Mist

The house that I grew up in is a side-split, which is typical of the houses in my neighborhood. When you come in the main hallway, there are two staircases to the right, one leading upstairs, another leading to the basement; the living room is to your left, and the kitchen is straight ahead. When you went up the second stairway. That lead to the second floor, you would be met with another hallway - the washroom and my parent's room was on the left, my younger brother's room was on the right, my room was at the very end of the hall; if you stood at the bottom of the stairs you could see straight into my room. When I was about 12, maybe 13 years old, my bed was set in the room in such a way that when lying in bed I could look straight down the hallway, down the stairs and into the living room. I was, and to be honest still am, afraid of the dark, so my parents would always leave the light on in the hallway for me at night.

One night I wasn't able to sleep; I tossed and turned for what seemed like hours. I've always been somewhat of a night owl, so falling asleep can be a bit of a chore. I rolled onto my right side and looked out through my door, down the hallway and into the living room. I noticed that at the bottom of the stairs, my mother had left a basket of laundry to be taken down for washing the next day. As I stared at it, praying for sleep to come, a sort of mist appeared over and slightly behind the laundry basket. To say it was a mist isn't doing it justice - it looked almost the way condensation appears on a window on a hazy, rainy day - it was finely pixilated and just sort of hung there like a cloud hovering above the laundry.

I looked at it, not really frightened, just thinking I was half asleep, or at least daydreaming. All this time I lay completely frozen, as if in a trance - it's not that I couldn't move, I just didn't. As I looked at it, it's shaped slowly changed to something that could be viewed as a human figure. It was tall, and had a feminine shape, and it stood slightly slouched over the laundry, as if looking at it. At this point I started to become frightened, because I knew I was awake, and that what I was seeing wasn't my imagination. It was then that I shifted in bed, and when I moved, the misty figure must have heard me - it rose what I could only assume was its head and stared at me straight in the face. I panicked.

I jumped out of bed, ran into my parent's room and dove under the covers between them. My father is a heavy sleeper and barely even noticed me, but my mother wrapped her arms around me and calmed me down as I sobbed. I fell asleep in their bed that night and slept peacefully, knowing I was safe.

The next morning my father told me I needed to get over my fear of spiders, as he assumed that's what I had run away from - I did not correct him. I never told anyone what I saw, because even now, 13 years later, I'm not even sure of what I saw.

Well, that's it! I apologize that this story isn't as long or as involved as my last, but I'd be lying if I said I think about this one often. Nevertheless, opinions and comments are always welcome!