[SPEAKER_00]: Paranormal experiences don't really work to a time scale, and therefore we invite you to listen to a dark miniser.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hello everyone and welcome back to the Dark Paranormal's Dark mini-sode, the final mini-sode of Season 22.

[SPEAKER_00]: As you guys know, there will be many changes coming for Season 23.

[SPEAKER_00]: And one of those changes was going to be to make the mini-sodes by weekly, but a last minute reprieve from you guys to suggest that you'd soon have dark rounds go by weekly, saved the dark mini-sodes series so that it continues to be weekly in the season 23.

[SPEAKER_00]: Another great example to back up the fact when I say you guys run the show, you guys run the show, it's your show.

[SPEAKER_00]: And to give the utmost credit where it's due, you guys have never steered our ship into the wrong waters, so thank you so very much.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't forget the dark times are indeed coming after Friday's finale there will be no more dark paranormal episode released until January Friday the 23rd.

[SPEAKER_00]: Completely coincidental that it is our 23rd season starting on the 23rd, but it's a happy coincidence.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, of course, we will put out an episode that we could before that as we always do, which is our pre-season episode, and previously where that's been either a dark by episode or an interview with someone, we're going to put out somebody's shorter experience.

[SPEAKER_00]: just a little way of breaking things up a bit and speaking of experiences don't forget we always accept submissions because we will always find a place for your experience on one of our many channels.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if you have your own true paranormal experience, [SPEAKER_00]: Please, we want to hear it and we want our audience to hear it too.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, are the going to the show notes and click on Submit My Experience or go direct to the darkparanormal.com and you'll find the same link there also.

[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, any break-and-play that we take, such as the impending break between seasons, is a perfect time to trial our Patreon.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if you go into the links in the show notes, you will find the link to have a free week trial at any tier of our Patreon, even our highest tier, where you will gain access to DarkBytes episode and the entire DarkBytes back catalogue of over 170 hours of submissions heard only by our patrons.

[SPEAKER_00]: and a quick shoutout to our patrons who keep this show afloat and then apology.

[SPEAKER_00]: This recent dark bites we did actually feature a duplicate story that had been said before.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now that's very rare when that happens and we even set up the submission process to stop that from happening.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I knew a member of our team put together this week's Dark Bites, and as we've changed the format of Dark Bites, so I don't know what I'm reading until I've read it, it since came to light that the first story we used this week was indeed a duplicate story, but thankfully it was only a short story.

[SPEAKER_00]: But after a quick zoom call this morning, and several unneeded apologies from the individual involved, were confident that won't happen again.

[SPEAKER_00]: And although it was a repeated story, it did spread into a conversation different from the previous one, which I found very interesting indeed.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, there was still something to gain from it.

[SPEAKER_00]: That said, it still should never have happened, so apologies to our wonderful patriots.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now we have the notto small matter of the finale of our mini-sodes for season 22.

[SPEAKER_00]: So please hit pause, go make yourself a nice warm drink, find a comfy place to sit down, give yourself 15 to 20 minutes to relax and listen as we all learn about.

[SPEAKER_00]: Grave attachments.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hello Kevin, I would like to remain anonymous please.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm from a small town in Utah.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've been listening to your podcast for years, and I never thought that would come a time when I'd show my own paranormal experience, though here I am.

[SPEAKER_00]: My mother has always been a firm believer in the paranormal, ghosts, spirits, unexplained presentes.

[SPEAKER_00]: These conversations were never unusual in my household, so growing up, hearing creepy stories or experiencing strange moments never really shocked anyone in my family.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was just normal.

[SPEAKER_00]: What I never expected though was that one day those stories would stop being stories and begin happening to me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I grew up in a small town in Utah about 30 miles away from an old abandoned mining town named Marca.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're not familiar with it, Marca was active in the late 1800s and early 1900s before being completely abandoned.

[SPEAKER_00]: Coincidentally, my grandfather actually worked in those mines when he was younger.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the place already carried this strange, heavy history for my family.

[SPEAKER_00]: One night, when I was a kid, I went with my mother's ex-husband's children to the Marca, Utah Cemetery.

