I never believed in the Boogeyman. It was one of those things kids used to scare each other with on the playground, just a silly story passed around to make the darkness of night seem a little more dangerous. But now, as I sit here with the memory of what happened that summer night, I wonder if I ever truly stopped believing.
I was eight years old when it happened. My family had just moved to a small town, the kind of place where everyone knew each other’s names and the biggest event of the year was the county fair. Our house was old, creaky, and isolated, perched on the edge of a thick forest that loomed like a dark sentinel over our backyard. My parents said it was charming, but I always felt uneasy, especially at night. There was something off about the house, something that made my skin prickle whenever I was alone.
It started with the whispers. At first, I thought it was the wind or maybe my imagination playing tricks on me, but the whispers were too distinct, too… deliberate. They always came at night, just as I was about to drift off to sleep. I’d hear them slithering through the crack under my bedroom door, a low, hushed murmur that I couldn’t quite make out. It was like someone—or something—was standing right outside, speaking just loud enough for me to hear but not understand. I tried to tell my parents, but they brushed it off as nightmares, a side effect of the big move.
The house didn’t help my anxiety. The floors creak in the dead of night, the walls seemed to groan, and the shadows cast by the trees outside danced across my bedroom in unnerving patterns. I noticed things, too—small, almost imperceptible changes. My toys weren’t where I’d left them, the closet door was always open just a crack, no matter how many times I closed it, and once, I found muddy footprints leading from the back door to the foot of my bed. My mother blamed it on our dog, but I wasn’t so sure.
One night, the whispers grew louder, almost as if they were right outside my door. My muscles locked up, the covers pulled tight around me. I stared at the door, waiting for it to burst open. The air felt heavy, thick with the stench of damp earth and something else, something rotten. But nothing happened. The whispers stopped as suddenly as they had started, leaving me in the terrifying silence of my own pounding heart.
The next morning, I convinced myself that it had been a dream, that my overactive imagination was just getting the best of me. But deep down, I knew something was wrong. I could feel it in the pit of my stomach, a gnawing dread that only grew as the days passed. The unease followed me everywhere—during the day, I caught glimpses of movement in the corner of my eye, shadows that seemed to shift and twist in ways that defied the light. At night, the whispers returned, each time more insistent, more demanding.
My parents, still preoccupied with unpacking and settling in, didn’t notice the change in me. I stopped playing outside, stopped talking as much. My mother thought I was just having trouble adjusting to the new town, and my father, always busy with work, barely noticed at all. They were too caught up in their own lives to see what was happening to me—or to sense the darkness creeping into our home.
Then one night, I saw him.
It was late, probably around midnight, when a deep unease pulled me from my sleep. My room was dark, the only light coming from the sliver of moonlight filtering through the gap in my curtains. As I lay there, trying to shake off the remnants of sleep, I heard it again—the whispering. This time, it was louder than ever before, and I realized with a jolt that it wasn’t coming from outside my door.
It was coming from under my bed.
My breath caught in my throat as I slowly turned my head, staring at the dark space beneath my bed. The whispering was clear now, words I couldn’t understand but felt deep in my bones, like an ancient language meant to summon something vile. I wanted to scream, to run to my parents’ room, but I couldn’t move. I was frozen, every muscle locked in place as I listened to the voice underneath me, taunting me with its unknowable language.
The room seemed to close in on me, the walls pressing tighter, the air thickening with the stench of decay and mildew. The silence that followed the whispers was deafening, oppressive, as if the house itself was holding its breath. I was about to let out a breath of relief when I saw it—a long, pale hand slowly creeping out from under my bed, fingers twitching like the legs of a spider.
My heart pounded so hard I feared it might explode. Every thump echoed in my ears, drowning out my frantic thoughts: Was this real? Could I escape? I wanted to scream, to bolt from the bed and run for my life, but I was paralyzed by fear. The hand was sickly pale and impossibly long. It stretched out forever, inching from the darkness beneath my bed. The skin was stretched thin over knobby bones, veins pulsing just beneath the surface.
