Abandoned house

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AN: Reddit
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In the summer of 2009, my family traveled to Iraq, quite a few years after the war was "over". My father hadn't seen his side of the family in over 20 years and figured it was the perfect time for us to meet them and learn about our culture.

Iraq, back in 2009, was just as terrible as you could imagine it'd be. Hot. No electricity. Terror groups running around. But I was excited to explore such an ancient country. Dark history has always fascinated me.

One night, my entire family had walked 2 blocks down to visit my cousin at her house. I said I would meet them up because I was still getting ready. When I was done, I took 2 of my boy cousins with me. One was 4 years old, and the other was barely 2 so I had to carry him.

Exactly behind our house is an abandoned house the residents of the village refer to as 'the jinn house'. 'Jinn' in Arabic means 'genie', but not one that grants wishes. Jinns are almost always bad, and do terrible things to scare/harm people.

The story behind this house is that multiple families had tried to move into the house, but were either scared out of the house or a tragedy would occur that would make them move out. The last tenants of the house suffered a lot.

At first, it was just silly things like waking up with the TV upside down. Then, every morning most of their furniture would be outside of the house. The youngest son began sleepwalking, and my own cousins have seen him sleepwalking to the cemetery and back at night.

One night, the boy was sleep walking, picked up a gun, and killed one of his sisters. The house caught on fire, and the family had to run out. The boy doesn't remember anything, and the remaining sister is now medically insane.

Anyway, I took the 2 boys and started walking past the jinn house because it was the only way I knew to get to my cousins house. The 2 year old was in my arms, and the 4 year old was holding my left hand and walking with me.

Walking past the jinn house, which was on my left, I tried not to look at it because it really freaked me out. There were a bunch of broken TV sets all around the house, and all the windows were busted. But something made me look.

On the roof of the house, I saw something that could only be explained as having the body of a donkey, but the way it was sitting looked exactly how a cat would sit. I stared at it for probably 10 seconds, when both of the little boys started to scream at the same time.

The 2 year old was facing behind me since I was holding him up on my chest, so there was no way he saw what I was seeing. I felt as though he sensed something was not right.

The longer I looked at the thing, I began to notice that it had these eyes that were not any color I could explain. They weren't visible in the dark, but at the same time I saw right into them. It was like my brain couldn't process what I was looking at.

It started to stand up and that's when I picked up the 4 year old, who was screaming bloody murder, and ran as fast as I could away from that thing.

I didn't tell any of my family about what happened because I didn't want to remember what I saw, or let my brain process the memory any more than I already had. I know what I saw, and I feel like it's something above human understanding.

Whatever I saw that day, I know that in the moment of looking at it... it was shifting its form. It was not solid, like you and I. Its shape was constantly changing, while remaining the same. It didn't have to show itself in its entirety for me to see what it was.

I know it doesn't make any sense. But I truly believe I saw something that is not from this world, and that's why I had trouble understanding what I was seeing.

It's been 6 years since then, and I ended up moving to Iraq the year after this happened. I've gone back to the house multiple times, but I haven't seen the figure since that day. I still feel a presence, even though it's been abandoned for years.

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