While this isn't really a paranormal story, it IS a pretty spoopy one. Or at least it was pretty spoopy to me.
Also, tl;dr.
I'm in my early 30s, and even though I live in a third-world shithole, I myself have actually lived quite a comfortable, sheltered life. My parents own a couple of stores, and I own and am the only employee of a relatively successful custom software company (salesmen are freelance, accountant for hire, so yeah). I live with my parents, and I'm not planning to move away any time soon. I had refused to learn how to drive, because early on I decided I didn't want to drive for anyone, and I'd rather have people drive me. But when my company exploded, I ended up learning, and bought myself a car.
I also had never even touched a gun, but around the same time I bought the car, I took some classes at the local polygon and bought myself a beretta. Just for safety. And I ended up using it.
I work from home, but I used to be a teacher, and a couple of times a year, I give a conference or shop in a couple of software congresses (I'm a FOSS dude) around the country. And the first time I took the car outside the city, it was to one of these congresses.
Unlike all the previous ones I've gone to, which have been a fuckton in over a decade, I didn't get piss drunk the night before going back home, because I didn't want to ride back for about 4 hours hung over. So instead of hitting a hotel room with 10 or 20 people and a lot of booze and pot and coke like all these previous years, I stayed at my own hotel room, and went out to get some nice dinner by my lonesome. But I should have been running lines of coke and having tequila shot challenges while playing Frets on Fire instead, because things got fucked up when I was driving back to the hotel.
(1/5)
Passing an alleyway, I caught a dude manhandling some native, and thus usually piss poor, girl. Wasn't a looker either. Pretty damn dark skinned, which if you're a degenerate might attract you, but on my case, it's a big turn off. Fat too. And a face for the radio. And if that wasn't enough of a reason not to do anything, the dude wasn't the kind of person you want to go against: the shirt off, with sagging pants showing his boxers like the worst kind of nigger (though he was a spic, as I live in Latin America), and the whole torso full of tattoos, some of which identified him as a member of a particularly vicious and famous international gang. So, while I want to blame the people who were walking by and just ignoring the attempted rape, I kinda... can't. Not only was the chick fugly so, hey, rape is the best she could do, but the dude wasn't exactly someone you wanted to go against either.
But I did. I double-parked, and wielding the gun I had learned to use only like a month ago, believe it or not reminding myself of /k/'s trigger discipline specifically as "come on, Anon, remember /k/'s trigger discipline", I pointed at the dude and screamed for him to stop, in spanish. It was something retarded, along the lines of "Hey! You son of a bitch! Leave the girl alone!" ("Hey! Hijueputa! Dejá al culo!"). He turned towards me with a mocking look, but then he double-checked, surprised. And his hand went towards his hip, and came back with a black gun. And that was when the shot came out of my gun, and hit his head.
(2/5)
>>17121024
At this point, I should say I'm a huge human rights advocate. Like many FOSS guys, I'm mainly concerned with the 12th and 19th human rights, but I also firmly believe in the 1st right: the right to live. I'm against capital punishment, which is actually a view that isn't very popular around here, but fuck it. I don't even kill insects, other than mosquitos. I once inadvertantly stepped on a beetle, maiming it for good, and cried while I finished killing it. And I felt bad for days after that. So my mind, which is pretty damn unstable to begin with, didn't cope well with killing a man. I'm still not over it.
I guess I can say I'm lucky though. I myself called the cops. They didn't even detain me, though then again, they're corrupt as fuck and asked me for cash, which I gladly shelled out. The native girl and some bypassers testified in my favor. I also called my lawyer, who drove all the way to the town I was to avoid me getting any problems. And, I didn't. People all around told me I'd done good. They told me I was a hero and retarded shit like that. But I hadn't done good nor was I a hero. I had murdered some poor retard who didn't know better. I didn't even get any repercussions from his gang. Nothing. I had to stay in that horrible town and pay for an overpriced hotel for a couple of extra days, but other than that, my life was kinda the same as usual after that.
And that's when shit got... spoopy. I was already a shut-in, spending 20+ hours in my bedroom every day and not leaving my house for months at a time, but I didn't want to know anything of the world after that. I sold the car, though I kept the gun. I made a form so I didn't have to directly talk to my salesmen unless absolutely necessary. I haven't hit a FOSS congress since. I stopped going to my weekly skype+irc D&D sessions with my old friends. I even stopped hanging on 4chan for like a year. I wasn't playing any MMOs then, but if I had, I'd most likely have dropped them too.
(3/5)
>>17121027
And I started hallucinating. I first saw his head, looking at me reproachfully, floating on top of me whenever I woke up. I actually had had similar hallucinations when I was a child - I specially remember one time when I saw this episode of the X Files that was about a serial killer, and I woke up to the hallucination of the dude's head, laughing, followed by me screaming and waking my parents up. But the recent hallucinations were even worse, because I actually turned my bedroom into a dark room years ago, so I could sleep at any hour. And I was having these hallucinations even in the dark. And after a few weeks of this, I just stopped sleeping. For several days at a time.
The hallucinations got more vivid during the time I refused to sleep. And, they kinda drifted from the dude. Instead of hallucinating of him, I saw bright monsters, that weren't there anymore after double-checking. I heard voices constantly too, normally telling me what a piece of shit, what a hypocrite I was. They weren't wrong, but hearing them so much wasn't the best.
I had already escaped to watching anime and playing vidya since I was a teenager, but they didn't work much in countering these hallucinations. Strangely enough though, some of the best programming functions I made in my life were during those sleep depravation periods, and I believe that, while I was programming, I actually stopped all hallucinations. It saved me. But the concentration can't last forever, and after a couple of hours of beautiful programming, my mind drifted, and the fucked up shit started again.
(4/5)
>>17121023
>frets on fire
Man you really do live in a third world shithole
>>17121032
My parents were already used to me having an erratic sleep cycle, so at the beginning, they didn't notice the slowly growing psychosis, I believe. But after a month or two, they sent me to a psychiatrist. I was against it at first - the psychiatric wards in my country are famously worse than prisons, and there's no private ones. But then again, I'm kinda well off, so I hit a private, pretty expensive psychiatrist with my lawyer, making him swear I wouldn't be sent to a ward.
And then everybody got on the floor and danced the dinosaur.
Anyawy, now I'm high as fuck on meds, and off to have some lunch. So, psychotic/schizo episodes ITT?
(5/5)
>>17121035
That's pretty common on FOSS gatherings, actually. Have done so in congresses in the US and yurop too.