn't reply I gave him a call once I was back in Bushwick he didn't

pick up on the first call so I tried again only for that one to ring out too and I figured that he was busy and his phone was set to do not disturb or whatever so I texted him a second time saying that I was minutes away from the apartment and would only be interrupting him for like a minute Max again I got no reply and I was kind of worried that my intrusion might cause some kind of issue between me and him and at the same time I was thinking I pay my rent I'm

a good roommate I can be in and out in 30 seconds with a few apologies and then if flurry and's mad well I can just deal with that issue as and when it comes a few seconds later I'm at my apartment building walking to the elevator then a minute more I was at my door since I don't want to disturb too much I start knocking on the door I had my key ready but just like with the texts and calls I wanted to give flurry in as much advanced notice as possible I knocked once got

no answer then tried calling flurry and one last time he sent that one straight to voicemail so I knew that he knew that I was trying to get in touch with him and that's when I started to get a little annoyed at least work with me you know don't just ignore my calls I get that he was busy but he literally could have just grabbed my laptop cable open up the door and given it to me and hey Presto he's back to his shoot but he didn't he actively ignored me so after a minute of

waiting for a call or text I took up my key and open up my apartment's front door the first thing I noticed upon closing the door behind me was that someone had taped a bunch of clear plastic sheeting all over the place they were on all the floors on the walls and there were strips hanging between open doorways like they were supposed to be flimsy Replacements and I'm thinking what the hell and then I started calling out for Florian the second I called out I started hearing heavy footsteps coming towards the apartment's entr entrance hallway

they were walking with urgencies so right away I'm thinking uh-oh and I'm a halfway to unleashing a string of apologies when two masked men stepped into view they look like nightclub security or something black suits black shoes black shirts and black ties all very well fitted and the only difference was these guys had these matte black mask on real thick plastic by the looks of things and the moment they saw me they started walking in my direction and I'm like wait who the hell are you guys but they didn't say anything they lunged towards me

grip me up and then the next thing I know they're slamming me down into the floor so hard it knocked the wind out of me I'm lying there for a moment trying to catch my breath then when the fight comes back to me I'm trying my best to Buck them off and I'm failing miserably the whole time I'm yelling at the two guys who what the f are you doing get the hell off me but again they just completely ignore me and start yelling Intruder I'm like I'm I'm not an intruder I live here and

right then I hear the crackle crackle of a stun gun before I feel this intense pain shooting up my leg and suddenly I can't move or talk anymore I tried to carry on fighting when I realized that I could move again but I was so frazzled from the stun gun that I felt like it to drain my battery or something there was nothing left in my tank and all I could do was just lie there while those two Heavies had me pinned and waitting until I had another opportunity to escape I was still yelling for

them to get off of me when someone down in the apartment's open sitting area who I couldn't see asked in a very authorative voice tone what was going on I immediately went quiet then one of the two masked men repeated the same word intruder and the person who spoke whose voice I didn't recognize then told them quote remove me the two Heavies immediately dragged me into the hallway outside the apartment dumped me on the ground then went back inside and closed the door behind them I was like what the hell just happened and then after

I picked myself up my first instinct was to call the cops something was going on in my apartment and whatever it was it didn't seem like any kind of movie set or whatever and the first thought was that it was some kind of home invasion but then what was with all the clear plastic sheeting they reminded me of something from Forensic Files or hostile or the kind of Mexican cartels use in those kill houses so the walls and floors aren't soaked with blood that's what freaked me out so much that when I called the cops

I wasn't like I'm pissed and those guys are going to pay it was more like something terrible is happening up there in my apartment and it's down to me to stop it yeah I was angry at those two Mass men for body slamming me and tasing me but it wasn't like they were two crackheads who broke my nose after stealing my laptop another true story The Way those guys were dressed the mass all the plastic sheeting they were security for something that was going on in there something no one was allowed to see and in

my humble opinion that can't have been anything good and legal in fact screw legal I've had neighbors growing pot back before it was legalized and all the power to them is not hurting anybody but whatever I just walked into it sure as hell looked like someone was either getting or was about to get hurt and really badly too the cops took a whole 20 minutes to get to me and that's with the dispatcher telling me that mine was a priority call they follow me up to my apartment open the door for them and I was

