I was 10 or 11 years old when I had this nightmare and it stuck with me. I remember falling asleep facing away from the window. I remember at some point, I thought I was awake. I was staring at the corner of my room where the walls meet. I saw a shadow of a child sitting there with their knees against their head. I tried to call out to the shadow child but to no avail. I could hear the child crying, saying, “Don’t face the window,” over and over again. I was so freaked out by the fear in his voice that I jolted awake.
The next night when I went to bed I decided to sleep facing the window. I was too freaked out to sleep with my back facing the window because I didn’t want to see the shadow child. After I had fallen asleep, it happened again, at some point during the night, I thought I was awake. What I saw that night I will never forget. Above my window where the wall met the ceiling, there was a shadow creature. The presence that came from the creature was that of death. I was frozen with fear. I couldn’t move or talk, all I could do was tell myself to wake up. It felt like hours before I fully woke up. The way that the creature made me feel stuck with me the entire day, the feeling was dread and paranoia.
I decided on the third night that I wouldn’t face the window, I didn’t even care if I saw the shadow child again. As long as I didn’t have to see the creature again, I would be happy. It took a while before I could fall asleep, but when I did, the shadow child was there again. This time he was right beside my bed. Even though he didn’t have any facial features, I could tell that he was scared. Before I could get anything out of my mouth the shadow child spoke and as he did, his words echoed through my head. “Promise me that you’ll never sleep facing the window again, that’s where they hide.” As he spoke these words my heart dropped. The shadow boy said “they”, meaning that the shadow creature that I had saw, wasn’t the only one. After waking up I decided to sleep out in the living room on the couch. I didn’t go back in my room for weeks. I couldn’t handle the fear of what would be watching me next while I slept.
