Scary Stories For Dark Dreams - Volume 07 | ATRD Podcast
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And thank you. Hey there. I've been a long-time listener, and I had a story that I wanted to share with you that, unfortunately, happened to me. I used to work at a liquor store for a little over a year. I actually quit after this event occurred. I'm a single and first-time mother. My baby is almost ten months old, so, needless to say, she pretty much never leaves my sight.

Sometimes my mom would visit and help me take care of her or watch her while I slept at my place, but it's not very often as she lives about an hour away. That's more so when she just comes to visit on the weekends. I'm in my early 30s and had been with the same guy for the last 7 or 8 years until he learned that I was pregnant. Then he claimed that he never loved me and he was just there for the ride, etc. etc. So...

He moved out of the apartment that we shared, leaving me to pay the rent alone, which I couldn't afford. After a nightmare of a move and more debt to deal with, I moved out too, and at least found a place that I could afford on my income. Before all of this chaos, I had a steady job at a staffing firm, irony, and they laid a lot of people off, which left me desperate to find anything that would pay me.

That's how I ended up working at the liquor store. To my surprise, they treated us better than I expected. They even had benefit options and were flexible and willing to work with all of us when it came to our schedules. This was a huge relief for me because I didn't have someone that lived close by to watch my daughter, nor could I afford to pay for a babysitter or daycare.

I told the owners, which was an older couple, about having such a young child, and their wife, Darla, was smitten when she saw her the first time. She told me that I was more than welcome to bring her with me, since it's not like she was going to be running down the aisles potentially breaking things. This was such a huge stress lifted from me, knowing that I could work and still keep my eye on my daughter.

I usually stayed behind the counter at the register, and she stayed in her car seat. Darla actually brought in a small bassinet that she had bought specifically for me, and she kept it in the back room. When I worked, I would bring it out and set it up, which gave her a bit more wiggle room. They really did treat me like family. The pay was decent too, so I knew I would eventually need to find a job where I made more, but... for the moment...

I was feeling happy again, and felt like I belonged, so I was definitely getting comfortable with the job. Anyways, sorry for the ramblings. I didn't really have a set shift and would work days or nights, basically wherever they needed me. This happened when I was working the closing shift, which was from about 5 to 11, but more typically until midnight after all the closing work was done.

It usually wasn't too busy being a smaller store, so it wasn't unusual to be alone on the night shift, which I was okay with too. We had a few of our regulars come in as normal, but then after 9 or 10pm on a Tuesday night, it was pretty dead. I would turn on the TV that was behind the register or just watch something or play a game on my phone. The owners were okay with this, as long as when a customer came in we were paying attention to them.

Maybe not watching them like a hawk, but checking the above mirrors to make sure they're not stealing anything, and making sure you're giving them your attention. Made sense to me. So, on this night, I had my daughter in the bassinet, and she was sleeping. I was playing Sudoku on my phone when the doorbell chimed, and a guy walked in. I greeted him, and when all he did was look at me and quickly look away, I immediately took a mental note of what he looked like.

Whether they're rude or suspicious, those people tend to stand out. Unfortunately, he was kind of hitting both labels. He was wearing jeans and a grey hoodie, with the hood pulled up. It had been raining though, so I could see the hood was a little wet, and I assumed that maybe that's why it was up. He had a bit of a beard growing that stuck out from the hoodie, but not much.

Thence, after opening the door, his hand remained in his front pocket when he walked around. This is when I started feeling a little uneasy about this guy. I would glance up at the mirrors and would see him constantly looking up at it too, and he would quickly look back down when our eyes would meet. I started watching his movements closer, and I noticed that he was looking around the store, not like he was trying to find something, but more so casing the place.

This started to worry me. We weren't in a bad or shady part of the city, and in fact, the store was part of a strip mall of stores, which actually had a small open bar at the end. So even though I was alone in the store, I was definitely not alone in the middle of nowhere. While doing my best to not let him notice my nervousness, I slowly dialed 911 on my phone and just let it sit there without hitting the call button.

and then slid it back under the counter. After he walked up and down every aisle, he came back towards the front while also looking down the back where the office was. He then approached the register, empty-handed, mind you, and turned his attention to the small shooter bottles that we kept up front on the counter. He grabbed a few and laid them in front of me. I asked him if he had found everything that he was looking for. While looking down, he said, kind of. He then looked up.

making direct eye contact and then asked, "Are you here alone?" I at least wasn't stupid enough to tell him the truth, so trying to sound as intimidating as possible, I told him no, in that the boss was in the back and asked if he wanted me to get them. He gave me a sinister smirk, declining my offer, and tossed a few bills at me. After giving him his change, he grabbed the bottles and put them in his pocket, which is when I noticed there was already something in his pocket.

Something long. I wanted to scream right there, but to my surprise, he just left. I watched as he walked around the corner, and when he was out of view, I quickly went to lock the door. At this point, I was pretty freaked out, and reasonably so. I called Darla to tell her what I'd just witnessed, and let her know that I wasn't feeling comfortable with being alone. Thankfully, she agreed, and understood immediately.

and she said that she would have her husband James come down there. She also told me to keep the door locked, and just let the customers in as they appear. This is what I meant by they were always very considerate, instead of just telling me to buck up. As far as I was aware, they had never been robbed, so it was a pretty scary situation all around. Made worse, in my opinion, because I had my little girl with me.

So I waited anxiously for James to arrive, and just kind of paced the front watching my daughter as she seemed to be the only thing to calm me down. Unfortunately, this would come to an abrupt halt when I heard someone trying to open the door. When I looked over at the door, my heart dropped, seeing the same guy. Except this time, I must have ruined his plans when he noticed the door was locked.

I saw his face immediately turn to one of anger and aggression, and we then made eye contact. I froze, not knowing what to do as my phone was on the counter, which was closer to the door. The door and the two walls were just glass, so what was stopping him from trying to break it, or worse yet, how well would the glass hold with his banging and yanking on the door? Because that's exactly what he started doing.

He began yanking on the door harder and pounding on the glass, while yelling at me to let him in. I just kept telling him no and yelling at him to leave, but he wouldn't let up. My daughter was now awake and crying, and this guy was yelling. I then noticed that his right hand, which he was using to bang on the door, was holding something. And when he would lower his arm to yell at me, I could finally tell that it was a large knife.

I was in full panic mode at this point. I went to grab my daughter, ready to run to the back when the glass finally broke. Thank god they had an alarm system that went off when there was glass breaking. So with my daughter in my arms, I ran to the back and locked myself in the bathroom, hoping he wouldn't try to go back there.

Unfortunately, as I sat there, I realized I didn't have my phone on me, so all I could do was wait until someone came to help. It felt like an eternity, trying to calm my daughter while also trying to keep myself calm, when I started hearing somebody calling out for me. They identified themselves as an officer, and said that I was safe, so I opened the door.

I saw two men standing by the door in uniform, and they asked me if I was okay, and then led me out to where James and Darla and a few other random people were. They hugged me, asked if I was alright, and also apologized that I had to go through that. We then all talked to the cops about what I saw, and thankfully, they at least had security cameras that recorded and saved every 24 hours.

So, we were able to provide that to the authorities. The guy also didn't get very far, as some people that were leaving the nearby bar could hear this guy yelling and banging, and one of them, in their drunken bravery, chased him down. I had to identify him, and man, I never thought that IDing someone would be so unnerving, especially when they gave me that same smirk when pointing them out.

Needless to say, I was pretty shaken up by this, and I told James and Darla that I didn't think I could do it anymore. They were disappointed to see me go, but also understood. I've been out of work for a little over a month, and I'm incredibly thankful that my mom has been able to help me with rent and groceries for this past month.

Darla actually called me last week and said that they were putting in reinforced glass and a much better door because of this, which was good to hear. But she also asked if I would be willing to come back if I was only working on days. I'm still mulling it over, as it was a pretty decent paying job, but that night keeps replaying in my head. Anyways, thank you for listening.

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I had a really weird encounter with a guy online about two years ago that I thought would be interesting to share. In the end of the whole thing, nothing really happened to me, but it was a bit eye-opening to the fact that these people exist in our modern world, and this kind of thing happens, even to this day. What's worse, it was on Facebook, of all places, that this whole thing unraveled.

So, a couple of years ago, I got a friend request from a name that was vaguely familiar. Like, I knew the person's name from somewhere, but I honestly could not place where I knew him from, nor could I place a face to the name. Their profile was pretty well locked down, so going to it, all I could see was his profile photo, and that wasn't his face. It was a photo of a young child fishing.

Like I said, his name seemed really familiar, but I just could not seem to figure out where I knew it from, so I just kind of assumed that it was someone from high school that didn't make much of an impression on me, or something. I ended up accepting his friend request, and as soon as I did, I got a direct message from him, like, immediately.

to the point that I almost assumed that this could have been a bot, and they were going to pitch some kind of scam to me. The message said, Hello, Gman12. Thank you for accepting my request. How have you been? Which was definitely a bot-like message. I ended up responding with something like, I'm fine, but how do I know you? He replied with a sad face and a, You really don't remember me? I told him that I didn't.

and he mentioned that he went to the same high school as me. Of course, this information is easily accessible, so I kind of just prodded a bit extra to see if they were just scraping my page for information to claim that they knew me. But then he mentioned a specific class. Ms. Browers, biology class, fourth period of sophomore year. He said that he and I were partners in the cell biology project, which made it all click.

I actually did know this guy. He was someone that I was acquaintances with. I wasn't super close to him, but he was someone that I had met in the past, so I was a bit more comfortable with adding him as a friend. I mentioned that I knew who he was now and apologized for not remembering him, saying that it had been a long time and that I had a bad memory, just trying to make light of the situation.

We chatted for a bit, just catching up on a few things that had happened over the years. And really, it was a pretty normal conversation. The next day, I had actually gotten another message from him. It was just a hey, so I responded and asked what was up, just making small talk again. He sent a message that said, I promise that what I'm about to say to you is not a scam or anything, it's not an MLM, but I have to shoot my shot.

Obviously, this message did not bode well. I assumed that he was about to try to sell me on some kind of pyramid scheme, but it was actually weirder than that. He mentioned that he was about to go on a retreat for a group that he was a part of, and that he wanted to talk to me about going with him. I asked what kind of group he was referring to, because it was a bit weird to put it that way, and he told me that it was like a church group, and that he wanted to go with me.

and that it was what they called a self-focus and healing retreat, and they encouraged people to bring friends that may benefit from it. He then mentioned that he saw I was going through some tough times, and that it may really help me. I told him that I wasn't really religious, and that I did appreciate the thought, because I was going through some things, but I didn't really see me fitting into the group if it was for a church."

He pushed it a bit further, saying that it wasn't a religious retreat, and that all were welcome. I said that if it was for a church, how could it not be religious? And he mentioned that they were not the type of group to push faith on their visitors, and that they would not be trying to convert people. It was simply about trying to find yourself and committing to self-reflection. This all sounded really weird. An event called a self-focus and healing retreat?

For a church group that wasn't faith-based or religious in nature, I was definitely curious. So, I asked him if he could give me any information on his church, expecting something like a website or something. He then told me that he could actually get me in on one of their sessions, which was, again, a weird word to use. I asked if it was an in-person thing, trying to get out of it.

and he mentioned that, thanks to COVID guidelines, they had moved their normal sessions to be online through Zoom calls. I relented, and said that I would just go ahead and sit in on the next one and see what it was all about. It was an hour of my time on a Tuesday. It wasn't a big deal to me in the end. The minute that Zoom call started, I knew that this was way more than just a little church get-together.

When the session started, there was a group of like ten men that walked into the camera's focus, and they were all wearing white robes and masks. Not like a certain group that one may associate with this kind of dress. They were actual masks, not hoods. They covered the entirety of the men's faces, with holes only cut out for their eyes.

The ten men then started chanting and stepped in unison to create a circle on the stage, and after about five minutes of chanting, they formed a line and stared straight into the camera. No joke, this entire line of men then started to undress, like stripping down from their robes to literally nothing except for the masks. I have never clicked off of a Zoom call so damn fast. This was a cult.

This guy was trying to recruit me into some kind of cult, and apparently they needed to be naked to do whatever they did during their weekly meetings? I will give them credit for taking it online to be considerate of those that may not be able to make it in person, but yeah, not for me. The guy then sent me a message about two hours later asking me what I thought, and I mentioned that it seemed a bit cult-like, and that I didn't stay for the whole thing.

He got pretty irate and asked me when I left. I mentioned that I left whenever the old men on stage started getting naked, and he went off. He started on about how I didn't understand the importance of what they were doing, what their stripping down signified, and since I left, I missed the entire point of the session. I told him again that this was a cult, and that I didn't need to understand it.

Needless to say, he blocked me. Which was fine with me. I wasn't really interested in all this because, yeah, cults are not my thing. That's the strangest thing that I've ever dealt with online, and I'm kind of glad that I haven't gotten a message from him about it again at all, and that he decided that blocking me was the proper way to deal with it. And if I'm being completely honest...

I kind of almost wish that it was just a pyramid scheme. So let me start by saying that my brother and I are extremely experienced desert campers, and we've lived near deserts pretty much our whole lives. I have never in the 20 years of my life, for one second, believed in anything paranormal or anything to do with evil spirits.

unlike my brother who has always sensed presences and been able to see mostly what we call "Jin" also known as demons until last night which is safe to say marks the last time we will be camping alone in the desert. We always have the same place that we like to go when we went to camp with minimum effort and our day started as normal as ever but as we got closer and closer to our destination

I saw my brother's mood completely shift, and when I asked what was wrong, he just shrugged me off and told me to keep driving. When we arrived, I felt completely fine, but my brother was still unusually quiet. It was around 1pm at that point, and we were planning on leaving at around 12-1am. Because of the heat, we made the terrible decision to set up under a few trees and a source of water.

which, in Middle Eastern culture, is where the Jinns live at night. Not that I believed that at the time, of course. However, we still set up our camp and continued on as normal. Now, my brother always says that when he feels a presence, or several in this case, he gets extremely unlucky. First, he almost dropped a box of coals on his foot. Then he spilled an entire bottle of coke on his phone.

Then he dropped it into the sand, and then proceeded to smash his elbow on the edge of the chair he was sitting on, which is now very swollen. And last but certainly not least, when he was looking through one of the boxes, he felt something cold and sharp press right against his arm, and he realized it was an unsheathed knife, which we packed with its case the previous night before.

and he later said it felt like something pushed his hand into it, right where his veins are. All of these events consecutively within a matter of a few hours was certainly making us both uneasy, and I for the life of me could not figure out why he was suddenly so unlucky. As I was starting to question his clumsiness, a random couple appeared out of nowhere, informing us that they were stuck in the sand and needed help.

We drive a Land Cruiser and they had a Nissan Altima, so we didn't expect to encounter as many issues as we did. We first dug them out without any issue, but as we pushed them out of the sand, they ended up getting stuck again. If you know anything about dune bashing or desert camping, then you understand the physics behind how wheels get stuck in the sand, and the way this Nissan was stuck was incredibly unusual.

It was literally stuck somewhere with plenty of space available for grip. And later on, my brother said that as we were digging them out of the sand, that's when he really started feeling the evil presence around us, but didn't want to say anything so as to not ruin the trip and freak me out. We ended up having to tow them out of the sand, which again was far harder than it had to be.

First, our tow strap broke off their bumper. Tow straps cost $200 and was fine, but their bumper was slightly damaged. Then we almost got stuck ourselves, and a 20 minute job took more like 90, which again was extremely unusual, and in hindsight, was just the beginning of all the crap to come. When we came back to our camp, we noticed how everything around us had gotten unusually quiet.

The area that we were in has hundreds of birds around, and as far as we've seen, three cats, who sometimes pay us a visit. But there wasn't a single noise at all, other than our fire, which was dying out unusually quick. It had gotten dark quickly, so we had to scramble to build a fire to cook our dinner before we were asked to help the couple. And I had noticed the silence, but it hadn't bothered me.