[SPEAKER_00]: We didn't go there for any deep reason, just boredom in curiosity.

[SPEAKER_00]: Kids doing stupid things, especially when they're looking to scare each other.

[SPEAKER_00]: For us, older kids, the idea of hiking up a hill to an abandoned cemetery in the dark sounded like the perfect [SPEAKER_00]: The cemetery itself was only active from 1894 to 1917.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's at the top of a hill and you'll have to hike to reach it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even before we reached it, the earth felt off.

[SPEAKER_00]: Still we laughed it off.

[SPEAKER_00]: Once we arrived we decided to play a quick game of hide and seek.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just enough to get a few scares and then we'd head home.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing happened that night, no shadows, no voices, no strange encounters.

[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually we all went home, and I went to bed thinking nothing more of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's when everything changed.

[SPEAKER_00]: My bedroom was longer and narrow, with a fireplace at one end.

[SPEAKER_00]: The windows had metal bars on, because we didn't live in the nicest neighborhood.

[SPEAKER_00]: everything felt normal until I woke up.

[SPEAKER_00]: At least I thought I woke up.

[SPEAKER_00]: My body wouldn't move.

[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't scream.

[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't turn my head.

[SPEAKER_00]: That was the first time I ever experienced sleep paralysis.

[SPEAKER_00]: And standing hovering over my face was a man in a black cloak.

[SPEAKER_00]: A first [SPEAKER_00]: then he leaned closer, and his face revealed itself.

[SPEAKER_00]: What stirred back at me was something inhuman.

[SPEAKER_00]: A demonic creature, smiling directly into my face.

[SPEAKER_00]: That smile is forever burned into my memory.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just as my eyes started to close again, he faded away.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now I convinced myself that was just a nightmare, [SPEAKER_00]: Every single night for months, it will come back.

[SPEAKER_00]: The same figure, the same paralysis, sometimes it hovered, sometimes it touched me, but it's always watched.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was being tortured in my sleep night after night, and I was terrified.

[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually, my mum had had enough of herring about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: She believed me, and she hired someone to cleanse the house, and after that, it stopped.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was so grateful.

[SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was all finally over.

[SPEAKER_00]: Years passed, by Mom divorced that man we moved and they eventually moved in with my ex, who I'll call Joe for privacy reasons.

[SPEAKER_00]: it came back.

[SPEAKER_00]: Joe worked early mornings, usually leaving around 5.30 a.m.

while it was still dark.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't have to be up until 8 so I'd stay in bed.

[SPEAKER_00]: One morning he kissed me goodbye, turned off the lights and left.

[SPEAKER_00]: I fell back asleep, and then I felt someone crawl into bed behind me and wrapped their arms around me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I smiled and said, I thought you left, [SPEAKER_00]: that's when the arms changed.

[SPEAKER_00]: What I thought was Joe morphed into that same demonic creature that I hadn't seen in four years.

[SPEAKER_00]: Only this time it didn't just hover.

[SPEAKER_00]: It rolled me over, wrapped it hand around my throat and in a deep demonic voice said, you have always been mine.

[SPEAKER_00]: I jolted awake gasping for air and it felt like I'd actually been choking.

[SPEAKER_00]: The next day it happened again only worse.

[SPEAKER_00]: I had Joe talking upstairs and I saw our bedroom door open.

[SPEAKER_00]: half asleep, I closed my eyes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then I heard something sprinting down the hard wood stairs, and suddenly I felt it jump on me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I opened my eyes and it was on top of me, inches from my face, it closed dug into my head, and I felt real genuine physical pain.

[SPEAKER_00]: And again, it crawled.

[SPEAKER_00]: You have always been mine.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I understand sleep paralysis, yes, I was experiencing sleep paralysis, but this was different.

[SPEAKER_00]: This thing wasn't just appearing, it was attacking me.

[SPEAKER_00]: After those attacks began happening again, my sense of time completely unraveled.

[SPEAKER_00]: Days blurred together, I started measuring my life in hours of sleep instead of days awake.

[SPEAKER_00]: And most days, I had almost nothing to measure at all.

