Please allow me to introduce you to the first piece in my new series “Death Doesn’t Wear Bermuda Shorts: Stories from the Great Beyond.”  The series is pretty straight forward.  These are true ghost stories as told by you, the readers, in  your own words.  Who knows, if you keep telling me yours, maybe I’ll tell you a few of mine.  For complete details on how to submit your story just click here.  With that out of the way, I now present to you:

Picking Up the Pieces

Okay here it is:

This particular event happened about 10 years ago when I was 13. My parents and I live in a house in a rural area in Virginia.  The area is quiet and not much happens around here. At this time, I lived in one of the upstairs bedrooms. I have been a very light sleeper for a long time but it was much worse when I was younger. Everything woke me up. Especially if people were moving around near my room, even if they were totally quiet, I would just wake up, as if I knew they were there.

This night I woke up suddenly and fully expected to see someone in my room but there was no one there. As I glanced around the room I looked over at my digital clock on my nightstand. It was exactly 3:30 in the morning. I started to feel really strange and uncomfortable because I felt like someone was there but I couldn’t see anyone. A few feet away from the foot of my bed was my closet. It had folding french doors that opened to each side and I usually left them open. That night was no exception. As I glanced around the room again, feeling really uneasy for a reason I couldn’t understand, my eyes fell on my closet. Seconds later, I saw something shoot out of my closet, past my bed, making a loud crashing noise.

I literally froze. I never really understood the term ‘frozen in fear’ until that moment. I literally couldn’t believe what I had just seen. All of the hair on my body was standing up and I could feel myself sweating as my heart raced. Part of me wanted to run out of the room and go wake my parents up but I was actually too scared to move. I laid there perfectly still for what felt like forever. Then, somehow, I reached over and turned on my light on my nightstand and slid out of bed.

Then I was actually able to see what had flown out of my closet. It was a box with a puzzle in it. The box had been up on a shelf in my closet. The puzzle pieces were all over the floor. I wanted to tell myself that it had just fallen out of the closet but right away I just knew that it wasn’t true. It wasn’t like the box had just casually tumbled off the shelf randomly for no reason. It happened a minute after I just happened to wake up at 3:30 in the morning. I SAW it fly out. It had landed at least four feet away from the closet and the pieces of the puzzle were strewn all the way to the other side of the room. I just knew it wasn’t a coincidence or an accident. I picked up all the pieces and put them back in the box and got back into bed.

I didn’t want to give the situation any more attention than I already had. Surprisingly, I was able to go back to sleep after a while. The next day I told my mom what happened and she had actually gotten woken up the night before by the sound of the puzzle box crashing into the floor. After I told her what it was it had really freaked her out too.

So there’s that story.  There have definitely been other weird things that have happened around here.  I’ve heard someone calling my name when no one actually did. I’ve heard footsteps. I’ve heard whispering. I’ve been touched. I’ve smelled smoke from cigarettes/cigars but no one here smokes, and then just always that feeling of not being totally alone. My mom has also heard voices having a conversation, smelled cigars/cigarettes and seen something manifest outside of our house. My dad has been actually touched many different times when he has tried to sleep in my old bedroom (where the above story took place) but it was like it was more like an unseen cat walking over him/his legs over and over and he would turn on the light and nothing would be there.

Liz Sperry is 23 year-old recent college grad living in the Northern Virginia area. She enjoys the outdoors, animals, art, music, movies, good food, and traveling. She has always had a keen interest in all things “paranormal”. Follow her on Twitter: xoxolizzle