Deleting the Nightmare

When I was in high school, in 9th grade, I came across an urban legend on the internet called "Smile Dog JPG." In the legend, there was an image surfacing around the internet: an image of a Siberian husky sitting in front of a window in a dark room, wearing a sinister grin on its face, with human-like teeth.

It is said that whoever sees this image will experience sleep paralysis and vivid dreams of this husky telling them to ‘spread the word’. Of Course, i did not believe the story to be true as I myself had seen the image multiple times. Still, i did not experienced anything said in the story, so i became a bit arrogant and decided to mess with the image, everyday i used to open the image sit in front of my pc and taunt the image saying things like ‘you are a stupid dog, you don’t scare me, if you are real then show yourself’ i used to make fun of it just to see if something would happen.

The first few days, nothing happened as I thought, but one night I had a dream in which I was standing in an empty hospital hallway illuminated by a yellow light. On the wall, smile dogs image was hanging, it was quite unsettling as I woke up from the dream. I shrugged it off as I thought, of course, I'm going to have dreams about a thing I'm obsessing over, as I continued my day as usual. At school, I had also told some of my classmates about this urban legend. one of my classmate started bugging me every day that she wanted me to draw her a picture of smile dog I agreed to it, but i used to forget about it since I was busy with school work.

As the days went on the dream progressively started to become more unsettling this time in my dream i woke up and my room was covered in darkness as i saw smile dogs picture laying beside my bed on the floor, this time i woke up feeling more unsettled then the last time but i again shrugged it of as i went about my day as usual. At school when we had a free period my classmate again nagged me to draw her smile dog’s sketch this time when i went home i thought i'll draw it after completing my homework and before the sun goes down but eventually today we were assigned with more homework then usual so i ended up finishing it at around 10 pm, it was nighttime already but i still decided to start my drawing as i thought i'll give her the sketch and finally she will stop nagging me about it.

I was super paranoid while drawing it the whole time but i still concentrated. I wanted it to be over with it. The window of my room was right in front of my study table, it only added to my paranoia as i kept looking outside, i kept imagining something will pop up on the outside the window, to make the matters worse i heard a noise outside the noise of something heavy falling as i looked outside the window. I was half expecting the dog itself to appear in my window as i peered outside, there was nothing ‘‘the wind had knocked off something’’ i told myself As I went back to drawing, despite being really paranoid through the process I still managed to complete the drawing.

After completing it i remember having another unsettling dream in this dream i remember waking up on the floor in my room, my room was covered in darkness as the only light coming was from the T.V lounge, the lounge was illuminated by a red light i called out to my mother few times but i got no answer as i decided to go out into the T.V lounge. Through the windows that were in the lounge i saw a pair of two blue glowing eyes staring right at me and i also saw a silhouette of a dog outside the window it started barking at me as i freaked out and in a state of panic grabbed a plate from the table and threw it at the window hoping the loud noise will scare it off......this trick would have worked on any other dog but since it was barking like a normal dog i in the moment i forgot that this indeed was not a normal dog and cheap tricks like these won’t work on it so i ran back inside my room away from it’s gaze.

I woke up feeling even more paranoid and unsettled and afraid because even though i woke up in my bed safe and sound i heard footsteps of a four legged animal in the lounge but it was for a brief movement as i woke up, looked in the lounge there was nothing it was daytime as i went about my day, went to school and gave my classmate the drawing, she looked both spooked and amazed as she complimented me.

The day went on as i was so busy at school i forgot about my dream i was so exhausted that when i came back from school i put a blindfold on my eyes collapsed on the bed and fell into a deep slumber  i again remember waking up in my dream my room was illuminated with that same red light i picked up my phone to check the time but to my horror i saw the picture of that cursed dog at my window as i dropped the phone in panic,

After a while of deciding weather to pick it up or not i finally gathered the courage to pick it up.......my phones screen was blank and there was nothing on it. After having that disturbing dream i woke up but i was paralyzed and unable to move i struggled very hard to move and scream but i was unable to...

Then i heard growling, angry growling of a large animal and i could tell it was near me but due to the blindfold i was not able to see anything at that movement i felt raw, pure dread. My mind was awake and my body asleep i felt trapped i doing my best, fighting with all my might to at-least move a muscle but all my efforts seemed futile. I wanted to scream, i was afraid and confused because i could hear it’s growling not only from the front, and back from the sides.

I vaguely remember saying something in my mind along the lines of ‘LEAVE ME ALONE IAM NOT AFRAID OF YOU’ i shouted in my head after few minutes, the growling stopped

I finally regained control over my body, i quickly sat up removed the blindfold from my eyes.......nothing was there i was in my empty room it’s as if nothing had happened.

After such a terrifying experience i deleted the image and surprisingly the nightmares stopped.Till this day iam not sure if anything i experienced was real or not or was it just my mind playing tricks on me or weather i had came into contact with a other worldly  being or it was just a mixture of stress of my studies and me fixating on the subject too much, either way i have not messed with the image since then. All i wanna say is my experience was nothing like the myth, i never heard it talking or saw it smiling, or any human teeth all i experienced was it’s aggression like it was warning me to get away from it and stop messing with it.

Almost like a real animal, a animal with supernatural abilities that barked and growled just like an angry dog way different from the malicious entity depicted in the urban legend that was out for blood and enjoyed tormenting people.