[SPEAKER_00]: Every morning followed the same pattern.

[SPEAKER_00]: Joe would leave for work while it was still dark outside.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would lay there staring at the ceiling, listening to the sound of his car pulling away.

[SPEAKER_00]: My heart rising as if it already knew what was coming.

[SPEAKER_00]: The silence that followed was oppressive.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thick, almost alive.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not peaceful in the slightest.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would tell myself, just stay awake, don't fall asleep.

[SPEAKER_00]: But sleep always won, and when it did, it felt like sinking underwater, slow, heavy, unavoidable.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then the paralysis would set in.

[SPEAKER_00]: My limbs would grow numb, my chest tight, I could feel myself trying to scream with nothing coming out.

[SPEAKER_00]: But then, I would feel the presence itself, a rife.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes it didn't appear right away, sometimes I could feel it before I saw it.

[SPEAKER_00]: The pressure in the room would change, like the air was being sucked out.

[SPEAKER_00]: My skin would prickle, I would feel watched and studied.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then, it would show itself.

[SPEAKER_00]: that same figure, that same face, the same twisted smile.

[SPEAKER_00]: But as the days went on, it began changing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Its features became sharper, its eyes darker, seemingly more intelligent, less like a hallucination, and more like something, a worm.

[SPEAKER_00]: It began anticipating my reactions.

[SPEAKER_00]: It would lean closer when I tried to look away, tighten its grip when I attempted to fight.

[SPEAKER_00]: This wasn't random, this was deliberate.

[SPEAKER_00]: What skirt me the most wasn't the pain nor the paralysis.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was the certainty.

[SPEAKER_00]: The way it behaved as though it knew me, as though it had been waiting.

[SPEAKER_00]: I began questioning everything.

[SPEAKER_00]: Was this really sleep paralysis, or had I invited something into my life years ago without realising it?

[SPEAKER_00]: Marca, the cemetery trip, that replayed in my mind constantly, the abandoned mining town, a cemetery filled with the dead from a harsh forgotten dangerous era.

[SPEAKER_00]: Men who worked underground, men who died suddenly, violently, erased by time.

[SPEAKER_00]: I wondered if something had attached itself to me back then, something ancient, something angry.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or maybe it wasn't tied to the land at all.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it had chosen me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I started noticing strange things whilst awake too.

[SPEAKER_00]: shadows moving where there shouldn't be.

[SPEAKER_00]: The feeling of someone stood behind me when no one was there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Cold spots in the house that never went away.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'd catch myself holding my breath, listening, waiting for footsteps that never came.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sleep deprivation does awful things to your mind.

[SPEAKER_00]: I knew that, and I tried to rationalize it.

[SPEAKER_00]: but there were moments brief, horrifying moments where I could swear I saw it while fully awake, only for a split second, a reflection in the mirror, a shape in the doorway, always gone the moment I focused.

[SPEAKER_00]: Joe noticed the change in me before I said anything.

[SPEAKER_00]: He would ask if I was okay and I'd lie, I didn't want to sound crazy, I didn't want to admit that I was afraid of my own bed, that I dreaded the moments the light went out, that I felt safer during the day not because the thing was gone but because it was waiting.

[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually I told him the truth, it just came spilling out.

[SPEAKER_00]: I told him everything, the cemetery, the childhood experiences, the cleansing, the creature, the choking, the words it kept repeating, you have always been mine.

[SPEAKER_00]: Joe didn't laugh, he didn't dismiss me, he listened, really listened, and when I finished he said something that really stuck with me.

[SPEAKER_00]: He said, whatever this is, it's not just in your head.

[SPEAKER_00]: and even if it were, it's hurting you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore we need help.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's when he suggested seeing a psychic, but I was conflicted.

[SPEAKER_00]: Part of me wanted answers and other parts of me was terrified of what those answers may be.

[SPEAKER_00]: What if someone confirmed my worst fear?

[SPEAKER_00]: This thing was real, that it had followed me for all of those years.

[SPEAKER_00]: but I was exhausted, desperate, willing to try anything.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that day we went.

[SPEAKER_00]: The psychic that we went to owned a modest shop, won the felt strangely calm when we walked in.