However, my brother suddenly grabbed my hand as we were sitting down to eat and said with clear fear in his voice that we should go as quickly as possible and that he didn't feel safe. To ease both of our minds, we prayed. We're Christians, so of course we thought it would help us. But I think that it accelerated everything that happened and just made whatever was there with us angry. We quickly finished our dinner and, me being the skeptic,

I was completely fine. I was pretty much just humoring my brother, until I started getting the nagging feeling that it was time to pack up and leave. It hit me like a wave, and I was quite taken aback by the feelings, so I voiced it to my brother, and he agreed that we should pack up right away and get out of there. We started packing up at a normal pace, like we were just tired and wanted to leave.

And that was when we heard a sound very close to us, on the opposite side of the pond, which wasn't that big. I can only describe it as the sound of death itself, and it seemed to go on for several minutes. And when I say that we looked at each other in absolute fear, I genuinely mean that I was ready to have a heart attack right then and there. At that point...

After being frozen for a few minutes, and quite reasonably so after hearing that bellowing screech so close to us, we turned on the car, drove it back so we could see better with the headlamps, and just started throwing everything into the car, without much care, but with a whole lot of urgency. And it was like, after the screaming, that's when stuff really hit the fans.

First, it was the sound of twigs snapping in footsteps all around us. Then it was the shadows behind the trees. I tried everything to try and get those shadows to change shape, walking around the trees and moving the lights, but nothing. It looked like there were people just staring at us the whole time, and you could really feel it, too. We really felt like we were not alone, and that we were not with friendly entities, either.

We also noticed that all three cats were huddled right behind our car, away from the trees, so they weren't the ones snapping the twigs, but literally did not care if they were not going to move. I was still getting out of there. Thankfully, they left when we started reversing, but they too looked absolutely terrified, and were just staring at the trees too. It also felt like whatever was there was getting closer.

I've never felt anything like it. It was a gut feeling and you just know it's one of those natural instincts that you should not ignore. Thankfully, we were able to pack up quickly. Our tent was very close to the trees though and that was a nerve-wracking experience. And whilst we're packing, it's still very silent. It's very normal for the birds around that area to continue making sound until 2 or 3 in the morning.

and at this point it was about 8pm, so it was highly unusual. I personally think that I was more terrified. As I was driving away back onto the main dirt path to leave the desert, I know cars very well. I know how they drive in the sand, and I know our car especially well because we've had it for so long.

I could instantly tell that the steering was off and completely fighting against me, which fixed itself the second we were on the highway. The sound of twigs snapping was still all around us, and it was loud enough to be heard over the sounds of the car, and on the path was what seemed like every bird that was in the area, just standing there, staring at us until we got close enough to force them to walk, not even fly away.

At one point, my brother just grabbed my shoulder and told me very sternly to keep looking in front of me, and under no circumstances to look through his window. It was the tone of his voice that told me to listen to him, for the love of God. We were in a part of the desert where we had to pretty much drive through the whole of the accessible area to get onto the highway, and there wasn't a single person around us. The only thing we saw was a very clearly abandoned Toyota Hilux.

positioned behind a small dune and hidden by the trees, but that was far enough from our campsite to easily be ruled out as the source of the original screech. The worst thing that I saw was as we were closing to the exit. Now, we know these deserts very well. We've both grown up here and have been riding dirt bikes and quad bikes in these deserts since we moved here, and we know what wildlife to expect. Cats, birds, spiders, goats, camels, mice, foxes...

Maybe even the occasional scorpion if you're really unlucky. Or a snake, but that's it. There's nothing else in these deserts. But we saw, standing in the middle of the path, staring directly at us, a deer. A freaking deer. I've only ever seen one deer in 16 years of living here, and that was in someone's garden as a pet. It's safe to say that I was in complete shock.

and the deer was just not moving at all, until I got close enough that we could practically smell the thing before it walked off the path whilst staring directly at us. We quickly moved past the deer, and again, my brother said with a gasp, but very sternly, to keep my eyes on the road.

I asked him as we got on the highway what it was that he kept seeing, and he very reluctantly told me that he kept seeing large figures around us any time we went through a bend, and they were all either pointing right at us or ahead of us. I'm very glad that he didn't tell me at the time, because I would have lost it. We still were yet to encounter anyone, but we still very clearly heard sounds all around us.

And again, not the usual bird or cat, but very clearly big and unrelenting. When I saw the exit, I was as happy as I have ever been. But that quickly faded when, once again, we saw another deer standing right in the middle of the road, slowly walking away, looking right at us. Except, this time, it didn't really look like a deer.

more like a kangaroo mixed with a deer, and its eyes were milky and just... it looked rotten and horrible. But I didn't much care. I just stepped on the gas, and fortunately it had gotten out of the way in time. Now, when you exit the desert, you can either turn right onto a long stretch of highway, or you can go left and go through a small town and then take the back streets to a parallel highway, and as I was about to turn right...

My brother, once again with that same tone of voice, said to go to the town, and to go to the right. Later, he once again said that he saw a line of figures pointing ahead of us, so if we would have gone that way, we wouldn't have made it home in one piece. Thankfully, as we made it further and further away, and close to our home, the gut feeling of being watched was going away.

And, of course, having never experienced something like this before, I was distraught, and I wanted to talk about it. My brother told me as we were going home that, because we were alone, the djinn wanted to mess with us, that they wanted to scare us and most likely cause us harm, and that the way they get to you in such rural places is to force you to stop and then do whatever they want.

which makes sense as to why there were so many animals in our path. He also said that they caused bad luck, and that he could feel them the second we entered the desert, which explains his clumsiness all day, and the car that got stuck in such an unusual manner. This is also my younger brother, by three years, and naturally anytime he ever told me about this sort of thing, I just always dismissed him as him scaring himself.

I can excuse the sounds that we heard and the shadows that we saw last night. I can excuse the gut feeling as just being scared. But I cannot excuse the two deer that we saw staring right at us. And I cannot excuse the car just randomly fighting against me as I was driving. The deer completely freaked me out, as did the tone of my brother's voice. I'm also sorry if this is written sporadically as I'm still shaken up and trying to make sense of everything.

and it's safe to say that we are not going camping there again, and it's also safe to say that I'm never dismissing my brother when it comes to this kind of thing again, and I am so thankful that we made it home safely. I also forgot to mention that as we were setting up our tent, it was fighting us. We would secure one end of it into the ground and instantly another end would pop out, and after we finally managed to get it set up,

It looked as if something was pushing it in, and it collapsed once before we got it back up. And again, it looked like something was pushing on it, which is something neither of us have ever experienced before, and we've even set up tents in the middle of a sandstorm. Back in my early 20s, I used to work for a large tech company that made and repaired a lot of large, expensive equipment.

Most of it was medical related, but there were a few other cleaning and sanitizing things they did as well. Now, with that type of equipment came a lot of pretty important partners and stacks upon stacks of confidential information. Of course, you can't really hide those kinds of machines easily, so that meant that the building I worked in was huge, not to mention the entrances in every room or office had restricted access.

Everyone had a badge, and your badge would only let you into the rooms and areas you were supposed to be in. When I started, I got lost once, and I learned my lesson. People gave you weird looks if they didn't recognize you, so I caught on pretty quickly. I was hired to do data entry, but pretty quickly they had me doing other tasks, including filing, and I even found myself helping with a lot of tech support questions.

I would say that a majority of the people that worked there were older, so there was always an issue with someone's system and they could never quite understand how to access the task manager. But I did genuinely enjoy it. Other than them always thinking I was a genius with tech, everyone was kind and inclusive and never demanding, which honestly was not what I expected when I started there.

Anyways, that was just to give a little background as to where I work. That was where this story took place. I usually worked the normal Monday through Friday, 8am to 5pm shift with occasional late nights when I wanted to get ahead, or if I was behind. At this point, my wife was out of town visiting her mom, so I decided I would get in some extra work to get ahead of things.

There was a new partner coming in, and from what I've experienced, it was going to get crazy. So if I was going to be alone that night anyways, I thought I might as well get some more work done so I could be ahead. By 5pm, I started walking out and most people were already gone by then as well. I went home, had dinner, took a shower, and then I went straight back to the office.

By the time I got back, it was already dark and the parking lot was nearly empty. I buzzed myself in through two sets of entry doors, and then used my cart again in the elevator to get to the fourth floor. It was pretty dark in the building with some of the main area lights being motion activated, so as I walked away from the elevator and down the hall towards the east side of the building, where my office was, the lights were beginning to kick on as I passed them.

Saying I got a bit of a scare when I saw some guy standing by the stairs would be an understatement. I let out a small yelp and expletives, but then, trying to be a grown man, I laughed and just said something like, Hey man. And the response that I got back was, Sorry, but he didn't look up from his phone. I just took note of what he looked like and carried on towards my office. At first, the guy himself didn't alarm me.

He was wearing the green and black striped shirts that our janitors normally wore with black pants. He also had a mop and bucket with him, so I just assumed he was one of the janitors working late. I go to my office, leaving my door cracked open, call my wife really quick to give her an update, and then started working. It wasn't too long after, maybe 30-45 minutes, when I start to hear something outside. It was...talking.

But it was just one voice, and the person sounded very angry. I couldn't quite make out everything that was being said, but there was a lot of sighing and f-bombs. I started getting a bad feeling, so I slowly got up and walked to my door. Listening from the doorway, I could hear the voice a bit more, and it definitely sounded like it was a one-sided argument. Like someone was practicing what they were going to say to someone else, if that makes sense.

I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong though, and I didn't feel comfortable trying to leave so instead, I quietly shut my door, locking it. I then closed the blinds in the narrow window by my door and turned off the light. I then went back to my desk and tried to continue working, but also kept getting distracted listening to the arguing. At one point, I stopped entirely as I could hear somebody dragging their feet near my office.

I remember nearly holding my breath as I heard the doorknobs being jiggled and the sound of the card reader denying access. I didn't have panic attacks or anything of the like prior, but that's the only way I could think to describe how I was feeling. I was starting to feel overwhelmed, and I had this thought that I was in danger, but I just froze in place, hoping that the door lock and access machine would protect me.

Shortly after, I heard what sounded like somebody kicking the door, shouting another expletive, and then walking off. I waited several more minutes before I finally came back to reality and contemplated my next steps. I thought calling the cops sounded like the smart thing to do, but even if I did, they wouldn't be able to get past the first set of doors without security buzzing them in, and there was no one on the security post due to the time.

so I would have had to have left my office, unprotected, just to let them in. I decided to stay behind my locked door and called my wife again to let her know what just happened. I probably downplayed it a bit, not wanting to worry her. She told me that I should at least call my boss to let them know, and I agreed. I called my boss and had to leave them a message, and then I just waited to see if I could hear anything again.

When it was seemingly silent, I opened my door and looked out again, not hearing or seeing anything. I took this opportunity, leaving all of my stuff except my wallet and phone in the room, quietly letting it lock behind me, and I ran as fast as I could out of the building. I even took the fire escape stairs to not be in the center of the building, in case that person was still there. I was able to leave and get home unscathed, but was still pretty freaked out.

The next day, I went into work as normal, prepared to tell my boss about what happened. However, before I could even turn my computer back on in my office, my boss was at my door wanting to talk about the voicemail. I explained everything that happened, and I could tell by the look on his face that something was not right. He said that the janitors were only supposed to be there during normal business hours.

So, he was immediately suspicious when I told them they were there. Unfortunately, their access cards would still let them in, but the problem was that they all knew that they should not be there. Other than the fact that they were there so late, the rest of the experience was definitely not okay. So, he had me go with him to security to review the tapes that night. What I saw seriously scared the hell out of me.

I was hoping that I was just being paranoid, but knowing now what was behind that door made me realize that my feelings were warranted, which I think was worse. We watched the footage as the guy scanned himself in, bringing with him the mop and bucket that I saw. He walked around the two floors that he could get to and then had stopped and was looking at and doing something on his phone where I saw him, so long that the lights had turned off.

Shortly after, I walked in and saw the guy and then went to my office. That's when the guy continued on going to each office door, trying his badge and of course being denied access. Janitors were not allowed in the offices, unless accompanied by someone with access to that room due to confidential information. So he even stopped and tried my door.

While the fact that he was trying all these doors was pretty unsettling itself, it's what he was carrying that made it more terrifying. This guy was holding a hammer in his other hand. He had left the mop and bucket in the hallway and just had this hammer and the badge. You tell me what he was planning on using that hammer for. As I stood there watching this, trying not to flip my lid in front of the boss, he asked me if I recognized the guy.

I confirmed that he was the guy from last night, but I didn't know who he was. The problem was that the security guy watching the footage with us did not know the guy either, which was a problem. They see the janitors all the time and have had to help them with access to some rooms, so they were pretty familiar with them. This guy? He was not, though.

So, now, they had to go and review the access logs and see who was trying to get into these restricted rooms, which made things worse. My boss shared with me later that the guy who was there that night did not match the guy whose badge it belonged to. Like, it had been stolen. Even better. They ended up talking to the owner of the badge because he came in the next day needing to be signed and let in and he was in a panic because he realized his badge was missing.

and then he knew exactly what had happened to it. It was actually his roommate. Apparently, he was kicking him out because he wasn't paying his part of the rent anymore. It was his home. He had just let his friend slash the roommate move in, and he had also been stealing some of his belongings, so he told him that he had to go. That night, the guy went on a rampage, destroying things in the house while he was gone, and apparently stole his badge that he kept in his room.

I guess that he thought he would be able to get in here, steal some things that he could sell or blackmail him for, maybe, but he didn't have access to anything like that, which made him mad. I, of course, just became a potential threat since I saw him. The guy whose badge was stolen was reprimanded pretty hard, but he didn't lose his job. He did come up and talk to me and apologized profusely for what happened, but...

but I in no way had any ill will towards this guy. It's unfortunate that someone he called a friend would do that, but it's also not like he had the badge out in the open. He at least kept it in his room, so other than hiding it or locking it up, what else could he have done? He did help in tracking the guy down, though, and he was arrested, so at least we didn't have to worry about him again. That was still just one of the scariest things I have ever experienced.

knowing my gut instincts could have absolutely saved me that night. So, to wrap this up, I'll just say to trust your instincts. Even if nothing happens, I think it's a hell of a lot better to be hypervigilant than to be in an I-wish-I-would-have-done-this situation. Hi there. I wanted to share an experience I had when I took a cruise with my friend Raquel.

We wanted to go in the summer, after we finished our semester, but there was a crazy good deal on one coming up for spring, so we decided to make it our spring break trip instead. With the timing, we would probably miss a few days back, but we both thought it was worth it. The first few nights were fantastic, but it was several nights in that the weird events began to occur. It started one night after we had been drinking,

I started feeling unwell, so I told Raquel that I was going to head back to our cabin. After my nightly routines, I laid in bed, trying to fall asleep, while watching some show on my laptop. I had finally started falling asleep when something caused me to wake up. I laid there in the dark, trying to drift back off, when I started hearing whispering. I ignored it at first, thinking it was just people in the halls, but...

Then it dawned on me that this was very clearly whispering. It was normal to hear people talking and laughing in the halls, but it was always muffled. This was a very clear whisper. I turned back over to see if maybe Raquel had come back, or if it was maybe something playing on my laptop. However, my laptop had gone to sleep mode and nothing was playing, and Raquel was nowhere in sight.

I thought it was weird but shrugged it off, thinking maybe it was someone outside, or maybe since I wasn't feeling well that my senses were just on overdrive and it made it sound clearer than it was. I ended up just turning something else on Netflix and fell back asleep. The next day, the whispering didn't even cross my mind. When I woke up, Raquel was in her bed and we got dressed and enjoyed another day.

