I was about 10 years old at the time of these happenings. My family and I had just moved house, and at first sight, nothing appeared in any way wrong with the house. It was a rather large, odd shaped bungalow. It had about eight rooms, all set along a long hallway. My room was at the very end of the hallway. Of course I get the room with the busted lights... It was a big room with a large window looking out on the green, a double bed, an en-suite and a small TV. One feature of the room seemed a bit odd though. There was a wooden chair sitting in the corner of the room; I wouldn't have found it odd, but it was facing the wall. According to my dad, any cracks, holes or stuff being in the wrong place or way had been fixed, so why wasn't this?
I quickly exiled this thought and began to examine the room more. Closing the curtains caused the room to turn dark red as that was their color, though, the wallpaper was cream colored. I was done here and decided to check around outside. The outside of the house had a small concrete enclosure out back, heavy woodland on the sides and a large green out front. I walked to the end of the green and looked back at the grey bungalow when something caught my eye. A glow. Not a terribly powerful glow, but enough to be recognizable. I looked in confusion at where it was coming from and got a bit of a fright when I realized... yeah, you probably guessed it, my room.
I stood there like a stump for about one minute just staring at the ominous glow wondering, "What the hell is that?" I grew curious and quickly ran to my window and looked through. When I got close, I froze again. The glow was moving slightly. I was frightened by what I was seeing and before I could get any closer it just vanished. I looked around me in sharp movement until my quiet was broken by my mum asking what I'd like from the take-away, even that made me jump. I tried to push it to the back of my mind so I placed my order and after dinner I wasted the remainder of the evening away watching TV.
I had trouble sleeping that night, as soon I stepped foot in a dark room I thought scary thoughts. Normally I fixed this with a refreshing, "It's not real," but this was real. I've seen it. I lay in my room trying to think of reasons why a glow can just appear in the room when lights aren't working. I found none. I finally fell asleep but awoke during the night to a strange noise coming from down the hall. It sounded at first like a woman giggling but with a sort of distortion in the voice but it eventually turned into distorted sobbing and crying. I was frozen still, I couldn't even move the blanket, all I could do was blink, breathe and look around me. I grew more scared as the now intense crying seemed to be getting closer and closer. Now it seemed right outside my door. I threw the blanket over me and yelled at the top of my lungs, hoping to wake up my mom, dad or brother. The crying stopped and Mom came in and asked about what was wrong. I told her and she passed it off as a nightmare.
How wrong she was.
The next day, I was constantly looking over my shoulder and keeping my ears alert for the sound again but nothing happened. Later on that day, my parents went out to a bar for the night leaving my brother to take care of me. We stayed up pretty late watching movies and playing video games. When it came time for bed I was still pretty nervous but tried my best to not worry about last night's incident. I fell asleep. I awoke again, this time to a faint light coming in my window. I immediately thought it was my parents so I just rolled over and closed my eyes. A good ten minutes had passed when I checked to see if the light was gone.
It wasn't.
I sat up and reluctantly pulled open the curtain. At the end of the long green, I saw the source of the glow. It looked like a woman wearing a dark grey long coat and holding a lantern, which explained the glow. I stared in shock and awe. I couldn't make out her face or head as the lantern was in the way but she was standing as still as me. Suddenly, she began lowering the lantern and I saw that her face was white as snow and rotted, her hair grey and she had a strange mark around her neck and the scariest of all, her eyes were completely black. It was then I noticed, she was staring straight at me. I was breathing very heavily now. And the second I saw her looking my way I jumped back in bed and lay there, awake for the remainder of the night.
The following day I set out to the woods with my brother. We were walking for about five minutes when we got separated, I called to him, and he called back, as I made my way towards the origin of his call I noticed something in the big oak tree straight across from me. At that time I saw only a rope in the tree, but now I know it was a noose. I eventually met up with my brother and we headed for home. The sun set and I asked my parents if I could sleep in their room that night. They said yes, and took me in. I slept easy by my parents' side but yet again, woke later that night. I heard nothing at all. I was relieved for a moment but then at the door I saw it, that glow again. I knew she was there. I tried my hardest to stay put but at this point I just wanted to see what it was. It could've been the hall lights after all. I went to the door and peered through the keyhole. Even though the entire outside of the door was illuminated by the light, the keyhole was pitch black. I went back to bed, clueless about what just happened. For those of you who, like me at the time have no idea why the keyhole was dark, well, refer to the paragraph above this one and try to figure it out.
I told my parents about all the stuff I was seeing and told them I hated it here and I was afraid. They talked and decided to move, figuring I'd never get sleep. I was very glad to hear the news and packed all my things, as did the rest of my family. We were leaving first thing in the morning for a hotel, at least until we found a place to settle in, so I had to endure one more night.
That night I tried to just stay awake all night and sleep in the car on the way to our hotel, but tiredness set in and I faded away. When I woke up, I was facing the wall on the left of my bed. I saw the wall was being illuminated by a light. I knew then. I should've just stayed facing that wall and closed my eyes, but no. I didn't. I rolled over and there she was, sitting in the chair, facing the wall, laughing. I looked at her, my heart beating rapidly when, everything in my body froze. She turned her head completely 180 degrees and I watched her rotten mouth go from a big yellow tooth grin, to a sad expression. Tears streamed down her pale rotten face and then I noticed that the mark on her neck was the mark of a rope. Her head turned back to the wall and I managed to muster the courage to scream. Finally her head turned again, this time with a blank expression. It turned suddenly to her screaming at me; her jaw opened much more than a person's and then as I covered my ears and lay there, my eyes closed and screaming, it stopped. About a minute later my parents came in and comforted me.
We left early that morning, hell it was still pretty dark and as we drove away past the green, I saw it one last time at my window. A strange glow.
Written by Cinder Sentinel
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