June 4, 2025 • 36 mins
In 2018, while studying abroad at Humboldt University, Carmen moved into a Berlin apartment built over a bombed-out ruin, and immediately knew something was wrong. Dark shadows, unexplained scratches, and a choking presence haunted her nights. Was it anxiety… or something darker buried beneath the surface?
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You can get these ad-free through ScaryPlus.com free for 14 days, then 4.99 per month. Cancel anytime.
You can find Edwin on TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram as @edwincov
Scheduling by Bianca Chaves, editing and sound design by Sarah Vorhees Wendel from VW Sound
Get in touch to share your story through TrueScaryStory.com
Join our community:
Facebook.com/scarypod
Instagram.com/scarypod
tiktok.com/@truescarypod
youtube.com/scarystorypodcast
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
And it feels like multiple hands are touching my back,
trying to grab my arms, my legs, and I could
barely walk. Whatever this is wants me to stay here
in this basement.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
When she was studying abroad, she realized that there was
something strange in the apartment, something that would torment her,
and to this day still defies any logical explanation. My
name is Edward, and here's Carmen's true scary story.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Every time I tell this story, something weird happens. My
story happened near Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany, in twenty eighteen.
I lived in a neighborhood called Schoenenberg.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
It's the same.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Neighborhood that David Bowie I used to live in, so
it's a pretty famous neighborhood. I was an exchange student
for study abroad. I would study buildings in what kind
of style they were. The building that I was living
in at the time, it was post World War construction,
(01:18):
fairly modern, no Bauhaus design, and it looked like a
regular apartment. When I first came in to the apartment,
there was barely any electricity. It was really really dark.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
When you go study abroad, you usually.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Have like a host family, but I didn't have a
host family. I had a host dad, and I'll call
him p K. I was with another girl who would
be my roommate, and this was a three bedroom apartment.
It had everything you needed, and it was in a
really great location. It was pretty close to the university,
(02:00):
and I really enjoyed it. But when I first went
into this apartment, it was really really cold. PK said,
I don't sleep here at night. I live in another
apartment next door. Usually host families it's like you stay
in the home of someone and you integrate with the culture.
(02:20):
And we thought that was very strange. But p K said,
you know, if you need anything, I'm just call away.
If anything happens in the apartment, like just text or
call me, like I'll be there. So I stay in
this apartment and then the next day I get up
and it's like freezing. I go to touch the radiator
(02:41):
and the radiator is on full blast. I talked to
my roommate and I ask her, do you also feel
how cold it is in this apartment and she goes, yeah,
I had to sleep with like my winter coat on.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
I'm like me too, So we like.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Send a message to PK and he's like, hey, don't
wor y'all send someone to make sure that the heating works.
And when PK sent someone to check the radiators and
the heating system, the guy who came and said, yeah,
it's fine, there's nothing wrong. And I'm like, well it's
so freezing. He's like, well, I don't know. You just
(03:16):
kind of lived with it. So at this point we're like, well,
let's like check out the full building. This is like
the second day we're there. We go to the basement
because that's where the washing machines are. This basement was
so scary. It was packed dirt floor. There wasn't even
(03:39):
any electricity running through it.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
According to PK.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
And other residents, that used to be an old apartment
building and it served as a bomb shelter. So the
building it had the original base or foundation pre World
War Two, before like nineteen forty five, and then they
had just built on top of that with a new construction.
(04:08):
To get through to the washing machine, which did have electricity,
you had to go through all the storage and you
had to use a flashlight. You had all these storage rooms,
but they weren't rooms. There was no wall. They just
had like chicken wire fencing that they would just put
their random stuff in and you just have to walk
(04:30):
to you.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
To do your olraun tree.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
It was really scary because it was so dark. You
just walk in and it was like you're engulfed in darkness.
This is already our second day, so we're already starting
off strong here. So at this point, you know what,
we're in Berlin, Germany. It's beautiful, it's freezing. Something's always
falling out of the sky, like people don't realize how
(04:54):
cold it is. There's never any sun, and I guess
that just added to how scary it was. It's important
to note that our university took like security really seriously,
so our rooms we could lock it so the only
person who had an extra key wasn't even PK, our
(05:15):
host dad or my roommate, it was the university because
they wanted to make sure you know that no one's
like intruding in your room or taking your stuff or
moving it around. As I'm getting accustomed to this new place,
I have a roommate, you know, we're going to class. Obviously,
in my room there was a window and I never
opened it because it was winter.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
It was so cold.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
I would leave and then I would come back, maybe
after a full day of class, and my room would
just be a mess. It would be like if someone
took all the books that I had left neatly on
my desk. It's like if someone just like threw it
all all over. And I thought that was weird. So
I asked my roommate. I was like, did you go
into my room? Like I locked my door. She's like, no, Carmen,
(06:00):
you know I don't have a key to that. And
I was like, oh, did you notice the stuff in
your room being touched. She was a smoker. She smoked cigarettes,
so she had like fifteen lighters like in a room
in her jacket pocket. She's like, yeah, I like to smoke,
and obviously, like I smoke with my window open. But
every time I try to like light up a cigarette
(06:22):
and I reach for a lighter.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
I can't find it.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
And then I'll find it like in the bathroom, in
the kitchen of all places that I haven't even left
the lighters in there because I always carry it on
my person. I'm like, Okay, that's weird. We thought maybe, oh,
like maybe we just misplaced our things. You know, maybe
there's like a current and we just didn't realize it
(06:47):
from the pipes.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
I think.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
You know, when you talk about hauntings and your skeptic
is that you think you're going crazy. You think you
have like a mental illness. I was so convinced that
I had something that I went to a psychic hiatrist
and they said I just had anxiety and that I
was fine a few weeks into staying in this apartment.
(07:15):
You know, I've always been super healthy. I never had
any issues. I wake up and I have assist in
my throat the size of a gobble. Every time I
would lay my head down, I couldn't breathe. So at
this point, like I have to go to the er.
I go to the emergency department to a hospital in Berlin, Germany.
(07:39):
It was pretty famous one, and I tell the intake
person like, at this point, the cyst was so visible
that if you just looked at me and looked at
my neck you could see it. They're like, yeah, you
need to be hospital as we'll check you out. At
this point, I was so exhausted that I was like, yes,
please take me. I think because of either lack of
oxygen or just stress. I passed out and so they
(07:59):
had to like know, do all these like CPR and
like life saving measures.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
When you have this your.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Death experience, I feel like no one tells you. It
like shifts the way you think. It shifts your consciousness
in a way that you think in ways that you
didn't think before. Basically, I was like floating and it
was really really nice. It was like in warm water.
