From: Nik
Sent: Friday, May 22, 2020 6:44 PM
To: The Official Shadow People Archives
Subject: Story
I’ve always been an advocate for healthy skepticism. I think taking things at face value can be dangerous, and it’s important to reflect on the things you see and hear so that you don’t jump to conclusions. That’s why I waited so long to talk about this experience. In this case, my skepticism morphed into a kind of self-doubt, and I think that by talking about it, I’ll be reassuring myself about the stability of my mind.
My family has a history of dealing with the supernatural. I could tell you about the ghost my mom invited in while drunkenly playing with a Ouija board, or the demon in my aunt’s house that left a scar on my arm. If I did, this story would be ten times longer, so I’ll just stick to my own experience for right now.
It begins when I was starting high school. We moved a lot when I was young, and that particular year was no different; we packed up and moved to a run-down house in the very rural United States. It was the kind of house that looked like it had been built in the 1950’s and hadn’t seen a good day since. Aside from the look and the musty smell it had on rainy days, it had a kind of hostile energy, like the halls themselves were unhappy about us walking through them. Needless to say, I wasn’t fond of it at all. I spent a lot of time trying to stay out of it; picking up random after-school activities, walking in the woods on weekends, and visiting friends’ houses at any opportunity. I would even walk miles down the road just to give an apple to the neighbor’s horse if it meant spending time away from that place.
Winter break came two or three months after we moved in. With school closures and cold weather setting in, avoiding the house became harder and harder. On top of that, the holidays were days away, and all my mom wanted was for us to spend time together as a family. So, I stayed home. With me, my mom, my step-dad, and four siblings all staying home, the little house was as crowded as it could be. I firmly believe there was another entity in the house along with us, and the events of the days following Christmas confirm this. Growing up with four siblings made me paranoid about people getting into my things, so the year prior, I had invested in a small lock-box. I didn’t have anything terribly important to keep in there, just a few old letters and notes from friends, an antique pen given to me by my grandfather, and a dull Swiss Army Knife. Still, it was an important symbol of privacy for a teenage girl who had shared a room with someone her entire life. I hid the key to it in a piggy bank I never used- I figured the dust that gathered on it would let me know if anyone touched it. That’s why I was surprised when I went looking for the key one day and found it missing. I freaked out, accusing every one of my siblings of taking it, but they were all adamant that they hadn’t even known about the key. I tore the entire house apart looking for it that day but went to bed empty-handed.
The next morning, I was up before the sun, tired of tossing and turning in a fitful sleep. For some reason, my gaze was pulled to the corner of the room, and I saw someone standing there. In my sleepy state, I initially thought it was my sister standing there in the shadows of the corner, but as I began to wake up more, the horrible realization set in. Obviously, the figure wasn’t my sister. It was tall, maybe 6 or 7 feet tall, more a tight wad of black vapors than a person. It took on a shape that seemed like a cruel imitation of a man- close, but just strange enough to be unsettling. I was looking right at it, but it sort of faded in and out of my vision. In the time that it took me to wonder what it might be, it was gone. I was more confused than terrified now, desperately trying to rationalize what I had seen. By the afternoon, I had almost done a good enough job of pretending that notion was wrong to convince myself.
For a few days, I managed to put it out of my mind by keeping myself occupied, only for the memory of it to crawl back to me when I tried to sleep. About a week later, after New Years had passed, I was making dinner since my mom wasn’t feeling well. I saw it again, this time out of the corner of my eye. The backdoor was by the kitchen, and I swore I saw a silhouette standing there. I couldn’t tell which side of the screen it was standing on, since by the time I looked back, it was gone. At this point, I still hadn’t found my key, and I had interrogated my siblings enough to confirm they didn’t have it. I had a hunch, though. A weird, unsettling hunch that went against every rational part of me. That night, when I was alone in my room, I sat down on my bed and said aloud, “I don’t know who you are, but I’d like my key back, please.” I only got silence in response, but I went to sleep that night with the hope that it might work.
The next afternoon, while I was doing my laundry, I noticed something small and golden sitting neatly in the lap of the stuffed rabbit I kept on my dresser. My key. I grabbed it and shoved it in my pocket, then announced to my family that I’d found it. They all replied with a disinterested, “That’s good,” or something along those lines. I still wasn’t completely sure of whether or not they had been the ones to take and hide it, but I know what I saw by the back door and in the corner of the room. Whoever it was, I made sure to say a quick and quiet “Thank you,” before I fell asleep that night. I never did feel comfortable in that house. Sightings of the black shadow guy didn’t happen much, maybe because I went back to school and started keeping myself occupied again, but there were times when I felt as though it could have been standing right in front of me.
We moved after the school year ended; it wasn’t unusual for us to just up and leave like that. I don’t know who’s renting the house now. I can only hope that they’ll fix up the place, and that they'll say “Please,” and “Thank you,” enough to keep the peace with whatever the hell I saw.
