As The Raven Dreams Podcast - Scary Stories For Dark Dreams - Volume 22 | ATRD Podcast

Episode Date: December 15, 2024

Today we have more than 2.5 hours of True Strange & Scary Stories with a lovely late night ambience. This is part of the "Scary Stories for Dark Dreams" series, which is a collection of stories put together for the sake of sleep or simple background noise. There's one add a bit after 11 Minutes. I have a novel coming out! It's a psychological thriller, and I've been working on it for over a year at this point. You can pre-order the kindle edition here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DLSK2XT8 The physical version (and the digital version) will be out on January 10th! This collection includes The following true scary stories: Hiking Stories (April 2022), Subscriber Stories (March 2022 & May 2023) & Paranormal stories (May 2023) So, turn down the lights, tune in, and let the haunting tales of everyday people take you down that dark and creepy road. Remember, these aren't just stories... these are true experiences that remind us that our world can truly be scarier than fiction. Support the channel for Early Access AND more! Patreon ➤ https://patreon.com/AsTheRavenDreams Check out the Merch Store! ➤ https://teechip.com/stores/astheravendreams Much Love, and Sleep Well... ----- #TrueScaryStories #AsTheRavenDreams #RedditStories ➤ Stories include a content warning for language and sensitive/disturbing content. Viewer discretion is always advised. ➤ ALL Audio of this Podcast are copyright of AS THE RAVEN DREAMS / RAVEN ADAMS and may not be duplicated, in any format, without explicit permission ➤ If you like any of the following stories, consider subscribing! - Dark Web horror stories, creepy lets not meet stories, stalker stories, Glitch In The Matrix Stories, Unexplained Horror stories, Paranormal stories, cryptid encounter stories, Crazy ex lover stories, creepy neighbor stories, quantum immortality, true scary stories from reddit, or any other True horror Stories! ➤ And Remember; You are loved, you are important, and you are valid. Never let anyone tell you otherwise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you have a true scary story you'd like to share with the podcast, go to as-the-ravendreams.com and click the button to send it my way. Also, if the platform you're on has the option to rate the podcast or leave a comment, please consider doing so. And as always, thank you. There's been an ongoing joke between my friends and I that I attract the weirdest crap. When we go hiking, camping, or even when we just drive to some aband. and spot to drink, something strange always happens, and I'm typically the one involved in it. One of the craziest ones for me was when we went through this trail in Utah, the place we were going was pretty much just for sightseeing, and the walk.

They had some campgrounds scattered around, but we tended to get loud and stupid, so we would chill on the trail somewhere and have a good time. I know we weren't supposed to, but as long as we weren't being disruptive to others, and we picked up after ourselves, the Rangers pretty much left us alone. I'd brought my girlfriend at the time, since a couple of my friends were bringing theirs along as well, but the difference was that my girl really wasn't into the whole sleeping outside thing. She was definitely a city girl, but she wanted to spend more time with me so she tolerated it. So we hiked up to a spot that we've been to before and started unpacking some drinks and food to unwind. At this point, my girl Amy had enough of walking and was in a bad mood.

The other girls tried to get her to lighten up and help her cool off, but it would only work so much. I appreciated them for trying, though. One thing that did get her to lighten up was the drinks. She would become a little extra after about four. Around this time, she would get aggressive or mean, so I would have to calm her down. This ended up starting a fight between us, and she stormed off into the tent, telling me I wasn't allowed in. I didn't want to ruin the fun, so I told the rest of them. I was going to go get some more sticks and stuff to add to the fire and walked away to cool off.

It was at least an idea to think about things and have some time to myself. That's when things started to get wild. As I mentioned, we'd been on this trail before, so I was at least aware of the area to some extent. And I had an idea of where I was going, but I didn't. didn't do much outside of it because I was typically having fun with my friends. So, I decided to climb up over this ledge and across the other side, to see if I could spot the other side of the highway or something else across. It was pretty dark at this point, so I did bring a flashlight with me to light my way, but that was it. It was a spur-of-the-moment

decision, so I wasn't expecting to need anything more. As I was walking across, I noticed a faint light in the distance. It didn't look very far, and better yet, it looked like it was on the same side as me, so I decided to go check it out. And as I got closer, I noticed a dark arch around the light that made it look like it was some sort of small cavern. I thought, hell yeah, something for me to explore real quick, and maybe take everyone else to it, right? Once I reached it, I found the source of light,

which was some old-looking lantern, that had the fluid in it. It was flickering and looked low, so I don't know how long it had been on, but it was strange that it was just sitting there. I remember thinking to myself that it was like a porch light. Someone had left it on to get home. Then I proceeded into the case,

cavern. I had to duck down to get in, but then once inside, I could almost stand up straight. It was crazy. But then I got to looking around in there, and I scanned the area with my flashlight, and saw some stuff on the ground. It looked like some kind of makeshift sleeping bag, or at least if it was one, it was so old and dirty and falling apart that it just looked like a couple of blankets. There were a few other items near it. The ones I remembered were a little hand mirror, a metal bowl that looked like kind of one for a dog, and some kind of book with writing all over the front. It looked more like a diary or sketchbook style rather than a book to read. I was scanning the area to see if there was anything else, but there wasn't much else to the room. There was a

a darker area in the back, but it looked like it was just a part where the wall jutted, so I'd ignored it. I was curious who could be staying here, and if they'd been here long or had just arrived. If they were nearby, or if this stuff was old, so I wanted to check out the book. I picked it up, and the first page had a dedication on it. It said something about everything they did was thankful. to them. Then, flipping through, there was less and less writing and more scribbled notes and pictures. I went back to read one of the pages when I heard what sounded like someone gasping. It was loud enough that it made me jump up from the position that I was in.

I looked over to where I heard the sound, which was by the dark back wall, and now there looked like a person was peeking around the wall. Like I said, it didn't look like there was anything past it, so I didn't expect a person to be there. So, thinking I had just interrupted whoever was there, I put my hands up, dropped the book, apologized for intruding. I didn't have the flashlight on them, other than when I initially heard the gasp, because I didn't want to blind them, so I had it down to my side. So, from what I could see, it looked like a person was either kneeling or was a small child, because their form was pretty short.

I couldn't make out any details on the person, though. I told them I would leave and that I wasn't doing or planning on taking anything, and slowly walked backwards to leave. As I got closer to the entrance, something told me to put my light back on them. As I brought the flashlight up, so did the person. I watched as the shadow grew smoothly straight up with the head now tilted to the side. This meant this thing was over six foot tall, because it was taller than me, and I was about five-eight. The way it stood up was creepy and unnatural as hell, and I was ready to nope out of there.

I quickly turned around and I ran out of there. I thought I would just run back to where my friends were, but I could hear something catching up to me. I swear, I felt like I was in some weird horror movie, like it didn't feel weird. I got back to the ledge, and I fell into it, and I stayed there for just a second, hoping I was either imagining it or that the person would lose me. As I sat there, I heard what sounded like someone running towards me and then just stop. Then they whispered, Where are you? Thankfully, they immediately ran back off and I didn't move until I didn't hear the footsteps anymore.

I pulled myself back over the ledge and made a mad dash back to my friends. When I got there, I was trying to explain to them what I just said. saw and of course they all thought I was just messing with them. Apparently Amy was still awake or had woken up and heard everything. I was hoping she wouldn't because I knew she would freak out, and she did, and now no longer wanted to stay there. It was way too dark for us to try to walk back out, and quite frankly, I wasn't comfortable with whatever or whoever that person was walking around.

So I made up some BS about it being a joke to try and calm her down. We all finally went to bed, but I couldn't sleep. I remember faking it a few times to avoid conversations with Amy, though. The next morning was a bit weird. We all tried to make light of the situation and joke around to at least have some last-minute fun. But I think we all just thought, that it was more than a bit off. We left, and that was the last time Amy went with me until we split up.

My friends were interested in the cave, though, so we actually went back out there the next week or so. It took us a while to find it, but thankfully we went during the day so that we could see better. The lantern that I saw was gone, but when we went in, the sleeping bag and the mirror were still there. But the bull was gone, and the book looked like it had been caught on fire.

We went back to where that person was standing, and to my surprise, it actually had more space back there than I expected. It didn't go anywhere, but it was almost like a closet, if there would have been like a door there. But back there, there was a pile of bones. I wouldn't call any of us that smart, so... We couldn't tell what kind of bones they were, and if they were human or animal, but a couple of them were really long, like leg or arm bones. But of course, it would have made it easier, but there were no skulls. My friend thought it was weird, but joked about it and we left.

There was no other sign of anyone being there. So yeah, I don't know what that was, but I assume it was a person since they talked, but nothing else about them really seemed human. I don't care for that trail anymore, but thankfully my friends still like me tagging along. I guess I'm just there to keep things interesting. RBC Training Ground has discovered potential in over 20,000 Canadian athletes and counting.

Your story could be next. If you've got the drive, they'll help you find your path to the Olympics. Let's see what you've got. Sign up for free at rbc trainingground.com. I'm herebyrari, embarked and profite, embarked and celebrate, wriggolet, publiced, savouring, admire, and profite. Villaray, the voice we love that we love. I must have been around five years old when this happened,

still cocooned in the world of childhood innocence and endless curiosity. My father passed away in a car accident. shortly after my third birthday. He was struck by a drunk driver in the early afternoon while he went to pick up McDonald's for our lunch. The other driver was a 30-something-year-old man that had apparently passed his Saturday morning, staring at the inside of a 40-ounce,

and then decided that he wanted to go too fast down a main road. My dad apparently pulled out of the parking lot thinking that he was just bringing my mom and I some chicken nuggets, when that man came over the hill. My dad didn't see him, and he wasn't cognizant enough to avoid my dad, and, well, that's how my father lost his life. It may not be relevant,

and I know McDonald's had nothing to do with it, but I can't even look at the Golden Arch's logo without feeling this sharp wave of depression wash over me. Obviously, at this time I didn't understand, but being an adult now, this kind of... of thing really weighs heavy on your mind. That incredibly depressing intro to this story is to simply say that my father has been gone since I was three, and this event took place around two years later.

In those two years, my father's absence was this strange fact of life that was largely abstract to me. Growing up, my mother would tell me these stories about him, how he loved to fish, how he was quite the jokester and how he loved me with all of his heart. Being the age I was, I don't think I had any detailed memories of how my father looked or how his voice sounded, and all the visuals that I had of him were from photographs. However, no photograph or second-hand story could have ever prepared me for this encounter that would have a profound impact on me.

It was around Christmas. I remember that night it had snowed and my mom was worried because our house seemed to lose power any time that it snowed or rained heavily. I remember her putting me to bed. I remember her telling me that she loved me and that Daddy would watch over me and keep me safe, like she did every night. But for some reason, this night felt different. It felt heavier. It felt more energetic. She put me to bed and shut my door, but I didn't want to go to sleep.

I wanted to get up and do something. I didn't know what. I just remember having this undying amount of energy that was built up in my little body. After playing with my trucks in the dim light of my little plug-in nightlight, I remember sitting there and staring at the shadows on the wall, just thinking about nothing. Like I said, I was five in the nightlight. this is probably my first core memory, so I'm pretty sure I was just blankly staring at how

the light cast the shadows of my little trucks onto the white walls, and probably just chuckling at how spooky it was to me. But then, as I was staring at the shadows, I remember looking toward my door and seeing a figure standing in the corner of the room. This silhouette had an aura that was completely familiar to me. I wasn't afraid of it at all. Instead, curiosity tugged at me and told me that I didn't need to be scared. I remember in complete and vivid detail looking up at this tall, kind-faced man with a beard growing from his chin and thinking,

that's my dad. This wasn't some sort of visual hallucination. I'm sure of that. This was like a living, breathing entity that was my father. His smile was radiant, his eyes were filled with tears, and I could tell that he was watching me and smiling.

Then I heard his voice. He said, Hey, kiddo, I know this might be confusing to you, but I wanted to stop by and see you now that you're a little older. I remember that, after that, we talked about everything and nothing in particular. The conversation that ensued

is hard to put into words. It was like it wasn't spoken, but just communicated between the two of us, like some kind of conscious dream. It felt real, more real than anything else I can remember from those years. I remember him telling me that he loved how curious I was, and that I was going to be such a smart boy.

I think I told him about my trucks. I was really into the trucks at the time. I remember him smiling and laughing each time I explained which truck was which and what their purposes were. After a while, the conversation wound down and he gave me one last comforting smile, and then spoke his last words to me, words that I can play in my head as clearly as how I heard them that night. He said, I'm sorry that I have to go again, but I hope you'll always remember how much I love you.

I'll always be with you. Okay. I remember nodding at him and smiling back saying, Okay, or thank you. And with that, he was completely gone. And I was once again alone in my bedroom. That conversation, it left a lingering sense of peace and understanding that even at five resonated with me. Even now, after all these years, the memory of that night is crystal clear in my mind.

