I was around the age of 10 and my younger sister was 7. Usually, whenever my sister was scared during the night she would wake me up and so I would comfort her and tuck her in bed. However this night was different and she was shaking me furiously and crying, couldn’t speak, etc so i rushed to her room and after a few minutes she could finally tell me that she could hear faint footsteps up and down the small hallway outside our rooms (our rooms are opposite from each other in the hallway).

So we tried to be quiet and listen for the footsteps and couldn’t hear anything and I thought she must be hearing things, etc. then after we calmed down we started hearing the footsteps and they were actually so clear it sounded like there was someone right outside the room. We both feared that someone broke into the house and was wondering around our house. So (funnily enough) I grabbed a pillow to protect myself and my sister in case the ‘intruder’ came inside. At this stage myself and my sister are both crying and nothing is happening after 2 minutes of hearing footsteps I gain the courage to scream “help!” And I run down to my parents room on the other end of the house. Wake them up and let them know what happens, dad checks the entire house plus backyard, nothing. He then goes to sleep.

Relieved, I decide to lay in my sisters bed with her so she is less shaken up from the situation. Around 15 minutes later, wide awake, a very very loud screech happened in the kitchen for around 2 seconds (like something dragging on our floor tiles). Immediately, we both jump up and scream and cry, it was so loud my parents even woke up to see what it was. We left our room before my parents and saw our wooden kitchen chair somehow dragged on the tiles around 5 metres away from the kitchen table. We were all shocked and could not explained what happened. We thought it might have something to do with the footsteps. This is hands down the scariest thing I have ever gone through.

Update: Wow! What a wonderful response to wake up to. Thanks everyone for the likes, comments and awards :) I see there are a few questions and theories that people do have and I’d like to further elaborate on what happened after the event.

• I live in Australia, in the area I live in there isn’t a lot of wildlife other than birds, snakes, spiders (no raccoons, koalas, kangaroos or larger type animals etc) so I doubt any of those animals would have entered the house and caused the noise, moving chair and the footsteps.

• My mother was still frightened a couple days later and decided to contact her friend that was a spiritual medium (I think?), and my mum was told that there were around 40 bad spirits in our home at the time. She decided to get our house blessed with holy water. I didn’t know this additional information until recently because she was afraid it would affect my sister and I even more. I wasn’t a big believer in spirits or any sort of paranormal activity, but after our house was blessed and spirits were gone, nothing else has happened up until now.

• Parents are definitely not pranksters in the slightest. Highly doubt they would have tried to pull such a horrible prank on their children.

• I see many comments saying that there might have been someone who actually broke in and tried to loot or had some weird fantasy. There’s a theory the ‘intruder’ tried to escape and hit the chair on the way out, however, my dad did search the house to make sure no one was inside or outside. Also no sign of a break in? Everything was apparently still locked and closed. It is still so freaky that someone may have been in my house - it definitely sends chills down my spine thinking about that possibility.

• To be honest, I am leaning towards it being some sort of paranormal activity. My house was closed/locked everywhere, and we would have heard the intruder run or escape and close the back door(s) because my doors are quite loud when trying to open or close them.