Something happened to my girlfriend

A little over a few months ago I noticed a change in my girlfriend, Charlotte. To go back before that, we met a few years ago when we were both working at the same crappy part time job. This is important, because long before we started dating I knew this was a woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with

I promise I wasn't some creepy stalker about it, I was perfectly happy being friends with her. At first we only saw each other at work, a crappy pizza joint that only the worst people in the city seemed to visit. But every day when I got to work she was there with a smile and a joke, sometimes a snack to share. The more time I spent with her, the more I wanted to become someone she could be proud of.

At first we really only saw each other at work. Then I started picking her up to go to the mall together, we would get coffee or dinner once a week, then before long we were dating.

I worked hard at that job, and I've worked hard at every job I've had since I met her. She really makes me a better person and that's not just a tangent about how much I love her, she's such a wonderful person that everyone around her just kind of improves by default.

I say that because … I need you to know it for what I'm about to tell you next.

A while back my girlfriend (of two years at that point, I've known her for four and a half now) came home from a camping trip and started acting differently. At first it was little stuff, she totally lost her appetite for a while and didn't seem to want to eat anything. We assumed it was a stomach bug, or stress from work, and she tried to dial it back to get more rest. At first that seemed to be what she needed, her appetite came back for a while and she even seemed better than before.

Then she couldn't sleep at night. It started slowly, with her staying up on her phone for a few minutes longer than usual, then an hour, then I was waking up at 4 in the morning to find her pacing back and forth in the hallway of our apartment.

While that was going on (remember all of this developed over the last 6 months or so) she seemed to get more spaced out and day dreamy a lot. I would come home and find her starting out the window. When I would ask what she was looking at she would just smile and point at something I couldn't seem to see. Other times I would wake up in the middle of the night to find her staring at a wall, or just standing in a doorway not doing anything. Every time I talked to her about it she promised me it was nothing, or that she would go see her doctor if it went on. I wanted to believe her as much as I wanted it to be nothing.

After that she started going out into the woods alone at night. It's not a big forest, maybe a quarter acre or so, and spread out across a few people's backyards. At first I didn't really think much of it. Like everything else it started small and escalated. She would go out for a quick twenty minute walk right at sunset, then it was thirty minutes, then forty-five, then an hour. Before very long I would be long asleep before I felt her creeping into bed next to me.

Other than that, her behavior didn't change. Despite hardly eating or sleeping she was still her kind and sweet self during the day. She was loving, thoughtful, and just as intelligent as ever. She also didn’t seem to be going through a lot of physical changes. A little weight loss which worried me, but she swore she felt okay.

That's really why I didn't think about it too much. She wasn't acting too different from her usual self during the day, and if all she was battling was insomnia and nausea, then she could cope how she needed to. I think a part of me was worried about stressing her out even more by bothering her about all of it too much, so I sat by and waited.

That was foolish of me, in hindsight. But then again, we always tried to assume the best about each other.

Then it got a lot harder to ignore. When I would kiss her in the morning I could taste iron. Not overwhelmingly, but as if she'd had blood in her mouth a few hours before and rinsed her mouth out. And I don’t mean blood from flossing, I mean I could taste it in her mouth as if her mouth had been full of blood just a few hours prior. I started finding packages in the trash for raw steak. Sure she could've been cooking them without me knowing somehow, but there were so many of them. I couldn't understand how she was eating that much steak in a week, especially after her problems with nausea.

That was when I finally started asking questions, but I was too afraid to press very hard. Instead I kept pretending everything was normal. We kept going about our new routine, pretending nothing was wrong, until the neighborhood pets started going missing.

I couldn't take it anymore, I didn't care if she spent another mortgage on steak or even hunted down squirrels and whatnot as long as that was making her happy, but she couldn't hurt people's precious pets. That wasn’t like her, and it wasn’t something I could let my girlfriend get away with either.

I basically had no evidence it was her, except the shift in her behavior at night (and the occasional episode of spacing out). But something deep inside me knew.

I waited up for her a few nights ago when she went on one of her nighttime strolls. When she got back, around four in the morning, she had blood around her mouth.

The strangest part though was that she looked different: her eyes were wider, more oval shaped than they're supposed to be, her pupils were almost gray instead of black.

I sat her down on the couch and asked what was going on. Slowly her features seemed to shift back to normal, and as they did her eyes welled up with tears. I pulled her into my arms and she cried while she told me what had been happening.

She told me something happened after the camping trip, at least to the best of her knowledge that's when the change occurred.