Some might say it was nothing more than a dream or just something created by my imagination, but I am convinced of the reality of that encounter. The spirit of my father came to visit me that night, to have that last conversation with his son, and to impart that sense of peace that has stayed with me ever since. It's a night that I've kept close to my heart, a reminder that my father never really left me. that he'll always be there to guide me. I believe with every fiber of my being that my father is with me, guiding me, and he's been that silent hand that has pushed me to be the man that I am today.

Before I tell this story, I want to preface it with the fact that this is not a typical scary story where something freaky or crazy happens. Rather, it's more of a cautionary tale and the scary part is what could have happened, had things gone differently. When I was five, my family and I moved from a suburban neighborhood to a little farmette. There were still houses around, and our neighbors were in pretty close proximity. However, we had enough land for horses, chickens, goats, etc.

When we first moved in, I remember my parents getting acquainted with our neighbors, who were around their age, late 20s, early 30s. Let's call them Mr. and Ms. Nelson. They would come over a lot, and I even remember Mr. Nelson putting up a tire swing for me and my sisters. Mr. Nelson seemed like the coolest adult in the world. He would swing us really high on the swing, toss us up in the air, take us for rides on his four-wheeler. He would always joke around with us, too.

and we thought he was the coolest guy. At our new house, we had a big field which was a hill and down the hill was a creek. A small lot, and then there was a fence separating our house with Mr. Nelson's. Me and my sisters would play down there a lot, and Mr. Nelson actually made us a little fort made out of old wood. He also made us a treehouse in the woods by our house, and even dug a swimming hole for us in the creek.

Overall, he seemed like a great guy, and my sisters and I loved being around him, but, looking back, I have a few memories that made me believe that his intentions may not have been pure. First, when my parents started getting to know our neighbors. I specifically remember my mom telling me to be careful around Mr. Nelson and to not sit on his lap. I thought this was super weird because I didn't understand why that would be a big deal. I was a kid. That's just what you did with some adults. To me, I thought my mom was saying this so that we didn't think that Mr. Nelson was our dad.

Weird thought process, but I was a kid. Another memory is that Mr. Nelson would say stuff to us like, One of these days, I'm going to pick you guys up in the middle of the night and take you to Sonics. He said that a lot, actually, like multiple times. He would also tell us that he was going to buy us a phone, give us $100, just things like that. We would excitedly tell our parents this, but they just said that he was pulling our leg. Another time, Mr. Nelson came by and took us on a ride in his Jeep. I think that we drove around the block and weren't gone for very long, but when we got back, my mom freaked out.

He took us without asking my parents, and I don't even think she knew where we went. I don't remember at all, but I just remember my mom getting really upset and being very confused. I didn't know what she was so worried about. It's all kind of fuzzy, but looking back, I remember my mom never liking Mr. Nelson. I never knew why, because he was so nice. I honestly thought that she was just jealous because maybe she thought that we liked him more than we liked her. Anyways, after that, we saw less and less of him

and my parents' friendship with them kind of fizzled out. Him and my dad stayed friends, but he wasn't around us much. The last incident that I remember is one that I've always looked back on and wondered, what could have happened? My sister and I were swimming in the swimming hole, which was in direct view of his house. When he saw us out there, I think we called him over to the fence to talk.

He then said that he was going to go get his swimming trunks on to come swim with us. We waited a few moments, and he came walking out the door, shirtless, when my mom rang the dinner bell. That always meant that we had to come inside. So we called to him saying that we had to go and that we could maybe swim another time, and then ran home.

I always remember that because I was sad that we didn't get to swim with him. As you're reading this, alarm bells are likely going off in your head. Mine never did. Until recently when I started thinking about all of these things, I started feeling weird about it. I want to stress the fact that Mr. Nelson was around a lot, and the vast majority of my memories with him are ones where my parents were not around. I started to ask myself,

What was a grown man doing hanging out with five and seven-year-old girls all the time? Why did he always do such nice things for us? Why was he going swimming with two little girls alone? And why did my mom not trust him? Why would he tell us he was going to pick us up in the middle of the night to go somewhere? I'm old over all of these things for several months, and talked to my sister about it, who, also thought it was weird, but didn't have any information to offer.

I think that we just decided to not think too deep into it and give him the benefit of the doubt. But I still kept thinking about it and how weird it was. Finally, I recently talked to my mom about it. I said, hey, I've been thinking about this a lot, but do you remember when you told me not to sit on Mr. Nelson's lap and that we should be careful about him? Immediately after saying this, she got this disgusted look on her face. She said that she got weird vibes from him from the start, and didn't like the way that he acted around us. She said that he seemed creepy, thought that he didn't have pure intentions,

and that he always came sniffing around. I guess he would come to the house when no one was home, and stuff like that. She told me that he was even a little inappropriate with her at one point, I guess she had called him about doing a potential project at the house. He was in construction, and I guess they talked about that. The second time that she called, he answered the phone in a sensual way. She didn't go into detail, but she implied that it was in a way that you would answer someone that you're trying to start something with. Gross.

Basically, she didn't trust him around us, and she felt very wary about us spending time with him. After she shared that with me, I told her about all of the stuff that he said to us, about picking us up in the middle of the night, and the swimming situation. She said she doesn't remember us telling her that, but that if she did, she would have freaked out. Basically, the conversation I had with her confirmed my suspicions about his character. I think it's safe to say he was probably grooming us, and working up to potentially doing something harmful. It makes me sick to think about all the time we spent alone with him,

far out of view of our parents. I also wonder if he intentionally dug a deeper hole into the creek so that we would spend more time there. There were many times when my sister and I would go out there in our bathing suits just to swim in the hole. He most likely was able to see us from inside his house. I know that this is kind of anticlimactic, but I hope that it serves as a warning to parents or anyone out there. This man was married, has a job, had kids now, and regularly went to church.

On the surface, he seemed very normal and kind, but I think he secretly was a creep who wanted to pray on younger girls. I was lucky to have had nothing happened to me, but many are not as fortunate. If you take anything from this experience, go with your gut and be careful who you let into your life. Oftentimes, predators don't lurk around in dark corners wearing trench coats. They could be your friends, neighbors, coworkers, family members, etc. I honestly hope that maybe this is all just a misinterpretation and that he really was just a friendly neighbor, but something tells me to not hold my breath. This is something that happened to me a long time ago,

when I was a freshman at college. But it was like no other college. Though I suppose there were plenty of other esoteric places then. It was 1980, exactly. The college was barely accredited. It would sometimes lose. standing and be called institute instead of college, making it all the more impossible to grasp. It had started in the 1960s, with hippie-C-I-A-Ruits.

It was a world college, a world institute, and the headquarters were on an old estate gracing the northern harbor. Years later, I would learn that the money which built the main house, the show barn up the road, the servants quarters. It all came from a fortune hunter who struck it rich under the employ of the East India Trading Company. He had offices in Hong Kong but later came to settle on the eastern seaboard. The family was eccentric,

and they donated an austere quasi-religion who, in turn, gave it to a corporate visionary who made it his Disneyland, this institute of frugality and utopian idealism. It became filled, a time, with bearded, bespectacled men, passionate in their beliefs and discussions as they talked about world events in the beautiful but rotting chambers of the main house, a mansion full of original French doors and moved in 1970s office environs. Women and scarves and overalls

going through files, the odd man in the suit, clean-shaven on the new push-buttoned phone. When I came there, though, it was as if it were Brigadoon itself, existent only in the mist. I took a limo from the airport and the man driving had never heard of the place, but as I gave him directions, we found our way to a dirt road, with a small sign only noting the lane name. There was no signage of the college. Going downhill in what was now forest, there was one sign that was a yellow yield sign with three handwritten words upon it. animals at play, and suddenly it was as if time itself was different. I was sent to live in Don House, a house that was on the bottom part of the campus,

or the main campus as it was known. It was across the giant dirt circular driveway for the main house, with a gargantuan tree in the center that every class would climb for a group pick with the swinging daring ones at the top. Dawn House was a single-story place that was unusual because of its paint job. It was bright orange with black trim, like Halloween, and it stuck out from the graceful aging estate, with its algae clumped ponds and crumbling formal gardens.

It also sported a wreath on the front door, plastic, hung over a picture of some naked hippies in a semi-formal pose. It was a weird look, aberrant, in this otherwise bucolic place. I would learn soon enough who was responsible for the paint. My house father, V. He wore the same black pants and bright orange turtlenecks. Had jet black hair slicked back like the 1950s.

At the end of his maintenance day, he would sit in a ragged, overstuffed chair, eat his mono-diet meal of elbow noodles with one solid can of Campbell's cream of mushroom soup stirred in. He paid for that. He went to the hospital, and that is what they told him was wrong. So never go on that mono diet. And from that chair, he would watch this big TV far away at the other end of the room. It was furnished with a couple of dusty couches, a few cheap end tables, and a payphone. Sometimes a glowy orb made of plastic with colored lights inside would appear on the coffee table, a creation of vs.

Mainly, it was idyllic there. We would sit in comfy places and listen to lectures about Pulpot or whoever they chose that day. There was this guy who had unruly hair, and he asked me to weave chopsticks into it, and it was very meditative. Students were from all over the globe. They were laughing because no one could really understand each other or the lecturers who were also from all over. There was one student there who was different from the rest. Instead of falling into the good feels, he was breaking into the main house at night and reading old and new student files. Some had lost their minds in third world huts overseas, overcome with malaria, madness.

There was one student in our class who thought they were an alien from space. He invited me to go with him one night. I didn't want to, but it seemed more fun than watching V watch TV, his favorites. Prison Flicks. Old, black and white. Prison Flicks. I had no idea that there were so many. Or that they were even a thing.

I think I only saw Cool Hand Luke and Papillion, but these were more prison-like than those. It was weird that he got into those movies. Late at night with his TV guide to search for them. But I was scared of old dark, creepy mansions at night. I knew how unpleasant it would be. rummaging around that creaky place with its shadowy corridors, long, narrow halls. He had a couple of flashlights that were not super great, and we headed down to the old main house.

We only stayed on the first floor. There were executive offices upstairs, but I got too scared of the third step up, so we went to the lower admin in Records area where he had been before, but in no way had exhausted. Soon, the old metal filing cabinets were creaking open. I found a drawer that had been part of the original house. It was built in, probably for silver in the old dining room. It had manila folders, and I held the flashlight and began to go through them. It didn't take very long to find something so startling that I just gasped and begged for Jeff to come over.

He saw it in an instant. This beginning to yellow newspaper clipping, but... from some sort of private paper, like a journal of professionals type of paper. We couldn't see where it was from. There was a photograph as well. I think it went with the article. It was of several men walking in business suits and hats,

older, almost from another era, but they could be from now, conservative dress, and the heading was something about an experiment. They were going to take an axe murderer, out of prison and put him into society without society knowing what he had done. It was part of their reform theory. His base?

Where did they put him? Yeah, at the Institute. Who was it? You guessed it. V. I felt sick. I was only 18. A new freshman in a new state in an already surreal environment, but this?

I was shaking. We got out of there not before looking down into the basement and switching on a light to a high-backed psycho-style wheelchair, and even that could not rattle us the way that we were rattled. We walked for miles to an all-night diner. We were too creeped out to even be on campus. The walk was so long that we had to laugh. I think the sun was beginning to rise by the time that we ordered food and listened to Sugar-Sugar on the little jukeboxes. I later moved to Upper Campus.

an old military installation with a dome put on top by a nudist doctor who lived there, in a glass dome of plants upon the roof. And then, I was gone, traveling, not to be back there for years. But I did go to visit the campus. I'd been living in New York, and it was hot. Summer came with no spring, and I grabbed a friend and we hopped a train to that rather magical place. When I came to see old Dawn House, it was painted a modest white, and as we appeared, so did a couple from inside. School was on break, but they stayed as parents of the house.

I told them that I lived there when it was orange and black. The woman opened her mouth wide, and then they both began to talk at once. V. Oh, the scandal. V had gotten grants for free camera equipment and video equipment when he came. He was to flourish in his hobbies. But there was nothing wholesome about his media grab worth around 30,000 or more. He had set up the house as his own Peeping Tom film studio, with small holes that no one ever noticed,

especially in the bedrooms and the bath. It's so chilling now to think of those afternoons when I thought I saw something and would turn and there would be nothing there but the tree. But I know now that he was speaking. The secret experiment murderer sprung from prison by reform theorists after chopping someone to bits with an axe, had made me, us, or whoever was in Dawnhouse, his experiment. This is a true story. I had to scroll all the way back through Facebook to 2010. I remember there were some picks from that evening, so I could find the date that this happened.

So, it was the 13th of April 2010. I used to work on Berwick Street, Soho, in a super cute little gift shop. Unfortunately, it closed down a few years ago, but it was such a cool place to work, and loads of celebrities used to pop in. That's another story. Most of my friends at the time lived or worked in the area, so there was usually something fun going on after I finished my shift. which was normally 7 p.m.

