Growing up, my father was very Catholic, going to church every Sunday and even having an altar in his room fully dedicated to Jesus Christ. To say I found it intimidating wouldn’t be far from the truth, as I personally held no belief within religion… But I found staring at Jesus’ face to be unnerving.
The photo he hung up was like any other regular picture of Jesus, depicting his long hair, stony face, and palms which faced the door, but it was his eyes that made me the most uncomfortable. Those blank eyes made me feel like he was constantly staring me down; eyes glued onto me and judging me for unseen actions and words, like I was being watched all the time. It wasn’t a nice feeling to say the least and perhaps my parents would disagree, but I knew something was off, this being more of a gut feeling.
So I avoided that area of the house frequently, opting to stay inside my room or downstairs next to the kitchen.
My extreme dislike of this image only increased when I turned six. It was a stormy night I was lying alone in my parent’s bed by myself, just like any kid would be doing. My memory is very vague when it comes to what I was doing before the incident, lazing about and bored in the silence.
In the corner of the room where the altar was, I looked there, staring at the dim photo, the rosary draped across it. My eyes didn’t leave the picture of Jesus and the eerie silence didn’t make me feel any better. Then all of a sudden, I felt a cold whisper, like something was telling me to look to the right. Outside my parents room, down the stairs, I saw a tall silhouette standing at the bottom, looking up at me.
My heart stopped beating altogether and my eyes widened, frozen in shock as my eyes locked onto it. I propped myself up to get a better view. This person appeared nothing like my parents… but then who could it be?
The stairway was dark, as was the rest of upstairs, but I could still make out its face and I vividly recall almost every detail. It resembled… Jesus, that same Jesus from the altar, with the signature hair, clothes down to his face and feet… yet it had an unnatural height, about seven feet tall and towering, coveted in the shadows, and devoid of any color… save for the red liquids that ran down his head.
It was unmoving, still, not saying a word or interacting, just gazing back up at me; like a predator watching prey… It was unnerving observing him observing me. And those eyes, those sunken-in eyes, I’ve never seen eyes more empty than in that moment. The pitchblack that crept across his face only made my breath hitch.
I was frightened by the creepy apparition, sweat dripping down my forehead and stuck in place, waiting for him to move, to run up the stairs and snatch me… But that didn’t happen.
Instead, my mother started calling me from the attic and I snapped out of it immediately, looking to the hallway to see her by the backdoor.
“Mom… who’s that standing downstairs?” I pointed down the stairwell.
She gazed at me, puzzled, before walking towards me and looking down. “No one.”
“But!” I turned back and it was gone, as if it was never there, nothing else at the bottom except for the dimness of the stairwell. “Oh…”
To this day, I still don’t know what I saw by the stairs. It was so real, so true, like I had actually seen some disturbing version of Jesus that very night. The experience itself was… horrible and from then on, I never looked at my father’s altar nor stayed too long in their room after that.
I don’t necessarily believe in spirits but after this, I suppose there is something out there. It couldn’t have been my imagination, no, my imagination would never think of something so grisly… and I’m sure I wasn’t dreaming.
But after all this time, now in college and moving onward as an adult, I still get goosebumps from that same section of the house. I still feel like I’m being watched every time I pass that corner, almost tripping on nothing but air sometimes. I try to pay this aspect no mind, but out of the corner of my eyes… I suspect it’s still here, still watching and waiting for the right chance to appear again, to surprise me once more… but so far, I’ve been lucky. Or so I hope.