[SPEAKER_00]: The air itself felt lighter, cleaner than I'd felt anywhere in months.

[SPEAKER_00]: Before I even opened my mouth, she looked directly at me.

[SPEAKER_00]: She didn't ask my name, she didn't ask why I was there.

[SPEAKER_00]: She simply said, you didn't come alone.

[SPEAKER_00]: My stomach dropped.

[SPEAKER_00]: She said she could feel something hovering over my shoulder, something dark, something possessive, something that had been attached to me for a long, long time.

[SPEAKER_00]: She said it wasn't uncommon for entities to latch onto people during moments of vulnerability, especially children, especially in places tied to death, trauma, or unfinished business.

[SPEAKER_00]: She also said, some things follow bloodlines, others follow opportunity, and some follow permission.

[SPEAKER_00]: That day, she cleansed me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And no, it wasn't dramatic like in the movies, no screaming, et cetera, but it was intense.

[SPEAKER_00]: I felt waves of feet and cold wash over me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I cried without knowing why I felt lighter when it was over, as if something heavy had been lifted out of my chest.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that night, I slept for the first time in months and nothing happened.

[SPEAKER_00]: No paralysis, no presence, no voice, and for a while I believed it was over, again.

[SPEAKER_00]: But here's the thing about experiences like this, they change you, and even now, years later, I still get episodes every now and then, not as violent, not as frequent, but they still happen.

[SPEAKER_00]: And even when they don't, I always feel it.

[SPEAKER_00]: That sense of being watched, of not being alone.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes I wake up suddenly for no reason, heart racing convinced someone is standing just out of sight, and sometimes I catch myself listening to the silence, waiting for it to break.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if whatever followed me from that cemetery is truly gone or if it's simply waiting, watching, patient.

[SPEAKER_00]: If there's one thing I've learned through all of this is that some doors want open, never fully closed, anonymous.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, thank you so much anonymous for being the finale episode for our dark mini-sodes series for season 22.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, [SPEAKER_00]: In full transparency, this did not come from our regular submission, this is an old submission, and the reason for that is our team are currently working on the submission series to make sure that we don't have repeated experiences as what happened with dark bikes.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, there is a very slim possibility, this too may be a repeat, but with the editing I had to do with the document, I doubt that to be the case.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've also used keyword searches such as marker, symmetry, etc.

[SPEAKER_00]: And just that are a few episodes where people visit psychics, and that part sounds similar.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I do believe this is a fresh experience.

[SPEAKER_00]: Of course though, even though now we do over this, if you simply read an hour worth of paranormal experiences every week for five years, [SPEAKER_00]: That's around 260 hours of different paranormal experiences that would take you roughly 11 days without sleep to listen all the way through as the reader of those they don't stick with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: You would literally be saying nothing other than paranormal experiences if you tried to order a loaf of bread.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I've tried my best to make sure this is a never before heard experience.

[SPEAKER_00]: However, please do give us some leeway in light of the fact we're trying to make sure this is as solid as possible, hence this not coming from our recent submissions.

[SPEAKER_00]: And even as I'm recording this episode, my phone's flashing away with updates from the team about where they're up to and what they think the issues have been.

[SPEAKER_00]: So believe me, this is being whacked on, but I thank you for your patience and I thank you for joining me and listening along with me as we all experience together these mini-sodes, which thanks to you guys are going to remain in the season 23.

[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, once more a huge thank you to anonymous for submitting your experience, it's one of those ones I love the most, there are that many jump-off points, did this thing follow you from the cemetery?

[SPEAKER_00]: Was it something that followed your bloodline as the psychic said?

[SPEAKER_00]: The very interesting statement of you have always been mine, is not something I could hand on heart say, that sounds like an attachment picked up at a cemetery.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the thing that fascinates me, because that's where I would go.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why is that being said?

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not the comment of someone who has haphazardly jumped onto someone they don't know.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the thing I will take away from this episode.

[SPEAKER_00]: But until next season, when we again begin our weekly mini-sodes, take care, stay safe and I'll speak to you all again for our finale on Friday and until then, goodbye.