We were going to be at the Caribbean that day, so we didn't spend a whole lot of time on the ship. When it was time for us to get back on the ship, we planned on going to see the show that they were hosting, but I wanted to take a shower before, so we both went back to our cabin. After she changed, she said that she was going to head to the dining hall, and I agreed as I got in the shower. When I got out and got dressed, I went back to the bathroom to do my normal makeup and hair routines.

While I was in there, I started hearing the whispering again. This time I was fully awake and cognizant. This was not a whisper coming from the halls. I walked out of the bathroom and looked around the room, and when I didn't see anyone, I called out, ''Hello? Raquel?'' But I didn't get an answer. I went and checked the door and saw that it was still locked too, so I was confused. I could clearly hear a whisper.

I couldn't make out any words, but it may have been because it also sounded really fast. This kind of spooked me, so I quickly finished what I was doing and went to find Raquel. I met up with Raquel as she had already found a table for us, and was enjoying a drink when I showed up. After I sat down and we talked briefly, I mentioned the whispering to her, and I asked her if she had come back to the room at some point while I was still there. She confirmed that she never did.

I told her about the whispering that I had heard, and she thought that it was weird too, but also tried to be reasonable about it, saying it probably was still people in the hall or the next room, or maybe it was just the sound of the AC kicking on or something. I certainly wanted it to just be something like that, so I told her that she was probably right, and let it go so that we could enjoy our night.

As the night died down, we both made our way back to our cabin. We were both a bit intoxicated and pretty tired, so after a quick change, we both crashed on our beds pretty hard. However, I woke up at some point needing to use the restroom, so I turned on my side light and I made my way in there, but it was when I came out that I was a bit spooked. As I opened the door, I saw that Raquel had turned her light on and was staring right at me.

with her eyes wide open she looked terrified and i asked her what was wrong she asked me if i had heard it too and i didn't know what she meant at first but then i finally caught on she had heard the whispering too but this time she said that she could make out the words she said that she had heard don't leave me and it sounded like it was right next to her ear

She first thought that I was messing with her because she heard me get up, but when she flipped over and saw the door closed and the light on, she knew that I wouldn't have had time to do that, then run to the bathroom, turn the light on, and shut the door. I was internally screaming at this point. I wanted to say that I knew I wasn't crazy, but then I realized I wasn't crazy. It was something we both heard, so we knew that it was real.

We immediately turned on all the lights and looked over the room, including under the beds, in the closet, the wardrobe, and drawers. I don't know what we were hoping to find, a person, some kind of device replaying someone talking or whispering, but in the end, we found nothing. We were both wide awake and entirely too freaked out to sleep at that point, so we just laid in bed watching TV.

We kept talking about it, going back and forth between what we thought it could be, rationalizing it. So, we were probably just mistaken. I think we finally fell asleep with all the lights and TV on around 4 in the morning. Needless to say, that was a lazy day for us, but thankfully we were going to be at sea for the whole day. I think that we both agreed to forget about it and tried to relax.

We spent a lot of time in the pool and spa, and ate about every chance we got in between. That night, we parked ourselves in our beds and planned on watching movies with the lights on, until we fell asleep. But this time, in the middle of a movie, we heard what sounded like a light tapping on our door. We both looked over, and thought that since we both heard it, maybe it was someone that worked there, or maybe someone had just gone to the wrong room.

I got up to go see who it was, but when I looked out the peephole, it was nothing. It was pitch black, like someone was covering it up. That made me hesitate on opening the door, so instead, I just called out, "'Uh, can I help you?' But I didn't get a response. I stepped back from the door to let Raquel know what had happened, which caused her to get up and go to the door too."

However, when she looked out, it was clear and there was no one there. We both agreed to open the door and, of course, nobody was out there. We stepped out and looked down one side of the hallway, where the stairs and elevator were, and then down the other hall, where it was just a dead end. But this time we actually did see someone. There was a woman, standing at the end, with her back towards us and seemingly looking out the little window.

But the weirdest part was how this lady was dressed. She had on one of those old-fashioned ball gowns. We both just stood there and whispered to each other about it, when we both felt a huge rush of cold air sweep by us. That's all it took for Raquel as she turned around, saying, "'Oh, hell no,' and went back to the room. I followed quickly behind her and saw that she was already on the phone calling services."

She requested that an employee come to our room, because someone was obviously trying to pull a prank on us. I could tell the tone of her voice was teetering between angry and terrified. Someone did show up to our room, and she explained the whole situation, talking about how we kept hearing whispering in the person standing at the window. I think the guy tried his best to take our complaints seriously, but I could also tell that he did not care.

He said he would go check the cameras and see who it was, so that they could then speak to the culprit. Being too freaked out to stay in our room anyways, we followed him to the front to watch the camera with him. We were better off just going back to bed and pretending that nothing happened. We first stood at the desk while we waited for the guy to go to the back room and check the cameras. When he came back, he looked confused and asked us again for a rundown of what had happened.

After we explained everything again, he asked us to follow him to the back where he showed us the footage. We saw the hall with our door on the right, and all the way to the end where the window was. There was no movement, and no people. It was completely still.

Then, unexpectedly, the light seemed to dim, or it just got slightly darker, similar to what you might see if someone put their hand or something else in front of the light or above the camera, creating a shadow. It was there for a few seconds, and then back to normal lighting. Then, shortly after the light went back to normal, you could see us open the door and walk out.

We stood there, looked around, and then looked back towards the window and at each other, pointing out the person, before then running back in. We saw this all play out again, except there was no lady at the window. We were shown staring in the direction, but there was nothing there. The guy looked confused and clearly did not know what to say to us. I stood there dumbfounded myself, but when I looked over at Raquel, she was obviously terrified.

The only thing I said was, I know what I heard. I know what I saw and I'll be damned if I have to sleep in that room another night. The guy escorted us back to the desk and asked us to wait there. The whole time, Raquel kept looking around the area, eyes wide, like she was paranoid. I had never seen her like this before. The only thing I knew that she was afraid of were bugs, but usually she would just run away from them, letting out some kind of a yelp.

but she looked terrified. I tried asking her if she was alright, and she just said, I know that you saw it too. Surprisingly, the guy came back and said that he could move us to another cabin, but it would be a slight downgrade. Before I could say anything, Raquel said that it was fine, and we went back to get our thing. We silently and quickly packed our stuff and went to our new room. All the while, the guy was apologizing to us,

Once we got settled in, we went to bed saying very little, with the lights and the TV still on. The next day, Raquel had done a complete 180, and she was back to being her bubbly, enthusiastic self. And to both of our surprise, I'm sure, we didn't have another event for the rest of the trip. I asked Raquel again about it when we got home, and she refused to talk about it.

saying that she didn't want any negative energy or bad spirits to follow us. So, I was left on my own with the thoughts of what the hell we experienced. I'm conflicted to look into possible hauntings on cruise ships or mysterious deaths or disappearances, but while I may not be religious, what I saw and what Raquel told me is enough to make me hesitate.

So instead, maybe I'll just ask: Has anyone ever experienced something like this while on a cruise? Back when I was a kid, there was a group of us kids that pretty much spent every day of our childhood together. For the most part, it was myself, Chuck, and Billy. The three of us were like brothers. We did everything together, camped in each other's backyards, spent way too many hours of our days off together,

Billy ended up moving away sophomore year, but beyond that, we literally grew up together. From elementary school, all the way through the year where we all graduated. And Billy actually came back home so we could all have a party when he and Chuck finally finished high school. My point is, we were inseparable best friends, and we're all still in touch with each other.

Now, while the three of us were obviously really close, there was a fourth person in our group for a little while, and that was a little girl named Katie. Katie had lived on our block for a few years before we met, and the whole time that I knew her, it was just her and her dad that lived at the house. He was a single parent. None of us had actually met her mother.

Katie was my age, so a year older than the other two, and she was nothing short of a bit strange. Though, we did end up figuring out why when all was said and done, and nowadays I actually feel bad for how we treated her for being weird. I met Katie when I was around eight. She was, to the best of my knowledge, the only girl in the neighborhood that was in our age range.

So, when we met, it was pretty obvious that she was going to latch on to our trio. We were 8 and 9 year old boys, so we were a bit annoyed that there was going to be a girl with us, since we were still at that age where girls were a foreign concept. At first, Katie was fine with the three of us though. She was interested in some of the things that we were, and she was willing to play our dumb games. We would sword fight with our toy swords,

and she was willing to jump in and take a few hits. And she could actually hold her own. She was interested in animals, so she was willing to help me dig up my yard to look for bugs, basically. She was one of us for the most part, except when she wasn't herself. Katie was fine probably 95% of the time, but then, sometimes, she would just be a bit out there.

Like she was a completely different person. Those times where she would be different, she would sometimes get violent, angry, or just really, really strange. I know that that's vague, and I'm not going to get into all of the instances where things were wrong, but I'll describe at least one of them. The first event of note was one day while we were at Chuck's taking turns playing the Super Nintendo.

This was typically something we did once a week. We weren't allowed to stay cooped up in the house every day, so it was always super exciting for all of us. I think we were playing one of the Mario games. I'm not sure which one, and it was Katie's turn. Katie wasn't great at that game, but she usually took her losses with grace and laughed about it each time she messed up. Not this time.

This time, she was playing and she misjudged a jump and ended up dying. Obviously, when this happened, we all chuckled as we did when one of us made a mistake and died, but she didn't. She had a flat stare as she stood up, and by the time the game took us back to the level select screen, Katie had literally jumped up and stomped down on the Nintendo Switch.

She smashed it with all of her body weight, and while the console was mostly okay, they actually built those things with this possibility in mind, something I learned later in life, the game ended up bending and snapping in half. Obviously, we all freaked out, and Chuck started bawling. The Super Nintendo was his pride and joy. Katie then looked over at Chuck and put her hands around his throat, literally choking him.

and she was telling him to stop crying, that he needed to grow up, that he wasn't a baby and if he wanted to cry, she would give him something to cry about. Billy and I jumped into action and pulled her away from Chuck, leaving this whole situation a confusing disaster, and Chuck just sitting there looking terrified. Chuck's dad came in to figure out what had happened, and we had to explain to him what Katie had done. Strangely enough...

Katie actually agreed with our statements, and she was willing to own what happened. She said that she was angry, that she wanted to destroy it, so she did. She said that Chuck was crying over nothing, and that he needed to grow up. I honestly don't know what really happened after that, because Chuck's dad told us to go home, but I do know that Katie's dad bought him a new game, and Katie wasn't really allowed at Chuck's house anymore after that happened.

In fact, I don't think Chuck and Katie really spent any time together after this, and for good reason. I don't really want to get into all the events that Katie caused, because this story would go on for ages, but I do want to go over one of the last things that ended up happening. The thing that I think may have caused Katie to be awed. This was around a year after the whole thing with Chuck happened.

I was on my own that day, and went out into the woods that were behind our neighborhood. I was out there, pretending that I was some kind of adventurer when who else would I see but Katie. I went over to talk to her, but as I approached, I noticed something a bit weird. Katie was sitting on the ground, her back against a tree, and she was eating a sandwich while talking to no one in particular.

I walked up to her to ask her who she was talking to, and when she noticed me, she jumped and screamed that I should not be there. I was obviously taken aback and a bit scared, and I asked her what I had done wrong. She then started going on about how I was upsetting her mother, how she was having dinner with her and I wasn't invited. I kind of just looked around and mentioned that she was alone, that her mom wasn't there. She flipped out.

She started screaming at me aggressively that her mother lived in the woods, that I wasn't allowed to be anywhere near her mother, and that I needed to go home before she hurt me. Again, I was confused, but I just said that I was sorry and that I didn't know. Strangely enough, Katie shifted from psychotic and ready to pounce to almost sympathetic. She said it was okay.

That if I was really sorry that she wouldn't be mad at me anymore and that I was welcome to sit with them. I hesitantly agreed with her, mostly because I will admit that at this time in our relationship, I did have a crush on her. So sitting with her was something I was more than willing to do. Yes, I had a crush on Katie, in spite of her random, strange behavior. I sat at one of the trees and just watched her eat her sandwich and talk.

She was talking about school, about all the things that she was going through, what she was going to be doing that week. She wasn't talking to me, though. It was like she was just talking to no one in particular, like she was basically telling her mother about her life. I was a bit curious, so I waited for an opening and then asked her where her mother was. This is where things turned to haunting. Katie looked at me and started crying.

Like, full-on sobbing. I kind of freaked out. I didn't mean to make her cry, so I scooted over to her and I gave her a hug and asked her what was wrong. Katie then pulled away and told me that her mother lived in the woods because, one night, she and her father got into an argument and her dad hurt her. I will say that at this time we were ten, so this was a whole new thing to me.

My parents were always happily married, so I didn't understand the concept of my dad hurt my mom. That idea was impossible to me. I asked how he hurt her, why he hurt her, and so forth, basically interrogating this poor crying girl. She stopped crying, pushed away from me, and then told me something that makes my blood run cold to this day. She looked me in the eyes and said...

My mom's not really living out here. She's dead. My dad killed her. He killed her and buried her out here in the woods. I saw him do it. He doesn't know that I saw it, though. He doesn't know that I know what he did. He doesn't know that I watched him choke her until she died. He doesn't know that I watched him dig this hole. That I watched him bury her. I watched him do it.

She kind of started just rambling all of this, and shifting between crying and not crying and looking back, she was clearly traumatized. I honestly think that this is what caused her to be so strange and aggressive. She saw this horrifying event and didn't know how to process it. Of course, I told my parents what she said. Being my age, I didn't know what else to do, but I told them what she said to me.

Of course, my parents called the cops, and they reported what Katie had said, and all of it was this huge mess. The cops ended up doing an investigation, talking with Katie about everything, taking reports from her and her father, asking me about everything, and then they did the excavation. This is where things went from weird to just absolutely devastating.

They dug up the spot in the woods, and they actually did find the body of a woman. Katie wasn't lying or making any of it up. Her dad actually had killed her mother, and he actually did bury her in the woods, which tells me that she really did watch all of this happen. To wrap this up, Katie ended up leaving town to live with someone else in her family.

Her father was arrested, and all of this was my fault because she trusted me and I told my parents. Obviously, I did the right thing. Her mother deserved justice, and looking back at it as an adult, not telling anyone would have been the worst thing to do. That said, I will never let go of the fact that I changed a huge portion of this girl's life. She was a bit weird, but she was my friend, and I did like her.

And because I told my parents what she told me, her whole life changed direction. And I never saw her again. That day where she told me about what happened was the last time we actually ever spoke. I never got to say goodbye or anything. I do hope that her life went back to normal after this, or as normal as it could be. I hope that she found peace because she deserved it.

and I hope that someday she and I can talk again, so I can tell her that I'm sorry for all that she went through. Katie, if you ever read or hear this story, please know that I've never forgotten you, and I mention your name every single time that I pray. A number of years ago, I was pretty active in a few sites that were basically like mini social media pages that weren't very well known.

There was one in particular that I really enjoyed. It was a page that was dedicated to a specific game, and that's a pretty decent sized MMO. And I like to lurk the boards and just kind of read what others were saying or talking about. I did get active on the board at one point, and that's when I ended up having a conversation with the person that, very quickly, became my long-distance slash online girlfriend, Amanda.

I was young and still pretty naive about things on the internet, but she and I became pretty fast friends and had a lot in common. We talked a lot in DMs on the site and discussed pretty much everything. She was the same age as me, 17, and she had a lot of the same issues that I had. Basically, she was just like me and we hit it off pretty quickly and got close. We ended up agreeing that we should give it a shot to see what happens.

and I was over the moon because I've never been much of a social butterfly, and I've only ever had one girlfriend in my life before this point, and that was in middle school for like three months. Obviously, the relationship started on the MMO board, and we chatted there a lot, and then it went over to email so that we could get a bit more personal.