That's what it felt like, and it feels like you're
in a worm hug. There's this lady and she said, oh,
(08:34):
do you want to stay or do you want to go?
And I was like, I'm not sure and she goes, well,
why don't you stay?
Speaker 3 (08:38):
And I stayed.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
She was wearing traditional like Indian garb ande. She was
wearing a purple like sorry, I remember because it was
like this brilliant purple. And I came back and that's
when I woke up and there's like six nurses who
are nuns who have like the habit and everything hovering
over me. I thought I was in purgatory and like, no,
(09:03):
you're fine, you just fainted. We're taking you to your
room now. They asked me, do you want to share?
Do you want your own room. I'm like, why would
I want to share a room? I want my own
room in a hospital, like, that's like a novelty for me,
coming from the United States, where medical care is so expensive.
I go in and sitting in the corner was another
(09:26):
nun waiting for me, and I thought, that's weird. She
didn't speak English and my German wasn't the best, so
the only way we could really communicate was French. I
speak multiple languages, so it was fine. She gave me
her name. Her name was Sister Bernarda, and she came
from a convent in Ruen, France. And I asked her,
(09:51):
why are you here? Why are you in this room.
I didn't ask for anyone to be with me. She goes, oh,
on your intake form, you put that you were a Catholic.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
I was like, no, I didn't.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
She's like, well, the person before you clearly isn't here anymore.
Do you want me to keep you company? And I
thought at this point I wouldn't mind having company. I'm
in a foreign country all by myself. I wouldn't mind.
And she spoke a language that I could speak, so
I said sure. She goes, I'm going to give you
a Bible and we can read the Bible together. I
(10:26):
said okay, because at this point my phone had died
and I had nothing else to do. And you know,
I never read the Bible, and I thought it would
be interesting to read it. I didn't open the Bible.
She just read it to me. But she would sit
there for like hours, just like reading the Bible to me.
And I had never asked her to come. I never
(10:48):
said that I was Catholic. It was just weird. So
I had to get an operation to get rid of
the cyst right, and the doctors when they went to
remove it, said, wow, this is one of the biggest
sts we've ever seen.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Do you have a family history? And I said no,
I do not.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
This is the first time anything like this has ever
happened to me. They didn't really have an explanation for
why this happened because all my lab tests were normal.
So they had done the operation and I stated to
go back, so PK.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Went to pick me up.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
When I was discharged, the nun that was sitting there
keeping me company reading the Bible, I didn't see her.
So I went to the reception area and I said,
here's this nun. She kept me company throughout the days.
I would really like to thank her. She was from
this convent, and they goes, oh, we don't have any
record of that person here. I knew her name, I
(11:47):
knew where she came from, what convent she belonged to,
that she was a Catholic nun. I could describe what
she looked like like. She was wearing a white habit
with navy blue dress, and she was wearing like a
wooden cross around her neck that was really big, and
she was like maybe in her mid fifties, and she
wore glasses.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
And she had blue eyes.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
So at this point I thought I hallucinated everything, but
clearly not, because I still had the Bible that she
gave me. After that experience, it made me more open.
And so when I got sick, my grandma also got sick.
(12:30):
We got sick at the same time, and so she
called me that day and was like, are you okay.
I'm like yeah. She goes, well, I had to dream
that you passed away, and I'm like, no.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
I'm fine. I'm here.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
But I did well. I was gone for a few
minutes and then I came back. But it's crazy, so I.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Take the Bible with me.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Pik picks me up and drives me back to the
scary apartment, and I still like freezing, which if you're
recuperating from like an illness or an operation like I had,
you don't want to be in a cold permit. I
had actually made my bed, but my bed had been
unmade at this point.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
So I asked PK, like, hey, did you go into
my room?
Speaker 1 (13:16):
He goes, no, you know that I rarely come here.
That to myself, I wonder why you really come here.
So in order to light the fire, you need to
use like a kitchen match or something. At this point,
we had run out of kitchen matches, and my roommate,
who I told you used to have a lot of lighters,
(13:38):
would always have them like on like the coffee table
in the living room.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
So I go there.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
I remember she had left it there because she said, hey, Kerman,
I used to lost the kitchen matches. Here's a lighter
for you to use to light the stove. Up.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
I go, The lighter's not there.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
I search up and down down all over this apartment.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
I couldn't find anything.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
It was completely missing this lighter that she had specifically
left for me. I had to knock on my neighbor's
door and ask, hey, can I borrow a kitchen match.
The neighbor said, sure, here it is, take it. But
things would go missing all the time, and there'd be
no explanation for it. I don't know if it was
(14:24):
me projecting, but this Bible would appear in random places.
I'd leave it at my desk, which is in my room,
which is locked, and then I would come back and
I'd find the Bible on our coffee table, or I
would find it on our kitchen table, and I'd be like,
(14:45):
I really locked my door, How is this Bible moving around?
I didn't want to hurt the Bible or anything, but
it freaked me out so bad that I literally put
it in my closet and like closed my closet with
like a key, and I said, there's no way this
(15:07):
Bible will move after I like put it under a
bunch of stuff. So it was like all the way
in the back. It wasn't like someone could have just
like opened my closet door and take it. You'd have
to look to find this Bible. So I went to class,
I locked my door. I come back after like a
long day of classes, and the Bible is.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
On my coffee table.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Again, I called my roommate. I was like, are you
messing with me? Did you put this Bible here? I
was like, actually, Matt, like why would you do that?
Speaker 3 (15:42):
She's like, Carmen, I'd been in class with you all day.
There's no way I could have done this.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
So then I missaged p K and I was like, Hey,
this is weird, but did you move my Bible to
the coffee table? And I said, Carmen, I haven't been
to the park in a week, So at this point,
I think that there's someone in the apartment. We had
(16:10):
PK check our apartment again to make sure that there
was no one there, and there really was no one there,
at least physically. So three months is when really the
(16:34):
activity really started ramping up. I had recovered from my sist.
Both of us we'd be like sitting discussing something or
maybe watching TV, me and my roommate, and we would
just like see stuff. It'd be like eleven am. I'd
be in the bathroom and I see like an orb
of light. I'm like, okay, maybe it's just like the reflection.
