When I was younger, I was told I was never allowed to leave my room after 9pm and one night I discovered why. (Part 1)

Growing up, I lived with strictly conservative parents and it's been something that I have been trying and failing to leave behind all of my life.

I don't want to delve in too deep into my childhood memories on this thread as its been something that I've been avoiding, although my therapist says that 'talking' is good so I've been trying to follow her advice and openly discuss my childhood traumas with anyone who would listen. No one really wants to listen though. No one wants to listen about my incredibly overbearing parents, the weird rules they had, about how I wasn't ever allowed to have friends around, never allowed out the house past 7pm and under no circumstances, was I ever allowed out of my bedroom after 9pm. My parents never told me why. They just said it was when they could have their 'special' time. Whatever that meant. They made sure I abided by their rules by locking me in my room at night so that I couldn't sneak around even if I wanted to.

This became a regular everyday occurance and something that I slowly grew accustomed to, until I no longer asked questions, no longer cried when they told me for the 16th time that my then friend Susan wasn't allowed in the house and no longer worried them every hour for a glass of water or the bathroom. They installed a kind of small cat flap into my room when I turned 10, outside of which they left me glasses of water and snacks if I got hungry. By this point I was pretty much toilet trained and no longer needed to use the bathroom several times a night which meant I no longer needed the 'toilet bucket' they have been providing me with for as long as I can remember.

Great parents they were right?

The only time I ever enjoyed living there, with them was around the holidays - Christmas was the best time as I was never locked in my room at night and this was because, my parents once said, that Christmas is the only time that they take a break from their 'special' hobby. I never knew what the hobby was and I was never allowed to ask - I did once and was locked away at 8pm instead of 9pm. I never asked again after that. I hated it, because I wasn't even allowed to keep my lights one either, I was just supposed to get in bed and sleep immediately. What child can ever go to sleep straight away?

Several uneventful years passed, I grew accustomed to my daily routine - wake up, go to school, come back, read a book, go to bed, wake up and repeat. My mental health however, was declining slowly but surely. I felt incredibly lonely all the time and became very introverted, even in school. My friends didn't understand so stopped talking to me. My parents, well, I wasn't a priority to them so it isn't something that overly concerned them. They thought it was just teenage hormones, not the fact that they kept locking me away in my room every night for years and not at all bothering to explain why.

On the eve of my 13th birthday, October 4th 1999 - I decided it was time to find out. It was a pleasant evening, mild and ordinary - I'd been quiet most of the day but that's nothing unusual, especially not to my parents so they thought nothing of it when I decided to retire to my room early, 7.30pm in fact. They didn't ask any questions, didn't even flinch. Both of them just sat there, looking somewhat despondent but I thought it best not to ask questions. I'd learned that the hard way by now.

My plan was, to wait until midnight, and I would climb out of the window and let myself back into the house with the keys that my parents never even knew I had. I waited patiently, time was all that I had and filling empty hours and staring at walls has become somewhat of a pastime for me - I was excited to finally break the monotony, nervousness was an entirely alien feeling to me so all I could do was sit and wait.

Once it hit midnight, I stood up and went to my window - I'd learned how to be extremely quiet by now so I didn't make a sound. Our house was quite tall and my bedroom was on the 3rd floor so I was hesitant of course, but I was quite a tall child by then so didn’t worry too much about a sudden fall or slipping off the roof. I had been planning this for quite some time and was heavily prepared and also, as I had mentioned, I was somewhat adept to my lack of emotion.

I walked over to my bedroom window and opened it. It was easy. My windows were never locked because my parents didn’t take me to be the gutsy type. I had always been quite a timid child, quiet and receptive so I knew they wouldn’t expect this sort of behaviour from me and plus, they’d drilled those impulses from me long ago now. With their cruelty.

But, I needed to find out what went on in the house. That urge was more powerful than the fear of the repercussions I would receive, should I be discovered.

I’m digressing, I do apologise. I was on the roof of my home, crawling slowly. I did this to avoid being seen and to minimise the noise that I made when I heard a...sound. It was coming from the direction of my parents bedroom, I was crawling past their window. Annoyingly, their curtains was shut so I couldn’t see anything.

But that sound! It was...peculiar, to say the least. I crawled a little closer and realised that it was the sound of hushed whispers, the words were muffled but in unison. It almost sounded like a chant of some kind. It was just me and my parents in this house but the sound that emanated from the bedroom, it seemed liked there was at least 10 people in there.

It made me feel really uncomfortable, scared even and that’s not something that I was used to. It did, however, urge me to continue. I was even more intent on finding out what my parents were doing. I continued to crawl until I came to the roof of the second floor of the house, I was then able to get all the way down to the ground.

The house was shrouded in darkness. I knew it was midnight but still, it was sinister, eerie. I walked towards the front door and opened it with the key that I had hidden at the bottom of my shoe. I opened it slowly to ensure that it didn’t creak - it was an old house.

What I saw as soon as I stepped through the door were candles, candles absolutely everywhere. There was a candle on every single free space in the downstairs front room, kitchen, guest room and even in the bathroom. I didn’t even know that we had this many candles in the house.

I continued to take small, cautious steps forward, until I came to the bottom of the stairs. I could hear the chanting again so I began to ascent the stairs.

The closer I got to the top, the louder the chanting became. I couldn’t hear what language it was, but it most definitely wasn’t English.

Eventually, I was home schooled and my parents wanted me to learn as many languages as I could so as I got closer, I perhaps thought that it sounded like Russian but I didn’t think it was a comprehensible dialect, not one that normal people spoke anyway.

The candles lined the upstairs hallway, every single closed door had two candles either side of them. Except mine.

I suddenly heard a quick shuffling behind me. I turned around but the darkness in this house was so impenetrable that I couldn’t make anything out. I looked down. In front of my parents bedroom, in the space that was illuminated by the two candles, I saw a pair of feet.

I backed away quickly but realised that I couldn’t get back into my bedroom because I didn’t have a key and of course, it was locked. I felt what I assumed was panic surge through me so I quickly went into the bathroom opposite and locked the door. Candles illuminated the room, albeit dimly. I tried to turn the lights on but they wouldn’t work, I flipped the switch up and down a few times to no avail.

That was when I heard the shuffling again, but outside the door this time which was then followed by a quiet but distinct knock.

Part 2