Context: This story was told to the informant by her Aunt, who we will refer to a PB, several time over the years but was recently relayed in late April when the informant had reached out to her for a ghost story for her GE Seminar class. The story takes place in the PB’s childhood house when she was laying down in her bed at night.

Story:

“I was staying at my parent’s house, the kind of old house where every step makes the wooden floors groan. My bedroom door was wide open, the way I prefer to have it when I’m sleeping. I was getting ready to go to sleep with my eyes closed on my bed when I heard it.

Footsteps.

They started at the far end of the hallway. Each step pressed into the wood with a soft creak, one after another they came down the hallway. Not rushed. Not random. It sounded like something that knew exactly where it was going.

It was coming straight to where my room was.

I laid there completely still, my eyes shut but listen and waiting as it came down the hallway. The footsteps got closer until they reached my doorway and then they stopped.

It paused at the entrance for only a minute and then I heard the footsteps again. It moved slowly to the side of my bed. I felt it lean in, like it was studying my face, checking to make sure I was asleep. Then it moved away and walked around to the other side of my bed.

Something hovered over my face. I could feel it, even without seeing it, a thick, heavy presence, like the air itself had turned solid. And then it pressed down.

A weight covered my face.

I tried to breathe but I couldn’t.

Panicking I tried to open my mouth to scream, but I couldn’t open it.

A shapeless, suffocating mass like a black shadow spread across my face, sealing me off from the air. I was trying desperately to scream for my dad to help me but I couldn’t open my mouth. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t scream.

And in that moment when I was losing all hope on someone saving me, I screamed inside my head as loud as I could:

“Jesus Christ, please help me.”

And the moment I said that a sharp, cracking sound split through the darkness. The pressure on my face vanished and light bursted through my closed eyelids.

In that moment I knew that help had come. I knew without even seeing that someone was coming to my aid.

Whatever darkness that had been suffocating me was gone.

I gasped, finally able to breathe again, I jolted awake and shot up in bed. The room was empty and silent. The doorway still open, the hallway beyond it dark and still.

I laid back down and tried to go back to sleep again.

But once again I heard the footsteps coming down the hall.

So I clenched my eyes shut and started praying out loud to God and Jesus Christ over and over again.

Then suddenly the footsteps stopped.

Just like that.

The silence returned and the thing was gone, never to enter my room.”

Teller’s Thoughts (PB): PB said that this occurrence was terrifying for her and she doesn’t like to share it too often because it brings up a lot of fear. However, she likes to share this story with people every once in a while as a way to advice that whenever you are scared or are in need of help to just start praying. To just start praying to God and Jesus Christ because they will come to help you, they will save you if you are in danger.

My Thoughts: I will admit I am a bit of a sceptic about this story, I believe rather than it being a case of an evil spirit it may have just been a case of sleep paralysis. I have personally only suffered from sleep paralysis once in my life and it was nothing compared to this story. But I did too also experience the same sensation of not being able to open my eyes or scream for help, which was terrifying. However, I know that other people suffering from sleep paralysis have been know to report having vivid, frightening hallucinations and chest pressure. Which is why I believe that this story may have been another case of sleep paralysis rather than an actual ghost encounter.