I can't sleep

I don't know what to do anymore. I am terrified and tired, so tired. Please hear me out. Please read what I wrote here and if someone knows what is going on, what I can do, then please help me out!

Let me start at the very beginning. At least what I think is the beginning. It all started a few months ago. Maybe only two months ago, I am not sure anymore.

My work was stressful at the time. I am working in an office and it is a pretty normal job, but at that time we were working at some big project and I was assigned to it. Working overtime became pretty normal for me. It was a big chance for me to finally get a rise and maybe a better position. Needless to say, I was stressed out and exhausted all the time. Times were rough, but I had to cope with it.

One morning, I noticed something. After getting up from bed and going over to my desk (I have a cramped one room apartment), I noticed something: a book was laying on the desk. I couldn't remember taking it out of the bookshelf, but I just shrugged it off. Maybe I had simply forgotten about it, considering the constant stress and pressure I was under. Things like that happen, right? So I just put it back on the bookshelf and didn't think about too much. But that wasn't the last time those things happened, it continued. Things that belonged in my kitchen would turn up in the strangest places in my apartment. I mean, if something like this happens once or twice, you just call yourself a dumb idiot. If it happens more often though, you get this strange feeling, that something is wrong. Still, I was too involved at work to give it much thought.

Things started to get stranger thought. First it only happened rarely, maybe once a week, but soon it started happening more often. I didn't know what was going on. Things would turn up at the strangest places and to be honest it crept me out. This was still not the strangest that should happen.

One morning, waking up rather anxious, I started looking around. I was prepared that something had happened again. I started checking my apartment. At first I didn't notice anything and even started to feel a little relieved. I am a slow morning person and I need my time to adjust to my surroundings. Then I noticed it. There was a stone. A big stone. It was laying on the floor in my apartment. Before things had changed place inside my apartment, but this stone clearly didn't belong here. It was not something I owned. At first I looked at it puzzled and somewhat terrified, then I sprinted to the door to check it. It was still locked. I walked back towards the stone and carefully moved it away from its place with my foot. Nothing happened. It was just a normal, regular stone. How did it turn up in here, though?

I am a very rational person, that doesn't believe in ghosts or the supernatural, but this was too much. I shoved the damn stone away into a corner where I couldn't see it anymore and tried not to think about it. Work was stressful as always and I didn't have the time and especially not the energy to ponder about some crazy ghost story or whatever this might seem to be. I still thought about it the whole way to work. What was going on? First things end up in strange place and now this. The door was still locked, so how was it possible for this stone to end up inside? At work I couldn't focus. Not at all. I told my colleagues that I might be getting sick. Most of us at the company were stressed out, so people were understanding. It was only a matter of time until it would get to you, say said and in the end I was able to leave early that day, to get some rest. I was thankful.

Then I remembered something. I had a spare key at a good friend's place. I am prone to forgetting things. After I locked myself out of my apartment without a key and having to pay a locksmith, I decided to keep a spare key at someone else's place. If this was his idea of a joke or some stupid prank, I would kick his ass! Would he really do such a thing tough? I know the guy for more then a decade and he isn't the kind of person to do stuff like that. I called him nonetheless as soon as I got home. He picked up after a few seconds and I started questioning him right away. After he a good laugh, he asked me what was going on. I told him the whole story and he got concerned. He reminded me, that he was out of town. It was something job related; he was working in another town for a few month. I remembered right away and had most likely forgotten about it cause of work. He was still concerned. His girlfriend was living alone at their apartment and he wanted to check if something had happened there. Maybe someone had broken into the apartment and got the keys. He told me to keep cool and he would call back.

Not even fifteen minutes later he called again and assured me that everything was alright. He advised me to take some rest and that I should consider calling the police. I was thankful and told him I would think about it. After some thinking I decided against calling the police. What would they think about me? Nothing was stolen, nothing damaged. The lock was intact. They might think I was a nutcase or worse.

