Fear Files

The Thing That Haunts My Family

This is my first story even though I've had many strange experiences before. A little background information: my family is extremely sensitive to "strange happenings" and a lot of horrible things have happened to us over the years including hauntings, sights of shadow creatures, unexplainable sounds and dreams that have an undeniable tendency to forewarn about things.

I am 18 and personally I only have experience with dreams that come true. I have never personally been haunted since childhood after my parents got desperate and called in a priest to see me, after which the hauntings stopped because I was very sensitive to the things that my family attracts. Now I had a very terrifying experience last night that has me traumatized of ever sleeping peacefully again.

I live on the fifth floor of an apartment building with my parents and sister. We've been living here for just over a year and have been very comfortable. That all changed last night. I usually read until the early hours of the morning and sleep at about 4:00am. My room is next to the bathroom and opposite my sister's room so whenever someone enters a bathroom I hear it, see the light go on and hear the toilet flush. Last night at about 2:00am I clearly heard someone walking/shuffling in the passage and assumed it was my dad going to the bathroom so I didn't thing anything of it. However, I didn't hear anyone enter the bathroom or see the light go on and eventually just dismissed it, returning to reading my book. I didn't think anything of it. At 3:50 I decided to sleep.

Usually I fall asleep very quickly but last night was different. For some reason, a sudden terror came over me and my heart started beating extremely fast. I was so terrified that I had to reach under the blanket and put my hand over my sleeping cat just to calm myself down. Then I felt something watching me. I felt its eyes on me and heard the mewling/growling noises that it was making in my room, almost talking and also heard it walking around in my room. I was terrified.

I thought that maybe it was my cat but she was dead to the world under the covers! I thought that surely if something was in my room, she would sense it right? I then told myself that it was the person upstairs getting ready for an early day at work (there's nobody upstairs, I'm on the fifth floor). I soon fell asleep after I 'rationalized' what was happening in my head.

The next morning, I didn't think anything at all about last night's experiences. It was completely absent from my mind. Then my mom came home from work and asked if she could speak to me... She then asked me if I had woken up last night at around 2:00am. I said no, wasn't it my dad using the bathroom? She then tells me that she clearly heard someone walking in the passage at that time, almost as if they were wearing slippers and my dad was fast asleep, and for some reason she felt apprehensive. She then woke up to check and found my sister's room door closed shut and thought that maybe it was me. When she turned around to go back to her room she saw/felt something standing further down the passage and she almost screamed in absolute terror. She says that the fear that she felt was so strong that she doesn't even remember how she got back to bed.

(Background: I have an aunt who lives five minutes away from me in another apartment with her three toddlers whom my granny and other aunt are looking after right now as their mom left for a work trip for a few days.)

My mother then tells me that my granny called her this morning and before my mom could even mention what happened last night, my granny told her that something was in the apartment last night because she and my aunt both heard it walking in in the passage almost as if it was wearing slippers and shuffling and they also heard it "calling". Before they heard this, the one toddler who has strong ESP started screaming in her sleep and they had to go and bring her back to the room that they were staying in because she was so scared. This happened around 12:30. My granny then saw a short shadow thing in the passage.

Basically this thing was in both apartments last night and for some reason chose to trouble my toddler cousin and me, separately. I have never had such an experience since my childhood and I am absolutely terrified of sleeping in the room that I was so, so comfortable in before last night. I actually don't want the sun to set right now because I just don't want to face what might happen again tonight.

Whatever this thing was, it was talking to me and filling me with fear while I was trying to sleep while also moving around in my room and watching me. And I would have totally passed this off as just a strange thing if my mom hadn't spoken to me about it today and my granny hadn't told us about what happened to them.

I'm not certain what to do right now because I'm personally not mentally equipped to deal with this like the rest of my family might be. And what was it doing in both apartments, scaring the hell out of my cousin and I while leaving our siblings in peace?!