This happened in 1993 and influenced my life more than anything else I've ever experienced. Long read, but every single word is true, hope my English is good enough. Cliffs at the bottom.
I grew up in Serbia during early 90s. Wars in Croatia and Bosnia at the time, which heavily affected Serbia also, plus UN sanctions against Serbia.My country suffered complete economic collapse almost overnight. Average pay was around 5$/month. In order to survive, families had to sell anything of value, gold, works of art, anything. I was 14 at the time. Both of my parents come from well educated families and we had a huge library with books dating back to 17th century. I started selling some of those rare books just to somehow get the cash for food.
One day I recieved a phone call regarding one of the books we were selling. A guy was willing to pay 1200$ for it, which was a fortune at the time, enough for a family to live comfortably for a year. My father was at the frontlines in Bosnia at the time, so me and my best buddy take a book and go to the address we were given. We're nervous, young kids. My friend, 15 at the time, brought handgun with him, I had a knife. So we arrive in a high-class part of Belgrade, old mansions, security guards protecting old villas, mostly owned by criminals and druglords who emerged in those times. It turns out our customer is an old Greek Jew, living in a beautiful 19 century house. I guess the guy was surprised to see 2 kids at the entrance. He invites us in. He pays the money, we give him the book and we have a small talk for a couple of minutes. I'm wearing Morbid Angel t-shirt, "Blessed are the sick". Huge pentagram and inverted cross on the front side. So the guy starts asking why I'm wearing it, and we continued to talk about religion and similar stuff and stayed about 2 hours at the old man's place.
Long story short(er); we occasionaly visited this guy, selling some more books. He introcuded us to his wife, a gorgeus woman about 30, he was around 70 at the time. He gave me and my buddy a bag of hash once, and that was the first time I ever tried drugs. We hung around his place more and more, smoking hash, talking about everything and anything, while fantasizing about his hot-as-hell wife. Once she gave me and my friend a tarot card, "The fool", one for each of us.We were kids, completely mesmerized by her. Finally, he invites us for a "house party". A beautiful summer night, some 30 people at the place, mostly middle aged men and women. Lots of drugs, expensive liquor, old guy is introducing us to everybody and they all seem very friendly and interested in getting to know us better. It was like we shifted to another reality, far from poverty, stress and everything else we went through in our daily lives. That night, we witnessed the Satanic ritual. Everyone was on drugs, the lights were dimmed and the old guy's wife was some kind of a master of ceremony. People slashing themselves, mixing their blood together and drawing a huge circular symbol on the floor. Chanting, falling in trance, having sex, pissing and spitting on cross, whole bunch of crazy shit. Me and my friend were scared shitless. I swear, the overwhelming feeling of evil presence took us over. People turned into beasts, if that makes sense. The old man and his wife were making sure nobody stepped out of the circle.
Nobody forced us to do anything, except that woman who slashed our palms with an old, huge medieval knife, and took some of our blood to mix it with other's. At one point, she took that blood soaked knife and stabbed it in a statue of an angel, made out of wax or something similar. She stabbed him right in the heart. Everybody starts chanting at that point, and I begin to feel deep horror inside, a deep realization that I'm witnessing something completely evil. I was an atheist at the time, and like many kids was loving death/black metal out of revolt, not because I really believed in the devil or anything. Something inside was telling me to start praying, and I did, begging God for forgiveness. My friend was doing exactly the same, I later found out. I prayed for God to somehow stop this and that we get out of there safe. And then, right before our eyes, that knife that was stabbed in the angel's heart snapped in half. I know it sounds silly. That thing literally snapped in half, without anyone touching it, just like some invisible hands took it and violently broke it in two pieces. Everyone snapped out of the trance instantly, they all were shocked. Nobody uttered a single word. Ritual was finished in a rush, but by the time the old man had finishing ceremony and told us it was ok to leave, I felt "something" has physically taken over my body. We never came back.
In years to come, both me and my friend (my best friend even to this day) have suffered severe depression, were heavy into drugs and alcohol even though we were training karate since we were 7, and were kept from the "street life" by his father, our karate coach. Both of us had recurring dreams for months, exactly the same dream where some hands pull us from our rooms and drag us below the ground, where bunch of people are being tormented. Spoons, knives, small objects would randomly "grow wings" and start moving around our apartments. It was crazy. Hundreds of insects would appear seemingly out of nowhere, all across the walls and ceilings. Lights would randomly switch on and off. It went on for months at the time, then stop, then again. I don't know the number of times I've literally pissed or shit myself, during those times, I kid you not. We both had a constant terryfing feeling of having something attached onto us, like it was sucking the life out us. We were afraid to go to sleep. Our families were aware of what's going on, but had no clue what caused it and how to handle it. We kept quiet.
The old man and his wife died within one month since that "knife snapping" incident. He hung himself, and she left Serbia, went to New Zealand where they found her with her wrists cut open. Years later I found out they had a daughter. Old man was about 50 and his wife was 16 when she got pregnant. Their daughter also took her own life some years later in Australia. She was one of the closest friends with Nicole Kidman, whose father is a leading Satanic priest in Australia. Crazy, crazy, I know.
Cliffs:
- Involved in a Satanic ritual as a kid
- Had years of messed up experiences afterwards
- Posts the story on Sherdog for additional traumas
