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I can remember hating this house for as far back as my memory reaches. Although well-crafted, the structure creaked and moaned throughout the night. The pipes banged and rattled, intensifying the creepiness of the venerable home. The truly worst part of this house were the nocturnal shadows I saw moving around my bedroom as I tried to sleep. 

The specters danced along the walls, which to me looked like a host of ghosts cavorting around my room as I tried to make myself sleep. My parents always told me my childish fears were unfounded, that there was no such thing as ghosts. Despite my insistence I saw faces on some of the shadows when they drew close enough to my bed, my parents never believed me. They told me I was letting my imagination get away from me. They told me it was all in my head. 

My father grew up in this house, and told me he used to have the same fears. Eventually, he said, I would grow out of it. He tried to convince me it was a phase through which I was going to pass. All of the convincing he tried to do was for naught, as I knew what I saw. What I saw was what I saw. No amount of talking would convince me to believe otherwise. 

As much as I wanted to believe there was no such thing as ghosts, I knew what played out before me night after night. Figures danced and moved about my room. They passed in and out of my bedroom walls as if no barrier existed. Some seemed to interact with others while there were those who appeared oblivious to any of the others. Did they ignore the others, or could they not even see the others. If they could not see them and I could, then why? It made no sense. I did not understand. 

The specters terrified me night after night. The ebony figures typically did not approach too near, but on occasion they walked right up to my bed. When one drew that close, I could make out details of their clothing and facial features. There was simply no way this could only be a figment of my imagination. I was not that creative. 

When my father told me he had the same fears as a child, he never got into details. Judging by the look he got on his face when I told him what I saw, I knew the things he saw were the same. My thought was he tried so long and wanted so desperately to believe they were not real, he stopped seeing. I suppose after time he managed to somehow block them out. He somehow learned not to see them anymore. 

I tried. I wanted to disbelieve the ghosts filling my room. I wanted to believe it was nothing more than my imagination gone wild, but I knew what I saw. The figures moving about my room, and likely the rest of the house, were too vivid to be all in my head. So if it was not my imagination, it means I was experiencing hallucinations. If they were indeed hallucinations, there must be something seriously wrong with me mentally. 

Night after night I lived in terror. As far back as I can remember, I saw those phantoms walking about. 

Even when I reached my tenth birthday, I continued to see the phantoms. I hoped father was right, and I would grow out of it, but nothing I could do would make them go away. 

I lived so many years in terror, but shortly after I turned ten, I realized none of them every made any attempt at harming me. They had plenty of chances but did nothing, so I finally accepted that the ghosts presented me with no danger. 

Several months later, I decided it was time for me to see if I could communicate with them. Some looked directly at me on occasion, but as far as I knew they never tried any attempt to speak with or communicate with me. They never seemed to be malicious in any way. It was more like people interacting in a social setting. 

It was not until this revelation I finally lost my fear of the phantasms. I could not believe I allowed myself to live in fear every night for so long. I wondered if they were the spirits of those who died in my house. I did not know who built the house, but I did know the core of it was built in the late 1800’s. My great-great grandfather purchased the house and land. As the generations passed, the house was expanded. 

A few months before my eleventh birthday, I decided I was finally going to try to communicate with them. With my penetrating fright now gone, I gathered together enough courage to face the phantasms that terrified me for so many years. Never before this did I climb out of bed before sunrise. 

Sitting up, I shifted my legs to hang over the side of the bed. Allowing my pajamas to ride along the fabric of my sheets, I slid down to the floor and into my bedroom slippers. The instant I stood, several of the ghosts, most of them in fact, turned their heads to look at me. 

For some reason I did not understand, the phantoms became more and more visible. They began to lose their transparency, and I could see their features much more clearly now. I saw eyes. I saw mouths. I even made out the crow’s feet around the eyes of a nearby woman. My bed and bedroom seemed to be growing a bit hazy. I made two fists and rubbed them against my eyes to see if I could make them focus a little more. 

Suddenly, I heard my bedroom door slam open. Startled, I dropped my hands to see what happened. Mom and Dad both frantically burst through the door. Running to my bedside, they went right past me and lurched to their knees. I did not understand why they passed me by until I turned to see what was so important to them. 

There, on the floor I saw myself. My body lay there on the floor as blood ran from one of my ears. My neck was twisted into a grotesquely unnatural position. A small red fire engine, my favorite toy, lay underneath my body and my toy police car lay upside down at my feet. I forgot to put my toys away before climbing into bed. 

Where my slippers should be, I left my cars lined up in a row spread about six inches apart. I was playing cops and robbers with my toys when my mother hollered up the stairs to tell me I had better be in bed. Leaving the various miniature vehicles lined along my bed, I jumped under the covers and pulled them over my head. 

I stood there watching my parents hold my dead body in their arms as they cried out. Some of the others in the room approached me to help me to the other side. Before my parents and bedroom became the shadows, I looked down to Mom and Dad and said, “Now tell me there is no such thing as ghosts.” 

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