Through the Black Fog: A Night I Almost Didn’t Return From

We’d done a ritual for Hekate that night.A few hours had passed since the altar had gone quiet — the flames flickering low, the air still charged. I remember checking the time around 4 a.m. Cat had already been asleep for hours. I was holding a packet of WizzFizz in my hands, thinking I’d have a little before bed.

That’s the last clear moment I remember.

Suddenly, I was choking. Not the kind you recover from with a cough. I couldn’t breathe — I couldn’t get air in. I turned to Cat, trying to get her attention, but everything was slipping.

I just kept saying, help. Over and over.

Then — nothing.

The next thing I remember was waking up somewhere unfamiliar. Tubes down my throat. Panic in my chest. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. Just the weight of something foreign inside me, pressing into my breath, holding me hostage in my own body.

I heard a voice — a doctor, I think — trying to calm me. Slowly, they began to remove the tubes. I had no control. I was just trapped in it. Terrified.

It felt exactly like the movies. Except it was my body. My breath. My fear. And the terror didn’t leave when the tubes did.

They gave me a lot of medication to stop me from moving — to stop me from choking again. It was necessary, but it left my body feeling heavy and unfamiliar.

Even when I came to, moving properly took time. I could walk, but not steadily. My hands were clumsy, shaky. I couldn’t grip things properly.At a few points, I tried to get up and fell — once straight onto my face. Another time, I hurt myself just trying to reach for something. It wasn’t dramatic, but it was disorienting. I wasn’t used to my body betraying me like that. I had to go slow. I had to be careful.

And still — after all of it — they did every test they could.But no one could tell me why I stopped breathing. No answers. Just echoes.

Later, Cat told me what had happened. She’d found me unresponsive. She gave me CPR. Her mum gave me mouth-to-mouth. Together, they pulled me back.

Her mum also said something else: Just before it all happened, she saw a black fog. Not smoke. Not shadow. Something else. Something leaving the house.

Since then, sleep has become a stranger. I wake up crying. I panic at night. The fear of not waking up again clings to me like smoke. I already live with PTSD, but this experience left a new imprint on my body — one that hasn’t faded yet.

And when I finally began to think about sharing this — publicly, as a blog, as something others might read — I didn’t know how to begin. So I turned to tarot.

The Tarot Spread That Helped Me Write This Before writing this, I asked the cards: How do I tell this story without drowning in it?

Each card gave me a question — something to reflect on, something to anchor me.

• What do I need to say, not just to others, but to myself?

• What pain still needs gentleness before it can be voiced?

• What part of this story holds power — not just fear?

• What boundary or ritual do I need in place to feel safe sharing this?

• Where does the weight want to move now that it’s named?

  
  

  

  
  

That spread didn’t take away the heaviness — but it helped me walk with it.

Right now, what brings me back to myself isn’t dramatic or even mystical. It’s cooking. It’s reading tarot. It’s my animals, Piper and Day. It’s love — especially Cat’s.

I’m not sure if Hekate is still beside me in the same way she felt before. But maybe that’s the point. Maybe she’s stepped back now, torch in hand, waiting for me to pick up the next key.

Writing about a near-death experience when you still don’t have answers is surreal… Maybe this story is part of that. Maybe telling it is how I return.

I came back. That means something.