Then, slowly, agonizingly slowly, the rest of it emerged.
A head followed the hand, but it wasn’t a head like any I’d ever seen. It was elongated, misshapen, with deep, hollow sockets where eyes should have been. Its skin was as pale as the hand, stretched tight over its skull, and its mouth… God, its mouth was a gaping maw, full of sharp, jagged teeth that glistened in the dim light. A foul odor wafted from its open mouth, the smell of something long dead, something that should never have seen the light of day. It crawled out from under my bed, dragging its emaciated body with an eerie, unnatural grace, like it was accustomed to moving in ways a human body shouldn’t.
It was a monster. I knew it without a doubt, the way a child knows things that adults can’t understand. This was the thing that haunted my nights, the source of the whispers that had tormented me for weeks. It was real, and it was here, in my room, crawling toward me.
I wanted to scream, but no sound came out. I could only watch in frozen terror as it slithered closer, its hollow eye sockets fixed on me. The whispering started again, but this time it was louder, clearer, as if it was speaking directly into my mind. The words were still unintelligible, but they carried a weight, a promise of something dark and ancient.
When it reached the side of my bed, it paused. For a moment, it just hovered there, its face inches from mine, its breath—cold and fetid—washing over me. The stench of decay filled my nostrils, and I thought I might vomit. Then, it spoke.
The voice was a low rasp, like the sound of dry leaves rustling in the wind. “I’ve been waiting for you,” it said, the words slithering out of its mouth like serpents. “All this time… waiting.”
I finally found my voice, but all I could manage was a weak, trembling whisper. “What… what do you want?”
It smiled, a grotesque, twisted grin that split its face in two. “To play,” it hissed. “To play our game.”
Before I could react, its hand shot out, faster than I could have imagined, and grabbed my wrist. Its touch was ice-cold, the fingers long and bony, wrapping around my small wrist with a grip that felt like iron. I struggled, trying to pull away, but it was too strong. It dragged me down, pulling me off the bed and onto the floor, its mouth opening wider and wider until it seemed it would swallow me whole.
Just as I thought I was about to be consumed, the bedroom door burst open, and my father rushed in, his face a mask of panic. He must have heard my strangled cries, though I didn’t even remember making them. He lunged at the monster, grabbing me under the arms and pulling me back with all his strength. The creature let out a guttural snarl, releasing me as it recoiled, its body twisting and contorting as it backed away.
My father yanked me to my feet, his eyes wide with fear and confusion. “What the hell—” he started, but the monster cut him off with a bone-chilling scream, a sound that seemed to shake the walls of the house.
For a moment, everything was chaos. My father held me close, backing us both toward the door, but the monster was faster. It lunged forward, its mouth wide open, ready to tear us apart. But just as it reached us, the thing stopped, its body convulsing violently. It let out another scream, this one full of pain and rage, and then it crumbled, collapsing into a pile of ash and dust at our feet.
For a moment, neither of us moved. We just stood there, staring at the spot where the creature had been. My father was the first to break the silence.
“What… what was that?” he whispered, his voice shaking as much as my own.
“I… I don’t know,” I managed to say, still trembling. “But it’s gone. It’s finally gone.”
We never spoke of it again, my father and I. He tried to explain it away as a nightmare, a trick of the mind brought on by stress and fear, but I knew better. I knew the truth, even if I never told anyone. the monster was real, and it had come for me that night.
But I also knew something else. It wasn’t the last time I would see it.
The days that followed were a blur of confusion and fear. My father and I tried to return to some semblance of normalcy, but the memory of that night hung over us like a dark cloud. My mother noticed the change in us, but she attributed it to the stress of the move and the usual challenges of settling into a new place. She had no idea what had really happened, and we didn’t dare tell her.
