True Story: I Saw the Shadow Realm

My whole life I felt estranged as if I were an alien. Everything became clear when I turned twelve years old. My mother, my sister and I were showed a white house in the city of Thorold Ontario, Canada. When the realtor was showing us the home, something inside me was drawn to the atmosphere, almost as if I didn't feel like an alien any longer in this house. The house was white with black tiles in the kitchen and an all black interior bathroom. The living room had a fun look to it with pink and white diamond painted walls and a staircase, with no railing, that led to the bedrooms upstairs. As far as the upstairs layout goes, when you reach the top of the stairs you are in what was to be my room. No doors no hallways except a little area that led to my sisters room beside mine with only a doorway. It used to be an attic and then constructed into two separate bedrooms so the ceilings were all wonky and weirdly shaped with dips everywhere. After looking at what would be my room at the showing I walked downstairs and my mom asked me for the final decision. I was creeped out but for some reason I said yes.

A few weeks later we moved in and the whole family was over to help. I began to set up my room and my sister set up hers until night time approached and it was time for bed. My mother came upstairs to kiss us goodnight. She tucked me into bed and I did not want her to shut out the lights. I refused turning out my lights for months after moving in. Everything first started to pick up about three months after living there. It was summer and super hot in the house. I stood at the doorway when bedtime approached, looking at the room that gave me off vibes. I was tired of being afraid so with one click, I shut out the lights. Two in the morning approached and everyone was asleep except me, sweating while hiding underneath my duvet. All of a sudden the old carpet floors started creeping in the silence. Someone was walking towards me from the top of the stairs. My mother and my sister were asleep but someone that I couldn't see was there. My forehead and back were dripping in sweat as the pitch black room ate my courage whole. The person stopped beside my bed and I could feel his stare all night long. This reoccurred every night for months. At the time I had never experienced anything so horrifying in my life. Little did I know, it was soon to escalate in the most impossible and inconceivable aspects.

Fall rolled around and reality started to slip from my mind. I would feel someone's eyes on me everywhere I went. This house was taking over my life. One fall night, all the lights in the house were turned off and once again everyone was asleep. At about midnight, I had one lamp on beside my bed while I read The Wizard of Oz novel. At this time I had moved my bed facing the stairway so I could catch anyone walking up. The whole house was silent and I was enjoying my book when I had the sudden urge to look ahead of me. When I looked towards the entrance of my room, the shadow man that always had his eyes on me stood pitch black projected against the little wall before my sisters doorway. His figure, clear as day, was staring at my sister while she slept. I could tell because his jaw line was turned to her room. He stood so still I was afraid to move in fear that he would notice me noticing him. I was afraid but not as afraid as I was for my sister. I ran past him no further than a meter away from him and hopped into bed beside her and tried to sleep. Knowing that he now noticed me, I hid underneath her comforter as he creeped slowly towards me, I could hear his slow footsteps. He stood beside me to stare over me all night again. I woke up the next morning pretending as if nothing had happened.

My mind was loosing sanity and bad thoughts, that were unlike me, started to take over my mind as I fought with them everyday. I developed extreme anxiety at the age of thirteen and started to seek professional help.

My mother began to experience events in the house. She would hear witch laughs while my sister and I were at our father's house every other week. The spirits were toying with her. We finally had enough and left when in the summer of 2014 and in fall I was to start grade eight. I never forgot about what happened in that house but I always stored it deep down in my subconscious so that I could sleep at night in our new apartment. After the separation from the house, a few months passed and the bad thoughts were coming to life and I became increasingly suicidal. The thoughts were crushing me more than ever. I stopped living my life and all I could think about was death. I wanted it to end. My mother watched me continuously keeping me away from any dangers that could expose me to the possibility. Her fear was real and so was mine. Hope became distant and nights became restless. I shared a room with my sister and she would wake up often to me having panic attacks from night terrors. I've always had night terrors since I was a very young child but nothing like this. Visions of my loved ones being harmed because of me and me harming myself in irreversible ways. I'd wake up screaming, crying or feeling the breath from my lungs stolen from me. My sister was always there to calm me down and even on some occasions she slept beside me even though she was only a few meters away already.

Years passed and little events had only happened such as knives falling off counters, cabinets opening and closing on their own and my mother and I always feeling a presence watching near. I also found that whenever I entered an antique shop I would get nauseous, dizzy and sometimes see visions. During my year of grade ten, I was still living at my dads and all sorts of events began happening while everyone was asleep. I felt a woman in white always near me. I always just brushed it off because I thought that it couldn't have been real and was probably in my head. Until one night in the darkness of my room, my blue alarm light was the only source of light throughout the entire house. I was asleep dreaming of someone humming a song to me and then suddenly woke up. The dream had ended and I was awake but the humming was still ongoing beside my bed. I felt her presence and for some reason I could see what she looked like but not with my own eyes. Screaming throughout the house, I yelled my fathers name until he came running into my room. He told me it could've just been the neighbors but it was right beside me in my ear. After he told me to go back to sleep, I tossed and turned for about fifteen minutes then fell back asleep.

