Were they trying to tell us something? – Based on actual events. My interest in the paranormal is purely based on this story which was to change my perception of the paranormal forever. When I was a child, I lived with my sister, parents, our two cats and our dog in a place called Brighton Street, Darwen, Lancashire in the North of England. Things seemed okay at first, but over the years, many bizarre things happened in that house which, not only could I not explain, but on reflection still frighten me to this day. I’m really posting this story to try and get this off my chest, and hopefully you’ll believe what my sister and I went through, even if our parents didn’t. When we moved into the house, I could tell it was obviously crying out for redecorating as walls needed re-plastering and new wallpaper. It looked as if it had seen better days and it wasn’t exactly what you would call modern. Nevertheless, our parents liked it just the way it was, despite the fact that rusty old pipes needed replacing. Having lived there for a little while, I tried not to let it bother me, but it just seemed quite dank and depressing sometimes. I thought that was just me, and I tried to convince myself that there was nothing wrong. Besides, know one would have taken me seriously anyway. Nothing really strange as such happened for a while. Until one night when I was watching TV in my room, everything seemed okay at first, when all of a sudden, I heard, what could only be described as a whispering sound behind me saying, “Help me”. Naturally I turned around to see what the hell it was, but there was nothing there. So I just put it down to my imagination. Moments later, I heard the same voice again, “Help me”. This time, I noticed something appear on the floor in my left peripheral vision. When I turned to face it, I got the shock of my life. Lying beside me was a transparent figure of, what looked like, a dead woman wearing a long white and blue dress with long brown hair. Here eyes were wide open, facing me, as if she had just been brutally murdered. I knew this wasn’t an optical allusion as I watched her slowly disappear. I froze in fear, trying the digest what had just happened and waiting for what was going to happen next. Fortunately, nothing did.

The next day, having had little sleep, I went down to breakfast with my family, hesitant to share my experience of that night. I eventually decided to tell my farther, but he simply disregarded it as unimportant. This made me quite upset as my family thought I was crazy. A week or so passed since the episode, and over a period of time, I had virtually forgotten about it. I tried to put it down to possible tiredness or indigestion. Until one afternoon, my sister, Claire had spoken to my mother and I, which was to confirm my fears forever, concerning an incident she had experienced in her bedroom. She witnessed what she described as an old hag, rather like a banshee standing by the window, looking straight at her and apparently for ages, but saying nothing. She said it looked like a wrinkly faced old witch. She also witnessed hooded figures standing at the food of her bed. My sister never panicked unless there was something really wrong, and she was panicking then! I felt for Claire as I clearly remembered the time when I saw the vision of the dead woman. Our mother decided to inform our farther of these strange incidents and they eventually proceeded to investigate the entire house. Needless to say, they found nothing. Things were to get gradually worse from hereon in. That very night, there was I violent wind blowing and the rain was slimming down on the roof of the house. My mother called out to Smoky, our cat, to let him know his dinner was ready. Normally, Smoky was enthusiastic when it came to food and would rush down the stares, but not that night. There was no way he could have got out of the house as both the front and back doors were shut and locked and the windows were all closed due to the torrential rain and violent wind, especially in the North of England! My parents checked the living room and kitchen, my sister checked the hallway and here bedroom and I checked all the rooms upstairs, but he was nowhere to be found. For days I would wish for Smoky to return, but eventually I know he wouldn’t. I never really got over that. That cat was like a best friend to me. As the days went on, our dog, Ben began to bark violently, as if he was angry about something. The frightening thing about this was that he never really changed after that night and it was totally unlike him. He would tend to bark in a violent fashion unexpectedly. I couldn’t look at Ben in the same way again. He had been acting like this for years after woods, normally towards me. However, because we were living there, I had to try and find some way of accepting the strange experiences which were happening to us. As we were attempting to come to terms with the loss of Smoky and the changes in Ben, things didn’t stop there. One Sunday night, the night before school, which made it even worse, my parents advised me to have an early night ready for school the next day.

Although I didn’t really want to, I did what they asked. I got ready for bed, turned the light off and lay down. Nothing happened for hours, and was eventually too tired to bother with anything. Sooner or later, I heard another voice, this time in my right ear. Unlike the whispering voice of the dead woman, this was a very deep male voice saying the words, “get out” very clearly. I suppose you could class these strange voices as white noise. Obviously to my surprise, I sat up and turned my head very quickly to my right and saw to my amassment what looked like the face of either a very very old man with a wrinkly rundown old face or someone or something with a severe facial disfigurement. For obvious reasons, I was scared of the dark, hence why I needed a glow plug. However, the light sauce coming from the glow plug shone onto the face, in turn reflecting off it’s eyes presenting it with a more three dimensional appearance. This had to have been the most bizarre apparition I have ever seen. Its eyes were wide open and unnaturally wide apart as if it possibly wasn’t human. To make things worse, it was standing right next to my bed looking directly at me. Luckily for me, as the years went on I went to boarding school where I stayed from Monday to Friday. Shortly after I started secondary school, we moved house as things just got too much. I found it strange though that shortly after moving, the house was burned down due to a fire which was started in the attic. One of the firemen found an abandoned kitten in the house which was alive and well after the fire was extinguished. Could that have been Smokey’s rebirth or something, I don’t know. All I know as that I don’t want to think about those experiences, but they will stay with me nevertheless.