I tried to convince myself that it was over, that whatever that thing was, it had been destroyed when it turned to ash. But deep down, I knew better. the monster wasn’t gone. It was just waiting.
I started having nightmares. Every night, I’d wake up drenched in sweat, my heart pounding in my chest. In my dreams, I was back in my room, staring into those hollow eye sockets as the monster whispered its terrible promises to me. Sometimes, it would reach out and grab me, pulling me into the darkness beneath the bed where I’d be trapped, unable to escape.
Other times, it would simply stand there, watching me with that horrible, toothy grin, as if it was waiting for the right moment to strike. Each time, I’d wake up just as it lunged for me, my screams echoing through the house. My parents tried to comfort me, but their reassurances felt hollow. They didn’t understand. They couldn’t.
After a few weeks, the nightmares became less frequent, but they never really went away. They lingered at the edges of my mind, a constant reminder that the monster was still out there, somewhere. I began to see it in the shadows, lurking just out of sight, always watching, always waiting. It never showed itself fully, but I knew it was there.
One night, I woke up to the sound of my window rattling. I sat up in bed, my heart pounding as I stared at the glass, half expecting to see that pale face staring back at me. But the window was empty, just the reflection of my room in the darkened glass.
Then, the rattling stopped, and I heard something else—a soft tap, tap, tap against the glass. It was a deliberate sound, like someone was lightly drumming their fingers against the windowpane. I knew, even before I looked, that it wasn’t the wind. Slowly, I turned my head, and there it was.
The Boogeyman.
It was outside, clinging to the side of the house like a grotesque insect. Its body was contorted, its limbs bent at unnatural angles as it pressed its face against the window, those empty sockets staring right at me. It grinned, that same awful, jagged smile, and tapped the glass again, as if to say, “I’m still here.”
Panic surged through me. I wanted to run, to scream, to do anything to get away, but I couldn’t move. I was trapped in that moment, paralyzed by fear as the Boogeyman continued to tap on the glass. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone. One moment it was there, and the next, the window was empty, the reflection of my frightened face the only thing staring back at me.
I didn’t sleep the rest of the night. I just sat there, watching the window, waiting for it to return. But it didn’t, and when morning finally came, I was left with nothing but the cold, gnawing certainty that it was only a matter of time before it did.
Days turned into weeks, and the Boogeyman’s visits became more frequent. Sometimes, it would appear in the window. Other times, I’d hear the whispering again, coming from under the bed or from the closet. I stopped sleeping altogether, terrified that if I closed my eyes, I’d wake up to find it standing over me, ready to drag me into the darkness.
My parents grew more concerned, taking me to doctors who prescribed pills that didn’t help. They suggested therapy, but I refused to talk about what I was experiencing. How could I explain it? How could I make them understand that the thing from my nightmares was real? That it was out there, waiting for the moment when it would finally take me?
One night, when I couldn’t bear the thought of being alone in my room, I decided to sleep in my parents’ bed. They didn’t object; they were too worried about me by then. As I lay between them, listening to their steady breathing, I finally started to drift off to sleep, feeling a small measure of safety in their presence.
But just as I was about to succumb to the exhaustion that had been plaguing me for weeks, I heard it again.
The whispering.
This time, it was right by my ear, as if the Boogeyman was lying next to me, speaking its terrible promises into my mind. I shot up in bed, looking around wildly, but there was nothing there. My parents remained asleep, oblivious to the terror that was slowly unraveling me.
I knew, in that moment, that there was no escape. The Boogeyman would never stop. It would follow me, haunt me, until it finally got what it wanted. And I knew what I had to do.
I couldn’t stay in that house any longer.
Leaving the house felt like the only option, but I knew that simply running away wouldn’t solve anything. The Boogeyman had already marked me; it wasn’t bound to the house—it was bound to me. Yet, I also knew that I couldn’t keep living in constant fear, waiting for the inevitable moment when it would finally take me. I needed to confront it, to face whatever it was and end this nightmare once and for all.
