Note: Names followed by "*" have been changed for confidentiality issues.

This is a true story which happened to me at the age of 13. Please forgive me if this story does not supply enough information. To this day my friends and I still have a mild cases of Eisoptrophobia (fear of mirrors), but they have improved by far since our encounter with the paranormal.

Our experience took place in a friend's large house in the quiet suburb of Redlynch, which he still lives in today. I remember it being three weeks after my 13th birthday, and, as a joke, my good friend Dean* gave me a dodgy old Ouija board that had been in his garage for years, even before his family had moved into the house. He knew that this board was the only thing keeping me from helping him clean out the garage, because it always gave me an anxious feeling when I saw it. But, by then, I had gotten over my fear of the board.

One of my other friends, Harry*, had suggested that ourselves and three others go 'round to Dean's and use the Ouija board (his parents were the only ones who approved of us using one). I was having second thoughts, but my friends seemed to talk me into it quite well. So well, in fact, that I found myself looking forward to it.

We arrived at Dean's at about 7pm, just as the sun began to go down. After about four hours of playing X box and a movie, we decided it was finally time to hold our seance. It was decided that the seance would be held in the garage, which was full of old junk, and was (surprise surprise) the darkest in the house. I felt quite uncomfortable in the room, but didn't want to be the stereotypical youngest-and-most-afraid out of the group, so I didn't mention it.

After the whole process you normally go through in a seance (it will take too long to explain, and most readers will know how it goes anyway), Harry asked the first question; "is anyone there?" and the planchette moved to "NO". We all knew that this was quite absurd, as there must've been SOMETHING moving the planchette. Another question was asked by Harry; "Who is moving the planchette?" which it replied, "Arn". We all took turns in asking questions such as "Do we know you?", "Were you a student at our school?", and then two questions with quite interesting answers...I asked, "How did you die?" to which this 'Arn' character replied, "Sickle". My first thought was that this could have been the blood cell disease named sickle, but was curious as to if it was, so I asked another question; "Which type of sickle?" which was replied with the word, "Harvest tool". It didn't take us long to figure out what Arn meant by the word HARVEST TOOL. In case you didn't know, a Sickle is also a hook shaped, hand held tool used to harvest grain crops, if a harvesting machine was not handy at the time. By this time, we were all a bit shocked about the death of this spirit. Dean asked quite a personal question about the spirit; "Who killed you?" to which Arn replied, "Myself". This brought a bit more shock to the group. Reluctant to find out more, I asked where the death was, which was replied with the word, "Show". I got the feeling that this ghost wanted us to see where it happened, so I asked, "Would you like to show us?" to which he replied, "Yes". As soon as our question was answered, a rattling noise was heard coming from one of the old cabinets that was going to waste in the garage, and a box full of Dean's old toys fell off the top of the cupboard, with one tennis ball strangely rolling about 5 meters away from the cabinet and coming to an immediate stop. The planchette moved around to form the word "ball". We all looked over to where the ball had rolled to, just above a large, dark stain on the floor. Harry asked Dean if that stain was there before, to which Dean replied that it had been like that since before they had moved in. We were all extremely curious by now, so much to the extent where the most idiotic question was asked; "Can you show yourself?" with a reply that made me want to run out of that house at full speed; "YES". Before I could get up and leave, I felt a voice in my head telling me I needed to stay and see what happened.

There was a full sized mirror across the room that began to rattle. As soon as we all looked over, there was a figure in the mirror that did not appear in real form, this was in the MIRROR ONLY. This freaked the hell out of me, but the figure in the mirror continued to hold my gaze. It had to be the most horrific thing I had ever witnessed. In the mirror was a boy who looked about the age of 15, and had raggedy old clothes on. He seemed to resemble a farmer. In his left hand, he held a sickle. The right hand was covered in blood, and his face, I will NEVER forget. His flesh looked to have been torn, almost all off his face. He was drenched in blood, and he seemed to be laughing. Quickly thinking, we all moved the planchette to goodbye, bolted upstairs and into the bedroom, where we hid in the cupboard until the early hours of the morning, when Dean's parents found us huddled up in the cupboard, still scared out of our minds. We told Dean's parents what had happened, and they seemed to understand. They knew that it was possible for this kind of thing to happen. They did not want Dean to be excluded from our close circle of 6 friends, so they told all the other parents that the Ouija board had nothing to do with it, and that we were all just looking for an old game in the garage when we had seen this thing. They seemed to understand, and each of us were getting psychological counseling to control our phobias of mirrors.

After this incident, I have tried to look in mirrors a bit more often, but still see random things that may have to do with the whole Ouija incident, for example: a boy (with a normal face) crying, a hand reaching out of the wall behind me, and many other things that have made my phobia worse.

I am getting better, and there have not been any recent things I have seen in the mirror. If there are any people out there who are planning on having a seance, never ask for a spirit to show themselves or communicate through you, unless you are ready for living hell.