It wasn't anything lewd or anything like that. It was just us talking a bit more about ourselves and saying things that we didn't feel comfortable throwing out there on a potentially unsecured forum. We emailed each other non-stop, and I tried to go a step further and ask her if she had a Facebook account so that we could be friends on there and get a bit more into real-time communications.

She told me that she didn't, and that she didn't feel safe using Facebook, because it was... watched. I asked her what she meant, and she told me that, if you use Facebook, you were on a list of people that were being watched. I know that Facebook isn't exactly the best platform, and yeah, they're probably on the short list of pages that are checked by the government agencies, but they aren't interested in me, a 17-year-old from the northern part of Mississippi.

But I had to respect her opinion, no matter how strange it was, and just say that it was okay and that we could keep talking through email. After a while, she ended up messaging me and asking for a picture of myself, because she, in her words, was really falling for me and needed to know what her Prince Charming looked like. If that message didn't make me swoon a bit, then nothing would.

I went and got my mom's digital camera and took probably the worst Myspace-style selfie that has ever existed. I was a bit of a scrawny kid, so I had to make myself look a bit bigger than I was, and with a bit of camera trickery, I made it work. When I sent it, she responded with a heart and told me that she was absolutely in love with me, and just kept complimenting me and telling me how amazing I was.

Like I said, I was elated with the fact that someone was out there giving me positive reinforcement. At this point, you may be asking which part of this was the creepy part, and that's actually still coming. In fact, it's what happened next. I will say that, at the time, I wasn't exactly super secure about my information. I wasn't paranoid or anything, but I did still keep some of my information hidden and secured.

Like, I had told Amanda my first name, and she knew how my last name started, just the first letter. She knew the city I lived in, but that was pretty much it. I guess outside of knowing what I looked like. I didn't anticipate that, with just my first name, last initial, city, and appearance, that she could ever find me in person. But that is exactly what happened. Kind of.

A few weeks after Amanda and I had started quote-unquote dating and chatting a lot, she kind of went silent. I was a bit concerned, but at the same time, I had sort of moved past the excitement of having this random online person compliment me. That may sound shallow, but that's pretty much all the conversations were, and after a bit, you kind of grow numb to the constant compliments.

I kind of assumed that maybe she had moved on a bit from us as well, and just left it at that. Then, on that really awkward Saturday afternoon, I was sitting on the computer in the living room and playing The Sims. I heard a knock on the door, and I assumed it was just the mailman delivering a package or something like that. So I hopped up and went over to the door and pulled it open, and I had no idea who the person was that was standing there.

The man on the other side of the door gave me a huge smile, said my name, and kind of gave a bit of what I guess was a squeal. It was a strange happy sound, that much I remember. I kind of stared at this guy in confusion. I had no idea who he was or how the hell he knew my name, and I kind of said that to him, like, "Hi, who are you?" He then dropped a bombshell on me, which I'm sure that you're all expecting at this point,

and said that his name was Arnold, and that he went by Amanda online. My heart sank. This middle-aged, overweight, balding man was my online girlfriend? Amanda had told me that she was my age, and had described herself in detail, although admittedly she never gave me any photos, which I now know why.

Not a single word of the description that she gave me included bald, middle-aged, overweight, male, or creep that would show up at my doorstep on a random Saturday afternoon. I replied to him with, "'You're Amanda? The girl that I met online, Amanda?' He sort of shyly said, "'Well, yeah. I know I'm probably not what you'd expect, but I'm her.'

Now, this is where things got really awkward. My dad walked into the room and asked me who it was at the door. I can't even begin to explain the feeling that hit me. I had no idea how to explain to my dad that this guy at the door was pretending to be a 17-year-old girl online, and that we were dating, and that he had somehow found where I lived, and was now at the front door.

I tried to say that he was just some guy, but he cut me off and said, I love your son, and I drove almost ten hours to meet him. I'm not going to get into the whole conversation or everything that happened, but I will say that my dad was very confused and then very angry. Amanda, or I guess Arnold...

tried to keep saying that we were lovers and that he was there to come get me and that we were going to live together and a bunch of other really creepy things that did not help my situation at all my dad then told arnold that if he didn't get off the property he was going to leave in an ambulance and after a bunch of arguing and the police showing up he did end up leaving

He hadn't actually done anything. There were no lewd comments ever made between us, no promises of anything, so technically all he did was show up on the doorstep of a minor that he met online. Which, I guess, isn't a crime in and of itself. So, he was basically told to drive off. Obviously, that was the last time that me and Amanda, or Arnold, ever spoke, and I blocked his email.

This was absolutely too creepy and awkward for me, and it absolutely destroyed my trust in people online. I'm older now, and a lot smarter about things, and I don't really have any reason to develop friendships on the internet. One side effect of this is that I, now, just assume that everyone online is a 50-something year old balding man that's overweight, which has kind of become a running joke on the internet.

If the situation wasn't so terrifying for me at the time, I could almost laugh at the fact that I lived through it. This happened to me back when I was in middle school, about 15 or so years ago, and spring break was never anything special to my family other than just a week off from school. There were four of us kids, and now having two of my own, I understand why we didn't really go anywhere. Kids are expensive.

but it didn't really bother us, as we all entertained ourselves and each other quite well. However, I did have a friend whose family was pretty well off. His dad had some very official job. I was a kid at the time, so I don't know what it was exactly, but I remember him working long hours. He always wore suits, and he never really talked about work around us.

However, they did always take some pretty awesome vacations. I'd seen pictures and souvenirs from when they went to different countries. So, for this story, I'm going to call my friend Levi, just in case his dad has some job that I wasn't really supposed to be talking about. Levi has always been pretty cool. We always got along really well, and we hung out quite a bit. In fact, I've even been invited to go with them to their lake house, which was a lot of fun.

So, for spring break, I was invited again to join them at the lake. With my parents' permission, I did not waste time packing a bag to go. However, there was one little wrinkle in the whole plan, or at least the plan in my head. His cousin, Skylar, was going to be joining us. Now, Levi was an only child, but Skylar hung around so much that you might have thought that she was their kid too.

She was a year older than me and Levi, but she always wanted to hang out with us. At first, I didn't have a problem with it, because she seemed pretty cool, and yeah, pretty cute too. She would play the dumb games that we played, watch TV with us, whatever. But I started noticing pretty quickly that she was a little... weird.

For example, we were outside trying to start their fire pit when we picked up an old log that was on the ground. Underneath it were tons of pill bugs and other bugs that I'm sure. Being the type of kids we were, we started picking them up and throwing them at each other. I know that that was dumb and mean, but that's just who we were. Skylar was there too, and she was even joining in on it. But then she just stopped out of nowhere and started humming.

We noticed her doing this, so we stopped to see what was happening, and then she crushed them in her hand and rubbed them on her face. Then she started laughing and chasing us like she was going to wipe it on us. So, maybe not creepy, but definitely really weird, and especially with her being a girl. I was used to girls our age wanting to look pretty and nice, so it wasn't something that I expected at all.

And by the look on Levi's face, he didn't expect it either. So, other than that memory, she had done some other weird things, such as when her mood would shift in the blink of an eye. We'd be watching a movie and laughing, and she would just stand up and storm off angrily. I've seen his mom try to talk to her, and she would be just screaming and pacing back and forth, or rocking. Now, before you say anything, I know a lot more now as an adult, but...

I didn't understand any of this as a kid, I just tried my best to steer clear from her and just dealt with it, as I really did enjoy hanging out with Levi. So anyways, back to our spring break. It was going to be me, Levi, Skyler, and Levi's parents. We got to the lake house, started making sleeping arrangements and planning on what we wanted to do.

We took their paddle boat out on the lake and went fishing. We made a fire out there too, and we even had a day out on their boat. It had actually been a lot of fun, and even Skylar was manageable with minimal breakdowns. At some point during the trip, his dad had to leave and wouldn't be back that following night, so it was just going to be his mom with us. She decided that she would get dinner for us instead of making it that night, so she left to pick it up.

which was probably about 20 to 30 minutes away. Skyler was out on the back deck reading a book, and we were still inside at the time playing a video game. We'd both brought our DS's with us. His mom told us that she was leaving and that we could stay in or go out, but that we could not leave the property, which was fine by us. We decided to go out back and fish from the docks as we didn't want to lug out the paddle boat again.

When we got out there, Levi realized that we'd forgotten something, so he went back inside to look for it, and I decided to sit on one of the chairs next to Skylar, just trying to be nice to her. I asked her if she wanted to go fishing with us, and she said no. I asked her what she was reading, and she told me the name of it, but I can't remember it now, and I hadn't heard of it before, so I asked her what it was about.

She explained how it was about a woman whose husband was physically abusive towards her and tried to kill her. However, she lived and was taking revenge and going about some long, drawn-out plan to kill him. I remember saying something about it being intense, and she agreed. Then we just sat there in silence. Out of nowhere, she said, "'Could you imagine that?' I asked her what she meant, and she said in almost a dreamy manner,

"'Someone you once loved trying to kill you?' "'Oh, or killing them.' I just kind of laughed and said, "'Yeah, that's pretty freaky, though. I guess that was the wrong thing to say because she slammed the book closed and gave me such an angry glare.' She then stood up and said, "'Hmm, I guess you wouldn't understand,' and stormed off inside. It was a weird situation, but I just went over and set up my pole.'

Shortly after, Levi came back out and we started fishing and I told him about what happened. He just laughed and mentioned that it was best to just ignore most of the stuff she said, so I shrugged it off and we continued fishing. After some time, I had to use the restroom so I walked off to go back inside. When I went in, I found Skylar standing next to the room that she was staying in with her hands behind her back. I wasn't expecting her to be there since the hall light wasn't even on-

but I just made a comment about her scaring me. She didn't budge. She just kept staring at me. And I asked her if she was okay, and again, she did not respond. I decided to continue with what I was trying to do, which meant I had to walk by her. As soon as I did, she lunged out at me and I felt a sharp pain in my back, causing me to scream out. When I turned around, I saw Skylar was holding a huge knife with this crazed look in her eye.

I was still a kid, so I didn't know what to do other than run to my destination, since it had a lock on the door. She swung the knife at me again and managed to cut across my shoulder before I got the door closed. I locked it, and then ran to the window as it faced out to the backyard and yelled for Levi. While I'm yelling at him to get his crazy cousin, I hear her yelling at me, ''Let me love you.'' ''You can love me too.''

I saw Levi run towards the house and then could hear them yelling at each other. She was telling Levi that she loved me and just wanted us to die together. He kept calling her crazy and telling her to put the knife down, but the only thing I heard was her crying and then a door slam closed. Levi then came into the bathroom with me, locking the door and helping me to cover my back. Then he went back out, leaving me in the bathroom to call his mother.

That felt like an eternity as I sat in the bathroom, having Levi go back and forth between me and Skylar. When his mom finally did return, I could hear her pleading with Skylar to open the door, and afterwards Skylar screaming and crying. They did both seem to calm down after a bit. She then came to check on me and took me to the hospital, since the slash on my back was apparently pretty deep. I did have to get quite a few stitches on my back,

and some on my arm as well, but then I went back to the cabin and called my parents to let them know what had happened. Levi's mom did most of the talking, and to my surprise, they let me stay the rest of the trip. I was expecting them to tell me that I had to come home. The rest of the trip went alright. Skylar was never alone with us again, but I was too afraid to even be in the same room as her, so that did kind of ruin some of the fun for me.

Overall, I did still hang out with Levi after this, but it left a permanent scar both physically and mentally. I asked Levi why she was always around at one point, because she had many more physical breakdowns, but nothing towards me and I didn't personally understand. All he could really tell me at the time was that she was pretty much living with them now,

My parents apparently even knew more than me, as they told me that she needed parents that loved and cared for her, so sometimes we just have to show other people patience and give time. It wasn't until I was much older that I learned more. Skylar's parents weren't really in the picture, and after a pretty bad event in their family, Levi's parents won custody of her. Her childhood, obviously, was not a normal one either.

leaving her with her own trauma that she had to work through. I don't know if what I experienced with her was something that she experienced, or was just how her brain worked, but I definitely do not blame her for it. But let me tell you, being chased like that and then stabbed with a knife when you're only 15, it was one of the most terrifying things that I have ever experienced.

While I was going to school to become an RN, I took a job working the front desk at a local hospital. The job itself was pretty easy. I checked people in and out, took calls, directed them to different units, scheduled appointments. Pretty simple stuff. To be honest, the hardest part was probably dealing with the printer. Even better, I typically worked the graveyard shift.

My classes started around 9, so I would get off in time to sleep a few hours, go to school, eat and sleep some more, and then right back to work. So there was even less work to do overnights, unless it was a Friday or a Saturday. Those seemed to be the busiest nights. And no, I didn't have much of a social life at the time. I had plenty of friends.

I just chose to get straight into schooling and work as much as I physically could to save up money. That way I could have more money and possibly free time whenever I landed my dream job. I guess I had goals, if anything. Anyways, so this happened on one of those nights. The only person to have shown up had already been called back, so the waiting room was empty. The TV was on some kind of game show, and I was sitting at the desk working on my homework.

The whole front of the building was a plain wall except for a small cutout that had a glass sliding door that led into another small square glassed area. Then, there was another set of doors that brought you into the building. So, if someone comes in straight from the front, I could see them enter both sets of doors. However, if someone were to come in from the side lot or walk up from the side, I may not see them enter the first set of doors.

That's what happened with this lady. I had my face down in my textbook when I heard the whooshing sound of the doors opening. I looked up and saw a lady approaching the counter. Because of where I work, I do pay attention to how people look and try to understand the current state that they may be in. And with her, I noticed right away that something was not right. She was very thin and frail looking,

but judging by her overall build, demeanor, and way of talking, she looked like she couldn't have been more than 40. She had on a huge jacket that she was nearly swimming in, which immediately alarmed me because we saw people dress like that when they were trying to hide a wound, a weapon, and, for women, sometimes a very pregnant belly. Her hair was stringy and oily and pulled into a bun,

and her face was sunken in with dark bags under her eyes. I asked her how I could help her, and what she was there for, and she said she actually didn't need a doctor, but she asked for my help specifically. She was talking a mile a minute, jumping around in her story, but...

What I got out of it was that her car broke down, and she asked if I could come look at it. She said that she was trying to get to see her mom, who lived a few hours away, who had been at home dying of cancer. But that's why she ended up here. At first, I really did feel bad for her. I knew my fair share of friends and family that had had cancer, and I knew how scary that could be. So that immediately got my sympathy.

However, I was not, and never have been, a car person. Even though I'm a guy, and I guess people expect me to know these things, I can get my own gas and check fluids, but that's about it. So I told her that I wasn't really a car guy, and she said it was okay, but insisted that I just come to see if I might notice anything.

I again explained that I couldn't be of any help and also said that I couldn't leave the building, since I was the only person working the front desk. She started to become more agitated and pushy on having me look at it, and as she pleaded, she started adding to her story, and it wasn't making sense. She kept saying that her kid was dying and needed to get home to her, but earlier, she had said it was her mom that was dying.

I was catching all these discrepancies, and it was starting to make me feel more suspicious of the whole situation. So I tried to slow her down as I walked with her towards the door, hoping that this would also help. And I asked her what exactly was happening with her car. She, at first, wouldn't say more than it just wouldn't start.

So, I tried clarifying to see if it died while she was driving, or if she was trying to start it, did she get any lights, and so on. But no matter how much I tried, she would not give me any more information other than, "'I don't know. It won't start. Please, can you just come look at it?' The more that I questioned her, the more flustered and agitated she became, almost in tears that I wouldn't go out there, so I just stopped and asked her if she was okay."

if maybe she was in some sort of trouble, which is when she finally let go of my arm and stepped back saying that she was fine. I told her that I would call a tow truck for her, as they could at least be more helpful than I was, and she screamed at me to not call anybody. I stood there, waiting to see what she would do next when she walked out angrily, saying, ''Just never mind, I'll figure it out.''