The decision came to me on a particularly dark night, one where the air was thick with the promise of a storm. I waited until my parents were asleep, then quietly slipped out of bed and grabbed a flashlight from the kitchen drawer. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was planning to do, but some part of me knew that if I was going to face the Boogeyman, it would be in the place where it had all started—my room.
I crept upstairs, the old wooden steps creaking under my weight. My heart pounded with each step, but I forced myself to keep going. When I reached my bedroom door, I paused, hand on the knob, gathering the courage to go inside. The house was silent, save for the distant rumble of thunder, and in that silence, I thought I could hear the faintest trace of whispering.
Taking a deep breath, I pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The room was just as I’d left it, unchanged by the weeks of terror I’d endured. But there was something different about it now, a heaviness in the air that pressed down on me, making it hard to breathe. I flicked on the flashlight and scanned the room, half expecting to see the Boogeyman crouched in the shadows, waiting for me.
But the room was empty.
I walked over to the bed, the flashlight beam trembling as I bent down to look underneath. There was nothing there but dust and a few stray toys I’d forgotten about. The closet was empty too, just clothes and shoes scattered across the floor. For a moment, I felt foolish, like a child checking for monsters that weren’t there.
But then I heard it again—the whispering, soft and insistent, coming from behind me.
I whirled around, the flashlight beam swinging wildly as I tried to locate the source of the sound. It seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once, filling the room with its sinister cadence. My heart raced as I backed up against the wall, feeling the cold plaster against my back.
The whispering grew louder, rising to a crescendo that filled my head, drowning out all other thoughts. And then, just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. The silence that followed was deafening, pressing in on me from all sides.
In that silence, I saw it.
The Boogeyman stood in the center of the room, its form barely visible in the dim light. It was taller now, more imposing, as if it had fed off my fear and grown stronger. Its hollow eyes fixed on me, and it smiled that same terrible grin, but this time, there was something different in its expression—something almost…sad.
“I’ve waited so long,” it whispered, its voice barely more than a breath. “But I never wanted this.”
I stared at it, confused, not understanding what it meant. My fear was still there, but it was tempered now by a strange sense of pity. In that moment, I saw the Boogeyman not as a monster, but as something trapped, bound by its own nature.
“What do you want?” I asked, my voice trembling.
“To be free,” it replied, the whispering voice filled with a sorrow that echoed in my mind. “But I can’t be, not without you.”
I didn’t understand what it meant, but I knew that whatever it was asking, I wasn’t willing to give. I shook my head, backing away from the creature, my back pressing harder against the wall. “I won’t let you take me,” I said, more firmly this time.
The Boogeyman let out a sigh, a sound that seemed to carry centuries of longing and despair. “You already have,” it whispered, and with that, it began to fade, its form dissolving into the shadows as if it had never been there at all.
When it was gone, the room felt lighter, as if a great weight had been lifted. The whispering was gone, too, replaced by the steady patter of rain against the window. I stood there for a long time, just listening to the rain, feeling a sense of calm that I hadn’t felt in weeks.
I don’t know what happened that night, not really. Maybe the Boogeyman was real, a creature that fed off fear and nightmares. Or maybe it was something else, something that I’ll never fully understand. But one thing is certain: it never came back.
The nightmares stopped after that, and though I could never quite shake the memory of those hollow eyes and that jagged grin, I slowly started to move on. I left that town as soon as I was old enough, eager to start a new life somewhere far away. But I never forgot, and I never stopped looking over my shoulder, just in case.
Even now, as an adult, I sometimes wake in the middle of the night, expecting to hear the tap, tap, tap on the window. But it’s always just the wind… or is it? I tell myself the Boogeyman is gone. But deep down, I know… some things never truly leave.
DON’T LET YOUR KID PLAY HIDE AND SEEK.