right in the middle of telling them about all the plastic sheeting when we saw it was all gone both cops gave me a disappointed look as if to say we didn't have you down for a schizophrenic and then right as I'm explaining how it was there not even 20 minutes ago Florian appears with an explanation he thrown a party a rather exclusive one and the two security guards his guests had employed had just been a little overzealous when it came to unexpected guess according to floran there was never any plastic sheeting or black mass and

he wasn't sure what it was talking about in that respect but what he was sure of was that he and his guests were profusely sorry for the confusion and that they wish to extend their sympathies for the inconvenience I was angry like inconvenience I was just assaulted but then I noticed something else flan was showing more emotion and sincerity with the cops than he'd ever shown me his natural state was dry and sarcastic but with those two ypd officers he was like the most articulate and passionate person ever and that's when it hit me he

wasn't being sincere he was acting the cops wanted to know who the two security guyss were and the ones who ended up assaulting me but Florian claimed that they were provided by an anonymous guest and that he had no idea who they were or where they'd been hired from the only two people Florian knew according to him anyways were his male and female friend both of whom would be happy to answer any question the cops had when asked why all the guests had scattered before they arrived Florian told the two officers that they were incredibly

embarrassed at the confusion he also seemed like he was being totally honest when he said that with his guests knowing their security would be in trouble with the cops and they walked out of the apartment building's back door to where their cars were waiting I could see through Florian's bull crap and somehow by the time the two officers were leading leaving they seemed convinced that Florian was as apologetic as he said he was and that it was all just some big misunderstanding after the cops left and I asked floran what had been going on the

previous night he changed his tone completely he said I had no right to know what had been going on and that I shouldn't have come back to the apartment when I told him I'd stay away all night he also added in a way I found incredibly chilling that I should consider myself lucky that nothing worse happened to me and I couldn't believe the sudden switch up he put on such a good act for the cops that when he turned it was like seeing him transform or shape shift or something like that he told me he

wanted me to move out and I told him I was planning on it and then I spent the next few days searching for other places to live before finally finding one that suited my budget I was lucky though I found somewhere decent pretty quick and to be frank I was close to living in my car because I did not feel safe around Florian anymore and to this day I don't know what he and his friends were doing up there and actually I kind of don't want to know either and that wasn't always the case I

used to spend many an hour trying to figure out what he was really doing because whatever it was I didn't think it was anything even remotely innocent I kept trying to get in touch with the other two cops I dealt with to see if there had been any updates but it quickly became clear that they weren't remotely interested at all and that they figured that I was some gate Crasher who'd probably got what was coming to him at least that was the vibe I got because after all this is New York City a place where

there's a major crime every 4 minutes but if the walls of that apartment could talk I bet they tell some truly terrifying tales and these days I'm happy not hearing a single godamn one of them [Music] back in 2009 when I had just turned 22 one of my best friends since childhood met a girl on Facebook Dean was a bit of a Trailblazer in many respects because back then we thought of him having a Facebook girlfriend as pretty sad whereas nowadays meeting on dating apps or sliding into DMS on social media is a totally normal

way for couples to find each other we used to joke about her being a catfish before catfishing was even really a thing we didn't use that exact term but there were a lot of jokes about Louise turning out to be a Lewis who was three times his age turns out Louise was a real person and when we met her we understood why Dean was so smitten they seemed perfectly match for one another and within about 18 months of them getting together Dean announced that he was moving down to Bournemouth so they could be closer we

regretted to see him go because Bournemouth is a 7-hour drive from where we grew up in Durham and without a car it wasn't like he could pop home whenever he liked because the trains took even longer and the fairs were outrageous since Louise lived with her mom and brother Dean started looking for Flats down in Bournemouth and then when he got a bit of money saved up and had somewhere to live off he went we later found out that he'd moved into a shared apartment just outside of the city center and that he quickly found

a job as a kitchen Porter so he didn't burn through too much of his savings his job was all right his relationship was flourishing and the only thing stopping him from getting a flat with his girlfriend was the fact that she didn't have a job yet on top of that his new flatmate sounded like a sound fellow too the only thing was Dean wasn't very forthcoming when it came to information about him as you can imagine he was very proud of himself for having landed on on his feet in the way that he did he

