u/Leading-Dig9937

(Based off of something that actually happened to me a few weeks back.)

It was a half decent day, nothing too crazy, just the same old bullshit. I work nights at a machine shop, so it was rather late when I got home, sometime around 3-3:15 in the morning. I had just gotten out of my car, grabbing my backpack and lunchbox, ready to go sleep in my nice comfy bed with my fiancé when I heard a noise. I turned around, expecting to see one of the stray cats that permeate our neighborhood, when I saw a man briskly walking backwards up the center of our street.

I froze, my entire body paralyzed as I watched him walk, never once turning his head. He had a striking resemblance to my father, wearing similar clothes and even having similar facial hair. It obviously wasn’t my father, my parents lived over thirty minutes away, but still, it took me by surprise at first. He never even looked at me as he continued to walk, his shoes barely making any noise aside from the occasional scuff, the sound that made me turn around initially. I stood there next to my car, unable to move, watching as he quickly made his way up the street. I finally moved, quickly striding over to the steps to my porch, taking them two at a time, and unlocking my door with shaky hands.

I practically slammed it shut as I locked it, rushing upstairs to make sure my fiancé was okay. She was, sleeping soundly in our bed, and as I came in, she turned towards me sleepily like normal to see how I was doing. I must have looked a little panicked, as she woke up more when she saw me. “Andrew? You ok?” I ran over to the bedroom window, having a clear view of the street, but the man was gone. “What the fuck?” I muttered, before turning to my fiancé, Kayla.

“Either I need sleep, or the crackheads around here are evolving. I just saw some dude walking backwards up the middle of our street.” “What?” I shook my head, hardly believing it myself, even though it had happened right in front of me. “I don’t know, I’m gonna go take another look around, check the door camera, and make sure the doors are locked. I’ll be back in a sec.” I quickly moved back to the downstairs, stepping back out onto my front lawn and looking both ways down the street, straining my eyes.

He was gone.

5 minutes later I was back upstairs, getting my pajamas on. “I don’t understand it, Bug, not even the doorbell camera picked up anything. It’s like he didn’t even exist.” Kayla cuddled up as I laid down, staring at the ceiling. “Well, we’ll see if anyone else has seen him tomorrow, ok?” “Alright. Goodnight, Bug.” I turned off the light and turned on my white noise, quickly finding sleep.

There were no posts, messages, or even passing mentions or remarks about the man the next day. It was as if I was the only one who had seen him. Kayla assured me that it was probably someone who wasn’t entirely there in the head, or that maybe I was tired from being on the night shift. I would’ve believed her, if I hadn’t come home that night and seen him again. I saw him every single day for the next two weeks. Same outfit, same time, same everything. I tried to call out to him more than a few times, but was met with silence every time. The one time I managed to get close to him solidified the fact that something was very wrong with his eyes, the entirety of both eyeballs replaced with what looked like a carnival mirror. And somehow I still had zero evidence of his existence, my family and friends now believing I was making it all up.

Then, after exactly 2 weeks, he didn’t walk down the street. I had gotten out of my car and turned, expecting to see my nightly visage, and was greeted by an empty street. Confused, I walked inside, staying up a lot later than I should have, watching out our front window, but he never came. I went to bed, a smile on my face, happy that I wouldn’t have to see that freak any longer.

The next day, I walked out to get the mail, opened the mailbox and stopped. Something wasn’t right. It took me a few minutes to realize what was wrong. The way our front walk is set up is a small fence to grow ivy and flowers on, with the mailbox on a post directly next to it. The mailbox was now attached to the fence, the post completely gone. I hurried back inside and asked Kayla if her parents were over last night and moved the mailbox. “No? Why the hell would they do that?” “I don’t know, but the mailbox moved.” “What?” She leaned over the couch, looking out at our mailbox for a minute, before sighing and sitting back down. “If this is a joke, Andrew, I don’t think it’s funny.” “What do you mean?” I said, tilting my head slightly. “It didn’t move, it’s right where it’s always been.”

Over the next week, more stuff around the house would begin to shift, starting with the less bothersome such as the concrete pad for the trash cans moving over about a foot, to all out pandemonium, such as the ceiling in my home office curling upwards into the attic, the paint and wood cracked and splintered. It had started spreading beyond our house at this point, the sidewalk zigzagging crazily into the grass, the street lights bent over and pressed against the road, powerlines somehow floating disassembled, electricity violently arcing between the loose wires. The worst part was again that it seemed I was the only one who could see it happening. I was frustrated and scared, and that’s what I believe set the argument off.