When I was a kid, my parents occasionally dropped me off at my aunt and uncle’s farm for the weekend. I would spend most of my time playing with my two cousins, who were close to my age. Their farm was a vast playground with endless open spaces where we could roam freely, indulging in whatever mischief we could get away with. One of our favorite pastimes was sneaking over to the neighboring farm, about half a mile away. The place had been abandoned for years, its decaying buildings standing as relics of a time long past. For three adventurous boys like us, it was a treasure trove waiting to be explored.
My cousins used to tell me gruesome stories about the old house on the abandoned farm. The tale was a typical horror story—something about a man who lost his mind, murdered his entire family with an axe, and then hanged himself. They said his spirit returned every night, seeking new victims. Even though I knew they were probably exaggerating old rumors, the eerie atmosphere of the place made it easy to get sucked into the story.
One afternoon, we decided to play hide and seek. When it was my turn to hide, I sprinted towards a rickety old barn with living quarters on the upper level. I climbed the stairs, searching for the perfect hiding spot. The inside was a mess, with broken furniture and personal belongings strewn across the floor. I carefully stepped over shattered dishes, torn clothes, and crumbling books until I found a small room with a closet. Jackpot. The closet even had long, black dresses hanging from the rod that I could hide behind. I squeezed inside and forced the folding door shut. The only light came from a thin beam of sunlight slipping through a crack in the door, barely illuminating the dusty space.
I crouched down, hugging my knees to my chest, and waited. Time passed, but there was still no sign of my cousins. I waited some more, debating whether I should reveal myself. After nearly an hour, I started to get bored. My head drooped, and before I knew it, I had fallen asleep.
I woke with a start, disoriented and confused. It was pitch black. For a moment, I couldn’t remember where I was or what I had been doing. Then, as it all came rushing back to me, I realized with a sinking feeling in my stomach that it was now nighttime, and I had been left alone in the abandoned house. I tried to stand, but a sharp cramp in my calf kept me grounded. As I squirmed, waiting for the pain to subside, I heard a door slam shut downstairs.
I froze.
Maybe one of my cousins had come back for me? But then I heard footsteps on the stairs—slow, heavy, deliberate footsteps, accompanied by a strange thud every other step. These weren’t the footsteps of a child. I held my breath, praying that whoever—or whatever—was out there would just go away. But the footsteps continued, ascending the stairs with that unnerving thud, pause, thud rhythm. After another moment of silence, I heard a dragging sound, like something heavy was being pulled across the floor. The footsteps and the scraping sound grew closer, wandering through the rooms. A faint, putrid odor began to fill the air, making my skin crawl.
My heart pounded in my chest as the footsteps reached the doorway of the room I was hiding in. They grew louder and closer until they stopped right in front of the closet. I couldn’t see anything through the darkness. After what felt like an eternity, the footsteps moved away, out of the room, and down the hallway. The smell lingered, and the silence was suffocating. I waited, trying to muster the courage to open the door and run for it.
Then, three things happened simultaneously: a rancid smell, like fresh roadkill, hit me full force; I heard raspy breathing right behind me in the closet; and I felt hot breath on the back of my neck. That was enough to send me into a blind panic. I burst out of the closet, relying on memory and the faint moonlight to navigate the dark house. Behind me, I could hear the footsteps again, gaining on me with terrifying speed.
My escape was clumsy, full of trips, bumps, and blind stumbles. I didn’t dare look back until I was outside, standing in the cool night air. When I finally did, there was nothing there—no footsteps, no figure chasing me. But that didn’t stop me from running all the way back to my aunt and uncle’s house.
When I arrived, a police car was parked in the driveway. My parents were there too, worried sick. They all demanded to know where I had been. My cousins had come home without me when it started getting dark, and after they couldn’t find me, they told their parents, who then called the police. The officers had already searched the entire farm by the time I returned, and they seemed skeptical when I told them where I had been.