I stood there to see where she would walk to and noticed that she walked to the side of the building where I could no longer see her. I thought it was weird, but then went back to my desk. However, the whole interaction was still eating at me, so I decided to ask one of the medtechs in the back if they could watch the desk while I stepped outside for a quick break. They agreed. I wasn't lying about that part. I could not leave the desk unattended.

They agreed, and once they came up, I walked outside and towards the side of the building, staying as close to the wall as I could. That's when I saw the woman, and what I assumed to be her car, as well as some guy. They were seeming to be in a pretty heated argument by the way they were throwing their hands, and he was punching the car. I wasn't close enough to really hear what was being said, but the only thing I could make out was, ''No, you go.''

Even worse, after a few more minutes of back and forth, they both got in the car, him in the driver's seat and her in the passenger's seat, and then drove off, without a single issue. I went back into the building, pretty spooked at that point, and I told the guy watching the desk what had happened. He agreed that it was really suspicious, but since they left and didn't really do anything, said that ultimately there was nothing that we could do.

I continued working that night, but that weird feeling kept on lingering. What was her end goal? What was her plan after I got outside? The fact that there was a guy out there with her and that the car started just fine freaked me out, and I couldn't shake the feeling that I may have avoided a horrible situation. I'm curious if anyone else has heard similar stories like this. Could this have just been an attempted robbery? A kidnapping?

I have no clue, but I try not to think about what could have happened anymore. Thankfully, I never saw them again, and I hope that no one else ever fell for their sinister scheme. Hi, I'm Michelle. I'm currently 22 years old, and I've always been interested in the paranormal. I set out to write about all of my experiences that I can recall, the longest one being about a house I lived in as a kid.

I'm from Denmark, so my grammar isn't going to be perfect, but I'll try my best. So, these are some haunted house stories from my childhood home. A little background. My mom, my then stepdad, our dog and me moved into this house when I was 12. It was actually a basement apartment. There were people living upstairs that rented out their basement. It's kind of confusing, but it was actually pretty big.

We moved out when I was about 16, so this happened in the span of four years. So, anyways, we moved in and everything was well. About a week after we moved in, I had a friend over to see our new living space and was really excited to show her. My dog, a very peaceful, quiet, lazy, and just not violent at all dog, went into my room and started barking his head off. He never barked.

He was standing on two feet and barking at the corner of my bed. It was just really weird. So here I am trying to calm my dog, but he just won't give it up. When standing on two legs, which he was, he was my height. For some weird reason, neither my mom nor my stepdad heard it, and we even had the door open. So I went out to get them while my friend is freaking out, and then he just calmed down like nothing happened.

That was the first weird thing to happen in that house, but not the last. We would occasionally hear high heels walking above us, chairs being pulled out, and very loud bangs, all coming from upstairs, so we asked them if anything had happened, and they told us no, they were asleep. It would always happen at night. It wasn't until they went on vacation and the noise continued that we started feeling weird.

They had an alarm as well, and it would go off about once a week for no apparent reason. But they never spoke about it. I remember we would eat in the kitchen and all of us would turn our heads to the hallway at the same time because we all thought we saw someone. It was so weird. It happened all the time, and it just became the norm. We told ourselves that it was our imagination.

We often thought that someone had broken in and countless times my stepdad went up there with the flashlight, but there was no one. I would often wake up hearing noises in the kitchen, thinking that my mom had woken up. It sounded like people cooking. I would soon come to realize every time I heard those noises, there was no one. The noises would always stop when I entered the kitchen. The scariest thing to happen in that house, though, were to my stepdad.

I went into their room, just woken up, and he says, "Wow, you were up early today." And I was like, "No, I just woke up." And as I said that, all the light from his eyes just vanished. He told me and my mom that he had gotten woken up by what he thought was me staring at them. And when he asked me what was wrong, and I didn't say anything, I just kept staring until I walked away.

He said that the girl that he saw was wearing a white dress and had long black hair. I have brown hair, and I don't own a white nightgown, so I don't know why he would have thought that was me. So, sometime later, we had dinner with our neighbors, where this topic came up. They told us that there was actually a murder in the house. Like, a girl actually got killed. And they even had the newspaper articles about it.

It happened right outside my room. The girl who was killed was pregnant. The man who got her pregnant already had a wife, so he killed her and tried to make it look like a suicide, which he apparently was really bad at. The time we lived in that house, I actually wasn't having the greatest years. I spent four years in that house, and all of those years were filled with depression and anxiety. I never had hope.

and it was always like a black cloud of smoke was hanging around me. Only in the house, though. I remember clearly that every time I went out, I was happy, and I thought it was weird. I told my mom about it, and she told me the same thing happens to her. Another thing about the house is that things would go missing.

and we would look everywhere for them and then the next day they would show up on like a table or somewhere really obvious where we had already looked. I was so attached to that house that I didn't want to leave my room. I always made up excuses not to leave the house and I was just miserable. I would have really bad nightmares of a tall black figure in our living room with the biggest grin on his face

I've never been so scared from a nightmare, and I was really scared to be in the living room alone. One time, and this is really dark and I don't know why I'm sharing this, but as mentioned, I was in a really dark period of my life, and I was in the bathroom, one of the darkest places in the whole house. I was looking in the mirror, and my eyes were black, and I started smiling. I swear I was crying dark, thick liquid out of my eyes.

Honestly, it's so messed up, I know, but obviously this was only happening in the mirror, not in real life. The last thing I remember is me reading a book late one night, and I saw a dark figure out of my eye. I turn to look, and there's nothing. It happens a few moments later again, and I look again, and my blanket on my chair is swinging back and forth, like if someone had walked into it.

It was a summer night and I had no windows open, so it scared me a lot. I just put my blanket over my head and tried to sleep. My mom also told me that when she went to go to the bathroom late at night, she thought that my stepdad was on the computer. So right as she was closing the bathroom door, the man sitting on the computer waved and smiled at her and she waved back, thinking it was my stepdad.

and when she got out, the computer was turned off and my stepdad was fast asleep. She woke him up, asking if he was just on the computer, to which he replied no, very confused. Apparently he had been asleep for some time. The rest of this post, as the OP put it, are other random stories. From what I can tell, they are not related to the house, but they are good haunting stories, so I would like to include them.

It's hard to imagine it's real, but I remember this very vividly. We were moving into an apartment. I was around four. I was standing in my new room when my dad said, "I'll turn off the lights. Are you coming?" And at the time, I was really afraid of the dark. But for some reason, I told him I wanted to stay. So he turned off the light and everything got pitch black, and I saw a girl. I wasn't scared.

She wouldn't talk, but I tried to talk to her. She was a little older than me, maybe six or seven. I thought that she was an angel because I didn't know what ghosts were back then, but I don't know. She was in this glowing white light, and it just felt so pure. I can't explain it. My dad got back and turned the light on again, and she was gone. I never saw her again, but I thought about her a lot.

One time, me and my boyfriend were sleeping, and I had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I open the door, and I hear people talking in the living room. I was scared witless, until I realized it's a video from my boyfriend's computer. The weird thing is, the screen is closed, and he turned it off. So he had to turn it back on to close the video. It's still so weird. Like, how does that even happen? It was so loud.

Like the volume was all the way up. He swore that he had turned off the laptop and it made absolutely no sense. Another time, from 18 to 20, I lived in a place with staff who could help you. Because of my anxiety and autism. One day I'm in my living room listening to loud music when I hear my front door open. I assume it's someone who works here, so I stop the music and look. It's a man in an orange vest.

Like, worker clothes, if you're an electrician or something. And he has a tool bag with him as well. I'm hella confused, and I just look at him. For some reason, he does not look at me at all. We never make eye contact, and he was probably just standing in my kitchen for like ten minutes. I was so confused, because I wasn't expecting anyone to come look at anything. And after ten minutes, again, without eye contact...

He just walks out again. So I contact the workers and was like, "Um, who is that guy that was just here?" And they're like, "What guy?" I explain what happened and she looks worried. So she asks her boss if they're expecting any handymen or something today and they weren't. No one had seen this guy. It was like he had just vanished. They go on and asked if I had dreamed it and I'm like, "I was jamming out to music. Like I wasn't sleeping at all."

They could not explain it. And I don't know if it was paranormal, but it was definitely weird. I've also had dreams where my mom was in the hospital. I call her and tell her about my dream, and she goes on to tell me that she was actually in the hospital that day. I've had so many weird dreams about my mom come true. It's just really weird. All in all, I think that me being autistic and a bit sensitive, I...

definitely attracts these kinds of things. Way back when I was 15, maybe 16, I used to be a member of a medium-sized online forum that was designed for indie authors to share their work and get feedback, or even win small prizes for little contests and competitions that they held. I was actually one of the most active users on the forum because I was really giving being an author everything I had.

and I was putting a lot of effort into writing short stories for my collection. My whole situation started during one of the writing competitions that I mentioned. I don't recall the theme, I just remember that I was super confident that I could write a decent little story for it. Much to my surprise, I actually won the competition. The prize was a $20 Target gift card, so it wasn't like it was some big contest for a major reward,

But to me, it was an amazing feeling knowing that I had won this contest, where dozens of people had entered. The day that I won, I received a private message from one of the head mods of the forum. At the time, I only knew him as White Oak, and after a while, which I'll explain in a bit, I did learn what his full legal name was. That said, for the sake of the story, I'm just going to refer to him as White Oak.

So, White Oak sent me a DM with a message saying, "...Congrats on winning our monthly writing competition. Your story was chosen by majority vote of the mod team, and, as such, you have won a gift card. I just need to know where to send it to and to whom I'm sending it, and I'll get it in the mail right away." And, being a super excited 16-year-old girl that was feeling like she had just won the entire world...

I responded with my first and last name, as well as my home address. At no point did I pause to think that maybe I should have asked my parents, or not sent this random person my home address, because I thought this was going to be a professional trade-off. I won a contest, I was getting a prize.

After I sent that, he told me that he would get the card in the mail here as soon as possible, and once again, told me that my story was perfectly written, and just really talked up my prose. I was elated that someone that was so important was giving me attention. He was important to me, at least, because he was a big shot on the forum.

I thanked him. We had an informal conversation, and that was pretty much where I thought it was going to end. I thought it was just going to be him complimenting my work, and me thanking him. Of course, that's not where it ended.

About a week later, I hadn't received any word on the gift card, or whether or not it was on the way, and while I didn't want to be pushy, I decided to send White Oak a message to just ask if he had sent it yet, as I was super excited to get it. He messaged me back pretty much right away and said that he was going to send it in the next day or two, but he hadn't yet. I thanked him again and just mentioned that I was still excited about the whole thing,

After a few minutes of not getting a response back, I thought that that was the end of the conversation. But then, White Oak sent me a message saying, "'You know, you're really beautiful.' I was a bit confused. He had no way of knowing what I looked like. I messaged him, asking where that came from, and he responded by saying, "'Oh, I looked you up and found your Facebook. I was looking at your pictures and just wanted to tell you that you were beautiful.'

To say that I was a bit shocked would be an understatement. I responded by saying, Oh, I didn't expect you to look me up. In his words, he couldn't help himself because of how sexy my name was, and he said that he was very happy to know that I was just as sexy as my name. At this point, I knew that he was probably just going to keep going with it, so I figured I would go ahead and shut him down and tell him that I was only 16.

and that he should probably move on. He then told me that he, again, in his words, "preferred girls my age because they were less likely to fight back." I was mortified by this comment. I didn't respond to this message. I figured that I would move on instead and it would just go away. Unfortunately, on this forum, there was no method of blocking people or ignoring them.

Which was either a major design oversight for the page, or was done maliciously, based on what happened later. So, because of that, I had no way to stop him from messaging me. And he did keep messaging me. He would send me a message daily telling me how much he loved me. He would send me random messages asking me to send him naked pictures of myself.

He would send me messages telling me all the things that he was doing to himself while thinking of me and creeping through my Facebook. After several days of putting up with this, I decided I would move to take action against White Oak. I figured I would contact the owner of the forum with a message and tell him what his second-in-command was doing. This did not go as I expected, of course.

I sent him a message with screenshots of the messages that White Oak had been sending me, and I explained that I had given White Oak my information for the gift card that I won in the contest. I tried to give him as much information as I could, and explain the whole thing as best as possible, and the screenshots that I took were more than enough to really display what was happening. He did reply, but his response was that he would just have a talk with him about it,

He didn't say sorry. He didn't seem to really care or that he was shocked at all. About two days later, he sent me another message that said, I spoke with White Oak about the situation, and he told me that it never happened. I believe him. Please do not contact us about this again. I was livid. He was literally believing that White Oak had never sent me any of the messages, even though I literally had receipts.

I messaged him back saying just that, asking how he could believe White Oak over me, when I had screenshots of the conversation, and then I mentioned that I would be passing the information on to the police, since I was a minor. I thought for sure that he would see this, and see that he needed to take it seriously. But then, the next day, when I went to log in to see if he had replied to me, my account was gone. Like, completely. Gone.

I tried to log in and it kept giving me an error saying that my account didn't exist. When I tried to do a forgot password, it said that my email didn't exist in the system. He had completely purged my account, probably as a way to cover for White Oak, as now I had no live access to my account. I still had the screenshots, but a lot of good that would do me if I couldn't prove anything was on the site.

At this point, I decided to bring my mom and dad into the situation. I told them that I had won a writing contest, and that I had given the site my information for the gift card. I told them about how the guy had found me on Facebook, and I gave them my screenshots and explained the whole thing. They were not happy, obviously.

and they implemented several controls in my internet usage, which was fine, but when my dad contacted the police, they basically told him that there wasn't much they could do without information on the person, since all I had was a username on a random forum. Again, disappointing. But this was around 2008 or so, so I don't think they had the forensic capabilities that they do now. I can't really say that I fault them for it,

and maybe they could have done something more but it was what it was and then the final bit of the story about a week after this all happened i had signed into my facebook which i admittedly should have deleted it considering that's how he'd found me i saw when i logged in that i had a friend request from a man named gary t at first it didn't click in my head who it was

I accepted it, and as soon as I did, I got a message saying, "I'm sorry we had to delete your account. I miss you so much, and I'm glad that you accepted my request." I responded with some harsh words, and thankfully, Facebook does have a block option, and I blocked him. I felt sick that he had really found my Facebook, and that he thought I would seriously just sit there and let him stay on my friends list.

Thankfully, that was the last time that I ever heard from White Oak, or Gary T. The only reason I thought about submitting this story was that White Oak came up in a conversation with my sister. I had completely put it out of my mind after all of these years, but she mentioned him for some reason during one of our conversations, and it led to me thinking about the whole thing. That night, I actually went home and googled his name.

and after a bit of digging, I found out that he was in prison. At least, probably. I found a story about him being arrested and charged for lewd behavior with a minor, as well as several counts of soliciting minors. From what I read, he's going to be in prison for a very long time. So, at least with that fact out there...

I guess I never have to worry about meeting White Oak ever again. Back around 2006, I worked as a contracted security guard. I worked at a lot of different places such as hotels, hospitals, tech and banking buildings, you name it. The job was always the same with minimal rules varying depending on the business.

I have plenty of stories of weirdos trying to get past me, vindictive ex-workers, and more that I'll consider sharing in the future, but the ones that freaked me out the most were the ones that I have no explanation for. I'm by no means a small guy, and just standing within inches of someone was typically enough to get them to back off, but I will nope right the hell out of a haunted house.

So, when my next contract was in a closed hotel, I was less than thrilled about the idea, but I bucked up and told myself that I could make it through the month and a half that I would be there. The hotel was empty because it had been shut down and the owners went bankrupt. The people, or debtors I guess, had rights to the property, the furniture and whatever else was in the building, so they hired security guards to monitor it until they were able to retrieve everything they wanted.