At this point I started to really get crept out though. There wasn't a logical explanation to what was going on here. I had checked the door and the lock thoroughly. There was nothing wrong with it. No sign of someone forcefully opening it or tinkering with it in any sort of way. What was really going on here, I asked myself. I was so damn exhausted at this point. Maybe I was really getting sick, or maybe this whole thing finally took its toll on me. I thought leaving the place and spending the night at someone else's place. Maybe go to a friends place, but what should I tell them? That some kind of creepy ghost was moving around things in my apartment? Yes of course. I obviously stayed and it didn't take long before tiredness took me over and I fell asleep. This was just a few days ago.

In the morning I woke, tired and not feeling too well. I still noticed it right away. The stone was back. It was laying right on top of my desk and next to it was a flower pot. A flower pot that I had never seen before. I shivered. Something wasn't right at all. Then I lost it. I took the damned stone and after it the flower pot and threw both of them out of my window. I heard someone yelling at me, but I didn't care. Enough was enough. I checked my door again, but wasn't surprised at all when it was still locked.

I didn't go to work that day, but instead called and informed my superior that I actually got sick and might need a day to rest. The rest of day I spent at home and searched my apartment. I looked everywhere, hoping to find some sort of evidence what was going on here. A note or some alternate way of entering my apartment, hell I even looked for some sort of strange occult voodoo stuff. But nothing. There was absolutely nothing. I was devastated. I felt like shit.

Then I got an idea. I still had an old webcam that I hadn't used in ages. The quality of the camera was shit, but I was thankful that it was even working. It would be enough for what I intended to do. I plugged the thing in and hid it in my bookshelf between a bunch of books. It was half facing my bed in the living room and half facing the door towards my apartment. Then I downloaded some recording software. The idea was simple: Record what happened in the apartment once I feel asleep.

That night I didn't sleep until midnight. I was exhausted, but I was just too nervous and terrified to sleep and also afraid of what what kind of recording I would find the next day. I had left a low light on, to be able to see something on the recording. Even if some intruder entered the place and turned the lights off, I would still be able to see what was going on for at least a while. Or maybe I would even be able to see how someone or something could enter the place without doing anything to the door. At first I had the idea of simply lay in bed and try to pretend to be sleeping, but it didn't take long for me to drift off into actual sleep.

When I woke up, the low light was still on. I noticed a bunch of things on my desk again. Kitchen equipment. After a little bit of looking around I didn't find any strange stones or other things from outside. Then I remembered the webcam and pushed the stuff aside and rushed to the computer.

I found a huge file. Apparently the camera had recorded all night long and was even recording now. I stopped the recording and took a few deep breathes, then I played the file. It started to play and I saw myself sitting at the computer and remembered, that I had started the recording long before midnight, so I skipped the first part, until I saw myself going to bed. I fast forwarded through the recording waiting to see something out of order.

Then it happened. It must have been at least an hour after I went to bed. What I saw terrified me. I shook my head in disbelief. I couldn't believe what I what was seeing. The quality of the camera was really bad, but I still could recognize it. I saw myself getting up from bed. I saw how I entered the kitchen and how I was moving things around and putting them on my desk. I replayed the footage to see again what was going on. I checked the bed. Yes, that was really me. I really had left the bed. This couldn't be true! What the fuck was going on, was all that went through my head. I was shaking in disbelief, I felt a creeping fear rising inside me. Maybe someone had edited the footage somehow? But how? Then it struck me. Sleepwalking. That was the only explanation for this. The only possible and normal and logical explanation for all of this. Still, the footage was way too bad and I wasn't able to make out much of what was going. No details. Nothing. Piece of shit webcam, I cursed.

I read up on the internet about sleepwalking. I obviously had heard about it before, but now I read about the causes and the experiences of other people. From what I recalled, I was sure, that there were no cases of me sleepwalking ever before. At least on one had told me about it. Maybe it was a side effect of all the stress of these past months. Something was strange though, the stuff I read online was different to what I did when I was sleepwalking. People leaving there houses and waking up in strange places with no recalling of how they go there. No one was talking about dragging things home though and not too mention locking a door after themselves. Nothing about things like that. I found a few cases that piqued my interested, but it was still strange.