(16:56):
But I would have turned off the lights and there
would have been no lights on am I seeing this
orb with light.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
There was like nothing that could explain what was happening
to us.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
And at this point, I feel like, maybe it's the apartment,
maybe it's me, But like every time I'm in this
apartment for long amounts of.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Time, I just feel drained of energy.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
And usually when you rest and you stay in your bedding,
your apartment, which is your home, your home base, you're
supposed to feel safe and cozy and like where you
can recuperate. I did not feel that in this place
at all. It was just like really bad energy, you
could say. And I'm not really into energies and stuff,
but after this experience kind of changed my perspective. I
(17:44):
couldn't find a reason for why I felt this way
in this apartment. I would wake up with scratches. I'd
wake up with bruises, but I wouldn't wake up in
the night, which is weird. If you have bruises and scratches,
wouldn't you think that you would wake up in the
middle of the night. I would just have the most
(18:04):
vivid dreams I would be in this apartment. There would
just be shadows everywhere. I never saw a face. It
would just be like these shadow figures just like wandering
around following me, and I could never get out of
this freaking apartment.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
I would wake up.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
With like three long scratches on my back and I
would lock the door to my room, and there's like
no way I could live scratched my back myself to
create such long scratches. I'm like an academic, like I'm
not very sporty. Like, there's just no way. And so
(18:43):
then I asked my roommate, are you waking up with
like bruises and like scratches too, And she goes yes.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
So it wasn't just me.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
There was like something in common, which was us living
at this apartment. I basically am like so freaked out
at this point.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
I don't know what to do.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
I thought to myself, I need to leave this place,
but I couldn't leave this place because there's no other
housing available. We can't go up to the university be like, hey,
can you please move us? We think our house is haunted.
Who's gonna leave us? So we just stuck it out
for the whole six months that we were there. So
(19:27):
I call my grandma, she's from Spain, and I ask her,
like I'm having all these issues. This apartment is really bad.
I don't know what to do. She's like, well, you
should get away candle and burn it and keep the
window open for the night. I'm sure that will help you.
(19:47):
So I go to my local grocery store, I get
the candle. I do what she says. Nothing happens, It
still feels the same, nothing changes.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
I'm like, whatever, I tried.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
So a few days after that, I'm like watching a movie.
All of a sudden, the temperature just like drops. It's
so cold. I can see my breath where before it
was just like normal room temperature, and I'm like, oh
my god, what's happening. So I go out of my
room and the rest apartment's normal temperature. I'm like whatever,
I'm just gonna take a shower and like forget about it.
(20:30):
I couldn't sleep it was so cold, and so, you know,
I wake up because it feels like someone's holding my
neck where my sist was. It feels like that cyst
again was coming back, because it felt like it was
crushing my windpipe.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
At this point, I'm paralyzed. I can't move.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
I could see everything, but my body was paralyzed, and
I just see this dark figure which is like really
really tall, really really long fingers, but it didn't have
a face.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
It was like a shadow personified.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
I couldn't move and I'm like that for like a
good It felt like five minutes, but could have been
maybe thirty seconds at most. I finally managed to break
out of that like paralyzation, and I turned the.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Light on and it went away.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
At this point, I was so freaked out. I slept
with the light on. I look up remedies on how
to like cleanse your house, and one of the remedies
online had to burn stage. I needed something to help
me cleanse this place because I needed to live here
for another couple months and I couldn't live like this anymore.
(21:49):
I basically felt like I was being watched in my
own home. I couldn't recover, and I basically felt like
whatever was there was making my health deteriorate. So I
go to this little shop. It's the size of a closet.
The guy who's there, he is like over six foot tall,
really really pale. He has tattoos, right, and then he
(22:09):
has an eye of Horrors tattoo tattooed in between his brows.
He doesn't speak English, he doesn't speak French. He speaks German,
but I forgot the German word for sage. So I
was like, sorry, do you speak Spanish? And he goes, yes,
he spoke the most perfect Spanish that I have ever
heard in my life. So he goes back into his
(22:33):
store room and he brings me out like the largest
sage stick imaginable. It's like almost six foot long. It's huge,
and I'm like, oh my god, whatever, I need sage.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
So he looks at me and he.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Has like really big blue eyes. He was like a
very imposing figure. Six seven years later, I still remember
what this guy looked like.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
He looks at me.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
And goes, good luck. So I called my roommate. We
were both so freaked out that we didn't go into
the apartment by ourselves. We would wait for the other
to finish class or finish what they were doing, and
we'd go in together. I'm basically at a calfe waiting
(23:21):
for my roommate to come because I'm scared. I don't
want to go into this place by myself. She comes,
She's like, okay, we got it. I have my lighter
in my pocket, let's go. So we go into the apartment,
we take off our coats and we put it on
the coat rack. I start opening everything because I'm like,
we need to clean this apartment, like we need to
(23:43):
like cleanse the energy. We need to have good energy here,
good vibes only. And so I get the sage stick
out of my bag and I'm like, hey, roomy, are
you ready? She goes, yep, let me go get the lighter.
She couldn't the lighter, and then she says, let me
go into my room. I have like five lighters all
(24:05):
around my room, some on my night stand whatever. I'm like, okay, sure,
It's been a few minutes, and I'm like okay, she
hasn't come out.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Of a room.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
So I yell, hey, did you find a lighter? She goes, No,
I have like five different lighters in my room and
I can't find a single one. And I've been tossing
my room upside down and I can't find a single lighter.
I hadn't gone into my room yet because it was locked,
and at this point I was scared, so I was like, hey,
maybe I have a lighter.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
In my room.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
I unlocked my door, and the Bible that I had
left on a desk.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Was open and on my bed.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
I didn't even read what passage it was because it
really freaked me out, and then.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
I began searching for a lighter. Of course, we did
find it.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
We checked all the corners of the living room, we
checked behind the coat rack, we checked in the kitchen,
we checked all the kitchen drawers. We basically had to
go ask to the neighbor for a kitchen match.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Again. This is the same one who asked before. Was like,
are you girls okay?
Speaker 1 (25:18):
And we're like, yeah, we're fine. The neighbor goes, you
girls have been the ones that have lasted the most
in that apartment. Most people who stay there students only
last there for a month before they move out. Oh
my god, it makes so much sense because p K
would never stay the night. At most, he'd be there
(25:40):
ten minutes in the apartment and then he would leave.
And he's our host dad. Like when you have like
a host family for city broad, you're supposed to do
things together, eat lunches and stuff together. We'd always go
out to eat with him. We'd never do it like
at that space, and we had like a really nice
functioning kitchen, so it was just like, weird, Is it
just our apartment. I don't think it was. I think
(26:01):
it was like the whole building that was just had
bad energy and that emanated from the basement. At this point,
we got the kitchen match. We have all the doors
and windows open, and the neighbor was like, oh can
I watch this?
Speaker 3 (26:20):
Why not?