I worked some of the day shifts when they needed someone to cover them, but usually just worked the overnight ones. There was always a shift partner, and we were never alone, so that definitely helped a lot to keep my mind busy, so that I didn't dwell on the creepiness around me. If you've ever been in a large, empty, or abandoned building, you may know what I mean. The eerie silence is intense."

When you look around and see the building is in good condition and looks like you should see people coming out of the pool area, sounds of doors opening, people walking, and you just see none of this, it kind of puts you in a situation where you feel like you should be on guard. Sorry, it's kind of hard to explain. Definitely like something bad is happening that you aren't aware of or will happen. It's just an unsettling feeling.

Anyways, it was probably about 2am or so, and my shift partner Trent and I were talking about food when we became really hungry. We didn't really have a lot of places nearby that delivered, so he offered to go grab something for us. This is where my stomach was louder than my brain. I thought I could totally handle being alone for a short amount of time until he got back, so I agreed and he left.

So I was sitting there at the front desk, just waiting for time to pass. I played some stock games that was on my phone given to us by work, and then pulled out the small rubber ball I had found earlier that was in my pocket. I started bouncing it off the floor to the wall and would catch it, and just repeat this over and over, until one of these cycles it was disrupted. The ball was coming back to me when it just seemed to fall to the ground.

It was almost as if someone had blocked it from coming back to me, causing it to just stop. It was definitely weird, but I just chalked it up to losing momentum. Maybe I didn't throw it very hard, I don't know. So I went to pick up the ball when I started hearing a thumping noise. It made me stand up straight, stiff as a board when I heard it. Then I noticed that the thumping was in the same pattern that I was causing with throwing the ball.

Thump to the floor, thump to the wall, thump after catching it. I stood there listening to this on repeat for several cycles. I first thought that someone must be in here and maybe they're doing something else and it just conveniently sounded the same, or that someone was messing with me. So I decided to check the floor above me, where it sounded like it was coming from. I took the stairs and started looking over the floor.

I didn't immediately see anyone, so I continued looking down the halls, checking to see if any of the doors were open. We were given a master key that opened any and all of the doors of the hotel, including all of the rooms. But from what I could see, there were no open doors. Then I heard what sounded like a door opening or closing. I turned to look towards the hall where I thought it was coming from and made my way in that direction.

This is where I started feeling anxious. Something was not right, and I didn't know what it was, but not seeing the cause of the sound immediately was starting to make me panic. With my hand on my taser, I shouted out, ''This premise is closed to the public. You should leave now or you will be prosecuted by the owners.'' I was hoping that I sounded burly and threatening and didn't let my fear show through, but

but I was even more so hoping that whoever it was would just leave. However, it wouldn't be that easy. As I stood there and started to make my way down the hall, I heard what sounded like feet stomping or running, but I was still not seeing anything. The stomping continued to get louder and faster like it was coming towards me, and I froze not knowing what to do.

Then, suddenly, I felt a strong shift in the air and it got really cold. This is where my fight or flight finally kicked in, but I wasn't about to fight something that I couldn't see, so I darted back downstairs to the first floor and out the front door. I refused to go back in that building alone. I called Trent to see where he was at, and he said he was pretty close by, so after I hung up...

I took a minute to pull myself together and went back in, but I turned all of the lights on on the bottom floor. We usually just had the light on at the desk in the lobby, but I wanted to be able to see all around me at this point. When Trent got back, I told him that I thought I heard sounds upstairs but didn't find anything, and played it off as possibly hearing things or just echoes. So he brushed it off too.

We didn't have any more experiences that night. I had to work there the next night, but had a different shift partner, and he seemed nervous from the start. I'm not one to make fun of people's fears, but I did ask him what was up. He then explained how that place gave him a really weird, off feeling that he just couldn't shake. I asked him to explain more, and he told me his past experience, which was similar to mine.

He even mentioned the stomping and running noises that he'd heard, so I probably shocked him when I started rambling about my paranoia of this place too, but he agreed with me. We both joked about how under no circumstances would we go to the second floor, and we definitely weren't going anywhere alone.

After talking to some other guys that worked there, one of them mentioned how he was friends with one of the previous owners, and they told him that he felt the place was haunted, as they'd experienced the same thing. I was mentally freaking out. I was glad to know that I wasn't just being a coward, and that others were experiencing this too. But then, I also had to acknowledge that this, whatever it was, existed.

I did work through it, but I tried to swap shifts as much as I could because I don't do ghosts. Thankfully, I never had another experience, but I also avoided any situation that may have given me one. Oh, and they've since leveled the place, so good riddance. So, I have a story about a guy that I met on the internet that ended up being, well...

I think creep is probably an understatement, but it's the best word I can think of to define him. I'm sure some people out there have more appropriate choice adjectives for him, but creep works for me. Anyways, this was a good number of years ago. I was pretty active on a social media platform that doesn't exist anymore. I had garnered a decent following by posting stupid pop culture memes and references.

Pretty shallow, I know, but it was fun and I was like 16 at the time, and I liked the friendships that I was making, mostly because I didn't have many friends in real life. Most of the people that hung around my page were pretty decent, to be honest, and I rarely had to block anyone or report them. One day, I had gotten a message from someone that had followed me saying that they enjoyed my page, and they thought that I was a pretty cool person.

Obviously, they hadn't met me, and I didn't put much in ways of personal information out on the page, but again, I was young and that kind of validation was something that I wanted. They seemed pretty normal at first, just telling me that they liked my content and about how much they enjoyed this show or liked that band. It was a pretty normal conversation for the most part, and then they followed it up with a pretty common ASL.

which, for those that don't know, is age, sex, and location. Asking for information about me. I told them that I was 16, female, but then said that I didn't really want to give out my location. The other person said that they were 19, male, and that they lived in the same state that I actually lived in. Obviously, he didn't know that, but I was kind of irked to see that he did live in the same state.

He didn't push me at all to tell him where I lived, though, so although I was a bit... I said irked earlier, but I don't know if that's the right word, I still talked to him, because he didn't know that I lived in the same state. We talked every once in a while, just chatting about whatever, mostly him telling me about the movies and things that he liked.

Then, out of seemingly nowhere, he started hounding me and asking me for more information on who I was, and then telling me that he loved me. I told him that he was being a creep, and that if he didn't stop, I was going to have to block him. Then, he threw out, "'Go ahead and block me, Caitlin, if it'll make you feel better about yourself.' I was sufficiently freaked out."

Because I had never told him my name and there was no indication that my name was Caitlin on my page. I immediately blocked him. The fact that he knew my name told me that he had somehow gotten information on me, and I wasn't going to risk him being a creep even more than he already had. But, of course, if that was the end of this, it would be a rather boring story. And this was certainly not the end of it.

I thought that he was just going to go away after being blocked, but he was just getting started with me, apparently. The next day, I got a DM from an account that had literally no information associated with it. To the best of my knowledge, this site required information like a name and such, but the name was blank, the picture was plain white, and the description on the account was just "not done with you yet."

I knew right away who it was going to be, and I wasn't surprised when I saw that the message was, I have something for you. I stupidly said, what do you want? And he responded with an incredibly inappropriate image. I won't describe it, but you can probably guess what it was. I blocked this account too, but it didn't matter.

Every other day he was messaging me with gory images, pictures of himself naked, and other various disgusting things. It hit a point where I just ended up logging off my account entirely, and basically forgot that it existed. For about two weeks. This was sufficient enough to stop him from being able to harass me, until I checked my email one day and saw a message from an email address that was just random characters.

Sure enough, when I clicked that message, I knew that it was him. I knew that it was him. The message was a picture of me from my prior year's school yearbook. It had my first and last name, home address, school address, and then another very disgusting photo of part of his body. This was where I knew that I had to end this. I needed to get someone else involved. I ended up bringing it up to my mom,

I was a bit slow with explaining it, but after a while, I basically just put it out there that this guy now knew where I lived, where I went to school, had my full name and picture. I showed her the email, and she told me that we needed to tell my dad, and he said that we needed to take it to the police. Thankfully, the police did take it seriously, because this was a fairly credible threat, and he was sending adult content to a minor.

We ended up making the report, my parents basically told me that I wasn't allowed to use the computer anymore, and they informed my school of the situation too. That way, if someone was found around the school, or if anyone came up there for me, they would know that it could be this guy. Even worse, that is exactly what happened, and how this all ended.

It was about two weeks later, and there was an announcement over the intercom that the school was going into lockdown, and that all students needed to remain in the classrooms. We were all a bit curious and scared. This was the early 2000s, so this wasn't a common thing to have to go through these kinds of things. After several hours, they announced that the lockdown was over, and then my teacher got a call and they asked me to come to the office.

When I got there, my parents were there and I had to sit in with them, the administration, and the police to discuss the situation. Apparently, this guy had come into my school and told the front office that he was my uncle, Ronald, which actually was my uncle's name. And, worse yet, he was an emergency contact for me, and he told them that he was there to come get me out of class for the day because I had a doctor's appointment."

Thankfully, the front desk person knew my uncle, and had his photo on file on the computer. And this guy was not him. Plus, they knew that there was a potential threat with this rando, and they asked him to wait in the lobby while they called me down. They then called the school resource officer, and he immediately cuffed this guy. Fun fact about this creep. He was in his mid-forties. Not nineteen, like he said.

and he didn't actually live in the state. He was from Texas. I know that I didn't mention where I lived, but it was nowhere near Texas, which meant that he already knew where I lived when he asked, and that's why he said that he lived in my state. I have no idea what this guy's intentions were, though I can kind of make some incredibly disturbing assumptions, but I'm glad that I ended up talking to my parents about it.

I was banned from the computer for something like two years at my house, and I was fine with that. Sure, it was nice having the validation of strangers, but it clearly came at the cost of my own safety and security, and that was absolutely not worth it. In the end, he went down for a number of things, including the content he had on his hard drive, and I don't think he's going to be getting out of prison.

Like, ever. I'm thankful for that because I never want to meet him ever again. Hi Raven. I was listening to one of your recent videos, and it reminded me of something similar that happened to me while I was in college. So, I thought that I would just share it with you. Unlike all the crazy stories I've heard about college students going on trips for spring break, I was far too broke to do any of that.

But, thankfully, I wasn't alone. I lived in a small town, going to a local college, and living in one of their dorms. My two roommates and I didn't have a lot of free time or money to plan something crazy, so we just went to parties our friends hosted or friends of friends. That way, we could still have a good time. And it was cheap to free. I remember one party, though, that I will never forget.

It was nearing the end of spring break, actually, and we learned of a local party that was open to anyone. They just asked that you BYOB. That was reasonable for me, because I wasn't picky and could stomach some pretty cheap beer, so the three of us all got a 12-pack and drove over to the party. We got there, and we found some of our friends and just let loose.

We drank, we played drinking games, we did stupid pranks to each other. It was a good time. I met a few people that I didn't know and even some people that I just knew in passing at school. At one point, I ended up outside and was watching some people do stupid stunts into the pool. I was standing on the patio next to a guy that I didn't know and made a comment about one of the stunts that they pulled saying it looked like it hurt.

The guy laughed and explained how he should have done this instead, and he probably would have pulled it off better. I don't remember the exact thing he said, but it was something to do with some kind of aquatic thing. The dude sounded like he was a professional swimmer or something, so I asked him about it, and he said that he was on the swim team. He told me a bit more about the science of swimming, I guess, and some of it was pretty cool.

I threw some dumb scenarios his way, and he assured me of how it would work, or how much of an utter failure it would be, and we just had a good laugh. After a bit of time, he said that he had to go, and he walked off. My last thought was, eh, cool guy, and moved on with the night. After some time, I was talking with some other friends, and I brought up the swimming guide. None of them seemed to know who I was talking about, so I just kind of dropped it.

It wasn't unusual for uninvited people to show up, and as long as they weren't a problem, there was no sense in trying to make them leave. But later on, I ran into the friend I was talking to earlier and spotted the swimming guy passing by the living room. I pointed him out, and my friend said that he didn't recognize him either. He wasn't on the swim team either, so we just assumed that he may have been in a different year or different program. That's why we never ran across him.

I tried to get his attention, but he looked confused as to why I was flagging him down. He just had an annoyed look on his face, and he ignored me. My friend laughed, but I just shrugged it off. People are weird. And it wasn't like I knew him on a personal level, so no loss to me. Again, queue up more of the same for the night, including some people starting to leave or pass out all over the place.

The music was still playing, though, as it had been throughout the whole night, so other than the people dispersing, the party was the same as it had been. So while some of us were in the kitchen talking about one of our classes, we all jumped when we heard somebody yelling. We went and checked out the living room, where we thought it was coming from, and saw some people staring down the hall towards the bedrooms and bathroom. I walked down the hall, and I could hear more yelling and grunting sounds.

As I approached the bathroom, I saw the swimming guy standing in there holding some kind of pipe. One of my friends was standing behind me, but otherwise, nobody was doing anything but staring, so I just asked him if he was alright. That's when he turned to look at me and just started rambling about things that made no sense. He said it was too loud, even though nothing had changed all night, and in fact-

Since there were fewer people, it wasn't as loud. I wanted to clarify with him because I didn't understand why it was all of a sudden a problem, but he just continued talking. I don't remember exactly what he said, but he was saying things like, "'They won't stop laughing. I know that they're laughing at me. I know that they're talking about me. Stop it. Why won't they stop it?'

I just stood there, confused, not knowing what to do. This was obviously not about the music. This was something else. So, the only thing that I said was something like, "'Hey man, maybe you should relax a bit.'" But before I could finish that, he started screaming and swung the pipe in my direction. He was still in the bathroom with me outside, and with him being intoxicated or on something, he instead hit the door.

I was not going to stick around at this point and risk getting hit, so I rushed back into the living room and told them that we needed to leave before things got worse. As people started shoving themselves back towards the furthest wall or running out the back door, the swimming guy went running out of the bathroom, screaming, "'No more! No more, please!' and then out the front door. I watched him from the front door as he ran into the road."

and was subsequently struck by a car. A bunch of people were still inside and they saw this, causing them to scream. I ran to call 911 from the landline that I had seen, and it was just pure chaos. I barely knew the address, so I had to go check that. I didn't even know the guy's name, and was trying to explain what exactly had happened, all the while people were screaming in the background and me not being in my right mind either.

I kept walking back to the front door and saw the person in the car did stop. There were a few people from the party out there now, but I had no idea of the condition of the guy. An ambulance finally showed up, so I got off the phone and ran outside to them. They already had him on a stretcher and was putting him in the ambulance. I didn't see him move once. I didn't hear anything from him, and I was afraid that this man that I had just met was now dead.

I was horrified, not knowing what else to do. I went back into the house and watched as many people left crying, shoulders and heads low, just saying nothing. The next day, I tried contacting people that were at the party, trying to figure out the name of that guy, but nobody knew him. There were so many people that I knew from the party that I found it difficult to believe that no one else knew this supposed student.

He gave details about the school and some of the teachers. So, I found it hard to believe that he could have been lying. I even tried going to the hospital and describing him and when he got there, but all that they could tell me was that he wasn't there anymore and couldn't provide any more information. I guess that that made sense. I went in looking for someone that I couldn't even give the name of, but at least by the way that they were talking about him...

I was reassured that he hadn't died. It may be a bit anticlimactic, but that's where my story ends. I never did learn who that person was, and those that I still have contact with still cannot recall his name or even remember him at this point. Since then, the memories of that party have stayed in the back of my mind. I took a small break on partying, but when I got back into that scene, I feared experiencing something similar to that.

Thankfully, I never did though. You just never know what someone else is going through, so no matter where you are, it doesn't hurt to learn names and all possible escape routes. Anyways, thank you for letting me share my story. Hello Raven. I've been contemplating for a long time about telling this true story. 50 years ago, I had a car accident with my wife, and she died.