told us all about his new job all about how nice his new neighborhood was and he briefly touched on how cool his new flatmate was they'd have a drink together have a smoke together watch horror movies together but when we asked what he did for a living or what he looked like or what he was interested in Dean was suddenly all vague or onewed answers we just put it down to him still being new in the area and it's not good manners not to prying to people's lives is it and regardless we were pleased that

he was doing well even if it did mean seeing less of him anyway about 6 weeks go by and Dean ends up inviting us down to Bournemouth for the weekend we were all about 23 or 24 at the time meaning that we didn't have a lot of cash to throw around on hotels and all that but Dean's like no brother just crash at my place we drove down on Friday morning got there in the late afternoon then went looking for flat out near a place called bosam we found it no problem our mutual friend beeped

his horn when we were outside then we had an ecstatic reunion in the car park of his apartment block we hadn't seen Dean in nearly 2 months so we were over the moon to be reunited but after he invited us inside for a cup of tea and a chinwag we realized something wasn't quite right about him he looked pale he looked like he' lost weight and he looked like he wasn't sleeping very well either and not only that but the flat that he was living in was an absolute pig sty we didn't bring it up

right away but we were too busy chatting about this and that and trying not to break into our beer stash too early but in the end I asked him if he was feeling up to a few drinks that night because he looked a wee bit peaky and I never forget how he let out a deep sigh before talking and when he did he told us that the last two weeks have been some of the most difficult of his whole life Dean's new flat M had started out as a sound fella but then after a few

weeks he' started letting his true colors show the flat was in such a sorry State because Aaron never ever cleaned up and the only way Dean had been roped into living there was that the landlord had scrubbed the place down and made sure Aaron was out of the flat during the viewing I wouldn't go so far as to say that Aaron and his landlord conspired to trick Dean into signing a six-month contract because from what I gathered they loathed each other with a passion but they both had something to gain from Dean living there so

I suppose there was some degree of collaboration you see Dean hadn't moved into a cozy apartment with an Ecentric but playful older roommate he was living with a mentally unstable alcoholic who never paid his rent and was prone to Violent psychotic outbursts he just hadn't realized it until it was far too late Dean said that when he first moved in he met an Aaron that liked the same kind of music like the same kind of films and who made him feel as welcome as possible by handing him a can of beer every 5 minutes but

then Dean started to realize that Aaron drank pretty much all day every day and that by work Aaron meant that he went out stealing he didn't tell Dean what he did to make money at first but once he seemed on the level he told him that he shoplifted burgled went out stealing money from blackout drunks on a Saturday night just about anything but make an honest living he also refused to pay any rent refused to vacate the apartment and once told Dean that the police would have to come in and drag him out of there

and that's only if one of them fancied losing an eye the only reason Aaron gave Dean an easy ride which he didn't seem to give anyone else was the fact that he was apparently his new drinking buddy and smoking buddy and if Aaron had anything to do with it they'd be sharing other things before long according to Dean Aaron didn't just drink and have a bit of puff he did all sorts whatever he could get his hands on and the harder the stuff the more volatile he became Dean said that just a few nights before

he'd come home to find Aaron smoking spice this sort of synthetic Canabis stuff he said he was out of his mind on it and then after playing Aereo way too loud for hours in his bedroom Dean said Aaron came out of his bedroom with an effing samurai sword and started doing moves with it I don't know what you'd call it I'm sure the Japanese have a word for it but Aaron was waving the sword around like he was practicing a fight but in slow motion Dean said he retreated to his bedroom immediately and locked the

door then just hop that Aaron would decide to leave him alone for the night Aaron never turned his music down when he partied like that and his neighbors had long given up on making him try Dean said he learned to live with the incessant droning of industrial metal late at night but had never gotten used to the sound of Aaron throwing fits he start randomly screaming or he'd kick or throw something against his bedroom wall and Dean told us the random and violent nature of the sound would always wake him up Aaron ate disgusting smelly

food his hygiene was atrocious and on more than one occasion Aaron had tried to climb into bed with Dean in the middle of the night he'd obviously needed to start locking his door but he couldn't spend his entire life in his bedroom what Dean really needed was help getting the hell out of there at a time when Aaron couldn't notice he was leaving apparently Dean had already raised the prospect of moving out after he and Aaron had a minor disagreement over something and Aaron exploded he asked what his problem was if he didn't like him