She said it started pretty much the way I saw it for her too. She couldn't sleep, started eating a lot less, then the cravings started. All she wanted was steak, and at first she was cooking it. Then she realized she wanted to eat it raw, and started doing that. Then one night on her walks she saw a wounded rabbit, it seemed like somebody's dog or cat had bit it and done fatal damage, but not been able to eat it.

She ate the rabbit, and she said it was the most exhilarating, perfect experience she'd ever had. She found that she wasn't tired during the day either when she ate the little animals in the forest. She could go a whole day without needing to eat as much, just snacks here and there, as long as she was eating the occasional small animal from her nightly walks.

But then she found that she needed more and more animals to feel okay. If she couldn't hunt enough rabbits or squirrels in a night, she felt sick and sluggish all day. She told me it didn’t even feel like a conscious thought for her. In the same way that I would walk to the fridge when I’m hungry, she would head out into the woods each night. All she knew was that there was something that could make her feel better, amidst all these weird changes she was going through.

So she kept hunting, trying not to overdo it, she would only kill and eat exactly as much as she needed. That was where the steak came in, it was the only thing other than raw living animals that she could eat and get any sense of fullness from. But eventually, the steak stopped doing it for her, and she was worried about over-hunting the woods behind our house. She stopped hunting for almost a week, she said she was trying to let the local wildlife recover, but she was starving. One night, during her fasting period, she got desperate and ate the dog that had attacked a two year old the year before (see, she's always trying to do the right thing even in a moral grey area).

But that also became too little food very quickly. She needed more food, larger prey so to speak. Again, it wasn’t that she wanted to, the survival instinct seemed to kick in and take over.

She read an article about a man who attacked a child and was let out of prison He only lived a few miles from us, he was on the registry now so his address was public information. She said it wasn't hard to find him. She said he made the perfect meal.

According to her humans are perfect because she doesn't need to eat as often. She said most nights she can walk through the woods, eating only the occasional small animal.

Then on nights when she’s extra hungry and she's had the opportunity to prepare in advance, she looks for what she considers to be a deserving victim, and she goes after them. Dinner and community service all at the same time (that’s my joke, not hers).

She sobbed as she told me all of this, said she hated herself for it but she couldn't help it. She doesn’t want to be like this anymore. She wants nothing more than to live normally, go back to the way things were before whatever it was that changed her.

She was telling the truth. Say what you want, but I know this woman and I know when she's lying. She was being honest with me, and it shattered my heart to see her so sad.

I told her I would help her look for a solution, some kind of cure for whatever was wrong, and that's what I've been doing. I’ve discovered the more she hunts and kills at night, the more she transforms at night. I don’t know if it’s a direct result of the hunting, killing, and eating, or if it’s just that the changes are occurring over time, but I plan on figuring it out.

She always looks like her usual sweet self when we wake up in the morning, but now by the time I go to sleep her skin has turned grey, her eyes are huge and dark, and her fingers are long and grey. She's starting to grow claws too, and now I can only imagine what the next stage in her transformation will be.

I've been looking online for someone who can help. Obviously it's hard to find someone who can deal with a problem like this. Someone online suggested I find a shaman so that's what I'm going to do. I've been looking at various people’s websites all morning, trying to find one that doesn’t seem like a total scam. I found a few in and around my city (try googling “shaman’s near me” you’ll be surprised by how many results you get) and now I just need to find one we can trust.

It’s been a few days and we met with the Shaman I found. I actually met with all five of them on my own first, and found the one I trusted the most, then I took Charlotte to meet with them together.

The Shaman, a much older woman named Millie, sat with us for a long time, asking questions about everything that had been going on and for how long. We met in her home, a cute little multi story townhouse in the city that was full of all sorts of fascinating things.

The mantle, in the room the three of us sat in, was quite literally overflowing with picture frames. Something told me the best gift you could possibly give Millie was a picture frame, and maybe a gift card to a store that sells picture frames. There were old black and white photos of her when she was young and gorgeous with a whole host of people. Some of the people appeared in the photos a lot, some of them only once or twice, but it was clear that everyone on the mantle was very near and dear to Millie’s heart.

The sitting room was also packed with various pieces of furniture that seemed linked to each other only by the fond memories they must have held for Millie, as every piece of furniture in that room was completely unique. There was a French style fainting couch at the edge of the room, a large plush leather couch, a rocking chair that looked as if it may have been hand carved, and a delicate pink loveseat that Millie sat on. Charlotte and I took the large brown leather couch, and I let my eyes wander around the room as Millie and Charlotte talked.

Charlotte recounted the story about her camping trip as Millie listened intently. Millie seemed to catch something we didn’t as I still have no idea how the camping trip could have started all this. Charlotte they were hiking through Appalachia, and camped one night on the outskirts of an old cemetery.