After 50 years, it's still tough to think about it, but a lot of paranormal happenings happened because of it. If you want to use this on one of your paranormal videos, you can. Please tell me if you want to. I have no proof that this happened except my words, so here's the story. This November 17th, 2023, will be the 50th anniversary of my wife dying in a car accident where I was the driver.

I spent about a week in the hospital after the car rolled over me when I was thrown out of it. While I was in the hospital, family and friends would visit me. One of the friends was Maria, who was a good friend with both Wendy and I. Later on, she told me that when she visited me in the hospital that day, something came over her and she started getting feelings for me that she had never had before.

A few months later, we were at a mutual friend's house drinking alcohol, which I used to kill the pain of me losing Wendy for 30 years of chaos. We got to talking, and she made a move on me, and ended up at her trailer for the night. We went into her bedroom, laid on the bed, and all of a sudden, we start hearing a loud heartbeat coming from the outside of the trailer. Boom, boom, boom.

Then, we started hearing scratching on the inside walls so loud that I thought Maria had a dog in her closet. I turned the light on and there was no closet. I looked in the hallway where the bathroom was on the other side of the wall. I looked at it and it was empty. Well, that definitely ruined the night that we had planned on. I kind of tried to stay away from Maria after that, but we hooked up a couple of weeks later.

I was staying with my grandparents, so I couldn't take her anywhere, so we hooked up at a friend's house. She was taking me home, and a car started following us. I had wrecked my car, so I was carless for a while, so she was driving. We drove around a little bit, and the car kept following us. I told her to go back to Larry's, so I got out and looked at the car following her, and it was a dark car, but for some reason, I couldn't see it.

I couldn't clearly see it for some crazy reason with the streetlight right there at the house. She went to Larry's and ran into the house. Larry, Ricky, and Maria heard the car pull up to Larry's house and heard somebody get out and the door close. Ricky grabbed the knife that he had at all times and ran to the door and opened it. There was nothing there. Nothing at all.

Well, I hate to tell you this, but I kind of started to stay away from Maria, and she came by one night to ask for help from me because she told me that Wendy was trying to possess her to be with me. She told me when she looked at me in the hospital, she fell in love with me. She never had those feelings for me before the accident. She asked for my help. I told her I would see what I could do.

She drove me to Larry's house. I never stepped foot in her trailer again after the first night. We got over there and went into Larry's room to see what I could do. We sat on the bed, and all along the wall on the other side of the bed, blue sparks started to go back and forth along the wall. I started saying, "'Wendy, you've died,' and asking her to leave Maria alone."

I looked at Maria and started to get turned on by her, but I felt the presence of Wendy, not Maria. I hate to tell you this, but I jumped up and had Larry take me home. I stayed away from her because it was too strange for me since I had just lost Wendy six months before that. She caught up with me about a year later. Maria told me that she had a psychic help her out a few months after we saw each other. He told Maria the accident was so horrific.

The car blew up, and she didn't realize that she had died. He told Wendy to go to the light, and gave Maria a necklace with garlic and sage to wear for five days, and it crazily worked. Years later, Wendy came to me after my grandpop crossed over, and she said that she saw my pops and my grandma together. She told me that she will be the first in line when I pass over. All I could do was cry.

I don't have any proof that this happened, but I would swear on my soul that this all happened to me 50 years ago. I have never seen or had anything like this happen. A little backstory, it was my ex and I living in a one-bedroom apartment, the one that I still reside in today. This older guy I had met, Dan, owned this house with four different units, all one-bedroom.

Well, he got lung cancer and boom, six months later he was gone. His grandmother originally owned this place, and I'm not sure of who owned it before her. Anyways, after he passed, my ex and a neighbor who lived in one of the other units, Sharon, decided to make a Ouija board and do it. Now, Sharon was Dan's niece, and they were curious to see if they would get any answers.

Neither of them know how to safely use a Ouija, and when I had found out about this, I was a little upset, as I've had experiences with them before. None really good, to be honest. I don't like that you have to give an entity permission to use your body as a conduit to move the planchette. I prefer spirit boxes or other methods.

At this point, I've always been interested in the paranormal, and have had experiences, but nothing quite like what I'm about to detail. So, a couple of days go by, I've forgotten all about the Ouija board, I'm getting home from work, I work the second shift so it was past midnight, and my ex was also working so the lights were off, and it was dark when I arrived.

I come through the door to see shimmering bits of light reflecting off of my living room floor. I quickly turned on a light and was shocked to see a tempered glass pane that had come from a coffee table. I had put it on top of my wooden coffee table. Well, I start recording as I thought somebody had possibly broken in. I checked the place first, obviously, and it's not like it's a big place for anyone to hide.

but the glass pane had exploded wall to wall with glass. I still find glass to this day from that table. Now, it had all spidered out from a covered candle that happened to be used in the Ouija session. I've dropped stuff on this table, and it's had its fair share of usage, but the only thing I'm aware of that can create the force that was needed for this glass pane to explode would be a rapid temperature change.

which it was summertime in New England, or something contacting it just right to make it shatter. But this wasn't just a shatter. Entire chunks were blown off of the table in every direction. It was quite spooky, honestly. When my ex got home, I was recording the video and she was just as uneasy about this as me. Long story kind of short,

That event kicked off a month long of intense poltergeist activity that neither of us had experienced before. It was getting to the point where we were lost as to what to do. Get a priest? I had sage cleansed the place, but it actually made things worse. The last straw for me is when we had just gotten home from grocery shopping about a week after the table, and I know beyond a doubt that I placed the cat litter on the kitchen table.

My ex left to go back to the store because we forgot something, so I went outside to have a cigarette. And I can see my front door, but I can't see inside the house. My cat was outside with me, sitting by the window. Now, the cat litter bag was made of a plastic that had a very distinct sound, and then all of the sudden I heard what sounded like someone picking it up, placing it on the floor, and then tipping it over.

I heard and felt the thud as it hit the ground gently. My cat's ears were straight up and extremely focused on whatever was happening inside the house. I go up to the door, which has a window on it. Without entering, I look through and the cat litter bag was in the middle of my kitchen floor. I mean, we would have had to have walked around it. To be sure I wasn't going insane, I called my ex Becky and asked her what I did with the bag of litter.

She said that I put it on the table, and I know that I did. There were a couple of other events that led up to this, so I'm laughing in just pure shock as to what the hell is going on, and then I decided to enter the apartment. As soon as I tried to take a step in, well, the only way I can describe it is that I felt something pass through me. I started shaking uncontrollably, and that persisted for hours, and then I started crying.

But it didn't feel like my emotions. I was baffled and had no idea why I was crying. Becky got home and asked me why I was crying, and I was just like, "I don't know," and then laughed. But yeah, totally the most bizarre thing I have ever experienced. My conclusion is that I'm not sure if it was a coincidence or what.

But someone gave me some Native American stuff to try, and it did taper off after that. Which was a relief, my honest opinion, as whatever they made contact with on the Ouija board was not our friend Dan who had recently passed. It was malevolent, for sure, as it was getting more and more aggressive, and it literally felt heavy in here. I would get home from work and would sit down, but would all of a sudden feel this overwhelming presence.

Like, very oppressive. Your body can sense this stuff. Like, have you ever entered a room where people were just arguing or something, and you can just feel the tension in the air? And your instincts kick in, trying to tell you that something is off. No, that's what it would feel like. If I figure out how to add the video, then I will. Have any of you had similar experiences like this? I mean, this made me open my eyes quite a bit.

and started rabbit-holing with the subject as I find it fascinating. So, yeah, I'm just curious what you guys think about this story, or if you've had any similar experiences. I come through the door to see shimmering bits of light reflecting off of my living room floor. I quickly turned on a light and was shocked to see a tempered glass pane that had come from a coffee table. I had put it on top of my wooden coffee table.

Well, I start recording as I thought somebody had possibly broken in. I checked the place first, obviously, and it's not like it's a big place for anyone to hide, but the glass pane had exploded wall to wall with glass.

I still find glass to this day from that table. Now, it had all spidered out from a covered candle that happened to be used in the Ouija session. I've dropped stuff on this table, and it's had its fair share of usage, but the only thing I'm aware of that can create the force that was needed for this glass pane to explode would be a rapid temperature change, which it was summertime in New England.

Or something contacting it just right to make it shatter. But this wasn't just a shatter. Entire chunks were blown off of the table in every direction. It was quite spooky, honestly. When my ex got home, I was recording the video and she was just as uneasy about this as me. Long story kind of short, that event kicked off a month long of intense poltergeist activity.

that neither of us had experienced before. It was getting to the point where we were lost as to what to do. Get a priest? I had sage cleansed the place, but it actually made things worse. The last straw for me is when we had just gotten home from grocery shopping, about a week after the table, and I know beyond a doubt that I placed the cat litter on the kitchen table. My ex left to go back to the store because we forgot something, so I went outside to have a cigarette.

and I can see my front door, but I can't see inside the house. My cat was outside with me, sitting by the window. Now, the cat litter bag was made of a plastic that had a very distinct sound, and then all of the sudden I heard what sounded like someone picking it up, placing it on the floor, and then tipping it over. I heard and felt the thud as it hit the ground gently.

My cat's ears were straight up and extremely focused on whatever was happening inside the house. I go up to the door, which has a window on it. Without entering, I look through and the cat litter bag was in the middle of my kitchen floor. I mean, we would have had to have walked around it. To be sure I wasn't going insane, I called my ex Becky and asked her what I did with the bag of litter. She said that I put it on the table, and I know that I did.

There were a couple of other events that led up to this. So, I'm laughing in just pure shock as to what the hell is going on, and then I decided to enter the apartment. As soon as I tried to take a step in, well, the only way I can describe it is that I felt something pass through me. I started shaking uncontrollably, and that persisted for hours. And then I started crying. But it didn't feel like my emotions.

I was baffled and had no idea why I was crying. Becky got home and asked me why I was crying and I was just like, "I don't know." And then laughed. But yeah. Totally the most bizarre thing I have ever experienced. My conclusion is that I'm not sure if it was a coincidence or what. But someone gave me some Native American stuff to try and it did taper off after that. Which was a relief.

My honest opinion is whatever they made contact with on the Ouija board was not our friend Dan who had recently passed. It was malevolent for sure, as it was getting more and more aggressive, and it literally felt heavy in here. I would get home from work and would sit down, but would all of a sudden feel this overwhelming presence. Like, very oppressive. Your body can sense this stuff.

Like, have you ever entered a room where people were just arguing or something, and you can just feel the tension in the air, and your instincts kick in trying to tell you that something is off? No, that's what it would feel like. If I figure out how to add the video, then I will. Have any of you had similar experiences like this? I mean, this made me open my eyes quite a bit, and started rabbit-holing with the subject as I find it fascinating.

So, yeah, I'm just curious what you guys think about this story, or if you've had any similar experiences. Alright, everybody with a knowledge of cryptids. I'm hunting for information on a cryptid that I'm not even sure has been marked down yet. There has been multiple sightings in my small town of Merrill, Michigan, something of which doesn't match a single cryptid I've read about yet, and I've read a lot.

I personally have not seen it, so sorry for breaking that rule, but I have three witnesses that I would put my life on, and I really want to know about this thing. The first witness is my uncle, and he's the main reason that I'm on this hunt. When he was young, he used to take night walks in the neighbor's woods, right before sunrise, as long as it was dark enough so no neighbors could see him.

He would take a very dim flashlight with him on purpose, and if he thought anyone saw him or was following him, he would put his hand over it and hide in the woods' darkness. He claims that the main things that scared him were the raccoons and opossums. He never had problems with people on his walk, but he still knew the risks of trespassing. Though his story isn't very exciting, he got the best view of the creature out of all three witnesses.

claiming that it only stood a few feet tall and had legs bent backwards with large, fly-like eyes, and the rest of it looked like a kangaroo and monkey hybrid. There are many cryptids that are close in visuals, but none of them have thick hair and big eyes like this one had. I showed him drawings of other lookalike cryptids, and he's dismissed every one of them.

He claimed that he was walking out of the woods just as it was getting brighter. The sky was grey and the woods were still dark from the trees, but the road was almost visible the whole mile. On his way across the road back to the house, he saw that thing a little ways down the road. It's said to have crossed the road in two steps, despite being short, and disappearing into the woods that my uncle had just exited. The second witness is deceased now,

He was a natural conspiracist, so it came as no surprise when I heard his story years ago. Though his description was much less valuable, I have the belief that this was the same cryptid. A couple miles away from the first incident, this man said that he had seen a small ape-like figure jump almost to the top of the trees. This is the least resourceful sighting, because I can't ask this man to answer anything he left out-

or to give any more information. This is all I have for his sighting. The third is my grandma's good friend, Sylvia, from a state away. Every 4th of July, they park a camper in my grandma's yard and stay for a week or two, to visit all the friends and family they left behind when they moved out of state. Keep in mind, these folks have never even heard the stories of this creature, and for this story, I was in the house as it happened.

Sylvia's husband had a few beers with my grandparents. There's a big tree on the side of a barely used road, and he walked over to it to use the bathroom. As he was going on this tree, he noticed the same big, black, bug eyes that my uncle had seen. It was staring him down from the tree line across the road, and as soon as he focused on it, the cryptid backed up into the brush and was gone.

Me and my uncle freaked out about this, as you would, because it had been six or so years since someone we knew spotted this thing. As crazy as it sounds, me and my whole family believe and know this creature. We've even narrowed down where it possibly calls home based on how far the sightings go.

Sorry for the long and multiple paragraphs, but if you have any idea of what might be lurking around mid-Michigan, please leave a name of a cryptid or description or drawing. My family and I all want to know what so many of us have seen. Any ideas? I will say that there are more sightings. These are just the most reliable, believable, and descriptive.

I started having these thoughts a couple of years ago. What if when we dream, we travel to parallel universes? When my dreams were showing me stuff that my simple mind could not possibly make up on its own, lately when I've been dreaming, I believe I can travel to an alternate universe, but it's like the people around me can't see me, but they can feel my presence, and they can hear me.

I've visited this place quite a few times in my dreams. Everything is so vivid, and I feel everything. In these dreams, when I'm in this universe, these agents are always trying to capture me. I hear them, and I see them, but they can't see me, and I'm super quiet when they're around. They look like FBI agents, honestly, but they have this kind of weird technology that picks up my frequency, I guess.

Because they always show up trying to capture me, and I have to hide with the other people who are guiding me where to hide from their government. Now, stay with me. I've always been told that I need to write a book or movies with my dreams because they're so surreal detailed, and they have got to have some kind of meaning. So, when this alternate government tries to capture me, I always try to find a body of water.

because if I can breathe underwater, then I know that I'm dreaming and kind of put myself at ease. This morning, at 7:30 AM until 10:36, I dreamt of going to that universe. I was chatting with the people hanging out when the agents showed up. They had weapons, knives that they pulled up to the people's house that I was at. They said, "Where's the being?" We picked up her cell phone location.

We immediately went to hide in some secret compartment inside the walls of the house. The government wouldn't leave. They barricaded the house and said that they are not leaving until they surrendered me. The people told me that, since I can't be seen, to run out the back door and hide in a nearby tent that grows vegetables. I did what they said. And then the agents came looking around everywhere, poking every object with a knife.

One agent actually glided the knife across my thigh through the tent, but said that he didn't smell any of my scent, so it was a cold trail. Sigh of relief. I told the people that I need to go back to my home because it's too dangerous there, because those agents were after me. So I jumped in a body of water. I tried to breathe underwater like I usually do, and I couldn't. I immediately started freaking out and swam to the surface.

When I got to the surface, I saw the agent waving the little frequency thing around, and then he said, ''I got you now.'' We fell off the ocean, if that makes sense, and then I started falling and he was falling with me, still trying to locate me. As I'm falling, I could see the scenery changing erratically around me and under me. It was like my body was falling through different dimensions. Anyways...

