I have always been into the paranormal. Or rather it has always been into me. I say this due to the experience I had when I was young soon after my uncle passed away.

My mother explained to me that she had heard me speaking to someone, but upon entering the bedroom and finding me in the closet, I simply said, "I'm talking to Uncle Brent." But that was not my only experience. It was in the winter of 2002 when I was in seventh grade (about 12 years old). I and a few of my friends were on our way to orchestra practice, as we had a concert a few nights away.

The classroom, where we assumed the practice was being held, is positioned in a small hallway directly behind the auditorium with a door in the wall opposite which led to the stage. When we approached the classroom we discovered that we were due in the auditorium instead for a sort of "dress rehearsal". We then realized that the door to the stage had been left open for us.
When we entered the auditorium through the backstage, the backstage lights were off with the curtain slightly open revealing the house seating, in which the lights were turned on. The backstage was dim, the only light being provided from the house, so we moved cautiously, fearing we may trip on a rope or cord, or, by chance, found one of the stairways on either side of the stage.

We were approaching the curtain and the front of the stage and it was not as dim so I felt safe to look up and view my surroundings. As I raised my head I noticed a dark shape lurking in the shadows, but still visible in the house lights. It resembled the size and shape of larger man, but it wasn't solid. It was more or less a shadow man, for lack of a better description. And based on my friends reactions, they were seeing it as well. He stood there in a position that suggested we weren't the only ones staring and then turned and walked down the stairs on the left side of the stage.

We proceeded, rather quickly I might add, to the front of the stage to meet the other people that were in the orchestra class. Not believing our story, despite the four or five of us that saw it, they decided to go check it out for themselves, and I decided to go along. So we went back through the curtains to go look at the stairs the entity went down and discovered there was no one there! And there was no evidence to support any theory of a person having recently been in that area! We stayed at the top of the stairs while one of my friends proceeded down the stairs to examine the downstairs area, where no one obviously had been in quite some time.

We were spooked but we still had a practice and despite our teacher not being there at the moment, we decided to back out into the house and tuning up our instruments. So she came back upstairs and we turned to go back out to the front of the stage and became caught in the gaze of the shadow man on the opposite side of the stage! And just as before, it gazed at us for a moment and went down the stairs on the right side of the stage. I was astounded that we had actually seen it again.

After the initial shock, we were becoming more and more interested in this being. We attempted to communicate with no such luck. But as we went back out into the house and walked around the first few rows of seats we spoke to it hoping for a response. As we stood there waiting, the shadow man walked through the shadows behind the last row of seats.

It was one of the most frightening and interesting experiences of my life, and it definitely is not the last.

Thank you for reading.