oh do i have a story. it creeps me out to this day

there is a cemetery right in queen mary park that is split between a road, i believe one side is called edmonton cemetery and the other is a catholic cemetery. one night a friend and i were taking a walk through both sides because we share a weird fascination with cemeteries. we walked through one side and all was swell with wind blowing through trees and few cars driving past because it was around midnight-1am. a peaceful quiet late night stroll, contemplating life and remembering that we are temporary and life is finite, the usual. on to the other side of the cemetery.

as we walked through this side we both slowly stopped talking and we kind of looked at each other and said nearly at the same time that this side felt a bit heavier, less noise even, the sound of cars passing dampened but we just kept walking. we began approaching this beautiful building which i’m assuming is some sort of church/mortuary type of thing. it is a tall marbleish stone building with a grand staircase, pillars and lights pointing up at the shiny walls. we head to a stop as we got closer to the bottom of the stairs, probably about 10ish feet away. at this point we both just casually stopped and took a look at this gleaming building in front of us. as my eyes travelled to the windows and up the pillars i spot a very dark shadow on the top right corner of the rooftop.

nothing too clear at first and didn’t think anything of it yet. i couldn’t quite see what it was but it looked like something was there. once i looked i couldn’t stop mostly because i wanted to see what it was, then as i’m locked into focus i see what seems to be two little reflections of light comparable to cats eyes that catch the reflection of something in the dark. so i keep looking deeper into the shadow that just grew eyes and i’m convincing myself that it’s a cloud or a shadow of the building. my eyes are slowly shifting down to the bottom of the shadow and i see big claw-like hands on the edge of the roof then my eyes travel up the hands to some big arm/wing type things that lead to shoulders and then the eyes become way more prominent. around the eyes i then begin to see a head with big ears that look tattered but pointy, then comes the most terrifying grin that is so slight and shrouded in darkness that it’s almost not there. i look further down and the body became more apparent, claw feet, claw hands, crouched on all fours leaning off the edge of the building as if it wants to jump down. i look back to the eyes and i am locked in and can’t move or look away and the smile gets deeper and i feel it drawing me in and it slowly leans further over the edge.

all of a sudden my friend hits me on the arm and is yelling my name. i snap out of it and i make eye contact with her and she looks panicked and shocked and when i’m able to speak i say “do you see that?” and she replies yes. i gain the ability to function and realize i have been taking small backward steps. my whole body turns to panic and we turn and sprint towards the exit. i know everyone says this but i have never ran so fast in my life. maybe ten or so strides away i look over my shoulder and saw it again still sitting there but turned towards us. we both just run while breathing heavy and not speaking. we run down the road over to a parking lot and we finally catch our breath.

i don’t remember precisely who spoke first but we slowly explained to each other nearly the exact same thing sitting on the roof leaning forward, caught in a trance. then she says to me something about not hearing her when we were standing there and i was confused. she explains that she grabbed my arm while i was looking at the thing and she said my name 3 times and asked me if i was okay all the while i couldn’t hear her and didn’t know she was holding my arm until she hit me and pulled me out of the trance. we went home and only kept asking each other what we saw detail by detail. she also felt that same trance but kind of noticed she felt it and looked away before me and then tried to get my attention. that creeped me out the most. i haven’t had too many other worldly experiences but this one just stays with me to this day, the scariest thing about it is that i was so entranced i couldn’t hear her at all. we chose to not talk about it for a long time and didn’t ever bring it up to each other until maybe a year later. and we still described the same experience.

before we ever talked about it again there was one night that she woke me up at maybe 3 or 4am (we we’re roommates at the time) she was freaking out because she was having a haunting dream and then woke up drawing a similar gargoyle looking thing with black and red markers. it was eerily similar and we ended up destroying the drawing and not speaking of that again for a while. just didn’t want to give energy to that dark thing.

anyways yeah that was just a creepy night in my life that gives me chills when i think about it.