The Haunting

Followed

Not long after the incident with my mom feeling something in her bed, she decided to sell the house.

You'd think I'd be thrilled to get away, but really that wasn't the case. This had been my home, despite the terror and trauma I was relentlessly faced with.

Now it was being sold and I didn't even have much of a say. Although, years later, my mom asked why I told her it was fine to sell if I hadn't been ready.

Honestly, I hadn't thought it would make much of a difference. Plus, I knew it was hard with all the memories of my dad - on both of us. Not to mention, at this point, my sister had moved out, so it was too big a house for just the two of us.

Between you and me though, I think the house scared her and without my dad there she was too frightened to stay.

She decided to have a new home built, which also lends to my theory about her being afraid of the house, since I think she assumed we'd be safe from anything that goes bump in the night with a brand new home where nothing could have happened there.

Except, I'm pretty sure something followed us - or at least me.

We hadn't been in the house long, I'd say maybe six to ten months, when my best friend was staying with me while my mom was out of town.

That night we watched Mothman Prophecies, as horror and mysteries were totally our go-to genres.

We'd both seen it before, but it was on, so we decided to watch it anyway.

A little while after it was over, we turned off all the lights and went to bed.

Yeah, you read that right. We turned off all the lights. Since moving, I hadn't felt the need to sleep with the hall light on, even though one was available.

I felt free - safe, even.

Until the next morning.

At first when I got up, I thought it was bright because of the morning sun. But as my eyes started to adjust, realized my light was on - actually, that both my lights were on in my room.

I thought it was strange, but figured maybe Melody*(A/N: Name changed for privacy reasons) had tgotten up and urned them on for some reason.

But when I looked over, I saw she was still asleep.

Thinking nothing of it, I got out of bed and went to go make some breakfast.

That's when I realized something wasn't right.

When I left my room, I noticed all the lights were on. The hallway, bathroom, living room, kitchen - all of them. When I checked the spare room and my mom's room and msater bathroom, they were all on too.

Panic took over as I realized something was very wrong. That maybe I had been wrong, wrong to assume I was safe, that things were going to be fine and normal.

Instead, whatever it was from the old house, had just been biding its time, making me relax and let my guard down so it could pounce when the moment was right.

I rushed back to my room and shook Melody awake. I asked her if she had gotten up in the night and turned on any of the lights, but she said she didn't.

That's when I broke the news to her that something had turned on every light in the house, and that I didn't think we were alone as I had assumed.

She'd been my best friend since middle school, so she knew the hell I went through in my old house. There had been times even she had thought she heard whispering or footsteps, but we would just tell each other it was the wind, or the house settling.

But nothing is ever just the wind.

And now, it had found me once again.