This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/TormentedTales on 2023-06-26 18:55:55+00:00.
The humidity during summer in south Texas is miserable and unbearable. It’s a heat I’m still not used to, thirty years later. The humidity is so thick in the air you can feel the moisture sticking to you. The summer when the scratching started, the heat was exceptional. Every day in July was nearly record breaking.
I lived in a studio apartment on the top floor in a pretty big complex. The community was quiet and there were virtually no crimes within the complex or outside of it. There would be an occasional apartment party where the music was too loud, or a domestic problem between lovers.
I want to make a quick side comment right now; I’ve never struggled with mental health or have seen a psychiatrist.
At first when the scratching started it was faint and barely noticeable, and would only occur at night. As the nights went on the scratching became louder and more deliberate. It sounded like an animal with really sharp claws. It didn’t sound human.
I complained to the property manager but they discounted it as my neighbors children playing with their toys against the wall. The manager said he’d talk to them but that never happened.
The noise continued but only at night. And then I realized it one night, the scratching wasn’t coming from the other side, it was coming from inside of the walls.
Weird things began to happen around my apartment, things I can’t explain. My remotes for my TV and game system went missing along with raw meat from my freezer.
One morning I found a piece of gray flesh hanging from the vent in my bedroom. It wasn’t like human flesh. This was slimy and had little stubbles of hair.
That day I went out to Best Buy and bought a security camera. The first night after I set up the camera was quiet, the camera caught nothing, but the second night proved the camera was a good investment.
I couldn’t believe what I was watching on my computer screen, a tall thin naked man, well at least it had the features of a man. His skin was gray though, grayer than a corpse, he looked emaciated, his limbs were protruding outwards, his arms were elongated and dangled limply by his sides, and he had thin black hair all over his body.
According to the time stamp on the video, he stood above me watching me sleep for six straight hours. He never moved or adjusted his position. He stood perfectly still until six o’ five, when he climbed back into my vent.
I took the video to the nearest police substation and I showed them the video. This prompted the officer to jump into action and take a ride over to my apartment. Unfortunately, he came away empty handed and I was back to square one.
How could that man just disappear? Where had he gone too?
Two weeks went by, the scratching had stopped and my security camera hadn’t recorded any new sightings. The man vanished without leaving a trace of evidence.
Another two weeks went by, and then weeks turned to months. Eventually, I took the camera down which proved to be a huge mistake.
One cold winter night in February, I was woken up by the man chewing on my calf muscle. I wiggled myself free while I screamed for help.
The man retreated back into the vent and was gone by the time police arrived. EMS transported me to a local hospital and the bite on my calf was stitched up and I was sent home.
Only I never returned to my apartment. I haven’t seen the gray man since but the images of him standing over my bed and chewing my calf still haunts me to this day.