One evening, three of my friends were in town, and we ended up heading to the courthouse London for dinner. If you walk down Canterby Street, towards Liberty London, the courthouse is just at the bottom, over the road. It's a pretty swish hotel with a bar and a restaurant, but it used to be a magistrate's court. It still has a lot of the original features, including the old jail cells,

where you can have drinks, and the courtroom is the restaurant's seating area. Anyway, one of my friends had planned ahead and booked us a table, although when we turned up, there was only one other couple dining in there as far as I can remember. It was a weeknight, so it wasn't busy at all. We had dinner and chatted, etc. The night was just like any else.

other night out for dinner. I'm not a big drinker, and I don't remember drinking at all, but if I did, it would have only have been a glass of wine, so I was in no way drunk. I excused myself, and I told my friends that I'm just popping into the bathroom, be back in a minute. Then off I went. So the layout may have changed. I haven't been there in many years, but at the time the bathroom layout was,

There was a door you had to push, a short corridor, another door you had to push open, and then you were in the bathroom. Both doors were heavy and swung closed behind you once you'd gone through them. The bathroom was a smallish room, but nice as far as bathrooms go. There were three empty cubicles, all with the doors neatly open. I went into the right-hand side toilet and closed the door. As I sat using the toilet, sorry I know, I began to hear what sounded like whispering behind me. Behind and perhaps just off to the right. It made me turn around, but I just thought to myself it must be something coming from the room next door.

The whispering continued, but I couldn't really make out what was being said. Surprisingly, I was chill and didn't think anything of it. It was just someone in the room next door, right? The next thing was knock, knock, knock. Three pretty loud knocks wrapped on my toilet door. Now, in my confused mind, I thought one of my friends must have come into the bathroom and decided to knock on my door for some strange reason. I was finished using the toilet and I opened the door, expecting to see my friend, or someone, but there was no one there. The room was completely empty with all the cubicles just as they were when I entered, with the door still open.

There was absolutely nobody in the room with me. Plus, if someone had come in, knocked on my door, and then ran out again, I would have heard the door and footsteps. There was nothing, just silence. And why would someone do that anyways? The hotel is pretty fancy. They wouldn't just let people or just let people. run amok in it. So, at this point, I was puzzled, but still surprisingly chill. I think my mind just went to a rational place at the time. But the whispering, what was that about? I returned to

my table and asked my friends if they'd knocked on my toilet door. They all said no. They were kind of freaked out and didn't want to use the bathroom alone after that, which I guess is understandable. All of their reactions actually made me freak out a bit, too. Did I just experience something paranormal? I can't explain it, but I definitely didn't imagine it. This is definitely a head scratcher for me. I often think about it and what the heck it was all about. I'll never know who or what knocked on my door and why they were whispering to me.

I wonder what they were trying to tell me. Was it a ghost? I guess I'll never know. If you do ever visit London, you should pop in there. The bar is cool, and they also do have a lovely afternoon tea. Just beware if you go to the bathroom alone. Upon curiosity, I was stumbling upon Google Maps, checking in on places that I've been before.

For some reason, I decided to check out the childhood home that I have lived in for 11 years. I observed the Google Street View in the back, of this by-level home in northeast Edmonton. I encountered what appears to be a ghostly face peering out of the window in the master bedroom. I immediately took a screenshot, and I sent the picture to my father, who later shared the photo with the family. Over a family gathering, my father discussed the time before I was born that he heard what sounded like an animalistic growl coming from the TV.

The TV, however, was not turned on. Throughout the time being in the house, we didn't own any dogs or cats. Adding to the fact that this happened in the middle of the night, nobody was active outside during that time. When speaking to my dad regarding the past house and its history behind it, he recalled a man who died of cancer who lived in the house. The widow he bought the house off of, exclaimed that, it was unknown if her husband died in the house or not.

My dad also told me that the widow stated her husband liked to be in the basement. There was a specific area in the basement that I despised going in, the laundry room hallway. You could chalk it up to child imagination or child fears, but that part of the basement was always dark, and you would feel like you would get jumped in that area. The door to that area refused to close. I recall closing it a few times, only for its open five to fifteen minutes later.

This was creepy in my little mind, but this was not why the entity was considered negative. Before this is chalked up to temperature changes, this door opening happened regardless of the season or time of day. There was a time when I was about two or three years old. and was heading off to bed. In my overactive child brain, I couldn't fall asleep. The current thunderstorm we were having didn't help either. I recall the back of the bed lifting above the ground, but when I noticed, the bed went down as if nothing had happened.

I didn't have any siblings, nor was it humanly possible for anyone to be right behind the bed, as it was right up against the wall. This terrified me as a child, and I ran out of my room to my parents who promptly told me to go to bed. This was the start of many things to come in that home. During the nights, it appeared that I could get attacked by some unseen force that didn't like me. I recall having sleep paralysis, as often I would feel a heavy weight on me. However, there was nothing in my room that was unusual.

These events were often a bad omen. I recall that when this sleep paralysis happened, it would lead me to have a bad day. There were also times that I would vomit as a result of this incident. Telling this to my father, he told me he should have done something after he heard the growl years back. The bizarre events during the night often led me to have odd dreams and wake up at odd points of the night. I would often feel like being watched during the night or waking up at one to three in the morning and hearing the TV on, or a whispering conversation. It sounded like whispering between two people.

As a child, I was fascinated by this conversation until I opened the door and heard nothing. Even as a child, I knew that something was off about the voices, but I didn't want to bother my parents at that odd hour of the night. As my childhood progressed, the activity seemed to as well. I recall a moment where my Xbox turned on during the night, and then I checked the next morning to see it turned off, which baffled me as a child because I recalled shutting it off and playing with my Legos shortly after.

Another event that followed shortly happened when I was brushing my teeth. I recalled seeing a figure through the mirror walking towards my dad's bedroom with a top hat in a nice suit. Even though he was translucent, like a cloud, you could distinctively see that this was a man in a top hat in a suit, looked close to being human. Then, 11 months later, while I was on my dad's computer, I saw the same man walk down the same hallway and nothing happened.

A few days after my first encounter with the man was a night that I will never forget. That night, I saw what looked like a shadow face peering in through the window. Even though I knew that that was unrealistic, as you'd have to be insanely tall to peer in, or at the very least, require a ladder, which you would have heard if someone did that. Plus, why would it move back the moment that I saw it? Around the same period, my neighbor's dog, Harry, reacted negatively to something when I went out. He growled while staring at something, even showing his teeth. At the time, I didn't understand why Harry was behaving out of character.

If one were to be around Harry, one could point out that he was docile to the point that he would never react to anything. After a couple days of this, Harry was back to his old docile self. Could Harry have seen something that I was not able to see or sense? Possibly something malicious that had intent to harm me, causing Harry to once scare off whatever was intending to do this? Well, despite Harry's heroic efforts, this did not stop the ongoing activity in the house. Whatever lived there, definitely.

was not photogenic, as there are no photos of whatever entity lived in that house. I recall hearing the door to the first floor opening on its own, while watching Avatar of the Last Airbender on TV. Observing the door opened on its own in such a manner that it appeared as if someone was wanting to sneak out, I went to the area where the door opened, realizing it was unusually cold, like, easily a few degrees colder than the room that I had just, stepped out from. Whenever I was alone, there was not one moment in that house at this point where I did not feel

like I was being watched, especially if I was in the living room or the basement. To a child, this is creepy. I often played video games, not only because it was entertaining, but to distract me from feeling this way. I felt that by doing this, I wouldn't feel this entity. While discussing this with my dad, he questioned if his rage moments were from the entity's influence. Could I have been under the influence of some negative entity residing at that place? When thinking of the paranormal, having periods of inactivity is considered normal.

It is common to have periods of inactivity as entities require energy to be active. If people say that paranormal activity occurs daily, they're likely fabricating the whole series of events. Unless you have provoked an entity, you will not be subject to frequent activity. As iniclimatic as it sounds, that's how paranormal activity works. However, once it's there, it often happens in brief moments. Even during periods of inactivity, I could feel like I was not alone, yet no further activity would occur. periods of an activity could go on for months at a time,

however the paranormal occurrences would happen whenever something negative happened. It could have been something as simple as having a rough day at school. The activity would happen and then stop a couple of weeks later. For example, I recall putting my toy cars in the line and leaving it as I had to go to bed. I woke up and headed downstairs to continue to play with my cars, and saw that they were in a large pile. I don't recall ever going downstairs and playing with my toy cars during the night.

I promptly asked my father to see if he moved them. When I got no as the answer, I was able to determine no logical explanation. There was one time in the night where I desperately had to use the bathroom. I went out of my bedroom to use the nearest bathroom. When I was heading to the bathroom, I noticed light emanating from the bus. bottom of the door frame. I assumed someone was in there, so I waited about five to ten minutes. By that time, I really had to go. Once again, I checked into that very bathroom to be in use. Impatiently, I went downstairs and used the other bathroom. When I went back upstairs,

I noticed the upstairs bathroom was unoccupied. I couldn't hear anyone leave the bathroom, nor did anyone see me go up or down the stairs. Assuming nothing of it, I went back into my room and tried to drift back off to sleep. A few minutes later, my father came in to check on me. I lied and said I was sleepwalking instead of using the bathroom down stairs. I can't conclude if this was paranormal or not, since my sick mother was in the house at the time,

which made me unsure if it was her or not. though upon talking to my father, he didn't recall her using the bathroom at that time. The house also made some noises that I cannot explain. I've been in other homes, and I've spent the night there with my family, and I didn't hear any noises from the pipes. Both older and newer homes did not replicate the same noise, or have any noise per se, which baffled me. The noises sounded like banging on hollow,

pipes or something metallic. I'm well aware that this could be something with the house, and I would agree. You can't conclude something as paranormal as that type of hollow metal banging. I only bring it up because it only happened in this house, and not the other houses that I've been in before. For now, I'll call this normal house noise, unless I get further evidence regarding what the noises were. The banging, oddly enough,

only happened when the heater or conditioner was inactive. And occasionally sounded like someone was moving in the pipes. However, these pipes were so narrow that nobody could ever fit in them. I always chalked it up to normal house noise as that was the

only logical explanation behind it. Maybe it was indeed normal house noises, or maybe it was paranormal. Eventually, I moved out of that house. Since I moved, almost nine years ago, it's gone through quite a few occupants. The changes in the occupants piqued my curiosity as I wondered if the occupants before encountered

anything paranormal. I don't believe that I should be bothering the current owners with frivolous requests and questions. However, if I notice any social media post regarding that house and its haunted activities, I will gladly share my story with whom ever posted. Perhaps Edmonton could be more haunted than we realize. I can confirm that whatever was in that house has definitely sparked my interest in the paranormal.

Since my parents put me in Boy Scouts as a kid, I fell in love with anything outdoors, like camping and hiking. One thing I could never do, though, was hunt or fish. So when I say the outdoors, that includes the wildlife too. My dad tried to take me hunting once, and I cried. So I could teach you how to live out in the wilderness on your own, but we'd be living on a vegetarian diet.

Sorry. So anyways, as a kid, I would walk around our backyard, as it ran along some trees, and I always had my own little adventure, out there. As I got older, I would go to different parks and trails to challenge myself and learn more. I had a fair share of friends, but not many that were as hyped about hiking as I was. People start craving meat and Wi-Fi after a few days without it.

So I found myself going solo, but I was never quite alone. I always brought along my dog, Parker. Parker was a lab, and I got him when he was just a puppy from a friend of my mom's. I worked hard with training him because I wanted to be able to take him with me on these trips and to be off leash for it too. I know there are some parks that require a leash, and I did still bring it, but if we were deep in the back where there were rarely any people, I let him off. He was very well-behaved. He loved being able to run as fast as he could through the trees,

jump into the water, and he wouldn't hurt anyone. There are plenty of kids that have stopped us before to pet him, and he would sit and just patiently wait until they were done. He wouldn't even growl when playing with me. He's always a blast to have tagging along on these adventures of mine. After I finished college, I wanted to go on a trip to some of the best hiking trails that I had found. This was going to take me through a couple of states,

so I planned on it taking at least a month or so. We made it through two parks, and we had a great time, too. I made some friends that actually gave me their info, because they actually wanted to meet up and do this same thing. I got a few suggestions of places to add to my list as well, and overall, just had a good time. It was the third one that really messed up the whole mood of the trip. I don't want to give specifics for privacy reasons on a few sides,

but I will say that it was in a western state. This park had a huge hiking trail that had campgrounds scattered around, as some people would stop and rest and continue on the next day. There was even an area of, for rock climbing instead of taking the path all the way around to the top. I loved rock climbing, but I really did it since I had Parker with me. My friends joked about me getting a harness to put him on my back, but I think with how heavy he is, that wouldn't have been possible or safe.

So, we just enjoyed the scenery and would walk our way around. The sun was starting to set, and I started noticing people's sense. setting up little camps, but I didn't want to be around others, so I tried to push forward some more to be a little more alone. It was getting dark at this point, but I got further up and I couldn't hear people anymore, so I decided to stop there. I set up my little tent, pulled out something to eat for myself and Parker. Don't worry, he wasn't a vegetarian, and I settled in for the night. Now, most of the time, I don't have trouble sleeping outdoors. The sound of just crickets or the wind was enough to knock me out, but for some reason, that night, I could not shake this feeling. I tossed and turned for a while, not seeming to be able to get comfortable.