and if he didn't like him he should just come out and say it so they could settle their problems like men and not little girls Aaron's words not mine or Dean's Dean had managed to talk his way out of that one but he realized that if he was going to make an escape it had to be a quick one and without Aaron being aware and that ladies and gentlemen was the real reason he'd invited us down for the weekend not for a little reunion with the boys Dean was planning a not so great escape now

he told us all of this and we still hadn't met Aaron yet but by that stage and to be perfectly honest with you I was a bit nervous about the prospect I mean once we'd heard about the whole whole samurai sword thing a replica but still sharp and how he was so quick to go and grab it that definitely added a scary Dimension to the whole thing it wasn't a case of just helping Dean move some boxes we had to plan the whole thing like some type of military operation and what's worse we had to

wait 48 hours until Sunday to do it as Aaron would most likely be in the apartment until Sunday afternoon at which point he'd go out stealing and try to earn a bit of drug money then suddenly right as we agree that Sunday is the day that we help Dean move we hear Keys sliding in the flats lock signaling that Aaron had returned home the door slams he walks down the little hallway towards the living room where we're sitting and the whole time I watched Dean just sort of shrink i' never seen him act like that

before ever his bark was definitely a lot worse than his bite but Dean wasn't some pushover so to see him subtly but definitely cowering at this Aaron fella as he was approaching it was quite something Aaron walks into the room and Dean and I's mutual friend lay eyes on him for the first time he wasn't quite what I expected and that he looked more like a metal head than the kind of shoplifting Pond life we were used to up in Durham he was covered in tattoos had shoulder length dyed black hair and had one of

those bow ring nose piercings which he removed to look less conspicous uous while in the Rob we were obviously a bit wary of him but at first Aaron seemed really friendly and welcoming apparently he had no idea Dean had invited us but he also didn't seem to have a problem with it either in fact not only did he seem Keen to have a stay for the weekend he thought it was a good excuse to throw a party Dean played along as did we as Aaron talked about inviting some girls over getting a few bags and

bottles and all meeting back at the flat in a few hours once it had gotten dark Dean then says that he wants to walk us around the area a bit show us the pub that he like to drink in then we popped out after saying her goodbyes to Aaron now as you can imagine first thing we bring up when we're out of the flat was something like what the hell are you doing agreeing to a party tonight this fellow goes mental when he adds a few lines and you're putting us In Harm's Way blah blah

blah blah Aaron then replies that no it's perfect because if Aaron blew all the cash that he had on that Friday night he'd then be forced to go on a shoplifting spree the next day because he always started craving crack when he's hung over and our Jaws were just on the floor we're at an age where the cure for a hangover was like a McDonald's breakfast and in his desperation to be closer to his Facebook girlfriend Dean had managed to become the flatmate of an actual crackhead we understood that if we had a blowout that

night we'd be able to move Dean out of that flat and into his girlfriend's mom's garage which could serve as temporary accommodation but there was a lot we couldn't reconcile we each had at least two dozen questions for him I mean that walk to the pub turned into a proper little interrogation but all the questions we asked like why didn't you leave earlier or why don't you just get the police involved all of his answers came down to one of two things number one Dean was legitimately scared for his safety and if everything he told

us was true especially the stuff about the samurai sword than he had a right to be and number two he needed his friends he was in a brand new place new next to no one and he was tired depressed and Afraid Dean said what little time he got to spend with his girlfriend he was so exhausted that all he did was catch up on sleep he needed our help and he needed it badly and by God after all was said and done we were ready and willing to give it to him a few hours later

we've got a few beers in the fridge and Aaron returns from picking up his sniff with his girlfriend and toe she had a similar look in lifestyle to Aaron but unlike her boyfriend she seemed a bit soft and Dopey no offense to the girl but she seemed a bit slow like she'd only ended up being Aaron's girlfriend to begin with because he found her easy to manipulate and that might sound a bit harsh but that's honestly the reading I got after meeting her and it's also my way of saying that while Aaron was a maniac

his girlfriend was just a bit daed now anyway we're all sitting around and drinking and while Aaron thinks we're having a party me and Dean's mutual friend were basically there as bodyguards Aaron was nice and friendly at first but as he worked his way through beer after beer and started doing some harder drugs with his girlfriend he started to get more and more aggressive it started when he was doing lines he offered Dean and me's mutual friends some and when he declined he started berating us about how we were no fun he told us even

