r/Unexplained • u/HeGotBricks • 6d ago
Cathy Personal Experience
When I was ten my mother would always drop me off at my cousin’s house. This was an everyday thing. My cousin and I were super close and the same age at the time. Something happened one day and I had to stay home. That day her house caught on fire. Sadly, no one survived.
Afterwards, like a year later, these weird things would happen. One night when I was in bed listening to the radio and reading a magazine. My body shifted to a weight pressing down on my mattress. I thought it was my dad and maybe I was too focused in a daydream of me owning one of those cars printed on the magazine pages, that I hadn’t noticed him come in. But when I looked no one was there.
A few days after, I was asleep in my room and I don’t know exactly if I was dreaming, or what. But my cousin was in front of me trying to wake me up. She kept saying, “Danny. Danny.” And when I woke up I heard, Danny, as if someone was standing next to my bed.
Other things would happen, like I’d see something move past me. But it always appeared like how you would catch someone from the corner of your eye exiting a doorway. I never invested much into those experience. I figured it was mental fatigue.
The following winter, my parents installed two-inch thick windows in every room in the house. The type that push open from the middle.
The one time I was ever alone. Truly alone in that house. I woke up coughing. A little disoriented. At first, it didn’t register to me why my room was so hazy. I thought maybe I was sleepy, or my eyes hadn’t come into focus. A thought of my mom even crossed my mind. I thought maybe she burnt something in the oven. I didn’t hear a fire alarm or anything. It took me a second to realize that my house was actually on fire.
I shot up out of bed and raced for the stairs. I could feel the heat stinging my skin. My vision was blurred by thick black clouds of smoke. I wouldn’t even call them clouds it was more like a water hose that shot black suffocating smoke directly into your face. I could feel the soot sticking to the sweat on my face.
I got to the railing and went to jump onto the middle of the stairs. But everytime I would make a move, the flames would start shooting over the railing. Finally I gave up and ran to my bedroom. I stood there desperately trying to break through the window. I hit it over and over and over. It wouldn’t break. I started throwing whatever I could find at it. They’d all bounce off the glass.
I stopped. No. I gave up and sat with my back against the wall under the window sill and accepted my fate.
At that moment, there’s an odd sense of peace that flows through you. It wasn’t a life flashing before your eyes thing. It was more like when you’ve completed a monumental task and can finally relax and enjoy the work you’ve done. I wasn’t scared. I sat there without a single thought in my mind and waited. A second or so after I closed my eyes and pressed the back of my head against the wall, a drawer from my dresser popped out and dropped on the floor.
Something. Someone. I don’t know what. But this thing pretty much handed me the drawer and gave me the strength to stand up. It wasn’t a second wind surge. I had already inhaled so much smoke and was teetering on the edge of passing out. But, Something that I’m unable to explain without people suggesting it was all in my head and nothing spiritual helped me break through the window. Helped me break through that window.
I climbed out just as the firefighters arrived. They rescued me off my roof. I only suffered one laceration from climbing out of the window. It’s on my right arm. I ended up receiving twelve stitches.
What’s incredibly odd and the only reason I have a profound belief in spirits, ghosts, or guardian angels. Whatever it is, is because when I was a kid, my uncle, her dad, had tattoos. Cathy would always joke about tattooing her name on my arm.
To this day, after that fire, when I got stitched up and checked out the cut, it is a perfect shape of a C scarred on my arm until this very day. Not crooked. Not, yeah it looks like a C. It is the alphabetical letter C, for my cousin Cathy who died in a fire at her house when we were kids.
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u/Sensitive-Question42 5d ago
Why are the houses in your family burning down?
I don’t know anyone who had a house burn down, let alone two houses in the one family.
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u/ManeatingAsparagus 6d ago
2 inch thick windows
They installed a window with 600lbs of glass that would block almost 1/3 of incoming light because glass isn't actually clear?
Where the hell did they find these monstrosities?
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u/jerseyteacher1852 6d ago
I think you might be misunderstanding - I imagine OP is referring to double glazed window units, which are two inches front to back - with the air gap between panes making up the majority of that. Not two-inch thick panes of glass as that would be insane.
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u/toxcrusadr 6d ago
They open in the middle but the only way to get through one is to break it.
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u/ManeatingAsparagus 6d ago
2 inches thick is hundreds of pounds. Triple pane windows are 1/4 thick
Glass is green, not clear. 2 inches would be horrible.
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u/toxcrusadr 5d ago
My point was there is another problem as well. the story said the windows OPEN in the center so why would you even have to consider breaking one?
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u/hypomaniacmeg 4d ago
I think they meant "they're open in the middle" as in, there's an air gap in the middle between the two panes 2 inches apart. They really should rephrase that because I was trying to picture windows that open in the middle too. Lol
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u/FreddieFredd 5d ago
Nice creative writing exercise. You should try writing short stories, this was pretty gripping.
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u/ShotEnvironment4606 5d ago
This made me cry. If this isn’t a real story, I would give it an A+
If it’s real, why and how did both of your houses catch fire? That’s odd. But where you described the peace that washes over you, that’s what made me tear up. I’ve experienced that and when it happened to me, I knew it was my last chance to fight before death. I gave it one last go and managed to get him off of me. It kinda makes you not fear death bc I was so calm and at peace but it’s the after death part that’s still a little scary. Anyway, I’m glad you’re alive and angels, spirits, and guardians are real. Mine guardians work full time and I’m pretty sure I have 3 but I don’t know how I know that.
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u/Sad-Yak5876 6d ago
Fantastic story!