It wasn’t until years later that one of my cousins finally told me the full story. They had been searching for me just like they said, but there was something they hadn’t told anyone. At one point, they thought they saw me standing in the window of the room where I had been hiding. But as they got closer, they realized it wasn’t me. Instead, they saw a young boy they didn’t recognize, smiling and waving at them, beckoning them to come upstairs. That’s when they ran back home, leaving me behind, asleep in the closet.
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When I was sixteen, my friends and I had this tradition of playing manhunt every Friday night. Our neighborhood wasn’t your typical suburban area. It was more spaced out, with fewer houses and a lot of open land, which made the game both thrilling and eerie. There were seven of us who played regularly: Alan, the oldest at seventeen; Dan, who was my age but a little younger; Johnny, Daniela, Nick, and Tom, who were all younger, with Tom being the youngest at twelve.
We all lived on the same block, so it was easy to get everyone together. My best friend was Dan, and we usually teamed up during the game. One night, we decided to play by Daniela and Nick’s house, but me and Dan had a plan to take it to the next level. Next door to their place was an old house that had been vacant for years. It belonged to Mr. Nelson, an elderly man who had passed away a few years ago, and no one had bought the property since. The house was perfect—dark, quiet, and filled with potential hiding spots.
As the game started, Dan and I headed straight for Mr. Nelson’s backyard. We crept around to the back of the house where the lake was and hid in some bushes. But Dan wasn’t satisfied with that. He wanted to do something a little more daring. He suggested we sneak into the house itself. I wasn’t too keen on the idea, but before I could say anything, Dan was already sliding open a window and climbing inside. I stayed in the bushes, keeping watch.
The goal of manhunt was to make it back to Nick’s house, which was considered the safe zone, without getting caught. I waited in the bushes, keeping an eye on the house and the surrounding area. After a few minutes, I saw two kids from the other team enter the backyard, searching for us. They made a lot of noise, which was a relief because it meant they didn’t know we were nearby. As they moved further down the block, I decided it was time to get Dan and make our move to the safe zone.
I looked up at the house, trying to spot Dan in one of the windows. I finally saw him—or at least, I thought I did. He was standing at an upstairs window, looking down at me. I waved to him, signaling that it was time to go, but he didn’t move. Thinking he hadn’t seen me, I ran over to the window he had climbed through and slipped inside. The house was silent, save for the creaks and groans of an old building settling into the night. I called Dan’s name, my voice barely above a whisper, not wanting to attract the attention of the seekers.
That’s when I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. Dan was right beside me, crouched near the window. He put a finger to his lips and whispered, “Shh.” I asked him how he had gotten downstairs so quickly, and he just looked at me, confused. He told me he had been down here the whole time, waiting.
A chill ran down my spine as I realized what that meant. If Dan had been downstairs with me, then who—or what—had I seen in the window? We both looked up at the ceiling as a loud creak echoed through the house, followed by the distinct sound of slow, deliberate footsteps. Something—or someone—was moving upstairs.
Without another word, we scrambled out the window and ran as fast as we could back to Nick’s house. We called the game off immediately. Later, we asked Dan’s dad if anyone had moved into the old house, but he assured us that it had been empty since Mr. Nelson passed away. That night, Dan’s dad agreed to go back to the house with us to check things out.
We re-entered the house the same way, through the window, and Dan’s dad led the way upstairs to the room where I had seen the figure. The room was empty, except for a crumpled, reddish-brown blanket on the floor. It looked like it hadn’t been disturbed in years. We searched the entire house, but found nothing and no one.
Dan’s dad told us that if we ever saw anything in that house again, we should report it to the police. It’s been a few months since then, and we haven’t seen anything unusual, but I know that someone—or something—was in that house with us that night.
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When I was about twelve, I had a strange experience that still gives me chills whenever I think about it. We had just moved into a new house in a quiet neighborhood. It was a modest place, but it felt huge to me, with lots of nooks and crannies where a kid could get lost for hours. My parents were busy unpacking, so I spent most of my time exploring every inch of our new home.