In the summer of 2019, my sister stayed back while my mother, my older cousin and I went to Salem, MA, USA. It was a long drive but when we arrived, I was astonished by the history, remarkable stories and overall incredible beauty. During our three day stay, before going to New York City, we stayed at the Hawthorne Hotel. Nothing seemed to happen on the first night but on the second night, I was asleep in the bed and a woman whispered in my ear softly "Hello!". Her voice was so calming, I was not afraid at all. Instead I said "Hello" back to her and felt safe to go back to sleep. Her presence seemed nurturing almost. I felt safe with her around. The next morning we decided to go see a psychic. I remember walking into the shop and looking at all the spiritual items that the store sold. I gazed around at the stones, sage and other objects as my mother and my cousin went in for their appointments. Lastly, it was my turn. I walked behind the curtain and sat down with a middle aged gentleman. He was very nice and assured me I didn't have to be nervous. He started telling aspects of my life such as situations involving my mother and father. He finally started speaking about how I had psychic powers and that I would soon find out about them. He went on to tell me about how I was an indigo child and I was not from here but rather - the unknown. I was confused but intrigued at what I was hearing and it made sense to me. The physic began to get very invested in our reading that he pushed back his next appointment to speak to me longer. He looked as if he was trying to fit all these events about me together like a puzzle. When the reading came to an end, he shook my hand and greeted me off kindly. I left with some answers but most of all I had more questions than before. What did he mean by the unknown? An Indigo Child? What does that mean?

I left the trip more curious than ever before.

About a year later, I began to know things about my classmates that I had no way of knowing. One day while on a school drama trip to Niagara-on-the- Lake, Ontario, some classmates found out about my story and asked me to try to do a psychic reading on them. I insisted that it wouldn't work and that I wouldn't get anything right but to my surprise when I closed my eyes and read them individually, I began to see images of names and events coming to mind. I felt their past physical and mental pains and started speaking about what I was seeing. They revealed that what I had told them was right and told me their stories. We were all shocked and didn't know what to do with the information that had unfolded. My existence started to feel different. As if I had something to do or someone to be.

Grade twelve graduation rolled around faster than ever but since most of my second semester was at-home-school due to covid-19, I was happy to graduate. The next late winter to summer, I was working at Greenhouses for my love of flowers and tropical plants. The work was heavy and I was quite tired all the time working ten to twelve hour shifts, six days a week at the age of eighteen. I had been dating my boyfriend for about four months after the most bizarre event led me to him. I had stayed up for a night in January 2020, scrolling on tik tok and for three hours straight the only videos that popped up on my feed was psychics and tarot card readers giving me the same message "someone is manifesting you and you will fall in love in the next three months". On the third month a classmate from high school randomly texted me and we hung out. I fell in love and and I still love him more than anything. Back to the summer working in the Greenhouse, I fell asleep after work one night and drifted into a dream that changed my life forever.

In the dream, I was in the middle of an empty town square. The sky above was pitch black with a few stars but very faint in luminance. The roads were cobblestone and the buildings were very old. The buildings looked like they were constructed from lots of dark brown wood and the windows had an 1800s design to them with a few single candles lit in some of the windows. The street lights were warm yellow bulbs and were all black polls. In the dream, I started running down alley ways with the same voice "find the psychic" repeating over and over. I ran through buildings, rooms and streets until I got to one alley way in particular. It felt like I found the person but couldn't see them. I couldn't see anyone and I could sense souls everywhere around me but the person I was looking for was my priority. While speed running down the alley way I suddenly woke up for the dream. I didn't find the psychic and it didn't seem like a normal dream. The village seemed familiar to me as if I had been there before. I went about my morning but did not forget about this experience.

At the end of summer, I was on a drive with my bestfriend and she recalled a time where I told her the story about this dream, the village and the message, all in very particular detail. In that moment she turned to me and told me she had had a dream of that place when she was a young girl and never forgot about it. She told me she was running in an alley from someone behind her and then she woke up. She explained what the atmosphere looked like and felt like and it matched my experience.

I told her that I was trying to find someone I couldn't see in front of me and she told me she was trying to run away from someone she couldn't see behind her.

Is it possible? Was she the psychic? Could I have been in the same dream with my bestfriend almost a decade later? Did I end up finding her? One thing to know about my best friend is that we've been close for years and she does not lie.

I don't know... Could it be?

That moment that I found this out, it changed my life forever. I realized that I had to write about it.

I grew a love for writing from that moment on and here I am. I still hear things around my apartment but I have found methods of blocking the possibility of seeing anything for my own health and sanity.

I don't have all the answers but I'm okay with that.

For now.