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Report #11212024 - Stephanie Donovan, regarding ownership of a weighted blanket.
Original report submitted 21st of November, 2024. Report transcribed by Nicole Hobson, head of the magnus.com transfer project, for the purposes of transferring to a new website, July 2nd, 2025.
BEGIN REPORT.
When I was a child, my mom got me a weighted blanket. It quickly became one of my favorite things in the world. Some kids had plushies, other little quilted blankets, I had a giant weighted blanket all to myself. It made me feel safe and comfortable in the strange world I saw as a kid. I would carry it everywhere with me, and I never did seem to have any difficulty with it, despite just being a small kid.
My dad, on the other hand, fucking hated it. I think it was because it was both a combination representation of both my mom’s love for me, and my happiness. I remember he and my mom were in my mom’s house, talking about something when I walked in with it. Seeing it wrapped around me just set my dad off. He started yelling and screaming, ripped it right off me. He got a lighter out and held it underneath. I don’t think he expected it to catch so quickly, or for it to spread around the house when he dropped it.
I don’t remember much about what happened next, but I do remember one moment very clearly. Some sort of beam dropped down onto them, and they were both begging me to help them. I know I could have done something, save at least one of them, but in the moment… I just froze. Their screams transformed from those of desperation, to those of anger, to those of pain. The firefighters managed to carry me out, but I apparently thrashed around when he did, and I got cut by a wood splinter pretty deep, causing this scar on my jaw.
After that I just bounced around foster homes. Nothing was my fault or my foster parent’s fault. The system’s just kinda fucked up, y’know? The last place I was meant to go to burned down, completely leveled the place. They did manage to get one thing out of the house however, a gift that was meant for me.
I know there’s no way it’s possible, I know there was no distinguishing features about either of them, but I just know, okay? In my heart and in my soul I know that the gift for me that was saved from the fire was the same blanket that my mom gave to me. The same one I saw my dad burn and that caught the house on fire. The same one that caused my parents to die.
Despite all of that, I was still so happy to see it. The first night I slept with it, I felt that same safety and security it gave me when I was a kid. Eventually I fully got out of the foster system, and I managed to find a nice small apartment, and a decent enough paying job. I brought the blanket along with me to the apartment, obviously, but that’s when I started to notice… stranger things about it.
I would leave it on the bed, nicely folded for me to use once I slept for the night, and then I would get in the car. When I looked in the rear view mirror, the blanket was there. Draped across the back seat. I looked, it was actually there. I wasn’t imagining anything. The first time this happened I assumed I just brought it with me and had just forgotten about it. But when I did notice it, that same feeling I had as a kid came back to me, that the whole world was so strange and almost overwhelming. I called in sick and spent the rest of the day in my bed with the blanket.
What I can’t explain is how it traveled across the country. I went to Las Vegas for a friend’s wedding. I was told it was absolutely beautiful, I just wish I got to see it, because when I got to the hotel room, I saw the weighted blanket there, perfectly laid out on the bed. I knew I didn’t bring it, and I hadn’t even been in the hotel room before now.
I told the cleaning ladies about it and they just took it, but soon it reappeared. As soon as I laid down on it, I felt the same feeling as before, that the responsibilities of going outside and living a normal life was too much, so I just laid in bed. I told my friend that I probably had food poisoning and for the rest of the trip, I was there, experiencing that same safety. That was also where I had the dream.
I was in the house fire. The original one, not the foster home one. But this time, I was on the other side, where my parents were trapped. I saw my younger self and I called out to me. My screams were just like my parents, going from desperation, to anger, to pain, and I could swear that right before I passed out due to the smoke and flames, I could see me smiling.
I traveled back to New York, somehow convincing the airline that I could take the blanket on the plane, as I was wrapped in it pretty much the entire trip back. I laid in bed for close to a week, just wasting away, but feeling safe and comfortable. A couple of friends came by and checked on me, and it kinda snapped me out of it.
They told me about this website and I decided to tell my story. I think I’m going to destroy it again.
…I just know that I’m going to miss that comfort that nothing else could provide.
END REPORT.
Just got some follow ups on the key details. There was indeed a fire at a residence belonging to Madison Donovan, after the firefighters saved Stephanie and put out the flames, they found the bodies of Madison and Charlie Donovan. There was another fire at a foster home called Holly Trenton’s Reform house, owned by Ms. Trenton herself, who died in the fire. All that was mentioned of being saved from the fire was one weighted blanket, with a card on it that read “For Stephanie Donovan.” It was mentioned in the fire report that with the damage the fire caused, the blanket, or at the very least the card, should have been burned.
Stephanie is unfortunately unavailable for a follow up report, as she died the day after she gave her report, in an apartment fire. She was found, wrapped in the remains of a weighted blanket. Her bed was apparently the epicenter of the flames.
TRANSCRIBING END.