Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-451089-20160220063918

I miss the times when I was young and things seemed to scare me with more ease. As we get older we find out that there's an explanation for everything; perhaps that's the same reason why we get scared when we are children, because the explanations we obtain we don't understand or don't accept them.

I didn't know if ghosts or anything similar existed. I knew up to a certain point that people tend to see things that they cannot explain. I live in a third-world country, so it is not hard to imagine that people often resort to the most fantastic explanation possible. I liked to share ghost stories with whoever I could, mainly because everyone has a different story to tell and they're all different. You can never be prepared for the things people may tell you.

One of these friends told me that he once lived in a large house. The floor of the house was completely made out of wood. His bedroom was upstairs, next to his sister's. One night he started to hear creaking sounds on the upper floor; he though that it must be the cold, as wood creaks when it gets cold, specially at night. The creaking occurred consistently for several nights so he didn't pay much attention to it. But there was one night where only he and his sister were at home. They went to sleep and a couple of hours later, he heard the wooden floor creak loudly. He didn't mind at first, but the sound became disturbingly loud.

He was lying on his bed and stayed there, trying to ignore the sound. But eventually he heard the creaking noises become louder and louder, until he realized that the sound was getting closer to him each time. He sat on his bed frightened, his back stuck to the wall, trying to see if there was anyone entering to his room. All he could see was pitch-black, then there was another large creak; he was sweating and had his eyes fully opened to try and see if there was anything at all.

The creaking stopped and he breathed heavily for a couple of seconds. But as if a tree was being torn in half right below him, a loud and terrible cracking sound forced him to cry senseless for his sister.

As he screamed, the shelves on top of his bed fell down to him and hit him in the head. He jumped off the bed and ran to his sister's room; she was awake thanks to his screams. She tried to console him and checked his head to see if he was injured. He wasn't hurt, but after talking to his sister he realized that she did not hear anything of the whole experience until he screamed; but what's disturbing is that, according to what he told me, she was awake the whole time.

We were good friends. I met him at a summer camp; now that I remember, we all stayed up late one night telling these stories. Most stories had to do with what I'd call "ghosts". Beings or events that seem to have a will of their own. And the only thing that have a true will are people, so it comes to me as an implication that, if there is such thing as ghosts, they must be human.

Several years ago, my girl cousin would stay at my house for summer vacations, way before I started going to summer camp. We would stay up all night, watch movies, play videogames and do whatever to kill time. On the lower floor of my apartment there is a little living room that you can see from my room and from the guest room. This living room still has to this day a sound system. My cousin and I would turn on the sound system and listen to CD's or just dance and do whatever; it was pretty fun and childish. The sound system is usually unplugged from the wall socket; I can see it from where I'm sitting right now. If it is plugged in, then some LCD letters would appear on a little screen. On that same room, we had a hammock where we would play and nap during the day. The hammock was set up most of the time because we'd use it pretty much every day.

The sound system was plugged only because my cousin was here; when we finished using it we had to plug it off.

So one night I stayed up late playing Yu-Gi-Oh! on my Gamecube. I closed the door of my room so I could have some volume on my TV and also have the lights on. As I play, I open the door, I don't remember why, but amongst the dark living room I see the hammock slowly swinging side to side. As I look a little more, I see that the LCD screen on the sound system is turned on, and there is static coming from the speakers. "Go to sleep Carol, it's late" I tell her as I head back into my room and play some more while giggling at the fact that I'm also staying up late. But I think again and open the door once more. There's the hammock swinging and the sound system turned on. The guest room is right next to my bedroom, so I lean over through the open door and I see the sillhouette of my cousin laying in the bed. I turn my head and the hammock is still swinging, and without a doubt there is something in it.

I didn't know what to think, but my instinct was to slowly head back into my room, close the door and sleep with my door closed.

As I wake up in the morning, I instantly go to check the living room. The hammock was wrapped and stored and the sound system was unplugged. Maybe my mom tidied up the place before I woke up, but that still does not explain what happened in the night.

Several months later I was trying to sleep in my room and for some reason I remembered the hammock episode. I don't know what would've happened if I slept with my door opened. In my home we never close doors when we sleep  in case there is an emergency, since we all sleep alone in separate rooms; we only close them when there is someone visiting.

I get up from my bed and walk towards my door and look over to the sound system. It's turned off and unplugged like it should, so I go back to my bed. But after lying down again, for some reason I thought "What if I need to hide from something? Where would I hide?". The logical idea is to hide under my bed, so I lay on the floor and slide towards the gap between my bed and the floor. I end up looking in the direction where the door would be, but I couldn't see it directly. I lie down for a couple of minutes thinking that I should head back to sleep when suddenly I hear some steps.

"It must be my dad" but as fast as I made that thought two black vertical shapes appeared on my sight, along one of the walls next to the door. It looked like a pair of legs, but in the dark you couldn't tell what it was. I assumed it had to be my dad wondering why wasn't I in bed, but it seemed odd to me that he would wake up and go directly to my room. I slide just a little bit in order to see more of the shadowy figure and it's a pitch black mass just standing there quietly. I froze frightened and tried not to make a sound. I slid back into the gap and went as far as possible without making any noise. The two vertical shapes were still there without moving. I wanted to cry but I was afraid that thing hearing me. The feeling was unbearable. "Please I want this to be over please please" I thought.

I layed there for as long as I could, staring at the vertical shapes.

The next thing I remember was me waking up at around 4 or 5 am, because the sun was starting to come up and there was some light in the room. The shadowy figure was gone and I quickly got out of the gap, closed the door and hid under the covers. I feel asleep then woke up to the yelling of my parents for sleeping with the door closed. 