About two years ago and my family of three finally found the home of our dreams. Or at least that’s what it seemed like on the outside.

It had an enormous back yard that was almost out of a fairytale. It was obvious that it hadn’t been tended to in years, but it was almost elegant.

The front yard and the home itself was simple and quaint, giving off an almost European architecture style.

A home like this would usually cost at least a million dollars, but we got lucky, grabbing it at almost seventy percent off that price.

A motivated seller for sure, which made me and my wife curious about what made the seller so eager to get it off their hands.

Mold? Aspdstice in the walls? Maybe annoying neighbors? Or maybe it was simply because it was in such a quite little town.

Whatever the case we weren’t easily scared away by ridiculous little things that could be fixed or ignored, especially when it was at such a good price.

The moment we moved into the home, only weeks after we signed all the papers, it had an odd aura to it.

Almost as if as soon as you put even a foot within the entrance, your hair would stand on end, almost as if the static from thousands of balloons were against your skin.

Odd, sure. But moving into new homes and such always had your mind making up crazy things since you’re not yet used the new environment.

I’m not quite sure if my wife ever felt what I did that first day, I never asked to be quite honest. I didn’t think it mattered.

The one weird thing about our dream homes architecture was that the vents of the home were protruding out from the wall, in order to let cool air or hot air inside we had to physically use the small handle to do so.

Another odd thing about the vents was how they opened up fully so you could put your whole head in the walls. But old architecture tended to have weird things that were unexplainable, and I had seen weirder.

Every now and then I would think I felt something shake within the floor, almost as if a small earthquake, almost barely noticeable had hit.

The first few times it happened I wrote it off as this town being sensitive to small earthquakes or possibly mining blasts.

That is, until my wife told me how she had felt the same thing. But upstairs, not even ten minutes after each of my experiences.

That was the moment I felt like the house was watching us, as if it was alive in some way.

Of course I wasn’t going to believe that our house made out of wood and concrete was possibly alive, but it sure gave off the feeling that it was.

And that’s exactly when it began feeling like eyes were on me constantly. Making the feeling of the house being alive even more evident in my day to day life.

For my own sake but mostly my anxious wives, I calmed her down from her hectic, confused state of rambling to settle on the conclusion that it was simply an odd earthquake and our times were a little jumbled up.

She accepted this thankfully. But I was a little less accepting of my excuse.

I was almost positive some sort of animal had gotten into our walls and was crawling around randomly making a racket.

Most likely something like a raccoon.

The idea of some rabies infested animal sneaking into the house and biting our three year old daughter horrified me.

This thought alone was enough to drive me into pest control mode around the house.

I opted to place traps within the vents; the only areas it was possible for anything to get inside other than the front and back door.

The moment I got near maybe the third vent in the house to put a mouse trap inside, I froze in my spot.

I stood inches away from it, just staring deadpan at what was inside the vent.

I hardly believed I saw it since it seemed to disappear almost instantly once I looked.

It seemed like, a person almost.

‘Almost’ is the key word in my description for whatever it was since I could hardly see the rest of it, but it’s eyes were nearly bright enough to be a dim flashlight.

The moment it disappeared I heard pounding from above me and then a horrified scream. It was Elle, my three year old daughter in her room.

As soon as the sound erupted throughout the house I heard more pounding against the ceiling, coming from the master bedroom where I knew my wife was reading.

Without hesitation I began to sprint upstairs.

The sound of my wives screams caused me to pump my legs harder than they already were until I made it to Elles bedroom at the end of the hallway.

The sight that greeted me the moment I entered the room gave me an equal mixture of anger and fear.

My daughter was gripping my wives hands so hard that they were almost loosing circulation. Tears filled her chubby face as she cried out for her ‘mommy’ to help her.

The part that really induced my mixed emotions was how her small legs were getting pulled into the now open vent in her room.

Deep within the darkness of the vent I saw those eyes once again. Those bright eyes I hardy believed I saw moments ago downstairs.