The bigger problem that I had with this, though, was that Parker was awake too. He was looking at one side of the tent, mouth closed with his head tilted. It was normal for us to have deer or raccoons walking around, so I figured that's what had caught his attention. But that also doesn't normally keep me awake. I decided to peek out there to see what it was, though, and maybe scare it off so we could both get some sleep. Parker was quick to run out of the tent. But there was nothing around, and not even a sign of anything. Nothing had been moved or touched.

Parker had even seemed surprised when there was nothing there but us. So we went back to the tent and tried to sleep again without much luck. I felt like I was being watched. Like the feeling you get when you know someone is behind you, looking over your shoulder, it was quite uncomfortable. I finally fell asleep at some point, probably because the exhaustion outweighed my paranoid mind, and I managed to sleep for a few hours.

When we got up the next morning, we looked around our spot again, but saw no signs of anything entering. I just chalked it up to me being paranoid again, and not sleeping very well, and told myself that I needed to drink more water, So, we packed up, and we moved on. As we got a few hours in, we started running into people that we hadn't seen before.

I assumed they were probably there the night before, and it was at that point they were ahead of me, and they had stopped again for a break. They actually had a few kids with them, with probably enough strollers and harnesses for them not to be walking, but to me, that just seemed excessive. I felt that this was too far out of the way to take kids so young, where you don't know how they could even react to something out here. Not to mention how loud they were. I'm sorry.

People that go to places like that and treat it like it's just a normal public park drive me crazy. Again, I liked being out here to escape civilization, and that stuff ruined it for me. So I tried to get ahead of them as quickly as I could, and get back to zoning out alone. It seemed like I'd finally gotten past the bulk of the people, as I hadn't seen anyone for a while and probably wouldn't seem any more at this point, or at least none with kids as the path became less visible and more just gravel. With the amounts that I had left of the trail,

I estimated that I could get close to the end, stay one more night, and then leave. That way, I didn't risk walking on the trail in the dark. As we climbed up the trail, though, I started feeling on edge again, the same way that I did the night before. So my first thought, again, was to look around for wildlife, but when I saw nothing, I became more on edge. wondering if there was someone hiding nearby. It wouldn't be the first time someone was robbed in a park like this. However, I don't take much with me of value other than my dog and a knife that my dad gave me. But people are still dangerous.

So I started paying closer attention to my surroundings to make sure nothing caught me by surprise. After a few of not running in to end, anyone or anything, I thought again I was just getting paranoid since I was so secluded. But that's when I started hearing someone crying. It sounded like a really small child. My first thought was I was actually going to run into someone with a baby up here. But when the trail flattened out and I didn't see anyone, it just added to the confusion. At this point, I was now racked.

my brain trying to figure out where the crying was coming from. It sounded like it was coming from the brush off the side of the trail. That kicked me into Ranger mode and I was worried someone may be lost or injured. So I broke off from the trail to go into the dense trees. Sure enough, the crying got louder. I marked my trail however I could by marking the trees, leaving the flags that I had with me, just things like that so I could get back easily. The crying got louder, but I didn't find anyone.

I stood in the middle of these trees looking around, trying to hone in better on where they were. Now, Parker had been beside me this whole time, and I could tell that he could hear the crying too, by the way. He stopped panting and cocked his head to the side. So while I'm standing there, I look down at him to see him on all fours, just looking around.

He wasn't sitting and waiting like he normally does when I stop. He looked ready to move. He did this typically when we were playing fetch, or he was impatiently waiting for me to tell him to follow or something. This also made me realize that it wasn't just me. So I gave him the signal to lead the way, and immediately he was looking around, sniffing the green. ground and was on a mission.

He led me to a pile of dead leaves and branches that looked like it had been purposely put there, like someone was cleaning up and just left it there. But it's usual, at least it had been for me, to see something like this in a national park. That kind of stuff is typically left alone, unless it's close to the trail or something. But when Parker started digging around it, I did the same thing. same. I was horrified thinking of what I could find, but instead all I found was a baby harness. It was one of those strap ones that you could wear on your back, but what was it doing out here? And where was the owner of said harness? At this point, I was holding on to the harness looking

to see if had any kind of tag on it, like a suitcase or something. I don't have kids. I don't know how that works. That's when I noticed the crying stopped. I looked around to see if anything changed, but still, there were no signs of any other people. I was thinking I needed to get back and call for help, because this could be more serious than it looked. But when I called for Parker to follow, he had the same stance and was looking around.

I was curious what else he had, so I told him to take the lead again. again. This time he would stop and look around and whimper and then just keep moving. It was starting to worry me with how much he started whimpering, but he wouldn't stop to let me check him out to make sure he wasn't hurt or anything. Sadly, he was definitely on the right trail. He led me to a small ravine that dipped down on the other side of a small cliff. He ran past me to a tree that had fallen and was rotting, and when he got to the other side, he sat down by it and barked for me. When I walked over to the side that he was on, I found a woman face down in the mud.

I immediately checked for a pulse, but by how cold she was, I knew that she wasn't alive. It was definitely tragic, and not something I would ever want to find on a trip like this, but what was more bizarre to me was that she wasn't dressed like she was hiking or camping. She had an office suit on. It was a nice skirt, one heel, and even a matching blazer. Why was she out here dressed like that? Shaken, I followed my path back to the trail

and managed to make my way to one of the emergency systems they have along the trails and waited on the side for someone to arrive. I led them down to where she was, gave my statement, and since it was just two people, I actually helped them move the tree some so they could get her out better. That's when I noticed that she was missing an arm. I think they could tell it was too much for me at that point, and they let me go. I started walking back up to the path and had to tell the cops what all I knew and how I found her. They actually asked me if Parker was a cadaver dog, and they were surprised when I said that he wasn't.

I hadn't even thought about it until he mentioned it like his ability to find her was just phenomenal. I actually got a ride back with one of the Rangers because at that point, I wasn't really in the mood to finish my trip, let alone sleep there. I left them my information and went to a nearby. hotel for the night. I called my parents and told them about what had happened, and they were asking if I was okay, and they also thought that what Parker did was amazing. So, that really took me out of the mood for the rest of my trip. I told myself as a kid and growing up that I wanted to help people and teach others to

appreciate nature, but finding someone too late, it really takes a lot out. of you. All I can say is that if you're interested in getting into serious backpacking and hiking, make sure you are prepared, and that people know where you're going. I really don't think she was out there for fun, but still, it's important to know. And in case anyone was interested, I found a news article about her being found, but they had no information on who she was, but they did mention that she a mother. So that then made me question about the harness that I found, which I had given that to the police as well, and that was the last I ever heard of it. I'm still out hiking and camping, even to this day with Parker by my side, but I still wonder sometimes where that crying was coming

from, and where Parker's ability to find her had come from as well. Back in the early 90s, When I was about 10 years old, I had a really creepy close encounter with someone that honestly could have ended a lot worse than it did. And if I had been a bit more gullible, it likely would have ended really badly. At the time, I honestly didn't fully comprehend the potential danger of the situation, but as I've gotten older, it clicked pretty hard how unsettling this experience really was. As mentioned, this was back when I was about 10 years old. My parents both worked full time during the day, and most days when I got home from school, I would be in an empty house for a couple of hours, until my mom was able to leave work and get home. They trusted me to be responsible enough to take care of myself.

I was the type of kid that liked to just spend time in my room playing my Super Nintendo, instead of being a problem for other people. We lived in a neighborhood that was pretty much just a bunch of old people, so it was relatively safe. Honestly, it never seemed like that big of a deal. On this day, I'd been home for maybe half an hour. I'd finished my homework and had turned on the TV to watch something and grabbed Pop-Tart for a snack.

When I thought I saw something outside of the living room, window. It was a pretty big window, and it faced to the west. So if you walked by it in the afternoon, it would cause a bit of a shadow in the room. I glanced over for a moment to see if I could see anything. I saw a man, probably in his late 40s. He looked a bit older than my dad. He was slowly walking along the sidewalk in front of our house. He seemed to be studying the house. He seemed to be studying the house, staring at the ground, the roof,

almost like he was seriously trying to memorize how the house looked. Then, it got creepy. As I was watching this guy analyzed the exterior of our home, I watched as he put his face up to the glass with his hands cupped around his eyes.

He was absolutely looking in the window and trying to see if there was anybody in the house. and, of course, he saw me sitting on the couch just staring at him. He smiled and waved, and then I watched as he walked over to the front door and put his hand on the doorknob, then tried to push the door open. Thankfully, my parents had always told me to keep the door locked at all times, and I was pretty obsessive with doing so, so he wasn't able to get in.

when he realized that he wasn't getting the door open, he walked back to the window and started knocking. By this point, I was having a mini panic attack in my mind, screaming about how this was some weirdo trying to get into the house. But I kept trying to calm down and tell myself that he must have been a neighbor or something. He kept knocking on the window, rapidly, just tapping on it with his knuckle for several moments,

and then he started tapping hard on the door. At this point, I had no idea what to do. I walked into the kitchen near the front door and just stood there. Because I was so unsure of what to do, I just figured that I could tell him he's at the wrong house and to go away. I did not open the door, obviously. But I did shout out to him saying, who are you and what do you want?

When I asked this, I could hear him laugh a bit and then say, Could you open the door for me? I said no, and again asked who he was. He then said that he was a neighbor and he wasn't going to hurt me. I may have been only ten, but I knew that this was a weird thing to say to a kid. You don't just tell a kid, I'm not going to hurt you, unless you plan to hurt them, at least not in this kind of scenario. I told him that if he was a neighbor, then he needed to come back later when my parents were home,

which I now realize was a stupid thing to say, as this was me literally telling him that my parents were not home. When I said this, he paused for a moment and said, Look, I work with my mom's name. I'm a friend of hers. She'll vouch for me. Can you please just let me in? Now, this is where things got a bit confusing for me.

This man knew my mother's name specifically, and it's not a common name. So it wasn't like he could just guess a name and get it right. But I also knew my mother's co-workers. My mom worked at a hair salon. She was one of the big names of the store, alongside my aunt. They had about five employees that they worked with, and I knew all of them because I would always hang out there during the summer, and I loved all of my mom's co-workers. The thing is, all of her co-workers were either older women or younger ladies trying to break into the industry. This guy was neither of those.

I responded by saying that I didn't think I could let him in and that he should just come back. later. At this point, he got really angry. He started banging on the door saying, I know your mom. Her name is mom's name. You need to let me in right now. When he started getting aggressive, I ran over to the cordless phone and hit the button to call the salon. When they answered, I told her who I was and told her that I needed to talk to my mom right away. I explained the situation to her and she told me to hang up, go to the laundry room and lock the door, and call cops. She then said that she would be there in a few minutes.

I did exactly what she said. I ran to the laundry room, I locked the door and then called 911, telling them that a guy was trying to break into my house. After about ten minutes, I heard my mom yelling my name, along with the voice of an officer. I came out to see them standing at the door and looking at a pile of glass. Apparently, after I had run down to the laundry room, this guy had smashed the window on the front door and tried to break in.

The officers took my statement, asking me a bunch of questions about the guy and what he looked like. I told them all that I could, and I told them that the guy knew my mom's name specifically, specifically, and they said that they would drive around the area to try to find the guy, but I have no idea if they ever caught them. My mom thanked them, and after all was said and done, she told me that I had done everything right and kept telling me that it was all okay. I could tell that she was freaking out about this as bad as I was.

After that, I wasn't allowed to be at home alone for a few years. My mom worked with one of our neighbors, an older lady that was actually one of the lunch ladies at my school, and I stayed at her house until they got home every day until I was in high school. She was pretty cool, though, and she always had food for me when I got there, so I didn't mind. That day is something that has been burned into my memory, and when I was at that age, I was definitely scared, but as I mentioned, I now realize how serious it actually was. I'm thankful that, even at that age, I was smart enough to realize that this guy didn't want anything good.

I have no idea how he knew my mom's name specifically. Maybe he looked at the male or something, but I'm just glad that I trusted my instincts and that I was able to avoid a much worse fate. I have an experience that has been with me since I was a little bit. kid. I'm currently 35 and this must have happened when I was 5 or 6.

This was the 90s so no phones, pre-internet times. I live in South Central Los Angeles. I've lived there my whole life and continue to do so. In fact, I still live on the same property where this happened. On this particular night,

there might have been around 6 p.m. It was already dark out. My mom and dad Dad were home and my mom had a craving for a specific cake from Marie Callenders. She sends me and my dad to go out and get it. I remember the whole trip. Getting into my dad's minivan in the back seat, being at the store, the cake, coming home. I remember holding the bag with the cake in it.

I remember wearing a pink little tank top, some little flowered shorts and little sandals with a big daisy on the top. Now, to understand the layout of my house, particularly the backyard, let me describe it. We have always entered the house from the back part of the yard, the garage area. Between the house and the garage is a large area, it being the backyard. In the backyard, the grassed area at the time was in the form of a giant letter D, with a concrete outline which made a step. The bottom of the D being closest to the entrance.

of the house where we would enter. The back part of the D ran up closest to the side of the house, and the top part, the corner, aligned the end of the house where it would make a small alleyway which divided our house from our neighbor's house, separated then

by a wooden fence and a gate. When we finally get home, my dad tells me to go on as he has to lock up the car. I went ahead and made my way. As I was walking to the house, I heard a little noise in the alley of the house. For some reason, I thought that there was a small animal there.

