My Personal Friendly Ghost

My family moved to Pennsylvania when I was in 6th grade. About a two years after moving, I was woken up in the middle of the night by someone saying my name. It was a man's voice that I had never heard before, speaking from directly next to my head. He wasn't shouting or trying too hard to get my attention; he just said my name. It woke me up in a panic and as I looked around the room (I still had a nightlight up through high school) I did not see anyone there.

I managed to convince myself that it was just a trick of my mind, sometimes we hear things that aren't really there, and went back to sleep. Nothing happened for a while, I can't remember exactly how long. Then, the exact same thing happened again. It was the same voice, the same way. I thought it was strange and suspected it might be a ghost of some kind, but decided that if all it was doing was saying my name, then it wasn't going to do me any harm. I went back to sleep.

This happened a few times over the next few years. The incidents had nothing in common, there was no set amount of time between them, they seemed to be completely random. I spent half the time thinking I dreamed it all up and the other half of the time wondering what my personal ghost wanted that he kept waking me up in the middle of the night and disappearing.

Around 11th grade my father remarried and my step-family moved into our house. The room next door to mine, where my older brother had lived before moving out, was given to my step-sister, who kept very late hours even on school nights. I took to sleeping with ear plugs to block out the noise from her room. Since then, I did not hear the voice. I began to believe in it more and more, supposing that my ear plugs prevented me from hearing him.

I didn't think too much about it and began to forget about the strange nightly visits. I was accepted to college and left to live in the dorms. After a few weeks, I came home on the weekend for a visit.

My step-sister immediately asked me if I was aware that our house was haunted. Surprised, I asked her why she said that and she said that ever since I had left for college she had started hearing footsteps at night in my room and down the hall (all wooden floors). At first she thought she was dreaming but then her boyfriend stayed over and he heard it too. There was never anyone there when they checked, but every day for a week they heard it, like someone was walking around my room looking for something and then walking down the hall.

That night I tried to sleep without my ear plugs but I did not hear the voice. I think he stayed with me all through high school, although I did not hear him, and when I went to college he got lonely and went to find me. Since then neither I nor my step-sister have heard the ghost. I can only assume he moved on when he couldn't find me anymore.