Dean has a bit of Charlie with us don't you and us as his old friends were thinking no he doesn't Dean likes a beer but he's hardly ever touched any drugs at all but then right there before our very eyes Dean leans over and does a bump before giving us both a very sheepish look I suppose he'd learned to take the path of least resistance as they say but seeing how intimidated and browbeaten our old mate was it was shocking after all we hadn't seen Aon Wildside yet so it didn't make sense why he was

so scared of him the night went on for a little while longer without incident Aaron started acting like a total prick saying the most obnoxious crap you can imagine about just about everything you can imagine but there were no indications that any swords were about to be produced so me and Dean and our mutual friend all stayed quite chilled out and more and more beers were getting drunk while Aaron's working through his bag of Sniff and then eventually he announced that it was time to put put some music on I suspected he was about to

put on something very loud and Fast and I wasn't wrong but he turned the volume up so loud that we had to literally shout to make ourselves heard this didn't seem to bother Aaron though and he actually thought it was funny that the music was ruining what little Vibe we'd got going and set about trying to make us sing the lyrics to songs we'd never heard before in our lives shortly after Aaron was up dancing if you could even really call it that while we just tried our best to get through it in the assurance

that it meant getting out of there a day earlier than planned we kept the drinking to a minimum knowing we'd be moving boxes or whatever come the following day but being forced to listen to Aaron's shite music made me want to get blackout drunk he was content to dance on his own for a while but after a few songs he asked his girlfriend to dance with him and she joined in but very awkwardly like she was scared of what he might do and it wasn't long before Aaron showed exactly why she seemed so anxious they

were dancing at first but then Aaron started getting rougher and rougher with her until some of his dance moves consisted of him just choking her from behind I don't mean like putting his hand around her neck either like you could see on his girlfriend's face that she couldn't breathe he did it a couple more times and we're getting ready to step in because he's choking her for longer and longer each time but then his girlfriend suddenly elbows him shoves him off and slaps him and then all hell breaks loose we later found out Dean had

been a witness to a lot of this sort of behavior and and always tried to intervene where possible but he could only do so much knowing that he had to live with the bloke and by that I mean he couldn't just deck him like he'd wanted to but then since me and his other mate were there and knowing we had his back Dean launches himself across the room as Aaron starts throwing punches at his girlfriend's face we followed in his foot steps and within a few seconds we had Aaron restrained Dean starts shouting at his

girlfriend to leave but she didn't move she just stood there Frozen like she didn't know what to do I joined in and shouting at her to call the police but instead of snapping out of it and calling 999 she ran off into Aaron's room and slammed the door shut leaving the three of us basically sitting on top of them we do a bit of shuffling about then I'm able to get off of him grab my phone and call the police I told them that we had had a mental case in her hands a bloke had

gone berserk and he was going to hurt someone because we couldn't restrain him all night the lady on the phone said that she could hear Aaron screaming about how he was going to kill us and that she'd get someone out to us as soon as possible which she did Aaron was still screaming bloody murder when the police got there and after he tried attacking them as well that was it he was off to the cells for the night giving us a tidy 24 hours to move Dean stuff out into his girlfriend's mom's place it'd be

cramped but Aaron had no idea where the house was so there'd be no tracking him down and sharing a bathroom with three normal people was better than sharing one with a dangerous and violent psychopath we got Dean out of there so it was mission accomplished and then we went out to celebrate on the Sunday before we drove back to Durham but now I look back on it the celebration feels a bit Bittersweet Aaron made things easy for us by trying to bite a policeman and so was a quick In-N-Out and Dean was able to end

a miserable little chapter in his life but I sometimes think about Aaron's girlfriend how even after choking and punching her she'd run into Aaron's bedroom at the first sign of trouble and just stayed there we shouted at her to leave to call the police but she chose to run into the bedroom of her abusive boyfriend and lock the door and sometimes I really worry for that girl's future but with the attitude she's got I suppose there's only so much you can do and that being said I hope someone gets her some help some proper help

before it's too [Music] late I was a real idiot when I was younger I got hooked on oxycotton got in trouble with the cops then end up face with two choices either go to jail or take part in a state mandated rehab program called the farm the farm was unsurprisingly a farm and I'm guessing its owner had friends in high places because he managed to Wrangle himself a deal whereby he could get himself all the dirt cheap labor he needed so long as they were all troubled youths facing jail time I guess that sounds real