Millie found that particularly interesting and asked, “Did you do anything y’all shouldn’t have when you passed by the burial grounds? Said something rude about one of the deceased, walked on hallowed ground without paying respects, even spitting on a gravestone could do it.”

Charlotte looked horrified, “No, we would never. Everyone in the group is a history buff, we just wanted to see the old cemetery. My friend Megan wanted to research some of the names after to see if we could learn anything about them. Then we camped about a mile from there and went on our way.”

Millie nodded, her weathered face looking tense, “I’m not trying to accuse you of anything sweetheart. Sometimes evil spirits get invited in by mistake, sometimes they try to take over when they see someone they think is weak enough. But I’m just not sure that yours fits either of those options.”

I grabbed Charlotte’s hand and leaned forward, “So what does that mean, and what do we do? Can we get rid of it? Charlotte didn’t do anything wrong, she would never hurt someone on purpose. And she’s still working really hard not to hurt anyone.”

We had told Millie about the animals, the dog, but I had asked Charlotte not to talk about the people. I know she’s only doing what she has to, she knows that too, but a stranger might not understand. Even so, I think Millie knew we were holding back information.

Millie eyed me carefully before saying, “It seems to me that a spirit has latched on to her. It can’t fully take control because she won’t let it act out the worst of its desires, if she’s been able to stay contained to mostly small animals, and she’s being careful not to be too greedy, the spirit won’t be able to take over. But if she lets the spirit do whatever it wants… then you have a problem, dear.”

I did my best to keep my face a mask of calm as I asked, “What if she did hurt a person? Would it be too late?”

Millie pursed her lips, “It’s only too late once she no longer wants the spirit to leave. As long as Charlotte keeps fighting you have a chance to help her, but when she gives up it’s all over.”

Charlotte squeezed my hand as she said, “I still want it to leave. I’m willing to do what it takes to get rid of it.”

Millie smiled, “You’re good people, both of you. I trust you’ll do the right thing.” She turned to look at me directly, “I’ll tell you what you have to do, but young man it’s your responsibility to be there for her through what comes next. You both have to be strong. You’ll have to starve the spirit.”

I glanced over at Charlotte nervously. She looked as brave as ever, and I tried to find the same bravery inside of myself, but I was terrified. What if getting rid of this spirit killed Charlotte?

Charlotte wasn’t even looking at me, she fixed a resolute gaze on Millie, “Tell me how.”

Millie explained that it was really quite simple, all we would have to do is not let Charlotte hunt until it starved the spirit out. She could still eat people food, although Millie said the only thing she’s allowed to eat raw is fruits and vegetables, meat has to be cooked. She said Charlotte will probably go through periods of being really hungry and able to eat just fine, then there will be periods where she won’t eat at all unless we allow her to hunt. Those are the moments where I have to be most cautious, Millie said I’ll experience as much temptation as Charlotte does when I have to watch her suffer.

Every day that goes by gets harder than the last. At first I thought I could handle it, Charlotte has always been a tough girl, but watching her go through this has been a nightmare. I’ve been cooking dinner for the two of us every night, everything is fully cooked, and I’ve been trying to make sure she’s eating as many nutrient dense foods as possible too. I know she’s not eating as much as she should be, but every night when we sit down to dinner she gives me this big trembling smile, and I can tell she’s eating as much as she can.

I wake up every morning to see her looking tired and drawn. She tries to stay inside at night so she can avoid temptation, which means now I wake up most nights to a creature that bears a vague resemblance to my girlfriend, pacing at the foot of our bed. When my alarm goes off around six, I wake up again to see her pale, almost haggard face smiling next to me.

I don’t know how she does it. Despite everything she’s going through she’s still so happy and sweet. She sits next to me while I make dinner, chatting and reminding me how grateful she is for everything I’m doing for her. I keep reminding her it’s for us, she’s my future so of course I’m going to take care of her.

Lately she’s been asking me to stay awake at night, just for a few hours, because the cravings have been so strong. I called Millie again and asked her if this is normal, and she said it takes a long time to dislodge an evil spirit like this.

She also reassured me that it’s very clear that Charlotte isn’t allowing the spirit to take over, which gives her a much better chance of being able to get rid of it. I don’t know how much longer I can watch her suffer like this though. She seems to be growing weaker everyday, and I’m afraid she’ll die before the evil spirit leaves.

Charlotte is sick. Really sick. She’s been tossing and turning in bed with a fever for the last few days, I’m worried this is going to kill her.

I’m going out tonight to find her something to eat. I’ll make sure it’s someone deserving. But I can’t risk losing the love of my life, I would rather see everyone else fall at her hands than watch her die like this. She doesn’t deserve that, and I don’t think I do either.