Me, being an animal lover, made my way to the alley. The noise was a small rustling sound, as if someone was moving something without trying to make too much noise. Once I reached the corner of the D where the alley was, I looked into it, expecting to find a cute little kitten or something. I was met with something that has been burned into my memory forever. The alleyway was illuminated by the moon and partial streetlight. In the middle of the alley, there was a figure hunched over.

My eyes adjusted to what I was looking at. It was the size of a man. It had hair covering its body, like dry, prickly hair. It wasn't facing me and was kneeled down looking at or inspecting something. Its hands were big. The light was enough for me to see its fingers. There were three giant claw-like fingers.

I took a step back, and I guess I must have made a noise or something, because it turned to me. Its face was small. I could see the texture of hair, and it looked like it had no mouth. Most of the space was taken up by its giant glowing red eyes. It looked almost alien-like. The moment that it slightly shifted its body to face me, I was able to see giant spikes coming out of its back, like porcupine spikes,

but bigger and thicker coming from the back of its head all the way down. As soon as this thing noticed me, it dropped whatever it had in its hands and leapt over the fence in one bound. I was frozen. All I could do was just stare. I got a chance to see its feet as it jumped over, and they too were giant claws. They were big in size, with three giant toes, ending in a sharp point.

At the moment that it jumped over, that's when I heard my dad making his way in. It all happened so quick. I felt like everything was in slow motion. I remember seeing all of these details in the few seconds that had happened. and I never actually heard it land on the other side of the fence. I just remember it going over in one leap like a dog would and then never hearing it run off. I, on the other hand, turned around and ran to my dad.

I didn't know how to explain it to him, but I kept telling him that there was something back there. He, of course, paid no attention to me, only assuring me that it was nothing. Running into the house and straight to my mom, I told her that there was something out there, some kind of monster. I'm not sure why, but my parents didn't do anything until the hundredth time of me mentioning it. My dad finally grabbed the flashlight and went out. He came back about five minutes later and said that there was nothing there.

I don't remember the rest of that particular night. I do remember going out to the alleyway in the morning. I looked around and didn't see anything. Not exactly sure what I was looking for anyway, but I guess to just go look. Fast forward to when the internet is now the thing to have and dial up as in its prime, I decided to look up this kind of monster. Maybe I could find something or know what it was. I typed in the description and got a bunch of things that looked like it,

and people were describing it as L. Chupacabra. or the goat sucker in English. This was a creature that was apparently terrorizing Mexico, and other places much too far from my home, by attacking farm animals and sucking their blood. Most of what turned up on images had wings or fangs and was scaly and green. I seriously don't know what I saw that night. It took me a long time to tell people, and when I did, I was made fun of.

so I kept quiet. I know there's a lot of people on here who probably got the same thing for seeing what they did, so I figured let me throw in my story of what happened and we can all relate. I think if I were to see the same thing today, I would either stay frozen like I did all those years, or try to at least get a hold of it. Somehow I would like to think that I'd be a rambo if my childhood trauma appeared to me again, I hope you enjoyed this thing that happened to me, and if there are any questions, please, ask away.

I used to live in the upper part of Michigan. Although I've since moved away, I have had a lot of terrifying experiences in my time living there. Most of these occurred at our old two-story house, but a couple occurred outside of that creepy, freaking place. For the sake of not having this be a confusing mess, I'll be going in chronological orter. back when my mom turned 18, she ended up buying our old house. Her parents, my grandparents, told her not to invest in it mainly because it was old and was falling apart. Being a rebellious teen, she chose not to and bought it anyways. She had several creepy paranormal experiences there, some of which are probably BS.

So take this first one and any other story about what my mother's has experienced with a grain of salt, as it comes from the mouth of, well, let's just say a psycho. When she first moved in, lights would routinely flicker off. This would be normal if not for the fact that the light switch was the thing turning off the lights. Whenever they went out, you just had to flip the light switch back on to the on position. One day she'd had enough of this, she was laying in her bed reading when it happened again. The lights turned off on her. In response to this, she sat up and loudly spoke to whoever or whatever was there with her.

Please just stop messing with the lights. It's freaking me out. According to her, the lights stopped sucking after that. We had an old piano in our living room, and yeah, you can probably already see where this is going. It's predictable, but I swear to God that it happened. I was just chilling in the living room home alone when all the sudden I hear a loud bang on the piano keys. Like, all of them going off at once.

Now, you could say maybe one of our two small dogs jumped on it, but if you did say that, well, you're wrong. The lid to the piano was closed. It wasn't even scary, just startling. It did happen a few more times over the years, but I never paid attention to it after that. I've shared this story in the comment section of one of your videos, but I figure there's no harm in including it here. When I was like eight, I was home alone and about to go to bed.

As I was turning off the TV, I heard this loud, and when I say loud, I mean it sounded like it happened right next to my ear. Maniacal cackle. This laugh sounded evil. I don't know how else to describe it. It didn't sound like a neighbor loudly, like. laughing about something. I felt like I was in danger. Instead of running for the hills,

I bravely and stupidly looked through the pee-pole and saw nothing. Then I kind of slowly tiptoed to my room and barely slept. This would be creepy enough on its own, but I invited a friend over when I was 13. We were staying in an upstairs bedroom. To the left of the bedroom was a central hallway with a bunk bed in the corner. I was leaving the room to go grab something. I don't remember what when my friend calls out for me to come back.

I do, reentering the room and asking him what he needed. He then went on to describe the same evil laugh that I heard all those years ago. I told him that I'd heard the same thing a few years ago, and that it was harmless. He got over it, the end. And this is the last story that I have. It's not really paranormal, but it's something that has stuck with me for my whole life and still terrifies me. What was this horrifying thing?

A dream. Or rather a nightmare. Yeah, I know. I can hear you rolling your eyes, but I have to this day never had a dream like this again. This dream was separated into three. Not like it happened over the course of a few days, but more like three dreams all wrapped into one. The first two I have no memory of, because the third one heavily.

overshadowed them. In the dream, I was following the perspective of a nine-year-old girl. It felt like a movie. I saw this dream play out from several different perspectives. These perspectives acted more like camera angles in a movie. So, anyways, this girl is running through the woods, calling out to her parents or just anyone that can hear her. I first see from her eyes as she frantically sprints through the trees, watching her stumble and fall. Then get to her knees and her arms are scraped up, but she gets up and keeps on full sprinting.

After a few minutes, the ground suddenly gives way out from beneath her feet. She falls into this very large room with dirt walls. It was completely empty. My perspective switches, and I'm now watching her from the side as she walks around this dark room, still calling out to anyone that might hear her. Then my perspective switches again, looking towards one of the dirt walls, as a small humanoid creature burrows out from it. If I were to describe it, think of like the monster from season one of stranger things, but shorter. It had a lot of the same features as that monster, but the stream happened many years before that show was even announced. My perspective begins switching very rapidly, between this thing screeching and at the girl in this, I don't know how to describe it, almost a low guttural but also high-pitched

whaling sound, and then it lunges like 20 feet across the room and onto her. From there, I won't go into details, not because I don't remember, but because I don't feel like writing gore content about a nine-year-old girl. To keep it simple, I watched that thing open its face up like a flower and eat all of her skin. I think you'll understand why this dream has stuck with me. I was 10 at the most when I had it, and I still think about it to this day. This true story is about my first encounter with a shadow entity that haunted me for several years in my childhood home. This encounter happened a few years after my first experience, where I heard a woman's voice calling my name. It had been a couple years

since my father passed. My mom had started dating a man that she met at church that would soon become my stepfather. It was a warm summer Sunday night, and I was home alone as I didn't want to go to the evening church service. I loved Sunday night TV, and I was watching my favorite shows. I was hungry and went to the kitchen to get a snack.

I could easily see the TV from the kitchen table as our home had an open floor plant. Everything was good, and I was enjoying the shows and having my snacks at the kitchen table. Then, the lights flickered and dimmed. It wasn't uncommon during this era to have brownouts in this area of South Carolina. This time was different, though. The atmosphere in the house became heavy, dark, and evil. It got really cold, and I was a very cold, and I was a very cold.

immediately weirded out. The lights flickered for a minute or two and then went back to normal. Okay, weird. And I did feel uneasy. I remember losing focus on the TV and being hyper aware of something or someone being with me. I tried to brush it off and continue to watch TV, but I could barely focus on it. A few seconds later, I saw this shadow figure out of my peripheral moving around the entrance of the hallway to the right, and a door directly in front of me that looked into an unlit, dark formal room. The hallway went to the back of the house where the bedrooms were. I'm spooked out big time, but I hesitantly go to investigate this shadow figure. I looked down the long hallway, formal room, and bedrooms. There was nothing there.

There shouldn't and couldn't have been anyone else in the house. house anyways. They would have had to have entered through the back door located behind the den, through the mud room, and passed my line of sight. It couldn't have entered through the front door in the formal room. It was an oversized heavy solid wood door secured by a bolt lock, and difficult to open due to the frame swelling from the humidity. This door made a lot of noise when simply unlocking the bolt, and definitely when opening

it. We rarely used it. So, it was not possible that someone entered the house without being seen or heard. I'm very spooked and uneasy, but I try to convince myself that it was just a flicker of the power and that I was imagining the shadow figure. I lost my appetite, and went back into the den leaving my food on the table, and started trying to watch TV. That heavy feeling had not left the house, but I lost my appetite, but I had gone.

I tried to ignore it, hoping it would go away. A few minutes later, I saw the shadow standing to my left in the kitchen out of the corner of my eye. As I turned to look at it, it slowly faded. So I'm now frozen with fear. The lights dim again, and I hear a scraping noise from the outside of the house, which sounds like someone dragging a rake or something meddled on the brick exterior walls. I noped right out of my house immediately and ran into my neighbor's backyard. I'm scared to be inside or outside of my house at that point.

I'm terrified more than I ever have been in my entire life. I don't feel safe in the neighbor's yard either, but I'm a few hundred feet away from my house. My neighbors aren't home and their house is completely dark. From where I'm standing, I can see into the den that, through the large picture window. The room is lit by one lamp, and I can see shadow is moving about. At one point, I saw the shadow watching me through the window. This lasted for several seconds that seemed like an eternity.

It wasn't shaped like a person, but more like a tall, dark void of empty nothing. Around three foot wide and over six foot tall. It went beyond the top of the window that was three feet tall, six feet wide. and the top was six feet off the floor. This entity did not feel friendly. It felt angry and hostile. It oddly felt familiar, though. A minute later, I see headlights coming down the driveway.

It's my mom and stepfather to be. A sense of relief came over me and that heavy feeling dissipated. Almost immediately, the shadow disappeared and everything went back to normal. My mom sees me in the neighbor's yard and is immediately upset that I'm outside. I incoherently try to offer up some kind of an explanation, but I'm rambling gibberish. My mom, being short-tempered, says, just get your butt inside. There's nothing in there. I hesitantly did as I was told. When we got inside, she was not happy about the kitchen being a complete mess.

My food was scattered all around the table and the floor. I didn't do that. I usually cleaned up after myself. I had no explanation and had given up on trying to explain what happened. I knew it would sound unbelievable anyways. I have no real explanation for this experience, even after decades of research into the paranormal. Perhaps it was my father's spirit, angry about the presence,

of another man in the house that he built, or when my friends and I found a Ouija board in the closet and asked it a couple of questions, that's another story for later. The visitor, or something similar, would return again soon. The scraping noises would also return a few more times over the years. It's really great to tell these events after all these years, so thanks to all those that are interested.

I have a paranormal experience that I have a paranormal experience that I, would like to share. It happened to me about a month after my son was born. I want to give a little background that is importance to my story. I'll keep it short and paraphrase as much as possible. My son was born five weeks early via C-section due to complications. He was a tiny thing, only weighing four pounds. Despite this, he only spent nine days in the NICU. When he came home, from the hospital, my dear mother-in-law stayed with us to help us, as he was our first child, and we were very nervous about taking care of a tiny baby. My mother-in-law had experience with premature babies, since my husband, her first baby,

was also born five or six weeks early and was a tiny baby, too. Throughout the three weeks that she was with us, she would tell me that she thought my late mother was around. She could feel a benevolent spirit around. My mother passed when I was 14 years old, so it was possible. As a pagan, I believe in the paranormal, and this wasn't my first paranormal experience. On to the actual story. After my mother-in-law left, I was pretty well left alone as my husband had gone back to work a week earlier.

