*Long Story
I am a long term stalker on Reddit but never a poster - so here goes nothing.
I’m not sure if you’ve ever been reading some of these stories that others post and it triggers a memory long since forgotten, but I must admit that I am there today.
This happened when I was 12(F). Memories from back then are not so clear, I’m 30+ now, but this one is clear as day.
My parents were not super well off and for a long time struggled to get ahead. My dad worked incredibly hard and after many years of stress and fights and all the shit that comes with money troubles he’d saved enough to put a deposit on a home. (I was 10).
I remember the first time I walked into our new house. I know it was the day of the key turn over and though I don’t remember my parents excitement or energy I do remember the feeling I got when I walked in behind them for the first time.
It was a two bedroom, with a study. Not very big with really dark grey walls and a nice garden. I remember feeling this overwhelming sense of wrongness with the house. It made me feel strange and uncomfortable even though there was nothing about it I could put into words.
I tried to tell my dad about it and I remember him saying that it was just a big change and I’d get over it. I was a quiet kid, kept to myself and said nothing more about.
They took me to my new bedroom. It was so much bigger than our apartment. And I swear it I tried to be happy. But the walls where dark grey and it had those horrible star glow in the dark stickers all over the ceiling and one of the walls. There was a wardrobe too which was all black inside. All I know is that it didn’t make me feel safe. (Not that much made me feel safe in my childhood but that’s another long story).
My dad got angry that I didn’t like it. And I tried really hard to smile and say thank you. I didn’t know what was wrong. Still now I can’t tell you why I felt that way, but it was overwhelming.
Before we moved in my dad took out the old carpets and did the floors. He got the whole house repainted and those stupid stars off the walls in my new room. When we moved in it was a clean space.
Fast forward 11yo - for my birthday that year my parents decided to get me a pet. They took me to a breeder and they chose one. (I don’t like cats, I’d been bitten and scratched before) but I said thank you so much and loved on the kitten.
That cat grew up and it absolutely hated everyone. It didn’t hiss or scratch but gods it would just hide away all day and night. You’d never see it but the huge amounts of fluff and hair everywhere. (This is important bare with me). It would never come out or play. And because it was a ragdoll it was an exclusively indoor cat.
She lived in the laundry at night. Which was where our toilet was as well. So to get to the toilet you’d have to sneak past her at night.
I absolutely (I am sure like everyone) hated going to the toilet at night. HATED with a passion. But it was only about 15 steps from my bed to the bathroom and I just remember one night I woke up and it was pitch black.
*you could look back and say perhaps it was a moonless night. Or a cloudy night ect.
But this black was so thick it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up on end. Even on my arms. It was terrifying. But short of piss the bed I had to move my ass and just go to the toilet.
I would of got the belt if I’d woken my parents up by turning on the light and both were light sleepers. So I walk in that dark. And it felt like it was watching me. I held onto the walls and put one foot in front of the other. Eyes open or not it was the same darkness, but it felt so heavy. So strong. I turn and open the laundry door only to find the cat upright on its bed hissing at the window in the door.
I think I was so stunned that this invisible cat that made no noise ever was hissing and angry, that I just froze. Dread swept over me like ice over my body. I went hot and cold all over before I could even tell you why. I - fuck this is brutal to write
I turned my head and in that window was a shadow of a man with a top hat on. I know it sounds insane but I know what I saw. And I know he was looking right at me. Through me. No features or anything in that thick darkness but the outline of him was very clear.
I forgot to close the door or to breathe. I just ran into my room and hid under the bed. Rocking back and for hours until the sun came the hell up.
I tried to tell my parents. I tied to tell them and they didn’t believe me. They said I saw the shadow of the tree moving and reflecting. It was my imagination. I was being stupid.
That night on I made sure to pee before bed. Double check the security door was clocked. That the wooden door was locked. That the blinds in my room where down and that I had my lamp on. For a full year I slept with the light on and even then I didn’t feel safe.