As I'm falling, I keep squeezing my eyes shut as hard as I can to try to wake myself up. That's what usually helps me when I try to wake myself up, knowing that I'm dreaming. I feel my body trying to wake up, but I'm still falling and he's right behind me. Next thing you know, he slaps some kind of wristwatch on me and said finally. As the watch is ticking, I'm trying frantically to get it off of me as I'm falling, also trying to wake myself up.

I finally got the watch off, he went into another dimension, and I felt my soul drop back into my body, where I immediately woke up. Now, I've had many dreams like this, but only up until recently is when I've been visiting these places, and their government is trying to capture me.

I'm so scared that if I get captured in my dream, then in this world I'll be deemed either dead or in a comatose state. Has anyone else ever had any experience like this? I have had these very vivid surreal dreams since I was five, and I remember all of them, and could literally write a movie and countless books.

I've dreamt where God has told me things I never knew, and I used to always have Satan on my back in my dreams until about a month ago. I literally killed him in my dreams, which I've never been able to do, and he's been messing with me since I was five. So what does this all mean? I know I don't usually do specific story content warnings, but I will for this one, as it does contain mentions of sexual assault.

None of it is detailed, and none of it is aggressively described or an active thing. It's just a mention of it. So, again, I know I don't usually do these warnings, but I figured I should for this because of that. So, if you can't handle that, or if that's not something you want to hear about, I recommend going to the description and skipping this story.

The number and author of the story is in the top right corner of the screen. You can use that to skip the story in the description again if you need to. This happened a long time ago, but it's a story that could happen today. It was in the fall of 1979. I was a senior in high school and was 17 years old. I didn't drive or have a driver's license at the time, so I took the school bus.

Most of my peers either had cars or went to school with friends who had cars. My friends who did drive or have cars didn't live close enough to drive me, and nearly all of those on the bus were sophomores or juniors, and were younger than me. This guy on the bus was about the same age or a year younger. There was a guy on the bus who lived in a group home who apparently was troubled. Very troubled.

One day he came and sat with me on the bus. For a while it was okay as we would have normal conversations, and then he started to make me feel uncomfortable and touched my thigh. I asked him not to do this, and he complied, looking at me like I had rejected him. The next day I sat in the front seat by the driver so that he wouldn't touch me. He didn't for a couple of days, and then he was all over me. I told him to stop. I slapped his hand away from my private area,

He tried to touch me again, and I yelled out for him to stop. He complied, but looked at me like he was sad that I had rejected him. No one came to my aid. This guy did not care that other people were around. The bus driver the next day banished him to the back of the bus. Normally, he got off before I did. This particular day, he stayed on the bus as we had a substitute driver. He was in the back, but I had a bad feeling that he was going to get off at my stop.

When I got off, I started to run as fast as I could. Near the bus stop was the home of a good friend of my grandmother's, who I could have run to for help, but she was out. The car was gone. So I started to run and started screaming for help. I turned around and saw him running, but then he turned around laughing like it was a joke. He got back on the bus. I was afraid that this guy would find out where I lived. I was also afraid that this guy was going to assault me.

The next day, I knew that this was going to happen again. This time, my grandmother's friend was home. Her home was about 100-200 yards from the bus stop. I ran towards her house screaming for help with this guy running after me. The regular driver who was a man yelled at him that this wasn't his stop. He turned around and got back on the bus. My grandmother's friend who had opened the door as the guy got back on the bus. This all happened within seconds.

She offered to walk me home, which was about two short blocks, but I said I was okay. I told her what had happened. The next day, this guy was watched closely to make sure that he got off at his bus stop. It had come to the intention of the school that this guy had gotten off at other bus stops and had chased other girls. He had also sexually harassed another classmate as well, touching them inappropriately.

He didn't care if people were around either, and there were witnesses to his behavior. I later found out that a classmate had made the mistake of going out on a date with him. This guy tried to sexually assault her. She got away from him, and then she broke up with him. This guy then tried to break into the window of her bedroom, and police were called. He was taken away by police, and he never came back to school.

He was removed from the group home due to his behavior. Supposedly, he didn't sexually assault or attack anyone, but I really do wonder about that. He had been seen peering into windows. He supposedly was sent to a place for treatment of his issues. Thankfully, I never saw him again, and I don't know what became of him.

I can hope that he got the help that he needed, because this guy was most likely on the path to sexually assaulting some teen or woman, if he hadn't already. Very sad and scary story. My grandmother was told by her friend what had happened shortly after it happened. She asked her friend to watch out for me and let her know if it happened again. Later, she asked me why I didn't tell her about this. I didn't because I didn't think anything would be done about it.

She then told me that someone had reported what he did to me and others to the school. I've told this story once before, but I figured I would share it again. This was when I was a kid, middle or elementary school aged, I can't remember. It involves me and an old friend of mine, whom I don't see or talk to anymore, and we'll call him Adam. I was staying at Adam's house one night, and I planned on sleeping over that night.

For some reason, at between 10pm and 12am, Adam and I decided to sleep at my house. I don't know why or what even compelled us to walk in the middle of the night from his house to mine, alone, mind you, but we did. So, we were walking up this hill, and the way Adam's house was positioned, it was at the bottom of two hills, one on the left and one on the right. So as we went up that hill, that led to my house.

"'We had made it up the hill, and there was three ways to go. "'Left, right, and straight forward. "'So we turned left. "'My house wasn't far from the point that we turned. "'As we were walking, we both got this weird feeling "'that we were being followed and watched. "'I know that I did. "'I'm only assuming that by the look on Adam's face, he felt it too. "'We both looked at each other and then looked behind us, "'and there we saw him, or it, or something.'

What was before us was a figure, based on the body type it was possibly male, with his hands in his pockets, and his hood over his head, and there was just pitch blackness. We couldn't see his face. It was as if there wasn't one. Both Adam and I were creeped out, so we turned our heads forward and kept walking to my house. Then, the footsteps got faster. We turned around once again, and that's when we saw this figure running at us.

That's when Adam and I took off. We both managed to get into my house before he could get to us, and after we both got into my house and shut the door, we turned around and looked outside thinking that we'd see him again, but nothing. We saw nothing. He was just gone. What's even freakier is when we first noticed him, we didn't see anyone walking on the road before we turned to walk to my house. This person, or figure...

was gone as mysteriously as he appeared. Adam and I were freaked out. We looked around for him from the safety of the house, and we thankfully weren't that stupid to go outside after that scare. Shortly thereafter, we went to bed. Then, we just drifted apart as friends. It was as if neither of us had the desire to continue being friends after that night. To this day, I don't know what we saw or why we drifted apart.

but I still find it creepy how shortly after seeing the thing, Adam and I had no desire to be friends after that. I don't know if the two events are connected, or if we were just both creeped out or what, but thankfully I never saw that thing again. Sometimes I do get a chill up my spine though, as if I'm being watched. This is another long one, because I'll be addressing several elements that relate to the haunted dorm room.

When I finished telling my friend who had never seen a UFO, in the story But Wait There's More, about my own early experience, our conversation moved to the other unexplained phenomena. He mentioned the thing below the dam at the park, and I instantly knew what he was talking about. We had attended the same university, though we didn't actually meet until ten years later. Neither of us knew what the thing was,

but we knew where it was, and that there were times that you hurried past, and there were times that you did not go there. Though, by daylight, it was usually perfectly innocuous. And he mentioned encountering a ghost in Bryle's Hall. My first weird experience that may be related occurred the year that Baby, the kleptomaniac philodendron, was first planted.

My roommate and I noticed that a door at the top of the stairwell on the fifth floor was unlocked, so of course we had to explore. It went to the roof, where we discovered to the right a kitchenette, all dusty and disused, and a door to what had been a rooftop sun deck a long time ago. To the left was a blank cinderblock wall, and a single door with its jam set about knee height.

It already having been established that we were nosy, we tried the knob and the door opened into blackness. I helped my roommate step up to the jamb, and she started to step inside though we couldn't see a thing. And I suddenly had the overwhelming sensation that there was nothing, nothing under her feet. I grabbed her belt, told her to stop, and we went back down to the room for flashlights. This was long before cell phones.

When we got up to the little room again and shown the flashlights inside, we discovered that Bryles Hall once had an elevator, and the shaft was still there, standing empty, all the way to the ground more than 50 feet below. The thing is, my roommate swore that she had felt something solid under her foot when she stepped inside. She was really freaked out to see that there was nothing there, and couldn't explain what she'd felt.

So, what does this have to do with the ghost? Just let me continue. A couple of years later, I was living in the dorm room on the northwest corner of the fifth floor, just below the old sun deck. One day, my suite mate had a helium balloon that went missing from her room.

Somehow, it had gotten through two locked doors and our shared bathroom, and made its way to my room where I found it wedged between the hanging pot of a certain kleptomaniac philodendron and the glass pane of the window. We joked that baby, the philodendron, liked balloons and just let him keep it. But there was other oddness that happened in that room. My suite mate would commonly hear someone walking around in my room on weekends that I went home.

Not gonna lie, I figured that she was hearing things, or that it had to do with recreational pharmaceuticals, but she was adamant and pretty freaked out about hearing footsteps in an empty room. Mind you, sometimes I had the impression that someone had been in my room. Things were moved or disappeared only to reappear later. It wasn't my suite mate. I kept the bathroom door locked and that was a deadbolt.

It could have been the RA, resident assistant, who was in charge of the floor and doing inspections. She wasn't supposed to come in like that, but who else had a key? I set traps, inconspicuous things that would be disturbed if someone came into my room when I was gone. They were never moved, yet the footsteps and other disturbances continued. And then there was the night that someone climbed into bed with me.

I woke to the sensation of the mattress sinking as a warm body lay down at my back. I was facing the window and stared into the darkness, too scared to move. Gradually, as the sky grew pale with dawn, the sensation of weight, warmth, and solidity faded away. I got up, checked my locks, and got ready for class. Just a case of hypnagogic hallucinations, right? I convinced myself of this too.

Then, came the night that Three Men and a Baby first aired on TV. This was obviously back in the dark ages of the 1980s, before PCs and streaming video. So, if you wanted to see a particular show, you needed to stake out one of the three TVs early. And if it was on at the same time as MacGyver or Beauty and the Beast, forget it. The lounges were standing room only.

Any fellow dinosaurs reading this may recall the rumor of a ghost glimpsed in a window as the character and three men and a baby were moving from one room to another. The rumor sparked the sharing of other supposed hauntings, and one of the RAs brought up the story of a young woman who ended herself up in that rooftop kitchenette at the top of the stairs decades before. Her room? You guessed it.

She had been living in the room that I occupied that year. Just a random confluence of phenomena, right? I pretty much thought so too. Until I went back to my room and thought to knock on the door of the girl across the hall. She hadn't been downstairs to hear the stories, and I hadn't said anything about my experiences either. So, she shouldn't have had any reason to make something up. I asked her if anything odd had happened in her room. She gave me a sketched out look,

and asked if I remembered the occasion that I had seen her smudging her room with sage. I did recall this, but I had no clue of the purpose of that practice at the time. She explained that she had been smudging her room because someone who wasn't there had climbed into bed with her the night before. Some answers to anticipated questions. No recreational pharmaceuticals were involved, except maybe on the part of the suite mate. Most of my friends didn't even drink.

We found college to be a liminal experience on its own, without any mood-altering substances involved. No, this is not fictional. Every part of it's true. My friend who encountered the ghost was living in the dorm as part of a two-week summer program for high school students. He didn't see anything, but he and another of his friends sensed something was there. They and the group that they were exploring with ran away without further investigation.

And yes, I have submitted the story about Baby the Kleptomaniac Philodendron, and it's in a video that I did last week. The unexplained video. I liked going on walks late at night or real early in the morning, like midnight or 3am. I preferred this because I could be alone with just my thoughts or music and enjoy the atmosphere.

The weather was typically perfect around this time for nothing more than shorts, a light jacket, and some running shoes. I loved having music on one side and then listening to the wind blow around the leaves and tree branches. It was quite peaceful, and a great way to unwind and decompress, especially after a rough day. Nine times out of ten, it was at the same park, same walking trail as well.

I had it down that I could probably walk the entirety of it with my eyes closed, but sometimes I wanted to change it up and would go to a different park a little further away. The first one was also close enough for me to walk to, so I didn't even drive there. I lived in a great community with very little crime, so I didn't feel unsafe being out there that late.

However, I did have a few situations that arose that made me protect myself a little more when I did go out. This occurred back in the autumn months. It was around 1 in the morning at this time, and it was pitch dark. At the beginning of the path, there was light along it coming from the moon and the streetlights, but the further in you went, the darker it got as the trees blocked out the light.

I usually had a small compact flashlight with me just in case I needed it, but other than my phone, that's all that I had on me. I was walking the path as normal, getting into the music and zoning out, when I started hearing what sounded like whimpering. Not like from an animal, but a person. Like they were holding back from crying. Like I said, the area of this park was pretty upscale.

There wasn't a lot of crime, and thinking back, I don't remember ever hearing any reports of something happening in that park either. So, when I heard this at first, I just ignored it, thinking maybe someone was needing some time alone too. As I continued walking, the whimpering got louder, until I heard a cracking sound. I made a mental note of the area that I was in, but again, I kept walking.

However, my curiosity got the best of me when I started hearing crying and an alarming conversation. I could hear a woman crying and saying things like, I'm sorry, please just stop, please let's just go home. I could also hear a very angry man saying, You need to shut the hell up, among other unpleasantries. I started slowing down and turned off my music so I could pinpoint where they were,

As I looked through the trees, there was a small opening where I could see the silhouette of two people. I had managed to walk right past them, and I assumed neither of us noticed each other. I stopped where I was and leaned onto the closest tree, hoping that they would continue to think they were alone. I watched as I saw the guy drag this woman by her wrist deeper into the trees. He then grabbed her by the hair, yelling something at her, and shoved her to the ground.

After some shuffling, I saw him pick something up off the ground like a stick or a tree branch that had fallen. The last thing I heard from him was something along the lines of "You brought this on yourself." Now, in case anyone asks why I didn't do something sooner or do more, I myself was a small woman. I was 5'4", 190 pounds at the time. There was no way I was going to be able to do anything to this guy.

I may not have been able to see him clearly, but he had to easily be 6 foot 2,300 pounds. He had a similar build to my boyfriend at the time, so that's what I was basing it off of. I definitely did not want to leave this woman out there with him, knowing that this could easily be the last terrifying moments of her life. So, I dialed 911 on my phone and held it with the screen facing my chest in hopes of blocking out the light.

Then, I just yelled the first thing that came to mind. ''What the hell is going on?'' I heard the woman gasp and the man stood up and froze. I started saying the address of the park out loud hoping that the operator would hear it too. They both went completely silent and I was holding as still as I could praying that this guy would not see me. Then, the guy pointed at her and said, ''Next time I catch you, you're effing dead.'' Then, took off to the other side of the trees.

I waited several more seconds, making sure that the guy didn't come back, and then picked the phone up to tell the operator what was going on. They assured me that they already had someone on the way. I started to approach the woman as she asked, "'Is someone there?' I told her it was okay and that the cops were already on the way. I walked with her back to the entrance so that they could find us, all while still on high alert that this guy could come back to try to attack us both."

Thankfully, if he did plan on doing that, the cops beat him to it. I told them what I saw and heard, but the lady claimed that she didn't know the guy. I don't think the cops believed her either, since I told them I heard her say something about going back home. Of course, they can only do so much since he didn't stick around, and she didn't want to go to the hospital. Regardless, I'm glad I did something because I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I hadn't.

and it was actually on the news the next day. After the woman hugged and thanked me, one officer agreed to follow her home, and since I walked there, the second officer took me home, which I was fine with. The mood was definitely ruined for that walk, nor did I even feel comfortable being there. I don't know whatever happened to her, but I hope she's okay and that he got caught."

As for me, it took a few months before I walked that park at night again, but no matter where I go, you will no longer find me without pepper spray and a pocket knife.