exploitative or whatever but looking back on it I'm not sure it was the farmer who benefited more I guess I can't speak for the other kids but working in that place as sure as hell saved my ass and sometimes I I think it just might have been a stroke of Genius sending us to that place because picking up trash on the side of the highway is one thing but seeing how putting time and love into something really can create something beautiful it fixed a part of my brain I didn't know needed fixing I made friends

at the farm that I still talk to granted it's on Facebook because we live at opposite ends of the country now but the point still stands it gave me discipline and self-belief which is amazing considering I showed up expecting it to be nothing but baby jail but then I guess it's the irony of ironies that all of the crazy stuff I did on the street it all kind of pales in comparison to something I went through at the farm so when you first got to the farm you were assigned a job and a roommate your

job could be anything from livestock and crop management to irrigation or pest control but your roommate was there for one purpose alone to help break you into the routine and make sure you stayed on track these room mates were ideal for the role because the system was working for them and they could talk from the heart about how it could work for the newbies too and that's how it worked with my mentor anyway and when it came time I gladly accepted the role myself I knew it' be a challenge and I'm sure I myself was

a challenge when I first arrived but I also knew that I had to give something back before I left the program and moved on with my life not everyone made it to mentorship level and as cheesy as it might sound I can considered it an honor and a privilege for the first time in my life I felt truly appreciated and wanted to share my own appreciation in return so around 9 months into the program I'd risen to the position of livestock supervisor and had been given my own two bedroom living quarters in preparation for receiving

my mentee obviously the dorms were very strictly divided by gender so I knew my mentee was going to be female but what I didn't know and had no way of knowing until I met her was how Cooperative she was going to be if she was chilled out repentant and receptive then the next month would be an absolute Breeze for me but then if she wasn't I knew things could get very rough I'd already heard a bunch of horror stories and how troubl some uncooperative mentees could be when the rubber really hit the road and in

one or two classes fights had broken out between the mentors and their roommates I really didn't want that to happen so my whole game plan focused on pacification and building a rapport between myself and my mentee pretty much the exact same tactic my own Mentor took back when I first arrived at the farm so the day my mentee was due to arrive I was actually really excited to meet her and I wasn't in the least bit discouraged by her attitude upon arrival now she obviously didn't want to be there but very few did upon first

touching down so I understood her reticence and took it in my stride since I was still on livestock she accompanied me on a few days work with the animals after her induction was finished and although she really didn't take to it at first she warmed up with time and showed rapid Improvement she was due to be with me for a month and the month could have either been very short or very long and by about week two it was looking like it was going to be the short kind Shauna my mte was fitting and well

and although her attitude needed major work sometimes we were making some major breakthroughs together and then came the day that the cops arrived two of them and I spotted them talking to a very concern looking group leader I walked over mainly intent on listening in on what they were saying but when the group leader spotted me she called me over to talk I found out the cops had driven all the way out from the city because they were looking for someone and that someone just so happened to be my mentee shaa they didn't just want

to talk to her either she had a warrant out for her in another County they were there to arrest her obviously this kind of presented us with a very precarious situation because we didn't know how Shauna was going to react to all this she could potentially be going back to jail for whatever she'd done so if she saw the cops coming she might just try and run I mean it wouldn't be the first time and she's been so volatile at the beginning that no one could be 100% sure about what she'd do but then as

we were thinking about it I had an idea if I could go and talk to her first and break the bad news it might be received better coming from me instead of cops I remember how when I was on oxies just the sight of a cop would give me major anxiety and I don't know maybe in another life I'd have made a run for it too and all that progress all that hope so suddenly and cruy being taken away it was a nightmare but one that was about to be Shauna's reality in the next couple

of minutes unless I was there to soften the blow once the plan was agreed upon I walked off towards the dorms to where I was pretty sure Shauna was just kind of chilling in her room she was right where I expected her to be when I walked in and I sat down in the bed opposite her and told her how we needed to talk I think she genuinely had no idea that the other warrant was out for her because when I dropped the news she was devastated to say it was emotional would be the understatement

