I remember being frightened all the time. Scared. Like something was always waiting for me in the next room.
It all began when I moved into an old Villa, built in the early 1900's. I was 7 years old. My brother (who was only 5 at the time) and I were so excited. My father renovated the house shortly after we moved in. He extended my room (which we called the sun room, as it was at the far end of the house where the sun shone in all day), and put in a new kitchen, bathrooms, and built a large deck in the backyard with a fish pond at the far end.
We also welcomed a new dog into our family. A big fluffy German Shepard, called Norman.
It wasn't long after we moved in that we started experiencing strange phenomena. The first recollections of these happenings are ones I can't remember, but ones that my mother had informed me about later in life. Whilst my bedroom was being renovated, I shared a room with my brother. One night, Mum awoke to the sound of us having a conversation. Assuming we had stayed up past our bed time, she came into the room and told us to go to sleep. Instead of responding, we continued to talk, and at that moment she said realized we were sleep-talking. "There he is!" I said, "He's coming!" My brother then began to say, "The man is here!" My mother thought this was strange, so she woke us up, saying we'd had a bad dream.
The next instance occurred, again, to my mother. She awoke to footsteps walking around her bed. When she opened her eyes, she saw a short black shadow with glowing green eyes staring back at her. She hit out at the "thing" in fear, which resulted in my father waking up, confused. He insisted that she must have been dreaming, as he didn't believe in anything paranormal. The bizarre thing was, that 5 minutes after she had seen this glowing eyed creature, my brother ran into her bedroom saying he had just seen "E.T." standing by his bed.
I remember my first encounter with a ghost. I would have been about 10-years-old. It was after Dad had finished renovating my new bedroom. It was a still night, and no moon in the sky, so my bedroom was pitch black. Like my mother, I awoke to footsteps slowly walking into my room and around my bed. I opened my eyes, and to my horror, a blonde haired boy with blue eyes, knelt beside my bed. He just stared at me, smiling. A white glow surrounded him, it was so bright it hurt my eyes. I remember being so terrified. I couldn't move. I felt frozen, my heart was racing. I got the courage to pull the blanket up over my head, and lay there in the darkness hoping he had gone away. After a few minutes, he had.
Our dog Norman was also subject to seeing something paranormal in the house. He used to sit in front of the old fireplace, staring at the mantlepiece as if something was there. Waving my hand in front of his eyes didn't deter him. I always wondered if he could see something we couldn't.
My mother saw many other entities, including a tall man wearing a top hat, a girl with abnormally big eyes and long brown hair, and small children playing on her window seat.
The most terrifying experience I had, was something I could not see, but could only hear. I had just hopped into bed and turned off the light, when I noticed a noise that sounded like somebody breathing heavily. I listened for a while. It got louder and louder. It was the scariest thing I've ever heard in my life. I was actually convinced someone HAD to be in the room, under my bed or in the closet. Too frightened to move, I called out to my parents. Dad came into the room and asked me what was wrong. After informing him of the breathing, he sat with me in silence to see if he could hear what I'd been telling him about. We sat quietly for a couple of minutes, and NOTHING could be heard. It had completely stopped. He said it could have been the water pipes, told me not to worry, and tucked me into bed. I felt comforted, especially now that the breathing had gone. But seconds after he left the room, it started again. It was a deep breathing. Almost like whoever it was, was struggling to breathe. I can't describe how terrifying it was to hear such a thing.
Even when I invited friends over to the house, they were too scared to come back after their visit. On one occasion, I had 3 friends over. We were playing in the garden at dusk, and I ran inside to grab everyone a drink. When I came back, the three smiling faces had now turned to ones of fear. They told me that while I was gone, they heard someone say, "Hello!" When I asked them to describe the voice, they could only tell me that it sounded like a very small child, coming from behind the plants and shrubs next to the pond.
I also witnessed some poltergeist activity in the old Villa. One evening, while I was sitting by the fire with Mum, we heard a noise coming from the kitchen. We both glanced in the direction of where the sound had come from, and to our surprise, a plastic water jug was hovering above the bench in mid air for a good 3 seconds. Suddenly, it fell to the floor, making us jump. Nothing was said, we both just looked at each other, with concerned faces. It was like we were so used to things like that happening.
The final happening that I can recall before we moved out, was something beyond bizarre. I would have been about 16 at the time. My brother and I decided to go outside with our sleeping bags and look at the stars for a while. It was a good clear night for it. We noticed that the moon looked strange that night, it had a glow about it that we'd never seen before. After a few minutes of staring at it, the glow got stronger and the top of it began to ripple and flicker, like a ball of fire. In complete amazement, we sat there watching. What we thought was the moon, then zoomed off and disappeared into the night sky, so fast, it was hard to comprehend what had just happened. To this day, we still don't know what it was. We were so sure it was the moon.
Over the space of 11 years in the house, my family and I experienced some terrifying things. In the end, we had to move out because my parents decided to split. A week after they announced this, my dog died of cancer and my cat was found dead in the garden. It was like the end of an era.
We sold the house to a nice couple with two children and a small baby. I still drive past the house regularly, and wonder if they experience paranormal activity. I guess I'll never know.
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