Unwanted Visitors in the Shelter

by Ashley

I’ve been living in this shelter for what’s going on for seven months and boy do I have stories.

Here’s one particular story I’ll NEVER forget:

Some time in January, while I was asleep one night, I was awakened by a tingling feeling on my right leg. I didn’t think anything of it because I was still half asleep. I just closed my eyes. But they didn’t stay shut long. I felt the same tingling feeling on that leg again except it was running up and down.

Right then and there, I knew something was up. I was CONVINCED it was a mouse, so I shot up out of my bed and started to panic, yelling and screaming in fear which, in turn, woke up my parents. My dad asked me what was wrong and I told him with a shiver in my voice, loudly, “There is a mouse running up and down my leg!”

“Oh, my God, oh, my God.” My dad asks, “Did you see it?”

I realized I hadn’t really seen the mouse so I told him no and started to believe that I was just “bugging out.” But right as that thought shot through my mind, I turned my head to look at my bed and sure enough, there was that small beast of terror! I watched as it hopped right off my bed which triggered an unbelievable amount of panic in me.

As I started to cry, I grabbed some soap, a towel, some new clothing, ran straight to the bathroom and went right into the shower. I remember scrubbing my legs until they were pink and I was bawling my eyes out. Once I felt “disinfected,” I went back into the room, sat in a corner in between the T.V. and the window, in the dark and wished I had the guts to go back to sleep in my own bed. I was tired but fearful.

I even remember thinking at one one point, “What if I have rabies?” I checked my legs for scratches using the light from my iPhone. Eventually, I got too tired and decided I needed some rest no matter what I did.

So there I was, 21 years old, waking up to a new day, with the sun hitting my face, on my parents’ bed and right in between them.