I was left to navigate parenthood with a tiny baby all on my own. My son had long fingernails and was always scratching his face. I would put the baby mittens on his tiny hands, only to have them fall off every time he moved because they were just too big for his teeny tiny hands. I decided that I needed to get some baby nail clippers, so I went to the store and bought a baby nail care set that had not just nail clippers, but also had a nail file and some baby mittens,

which miraculously fit his teeny tiny baby hands and actually stayed on even when he moved them. Sorry if I'm losing you, but all this is importance to the actual experience, which I promise is coming up. So, for a week, I had the little mittens on his hand so he wouldn't scratch his face. I was scared to clip his nails because his hands were just so tiny. One day after bathing him and getting him dressed, I went to grab the little mittens to put on his hand, and one was missing. I looked all over the house for it, and I couldn't find it. I was way too tired to worry about it due to lack of sleep from being a new parent,

so I didn't tear the house apart or anything like that. I'm one of those people who believes that missing things will show up, when you forget you're looking for it. They always seem to for me. That night, after feeding my son, putting him down in his bassinet to sleep, I laid down on the couch and I went to sleep as well. I had a dream that started out dark, but then there was this warm light that revealed a person. Usually in dreams, I don't actually see people's faces, but this person's face was very defined.

It looked like my mother's. In the dream, she held up what looked like a little white mitten just like the one I lost. And she smiled as she carefully placed the mitten in my hand. Before I knew it, she was gone. I woke up pretty much immediately afterwards and remembered the dream very vividly. I could feel something in the hand that was hanging over the side of the couch. I closed my hand and I felt the item. I realized that it was the little mitten like in my dream,

and I threw it across the room because I freaked out a bit. I could hardly believe it. Did my mother actually come to me in a dream and tell me that she found the mitten? After I calmed down a bit, I stood up and walked over and picked it up and looked it over. What I forgot to mention is that I had accidentally spilled something black on the missing mitten a few days before, so after examining the mitten, I realized that it was the one that I had been missing. It had the black spots on it.

But just to make sure, I went to the drawer where I had put the other little white mitten, which was still pure white, and had nothing black on it, and it was still there. So, apparently, if I were to guess, according to my dream, my mother found the mitten for me and wanted to make sure that it was returned so I could have it to keep my son from hurting his face. I know a lot of you are going to call BS on this, but it 100% happened, and it still freaks me out a bit to this day. This isn't the first paranormal experience that I've had,

and it probably won't be the last. If you like this one, I'll be happy to share more stories in the future. Hello Raven, it's Lily again. I don't think I will need much explaining, but I will add a little bit of backstory at the beginning. My mom is a realtor. My stepdad and her bought an office downtown in a town in Ohio. I'm not going to be specific what town, though. That office was getting a little small, so the two of them bought one close to the old one

that was once two houses. But the houses were put together. I can get to and from the office from my house and upstairs in our office. We have family friends living in apartments. One of the two who has witnessed the ghost or ghosts told me this. I will call her B for the sake of the story. B used to have a camera in the upstairs hallway where the three apartments in the building is. It's since been taken down.

She had the camera because of a weird woman, that I'll call M, who used to live in one of the other apartments who has since moved out, which will be mentioned later. Then there's the other friend. I'll call them D for this story. Now for the story. B had showed me some video footage from that camera in the hallway to show me some ghost activity.

When it played through, there was a ghost orb that passed by the camera, and there was a lot of whispering. B also had told me that she had, had heard both men and women whispering in this office slash apartments. The bigger story that she told me is that the main ghost sometimes screams and slams doors. There was one time that it even brought Dee out of his apartment with a gun, thinking that someone had broken in. It normally does this at night.

I haven't been there enough to have those happen to me, but I have definitely felt a presence around. B had told me that the ghost uses the voice of a man, but has the presence of a very mad woman, which is similar to what I felt, as I sometimes feel a bit alarmed, which I feel around people who are mad. B had also told me that it had teased her cat named Miko. It had also touched her thigh and said meow when she was at the front door of her apartment.

She's also said that it must have left with her. M, because she said she got nothing from a Ouija board and there hasn't been any activity in a while. It also must have left at least a little bit of its energy here, if it hasn't left with M, because I still feel a bit alarmed sometimes. Anyways, that's my ghost story, and I hope that you and the other listeners enjoy my story. Me and a friend of mine used to get together at least once a month, and go hiking in one of the forests near us. We even made a few trips into the local national park

because we wanted to get through all of the trails. The one by us has a few different paths in it. That can take some time to get through, so we dedicated each trip to one path. However, that's also because we tend to divert off the trails so we can get away from the groups of people and tourists, and actually look around and enjoy the view. This event occurred one of the times we were going through that very park.

We gathered our normal bag of gear that we took with us, water, a couple of snacks, a few emergency items like a small knife, first aid kit, things like that, and we met up at the park. I typically left my cell phone in my car because, once we got deep into the trees, it was kind of worthless anyways. My friend Troy, though, always kept his on him, even though he always had the same result. So, we got there and started heading to the last path that we hadn't tried before. This one was a bit more of an incline, so we found ourselves taking a few extra breaks on our way through.

It was also towards the beginning of summer and was super humid that day, so I know that was probably part of it. We stopped and waited for people to pass and looked around to try and find a good place to divert from the path. We finally found one, as we estimated where the lake would run, and decided we wanted to head towards that. We walked over by some trees, past a pile of dead branches and other debris, and were now no longer in view of set path. The trees provided some shade too,

which did make it a little easier on us as well. I don't feel like it was long after this point that we ended up running into this guy. We were laughing and joking about something, and we were pretty loud about it, when I saw this guy just standing in front of the tree. I nudged my friend to get their attention, And they stopped and they looked at them with me.

This guy didn't even look back at us. And the way he was dressed was even more bizarre to me. He had one of those thick, puffy jackets on with some really dirty and ripped jeans. He also had some long hair that looked like it hadn't been brushed in a while, as you could see the huge knot in the back of it. I didn't know what to do, so I just didn't know what to do. so I just apologized for disrupting him, and when he still said nothing or looked over,

I motioned for my friend to walk around him so we could keep going. As we did, I looked back to see his face, and I noticed that it looked just as dirty. But it was more the look on his face that confused me even more. He looked very cross, like he was trying to remember something or was extremely angry about something. Curious to know if he was really mad or possibly injured or lost,

I asked him if he was okay, and I didn't get a response. As my friend was telling me not to, I decided to approach him to, I guess, get a better look at him. Still, he didn't take his angry look off. of the tree in front of him. When I got closer, I also noticed that the dirt on his face looked flaky,

like it was dried blood. So I again asked him if he was okay or if he needed any help, but still nothing. My friend kept saying that we needed to go and that he was freaking him out, but part of me didn't feel right leaving him. So I pulled out my extra. bottle of water and a bag of trail mix, and I set it next to the tree.

As I started walking back, that's when I heard the guy mumbling something. So I turned back around thinking he was talking to me. He was just mumbling a bunch of nonsense, though, as I couldn't make out anything he was saying. So I just continued walking back to my friend when he did finally say something coherent. Not that it made much sense, though. He said, Tell me. Tell me your secrets.

I replied with, I'm sorry, what? Him, still staring at the tree. He has secrets. Tell me your secrets. My friend was about ready to leave my ass at that point, so I just turned back and we made a brisk walk away from him. I looked back a few times.

and he never moved, so we carried on. After a little bit of time, we finally got through the trees, and we didn't quite make it to the lake, but did find a little offshoot stream of some sort. We sat there for a few, splashed water on our faces, and just kind of chilled for a bit. We noticed the orange and pink in the sky, and knew that we needed to start heading back,

so we started making our way out. As we were walking, I was curious if that guy was still there so I could report it to someone to let them know because that definitely was not normal. And he probably needed help. I know we took either the same path back, or pretty close to it,

based on the trail of flat grass and dirt that we left, so it wasn't hard to trace our way back. And we definitely found the guy, but he was far from okay. As we approached, it looked like he had his hands on the side of the tree, and we could hear grunts or mumbling as we got closer. Again, my friend stayed back while I got closer, and this guy was seriously smashing his head into the same tree repeatedly. There was blood all over his face, his hands, his hands,

chest. You could see the blood dripping on his shirt and coat, getting caked into his beard, and all over the ground in front of him. On top of this, he was now screaming. Tell me why. Tell me why. What are you hiding? Over and over with every smash. While this is happening, my friend is yelling behind me, what the hell are you doing? Don't touch him. What is wrong with him? and I'm just trying to figure out what the hell to do. If this guy didn't stop soon, he's going to cause some serious damage or even kill himself. I decided to basically pummel him, but it didn't even phase him. He started crawling back to the tree to keep going.

I told my friend to run back to get help because I didn't want to leave him alone, but I wasn't going to be able to stop him and make him come. with us. My friend didn't waste any time, though, and he took off back towards the trails. I tried a few times pulling him away from the tree, but every time he would make his way back to it. With how many times I repeated this insane process, it seemed like my friend got back at record speed.

Thankfully, he was accompanied by a park ranger who was able to subdue the man enough to get some ties on his wrists and get him to sit on the ground. From there, though, he just rocked back and forth sitting on the ground as he screamed and cried. Some police showed up, too. We gave them our statement and had to try and convince them that we had nothing to do with him, except for trying to save his life. And then we were finally allowed to leave. We wanted to see what happened with the guy, though.

So we sat in my car and waited to see him come out. When they came down to the entrance, the guy was sitting in the back of one of the little trailers the ranger drove around in, and he looked out of it. I don't know what happened to him from that point on, though. The only other update we got was when a detective called me and asked if I had seen anyone else with him. and he mentioned that because they'd found other items indicating that there may have been someone with him at some point. I did tell them that I had left food and water for him, and I even mentioned the brand so they knew, and they said that that wasn't what they meant. They explained that they had found some clothing and a note. They wouldn't give more information than that, so I assumed it's probably important or serious, maybe.

but I saw nothing else there. So, yeah, that was the last time that I saw that guy, obviously. And the last time I was ever approached about it, other than when my friend brought it up to remember or tell someone else about it. We did go back to that trail that same month. I think it was about two weeks after. We went so we could see if we could find anything else to tell us what had happened. The trail, of course, was different due to some new growth, but once we got around the general area, the tree was pretty easy to spot.

The tree had bark missing, and there was a gouge in it. It was at the perfect height for someone to be smashing their head into it. It was eerie seeing it standing right where he was, racking my brain as to what was going on in his head. That was actually the last time we took the last time we took the same. that path. My friend thought it was too messed up to look at anymore, so we never went back. I know it's entirely possible the guy was just a little messed up and that there was nothing else to it other than he needed help, but that is just a scene that I can never get out of my

head. So I enjoy walking at night, usually alone, but sometimes with a friend or two. When I first started doing it, I was 16 and living with my grandmother in a small apartment. It was my way of getting some space and also a little exercise. I never had anyone mess with me, probably because I'm a guy, but I've seen and heard some things on said walks that have freaked me out. I'm also going to include two sleepwalking stories that I think were caused by my night walks. So, on to the first event. I always walked the same route between the ages of 16 and 22.

Even when I didn't live in the area, I would walk to my usual start point and continue the walk from there. It was a couple of miles down a main road, down a residential road to a park, around the park, and then up another residential road to the main road, and then back to the start point and home. The first event took place at that. second residential road. Leaving the park, there's houses on your left and a very dense patch of tall trees on the right. The whole area is covered by streetlights, so you would think that it wouldn't be creepy, but I have to admit that I never felt entirely safe on that section of the walk. I would keep to the side with the houses so that if anything happened, I could knock on a

door. This time, though, I had my best friend with me, and she wanted to walk the treaside. We only made it about a block from the park when all of a sudden, all of the street lights around us shut off. The nearest light on was about two blocks down. I was in the middle of saying something like, that was weird, when we heard a loud roar behind us. It sounded like something both biological and mechanical, like if you mixed a bear roaring with the sound of a train hitting its brakes. We took off running towards the streetlight that was on as fast as we could,

and as we ran, we heard branches breaking behind us. It sounded like this thing was right behind us, when we finally reached the light and we both turned to see what was following us, but then all of the other streetlights turned back on all at once, and there was nothing there. My best friend never went on those walks with me again. The second event was a different kind of horror, the humankind. I had decided to stop at the park during one of my solo walks.

It was in the fall and the smell of the oak trees was really nice. I walked over to the play structure and up the slide to sit. Only there was a couple of teenagers up there doing what couples do, so I apologized and walked well away so they didn't think that I was spying on them. I sat on the edge of the sandbox and stared at the stars, just enjoying the smells. I heard a noise behind me and turned to see a man walking into the park brandishing a shotgun. Not knowing who he was after, I yelled for the couple to get out of there and then ran in the opposite direction, specifically back the way that I came.

