Haunted Closet

It was the year 2015, and I was 12 turning 13. My father had beeen deployed to North Carolina for military business as a National Guard soldier. We lived in a bit of a small town called Fayettville in a large neightborhood called Pine Valley.

Now, it was a tradition to visit my mother and stepdad in the Alaskan islands near Canada every summer (though I haven't been doing that because of personal reasons). My twin and my little sister would celebrate our birthdays there and spend about 2 to 3 months until either August turned up or when school was nearing it opening.

My parents planned to fly us to Alaska while they moved to North Carolina, so we packed and left.

My mother and stepdad used to live in a one story, old red-painted house that looked like a trailer on the inside. My stepdad worked in a fish hatchery and a small forest intercepted the two properties. My siblings and I slept in a small bedroom with two bunk beds, since the house was so small. It was quite crowded and it was at the very end of the house.

I was on the bottom bunk facing the open closet one night (why is it always closets?) and clearly, I couldn't sleep. I was staring at the open doors and just... Staring. And slowly, I watched as a little blonde-haired girl appeared underneath a shelf, wearing a white nightgown and curled into herself. I wasn't very bothered and found myself sleeping soon enough.

~

(Did I meation that the house in "Navy Blue Paint" had an elevator?)

I had gotten a camera for my 13th birthday and we'd finally settled nicely into our house, which was fairly new and quite fancy. I met a girl named Bella who'd heard that there were new neighbors in the house about a block away from hers, but that isn't part of this story.

Anway, I had gotten a new camera. Of course, being obsessed with its functions, I played around with its flash quite often. And everyone's heard of orbs and strange bits of light being captured on the screen, and after a few weeks of taking many unnecessary pictures of myself (though I am not a narsissitic person), I noticed the exact things showing up on my screen.

I confided in my stepmom and told her about the strange appearances, and she clearly claimed that it was just the lights in my room. Obviously, I didn't believe her, so I moved from pictures to recordings.

And to my paranormal-obsessed self, that was pure gold.

I captured floating orbs moving in and out of my screen and showed the evidence to my disbelieving stepmom, but she still tried to debunk it. I don't blame her! Everyone has different beliefs.

~

I returned to Alaska for another summer when I was 13 turning 14. We had moved out of the first house and moved across the street. We had a very friendly neighbor who was willing to let us rent his house when he moved away. I hadn't experienced any paranormal activity since that day.

Until the next summer.

It was night. I was in the same bottom bunk across from the open-door closet and I couldn't sleep because there was a newspaper boy in the same spot the little girl was in the previous summer. He wore a faded hat, overalls with brown shorts, and belt-buckle shoes. I gave a little wave. He waved back.

That was the last time I experienced anything otherworldly until January 2019.