Three Entities [Patreon Preview]

Welcome to the Otherworld Patreon. What you're listening to is a short preview of a full bonus episode that's out now. If you want to hear it, you could do so at patreon.com slash otherworld. This week, a bonus episode that comes from a man named Chris, who grew up in a small town called Whitehall, Pennsylvania. When he was 14 years old, his family bought their first house. And this was a big moment for Chris and his family. They grew up poor, and even though this landmark was something they were very proud of, as Chris began to settle into this new home, he could not shake the feeling that something was deeply wrong about it. I'm going to let Chris explain the rest himself. You're listening to the Otherworld Patreon. My name is Chris Ayala. I'm 40 years old. I live in New York City right now. I'm from the Bronx originally, but I ended up moving to Allentown, Pennsylvania when I was 8 years old. So Whitehall, Pennsylvania is a suburb of Allentown, and Allentown's in the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania, which is Allentown, Easton, and Bethlehem. And it was a pretty industrial place. It was a pretty industrial place back in the day, but when we moved there in the 90s, early 90s, it had pretty much, there was no industry there at all really anymore. Most of the things had gone away, so it was super cheap to live there, which is why I'm assuming my family from the Bronx, we lived in the projects, why my family from the projects decided to move to Allentown, Pennsylvania. Cheaper, nicer place to live. Unfortunately, though, growing up there, it was kind of like a drag. It was kind of a bummer. Not much really going on. In the beginning, it was kind of weird being from the Bronx and moving there and going to school. I remember just, I remember being nervous living in that area and meeting new people. I, for, you know, for a little kid, I thought like we were rich. I thought like we made it. I'm like in a nicer school, different people all around, looked, seemed like a nicer apartment. But growing up there was kind of a bummer, if I'm being honest. You know, I didn't really make friends until I was a junior in high school. That's when I made like closest friends. I had a pretty rough time living there, but it's an old town, old industrial town. Not much going on, kind of sleepy, very boring. In fact, one time I took my girlfriend there and we were driving to the house that my mom lives in now, and she was looking out the window in a very serious way, not joking at all. She said, now I know why you listen to the music that you listen to. And I listen to like emo-y type shit, you know, I'm 40 years old. So it was kind of my generation's music. So she's like, now I get it. And I always found that to be funny. So I grew up Catholic. I wouldn't say strict, but my family. My family was pretty all about it. You know, I mean, we did all the sacraments that we're supposed to, baptism, confession, communion, and then confirmation, all that stuff. They were pretty big on it. I was honestly into the religious part of my life for a while. I wouldn't say I was religious, but I liked these stories and I liked the idea of something bigger, I guess. My dad was very, very into it. My mom, she was into it too, but I think it might have been more just for like to do the right thing. So we don't go to hell kind of thing. But I think my dad was really into it, which when later things happened in my life with my parents' relationship, it kind of, the religious part of my life just kind of fell apart because of those things. But mostly I think it had to do with the house. So it was 2000. We were living in a small apartment. It's the same apartment we had been living in in Whitehall since we moved there from the Bronx. It was a two bedroom. So it was me, my little brother, and my sister. We were all sharing one room. My parents had their bedroom. And then there's a tiny apartment that we lived in. My mom ended up getting pregnant. So therefore, when this happened, we were all like, oh, shit, what's going to happen? Like, there's going to be no room for us. And I remember specifically once my dad had picked my sister and I up from some sort of event at school. And he's like, do you guys want to see something? Like, yeah, sure. So he takes us over. He pulls over to a house. He gets out and he unlocks the door to this house. We're going in. I'm like, what's going on? He's like, I bought this house. And I remember at the time, I didn't, I don't have a good relationship with my dad. I didn't have one then. I don't, I didn't know how to have a conversation with him. But I remember the first thing I asked him was how much did he spend on it? As if I knew anything about money. And he told me straight up, which was kind of crazy. It's been $80,000 on this house. It was a twin house on a corner, gray bricks on the outside. Uh, I went inside. It was old. It had old seventies carpeting on the inside. And my sister, he's like, take a look. So my sister and I just walked around the place and I just automatically be lined up the stairs. And I saw there was an attic and I'd be like. It was like a finished attic you could say, because there was rooms in there, but it was all, the house was kind of falling apart. Walls were chipping. It looked almost like a stereotypical haunted house. The walls were like plastered and shipping. The floorboards upstairs were old and kind of splintering, uh, old carpet, old furniture in there. And I was like, oh, this is kind of weird. This is an old house. Someone definitely used to live in here because all the shit's still in here. So I, in my mind, I thought somebody probably died. That's why my dad got this house cheap, but nothing. It was creepy about it at that time at all, when we first went to the house, not at all. So my dad had told us that we had, we were going to move into that house and I was very excited about it. I felt like this is, this is going to be great. I'm going to have my own room finally, you know, it felt very exciting. And then, um, it was February of 2000 when we actually moved in. I remember cause it was snowing outside. Now I was 14 years old. I was a freshman in high school. There was a lot going on. My baby brother had just been born. My home life wasn't great growing up also. My parents were not the best. They were quasi abusive. I don't want to say fully abusive, but, um, it wasn't great, you know? So my relationship, my mom wasn't the best relation with my dad, even worse. And uh, like I said, I had no fucking friends at all. I had to like eat lunch with my fucking sister. I'm sorry. I'm cursing. I had to sit with my sister at lunch. You know, I was just a weirdo. I was into like choir and music and things. I didn't have my footing. I didn't know who I was yet. I just started listening to. Incubus, that Make Yourself album. Like that's what I was into. And like, it was like inspiring me to be like, yeah, make yourself be your own person. And um, that's where I found like my, my peace was like, okay, you know what, we got this new house. It's my freshman year. Uh, I've got these, this new kind of music that I'm listening to. And I felt like I was going to be a new person. So it was like a whole new beginning about who I was and who I was going to be. This house was a part of it. You know, it was all very exciting to be honest. Um, yeah. No bad feelings at all in the beginning now. So we move in and my mom hated the way the house looked on the inside. Now reminder we're poor, but my mom was like, let's get this shit out of here. So she had us with fucking box cutters going through tearing up the carpet, ripping that up. And that right there. I'll never forget. We, we, I remember specifically two things, ripping up the carpet and all the stuff underneath. Uh, and throwing that out. And while doing that, I felt like this is something's wrong. I knew right away. We were just, I felt it. That's the first time I felt anything in that house where I was like, this isn't right. Something's up with this. Something doesn't like this. And then I remember specifically throwing away an oil lamp. I don't know if you've ever seen those oil lamps that like drip oil is real creepy looking. It didn't work. But I remember throwing that outside in the trash heap that we had and feeling like this is wrong. Also like something about that thing just felt weird. So rip it up the carpet, throwing that specific piece of a lamp, whatever you want to call it. Chachki out. That was it. Like, I felt like something was off immediately. I felt as if there was something there that was mad. We were throwing away at stuff like they had worked on that house. This is the hard part about telling these stories is there's I've, that's how I felt the whole time, but I've never really shared that with anybody because saying those little parts makes, I think makes someone sound crazy. So I was like, why do I feel like someone is mad? Right now? But that's exactly what I felt. Somebody's mad that we're doing this. I don't know who it is, what it is. And I didn't feel like anything was going to happen over it, but I just felt like this is wrong.