#Creature/Doppelgänger #Location/Australia

Posted by - u/AllPerspicacity - 3 years ago
 
Hi, so I've never posted before but I felt like...it would be prudent to share my story now even though it's not really...theme relevant to the podcast episodes lately, while I had the nerve because this sort of hails from a hard period of my life. HI, my name is Kaetun, Kae for short. Feel free to know it, doesn't bug me none.

I apologize, this story is huge & detailed. Also, a note: Half of this story is from my mother. She's not a superstitious person nor is she half Arrernte as I am. She had no idea what this was or what was going on but it traumatized her. This story also has bits from my cousin, siblings, & my father as I've been consulting them in writing this. I'm also really sorry this shit followed me for years & I'm kind of shaken about it still, I might use some weird phrasing or typo like mad.

Anyway, I was born in Rwanda in 1991. As you can imagine, that ended badly for me & I was separated from my family. I spent a few months in a UN safecamp & was then flown to Australia, whence my birth mum came to live with the family of a volunteer pilot I'd met in the camp who'd for some reason lol fallen in love with me & wanted to adopt. It took them a few years to adopt me, but it happened, haha happy ending!

On topic, my native language in Kinyar or Kinyarwanda. It's not really that obscure, but it's not spoken in Australia, so I had a lot of trouble both sleeping due to...reasons, & communicating with my new family. I was the second oldest of four at the time, two bio twins of my parents & another adopted older brother. We lived out in the middle of nowhere, Northern Territory, which as you can imagine is...terrifying at night, but during the day? Ah mate, we had a blast.

Mum would let us out about 7am & from then on we'd play with a cousin who lived with our grandparents all day til lunch, sometimes forget lunch & play til dinner. We spent all our time outside, & we were all really close. But, as I couldn't speak english only vaguely understand it at the time, the others often put me up to proving I was brave by giving me weird challenges.

Out back our house round a kilometer & a half was a huge gnarled tree, it was the remnant of what was a gum forest a while back but now it was one of only a handful & there was sick dense brush around it with some smaller trees making the going rough. We spent a lot of time playing hide & seek, building forts, you know, all that out there. It was familiar ground.

One day, Jacob(cousin) challenged me to climb this tree as fast & high as I could then he'd try to match me. I was a big climber, so he counted down & waved me to start & off I went. I was to the top of that tree in a minute flat normally, I am a very surefooted person & I've been climbing since I was 2. I assure you I'm not clumsy. I went to climb this tree & got maybe 1 1/2 to 2 meters up, in a matter of 1-3 seconds & suddenly a hand grabbed my foot.

Now, my cousin is kind of a prankster. We call him Japes Cobb, because he never chills. I assumed this was Jacob, & turned to look at him & make disapproving sounds because I was a helpless mute. But it wasn't my cousin, it was a complete stranger. He was a grown man, maybe 25-30, with sort of ratty hair like he'd been sleeping rough, a patchy beard, & green eyes. Only, his irises covered his entire eye, there was no white part, it was all iris.

The worst bit though, was that he was smiling wider than anyone can smile. I'm not kidding when I say this, it was some cartoon shit, it was fucking terrifying. All I remember, is screaming, & losing my grip on the tree & hitting the ground like when you hit water belly flat? Completely winded me & I slowly passed out, right at the foot of the tree. My cousin said, he saw the man grab my foot & saw him yank me down, they all ran to find me...but couldn't.

They searched for a half minute before the hysteria took hold & all four of them ran home screaming their heads off that I'd been kidnapped. Mum ushered them all in trying to get a story from them. Now when I say were were in the middle of nowhere, I mean the middle of fucking nowhere. The police station was an hour drive, we lived roundabouts between Marrakai & Wak Wak, we had a full antivenom kit we were so out in the middle of nowhere.

Dad was working a deep sea fishing company in Darwin so we only saw him on weekends when the drive wasn't too much. Mum questioned them & says the kids were sobbing so hysterically she couldn't get much of em but that I was kidnapped, then sighed & said "No she wasn't, she's right there." Sure enough, there I was, sitting on the couch quietly. But the kids were sure they saw a stranger grab me, so now she thought there was some dangerous stranger out there.

So mum called the police & got a long wait estimate, she loaded her gun & had the kids take her to where they last saw me to look for prints. They wandered round about two minutes, she said, before the twins started screaming their lungs off. Mum grabbed my hand & we trudged over to see - I can't stress this enough how serious she was telling me this - to see Me, unconscious, laying on the ground.

Mum said to me, she realized she wasn't holding my hand anymore & the other me...was gone.

The cops came by, they looked everywhere & said the only prints around were animals, but cautioned mum that there was an UNUSUAL abundance of animal prints round & that we oughtn't run unattended. Fair enough, I didn't speak English, so I was a useless witness & I clearly wasn't kidnapped since I was sat right there with a head egg from falling.

They left, & mum just counted lucky stars considering it done. Until it wasn't.