of the century and she actually did bring up the idea of just running off before the cops could see where she went but then somehow I managed to talk her into just going with the cops to see what the warrant was about because it was better to face the music than run from it and make things worse the thing that really seemed to convince her was when I asked her if she was 100% truly certain that she didn't know what the warrant was about then when she gave me yet another convincing no I told her

that it couldn't have been that serious she'd remembered robbing a liquor store or shooting someone but if she seriously didn't remember and wasn't blackout drunk when it happened then it couldn't have been any worse than a missed court date or a traffic violation Shauna calmed down a little like damn you're right and after promising that the group leaders would put in a good word for her so that she might be able to come back she agreed to follow me over to where the cops were waiting I remember how we were walking side by side after

we left the dorms but when we turned the corner of the community Hub and the cops came into view Shauna slipped from my side and started to drop back just a little it was obviously just a little hesitancy on her part but I figured we were over that and kept encouraging her but when I look back in her Direction after she totally slipped from me I didn't notice that she was reaching for something but she must must have been because I look back towards the cops and the next thing I know there's a knife at

my throat I just froze for a few seconds and feeling the knife to my throat was one thing but realizing it was Shauna that was holding it was another thing entirely I was completely blindsided and all I could do was just stand there as Shauna held my head with one hand and the knife with the other as cops Drew their weapons and started to approach Shauna started telling me to walk backwards which I did but I think the movement kind of kicked my brain into life because the words what are you doing just started tumbling

out of my mouth I said stuff like Shauna what are you doing Shauna think about what you're doing and she responds I know what I'm doing I'm not going to jail I'm getting out of here all the while the cops are screaming to put the Knife Down Put The Knife Down but all Shauna seemed focused on was walking backwards and not cutting my throat on accident I remember telling her they're going to shoot you Shauna they're going to kill you if you don't stop and she just yelled at me to shut up and keep walking

which again is what I did kids had come running to see what was going on because they could hear all the yelling and so as we're walking backwards almost hip to hip there's this big Gathering of kids all watching from near the community Hub and it was chaos but I never once believed Shauna would ever do me any harm it was just a desperate attempt to avoid going going to jail and as soon as she got to the trees over near the livestock Fields she was going to make a run for it but that's not

what happened there was about a minute where I was trying to convince her to let me go but Shauna was too busy trying to get the cops to keep their distance she was yelling at them to stay back and all this other stuff and totally ignoring anything that I had to say to her but then there was this moment when she stopped and it was like she came back to me for a second at first she told me to shut up again but I kept telling her how what she was doing wouldn't work if the

cops didn't catch her on foot she'd end up running from them on her own in a place where she was unfamiliar with if she stuck to the roads she'd be in cuffs within hours but if she stuck to the woods it' be her versus the Bears and cougars and mother nature and I told her again this won't work Shauna and in reply she told me yes it will because they'll be too busy trying to save you than to chase me I could write all night I guess and still not even get close to how terrified

those words made me feel and like I said I was 99.999% convinced that Shauna meant me zero harm and had just panicked when she realized she was going to jail but maybe she even remembered what the warrant was about and remembered that it was way worse than she first thought who knows not like she's around to ask her either and the last thing she yelled as she intended to draw the blade of that knife across my throat was I'm sorry but she didn't just say it she yelled it and I guess that was all the

cops needed to hear she yelled at apology and I felt the blood hit my face but it wasn't mine it was Shauna after one of the cops heard her cry took aim and pulled the trigger I had a tiny cut where the knife nicked me as she fell but other than that I was completely unharmed Shauna on the other hand was probably dead before she even hit the dirt the cop put the bullet right through her brain stem and there was a hole in her face between her nose and her eye I just started screaming

like I didn't know if I had been shot how bad the cut to my throat was because like I said it was bleeding a little and I was in a state of complete hysteria I got down on my knees and started trying to wake shaa up like shaking her I thought that there'd be a chance that she'd survive the shot I mean people survive crazy head wounds sometimes but I think I just knew maybe from the look in her eyes that there was no more life inside her anymore that day was the worst of my

entire life it's not something I'll ever get over either I've just learned to live with it I know Shauna had to die so that I might live and I heard the shess in her voice and I know in my heart that she might have been about to kill me but that doesn't mean that every single day I don't think about her her and wish that she'd made a different Choice hey friends thanks for listening click that notification Bell to be alerted of all future narrations I release new videos every Monday and Thursday at 700 p.m.

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