Speaker 1 (26:20):
The more people the better, So I tried lighting it.
For the life of me, I couldn't light the slider.
We had to go through like ten matches.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Before we could light the sage stick.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
The coat rack, which is by the entryway by the
front door, fell down.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
It wasn't like a just one coat fell down. The
entire coat rack.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Which was just like a rack of where you would
hang your clothing, fell down and it sounds like a
bomb went off. The neighbor who's watching from outside, comes
into apartment and is like, are you okay. We're like, yeah,
we're fine. The neighbor was like, well, I'm going to
go back to my apartment, but knock if you need anything.
(27:11):
I don't know if you know this about Germany, but
they're very strict and they're very much against any noises.
We had the downstairs neighbor come up and ask us
to be quiet, and we hadn't done anything except for
the co rack to have fallen, and we're like, well,
what are you hearing? And the downstairs neighbor said, I
just hear footsteps all the time, and it feels like,
you know, you're holding parties. We've never held a party
(27:35):
in this apartment in our life. The downstairs neighbor clearly
didn't believe me, but I'm like, no, I swear to you.
We do not invite people over to our apartment. We
are at class like all day every day, and when
we do want to have fun, we.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Just go out to like a bar or a club
or your restaurant. We don't stay in the apartment. We
don't invite people over.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
She goes every single night for months. I've been hearing
people coming in and out stomping. I'm just like, I
just moved here in January, and I said before that
it was empty because p Que didn't have anyone stay
for six months before that.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
That's what he told us. At this point, me and
my room and.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
We were just like really freaked out. So many things
that's happened in the span of like ten minutes. The
stage stick was still burning, and we couldn't even like
cleanse the apartment. So I start going into all the
rooms cleansing it, starting from like the doorway and going
all around in a clockwise motion, going in all the rooms.
(28:46):
The smoke from the sage stick it didn't like dissipate.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
This is in front of an open window.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
The smoke accumulated into what I can best describe as
I guess, like a smoke figure. This figure was like
over six feet tall. Huge, And as we're doing it,
I'm like calling my roommate, can you see this?
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Am I imagining this?
Speaker 1 (29:13):
And she goes, no, I'm seeing it too. At this
point I thought I was going crazy, but I know
I'm not. And I think when you talk about hauntings
and stuff like this, you think you're going crazy. You
think there's something wrong with you. So as I'm going
out through the apartment, this smoke figure in my roommate's room,
(29:36):
which was kind of scary. All the smoke had gone
to her window. It was forming the smoke figure. As
I go through the kitchen, which is a final one
before I did the whole doorway. As I did the doorway,
I could see her room the smoke figure like stayed
there for a moment and then dissipated, but the energy
(30:01):
and the apartment still felt the same. As We're like
putting up the coat rack, which I had fallen right
by itself. Underneath we found all the lighters in a pile,
and before that we had checked it before we started
(30:22):
doing the sage cleansing. At this point, we were really
freaked out. The downstairs neighbor said she hears footsteps and
parties every night when we're just like in our bed
trying to sleep, like there's something wrong with this place.
It finally felt like, Okay, this is finally over.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
It was not over.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
I felt like after a few days it just like
ramped up even more. It was so bad that for
the next month we shared a room and we basically
were so freaked out that sometimes we would sleep in
the same room together. I came in healthy mind you.
I would eat like three meals a day.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
It was so bad.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
I went to my doctor because I had the cyst again,
and she goes, oh, Kerman, you're really healthy, Like I
don't know why you're having all these symptoms. You have
symptoms of like being in a famine, like you had
like starvation because all my symptoms were if you like,
didn't eat enough. I'm like, really, but I eat three
(31:24):
meals a day and my doctor goes, yeah, it's very strange.
So at this point, I'm like, I need to move out.
I called my dad and basically I got an airbnb
for a week. I felt like I could finally breathe again.
But obviously having an airbnb in Germany is like expensive,
so I had to move back. But I got it
(31:44):
for finals week. So before we move out. It's like
my second to last day there, and it could not
have come fast enough to leave this place, and I
had to wash my clothing. I used my phone as
a flashlight to walk through these storage rooms, but my
phone would not turn the flashlight on. It wouldn't even turn.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
On when I was down there.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
This was like twelve o'clock in the afternoon. Okay, This
wasn't like at night where it's all creepy.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
I went during the day like a normal person. I
don't want to be freaked out all, just going during
the day where there's sunlight. Of course, there's a basement,
so it has no windows, so it's pitch black. It's
so dark you can't see a hand in front of
your face.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
I go through.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
And it feels like multiple hands are touching my back,
trying to grab my arms, my legs, and I could
barely walk.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
Whatever this is wants.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Me to stay here in this basement for what felt
like a solid twenty minutes. Maybe it was shorter, but
when you're like, it was so pitch black. I couldn't
see anything around me. I could barely walk because it
felt like someone was from the sides and from the
ground was.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
Like holding on to me somehow somewhere.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Thank goodness, I managed to escape and I went to
the laundry room. My phone still didn't work, so I
couldn't call anyone. I couldn't text anyone, so I did
my laundry and then I had to go through that
storage space again. I was like, I'm not going there
by myself. I waited three hours in that laundry room,
(33:24):
which had light in a window, until someone else in
my building came and I asked them to accompany me
through that storage space. It was the downstairs neighbor who
had come up to ask us to keep it down
and to stop throwing parties, and she goes, are you okay?
(33:45):
I didn't want to come off as crazy, and I
think she could tell it's freaked out, and she goes, hey,
if you need anything, you can knock on my door.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Like it's okay.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
We go back together and I go back upstairs, and
like a few hours later.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
It's the evening already. I go to take a shower.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
And I have like bruises all over my body from
whatever was down there in the basement, whatever spirits, entities,
whatever you want to call it, was holding me down.
I'm so happy in leaving this place. I was leaving
the day after. So I managed to leave and packed
(34:27):
everything up, and so I went to go pack the
Bible that I always had that the nun gave me.