I didn't got to work again that day. Hell I had totally forgotten about work at this point. Sleepwalking might be an idea, but I was still convinced that something strange was going on here. I went to town and got a brand new webcam. Some model with a higher resolution, so I would actually be able to some details on the recording.

This time I didn't even bother hiding the damned thing. I just put it on my desk, facing my bed and started a recording. The quality was way better and I was clearly able to make out all the details. This evening it didn't take me as long as the evening before to go to sleep. I had read a lot of articles and websites about sleepwalking and it was tiring me out. So I started the recording again and went to bed. Not less anxious and afraid than the night before.

I woke up in my bed like every other morning. Nothing was wrong. I looked around and something was amiss again. It was a stone again. And for some strange reason I was sure it was the same fucking stone again. The one I had thrown out of my window two days ago. I ignored it for now. I went to the computer right away to watch the recording of last night.

Everything was the same in the other recording at first. I went to bed and fell asleep. Then, at a later time, I saw myself moving. I got up. And this time I noticed it. My eyes were open. I had to pause the video and keep myself together. I had read about people sleepwalking with open eyes. But this wasn't the dim and empty expression of a sleepwalker I had read about. Those were the eyes and the expression of a person being wide awake. This was not normal. Definitely not! I forced myself to calm down, then I clicked the play button again and continued. I watched myself going through the room. The I went outside of the focus of the camera. I cursed. Time went by. I fast forwarded and after a long time, maybe half an hour or an hour, I was back in front of the camera, carrying something. It was the stone and I put it down on the floor. I saw how I put my keys back to where they were normally located on my desk. Then I went away from the camera, only to appear again shortly after. And then I saw it. I saw myself looking directly at the camera. Getting closer to it and apparently checking it out. Then I saw myself moving away from it a little, so my face was in focus. I was shaking. Then my fear became actually terror as I watched myself grinning at the camera. It was creepy as hell. I watched how I put a finger in the air and making a 'no no' motion, while grinning. The same motion parents do when scolding their kids. After a while I stopped, apparently I, or me, or whatever it was, I was watching here, got an idea. I watched how I took a piece of paper, then a pen and started writing on it. I was in total shock. This was beyond belief. I did hold up the paper so it was facing the camera. What it read was this:

Oh my, you weren't supposed to actually see any of this. But well, this makes things so much more interesting. We are going to have a lot of fun together! :)

For a moment my face distorted and showed the most terrifying visage I had ever seen or could imagine. A broken scream escaped my throat while seeing this. I was too out of it. I was breathing heavily. I didn't understand. I watched how I put the note away, somewhere below the focus of the camera. I looked down and searched frantically for a while, before I froze. The stone. Something was poking out from under it. With shaking hands I moved the stone away. There it was. A piece of paper. I didn't want to believe this. This was not real. This was wrong. I took a while for myself to actually pull myself together, before I reached out to it and took it. It was the same note. Written in my handwriting. The same message. I threw it away to the other side of the room. Then I just sat there, not able to make sense of what I had just seen and experienced. I didn't to believe it. I don't know how long I sat there in total confusion and shock, but then things started to come together.

The constant stress at work. I thought I had always been tired cause of it, but it was something else. It was actually me or the other me that was awake doing all those strange things at night. I couldn't say when it really started. Maybe the first time I woke up in the morning and noticed things were misplaced, but maybe me, him, was always there. I don't know. Maybe he just got bored a while ago. I don't know. I don't understand. This is just too much. Maybe there is some kind of other explanation to all of this? Please I just want someone to tell me that this is not true. What should I do? This is now the second night I am awake. I haven't slept for around forty hours. I don't even know how much coffee I drank anymore! There are some energy drinks left, but I am close to my limit! I have already nearly fallen asleep two times already before I started writing this. I am writing this to keep awake. I just have to keep awake. I don't know what I am going to once I fall asleep. What the other me is going to do. Oh god and the stone. There was something strange on it. It felt wet and was red or brown. I don't know what it was and I don't want to know. I don't want to know what he did or wants to do! Oh god I am so terrified. Please, just someone explain all this. Just tell me something. Something that will show me that this is not real. That I am hallucinating. That I am not insane. That there still is some logical and normal explanation to it. Just… please!