The Wow Board

I've always been interested in the strange and mysterious. Aliens, ghosts, demons, etc. No matter how frightening the idea there is some kind of allure to the darkness. Maybe it's a promise of something greater than this normal every day drab existence, or maybe fear can be just as comforting as love.

Nothing too great has ever happened to me. I've never seen a ghost. I thought I saw a UFO once after I had taken some ecstasy, but later figured out it was probably just a meteorite. I'd say about the nearest brush I've had with the paranormal happened when I was a kid of around 10 years old.

I can remember finding out about Ouija boards. If you're not familiar with those, the concept is that you have a board with all the letters of the alphabet and a few other useful phrases such as "hello" and "goodbye". You also have a cursor that acts as an indicator for what letter or phrase you are supposed to be reading. You and your friends are supposed to each put a finger or two on the cursor, and the idea is that you ask a spirit, malevolent or otherwise to move the cursor and communicate with you. Nothing sounded more interesting to me at the time. This seemed like an easy way to prove to myself that the supernatural is real. Finally, I thought.

I researched it on the internet. I read experience stories. I looked up boards. I had no cash of my own and knowing that my parents wouldn't buy me one, I sought alternatives. I found out that making your own out of paper and a piece of glass would work fine. So that's what I did. I made many boards and cursors over the three-month long period that my best friend, my sister, and I experimented and played around with the boards.

Looking back on our experiences, there's no way for me to be sure if my best friend Matt was moving the cursor or not. I didn't believe my sister would, and I never did either. Each of us insisted to the other that it was a genuine experience and that we were not faking it. And we had many experiences. Some comical. Some creepy. Each time we made a new Ouija board we got into contact with a new entity who had lived a very different life than the rest. Well, except for one of them...

There was one entity that we all found exceptionally creepy. The first few times we talked to it were kind of fun in a scary way. But I can distinctly remember it getting less and less fun as he kept randomly appearing. It didn't have a name. In fact, all we really knew about it was that it claimed to be a demon from Hell. And no matter how focused we tried to keep the conversation focused the self-proclaimed demon would always end up devolving into complete gibberish. In fact, it always said the same thing, over and over. "wowowowowowowowowowowowowow" Over, and over, those two lettters. It wouldn't stop until we took our hands off the cursor and quit playing with the board. I didn't know whether it was trying to say the word "wow" or if the significance was in the letters but this is how we identified the demon time and time again. I don't know why it was so creepy to me. But whenever those letters started repeating themselves I felt a sense of dread. Sometimes I even felt sick to my stomach.

It was a short lived obsession. I don't remember why we quit playing with the boards. We probably just gradually got bored with it. Maybe the "wow" factor faded, haha. I will always remember that, though. Thinking back on those times and the "wow" spirit seem strange and mysterious. And I guess that's what I was after, right? I'm 21 years old now, and I don't think much about things like that anymore.

---

Three tall dark skinned figures stood side by side transfixed by the images that were just getting done playing on the viewscreen. The tallest, and oldest, turned the screen completely off with his mind. He then motioned the two younger ones over to a table with a man laying on it. His chest appeared to be cut completely open with all the organs exposed and heart still beating. His scalp and upper part of his skull were missing, and his slimy brain was both exposed and configured with some metal prods and wires.

"That was the closest he ever got" The eldest said,

"Irrrkng nahtalahat"

"Jat, please continue to use English while you are in human studies"

"Sorry, elder" he looked at his peer and then back to the elder, "does that mean he knows?"

"He knows. Yet on some level, he doesn't. Humans share unique psychological characteristics called denial, repression, and projection. The taking of this one proved to be extremely traumatic for him. His mind has created partitions among itself. The memory of the taking, and his entire life has been completely repressed to his current awareness. He created an entirely new life to live in his mind. So in one partition, he knows of the taking and his real life, but in the other he does not. The memory we viewed showed a projection of his unconscious memories of us trying to be realized. The board symbolized the unknown and subsequently his greatest fear when the demon appeared and revealed what the humans called us, the "Wo". However close he was to remembering, it will never happen, he is far too afraid of the truth."

The other student, who up to this point had remained silent, spoke

"Is this a category 1?"

"Yes, Wyln. He is among the 1st category. We took him only three Earth days ago. His human age is 41."