An Offer

For starters, I'm now twenty one years old but my story was from three years back; when I was 18. I told small details from it to a few others but have always held back the whole story, fearing that it would never be believed. I've always had a firm belief in my religion (I'm a follower of Hinduism). I was a freshman in college at the time, and felt like I was on top of the world. I was (and still am) a night owl; I wouldn't start work until 8 or 9 PM and would keep working until 2 or 3 AM.

The 'event' happened in February. I was in the library with my girlfriend sitting across from me. We both had a multitude of midterm exams in the upcoming week, with Biology being the first. Because our dorm was such a far walk and the weather was freezing at the time, I would just push two couches (the library had basically everything!) together and "sleep" for 3 or 4 hours then wake up and study more rather than walk in the freezing cold at 3 AM. Getting immensely frustrated at one point early in the evening, I joked about how I might as well sell my soul to the devil, as "that would probably be easier than studying enough to pass this exam..." My exposure to the concept arose out of movies like The Devils Advocate, so I was mildly curious as to whether anyone had ever tried selling their souls. I took a study break around midnight and searching the internet showed that a book (I'd rather leave it unnamed to dissuade people trying to follow in my footsteps) had details on the process. Apparently the book was fairly common as the library happened to have an edition of it.

I believe in spirits and ghosts but not what the book was talking about. I thought it was rather idiotic and rather amusing. There was nothing about selling souls but it had chants and rituals that were supposed to bring 'demons' in front of you. I read out of morbid curiosity, then realized I was wasting time and got back to studying. Around 3 AM, I went to nap on the couch and asked my girlfriend to wake me up at 6 (she had decided to stay up with the help of coffee and study more). My couch was about 15 feet away from her.

I then had what I suppose you could call a dream, only it was much more vivid and... Almost alive. In the dream I was standing outside the library and was being called by a dark shape. I got a growing sense of dread at it but almost felt like I was being magnetically drawn to it. As I got closer I realized that the dark shape was actually three individual 'figures', and the closer I got, the more scared I became. One of the three then spoke to me and asked "Do you desire power?" I was too terrified to even think of answering. The three then began laughing, a noise that chilled me to the bone. I could almost distinguish their genders by the voices; two were very deep while one was high, almost like two men and a woman. The woman then said "See what it can entail!" and motioned for me to turn around and look at the library. I did, and suddenly the sound of the fire alarm filled the air. After ringing for around 20-30 seconds, the entire library suddenly plunged into darkness. I screamed "No!" and ran away from the three while they still laughed.

At this point, my girlfriend shook me awake. She told me that I started screaming out of the blue. It was 3:33 AM sharp when I awoke. I was awake for about a minute when suddenly the fire alarm came on. With foreboding, I ran to the stairs with my girlfriend, and within the same amount of time as in my dream, the lights in the library went out. I was nearly hysterical by now, and ran outside screaming (and scaring the few people who were exiting with me). I had left everything inside. The lights came back on within a 15 or so minutes and we all went back inside. I sat at the desk, trying to will myself to forget what had just happened. I then looked at my laptop. When I had gone to sleep, I had exited all the programs except Instant Messenger. No one had touched it since (my girlfriend was sitting across from it and would have noticed). And yet, a word document had been opened. I'll never forget the words it said: "The Offer Remains..."

I never went near that book again. I've never experienced anything paranormal since. And yet, this was without doubt the scariest thing that ever happened to me. I'm hoping someone here can shed light into what it was that had happened. Up until then I had always thought that ghosts couldn't actually manipulate objects or cut lights or set off fire alarms. Then again, I don't think I was dealing with ghosts...