I wanted to post this in case anyone has had a similar experience and could offer me any advice. I also wanted anyone willing to listen to hear the truth of my story in case something happens to me in the coming days or weeks. And above all else, I wanted to warn anyone that if this happens to them and their family, Don’t Look.
It all started when I was a 10 year old girl and I met an imaginary friend in my house. I could only ever make him out as a shadow, but judging by his size, build, and voice, I’d guess he was of a similar age to me. I tried to ask him his name several times, but every time I did, he would just say that he can’t remember, that he forgets sometimes, and then grow sad, so I stopped asking. We’d play games like hide and seek and tag (although I could never actually feel him when I’d touch him), or just sit and talk for hours. He’d tell me stories about the world he existed in, how it was apparently different from our own but layered right on top of it, how it was dark and cold there, but that I made him feel warm when he was around me. I could only ever see or hear him in the dark when I was alone, which often led to me sneaking around the house at night, and us trying to keep our laughter down so that my parents wouldn’t wake up and scold me for being out of bed.
As I grew closer with him, I’d often tell him that he should live with us, since he didn’t have parents of his own anymore, and he’d grow sad, saying that he can’t come into the light. I began telling my parents and older siblings about him anyway, and still asking on his behalf if he could live with us, thinking that my parents might know something he or I didn’t about how to help him back into the light, where he could live as a normal boy, go to school with me, and maybe even be my boyfriend, and husband one day. They would just tell me that he was an imaginary friend, that I’d grow out of it and find real friends at school eventually, but I would always just spend my days giddily waiting for late at night, when I could play with him instead. He was my best friend.
Then, one night, as I was watching an old VHS movie, (I don’t remember which one), in my older brother’s room along with my older sister, Chris 15, Lilly 14, I fell asleep. When Chris woke me up to take me to bed, the TV was just playing static now as the VHS had finished, and it was pretty late, with it being dark outside, and all the lights being off. As he was helping my sleepy young self up off the bad and Lilly stood to leave too, the TV went out. Lilly screamed instinctively, (I admit it scared me too), but Chris just laughed and told us to hold on while he tried the lights, but they wouldn’t come on, the power was out in the house.
Chris then went over to his nightstand, opened the drawer, pulled out a few small flashlights from a recent pack he had inside, took one for himself, and then handed two others to me and my sister. Chris was very protective like my dad, and fancied himself the prepared type, always having flashlights and pocket knives and things of that nature, as well as warning me not to talk to strangers that talk to me while I’m walking home from school, etc.
Now, with the flashlights turned on, and the beams lighting up the room, we all started to feel a bit better.
“The power must be out,” Chris said, opening his bedroom door and stepping out into the hall.
As we followed him out, I heard my friend’s voice whisper from somewhere behind us. “Don’t look at the shadows,” He said, though this time, his voice sounded scared and sad for some reason, and somehow, Chris and Lilly could hear him too.
Both of them jumped.
Chris immediately knew the voice wasn’t one of ours. “Who said that!?” He called out, turning every which way.
With no reply, and seeing no one, Chris continued down the hall towards the kitchen.
We followed closely behind while he called out for our mom and dad.
As we began entering the kitchen, Chris froze in terror, staring over the kitchen island and into the living room.
I turned my head around his body to get a look at what he saw, as I was too short to look over the island like he could, but all I could make out were several feet made of shadow like the boy standing in the dark of the living room.
I began hearing incoherent whispering sounding out in a cacophony.
“Who’s there!? What are you doing in my house!?” Chris yelled, then a moment later, he was gone. He disappeared from right in front of me, his clothes and the flashlight he held dropping to the ground in a pile like he had never been there to begin with.
My sister and I both screamed.
She grabbed my hand, pulling me along as she ran back into Chris’ room, where she slammed the door shut, and jumped onto the bed, pulling me up with her as we both began to cry.
That’s when I heard the little shadow boy again. “Don’t look under the bed,” He whispered from somewhere in the dark.
Lilly shrieked at that and began pulling the covers over us.
“It’s safe in the closet,” This time the whisper sounded similar to my friend’s, as it appeared to be the voice of a little boy also, but it was different, and I could tell.
Lilly, however, could not.
In a panic, she jumped up off the bed and reached for the closet door handle.