I stopped at the middle school, which is about four blocks from the park by the road. There's a gate between the school track and the school. the park, but going to it would have had me running past the guy with a shotgun, so I hadn't gone that way. I figured I could bang on the window and catch the night janitor, but I actually got one better. A cop was looking around the school with the flashlight. He asked me if I had seen anything strange and what I was doing there in the middle of the night. I told the cop about the guy with the gun and explained that I always went on walks before bed, and he just nodded and ran towards the gate. I followed, slowly, and arrived back at the park just in time to see the gunman

being put in handcuffs and pushed into a police car. I don't know what happens to the couple, but I never heard any gunshots, so I assume they're okay, though unlikely to use a public play structure for their couple time again. The last two stories are a personal nature. I had graduated high school, but I didn't know what I wanted to do. Financial had declined me because I didn't have any contact with my biological parents to get their tax information. So, no college. My best friend said that she was going to job course, so I went with her. They put you in these dorms that were square and shape, four bunk rooms, two living rooms into bathroom slash laundry room slash shower room in the middle. I had really bad nightmares

the first few weeks there, and also kept getting trapped in sleep. As in, I could not wake myself when I realized I was dreaming. One of these dreams still sticks with me. I sat up on my bunk and found myself surrounded by giant owls who were discussing if they should kill me or not. I pled for my life, but they ignored me. I ran out of the bunk and into the bathroom area where I proceeded to vomit sand into the sink. I felt it burn and scrape my throat

and could feel myself suffocating from the lack of breath. Then I felt a hand shake me and I woke up. I was in the bathroom, standing over a sink full of vomit, with a very concerned night guard telling me that I was okay, and just sleepwalking. This was the first time that I had ever sleepwalked. Job Corps couldn't get the sleepwalking under control, and I also started having fainting.

spells that they couldn't diagnose. So I ended up having to move back home. I couldn't move in with my family, so I moved in with the brother of one of my high school friends. I resumed my nightly walks, and things were pretty good. Anytime I sleepwalked, my roommate would just gently guide me back to the bed, or to the bathroom, if sleep me said I had to pee. A couple of times I walked out on guests naked, but he just explained to them that my room

was the hottest in the house, and that I sleepwalked, and it was fine. There was one time, though, that he didn't catch me. I had skipped my night walk this night, feeling too tired to go after a long day. I'd put a movie on on my computer, stripped, and got into bed. I don't remember dreaming, but I woke up being carried out of a cop car. They handed me off to my roommate and told him that we should put a lock on the outside of my bedroom door. I had walked, naked and barefoot, all the way to the park.

A security guard found me, realized I was sleepwalking from my responses, and had the cops pick me up. My roommate had gotten up to use the restroom and found the front door open, and that I was missing, so he called the police. Thankfully, they did put two and two together, brought me back, and handed me off to him. We did flip my bedroom doorknob so that the lock was on the outside and also put a chain on it just in case sleepwalking me figured out how to use a key. This story may be short, but it's something that has been stuck in my memory as my only ghost sighting, as I'm a very non-paranormal person, and have never put myself in a situation to be looking out for ghosts.

The story took place when I was younger, around 8 to 10. 10, so I would take it as a grain of salt, except it felt real. And I can't seem to explain it, neither then nor now. I was lying down on the bed, just chilling in the sun, when by the curtain I saw a face. Just a face. It was made out of shadows, though. For example, when objects make a shadow against the wall. However, this face was intricate.

It had glasses and a mustache, and it seemed to be looking at me. Though I was young, I did think to look around my room as to what might have been making the shadow. Except, there were not many objects that I could see that would have been able to create such features to a face. And, from what I knew for my science lessons, I felt as if the sunlight could not let such shadows actually be made. My young brain was very confused, so I did the next best thing, which was to hide under my covers and forget about it until I fell asleep. It's been over a decade, and I have no other paranormal experiences in my home. I presume that it could have just been my imagination, yet it felt so real. And I don't think my mind could imagine such a face, so it's hard to shake it off as just a coincidence.

When I was younger, I was anemic and would often faint. This lasted about roughly four years. The funny thing is that every time I would faint, a yellow haze would tint my vision, as I would try to tell a friend that I was about to faint. But it would always sound like, I'm about to fe, and I would drop. I never felt hitting the floor or,

ground. I would just wake up and be in a whole new situation with a different group of friends having a good time. Yet, after a few minutes, I would ask, wait, how did I get here? And immediately my friends would give me an odd look and I would wake up from my fainting spell really confused. This has happened to me every single time I have fainted. Every single time. As the years progressed, my fainting spells stopped. I've asked other people what happens to them when they faint, and all of them just respond with just darkness.

I just want to find someone else that may have experienced the same thing or knows of someone who has because I can't be the only odd duck. Hi, my name is Addy. English is not my first language, so please do bear with me. For introduction, the story happened in 2019. My sister and I were international students in Sydney, Australia. As we're on a tight budget, we rented a room for about four months. The house had three bedrooms, none of the rooms had locks.

It had a shared toilet and shower. The first room was occupied by the brother of the owner of the house. Let's call him D. D was in his early 40s, about 5'11, brown skin, average body type. The second room was occupied by D's friend, let's call him F. F was in his early 60s. He was probably 6'1 and also average body type. Then, lastly, our room, the 3rd.

room. Me and my sister shared a room. It's not really a big deal since we're very close and, as I mentioned, we were on a tight budget. And we knew Dee as he was a friend's friend of my aunt. So here's the story. I arrived home from work, rested for a bit, and then I go to shower. It was probably around 7ish p.m., and since it was winter, it's pitch black outside. And when you went to our shower on the right side, it has a big sliding glass window painted with white so no one can see inside, unless you open the window. Behind that window is our backyard, with table and chairs. So I went to shower and noticed that the window was slightly open, like just a little bit. I didn't give much attention as I'm thinking I can't be seen from the outside as it was a very small opening.

So I've finished my shower, and I just go to the kitchen to get some food. Then D comes in from the backyard with his dog. I say hi, then continue what I'm doing. A few months pass. Me and my sister were studying and working, so most of the time we're not home during the day and just using the room to sleep at night. One time my sister has her late afternoon shift, which was not her typical schedule, as she's always always, in early morning shifts. I left for work,

and my sister is still sleeping covered with the blanket all over her body since it was winter. We have the same body type. We're both around five foot and petite, so sometimes you can't tell if there's someone under the blanket, or it might just be a pillow. My sister then woke up as she heard some noise happening in the room. She opens her eyes and saw some of our panties

were scattered around on the floor. She thinks that I might be running late and just throwing everything on the floor, but she then saw my housemate F, searching in our laundry basket, looking for something. Then she saw F sniffing our panties. She was horrified and scared as F is a big man. My sister then pretended that she didn't see anything, and asked F, if he was looking for a charger. F was so shocked to see that my sister was in our bed.

F then said that yes, he was just looking for a charger. After a few minutes, F went back to our room and then asked my sister to not tell anyone about what happened earlier. My sister agreed as she was afraid that F might do something bad to her. She went to work and texted me about what happened. I was shocked and afraid, because I'm the one who usually gets home first. My sister then told Dee what happened. I didn't go inside the house without Dee coming home, and I was just waiting outside for him. We went inside without any conversation.

He then installed a lock on our door that night. After that happened, my sister and I moved out around a week later. But before we moved out, I was folding all of our clothes, and I remembered that I still have some clothes hanging outside in the backyard. It was pitch black, but when my eyes adjusted to the dark, I then went to get our clothes. My eyes moved to the shower window, as I see a very small opening. To my shock, when you're outside, even that very small opening, you can see everything happening. inside that shower. That is why Dee was usually outside in our dark backyard, because he could see everything

inside the shower without us noticing him, since it was pitch dark outside. This happened back whenever I was 16 years old, home alone on a typical summer weekday. My parents had left for work hours ago, and my siblings were all out at their friends' houses, leaving me the master of my domain. I was enjoying the silence, really. It wasn't common that I would be home alone without my younger brother and sister there. In the house, being completely empty, was a bit of a novel experience for me. I was sprawled out on the couch, just mindlessly watching Mari, or whatever else was playing.

You know, the mid-morning, brain-dead dramatic BS that played on over-the-air television. As I was lying there, I started hearing something. It was like a faint murmur that was mostly masked by the chatter of the television. It was like a quiet conversation was happening in another room or something. I shrugged it off, thinking that it was possible background noise in the show, or maybe a neighbor was having an argument or something, and it was just barely audible for my location. As I was sitting there, ignoring the background sounds and absorbing the paternity test results on the TV, I started to to hear what sounded like a slight knocking. It was soft, but absolutely distinct.

It sounded like someone was tapping their fingers against the hot water heater down in the basement, in a slow but intentional rhythm. I stood up and went over to the steps to see if maybe my brother actually hadn't left, but when I shouted his name down the stairs, there was no response. And then the tapping stopped. I thought about going down to check, but again just assumed it was something to do with the pipes, and that my timing was just impeccable. About an hour later, I decided that I wanted to go ahead and make myself something for lunch.

So I got up to walk over to the kitchen, and I opened the cabinet. The moment I opened the cabinet, though, I heard what was pretty clearly someone walking on the hardwood floor. I shut the cabinet and looked behind me to see if there was a little bit of the cabinet. there was anyone there, but, of course, there was nothing. The house was as empty as it had been the whole morning, and I was starting to think that I was losing my mind. I went back to making my sandwich, got all the stuff from the fridge, and went to put it together, when I heard more footsteps.

I turned and looked everywhere, again, thinking that there had to be someone else there. I ran upstairs to check my parents' rooms, as well as the other rooms up there to see if there was anyone else home. Nothing. No one. And that's where things went from, oh, that's kind of creepy, to hell no. And it did so pretty damned fast.

When I came back down from checking the bedrooms, the door to the basement was open. I don't mean, like, slightly cracked. I mean, like, wide open. like in paranormal activity when the one wife went psycho and they found the door open before finding her all messed up in the basement. Yeah, that kind of open. Of course, this was around the time of the first movie coming out, so my mind did kind of sway to demonic hauntings. But I was also a dumb kid and was definitely curious.

And because I was so curious, I decided to go downstairs and see if there was someone to, down there. What I was going to do if there was actually somebody down there, I don't know, but I was determined to do something. As soon as my foot hit the bottom step, I felt it. The air was colder, the ambience creepier. I swear that the lights even flickered so as to make me really lose myself. I told myself that I was just being silly and that there was nothing there. Then, the laundry room door, where the hot water heater was, slowly creaked open. Like, I visibly watched it open on its own. And of course, it made that old house creak noise.

At that point, I was ready to run back up the stairs regardless. But this intention was made an absolute reality, when I heard what sounded like a slight giggling sound coming from the laundry room. I turned to go, and as soon as I did the TV that we had down there, an old TV that was basically relegated to just collecting dust because none of us ever used it, clicked on. It was just static, obviously, but it turning on was more than enough for me to run up the stairs, out the front door and down the street before I realized that I hadn't even grabbed my shoes,

nor my keys. At this point, I felt, to put it lightly, incredibly silly. I was standing outside the house, barefoot, no way of getting back in since the door was now locked, and several hours out from my parents getting home. I just decided to walk over to a friend's house and ask them if I could hang out,

and I called my mom to tell her that I locked myself out, so I was going to be there for the rest of the day. That's pretty much the long short of it, I got incredibly freaked out by terrifying noises and weird things that happened, and then ran out of the house and got to spend the afternoon at my friend's house. When I got home, there was nothing out of the ordinary. The house looked fine, minus the sandwich just sitting on the counter half-constructed, which my mom did get on to me for.

I told her that I had gone outside to check the mail and that I accidentally locked myself out. mostly because she would have told me that I was just imagining things if I told her about the TV and the noises. Oddly enough, this was the start and end of it. It wasn't the last time I was home alone during that summer, but I never heard any noises or anything like that again. I did avoid the basement like the plague after this, though, and even now, when I go to visit my parents, I will not. Go down there. Hey, everyone. I've never really used Reddit before.

Normally I just read, but a friend suggested that I write this here, so we'll see how it goes. This happened a few weeks ago, and I've not been able to sleep well since. It plays over in my mind. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. For a bit of a backstory, I suffer from night terrors. I have done so for about six years since my youngest was born. I think it's night terrors. It's like my eyes are open and I'm aware of my surroundings,

but I see things that aren't there. Or at least that's what I always thought. Someone has said that this might be sleep paralysis, but I've never been aware that I can't move, if that makes sense. I thought that you couldn't move with sleep paralysis. Maybe one of you will know. I don't know what causes it, and I don't really know how to control it, but I have somewhat gotten used to it. It happens a few times per week.

I should probably speak to a sleep specialist about it. Normally, it's a tall man standing behind my door. He doesn't do anything. He just stands there silently in watches. When I come around properly, it's my dressing gowns or coats hanging on the back of the the door, causing the shape of a tall man. Every time my heart beats out of my chest for a few seconds, but mostly I can roll over and go back to sleep.

Anyways, on this night, I was asleep slash awake. I don't really know how to describe the state. My bedroom doors swung open, and a child walked into my room. Not unusual. I have two. eight female and six male. It was dark, being the middle of the night, so I just saw the little figure. I watched the child walk around my bed.

I sleep on the side closest to the door to the foot of the opposite side of my king-sized bed, like they were going to climb in on the other side. I said, hey, are you okay? They didn't reply. Without me feeling them climbing on the bed, a hand grabbed my foot. maybe five feet away from where they were previously standing. I have terribly ticklish feet, and I accidentally kicked out when they did it,

and kicked the quote-unquote child, that I didn't feel climbing into my bed. My heart sank, and I rolled over to turn on the lamp saying, Oh my gosh, sorry, sorry, sorry. And when I turned back, there was no child. I jumped out of bed, thinking I knocked them off the bed or something and just didn't hear it. No child.

