I don't know where to begin. My mother and I both had similar encounters when I was about seven, but I only learned about hers last year. Now that I've put the pieces together, its even stranger than I thought. I always figured that my seven-year-old brain was just showing me what I wanted to see, you know? I always thought the house was haunted when I was little; I still do. But looking back, I know I was only partially awake, and I wasn't just seeing things.
I was asleep one night, when something strange woke me up. Afterward, I couldn't remember my first few moments awake until about a year ago. I must've accidentally blocked it out somehow. Something, many things, were whispering, and I'm guessing that was what woke me up. At first, I didn't pay very much attention to it; I wanted to go back to sleep. But after a few minutes of awareness, what the voices were saying was clear.
"Erin Go to your parents room Erin Its not safe here please leave your parents can protect you Erin..." each voice and statement melting into the others. This whispering repeated for a few minutes, slowly becoming louder and louder until I was almost halfway convinced that I should do what the voices said. Then one of the voices did it. It sounded like it was about an inch away from my face, and it said "Erin, please. Go to your parents' room..." I was up, alright, but I wasn't as nearly as functional as I would've hoped.
So I hopped out of bed and left my room, but halfway down the hall near my parents room, I realized that I needed to go to the bathroom, and the bathroom was behind me.
My hallway is a weird one. There's a corner you need to turn if you want to see my bedroom door or the bathroom, but I already past that point by a foot or so when I wanted to go. There weren't any lights on in the house that I can remember, but I could see clearly enough. I turned halfway around so I could go back to use the bathroom, but I stopped in my tracks before I could completely turn to face it.
There was a hand (maybe it was two, I can't remember) about two feet away from my head on the other side of the turn. Of course, I was fully awake then. The thing looked like it was made of - don't laugh at me - cool whip, and it was pure white with a sort of bluish tint where the shadow would be. It felt like I stood there for a hour or two to stare at it, but I know that it wasn't even a full second before I started running. I didn't scream, I just ran. To this day I think that was the fastest I have ever run. Impossibly fast.
When I ran into my parents' room, they were still asleep. I quickly slammed the door behind me and let out a breath that I must've been holding when I saw the hand(s). My parents woke up when the door slammed and turned on the light. I crawled into bed with them, crying my eyes out and muttering about hands and cool whip. I think they thought I had a bad dream or something, but now I know that it wasn't just me that was seeing ghosts.
Last year, I told my mom I remembered the first part of my experience, and she decided to tell me one of her own. At around the same time - when I was seven or so - my mother heard someone walking in a circle in our attic. My dad was in his office, and I was in my room, so it couldn't have been us. Eventually, the walking stopped. She told my father about it, but to this day he thinks me and my mother are both nuts. Lucky him.
That year we got my dog. She's a Doberman, and she's absolutely horrible as a guard dog. She never barks or howls or anything; she just groans and sits around all day doing nothing.
Well anyway, my father's friend came over for a visit, and he heard the footsteps too. He told my mom that she might have some sort of object that possessed a ghost. He suggested masks, for some reason. Anyway, after he left, she went up into the attic and searched for anything that felt out of place. She found a mask that she was going to give me to color. She had found it at a garage sale, and spray painted it white before she would give it to me.
Well apparently it looked out of place, so my mom took it downstairs. When her foot hit the ground of the first story, my dog -- the lump that does nothing all day and doesn't make a sound - sat up and howled at the top of her lungs. As you can imagine, my mom freaked and burned that thing in our outdoor fireplace.
To this day, we aren't sure what happened when I was seven. It hasn't happened for a while now, but I'm starting to wonder about those voices when I woke up. Is my house some sort of battle ground for the paranormal? Good God, I hope not!