Fast forward a year - 12yo
My grandparents came to stay with us for the year. The house was small so they moved me from my room and gave it to them. (I had no complaint I loved my grandparents so much. And they loved me. It gave me some peace in my life for a little while. )
The study was small. I slept on the pull out sofa. That touched the deck which had a computer on it. The window was narrow and in a corner but it was floor to ceiling. This room did not have curtains. My parents also didn’t let me take my lamp as my grandparents needed it to read at night ect. I tried to ask for it a few times and was told to grow up.
It started maybe the night I first slept there. I can’t be sure that part is fuzzy so I won’t bullshit. Id wake up for no reason at first. In the middle of the night. Once twice a week then it got to every night. My parents started getting angry with me over it. I was tired and the school was noticing.
They got me a new night light. Not a lamp but still good. But even with it on id still wake up.
Id say it was months that constant night waking happened without cause (though it could have been weeks) when one night it changed. I woke up to hear tapping on the window. Sometimes scratching. Sometimes breathing.
No I didn’t look. It seems my fear response it to freeze like a coward. But that tapping and those sounds was terrifying. At first it was only a few times but each night it got longer. Harder. More persistent.
I would sit in that bed with my head under covers drenched in sweat.
I wasn’t sleeping. I wasn’t eating. My parents were enraged with my bullshit. They told me it was birds. The flowers outside the window hitting it in the wind. That I was making things up in my head.
By summer I was a mess. My grandparents even offered for me to sleep in bed with them. But my parents got angry about it. Saying I wasn’t a baby and that was ridiculous.
It as a hot night. I’ll never forget it. It had been a scorcher if a day and we didn’t have aircon. Just a box in the living room. So my parents got the mattresses and put them in the living room floor for my grandparents and for them to sleep.
I got to sleep on the couch with them and it was the first time in a very long time I got to Sleep in.
When I woke up, I am sure it was afternoon. Maybe the one and only time I was ever allowed to sleep in like that since I was little, my parents were acting so strange.
They made me breakfast in silence and my grandparents looked stressed and worried. I ate in this weird silence too and the longer it went in the sucker I felt. Like I had done something really bad and I was about to get a beating.
But dad sat down at the table and started asking me questions. When did I start hearing the noises. What did the man I saw look like ect.
I can not describe the relief I felt that finally I was being listened to. I went over all of it. Again. For the manyith time. The man in the window. The cat hissing. The tapping. Everything. I tried to be as honest as I could.
I know when I looked at my dad when I finished that he didn’t believe me. He said he heard the tapping at the windows, they all had. But when he went to look no one was there. He said it was just one of the kids from school who lived down the street pulling a prank on me and he’d talk to the school.
That night, after a long hot day we got this beautiful summer rain. I sat in the garden and got soaked before my parents got home from work and just enjoyed that water hitting me and just washing away all my problems for a minute.
That night I was so exhausted that I just fell asleep watching tv. My parents moved me and groggy as I was I just feel flat on the sofa bed and passed out.
They’d left my window open my night light off. That night I woke up to the sound of my name, my full fucking name being whispered at first. Then it progressively got louder and louder. More demanding. Telling me to come to the window.
It was not a kids voice or a man or woman’s voice. I can no describe it to you. But in my bones I knew it was done plying with me.
When I tell you I screamed, I mean I screamed so loud that my voice broke. That sweat poured off my so bad it was like I’d wet the whole bed. My dad burst into my room and asked me what the fuck was going on. And I couldn’t talk. I could speak. I was just terrified beyond measure.
I was allowed to sleep with my grandparents after that. And my parents got security lights and adt security that they armed every night. They even got the priest to come and bless the house.
My parents even installed security cameras around the house too.
I never heard about it again. All the noises stopped. The darkness gone. The feeling of being watched all the time disappeared too. And I forgot about it. Friends and life and fun taking over those memories.
I did ask my dad about it years ago. I think I’d had a bad dream. I must of been in my late teens.
He said don’t worry about it. But the look on his face was haunted. Whatever actually happened he took it to the grave.