FAST FORWARD THREE YEARSOne day, mum started realizing something might be wrong with me. To begin with, I had night terrors that sometimes became dangerous, I'd wake up on the porch in the dark, I'd fall out of the bed so hard the house would shake, & I had weird memory lapses.

At first, it was small things she noticed. She tells me sometimes at a family picnic, she'd make me up a plate to eat & then turn back around & I'd be there waiting for my plate again. She'd tell me no to something & I would come back to ask exactly after & seem confused when she was frustrated. I would tell her two different stories about something within minutes & seem entirely earnest about both.

When I was 8, she sent me to a therapist, who told her I seemed fine. Then she sent me to a GP, A Pediatrician specialist, & a neurologist in order, convinced something was wrong with me. Every time, they said I was fine & seemed absolutely fine considering my past. After a while, mum started feeling like SHE was breaking down.

I won't get into the details of my mother's experience here, because frankly, she was in actual distress & it's not even interesting to me I just feel guilty.

Anyway, after a while, mum began to break down on her insistence something was wrong with me & began believing the absolute mad option that there was two of me. She began to notice weird tics one of me would have. She'd catch me staring at her sometimes, like I was looking for something. Other times, I'd hum an English song to myself even though I shouldn't know the song, she really started fraying.

One night, mum put me in the bath & went to get my pyjamas ready. She turned round & there I was, waiting to be dressed. Mum dressed me, put me in bed, & asked if I wanted some water. This is what she said;

You looked at me and you said ' No thank you, I am fine.' I have never ever in my entire life felt chills like that. I knew she wasn't you and I got so angry. I am not like that, I don't shout at kids, but I started screaming at it to get out. I started coming undone so I threw things at her and I told it to get out of my house and never come back.

It sat up in your bed and it started smiling wider and wider and wider and wider I couldn't believe anything could smile that big and it got up and walked out of the kitchen door and into a freezing night barefoot. When your father came home a minute later I drug him upstairs screaming and crying.

I asked him to look in the bathroom and when he did he said 'that's kae?' and I broke down Kae. I thought something was wrong for me for years and I was right.

There's other stuff there but that's what's relevant & not super personal. Anyway, things were quiet after that. For six months nothing untoward happened. I seemed normal, I was just learning to speak English, practicing every night with her, the memory lapses were gone, things were fine.

**THEN IT CAME BACK.**One night, mum had us all watching telly late on a Saturday & mum was in the kitchen near the den door at the kitchen island. This is all from us kids' memory with details from her, mind you. Five of us experienced this in varying degrees. Dad come home & he let the dogs in, ushering Sheba in afterwards & mum said she kissed him, he went to get a drink. Then there was a scratching at the door & mum got up to open it, seeing Sheba on the porch.

Dad says he almost shat his pants & the dog they let in stood on two legs in straight up dog form. It didn't shift at all, it just started smiling wider & wider, wider than anything can smile. Mum flipped, we all remember, she ran at it with her binder & started hitting it screaming for it to get out. It ran through the storm door, ripped it right off its hinges & mum broke down in front of us all.

We moved two weeks later.

**WE MOVED ALL THE WAY TO SOUTH MELBOURNE.**Mum got a lot better, I don't remember the random crying episodes happening anymore, or the times she stared out the window at the treeline & wouldn't respond to us calling her, or the screaming episodes she'd have when she woke from nightmares, you know? She's been a lot better. They've adopted a lot more kids, dad's retired now & they're filthy rich so he does a lot of charity. She works at the local agricultural education center teaching city farming & self sufficiency, she's really great.

I've been okay, couple bouts with cancer, etc. but I'm in the US now working my dream job in Aerospace, with two cats I adore & a girlfriend & boyfriend I adore. We get on really well, we're living the dream as your local hybrid driving composters. But this thing wasn't done? I don't think it is even now.

Two years ago, my boyfriend was home from work for the day & he was making breakfast. I walked out of the laundry room behind him & he noticed I'd changed my shirt so he asked "Didn't like that shirt?". I said no & walked into the living room.

Then I walked in the kitchen door cause I'd taken the trash out.

MY MUM TOLD ME THIS STORY TWO DAYS LATERIn a catch up call she broke down & told me about it when I mentioned I thought He was sleep deprived. She told me the only way she got it to go away was to demand it leave & that she had to be careful who she let into the house & what from then on.

I've checked with my father, my cousin, my siblings, & me.

All I remember is being pulled down & falling & my mum experienced a living hell for years. I feel really bad about this all still, but I thought it was something people would find...I guess, compelling in some sense. Writing this was also cathartic, because I've really internalized this guilt.

Thanks for reading, Ask anything if you want, fine with me.

EDITING TO ADD - feel free to use this for discussion on the podcast, guys, I'm really desperate to hear an outside interpretation. My mother has never had any psychological problems, emotional issues, or experienced any traumas according to her short of this experience, so she's worried she sounds crazy.

(She's not lol, but she'd love to hear any sort of cultural mythos or even other explanation)