“How can you not see this, Kayla?? It’s getting worse by the day, the whole damn roof is diagonal, including the tiles and even the fucking chimney!!” She looked worried. I don’t know if she was more worried about my sanity or herself. “Andrew, nothing has changed! I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you need to try to relax, maybe call off work for tonight or-“ “I don’t need to call off work, I need to know that I’m not going fucking insane!! Ever since backwards dude vanished, it feels like the entire world is breaking! Nothing is lining up how it should!” I was practically screaming at her. I still feel bad about that. I hated myself for yelling.

I had stepped out onto my porch, leaving Kayla inside as I was struggling to maintain my composure when I saw a pair of eyes looking out at me through a crack in the floorboards of the porch, carnival mirror eyes. I froze and watched as two hands came up from separate cracks, over twenty feet apart from each other, and started pulling away floorboards and siding. I screamed, turning to run back into the house as I felt something grab my shoe, yanking me hard, the sound of splintering wood as it dragged me under the porch, under my house, under the great splintering world that only I could see, a pair of massive carnival mirror eyes staring into mine, my reflection my own mouldering corpse as I screamed and screamed and was shaken awake by Kayla, her voice cutting through. “Andrew?? Andrew what’s wrong??”

I sat up, covered in sweat and looked around our bedroom. Our completely intact, normal bedroom. I collapsed back down onto the bed, panting. “Nightmare… sorry Bug, I’m okay now.” She did not look convinced but laid back down, the sound of her breathing slowing as she drifted off back to sleep, the memory of the dream already leaving, not far behind the love of my life as dreamless sleep found me and pulled me in close.

The next day I woke up to a sunny room and birdsong. I got dressed, packed my lunch, kissed my fiancé, and went to work like normal. My lathe that I run had a few issues but nothing I couldn’t handle. It was a half decent day, nothing too crazy, just the same old bullshit. I work nights at a machine shop, so it was rather late when I got home, sometime around 3-3:15 in the morning. I had just gotten out of my car, grabbing my backpack and lunchbox, ready to go sleep in my nice comfy bed with my fiancé when I heard a noise. I turned around, expecting to see one of the stray cats that permeate our neighborhood, when I saw a man briskly walking backwards up the center of our street.

(Cw: gore and suicide)

Three days.

Three days of being trapped.

Three days of hearing that sobbing and humming nonstop, my brain threatening to crack under the stress of it.

I was losing my sanity, that vital part of my mind, my soul that my father described straining against whatever the hell was on the other side of the door, gently knocking and sobbing and humming.

I was hungry, having not been able to leave my room for the last three days. That was why I finally risked opening the door. I peered out through the crack I had made opening it, and, seeing nothing, opened it all the way. There was no one in sight, but the sobbing and humming remained. I quietly stepped out, noticing that all other doors in the house were gone. Not just open, gone, like something had scrubbed them from existence like ink on paper. My hair stood up as I walked downstairs, the sensation of being watched drowning out all other senses, my skin tingling anywhere I felt it, like spiders crawling over every inch of me in a single second.

I reached the first floor, still careful to not make any sound as I crept to the kitchen. The mockeries of my family and friends were gone, but it didn’t matter. I could still feel they were here. I just didn’t know where. I silently opened the cabinet to grab canned or dry food since I had no idea how long I’d be stuck, when the cabinet banged shut a little too loud. Every single hair on my body stood straight up. Something was coming, coming fast, coming through the-

SNAP

CRACK

The sound was deafening, clapping my hands over my ears, a million gunshots and fireworks going off next to my ears simultaneously. I pulled my hands away, stained red by the blood trickling out of my ears. I picked up what I could, turning to rush back upstairs and froze. Standing in the dining room in a square, were my mother and sister, and my two best friends. They weren’t looking at me when it started, all four of them tilting their heads towards the ceiling, before an impossibly loud rip sounded out, the humming intensified as their jaws all disappeared in a flurry of red mist and chunks of flesh, exploding like they each held a firecracker under their tongue.

I watched in disbelief and horror, my mind straining to comprehend what was happening as a set of pure black hands with spots of white were pushing open their mouths, countless fingers gripping the undersides of skulls and what was left of their jaws as they pushed and pulled and tore open a passageway, a long spindly arm with too many joints crawling out of each of their mouths. I ran.

I burst out of the back door, the snow making me slip into the railing. I picked myself up, glancing back and watching in sheer terror as a wave of black hands poured out of the door, one over another over another over and over, a tidal wave from the Void. “Fuck fuck fuck!!” I screamed, moving to jump off the porch, the stairs too close to the hands for me to risk it, but it didn’t matter.

