“BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!” I heard as I woke up from a deep sleep. I checked my phone and the time was 8am. I groaned and flopped back on to the pillow. I had about thirty minutes to get ready before my boyfriend Jesus got to my house. I slowly got up and got ready in about twenty minutes. I walked into the living room hoping to take a nap on the couch before he got here, but surprisingly, my boyfriend was already here. I had decided to make some breakfast for us and my parents.

Everything was going smooth, my parents made small comments, and told us a brief summary about what they were going to do that day.
When they finished there was a tension, a silence that I thought only I found strange. Soon after everyone finished eating I decided to wash the dishes, and while standing there looking out the window, I realized I had spaced out, suddenly snapping back to reality I shook my head and finished washing the dishes.

I turned toward the kitchen table, I felt uneasy, and took a seat across next from Jesus. Half listening to my mother and my boyfriend’s conversation, I kept directing my attention to the hallway. Every time I looked I received a stronger, ominous sensation, like a slight electric rush run through the upper part of my body.

I was staring straight forward when I suddenly caught this flash at the corner of my eye coming from the hallway. This was impossible. Scared, yet curious, I turned to my boyfriend who had this look on his face which right away told me that he too had witnessed the same thing.

Jesus had weirdly stopped the conversation with my mother. He stood up and looked into the hallway and straight into my parent’s bedroom. The door was wide open yet could not see light because the curtains were still closed. All other doors in the hallway leading to other rooms in the house were closed, and the hallway itself was completely dark. There was no logical explanation for what we both saw.

“Did you see that?” Jesus asked me in a shaky voice.

“I told you I wasn’t crazy…” I responded.

My mom looked at us with a confusing look. So I looked at her and said, “We both saw something move in your room, it was bright, like it was a ray of light of something.”

Her expression immediately changed and she turned to Jesus and told him to take a seat and she looked back toward me, “I hear things when you guys go to school and your father goes to work. I thought it was just me, since of the operation I got in my brain. But then I started noticing that when I left a bedroom door closed, I’d find it open again. When I’m sitting on my recliner in my room listening to the morning radio, I hear footsteps in the hallway and I call out your father’s name, and I get no response.”

My boyfriend and I sat there quietly listening, taking everything in. I spoke up after a few minutes of silence. “I feel things, I hear things, and I thought it was all because of my depression. But lately, I don’t believe that, that’s exactly it.”

My boyfriend sat there in shock, looking almost angry until I put a hand on his shoulder and asked him what was wrong. He weirdly, awkwardly stood up as if he was in pain and left outside to stand on the porch. My mom told me to follow him outside to find out what was wrong with him, as she stood up to head to her room. As I stepped out to the porch I could feel something was wrong with him. I didn’t say anything to him, hoping he’d speak first.

About a minute later he said, “I don’t want you living here anymore, I don’t want you experiencing these things anymore. I’m scared now more than ever that there’s something here wanting to hurt you. I’m here feeling useless because I have no idea how to protect you from this thing.” He drew me into a tight hug and I started crying because I knew he was sort of right, this thing trying to hurt me, what else could explain my extreme mood swings. It’s like one emotion right after another, anger, sadness, jolly, crazy, giggly. My therapist already said I had no signs of multiple personalities, bipolar disorder, that the only thing I had was depression. Yet weirdly, depression was only present when I’m at home.

I needed answers, there was no doubt in my mind that there was something here. What I really needed to find was what exactly I needed to do to get it out of my house. This is something unwanted, something that us as a family who have had some type of experience, don’t want to tolerate any longer.

One afternoon I had found myself watching my father and my favorite show, Ghost Hunters. I started wondering if I could do the same things they did, except investigating my home. I stood up and walked into my parents bedroom and started looking for my father’s camera. I didn’t own a voice recorder, but I did own a camera. I would have to settle with pictures.

I had the house to myself, with only my Chihuahua Ashley for company I turned off all the lights. Walking back toward my parent’s room I had my dog tucked under my left arm and the camera in my right hand. I started taking pictures of three different areas of their room, and took about 5 pictures using flash and decided I would start with those and headed back towards my room. Closing the door behind me, I heard the click of the door being shut. I walked over to my bed, to look over the pictures I had taken. After a good 5 minutes, I had come up with nothing. I turned to look over to where my dog was sitting, and she was staring at the door as if debating whether or not to bark. I decide to rest for awhile to plop my face on the bed face down, when I heard a click. I looked up to find my door being slowly opened. Terrified, I struggled to find my cell phone within my bedspread, when I finally found it I called my sister and begged her to come over. I hung up seconds after and stared at the door, almost expecting something to happen.

After ten minutes spent waiting, my sister finally showed up and was knocking on the front door. I jolted off my bed and sprinted off to the living room. As I opened the door, I hushed my sister and stepped barefoot onto the freezing porch and explained what had happened. She stood there in silence, and I spoke up and asked “Where’s Ashley? Did you see her come inside?” and proceeded calling her name, and nothing. “Just go check inside, maybe you left her in there.” said my sister.

I walked inside, dreading walking into the hallway, with every step I took. As I called her name, I got the chills and for some reason I looked up toward the ceiling, then looked down toward the opposite wall facing me, where there was a little black shadow. Thinking it was my dog I called her name out, but there was no little footsteps or bark. I turned toward the door and started heading back outside when my sister burst the door open carrying my dog under her arm. At this point I was confused; I didn’t know what to think.

When my family came back home a couple hours later, I had explained to them what had happened. My brothers laughed, making fun of me, my parents stayed quiet. An hour or so later, my parents declared that now was the time to let everyone know that we were moving back to California. My parents both had put much thought into it because I was graduating this year, and they did not want to miss the ceremony.
So I could graduate, their decision was to have me go live with my sister, as soon as they found someone to buy the house. They go on their way to California, and come back the week of graduation.

I believe that was the last day I have experienced something in that home, because usually we hear things, see things. And for three weeks straight since the last incident, we haven’t experienced anything out of the ordinary. Could it have been all in our heads? Did this unknown spirit somehow understand our plans and leave? To this day I still don’t understand.