I checked the kids' room, and, sure enough, there they both are, safe and sound in their beds, and fast asleep. I know it sounds mad, but I am physically shaking, typing this. I, to this day, do not know what happened, and I've thought about it. every night when I go to bed. Hello, everybody. My name is John. I'm a 17-year-old high school student with short brown hair and brown eyes. My sister Kathy, who everybody calls cat,

is a year younger than I am with long blonde hair and blue eyes. Anyway, Halloween time a few years ago, I was watching television late at night when I heard a knock on my bedroom door. It was my sister, cat, who had wanted to come into my room and talked to me about something important. I told her the door was open and that she could come inside. When she did, I noticed that she had a worried look on her pretty face. She told me to turn off the TV because she wanted to talk to me in private, with my bedroom door closed. I agreed to this as I quickly turned off my TV and joined her on my bed.

I sat next to my sister, and she began to talk. She told me that she went to a diner for burgers and fries with her girlfriend Jody. Afterwards, the girls grabbed flashlights from Jody's car and wanted to check the cemetery out, since there was a full moon and the place was very spooky at night. Kat continued that, further off, in the cemetery, in the deep woods, there was a coffin just sitting there. The girls were curious, so Kat decided to open the coffin door up to see if it was empty or not. But when she did, her friend tried not to scream on what they saw inside.

Kat said that it looked like Nosferatu, or Count Orlock the vampire that Max Shrek played in the 1922 silent movie classic, Nosferatu. Cat told me what I already knew, that the vampire was very ugly with a bald head, long sharp teeth, and long claws. Its eyes were closed, and arms were crossed around its stomach. She said that she immediately closed the door as she and her friend Jody exited the cemetery. It was near closing time anyways, and the girls knew that they shouldn't be in there any longer. So the two girls got back in Jody's car and headed home.

home. Kat said that she had to tell me this fantastic story that nobody would believe. It was hard to believe. I told her that she probably saw a very old man inside the coffin, and that it wasn't Count Orlock. I mentioned that if it was really Nospharatu, then all of humankind may be wiped out. My sister then looked at me with her worried face and just looked down and nodded as I hugged her. I then told her that she should go to bed since it was a school night and just dismiss this Nospharatu stuff. She nodded. I kissed her on the forehead and said good night. A few days later, Kat came into my bedroom once more and told me that that day,

she and her friend Jody were walking to the store, and they saw a very thin man wearing a black overcoat and a big black fedora hat on his head. The man was very pale, and the girls instantly recognized him as Nospharatu, the vampire. It was particularly frightening because it was daylight out, and typically vampires just come out at night to suck peoples or animals' blood. Kat went on to say that the girls were really scared now. So that night, they went back to the cemetery. This time Cat wore her gold cross around her neck, and Jill, Jody had a stake in a hammer to kill the vampire, if he was still inside the coffin.

But she said when they approached where the coffin used to be, it was not there anymore. There was just a big old-fashioned truck with ten and more coffins in the back, and the driver starting the truck was ready to leave. My sister and her friend Jody tried to tell the driver what one of the coffins in the back probably contained, but the truck driver just laughed it off and ordered the two girls out of the cemetery before he went and got the guards to escort them out forcefully. My sister and her pal had no choice but to leave the cemetery, mad that they didn't have a chance to kill the vampire if he was still in there.

I thought that this story was far-fetched, and I told my sister so. I told her what I thought that it was probably just an old man. man, she mistook him for Count Orlock. But I also know that my sister loves me, and she would never lie to me. And it did have me thinking about what she and her friend did see. Could it possibly have been the Prince of Darkness? Whatever my sister and my friend saw, hopefully it does not come back to haunt them, or us, or will all be in trouble.

if what she said was actually real. This is my first story submission, and hopefully it gets through. I want everyone to listening to know that this story is 100% true, and I still occasionally think about it to this day. Back in the summer of 2018, I briefly dated a guy. Let's call him Zeke. It didn't last long, though. It may be two to three months,

and our relationship primarily ended due to distance. In that short time, Zeke had opened up to me about deep personal things. One of those very deep things was about his little brother who had passed away. Let's call him Nico. Nico was a weed smoker, which there's nothing wrong with that, but one day it did tragically cost his life. No, it wasn't because of the marijuana itself. His dealer, to Nico's oblivion, had given him weed that was laced with a heavy dose of fentanyl.

He had smoked it, and everyone thought that he was just taking a nap. After no one could wake him up, he was rushed to the ER and pronounced brain dead at the hospital. They took him off life support that very evening. Nico was only 20. This tragedy happened very quick, and Zeke and his sister, let's call her aunt. Emery, had no time to process it. Nico passed away in 2017, maybe eight months before I had met Zeke. And at the time, Zeke and Emory were still, understandably, heavily mourning the loss of their brother.

Aside from all the background stuff, here's where the story gets chilling. Throughout the duration of these three months, I probably drove the seven-hour trip to see Zeek five times, and stayed for maybe four days to a week at a time. So, really, we were together in person for most of that short-lived relationship. It was summer, and I wasn't working, but he was. And I didn't really mind the drive. I actually liked road trips. He was at his childhood home, staying with his parents that summer, and I stayed at their

house with him when I visited. One morning, Zeke was making breakfast in the kitchen downstairs, and I was hanging out upstairs in his room watching TV, when I suddenly kept getting phone calls from an unknown number. I brushed it off as a crazy scammer, but after multiple calls, I decided to answer on what was probably the fifth call. I hesitantly sighed and said, Hello?

A muffled young male voice responded. Hi. I responded, Who is this? Muffled, he responded, Is this Dana? Before I answered anything, I asked, Who is this?

His voice briefly became more clear. I'll tell you if you can just confirm if you're Dana or not. Proceeded by dial tone noises, static, and more screeching on the other end. I responded, I'll tell you who I am, if you can tell me first. You called me.

Everything then got muffled again. I heard a sigh on the other end, followed by... This is Nico. Is this Dana? Now, in my mind at that moment, a call from my boyfriend at the time's dead brother was the last logical reason on my mind. I honestly thought this was some random just trying to mess with me.

I asked, Niko who? Again, he questioned, is this Dana? I hesitantly responded, yes, it is. I then heard a bunch of white noise and scratching noises. Through the white noise, he responded.

You know Zeke. I paused for what must have been 15 seconds. You might have the wrong person, which was kind of a stupid statement, considering he knew my name, but I was nervous and I don't. don't like random calls from restricted numbers. His voice echoed back.

I definitely don't. I nicely responded, but firmly questioned. Yes, I do know Zeke. How do you actually know him? The voice, still heavily muffled, said, He's my brother. That's when it hit me. My heart sunk, and I could feel my body go pale.

My palms began sweating, and in my racing mind, all I could think of was, could it be? I took a deep breath and calmly said, Nico, Zeke's only brother passed away last year. His voice echoed and I heard another loud screech. Yes, I did. Just tell him that I miss him.

I made it up safely. I said, whoever this is, this isn't funny. It's messed up. He laughed in a warm, friendly way and said, red ball closet Before I could respond again The line went silent and he hung up I felt a bit intrusive with what I did next

But I had to know So I went into Nico's room Which the family had left intact Open the closet door And there on the floor was a red ball My racing thoughts were confirmed And I felt a bit dizzy after that After Zeke was done making breakfast

I asked him if he could show me some old videos of Nico before actually telling him what had happened. And I told him that it was just out of curiosity because I never got to meet him. Zeke smiled and was more than glad to show me some videos. Well, during the first video, the next thing was officially confirmed. Nico's voice in that video was the exact same as the voice on the phone. I am 100% positive that I had a phone conversation with Zeke's dead brother.

The red ball was just too much, and the voice... It was his voice. It turns out that I did meet Nico just... From the other side. Some context. When I was in my early teens, I believe I was followed by the spirit of a young girl. I believe she inhabited one of my porcelain dolls that my grandmother had given me. Often I would see her in dreams or feel her presence.

I can't explain it. But I feel like she might have been the ghost in this story. My parents used to live in a big three-story house that had an old built-in intercom. There were speakers in every room of the house, minus the bathrooms, and even though it was old, we still liked playing around with it every now and then. You would have to have the speaker turned on and turn the volume all the way up, usually to even hear anything clearly. You also had to physically push a button to speak into it.

Once in a while, the intercom would come on by itself and play something on the radio. I found this spooky, but my mom brushed it off as the past owner having set an alarm via the intercom so that the radio would come on at certain times. We didn't know how to reprogram it, hard as my stepdad tried, and my parents were tired of of often getting woken up at 3 a.m. by the radio randomly coming on through the intercom in their room. So, we decided to just not use it anymore. And we turned all the intercoms off, with the volume all the way down just as an extra measure. One night I was chatting online with my friends on the computer, and I hadn't noticed the time was around 3 a.m. Suddenly,

the intercom came on in my room at full blast. It was horribly loud static coming through. I jumped up to shut it off, but as I reached for the volume dial, I saw that it was already at zero and off. I didn't know how to make the noise stop. Then, through the static, I faintly heard what sounded like someone breathing and then the voice of a little girl.

She said, When will you come to your senses? And then, just as fast as it had come on, the intercom shut off. Silence. I was frozen with fear. Being a teen, I jumped back on the computer to tell my friend what had just happened, and they said, get out of that house. I had to go tell my parents.

The hallway was pitch black, and I had to go all the way down a big staircase in the dark to their room. I held my breath and flung my door open, sprinting down the stairs. crying from how scared I was. I banged loudly on my parents' door, and I heard my mom yelp. She opened the door, and I ran in to tell them what had happened. They were more upset that I woke them up. My mom told me it was probably just some commercial on the radio or something. I mentioned that my intercom had been turned off with the volume down to zero,

and also what kind of commercial would say something like that, seeing as how it was so late, she didn't feel like trying to rationalize it. I was sent back up to bed, and if you guessed that I didn't sleep that night, well, you would be correct. When I was four or five, I remember my father telling me this story. There was this gnarly dead tree that was the third tree from the left, of one of our gates between the two fields. My dad said that when he was a kid,

he and his brother had been out in the woods when they saw a fire in the distance. Being young boys in the early 50s, they went to see what it was. Now, the story he told was that when they came out of one set of woods, they saw a large bonfire near the tree and what appeared to be three women dancing around it. They thought it was a party or some crazy paganism. Now, this next part of the story is hard for me to remember. It went one of a few ways. Either three orbs of fire ascended out of the fire and began winding around the tree,

or the women turned into orbs and flew around the tree. Or the women just began flying and the orbs were something else that I can't remember. But my dad and uncle immediately started running back to the farm. And I think he said that whatever was flying was moving in their direction, but I don't think it was quite giving chase. They went out there days later, and there was evidence of a bonfire. Here's the creepy part to me. As a kid, I was afraid of this dead tree because of the story.

Most of our dead trees fall at some point. just from internal rot after not being sustained. But this tree, several years ago, sprouted leaves and is now a full tree. It's not something I could miss because, like I said, it's by a gate and you just count three trees over. It's not some tree out in the middle of the woods with a bunch of other trees. I asked my dad about the story, after I noticed the tree growing up. leaves. He kind of chuckled, but more like a nervous chuckle. So I don't know if he is just playing a decades-long joke or what. Unfortunately now he has

brain damage from multiple strokes, and though I want to ask him again, his memory can't really be trusted as to whether he would remember if the story was a joke, just a scary story to tell his son, whether it really happened and he can't remember, or whether it didn't really happen, but his brain would trick him into believing that it did. It's crazy, because even though his story sounds made up, the dead tree blooming always unnerved me. Every time I open that gate, even now in my 30s,

my eyes are fixed on it like I expect something to happen. To avoid any confusion, I'm non-binary. A-F-A-B, and I'm now 16, and during the event, I was 14. I was at school, but I went to the nurse because I wasn't feeling good mentally and physically. They set me home, so I left school and headed home. I always take the bus home and was craving some energy drinks. Usually I go to the bus stop in front of my school, but since I wanted an energy drink, I went to one a little further.

So I buy my drink and wait at the bus stop when a car pulls in. He asks me if I needed a ride. I of course said no, but he kept pushing it. Like, come on, just get in. I once again say no while my whole body is shaking. He asked me some other things too,

like, where are you from? How old are you? I didn't answer those questions. Right then, the car passed. I just started looking at the other people who were also waiting on the bus to see if they were okay to then see the car just going to another girl, who was also waiting at the bus stop. She did the same thing as me.

At the end, he drives off and I call my mom to tell her what happened. The call went like this. Me. Hey, Mom. Hey, what's wrong? Some guy just asked me to take a ride, but he's gone now. I just want to talk for a bit because I'm stressing out. Did you check the license plate?

Oh, damn it, I forgot to. I'm sorry. I was just so scared, but my bus just arrived, so I'll see you at home. I got home safely, and I'm so glad that I did. Ever since this event, I feel unsafe at all times, except for when I'm home. I think about this often, what could have happened. Maybe he did actually wants to bring me home, but I doubt that. To this day, I still think about how I could have been human trafficked or kidnapped, or maybe even killed, and it'll forever haunt me.

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