Couldn't find it, I couldn't pack it with me, And
to this day, I still don't know where that Bible
is where. Maybe it stuck in that apartment, Maybe it disappeared,
Maybe it was like a ghost Bible that the nun
gave me. I don't know, but I don't know where
(34:48):
that Bible is. And I do not want to go
back to Berlin because Berlin freaked me out so much
and that apartment was so scary that I still have
nightmares about it. I've never experienced anything before this or
after this, so I think it was just this place.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Thank you Carmen for sharing your experiences with us. This
has been one of the eeriest studying abroad stories I've
ever heard, and if you have a true story that
you want to share, find a reform over at true
scarystory dot com. Scheduling for this episode was written by
Bianca Chavis, with editing and sound design by Sarah Vorhez
Wendel from VW Sound. Additional production by me Edwin Corujas
(35:42):
and the Scary fmteam. If you're following the show, we'll
be back next week with another story. Thank you very
much for listening. Keep it scary everyone, See you as
soon
And it feels like multiple hands are touching my back,
trying to grab my arms, my legs, and I could
barely walk. Whatever this is wants me to stay here
in this basement.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
When she was studying abroad, she realized that there was
something strange in the apartment, something that would torment her,
and to this day still defies any logical explanation. My
name is Edward, and here's Carmen's true scary story.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Every time I tell this story, something weird happens. My
story happened near Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany, in twenty eighteen.
I lived in a neighborhood called Schoenenberg.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
It's the same.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Neighborhood that David Bowie I used to live in, so
it's a pretty famous neighborhood. I was an exchange student
for study abroad. I would study buildings in what kind
of style they were. The building that I was living
in at the time, it was post World War construction,
(01:18):
fairly modern, no Bauhaus design, and it looked like a
regular apartment. When I first came in to the apartment,
there was barely any electricity. It was really really dark.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
When you go study abroad, you usually.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Have like a host family, but I didn't have a
host family. I had a host dad, and I'll call
him p K. I was with another girl who would
be my roommate, and this was a three bedroom apartment.
It had everything you needed, and it was in a
really great location. It was pretty close to the university,
(02:00):
and I really enjoyed it. But when I first went
into this apartment, it was really really cold. PK said,
I don't sleep here at night. I live in another
apartment next door. Usually host families it's like you stay
in the home of someone and you integrate with the culture.
(02:20):
And we thought that was very strange. But p K said,
you know, if you need anything, I'm just call away.
If anything happens in the apartment, like just text or
call me, like I'll be there. So I stay in
this apartment and then the next day I get up
and it's like freezing. I go to touch the radiator
(02:41):
and the radiator is on full blast. I talked to
my roommate and I ask her, do you also feel
how cold it is in this apartment and she goes, yeah,
I had to sleep with like my winter coat on.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
I'm like me too, So we like.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Send a message to PK and he's like, hey, don't
wor y'all send someone to make sure that the heating works.
And when PK sent someone to check the radiators and
the heating system, the guy who came and said, yeah,
it's fine, there's nothing wrong. And I'm like, well it's
so freezing. He's like, well, I don't know. You just
(03:16):
kind of lived with it. So at this point we're like, well,
let's like check out the full building. This is like
the second day we're there. We go to the basement
because that's where the washing machines are. This basement was
so scary. It was packed dirt floor. There wasn't even
(03:39):
any electricity running through it.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
According to PK.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
And other residents, that used to be an old apartment
building and it served as a bomb shelter. So the
building it had the original base or foundation pre World
War Two, before like nineteen forty five, and then they
had just built on top of that with a new construction.
(04:08):
To get through to the washing machine, which did have electricity,
you had to go through all the storage and you
had to use a flashlight. You had all these storage rooms,
but they weren't rooms. There was no wall. They just
had like chicken wire fencing that they would just put
their random stuff in and you just have to walk
(04:30):
to you.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
To do your olraun tree.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
It was really scary because it was so dark. You
just walk in and it was like you're engulfed in darkness.
This is already our second day, so we're already starting
off strong here. So at this point, you know what,
we're in Berlin, Germany. It's beautiful, it's freezing. Something's always
falling out of the sky, like people don't realize how
(04:54):
cold it is. There's never any sun, and I guess
that just added to how scary it was. It's important
to note that our university took like security really seriously,
so our rooms we could lock it so the only
person who had an extra key wasn't even PK, our
(05:15):
host dad or my roommate, it was the university because
they wanted to make sure you know that no one's
like intruding in your room or taking your stuff or
moving it around. As I'm getting accustomed to this new place,
I have a roommate, you know, we're going to class. Obviously,
in my room there was a window and I never
opened it because it was winter.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
It was so cold.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
I would leave and then I would come back, maybe
after a full day of class, and my room would
just be a mess. It would be like if someone
took all the books that I had left neatly on
my desk. It's like if someone just like threw it
all all over. And I thought that was weird. So
I asked my roommate. I was like, did you go
into my room? Like I locked my door. She's like, no, Carmen,
(06:00):
you know I don't have a key to that. And
I was like, oh, did you notice the stuff in
your room being touched. She was a smoker. She smoked cigarettes,
so she had like fifteen lighters like in a room
in her jacket pocket. She's like, yeah, I like to smoke,
and obviously, like I smoke with my window open. But
every time I try to like light up a cigarette
(06:22):
and I reach for a lighter.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
I can't find it.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
And then I'll find it like in the bathroom, in
the kitchen of all places that I haven't even left
the lighters in there because I always carry it on
my person. I'm like, Okay, that's weird. We thought maybe, oh,
like maybe we just misplaced our things. You know, maybe
there's like a current and we just didn't realize it
(06:47):
from the pipes.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
I think.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
You know, when you talk about hauntings and your skeptic
is that you think you're going crazy. You think you
have like a mental illness. I was so convinced that
I had something that I went to a psychic hiatrist
and they said I just had anxiety and that I
was fine a few weeks into staying in this apartment.
(07:15):
You know, I've always been super healthy. I never had
any issues. I wake up and I have assist in
my throat the size of a gobble. Every time I
would lay my head down, I couldn't breathe. So at
this point, like I have to go to the er.
I go to the emergency department to a hospital in Berlin, Germany.
(07:39):
It was pretty famous one, and I tell the intake
person like, at this point, the cyst was so visible
that if you just looked at me and looked at
my neck you could see it. They're like, yeah, you
need to be hospital as we'll check you out. At
this point, I was so exhausted that I was like, yes,
please take me. I think because of either lack of
oxygen or just stress. I passed out and so they
(07:59):
had to like know, do all these like CPR and
like life saving measures.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
When you have this your.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Death experience, I feel like no one tells you. It
like shifts the way you think. It shifts your consciousness
in a way that you think in ways that you
didn't think before. Basically, I was like floating and it
was really really nice. It was like in warm water.
That's what it felt like, and it feels like you're
in a worm hug. There's this lady and she said, oh,
(08:34):
do you want to stay or do you want to go?
And I was like, I'm not sure and she goes, well,
why don't you stay?
