I’m an anthropologist, and recently, I examined two rare artifacts, as per requested from a friend of mine. Upon examination, what I witnessed shattered my entire worldview. What I discovered made no logical sense. I want to recount the events that occurred, starting from the beginning.

We will start with the unfortunate family who first discovered the two stones. Two boys were playing in their backyard, looking for ways to entertain themselves. Upon their scavenging, they came across an abnormal patch of dirt. Compelled by it, believing hidden treasure lay within, the boys drew sticks and began to unearth what lay beneath.

As the boys scraped the dirt, creating a small pit, one of their sticks broke when it hit something hard. The two kids looked at one another and continued to excavate with their hands until two objects came loose. They pulled the stones caked with dirt from the ground, and discovered that faces were carved into the objects. Thrilled to have actually found treasures, the boys rushed to the hose to clean their newfound prizes.

Clutching their new glistening stones, the boys ran inside their home to proudly show their parents. At the time, the parents didn’t think anything of it, and praised the kids for their find. The kids proceeded into their shared bedroom, where they made room for the artifacts in their drawer — a precious spot to hold their keepsakes. The rest of the day unfolded as usual, until night fell upon the family.

It was the middle of the night, and one of the boys was woken by sounds emitting from within the room. He later described it as a dog walking around, sniffing.

But the family didn’t own any pets.

Without looking, the boy stayed quiet in his bed, pretending he was still asleep. As he listened, what he heard sounded unusual — instead of the four footfalls a dog would make, he heard the nails of two paws slowly dragging across the grain of the wooden floor.

Terrified, the boy kept his eyes shut, hoping it was just his imagination as his brother was still fast asleep. But it grew more difficult as the steps were getting closer to their beds. Unable to bear it any longer, the boy opened his eyes, and what he saw was unimaginable. In their room stood an enormous creature, resembling a werewolf, hunched over with great big claws protruding from its humanoid hands. The creature stopped moving and locked eyes with the boy. He looked into the creature’s yellow-tinted, bloodshot eyes, petrified. Then the creature let out a growl, and the boy jumped from his bed yelling and ran past the creature to his parents’ room.

Startled and abruptly woken from their sleep, the parents shot upright in their bed, prepared to tear the blankets off. But they were stopped as one of their children ran into the room and jumped into his mother’s arms. When asked what was the matter, the boy attempted to explain coherently through his sobs. The parents figured he had a nightmare and began to reassure him that there was no monster in his room. Before they could finish, another scream tore through the house.

The parents’ other child ran into the room, as flustered as his brother, and cried out that there is a monster in their room. The father leapt out of bed to investigate. Upon his return, he said he’d found nothing unusual. The boys insisted that something horrible woke them up, and their descriptions matched very closely. The parents were unnerved by the commonality of the descriptions. That night, the parents let the children sleep with them.

In the morning, the parents noticed that the kids were still bothered by the events of that night. Still dumbfounded that both children had the same nightmare, they tried to console their boys. However, both children refused to step into their bedroom. As the parents were attempting to convince them that nothing bad would happen, one of the boys confessed that as long as the stones were in the room, they wouldn’t go in.

The parents were shocked, since they thought these stones were the children’s prized possessions. The father rummaged through their drawers, retrieved the stones, and stored them in a kitchen drawer. The boys immediately became more cooperative and entered their room. That night, relieved, the parents put the kids to bed with no hassle. However, in the middle of the night, the father woke up to sounds emanating from hallway. He looked over at his wife, and she was wide awake, frightened by the same sounds.

The father jumped out of bed and bolted from their bedroom to the boys’ room. The two boys were sitting upright, terrified. Then, one of the boys pointed downwards, indicating that the noise was coming from below. The father told the kids to stay in their beds and began to tiptoe to the set of stairs. Meticulously walking down each step, trying not to make a noise, he looked into the kitchen. He saw the exact same creature the boys had described, a musky humanoid wolf walking on its hind legs, sniffing around the room. It was maneuvering its shoulders to twist its snout into every nook and cranny of the kitchen.

Startled, the father let out a gasp, which surprised the creature. It jumped on all fours and hastily ran out of the kitchen. The father, after a moment of being stunned, ran after it. However, the father couldn’t find where it ran off to. The creature was nowhere to be found. As he searched, he met his wife at the top of the stairs and ordered her to grab the children and leave the house immediately. That night, the family stayed at a nearby motel.