This time it’s eyes illuminated Elles legs enough to let me see it’s talon like fingers gripping onto her tightly, trying hard to pull her inside towards it.

Seeing someone’s hands on my daughter instantly filled me with more rage then fear.

Before I even had any idea what I was doing, I practically jumped towards whatever was holding my daughter in the vent.

I gripped one of Elles legs in one hand and one of the creatures talon like hands in the other.

I used as much strength as I could to pry its ashy green hands away from my daughter. But the harder I tried the tighter it dug it’s nails into her leg, causing her to only scream out more.

I began to feel annoyed and utterly pissed.

Not wanting to fail my horrified daughter, I reached into the vent, not caring or even thinking about what was really waiting for me inside.

The moment I gripped onto what I assumed to be it’s neck, I heard a low growl that sounded like a mix of a tiger and a bear.

The moment its growl echoed throughout the walls it instantly let go of Elle, letting her plummet to the floor, still gripping her mothers hands.

Whatever sense of pride filled me at the sight was short lived as I felt sharp nails and rough fingers lace their way around my hand.

The grip I had on it’s neck disappeared as I felt myself tumble towards the vent.

It was trying to pull me in instead. I tried my hardest to fight back, pushing my free hand against the wall.

It must have been immensely pissed about the fact that I took away its dinner, or whatever it was going to do to my little girl.

I knew I wouldn’t fit inside the small vent, and it knew as well. That’s why it was going for such a small child.

I remember telling my wife to get to the bedroom and to stay as far away from the vents as possible. And that’s exactly what she did, leaving me alone in Elles room.

The creature hardly seemed to be trying to pull me inside as hard as it was trying to with Elle.

The moment it finally yanked my whole arm inside the vent, my face squished against the wall hard. Almost instantly I felt a sharp pain radiate throughout my forearm.

The moment I felt the intense pain, I also felt it’s cold hands let go of me. Without any hesitation I ripped my arm from the vent, falling backwards into the foot of Elles bed.

With that I felt the shaking I always wrote off as earthquakes beneath me as I heard it scuttle around in the floor away from the room.

It bit me.

This whole time I was terrified of my daughter being bit by an animal that was carrying rabies, and I had just been bitten by something that was probably carrying more than just that.

The bite marks that were pierced into my forearm were deep enough to draw quite a bit of blood and leave near perfect teeth marks. The injury almost had me light headed.

The marks would’ve been almost human if it wasn’t for the long bottom row of sharp teeth that were dented into my skin.

For almost a week straight afterwards, nothing like that had happened again. Although anytime we heard or felt the floor boards shake we would stop in our tracks, making sure to stay as quiet as possible and away from the vents.

To make matters worse, the overwhelming sense of something watching us grew unbearable anytime we were in the vicinity of a vent.

One thing that was also slightly un-nerving, was how odd I felt ever since that night.

That wording may make it sound as if I felt uncomfortable because of the events that transpired, but it was a physical feeling rather than mental.

I was constantly feeling almost not all there, as if I was floating away from my body. Almost a drunken feeling if I had to describe it in normal terms.

Sometimes I’d get random aches in my bones, as if I aged fifty years in seconds.

Then came the most pain I had ever felt in my life. My blood felt as if it was boiling in my veins like molten lava. As if I were going to explode at any moment.

Anytime the pain filled my body I almost always doubled over, falling over and laying down to ride it out.

I had gone to the doctors about my arm. I had gotten a rabies shot and all just in case. So there was no possible reason for me to be feeling so out of place and getting such intense pains.

Because I didn’t want to seem weak or bother my wife to take me to the hospital for a second time, I simply dealt with the feelings that overcame me randomly everyday instead.

But I should’ve just swallowed my pride or shame and gone, because what happened next could have been stopped for all I know.

It had been almost two weeks since that horrible night and we finally stopped hearing whatever was roaming within our floors and walls.