Speaker 3 (08:38):
And I stayed.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
She was wearing traditional like Indian garb ande. She was
wearing a purple like sorry, I remember because it was
like this brilliant purple. And I came back and that's
when I woke up and there's like six nurses who
are nuns who have like the habit and everything hovering
over me. I thought I was in purgatory and like, no,
(09:03):
you're fine, you just fainted. We're taking you to your
room now. They asked me, do you want to share?
Do you want your own room. I'm like, why would
I want to share a room? I want my own
room in a hospital, like, that's like a novelty for me,
coming from the United States, where medical care is so expensive.
I go in and sitting in the corner was another
(09:26):
nun waiting for me, and I thought, that's weird. She
didn't speak English and my German wasn't the best, so
the only way we could really communicate was French. I
speak multiple languages, so it was fine. She gave me
her name. Her name was Sister Bernarda, and she came
from a convent in Ruen, France. And I asked her,
(09:51):
why are you here? Why are you in this room.
I didn't ask for anyone to be with me. She goes, oh,
on your intake form, you put that you were a Catholic.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
I was like, no, I didn't.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
She's like, well, the person before you clearly isn't here anymore.
Do you want me to keep you company? And I
thought at this point I wouldn't mind having company. I'm
in a foreign country all by myself. I wouldn't mind.
And she spoke a language that I could speak, so
I said sure. She goes, I'm going to give you
a Bible and we can read the Bible together. I
(10:26):
said okay, because at this point my phone had died
and I had nothing else to do. And you know,
I never read the Bible, and I thought it would
be interesting to read it. I didn't open the Bible.
She just read it to me. But she would sit
there for like hours, just like reading the Bible to me.
And I had never asked her to come. I never
(10:48):
said that I was Catholic. It was just weird. So
I had to get an operation to get rid of
the cyst right, and the doctors when they went to
remove it, said, wow, this is one of the biggest
sts we've ever seen.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Do you have a family history? And I said no,
I do not.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
This is the first time anything like this has ever
happened to me. They didn't really have an explanation for
why this happened because all my lab tests were normal.
So they had done the operation and I stated to
go back, so PK.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Went to pick me up.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
When I was discharged, the nun that was sitting there
keeping me company reading the Bible, I didn't see her.
So I went to the reception area and I said,
here's this nun. She kept me company throughout the days.
I would really like to thank her. She was from
this convent, and they goes, oh, we don't have any
record of that person here. I knew her name, I
(11:47):
knew where she came from, what convent she belonged to,
that she was a Catholic nun. I could describe what
she looked like like. She was wearing a white habit
with navy blue dress, and she was wearing like a
wooden cross around her neck that was really big, and
she was like maybe in her mid fifties, and she
wore glasses.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
And she had blue eyes.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
So at this point I thought I hallucinated everything, but
clearly not, because I still had the Bible that she
gave me. After that experience, it made me more open.
And so when I got sick, my grandma also got sick.
(12:30):
We got sick at the same time, and so she
called me that day and was like, are you okay.
I'm like yeah. She goes, well, I had to dream
that you passed away, and I'm like, no.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
I'm fine. I'm here.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
But I did well. I was gone for a few
minutes and then I came back. But it's crazy, so I.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Take the Bible with me.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Pik picks me up and drives me back to the
scary apartment, and I still like freezing, which if you're
recuperating from like an illness or an operation like I had,
you don't want to be in a cold permit. I
had actually made my bed, but my bed had been
unmade at this point.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
So I asked PK, like, hey, did you go into
my room?
Speaker 1 (13:16):
He goes, no, you know that I rarely come here.
That to myself, I wonder why you really come here.
So in order to light the fire, you need to
use like a kitchen match or something. At this point,
we had run out of kitchen matches, and my roommate,
who I told you used to have a lot of lighters,
(13:38):
would always have them like on like the coffee table
in the living room.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
So I go there.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
I remember she had left it there because she said, hey, Kerman,
I used to lost the kitchen matches. Here's a lighter
for you to use to light the stove. Up.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
I go, The lighter's not there.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
I search up and down down all over this apartment.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
I couldn't find anything.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
It was completely missing this lighter that she had specifically
left for me. I had to knock on my neighbor's
door and ask, hey, can I borrow a kitchen match.
The neighbor said, sure, here it is, take it. But
things would go missing all the time, and there'd be
no explanation for it. I don't know if it was
(14:24):
me projecting, but this Bible would appear in random places.
I'd leave it at my desk, which is in my room,
which is locked, and then I would come back and
I'd find the Bible on our coffee table, or I
would find it on our kitchen table, and I'd be like,
(14:45):
I really locked my door, How is this Bible moving around?
I didn't want to hurt the Bible or anything, but
it freaked me out so bad that I literally put
it in my closet and like closed my closet with
like a key, and I said, there's no way this
(15:07):
Bible will move after I like put it under a
bunch of stuff. So it was like all the way
in the back. It wasn't like someone could have just
like opened my closet door and take it. You'd have
to look to find this Bible. So I went to class,
I locked my door. I come back after like a
long day of classes, and the Bible is.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
On my coffee table.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Again, I called my roommate. I was like, are you
messing with me? Did you put this Bible here? I
was like, actually, Matt, like why would you do that?
Speaker 3 (15:42):
She's like, Carmen, I'd been in class with you all day.
There's no way I could have done this.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
So then I missaged p K and I was like, Hey,
this is weird, but did you move my Bible to
the coffee table? And I said, Carmen, I haven't been
to the park in a week, So at this point,
I think that there's someone in the apartment. We had
(16:10):
PK check our apartment again to make sure that there
was no one there, and there really was no one there,
at least physically. So three months is when really the
(16:34):
activity really started ramping up. I had recovered from my sist.
Both of us we'd be like sitting discussing something or
maybe watching TV, me and my roommate, and we would
just like see stuff. It'd be like eleven am. I'd
be in the bathroom and I see like an orb
of light. I'm like, okay, maybe it's just like the reflection.
