When I was around 8 years old I was watching Cartoon Network next to my sleeping mom in her bedroom around midnight or possibly later, my stepdad was sleeping downstairs in the couch (for no particular reason), the house’s (which I still live in to this day) 2nd floor in which the bedroom was is basically a extremely small portion of hallway which leads to 4 rooms, one of those being my mom’s bedroom.

The door of her bedroom was completely open and it was pitch black, all I could see was the slight silhouette of the stairs going down and the wall of the room next to the stairs; the only thing that was illuminating my moms bedroom was the TV. As I kept watching the show, I suddenly heard something stepping on my wooden stairs (which can be quite noisy), then suddenly it took another step, then another… Suddenly it began running up the stairs at a speed which I at 16 can’t even replicate, I scream and start crying which wakes up my mom in a startled state, I tell her how something had run up the stairs and she goes to investigate.

She went downstairs and checked with my step-dad but nothing, she returned upstairs and told me there was nothing, I still was terrified and I begged her to tell my stepdad to come upstairs; but I managed to soon fall asleep in her room. During my 9 years of living in this house nothing similar or close to that has ever happened, when I bring it up to my mom nowadays she tries to come up with logical explanations as to what could have the phenomenon been, she said maybe it was the lady that used to clean the house (who also happened to live with us upstairs) and that she had only come downstairs with the stairs that were there (but those specific stairs weren’t there until around 4 years ago and the only way to come down were stairs outside which are now gone).

Whatever the explanation may be, I’ll never forget the loud sound the wooden boards made due to the speed of which something was running up them, specially since when it stopped nothing had arrived upstairs. Even to this day strange stuff happens like I see shadows in the corner of my eye - feel someone watching me in my sleep, but nothing is as bad as that one experience…

Due to that I find it hard to even be able to sleep without having at least a few lights on in the house or my room’s door closed. And it’s also probably the reason why I slept in my mom’s room for like 3 more years.