We finally stopped feeling it’s animalistic eyes burning through us as we walked through the house.

It was all beginning to look up. It was beginning to feel like home rather than a prison of sorts.

But then I started blacking out. As if I had too much to drink and just forgot everything that happened.

Most of the time it was later at night, right when I was about to sleep, so I thought I had started sleep walking from all the stress that the home was causing me.

That was something I had always done when I was a child.

Or at least that’s what I would’ve thought, if I wouldn’t have always woken up from my black outs inches from many of the various vents in the home.

Any vent I seemed to wake up near was always slightly open, which was odd as ever since the night in Elles room we made sure they were shut tightly.

The moment I confided in my wife about what had been happening, she told me I was probably just sleep walking from stress, just as I had thought myself.

I made sure to leave the vents out of our talk so I wouldn’t worry her more than she already was with our new home.

Not even a day after our conversation I blacked out once again, but this time I woke up to something that haunts me to this day. Something that has my family absolutely horrified of me.

I remember waking up, standing in the middle of the living room, nearly broken lights flickering ominously as if they were ready to burst at any moment.

All the vents that I could see from my position were opened up, the complete opposite to how we always left them.

The entire house almost looked as if a hurricane had whirled its way though it.

Tables were flipped, chairs and mirrors were broken. Random splatters of blood covered parts of the walls as well as the wooden floor boards.

I remember so vividly the warm liquid that I felt around my chin. The intense metallic taste that danced against my tongue.

At first I thought I hit my head somehow and there was an intruder.

That was, until I heard the cries from behind me.

My wife and Elle. They sounded absolutely petrified.

As soon as I turned around I regretted it.

My wife had multiple bite and scratch marks against her body, the blood that covered the floor and walls obviously being hers.

The only thing that really relived me was how Elle was unscathed.

The moment I looked at myself in the large mirror above them I got a good look at myself.

Blood dripped from my mouth, splattered against my clothing and face. I had scratch marks of my own against my face and arms, as if someone had been trying to get away from me.

Once I tried rushing towards my family to try and help, my wife gripped Elle tighter, turning her away from me and crying more intensely.

As soon as she pleaded for me to just ‘leave them alone and have mercy’, it all finally clicked.

I did this to them. I was the intruder.

No matter how much I apologized and told them we were going to get the hell out of this cursed home, they wouldn’t budge.

By the time I finally was able to get my wife to believe how I had blacked out, she began to slowly approach me with Elle in her arms, shaking harder and harder the closer she got.

She told me how demonic and in-human I had been that night. How I growled just as that creature had that night in Elles room.

How I threw everything and anything I could at them as I ran them throughout the house.

How I had grabbed at her, tossing her down and sinking my teeth into her as hard as I could as if she was a piece of steak.

How I tried so hard to pull them into the vents just as that thing had.

And how it stood inside the vents, simply staring as everything went down. As if I was it’s minion in some way.

After that I didn’t care that that place was our supposed ‘Dream home’ or that we had nowhere else to go. We just left to the closest clinic to help my wife and then got as far as we could from that hell house.

She didn’t and still doesn’t look at me the same anymore, and neither does my daughter. Even though the moment we left that place I somehow stopped blacking out. As if whatever that thing was, was tied to me, forcing me to do things I couldn’t possibly stomach thinking about.

I wouldn’t blame them, I had almost killed them. But it still hurts to see such fear in their eyes most of the time. Fear towards me, the man that’s supposed to keep them safe in the house.

I’ll never forget that home. And I’m pretty sure it will never forget me or my family. And that’s terrifying to me.

Especially since lately I’ve been starting to black out again, but I’m afraid to tell my wife, especially since the trust between us has just been starting to get back to semi normal.

I hardly think anything could possibly happen again, it’s been almost two years since then and we’re thousands of miles away from that home.

But just in case. Close your vents and get the cops to check on our home if you don’t hear from me again.