(16:56):
But I would have turned off the lights and there
would have been no lights on am I seeing this
orb with light.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
There was like nothing that could explain what was happening
to us.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
And at this point, I feel like, maybe it's the apartment,
maybe it's me, But like every time I'm in this
apartment for long amounts of.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Time, I just feel drained of energy.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
And usually when you rest and you stay in your bedding,
your apartment, which is your home, your home base, you're
supposed to feel safe and cozy and like where you
can recuperate. I did not feel that in this place
at all. It was just like really bad energy, you
could say. And I'm not really into energies and stuff,
but after this experience kind of changed my perspective. I
(17:44):
couldn't find a reason for why I felt this way
in this apartment. I would wake up with scratches. I'd
wake up with bruises, but I wouldn't wake up in
the night, which is weird. If you have bruises and scratches,
wouldn't you think that you would wake up in the
middle of the night. I would just have the most
(18:04):
vivid dreams I would be in this apartment. There would
just be shadows everywhere. I never saw a face. It
would just be like these shadow figures just like wandering
around following me, and I could never get out of
this freaking apartment.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
I would wake up.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
With like three long scratches on my back and I
would lock the door to my room, and there's like
no way I could live scratched my back myself to
create such long scratches. I'm like an academic, like I'm
not very sporty. Like, there's just no way. And so
(18:43):
then I asked my roommate, are you waking up with
like bruises and like scratches too, And she goes yes.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
So it wasn't just me.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
There was like something in common, which was us living
at this apartment. I basically am like so freaked out
at this point.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
I don't know what to do.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
I thought to myself, I need to leave this place,
but I couldn't leave this place because there's no other
housing available. We can't go up to the university be like, hey,
can you please move us? We think our house is haunted.
Who's gonna leave us? So we just stuck it out
for the whole six months that we were there. So
(19:27):
I call my grandma, she's from Spain, and I ask her,
like I'm having all these issues. This apartment is really bad.
I don't know what to do. She's like, well, you
should get away candle and burn it and keep the
window open for the night. I'm sure that will help you.
(19:47):
So I go to my local grocery store, I get
the candle. I do what she says. Nothing happens, It
still feels the same, nothing changes.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
I'm like, whatever, I tried.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
So a few days after that, I'm like watching a movie.
All of a sudden, the temperature just like drops. It's
so cold. I can see my breath where before it
was just like normal room temperature, and I'm like, oh
my god, what's happening. So I go out of my
room and the rest apartment's normal temperature. I'm like whatever,
I'm just gonna take a shower and like forget about it.
(20:30):
I couldn't sleep it was so cold, and so, you know,
I wake up because it feels like someone's holding my
neck where my sist was. It feels like that cyst
again was coming back, because it felt like it was
crushing my windpipe.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
At this point, I'm paralyzed. I can't move.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
I could see everything, but my body was paralyzed, and
I just see this dark figure which is like really
really tall, really really long fingers, but it didn't have
a face.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
It was like a shadow personified.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
I couldn't move and I'm like that for like a
good It felt like five minutes, but could have been
maybe thirty seconds at most. I finally managed to break
out of that like paralyzation, and I turned the.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Light on and it went away.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
At this point, I was so freaked out. I slept
with the light on. I look up remedies on how
to like cleanse your house, and one of the remedies
online had to burn stage. I needed something to help
me cleanse this place because I needed to live here
for another couple months and I couldn't live like this anymore.
(21:49):
I basically felt like I was being watched in my
own home. I couldn't recover, and I basically felt like
whatever was there was making my health deteriorate. So I
go to this little shop. It's the size of a closet.
The guy who's there, he is like over six foot tall,
really really pale. He has tattoos, right, and then he
(22:09):
has an eye of Horrors tattoo tattooed in between his brows.
He doesn't speak English, he doesn't speak French. He speaks German,
but I forgot the German word for sage. So I
was like, sorry, do you speak Spanish? And he goes, yes,
he spoke the most perfect Spanish that I have ever
heard in my life. So he goes back into his
(22:33):
store room and he brings me out like the largest
sage stick imaginable. It's like almost six foot long. It's huge,
and I'm like, oh my god, whatever, I need sage.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
So he looks at me and he.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Has like really big blue eyes. He was like a
very imposing figure. Six seven years later, I still remember
what this guy looked like.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
He looks at me.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
And goes, good luck. So I called my roommate. We
were both so freaked out that we didn't go into
the apartment by ourselves. We would wait for the other
to finish class or finish what they were doing, and
we'd go in together. I'm basically at a calfe waiting
(23:21):
for my roommate to come because I'm scared. I don't
want to go into this place by myself. She comes,
She's like, okay, we got it. I have my lighter
in my pocket, let's go. So we go into the apartment,
we take off our coats and we put it on
the coat rack. I start opening everything because I'm like,
we need to clean this apartment, like we need to
(23:43):
like cleanse the energy. We need to have good energy here,
good vibes only. And so I get the sage stick
out of my bag and I'm like, hey, roomy, are
you ready? She goes, yep, let me go get the lighter.
She couldn't the lighter, and then she says, let me
go into my room. I have like five lighters all
(24:05):
around my room, some on my night stand whatever. I'm like, okay, sure,
It's been a few minutes, and I'm like okay, she
hasn't come out.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Of a room.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
So I yell, hey, did you find a lighter? She goes, No,
I have like five different lighters in my room and
I can't find a single one. And I've been tossing
my room upside down and I can't find a single lighter.
I hadn't gone into my room yet because it was locked,
and at this point I was scared, so I was like, hey,
maybe I have a lighter.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
In my room.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
I unlocked my door, and the Bible that I had
left on a desk.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Was open and on my bed.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
I didn't even read what passage it was because it
really freaked me out, and then.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
I began searching for a lighter. Of course, we did
find it.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
We checked all the corners of the living room, we
checked behind the coat rack, we checked in the kitchen,
we checked all the kitchen drawers. We basically had to
go ask to the neighbor for a kitchen match.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Again. This is the same one who asked before. Was like,
are you girls okay?
Speaker 1 (25:18):
And we're like, yeah, we're fine. The neighbor goes, you
girls have been the ones that have lasted the most
in that apartment. Most people who stay there students only
last there for a month before they move out. Oh
my god, it makes so much sense because p K
would never stay the night. At most, he'd be there
(25:40):
ten minutes in the apartment and then he would leave.
And he's our host dad. Like when you have like
a host family for city broad, you're supposed to do
things together, eat lunches and stuff together. We'd always go
out to eat with him. We'd never do it like
at that space, and we had like a really nice
functioning kitchen, so it was just like, weird, Is it
just our apartment. I don't think it was. I think
(26:01):
it was like the whole building that was just had
bad energy and that emanated from the basement. At this point,
we got the kitchen match. We have all the doors
and windows open, and the neighbor was like, oh can
I watch this?
Speaker 3 (26:20):
Why not?
Speaker 1 (26:20):
The more people the better, So I tried lighting it.
For the life of me, I couldn't light the slider.
We had to go through like ten matches.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Before we could light the sage stick.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
The coat rack, which is by the entryway by the
front door, fell down.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
It wasn't like a just one coat fell down. The
entire coat rack.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Which was just like a rack of where you would
hang your clothing, fell down and it sounds like a
bomb went off. The neighbor who's watching from outside, comes
into apartment and is like, are you okay. We're like, yeah,
we're fine. The neighbor was like, well, I'm going to
go back to my apartment, but knock if you need anything.
