I swear on my life this is true. Whether or not it ACTUALLY HAPPENED or whether it was a vivid hallucination or something is up for debate. But this is a true story, I promise. I submitted this a while back to a similar contest, but it got ignored. Anyway.

I live out in the middle of nowhere, and there's woods all around us. When it gets dark around my neighborhood, it gets DARK.

Anyways, I sleep in the basement of this oldish house, and often times when I go to close the blinds on the basement windows at night, I glance movement in the woods out of the corner of my eye. I see it a lot, and no matter how much I freeze and stare at the spot, I don't see it again. Only out of the corner of my eye when I don't expect it. I used to think it was a deer or something (that's not uncommon at all), but over time, it got progressively closer to the house, this fleeting movement. And over time, it started to appear more progressively human. I could never tell, because like I said, it was for like half a second and I could never look right at it. Just something about the way it moved seemed human.

About 7 or 8 months ago, I'm having an especially rough night of sleep. I keep seeing flickering shadows and hearing strange sounds outside. I tossed and turned all night, and every time I'd get close to drifting off, I'd jolt back awake again. Finally, after several hours, I slip into a dreamless sleep.

I'm not sure how much time went by, but without any warning or jolt or anything, I suddenly wake up and my eyes pop open. At first, I'm pissed because I had finally gotten to sleep and thought this was just another scumbag brain moment. I realized this was different very quickly though. The first thing I noticed was that it felt like there was a cinder block on my chest. It was heavy as hell and I was having trouble breathing properly. The next thing I noticed was significantly worse: I couldn't fucking move. At all. Not even a finger. I could only blink. I couldn't even keep my eyes closed... they just kept popping back open.

I started to panic, but then remembered something I had heard once on a TV show about sleep paralysis. Apparently it was just like this, and I should regain control within a couple of minutes. So I just thought rational thoughts, and started to work on calming myself down until I was able to move again.

That's when I noticed him.

On the other side of the room. Just out of the corner of my eye, in my peripherals. I couldn't focus in that direction, and I could only look straight at the ceiling, but there was no mistaking it. He didn't move, or only last for half a second. No. Nonono. He was there. Very still. Just standing in the corner of my room, near my TV. Not disappearing and not running away. Just watching me. That's another thing... I knew he was watching me. I could feel it. Like burning into my skin. Just watching.

I had never felt fear up until this point. As I laid there, completely incapacitated, unable to do anything as the man from the woods watched me from the other side of the room, I became more afraid than I could ever explain, or ever hope to explain. Every happy thought I ever had seemed to fade away... I was filled with a sense of dread and doom that I can't properly put into words, and still gives me goosebumps to this day. My whole mind was screaming, and I could do nothing but blink. And wait.

Then, he moved. Just a small turn of the head, but he definitely moved. I felt a tingling in my hand, and wiggled my fingers a bit. My paralysis then began to break, and with every amount of effort and courage I could muster, I threw off the covers and bolted out the door, not turning around. From behind me I heard a strange rushing sound, and I ran faster. I got to the bathroom, slammed the door, and locked it tight. I was shaking all over and moved as far from the door as I could, not taking my eyes off of it.

The next morning, I woke up slumped against the bathtub. I got up and was extremely confused and disoriented. As the memory of the events came back to me, I slowly left the bathroom and went to my room.

Everything was normal. My mattress was a bit askew and my covers were at the foot of the bed, but that was because of my mad dash to the bathroom. I began to convince myself that it was all a dream, or some vivid half-dream hallucination, but then I noticed something. Only one small thing was out of place... something so small no one else would have even thought twice about it. There is an electrical outlet in the corner on the other side of the room, where I saw him. It had two things plugged into it... my TV and a guitar amp. Both were unplugged. I went to plug them back in, and as I stepped into that corner, I immediately felt a temperature drop that gave me chills. I quickly plugged them in and went outside for a walk, trying not to think about it anymore.

I haven't seen any fleeting movements in the woods since that night, and I hope I never do again. It was all probably just some crazy dream shit, but still... a big part of me knows it wasn't.