One day, after school, I was alone in the house. My mom was out running errands, and my dad was still at work. I was playing in my room, building with my Legos, when I heard a faint tapping sound coming from somewhere in the house. At first, I thought it might be my mom back from her errands, so I went downstairs to see if she needed help with the groceries. But when I got to the kitchen, it was empty, and the tapping had stopped.
I shrugged it off and went back upstairs to continue playing. A few minutes later, the tapping started again, this time louder and more insistent. It was coming from the hallway outside my room. I felt a prickling sensation at the back of my neck, but I tried to ignore it, thinking it was just the house settling. But the sound continued, rhythmic and steady, like someone was knocking on the wall just outside my door.
Curiosity got the better of me, and I slowly opened the door to the hallway. The tapping stopped immediately. The hallway was empty, just as it had been before. I checked all the rooms upstairs, but there was no one there. Feeling a little uneasy, I went back to my room and shut the door behind me, deciding to focus on my Legos and forget about the noise.
As the afternoon wore on, the house grew darker, and the shadows in my room seemed to stretch longer and deeper. I was about to turn on the light when I heard the tapping again. This time, it was right outside my door, louder and more deliberate than before. My heart started to race as I listened to the sound, frozen in place. It was as if someone—or something—was trying to get my attention, demanding that I come out and see what it was.
I tried to tell myself it was just the wind or some old pipes in the walls, but deep down, I knew that wasn’t true. Gathering all the courage I had, I stood up and walked to the door. My hand shook as I reached for the doorknob, and I hesitated, wondering if I really wanted to see what was on the other side.
Finally, I mustered up the courage to swing the door open. The hallway was pitch dark, with only a sliver of light from my room spilling into it. The tapping had stopped again, and there was nothing but silence. I took a few tentative steps out into the hallway, my eyes straining to see in the dim light. The house felt unnaturally quiet, as if it were holding its breath, waiting for something to happen.
Just as I was about to turn back, I heard it—a faint, raspy whisper, coming from the direction of the stairs. It was so quiet that I almost thought I had imagined it. But then it came again, a little louder this time, and I could make out the words, “Come here.”
My blood ran cold, and every instinct told me to run back to my room and lock the door. But something else, some strange compulsion, urged me to go to the stairs, to find out where the voice was coming from. I took a few hesitant steps toward the top of the stairs, my heart pounding in my chest. The whisper came again, louder and more insistent, “Come here.”
I was halfway down the stairs when I saw it—a dark figure standing at the bottom, barely visible in the shadows. It was tall and thin, with long, bony fingers that it used to tap rhythmically on the banister. The figure’s head was tilted slightly to the side, as if it were watching me, waiting for me to come closer.
I froze, my legs refusing to move, and the figure slowly started to climb the stairs toward me, one step at a time. With each step, the tapping grew louder, echoing through the silent house. I couldn’t see its face, but I could feel its gaze locked onto me, pulling me closer.
Just as it reached the halfway point, something snapped inside me. The fear that had held me in place broke, and I turned and bolted back up the stairs, slamming the door to my room behind me. I didn’t stop to look back. I just ran to the corner of my room and huddled there, shaking and terrified.
I don’t know how long I stayed there, but eventually, I heard my mom calling my name from downstairs. I hesitated, afraid that it might be the figure trying to trick me. But when I heard her footsteps on the stairs, I knew it was really her. I ran out of my room and threw myself into her arms, babbling about what I had seen. She tried to calm me down, saying it was just my imagination, that the house was old and made strange noises sometimes.
But I knew what I had seen, and I refused to go downstairs alone for weeks after that. Even now, years later, I sometimes hear that tapping in my dreams, and I wake up with the same cold, creeping dread I felt that day. I’ve never told anyone else about what happened, but I still wonder what would have happened if I had gone down those stairs and faced whatever was waiting for me.