I felt it grab my shoe, one hand grabbing my ankle, followed by hundreds quickly ascending my leg, sinking ice-cold nails into my flesh as it pulled me, pulled me into it, screaming and begging unreasonably for it to let me live. I was still screaming as it grabbed my head and pulled me under.

Darkness.

Silence.

I floated there, unable to move, somehow alive.

Adrift in pitch black, that infernal humming completely gone, robbed of all senses.

Light.

Blinding, purple light so bright I had to shut my eyes. And when I opened them, a massive purple supernova was in front of me, round and perfect, a supermassive black hole at its core, pulling in the light around it.

Noise.

That disgusting humming started again, resonating through every fiber of my existence, deafening to my mind, all senses overwhelmed and nonexistent as it hummed, the sound of the empty null-void that surrounded me.

And then the supernova blinked.

I floated in stunned, silent, primal fear, unable to move as it came into focus, the millions upon millions upon millions of hands and arms and legs and fingers that made up the Void pulling back away from me to let me see, allowing me to know the godless thing that had destroyed my family and was now destroying me.

I fully understood what my father meant when he called it godless. This was no God. It was as if it was the empty Void that should have held a God, but instead something unknowable and unspeakable had filled its place with-

Pain.

Agony.

I tried to scream but couldn’t as I watched it flay me alive, pulling the skin away and atomizing it, shredding the muscle to the myoglobins that floated free, my organs and bones turned to red and white misty stardust that floated a short distance, my brain and my soul the only things left. I somehow could see still, through my soul, watching as the unholy abomination leered over me.

My brain floated towards it, and stopped directly in front of that terrible black hole. That awful pupil that was moving, dilating, adjusting as something detached from the black, swimming towards my frontal lobe, a maggot that burrowed in, searing ungodly pain as I started to scream silently, unable to force it from my throat as I somehow felt it burrow deeper.

It blinked, the eyelids made of countless black and rotted fingers from unknown worlds and species as it gently moved my brain back into position, the rest of my body reforming, splitting off from the stars that made its sclera as I was rebuilt from the atoms of this ungodly abomination. I understood what it did, what it wanted, and I loathed the fucking thing.

It blinked a final time, and suddenly I was falling, burning agony, seeing the planet below me, screaming as I fell, my soul burning on reentry as I saw my slumped body on the back patio, slamming into it at impossible and immeasurable Mach speeds.

I’m in my room now as I write this down, the memories already attempting to flee, my room filled with my sobbing family, all of their backs turned towards me. I am going to follow in my father’s footsteps. I know what it did to my family, and I know what it’s doing to me. It finally makes sense.

My dad caught on far sooner than I did, and if I had realized earlier what was happening, I wouldn’t be in this situation. The Void is coming, there’s no doubt about it, and all I can do is delay it. My family is dead, used by that fucking thing as a doorstop, a way in through the mind. I can feel the fetid worm eating away in my head, carving my mind from me, making me empty. I am becoming the next doorstop. Unless.

Dad, Mom, Grace, Brett, and Chrissy, I love you all. I will see you soon.

Goodbye.

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If this causes offense in any way I apologize in advance. I am in the midst of doing research for a horror story I’m writing and a huge part of it involves the main character who has DID. So far, reading through some of the posts made had been invaluable towards researching the subject to make sure it’s as accurate as possible, but I do have a few questions that I haven’t noticed anyone mention.

1. When alters take over (apologies if that’s not the best terminology, I don’t exactly know what would be) is it an instantaneous switch, or is it a more slow transfer? And for people who have more control and can still be themselves (again apologies if it’s poor terminology this is new ground for me) how long does it typically take to come back?

2. How common are the memory problems associated? I’ve seen multiple conflicting answers involving either a total loss of memory/having a faint idea, to being aware at all times.

3. What are the most common treatments? I’ve seen therapy being mentioned quite a few times, but have never seen any others, is there other treatments and if so, what are they?

4. What are all the terms used to describe the condition? I’ve seen alters and systems used frequently but am curious if there are other terms that are acceptable.

5. For alters, do you have individual and independent writing styles? Say for instance, one alter would speak and type more eloquently than another?

6. Are there any forms of media, such as movies or books, that portray DID in an accurate way, that way I could possibly research them as well prior to writing?

That is all I have questions about as of now, again, I apologize if there is any offense taken, it is not my intention, I simply would like to understand from your points of view to help me portray it accurately. Thank you so much, and I look forward to any answers and answering any questions about the story. :)