“No!” I tried to warn as I began pulling the covers up over my head to hide, but it was too late.
She threw the closet door open, looked at something inside, and then vanished, her clothes dropping in a pile just as I pulled the covers over my eyes.
I could hear more incoherent whispering all through the night as I hid there crying, feeling like I was being surrounded by those attempting to trick me to come out.
All night, my friend just whispered to me over and over again. “Don’t look,” He said. “Don’t look.”
As morning drew near, and the first light began seeping in through the closed shutters of Chris’ window, my friend changed up his tune. “It’s over now,” He said. “But they’ll be back tomorrow. I’ll see you then. Remember, Don’t Look.” And then he was gone.
I was so afraid, that I waited for several more hours, not ashamed to admit that I had to pee myself at one point, as I could not hold it anymore. Eventually, I hesitantly unveiled myself, my eyes immediately being drawn to my sister’s pile of clothes, as I hoped that it was all somehow just a vivid nightmare, even though I knew inside my heart that it wasn’t.
I tentatively wandered out of Chris’ room, passing his pile of clothes on the floor next to the kitchen as I called out for my mom and dad, being extra careful not to look anywhere a shadow could be hiding, and using the sunlight now streaming into the house to shield me.
Upon entering my parent’s room, I found the clothes they had been wearing the night before scattered across their respective sides of the bed and on the ground beside it. I knew they were gone.
I didn’t know how to call for help, as the power was out, I didn’t have a cell phone yet, and I didn’t know the passwords to anyone else’s.
I know now I should have went outside to look for help, but I was afraid that something would be waiting to take me, or that a stranger would kidnap me when I asked, like Chris had warned me about.
So, I waited, hoping someone would come for me sooner rather than later.
Every night, I’d hide under my covers, crying as the incoherent whispering surrounded me, and every night, the shadow boy would come to whisper to me. “Don’t Look,” He’d say over and over again through the night. “Don’t look.”
It took almost a week for my grandparents to finally show up, having grown worried that no one had been answering their calls, letting themselves in with their key, and finding me dirty, disheveled, and terrified.
They immediately took me out of the house when they couldn’t find the rest of my family and called the cops.
I went to live with my grandparents after that, and for a long while, the case of my family’s disappearance was investigated. Of course, no one would believe me about what happened, and eventually, the final ruling was that there was a break in, my family was abducted, and I was only spared because I was a child, and because I hadn’t seen the criminal’s faces, thus why one of the criminals kept warning me not to look.
They decided that I must have altered the story in my mind, as a way to cope with the trauma of what had happened. I was sent to regular therapy, and put on medication to help with my PTSD, but I knew the truth.
After years of being missing, my family was officially declared dead, and the house was passed down to my grandparents, as my parents had owned it outright. Besides going back to get some of my things during the day, none of us ever wanted to go back there, so the house has sat dormant and alone all this time.
I even tried to tell the police that they only come at night, but again, that was chalked up to the trauma I had from the night time invasion, and all investigating was only done during the day.
I am now 25, and have just graduated college with a master’s in Child Psychology.
My grandparents have both passed away over the last year. My grandmother from early onset Alzheimer’s. My grandfather from various health complications due to the alcoholism he picked up after losing practically his entire family over night.
The house has now passed to me, but I’ve stayed away this whole time, though now I’m planning on going back one final time, and spending the night there in an attempt to get answers, and see if I can’t solve what happened to my family in these upcoming days. I believe if the shadow boy is still there, he may be able to give me some answers as to what really happened.
I plan to make plenty of survival precautions, like my brother and dad would have, and I don’t plan to look.
But I plan to sell the house for dirt cheap, and use the money to move out of state, where I’ll get my own place, and begin looking for a position in my field. I don’t want to sell the house to some unsuspecting family, just for this to happen to them also, so I must make sure that those things, what ever they are, are not there anymore. I don’t want it attached to me or my new life in anyway, however, and its not like I can just go burn it down, nor can I afford the property taxes and home owner’s insurance to keep it.
I also want answers, though. To know what happened to my family and me. And I often think of the little shadow boy from back then that would play with me at night and tried to protect me during those nights of terror. I often wonder if he was just a little kid like me, and they came for him too.
I wonder if he looked.