At the motel, the parents were discussing the absurdities of the night and the night before, trying to understand what was happening. The boys insisted it was caused by the stones they found. As preposterous as it might sound, the parents thought it might be plausible. The following day, the family returned to their home and removed the stones from the premises. As they were telling some friends about the occurrences, one of them suggested letting an anthropologist friend of his examine them. That’s when they contacted me.

After I examined the pictures of the stones they sent me, I was intrigued. They were most likely of Native American origin, but which tribe and when was still a mystery. I was eager to get my hands on them. Surprisingly, a few hours after our agreement to transfer the stones to me, the father showed up on my doorstep with the artifacts. He seemed desperate to get rid of them, even though I mentioned that these stones could be worth a substantial price — it didn’t faze him.

As he was leaving, he warned me to not leave the stones in the house. Before I could question it, he left. The whole situation was bizarre. The events that led to the stones being in my possession were hard to shake. That being said, I was excited to examine them further at the university. But for the time being, I stored the artifacts in my home office drawer.

That night, as I was fast asleep beside my husband, we awoke simultaneously due to sounds coming from down the stairs. As we were terrified, my husband grabbed a bat he kept beside his dresser and left the room. I followed right behind him. We followed the noise until we reached the source; something was moving around in my office. As the door was closed, which was unusual since I normally left it open, we couldn’t see inside. My husband moved his head near the door and nodded; there was someone inside my office. He gave me a look and I knew what he was prepared to do — he was going to open the door and attack the intruder.

He slammed the door open and prepared to swing his bat. We weren’t expecting what we saw. A creature that resembled a werewolf, startled, leapt onto my desk, ready to pounce. Petrified, we just stared at it. Then, the creature let out a horrible, screeching howl that echoed throughout the house. It’s hard to explain my reaction, but in that instant, I convinced myself that I must be in a nightmare. The fear was too unbearable to be real.

I stared into its eyes. At the time I didn’t understand what was happening, but in retrospect, I do now; it was threatening us. It wanted what was stolen returned to it. It wanted those stones. That was when I blacked out. When I opened my eyes, I was back in my bedroom, with my husband sleeping next to me. As I glanced around the room, my eyes burning from the morning sun streaming through the window, I was confused. It must have been a dream.

I went downstairs to make my morning coffee. As I was waiting for it to brew, an urge came over me — I wanted to reexamine those stones. I went to my office — door wide open — and when I checked the drawers for the stones, they were gone. I frantically searched my office, doubting my own memory of where I left them. But they were nowhere to be found. I returned to my bedroom and shook my husband’s shoulders to wake him. He awoke suddenly, frightened. He then proceeded to hold his head in his hands, as if he had a splitting headache. The first words out of his mouth were “Where is that thing?”

After we recounted the night, we concluded that we both had the same experience — that creature had been in our house. I told him the stones were missing, and we knew that the two events must have been related. We contacted the original family and they explained everything that happened in their home in detail. I documented everything.

The stones were gone, and none of us — not the family, not my husband, not me — have seen the creature since. Everyone seemed to be happy with that fact and had no interest in understanding it further — except for me. That night still bothers me greatly. I have so many unanswered questions, like “Where did the stones go?” You would think that would be the most important question to ask. In fact, there is a mystery that bothers me even more: “How did my husband and I end up in our beds that night?”

I can assure you that the vicious creature did not bring us to our beds and tuck us in. So what happened? I want to confess a few anomalies from that morning that I haven’t told anyone about. First, while I was making my morning coffee, I noticed dirt under my fingernails. I showered the night before, and I can’t remember the last time I got my hands dirty. Second, the bat my husband brought down disappeared; we have no idea where it went. That morning, though, when I examined my husband’s head, he figured he must have struck his head when he hit the ground. But it looked more like blunt-force trauma — specifically, the kind a bat would leave.

Could I have done something I can’t recollect? Could I have grabbed the bat and knocked my husband out? As absurd as this might sound, it’s starting to make more sense. Since that night, I’ve woken in the morning, feeling as exhausted as if I haven’t slept. Not only that, but I’ll notice dirt under my nails again. Some mornings I wake in different clothes than the ones I fell asleep in — and they’re filthy. Sometimes I will wake up with my muddy shoes on. I’m doing something at night, unwillingly. Sometimes I remember slices of the nights, but all I recall is someone, or something, giving me orders — and me abiding by them.

What does it want from me? Do the stones still have a grasp on me? The question that keeps me awake now is simpler: what will I have done by morning?