Subject: Mr. Grim
Date: 7/24/2006 6:57:20 P.M. Eastern Standard Time
From: Name Withheld by Request
To: The Official Shadow People Archives

I am going to apologize in advance for how long this e-mail is. Please note that I have never done any drugs in my lifetime, I have never even so much as sipped alcohol, or anything of the sort. I’m only 13.

I’ve been reading stories n here, and none of them seem to be quite like mine, which kind of frightens me.

I guess it began when I was 11 years old. I had never heard of Shadow People, though I do believe in ghosts, aliens, etc. It was around 10:30 PM, I was on the phone with a friend and I happened to step outside. I looked ahead and that’s when I saw it; a tall, hooded figure, all black, and now that I think about it, it seems that we were both stunned to see each other. I stood there for what seemed like eternity, then, realizing what had happened, I rushed back inside. Since then, I try not to go outside at night, and when I do, I almost always see it.

As time went by, I would see it out my window. Not exactly AT my window, but near the fence by my house which is a mere maybe 10 feet away. A year and a couple of months passed and I hadn’t seen it. I had almost forgotten about it, until one night I got up to get a glass of tea. I walked out of the living room and I walked by the hallway and did a double take. The shadow person, who is known as Mr. Grim by me and the people I have told, was coming out of my room, as though it had been looking for me. A few nights after that, I was sitting in my room playing video games and I saw something out of the corner of my right eye. I looked over and up, and it was walking towards me, its arm outstretched like it was trying to grab me. Each time I would catch it, though, it would vanish. I would always see it fly by my door at night too.

It seems to enjoy leaving messages on mirrors too. The first time it happened, I was in my room, lying on my bed. I rolled over to get up (I had been facing the wall) and I happened to glance at the mirror. My nickname was written there like someone had run their fingers down it. I never touch my mirror because I don’t want to leave smudges, and no one else ever goes in my room. It would also write “hi” on other mirrors and it was even carved in my piano, and I’m the only one that ever touches that piano.

After that, I moved into another room and it seemed to leave me alone for a little while, like it had been confused as to where I was. Then one night, I was asleep and I felt like something was shaking my bed. I woke up, and looked to the foot of my bed. I could see it standing there, watching me. I sat up quickly and worked up the courage to lean over and turn on the light. When I did, I couldn’t see it at all. After that I would go to sleep fitfully and always wake up to the bed shaking and it staring at me. After a while, I found scratches on my face and the back of my neck. It wasn’t like they broke the skin though; I don’t think it was ever capable of that. But after I found them, I never slept in that room again. I try not to stay in there for too long either.

Now I sleep in the living room. Sometimes I would even wake up to the sound of whispers and I would be sitting up on the couch or else getting off of it like I was sleep-walking. For a while, I couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t as though I was too scared to sleep, its just I would never be able to, until sometime early in the morning. And over time, my self esteem went down, my moods got worse. And it seemed that, the lower I got, the stronger it became. I was oblivious to this until just recently, and now I’m trying to fight it, to make myself feel better and weaken it. But anyway, as it became stronger, it wasn’t just the hooded figure anymore. It started forming a face. At first, it was like a mask. It’s skin was white, deathly white, and where its eyes should have been white, it was black, and the eyes were abnormally large and shaped differently in a way I can’t explain. And where the color should have been, it was a white dot.

Just last night though, I saw it again. This time though, its face seemed to be fully formed. Instead of the white mask, its face was skeletal and it was gliding sideways in the living room. Looking at me and smiling in an evil sort of way.

What scares me the most though, is that I’m the only one who can see it, no matter how many people I tell. It has even followed me to school and I’ll point it out to my friends and they can’t see it.

What’s going on?