(27:11):
I don't know if you know this about Germany, but
they're very strict and they're very much against any noises.
We had the downstairs neighbor come up and ask us
to be quiet, and we hadn't done anything except for
the co rack to have fallen, and we're like, well,
what are you hearing? And the downstairs neighbor said, I
just hear footsteps all the time, and it feels like,
you know, you're holding parties. We've never held a party
(27:35):
in this apartment in our life. The downstairs neighbor clearly
didn't believe me, but I'm like, no, I swear to you.
We do not invite people over to our apartment. We
are at class like all day every day, and when
we do want to have fun, we.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Just go out to like a bar or a club
or your restaurant. We don't stay in the apartment. We
don't invite people over.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
She goes every single night for months. I've been hearing
people coming in and out stomping. I'm just like, I
just moved here in January, and I said before that
it was empty because p Que didn't have anyone stay
for six months before that.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
That's what he told us. At this point, me and
my room and.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
We were just like really freaked out. So many things
that's happened in the span of like ten minutes. The
stage stick was still burning, and we couldn't even like
cleanse the apartment. So I start going into all the
rooms cleansing it, starting from like the doorway and going
all around in a clockwise motion, going in all the rooms.
(28:46):
The smoke from the sage stick it didn't like dissipate.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
This is in front of an open window.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
The smoke accumulated into what I can best describe as
I guess, like a smoke figure. This figure was like
over six feet tall. Huge, And as we're doing it,
I'm like calling my roommate, can you see this?
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Am I imagining this?
Speaker 1 (29:13):
And she goes, no, I'm seeing it too. At this
point I thought I was going crazy, but I know
I'm not. And I think when you talk about hauntings
and stuff like this, you think you're going crazy. You
think there's something wrong with you. So as I'm going
out through the apartment, this smoke figure in my roommate's room,
(29:36):
which was kind of scary. All the smoke had gone
to her window. It was forming the smoke figure. As
I go through the kitchen, which is a final one
before I did the whole doorway. As I did the doorway,
I could see her room the smoke figure like stayed
there for a moment and then dissipated, but the energy
(30:01):
and the apartment still felt the same. As We're like
putting up the coat rack, which I had fallen right
by itself. Underneath we found all the lighters in a pile,
and before that we had checked it before we started
(30:22):
doing the sage cleansing. At this point, we were really
freaked out. The downstairs neighbor said she hears footsteps and
parties every night when we're just like in our bed
trying to sleep, like there's something wrong with this place.
It finally felt like, Okay, this is finally over.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
It was not over.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
I felt like after a few days it just like
ramped up even more. It was so bad that for
the next month we shared a room and we basically
were so freaked out that sometimes we would sleep in
the same room together. I came in healthy mind you.
I would eat like three meals a day.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
It was so bad.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
I went to my doctor because I had the cyst again,
and she goes, oh, Kerman, you're really healthy, Like I
don't know why you're having all these symptoms. You have
symptoms of like being in a famine, like you had
like starvation because all my symptoms were if you like,
didn't eat enough. I'm like, really, but I eat three
(31:24):
meals a day and my doctor goes, yeah, it's very strange.
So at this point, I'm like, I need to move out.
I called my dad and basically I got an airbnb
for a week. I felt like I could finally breathe again.
But obviously having an airbnb in Germany is like expensive,
so I had to move back. But I got it
(31:44):
for finals week. So before we move out. It's like
my second to last day there, and it could not
have come fast enough to leave this place, and I
had to wash my clothing. I used my phone as
a flashlight to walk through these storage rooms, but my
phone would not turn the flashlight on. It wouldn't even turn.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
On when I was down there.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
This was like twelve o'clock in the afternoon. Okay, This
wasn't like at night where it's all creepy.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
I went during the day like a normal person. I
don't want to be freaked out all, just going during
the day where there's sunlight. Of course, there's a basement,
so it has no windows, so it's pitch black. It's
so dark you can't see a hand in front of
your face.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
I go through.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
And it feels like multiple hands are touching my back,
trying to grab my arms, my legs, and I could
barely walk.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
Whatever this is wants.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Me to stay here in this basement for what felt
like a solid twenty minutes. Maybe it was shorter, but
when you're like, it was so pitch black. I couldn't
see anything around me. I could barely walk because it
felt like someone was from the sides and from the
ground was.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
Like holding on to me somehow somewhere.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Thank goodness, I managed to escape and I went to
the laundry room. My phone still didn't work, so I
couldn't call anyone. I couldn't text anyone, so I did
my laundry and then I had to go through that
storage space again. I was like, I'm not going there
by myself. I waited three hours in that laundry room,
(33:24):
which had light in a window, until someone else in
my building came and I asked them to accompany me
through that storage space. It was the downstairs neighbor who
had come up to ask us to keep it down
and to stop throwing parties, and she goes, are you okay?
(33:45):
I didn't want to come off as crazy, and I
think she could tell it's freaked out, and she goes, hey,
if you need anything, you can knock on my door.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Like it's okay.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
We go back together and I go back upstairs, and
like a few hours later.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
It's the evening already. I go to take a shower.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
And I have like bruises all over my body from
whatever was down there in the basement, whatever spirits, entities,
whatever you want to call it, was holding me down.
I'm so happy in leaving this place. I was leaving
the day after. So I managed to leave and packed
(34:27):
everything up, and so I went to go pack the
Bible that I always had that the nun gave me.
Couldn't find it, I couldn't pack it with me, And
to this day, I still don't know where that Bible
is where. Maybe it stuck in that apartment, Maybe it disappeared,
Maybe it was like a ghost Bible that the nun
gave me. I don't know, but I don't know where
(34:48):
that Bible is. And I do not want to go
back to Berlin because Berlin freaked me out so much
and that apartment was so scary that I still have
nightmares about it. I've never experienced anything before this or
after this, so I think it was just this place.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Thank you Carmen for sharing your experiences with us. This
has been one of the eeriest studying abroad stories I've
ever heard, and if you have a true story that
you want to share, find a reform over at true
scarystory dot com. Scheduling for this episode was written by
Bianca Chavis, with editing and sound design by Sarah Vorhez
Wendel from VW Sound. Additional production by me Edwin Corujas
(35:42):
and the Scary fmteam. If you're following the show, we'll
be back next week with another story. Thank you very
much for listening. Keep it scary everyone, See you as
soon
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