THAT'S NOT MY REFLECTION

How could anyone be afraid of a mirror? A mirror only show's the reflection of the person looking into it and what ever is it's surroundings, right? Unfortunately that's not always true.

I remember this one mirror that we once had. It was a large, oval, wooden framed mirror that hung in my brother's and my room. It looked like a regular mirror and it served it's purpose, yet there was something that disturbed me.

We moved a lot and every time we moved that mirror was always put in my room. I would wake up screaming sometimes, saying to my mother that the mirror had ghosts in it. Now this happened often and when we finally moved to Michigan it worsened. By then I wouldn't even go to sleep because of that awful mirror.

I don't believe it bothered my brother, but I was set on believing that it was evil.

Unfortunately I do remember what I saw in that mirror and it still scares me to this day.

Every night, after my parents went to bed and my brother was fast asleep, something would wake me up. I was never really sure what it was but when I looked across the room, at the mirror, I saw a nightmarish creature in the mirror. It was a young boy, that I was certain of, but it had bright red eyes and it's skin was an awful greenish colour. He would just point and laugh at me. I could do nothing but watch because I was so terrified I couldn't move or speak.

I began to lose a lot of sleep because of this mirror. No one else saw this thing in the mirror or at least no one told me if they did. Every night the same thing would happen. I would be awakened, then the evil boy creature thing would appear, followed eventually by screaming. Soon though this little routine took a turn for the worse.

The thing began to talk to me, not just talking but threatening me. I can't really remember what these threats were seeing as how this all happened several years ago but lets just say, it was quite terrifying.

After several nights of my screaming, my parents finally took the mirror out of the room. They hid it behind a couch that was against the wall near the back door. Now this wasn't a smart move because even though it was behind the couch a small piece of it could be seen. Everyday I would sit on that couch to put on my shoes for school and see that small part of the mirror sticking out. You can guess what I saw in it right? That evil thing was still there taunting and scaring me. I would look over and there that creature was looking at me.

By then my father had enough of that mirror and all of my complaining and what not. One day he took it out back, broke it then burned the frame. To me that's a bit much for someone to do unless they themselves were afraid of it too. I believe that I wasn't the only one that saw things in it yet I still don't know why we didn't get rid of it earlier.

You may think a mirror is a harmless thing but things aren't always what they seem. Some people believe that mirrors are gateways or portals to another dimension or the spirit world. Maybe that was the case with my mirror and that creature that certainly wasn't my reflection.

THE HOUSE ON 51ST STREET

It's about time for Halloween again and scary stories are running rampant. For me, it just takes me back to a time when I, like so many others, had experienced a ghost.

It had to be at least seven or eight years since I've lived in that house. It looked like all the rest of the houses on our block.

We lived in a fairly decent neighbourhood in Detroit. Our street was called 51st street and my grandmother, who we were living with, had told us that at one time 51st street was a graveyard.

Now I had figured that it was just another one of my grandmothers stories which was intended to scare my brother and I.

Soon after I shared this story with my friends that also lived on 51st street. We were sitting under a street light telling ghost stories, as we usually did on Saturdays. My friends took my story seriously and they said that it would explain a lot of things that had been happening in their houses. They began telling me about shadowy figures that they had seen and strange noises they had heard. This started to scare my brother and I a little.

Later that night when we were in our room (we shared a room since there were already four other people living in the house too) thinking about the stories our friends had told us. Every noise terrified us and that night we didn't get any sleep.

Early the next morning our grandmother went to church which left us in the house alone. We sat in the living room where we felt safe and we tried to convince ourselves that our house wasn't haunted. Then suddenly our conversation was ceased by what sounded to be footsteps upstairs. The room directly above us was our aunts but we knew that she wasn't home. We sat listening for quite awhile listening to these footsteps walk back and forth. Finally we summoned up enough courage to investigate what these sounds were. We walked slowly up the stairs and slowly into my aunts room. We found nothing.

Two nights later when I went upstairs to go to my room I noticed the dog, Nero, sitting in front of my aunts closet in her room, growling.
"Whats wrong boy?" I said to him.
He didn't even seem to hear me. He just continued to growl. In a matter of seconds I was in my room and under my covers, shaking all over.

Night after night the dog would sit in front of the door growling and night after night we would hear strange noises. One day I overheard my aunt talking to my father about the things that were happening to her when she was in her room. She said that the dog wouldn't even come close to her and it was her dog. Also she said that when she was asleep she would feel someone sit down at the end of her bed. She told my father that she thought it was him but when she looked no one was there yet the blanket had an indent as if someone was sitting there. She also said that she heard people whispering in her room and things would just fall off of her dressers and tables for no apparent reason.

Not only had my aunt experienced these hauntings but also my father and grandmother did also. They both said that they had seen a shadowy figure walking about in the kitchen and also walking up the stairs. They both believed that this spirit was connected to my aunt somehow yet no one close to her had died or anything of the sort.

Now by this time, my brother and I were so terrified that we wouldn't even go upstairs anymore. We spent our nights downstairs and only went upstairs to get some clothes or a toy. We relayed these stories back to our friends whom also said that they had experienced some of the same things but they didn't happen as frequently as ours did.

About 4 weeks after all of these hauntings had happened, I finally came face to face with our ghost. I was downstairs in the living room and my brother had gone back towards the kitchen to get something. I had to tell him something so I began to follow him. Now let me just explain something really quick or else what I'm about to tell you will confuse you. The staircase that leads upstairs is right next to the staircase that leads to the basement. You can't tell if a person went up or down because of how close the staircases are so you end up having to shout at the person. Anyway, I had heard my brother on one of these staircases so I called out his name, then out of the corner of my eye I saw someone turn the corner on the staircase leading upstairs. Of course I thought it was my brother so I followed the figure, calling out my brothers name. When I got to the top of the staircase I saw the figure turn the corner into the sitting room. By this time I was quite angry because I thought my brother was ignoring me so I ran into the sitting room, ready to scream at him but no sound came from my throat. I completely froze because what I had been following was the dark shadowy figure of a man. The spirit had to be standing only three feet away, just hovering a couple of inches from the ground. It whispered something, which I couldn't hear then slowly floated into my aunts room.

I think I must have been standing there paralysed for quite awhile. My brother soon came upstairs, saying he had heard me calling him. He told me he was in the basement but he was to lazy come back up (he was a chubby little boy). I had asked him if he saw anything and he didn't have a clue what I was talking about.

I kept that little incident to myself until we moved out because I didn't want to scare him to death.

Even after my father, brother and I moved out of that house my grandmother complained of the hauntings. Even my friends complained of their haunted houses, even till the day they themselves moved away.

I guess you could say all of 51st street was haunted. I'm sure that there are still a lot of ghost stories surrounding the houses on 51st street till this day. I don't think I'll ever forget that house on 51st street.

Submitted from: Liz D, Michigan, USA

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